Rentarou and the girls visit the school library, with Hakari wanting to find some new recipes with which to entice Rentarou. Karane tries to get ahead of Hakari on that front and search for recipe books herself. While the two squabble over books, Rentarou goes to find his own books.
He begins browsing the romance section, where he notices a hand struggling to reach a high shelf. His eyes meet the face of the hand's owner and—ZING!!, another Love Shock. After recovering, the girl opens a book and points out a passage inside. After reading the indicated excerpt, Rentarou notices her armband and realizes she's part of the library staff, which the girl affirms with another book excerpt. Thinking she's using the book to talk because they're in the library, Rentarou tries to use sign language to tell her what he's looking for, to the girl's confusion.
Apologizing for a sudden outburst, Rentarou tells her what he wants to read, and the girl rounds up a heavy selection of books. Rentarou tries to borrow all the books she collected, but another library staff member tells him he needs a library card first and will have to wait a week before he can get one. As such, the quiet girl lends him her own book before introducing herself as Shizuka Yoshimoto.
That night, after reading the book, Rentarou mulls over the fact that he now has three girlfriends.
Meeting up with Shizuka the next day, she lends him the next book in the series before Rentarou buys her a drink as thanks for lending him the first book. While out in the courtyard, Rentarou finally understands Shizuka's pointing out book excerpts to be her method of communication. Upon learning of her implied self-esteem issues, Rentarou asks to borrow the first book again.
Three days later, Shizuka spots Rentarou talking with Hakari and Karane and, seeing them acting romantically with one another, thinks he's no longer interested in her and reflects on how badly she was treated growing up due to not talking verbally. However, Rentarou drops by the library later that day and gifts her with a text-to-speech app for her phone containing the entire text of the book she lent him, allowing her to maintain eye contact with the people she talks to instead of having them read from her book. Using the app, Shizuka reveals that she knows about Rentarou's current girlfriends and believes he won't love her like he does Hakari and Karane. Rentarou assures her that he will love her as much as she wants to be loved, and gives her a hug.
When Rentarou introduces Shizuka to the other girls, Karane immediately flips out, but Hakari is flattered that he has a new girlfriend. Rentarou attempts to placate their fears of not being loved by promising to commit Seppuku if he can't be a good boyfriend.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Shizuka's mother lashed out at her for her reluctance to communicate verbally.
- Adaptational Explanation: The anime adaptation explains that Circlet Love Story was never released in digital format, meaning that Rentarou had to manually type out the entire book.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Subverted. Rentarou spends several nights typing up the full text of Shizuka's book for the text-to-speech app; even though a sensible person would download an e-book or Kindle version for said app, Circlet Love Story was never released in such a format.
- Irony: During Shizuka's confession, Rentarou references a scene from her favorite book where two Star-Crossed Lovers decided that they would have to defy fate to be together, no matter what obstacles stood in their way. This serves to reassure Shizuka that she could still be with Rentarou, even though he already had two girlfriends. However, Rentarou knows full well that their initial Love at First Sight was due to being destined soulmates. His epiphany revolved around realizing he truly loved Shizuka, rather than
being "obligated" to care for her because of his destiny. - Love Epiphany: Rentarou realizes during Shizuka's confession that the love he has for his soulmates is genuine, and not Because Destiny Says So or because he doesn't want them to die.
- Suicide as Comedy: Rentarou offers to kill himself if his girlfriends aren't satisfied with him.
