JCT 1.2

5



Powerful techniques and equipment make it fun and easy to progress


On the Saturday I went out with Hinami and the following Sunday, I had diligently memorized conversation topics and practiced reacting with actual intonation like she’d taught me, in addition to continuing my expression and posture training.

To memorize the topics, I used one of my standard study techniques, which is to write with a red pen and then use a red translucent sheet to block out the answers. I’d managed to come up with ten, and I committed them all to memory. Response practice was a little harder, since there’s no one I really talk to, and my mom and dad…well, we don’t talk much, either. I had to resort to turning on the TV and reacting alongside the guests on talk shows. It was pretty sad.

While I was doing that, I noticed something. I thought my reactions were exaggerated because I could use only vowels, but there wasn’t much difference between my tone and that of the guests on the shows. And yet when I watched TV as a passive spectator, their responses didn’t seem overdone. Meaning what I considered too much would probably seem natural to people around me. Man, I must have come across really gloomy before.

“Whoo boy, I sure got a lot to learn!!” I declared as cheerfully as I could, sticking my chest out and holding my mouth in a semblance of a smile. I felt so unlike myself I couldn’t help laughing.


I was sure I’d be able to achieve all sorts of things the old me hadn’t been able to.

Monday in class:

“Hey, Izumi-san, did you do the English translation?”

The question may have sounded off-the-cuff and confident—and I hope more than anything that it did—but in reality, my heart was pounding. The whole way from Sewing Room #2 to the classroom I’d been psyching myself up and repeating, “Gonna say it, gonna say it, gonna say it,” so when I sat down in class I was able to say it without a weird long pause first. Of course, the English translation was one of the topics I’d memorized in advance.

“Huh? Tomozaki-kun? What, did you not?”

The response revealed her surprise, but since I’d started a conversation, she didn’t have much choice aside from answering.

“No, I did.”

Izumi-san looked at me blankly. No, today was going to be different!

“So…what?”

She had shrunk back in her seat a little, staring at me. Her guard was going up. Uh-oh, am I in trouble? No, everything’s still fine. That’s just one life down; I have more topics!

“Didn’t you think the weird English names were funny? Like, where did ‘Marcus Purdy’ come from?” I said, calling upon the most natural tone and expression I could muster.

“Marcus…? Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, I haven’t even started the translation yet…”

…Um. What do I do now? What were the other topics I memorized? Wait a second. What? Um. I should still have more than ten left. Huh? My mind was a complete blank.

The vast assurance of a moment earlier had been swept away without a trace, leaving only my strangely distant heartbeat.

“Oh really?” I chirped desperately. I was so upset I have no idea how it came out.

“Yeah. But why’d you bring it up all of a sudden? Was that it?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” I said, suspecting that this time I’d completely failed to maintain the cheerful tone.

“It’s fine, but…are you done?”

“Um, well…”

“What?”

“Um…oh, never mind.”

After I gave her a wimpy excuse for a “yes,” Izumi-san tilted her head quizzically, then headed over to the spot by the back windows where the normies always hung out.

I’d thought I might be able to pull this off after all my efforts, but it was a total failure. Ha-ha-ha. What the heck? No, you should have expected this. This is you we’re talking about. What were you thinking? Don’t forget who you are. This is how you’ve always been. No way can you pull this off.

I wasn’t ready for field trials yet, Hinami.

With my fighting spirit and confidence totally wiped out, I didn’t hear a word the teacher said. All I could think about was what Hinami would say to me during the review session after school, and how I would defend myself. But during the break between second and third period, when I got back from the bathroom, there was a note written on the worksheet I’d left out on my desk, letting me know she didn’t give a damn.

“Twice every day,” it read.

Are you serious…? Hinami, come on. You’re telling me to go through that hell one more time…?

“Whew—!”

My broken confidence had led me astray momentarily, but Atafami and other games had instilled in me a hatred of losing. I spurred that side of myself into action, manually reigniting my fighting spirit. If I gave up now, I’d be losing to myself. Smack! I slapped both my cheeks. You decided to do this, so do it. You decided to do this, so do it. The time to drop the game is when you decide the whole thing is garbage, and not before. Keep going until then.

Anyway, Izumi-san wasn’t my main love interest, and we hadn’t interacted much to start with. Doesn’t matter! Everything’s fine! Even if things did get weird, it was just one embarrassing hiccup! No worries!

I gave myself a little pep talk as I waited for the right moment to talk to her again, but somehow I failed after third period, and again during lunch, and again after fifth period.

It would have been one thing if there were no opportunities, but running scared from perfectly good chances was nonsense. Argh, this isn’t gonna work! Somehow, I had to find the willpower to make this happen.

It was after school, right after the teacher finished the last class. If I let this chance go, Yuzu Izumi would probably go over to the back windows again to meet up with the other normies and go home from there. This was really and truly my final chance. I still had a stock of memorized conversation topics on hand. It wouldn’t be too weird. You’re fine!

I took a deep breath and squeezed out a couple of words.

“Um, Izumi-san?”

My voice was so quiet only I could hear it.

Naturally, she didn’t notice I’d spoken to her. As always, she joined her usual group and headed home.


“I commend you for even showing up here.”

Hinami and I were in Sewing Room #2 after school. It was like she could see straight into my soul.

“…I’m sorry.”

The apology came out naturally. I really did feel awful. Depressed, even, and that’s no exaggeration.

“If I were your friend, I’d probably try to comfort you,” Hinami said. My head was lowered, so she couldn’t see my face. “But I’m your instructor. If I am your friend, I’m a war buddy. So I’ll stick to instructing you.” Every word she said was true. “Today’s review meeting will be short. I have two things to say.”

“Just two?”

“Yes. First, if you look to me for comfort, it’s over. If you make excuses, it’s over. I want you to think long and hard about what went wrong.”

Her eyes flashed severely.

“…Y-yes, ma’am!”

Her words echoed forcefully in my mind.

“Second, I want you to keep it up with the same attitude tomorrow.”

“…Huh?”

“What you did today was nothing I didn’t foresee. I knew there was a chance this would happen when I gave you the assignment. It’s not a problem; you’re still learning. But you’re to make every effort to meet the quota of two times per day. That’s all. Understand?”

“Nothing you didn’t foresee?”

“Yes. So you absolutely must continue tomorrow.”

“But…honestly speaking, I don’t know if I have the confidence to talk to her again…and my topic was dead in the water.”

“Today was a coincidence. Yuzu happened to have not done the translation, so the conversation was over before it began. But the topic itself wasn’t that bad, and your tone and expression were passable. Barely.”

“R-really?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t know if my other topics are any good…”

“You’re worrying too much. You can start a conversation about pretty much anything. If you’re out of ideas, the other person can be the topic, like their expression or hairstyle. Seriously, anything is fine.”

“R-really…?”

“Yes. If you continue with the same attitude tomorrow, it’s highly likely that a normal conversation will take place.”

“…But…”

“Oh, come on, stop it with the buts! Listen to me. But isn’t a word for making excuses and running away from your problems. It’s a word you use to get compromises and move in a better direction. Did I say anything that wasn’t true? Just shut up and do it.”

Then out of nowhere, she grabbed my butt.

“Aieee?!”

“You’re working on your posture even while I’m lecturing you, and that’s the best proof of all that you’re making a genuine effort. Okay? I’m not saying that all effort pays off, but this kind, the kind aimed at a reasonable goal, will pay off for anyone as long as they do it right.”

“Hinami…”

You’re actually…

“…What? No, don’t say anything. You’re probably worrying about something irrelevant again, right? If you have time for that, then spend it thinking back on what you’ve done so far and thinking ahead to what you should do from here on out. You’ve got more problems than you know. You’re a poisoned, confused blockhead wearing cursed equipment.”

I’d been on the verge of thinking she was actually a kind person. Very dangerous.


The next day arrived. If Hinami said so, then maybe I really did have a good chance of getting a conversation going, just by doing the same thing as before. I mean, it basically made sense. Starting a conversation shouldn’t in itself be so hard. Even I could manage conversations with my family, and with Hinami. And I’d gotten by with Mimimi, too. I should be okay as long as I had a topic and decent presentation. Beyond that, all I needed was courage…right?

After returning home yesterday in a funk, I got an e-mail from Hinami with some information about Yuzu Izumi’s friends and stuff. I used that to prepare another ten topics, which I memorized perfectly. I was extra thorough so I’d be able to remember them even if I got nervous and panicked. I was in good shape…at least, that was the impression I was hoping to create.

I didn’t have any chances to talk to her in homeroom, but after first period ended, an opportunity rolled around.


Here goes nothing!

“Hey, Izumi-san.”

Yuzu Izumi looked back at me. Very dramatically—well, dramatically for me, anyway—I lowered my voice and continued.

“Um, do you think Nakamura is still mad at me?”

“What?”

She seemed briefly confused, but then she lowered her voice like me and smiled a little.

“Ha-ha-ha, why are you asking me?”

Her natural, happy smile melted some of my nervousness, and I answered without any awkward pauses.

“Well…I heard you two are good friends.”

“What? Who said that?”

“Um…”

Might as well be honest. “Hinami.”

We were whispering back and forth. I couldn’t do much with tone at this volume, so I concentrated on my facial expressions.

“Oh. You and Aoi sure are friendly these days, aren’t you, Tomozaki-kun? Is something going on?!”

“No way, nothing’s going on!”

“Really…?” she asked suspiciously. “Okay, fine. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, about Shuji being mad?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s not really mad, just frustrated. As far as I can tell, anyway.”

“Frustrated?” I questioned, drawing my eyebrows together to make my feelings clear.

“Yeah. He’s been practicing Atafami nonstop. Like, so much it’s kinda freaky.”

I was surprised—and hurt that she’d said practicing Atafami was “freaky.”

“Really?” I said. Then I remembered another one of my topics. “After I beat Nakamura, I was sure he was gonna bully me in class.”

“What? Why?” Izumi-san whispered. She was kind enough to smile. “Geez.”

“Yeah, I’m still worried about it.”

“You worry too much! I doubt that’ll happen. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Really? That’s a relief,” I sighed.

“Ha-ha-ha, good.”

“Yeah.”

Yes! Done! I survived! The conversation seemed over, so I figured I’d better quit while I was ahead for now so it didn’t keep on going and reveal my lack of preparation. I had to do this twice a day until Friday, which meant seven more times. Don’t force it! Don’t force it!

After that, I got through all seven times, sometimes in a confused muddle, sometimes awkwardly, but I always pushed ahead with pure will. To be honest, the conversation about Nakamura was the longest one, and all the others were just barely enough to count as conversation. Frankly speaking, all seven were pretty close to a failing grade, and I’d say three or four were actual failures. Maybe only three, if you count this conversation as a pass: “Oh, Izumi-san, are you wearing a different cardigan from yesterday?” “No, it’s the same one…” “Oh, guess I’m imagining things.” “Yeah.” “…” “…”

Yeah, I’m sure I passed. Ha-ha-ha. Ha. I hate everything.


“You passed.”

“Seriously?”

We were in Sewing Room #2. I genuinely believed I must have failed, so this was a surprise.

“Yes. You completed the assignment of talking to her twice a day, so you passed.”

“…Really? You mean it wasn’t a problem that some of the conversations were terrible?”

“Nope.”

An idea struck me. “So the point was to practice getting the nerve up to talk to someone!”

“Wrong.”

“Huh…? So then, what?”

Hinami held up her fingers in a peace sign. “Do you know the two kinds of game overs?”

“That’s a little random. Two types of game overs? …What are you talking about? I have no idea.”

“It’s like this,” she said, turning first her right then her left palm upward. “The kind where you go back to a save point and do it all over, or the kind where you do a retry starting from where you messed up.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, it varies depending on the game… So?”

“This week, you talked to Yuzu. These were like your ‘battles.’ You messed up, you were defeated, and then game over, right?”

“So I did fail.”

“Obviously. A conversation that ends after three exchanges doesn’t count as a conversation.”

“…Oh r-right.”

“So if you get a game over in a conversation battle, which kind do you think it is?”

“…I guess the kind where you do a retry.”

“Correct. There are no save points in real life. On the other hand, even if you lose, you’re not gonna lose half the money you have on you or anything. So there’s no minus to losing a battle. Fighting as much as you can will benefit you. And with enough battles, you just might get lucky and win, right?”

“…Well, if you put it like that, I guess so.”

“But that’s not the really important point. Listen. There’s one thing about failure in the game of life that’s different from all other games… Do you know what it is?”

She grinned and peered into my eyes.

“Uh…that’s so broad. Maybe…?”

Hinami interrupted my mental search. “I’ll tell you,” she said, then slowly explained. “In life, you get EXP for losing battles, not winning them.”

“…Hmm.”

I liked the sound of that.

“This week, you relentlessly fought Yuzu Izumi, a strong opponent, and lost repeatedly. But each loss became an experience point, and those points are building up inside you. You were thinking about the best way to go about it the whole time, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I was a little happy she’d trusted that I’d done that.

“Honestly speaking, I think she got the impression that you’re the weird guy who always talks to her.”

“Really? I thought so.”

“But you gained a lot, too. Didn’t you notice it yourself? The further along you went, the more your tension dissolved and the mellower you got.”

“Uh…I guess.”

It was true. The conversations themselves were short, but especially the last two times, it was like…I don’t know, like the weird vibe I’ve been emitting since I emerged from the womb had mostly disappeared. I mean, I’m not the one to judge, but anyway.

“Okay, so this week’s exercise is over, now that you’ve practiced gaining experience points through defeat… Was there anything else you wanted to bring up?”

“Oh, um, yeah.” Actually, there was. “You said Kikuchi-san liked me or something, right?”

“Yes, I did. And?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say she likes me, exactly, but…I found out why.”

Hinami stepped right up next to me. Super close. Stop already, my heart is bad.

“What do you mean?”

She was frowning, but her eyes were glittering with something like hope.


*


It was fourth period on Friday. I had one more conversation with Yuzu Izumi to go before I reached my quota. Since I’d already talked to her so many times, I’d gotten kind of used to it—or numb, maybe—so that whenever a conversation ended quickly, I figured whatever, I’d just try again. I’d been freed from my anxiety over the endeavor.

So I was fairly relaxed, thinking I’d be able to find some easy opportunity to make casual conversation, and I went to follow my usual routine before changing classrooms—that is, going to the library to kill time and then showing up in class just before it started. The only difference was where I usually pretended to read a book while I came up with strategies for Atafami, this time I was planning to review the conversation topics I’d memorized.

That’s when it happened.

“Tomozaki-kun.”

“Whoa?!”

I suddenly heard my name in a frighteningly clear voice. I turned toward the sound, and there, holding a book in both hands and peering at my face, was an angel of light—er, Fuka Kikuchi.

“…Oh, Kikuchi-san? What are you doing here?”

“Um, I’m always here…?”

“…Always?”

What did she mean? What was she talking about? A smell like a field of flowers in paradise was wafting from her and softly smothering my brain, making it difficult to think.

“You know…it’s always just you and me in here when we have to change classes…”

“Um…always?”

“Yes…I mean…you never noticed?”

So… “…Oh, you mean…”

“You’re always in here when we have to change classrooms, aren’t you…?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I always do the same thing, so I thought, Oh, there he is again…”

“Oh really? I’m sorry, I was probably distracted…”

…thinking about strategies for Atafami. When I glanced at Kikuchi-san, I noticed she was looking at the open book in my hands.

“…You like Michael Andi…?”

“Huh?”

“Huh…? Do you not? You’re always reading his books…”

Oh right, the book I was pretending to read. I pretty much always sat in the same seat at the library and took a book from the end of the nearest shelf, so it would always be the same one… But I had no idea if I should tell her that, so instead I went and said, “Oh yeah, right. I mean, he’s okay…”

What to do? Realizing I wouldn’t be able to survive this conversation without understanding the gist of the book, I glanced down at its pages for the first time, only to find a string of words so undecipherable they must have been some kind of secret code. “Ebi daite!” was followed by “Mozun lekuku!” and then the same set of words once more. A shallow dip into this book would get me nowhere, unfortunately.

“I thought so…!” Kikuchi-san’s eyes always had that magic sparkle to them, but now they were glittering especially bright. “I love Andi’s books, too…!”

“Oh, y-you do?” Crap, what do I do now? “Wh-what a coincidence…”

“I know, it’s amazing!” Kikuchi-san brought her hands together softly in front of her mouth. “It’s just like The Poppols and Raptor Island, isn’t it?”

“Uh, The Poppols…?”

“You know, Andi’s book…oh, you haven’t read it yet…? Makes sense, they don’t have it at the library…”

“Huh? …Oh, right! Um, I mean, I really want to but it’s hard, you know, to…,” I said, trying to fudge my way through. Kikuchi-san’s eyes sparkled brighter, like Spirit Droplet had doubled their magical powers or something.

“Right! It’s so hard to find that one!”

“Huh?”

“That book hasn’t been reprinted since it was translated twenty years ago, so not many places have it. You’d think they would, considering it’s one of his most important books…! I wish it was easier to find!”

She even latched onto the fact that I hadn’t read it yet, wiping out my last escape route.

“Huh? Oh, right, yeah! I totally agree, ha-ha…”

“Uh, um…,” Kikuchi-san began, apparently mustering her resolve. “I’m sure…I’m sure I can tell you,” she whispered, like she was persuading herself of something.

Oh…uh-oh. I suspected she was about to reveal an important secret. I mean, that was definitely what would happen if this was a light novel or a porn game. I definitely sensed a flag, but in this case, it was connected to our relationship as Andi-whatever reading buddies. Meaning I’d better stop her now…but by the time that thought entered my head, Kikuchi-san was already continuing.

“Actually, I’m…writing a novel… It’s very much influenced by Andi’s work… If you’re interested, do you think you could read it for me?”

“What?! A novel?! You’re writing a novel?!”

The mental attack came from an unexpected angle, made especially powerful by a pair of eyes misty with the morning fog around a sacred tree.

“Yes… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked… It was such a sudden request… Sorry to trouble you…”

“No, not at all! I-it’s no problem at all! I’d be happy to, very happy! That is, if you think I’m qualified!”

The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them, and Kikuchi-san lit up with a sunny smile. “R-really? Thank you! I’ll bring it to you soon…!”

“Yeah, okay! Uh…thank you.”

“Of course!” she replied in her clear and bubbly voice. “…I haven’t shown it to anyone yet.”

“Oh, you…haven’t? Are you sure it’s okay for me to read it…?”

As warm light filled Kikuchi-san’s eyes, my spine shivered with guilty sweat. “Oh yes! I mean…you, of all people…oh no…um…it’s a…secret, okay?”

Faced with the almost spellbinding way she presented the question, I found my head bobbing up and down in agreement as if I’d been brainwashed.

“Got it, of course. A secret.”

“Well, see you,” Kikuchi-san said simply, standing up. Just before she left the library, she turned toward me, and called back to me with a playful expression.

“Ebi daite!”

Ha-ha. I’m dead. No turning back now. Who cares? In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Mozun lekuku!”

When she heard my response, an unimaginable smile like a fountain of light rose to Kikuchi-san’s delicate forest-elf face and illuminated the library. Then she delicately trotted out of the room.

I still had a few minutes before class started. I was in almost the same frame of mind as a few days earlier, when I ran away from Yuzu Izumi after our conversation to avoid revealing my true incompetence. All I could do was escape into my analysis in shock. I’ve really gotten myself in trouble now. What do I do?


*


“So that’s what happened…”

I made sure to keep the part about the novel secret, but otherwise I explained the whole encounter to Hinami.

“Hello?! There is an insane amount of potential right there. You’ll be reaching your mid-range goal in like a week.”

She sounded bored. Nuh-uh, no way.

“Just wait a second. It’s not like we’re going to start dating because of this or something. I’d be tricking her. Anyway, she’s not gonna want to date me just because we happen to like the same author. I don’t even like her.”

“I can’t believe you would trick a girl into liking you and then say something like that.”

“Hey, that’s misleading.”

“Not at all. There’s a guy she’s been noticing in the library for a while. She drums up the courage to talk to him, and the conversation goes unexpectedly well. She’s having a really good time. What’s more, at the end of the conversation, she exchanges the secret greeting from that book with him… Look, if she’s not experienced with men, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s fallen for you.”

“Hold on, don’t cherry-pick. I also made a fool out of myself blowing my nose in front of her.”

“Could that be a secret just between the two of you?”

“Get serious, please.”

“…Okay, that was a joke, but I’m serious. It might be an exaggeration to say she’s fallen for you, but chances are that she now has a minor crush on you. I’m not certain yet, of course.” Hinami’s eyes were deadly serious. “Considering the situation, it would be much more unfair to her if you tried to run from the reality. You can’t get away from this by beating yourself up and saying she’d never fall for someone like you.”

…Honestly, it seemed totally impossible, which made it hard to think about this in realistic terms. But if Hinami was right, running away would be a crappy thing to do. Plus, there was the novel, which Hinami didn’t know about. Taking that into consideration, the likelihood was even higher, wasn’t it? But what was I supposed to do now? How should I approach this?

“Assuming, for the moment, that you’re right…I’m an ass, aren’t I?”

“Huh? Why?”

“For not admitting right then and there that I hadn’t read the book.”

“…What’s so bad about that? You didn’t intend to mislead her, did you?”

“No, but I ended up lying to her…”

“In that case, no need to worry about it. Obsessing over something unavoidable won’t get you anywhere. That’s what wimps do. The important question is what to do next.”

“…Right. I guess I should fess up.”

“Take her on a date.”

“Huh?”

“I think you should ask Fuka-chan on a date.”

“Uh, that’s a really crappy thing to do.”

“What’s crappy about it? Listen. The fact that you both like the same author is just an opportunity. Human emotions are complex; that one thing isn’t enough to make her fall for you. It’s about how you talk, how you understand each other, how you create memories together. Even if there was a slight misunderstanding involved in how you met, that’s not the core of the relationship. If you go on a date and end up having fun, and the author has nothing to do with it, that’s a true sign of your compatibility, don’t you think?”

“Uh…I—I guess.”

“There aren’t many opportunities for people to truly get to know one another. So even if it starts out with a lie, shouldn’t you dive in if you’re fortunate enough to find one?”

“I understand your logic, but…it seems insincere.”

“If you understand my logic, then you can see I’m right, can’t you? You sound like such a virgin.”

“Shut up. That’s because I am a virgin.”

…I did understand what she was trying to say. Still, if you didn’t think so logically for a moment, it felt insincere.

“…Fine. You don’t want to fight with the strongest sword; you want to fight with the one you’ve been upgrading the whole time. I get that. The most logical choice isn’t necessarily the correct one. In the end, I’m just your strategy book. You’re the one who makes the final decision.”


…I…


I left the sewing room that day still mulling over the question, which was anything but easy to answer. After Hinami and I split up, I was getting my shoes in the front hall when I saw Yuzu Izumi trudging toward me from the opposite direction. Uh, what to do? I’d already met the day’s quota, so I didn’t especially need to talk to her… But was only doing what I was told really the best gaming strategy? As the guy who prided himself on being Japan’s top gamer, it bothered me. I didn’t like the thought of leaving everything up to Hinami.

Okay then, I’m going for it: a self-motivated level-up.

Paying attention to my posture, expression, and tone, I called out to her as naturally as possible.

“Izumi-san?”

She flinched as if she’d been pricked and turned toward me.

“…Tomozaki…?” She sounded half disappointed, half reassured…not her usual self. Like she was spitting out my name. Speaking of which, I didn’t recall her dropping the “kun” from my name before.

But all that aside… Shit. I’d memorized a bunch of topics, but none of them was urgent enough to justify calling out to her after school. God this was awkward. Once again, my mind was a blank. So awkward. Think! I’ve practiced so much; I should be able to find a way out. Something among all the strategies Hinami had taught me and all the effort I’d put in on my own.

If you can’t think of anything, the other person can be the topic, like their expression or hairstyle.

Flashback. Right. That’s what Hinami said during out review meeting at the beginning of the week. She’d told me to do that when I couldn’t come up with any other topics. Maybe it would work right now. And her expression was…

“…Izumi-san, you look gloomy.”

Oh come on, what did I just say? If one of the cool crowd had been here, they’d probably have come up with something like “What’s wrong?” or “You can talk to me.” Unfortunately, this was me. And I couldn’t do that.

“What?! No, I’m not! What are you talking about?!”

“Oh sorry.”

She was super-pissed. “…What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“…”

“…”

Did it again. Well, that’s the end of that. I might as well give up on taking the initiative. Nothing’s ever worked out when I took the initiative. I haven’t even made it to beginner level. Of course not.

“…Um.”

“Huh?”

“…Tomozaki, you’re good at Atafami, right?”

“Huh?” Why’s she bringing that up now?

“…me?” She was mumbling something as she stared at her shoes.

“…Huh? What did you say?”

“…me!”

“Sorry, what?”

“Oh, come on!” she shouted. When she raised her head to glare at me, I saw big tears pooled in her eyes. What?!

“I said, teach me to play Atafami!”

What on earth is going on?!


*


Here’s the short version of Yuzu Izumi’s story.

Until recently, she and Nakamura had been good friends and often left together after school. But recently, Nakamura had started setting up camp in an empty classroom every day after school to practice Atafami. Even when she went to the room and invited him to walk home with her, he told her, “Shut up and leave me alone.” She offered to help him practice, but after he crushed her in their first game, he rejected her completely. (“Playing you isn’t even practice. Anyway, you’re annoying. Just stop following me around!”) Or so she said.


“Huh. Fair enough.”

Well, it’s true, he wouldn’t get much practice playing some random girl. After all, he wasn’t bad.

“That’s, um…that’s rough.”

“…I wasn’t asking for your opinion!” she fired back, her cheeks flushed. “Anyway, are you going to teach me or not?!”

She seemed defiant, trying to make sure I knew she didn’t care what I thought of this other side of her.

“I mean, I can, but…”

“What? You can?! Really?!”

She swiveled toward me, eyes flashing. She was super in my face. Why did Hanami and the other normies always get so close to people? Like, lethally close for us not part of that social class.

“But do you own Atafami?”

“Huh? Can’t I use yours? I have a console.”

“…Okay, that’s fine, but…”

There was one major problem.

“…Where would we do it?”

“…!”

Yuzu Izumi opened her eyes wide and blushed. What was with the naive reaction? Very surprising.

“Yeah, we don’t have a spot, do we?” she said. Indeed we didn’t. If she had the game, we could have played online, but since she didn’t, we’d either have to play at her house or mine. Just the two of us, a guy and a girl.

“…But…!” Her expression was both pleading and determined.

“I mean, if we went to one of our houses, it would be…,” I said.

“…Fine. No problem.”

Her gaze was determined, but when I looked closely, I saw tears welling in her eyes. This wasn’t easy for her. She hates the idea of being alone with me that much, huh? That really hurts.

“…That’s fine, but…” I decided to ask her the question on my mind. “Why do you want to do it so badly?”

She turned on me angrily, or maybe she was just surprised. “Huh? You’re really asking me that? Isn’t it obvious?!”

“Obvious…?”

“Are you an idiot?! You really are dense! Ugh, freak!”

This generation really does like the word “freak.”

“Dense…?” Wait, I see what this is all about. “…Oh.”

“Huh? What?”

I finally got it, and the sudden rush of understanding escaped through my mouth, too. “So you have a thing for Nakamura!”

When I looked over at Yuzu Izumi, her face was so red I expected steam to come out of her ears any second.

“You really are a freak! It’s unbelievable!!”

She whirled around, her necktie and skirt flying as she landed a clean hit on my face with her school bag.


“…Ow… So, um…”

“Oh, s-sorry…but you say such weird stuff! …Are you okay?”

Yuzu Izumi craned her neck around to peer worriedly at my downturned face.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I assured her automatically, leaning backward. My voice was weirdly tense due to the extreme proximity of such a cute face.

“Are you sure? Um…but anyway! Shuji really doesn’t get it. You know Erika? She told Shuji she liked him, but he turned her down. Erika! But he hangs out with me a lot…so I thought he might like me, but no! Apparently not. But anyone would assume he did, right? And then he suddenly goes and tells me to ‘shut up’ and ‘not hang around him’… What the hell?! What do you think?!”

“Wh-what do I think? It…doesn’t make sense?”

“Right! And on top of that…”

…He had her wrapped around his finger! Just like a character in some teen drama! Honestly, girls will gripe to anyone.

I thought about the situation as I sniffled through my throbbing nose. Yuzu Izumi kept on indignantly reeling off extremely personal complaints, but I didn’t hear a single one. Instead, I was thinking about how much trouble I was in now. This girl was a genuine normie, no exaggeration. She was even friends with the one and only Nakamura, which gave her an extra strong claim to the title. Plus, she was cute and had big boobs. And the two of us were going together, alone, to one of our houses? What is going on? This is so weird. Hey, Hinami, sorry for insulting you all the time, but what do I do here?

“Um…which house should we go to?” I said.

“Uh… Can we go to your house? My house is…not great for this.”

“Oh, my place…? Yours won’t work?”

“Clearly! What would I tell my parents? …Sorry.”

“…Okay.”

After getting angry for a second, Yuzu Izumi looked down and apologized. She wasn’t so bad after all.

…Hey, wait… Parents? …Uh-oh. That was when I realized something terrible.

“Oh wait. We can’t go to my house. It has to be yours.”

“What?! Why? You already said it was okay!”

“I did, but…Izumi-san, you play badminton, right?”

“Huh? Me? Yeah, but…”

“You know there’s a first-year named Tomozaki, right? I mean, you two are friends, I think.” I’d heard my sister mention Izumi-san a couple times.

“Uh, yeah, Zakki, right? I know her, but…wait. Tomozaki?”

“Yeah. She’s my sister.”

“…Whaaaaaaat?!” I tried to tell her she didn’t have to act so surprised, but she talked right over me. “Wait a second! You guys are nothing alike! Especially your personalities! What?! I don’t get it!”

“I know, I know. I feel like it’s impossible for us to be related, too.”

“I mean, Zakki is so cheerful and great! And you’re so gloomy! What?! No way! That’s so weird!”

“I already said I know! Stop talking about it already! I’m gonna get depressed!”

“…Oh s-sorry.” As she calmed down, the problem dawned on her. “…Yeah, that wouldn’t work.”

“…Right?”

Of course it was. It would be way harder to explain the situation to a younger team member than to her parents.

“Um, well…that leaves my place…”

“…Yeah…guess we should just forge—”

“No, it’s fine. Come over.”

She looked at me with the peaceful expression of a girl ready to drink the poison. Yeah, women in love were strong, willing to suffer any hardship for the one they loved. Of course, I’d rather ignore the fact that this particular hardship was having me over to her house.

“…Oh.”

“But are you sure you’re okay with it, Tomozaki?”

I guess she was more sensitive to my mood than I’d thought. Ducking out was apparently a real option.

…What should I do? The only weapons I knew how to wield to some degree at this point were expression, posture, tone, and memorized topics. Would that be enough to clear the insanely difficult dungeon of Yuzu Izumi’s house? Chances were slim to none. All that awaited me was a disgraceful defeat. In which case, I should escape. Escape. That’s what I’d always done in the past. Fled from enemies I couldn’t defeat, and fought again once I was better prepared. It was a tried and true tactic for video games.


“In life, you get EXP for losing battles, not winning them.”


Another flashback.

Oh yeah, she did say that. Right. I didn’t blindly believe her, but the fact was, at this very moment I was having a somewhat normal conversation with Yuzu Izumi. The old me could never even have imagined this. Maybe it was too early to conclude that the EXP and levels I’d gained by losing had led me to this outcome, but it sure seemed like a natural conclusion to reach. Oh, geez. I get it already. I am a gamer after all.

Hey, Hinami! Watch this. I’m about to test out your claim that losing results in experience points. I’m stepping right into a crushing defeat. Don’t come crying to me when it happens!


“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll go,” I said, indifferent now that I’d decided to do it. “Where’s your house?”

For some reason, Yuzu Izumi acted disgruntled. “…Tomozaki, why are you so calm? What? You’ve been to a girl’s house before?”

“Uh, n…” I was about to say I hadn’t, when Hinami’s face floated before my mind’s eye. “Oh yeah, I guess I have.”

“Huh?! What? But you’re…Tomozaki! Even I…even though…”

What was that supposed to mean, “You’re Tomozaki”? Was she trying to say that because I failed so hard at life, I couldn’t possibly have been to a girl’s house, and if I had, it was gross? Okay, so I wasn’t a normie, but that didn’t give her the right to say something like that. And that’s exactly what I told her.

“You keep using that weird tone of voice. It’s freaking me out… Anyway, let’s go. This way,” she said.

“Wait, I have to go get the game.”

“Oh right.”

We went to my house, where I picked up Atafami and a couple of other things and went right back out.

“Okay, this way.”

With that, she beckoned me toward the deadly dungeon. Just watch me Hinami. I’m gonna get my butt kicked.


*


Since Hinami’s room was my only point of reference, I was naturally going to compare Yuzu Izumi’s room to hers.

My first impression was that it was more cluttered. It wasn’t especially messy, but there were a bunch of character plushies on her bed, and her desktop was packed with rows of what looked like fashion magazines featuring someone popular on the cover. Everywhere I looked was crowded, bright, and showy. Even I knew the names of the characters and magazines lying around, all of which seemed designed to attract buyers on the basis of fads. The walls were decorated with corkboards overloaded with carelessly pinned-up photos—both from photo booths and regular cameras—of our normie classmates. Must be her “BFFs,” as they say.

“Tomozaki, you’re staring.”

“Oh sorry.”

Yuzu Izumi came in carrying a cute mug and a regular paper cup on a round tray.

I stared at it. “…”

“Shut up! Don’t complain!”

I wasn’t complaining…


“So…what do I do?” Izumi said, gripping the controller, straightening her posture, and facing the start screen on the TV with laser focus. Her big, round eyes reflected the screen.

“Well, for now…,” I began, sitting down far enough away that I wouldn’t be suffocated by the normie aura and picking up the other controller, “should we have a match?”

“What?! No way! I mean, you’re even better than Shuji, right?! No way can I play you!”

“I know, but…if I don’t know what level you’re starting out at, Izumi…”

I realized I’d naturally dropped the “san” from her name. I have no idea if it was because I’d grown through so many defeats, or because we were playing Atafami, or because she’d whacked me with her school bag and I just didn’t care anymore.

“Oh, so that’s how it works…? I guess it’s okay, then…”

She looked very timid and nervous. Her shoulders were all scrunched up, her mouth was pulled tight, and her eyebrows were furrowed intensely. Strangely enough, it was a good look for her.

On the character selection page, I chose Nakamura’s standby, Foxy, and Izumi chose a cute swordswoman, the showiest option available.

“Oh, hold on.”

“What? Is this character not good?”

If Izumi’s goal had simply been to master Atafami for fun, then using a character she liked would have been best. But her goal right now was to become Nakamura’s practice partner. In which case…

“Use this one,” I said, pointing the cursor at Found. “He’s the one I usually use.”

“Huh? Yours? Is it better?”

“No, but Nakamura’s practicing so he can beat me, right? He probably wants to get ready to face my character. So…”

“Oh…I see.” Izumi nodded gravely. “You’re so smart, Tomozaki.”

“Uh, r-really…?” I answered, embarrassed by the compliment. “…Anyway, are you ready?”

“Yeah!”

The mood was gradually becoming friendlier. Here I was in a girl’s room, playing my favorite game, a situation in which only normies found themselves. I was overwhelmed by emotion at the thought of how far I’d come.


“…No way…”

Izumi was astonished.

“All right, I’ve got a basic idea now… First, what you need to work on is…”

“…Forget what I need to work on! What did you just do?! Your moves were super-freaky!”

We’d each started with four stocks, and the match ended without me taking any damage at all, let alone losing a single stock. As a result, the friendly mood of earlier had vanished. How far I’ve come, huh? As if!

“Well, you’re doing the typical beginner moves. You blindly use techniques that leave you wide open, and you’re not watching what I’m doing. I can take advantage of those openings to whale on you without even thinking about strats,” I said, adjusting my imaginary glasses as I coolly enumerated her mistakes.

“Huh? What? Whatever you’re saying, it’s freaking me out.”

Izumi was inching away from me, but I ignored her and continued with my analysis in a low voice.

“You did a surprisingly decent job with the most basic fundamentals, like the inputs for your specials and edge recovery, so…the problem is with your neutral game… You used too many specials, so if you use normal attacks more…”

“Hey, what are you talking about? You really are so weird!”

“Izumi!”

“Y-yes?!”

She gave a start, then switched from sitting cross-legged to tucking her legs under her, her back ramrod straight. She was very athletic.

“For now, I’ve figured out what I want you to do.”

“Really?! What?!”

She leaned toward me, her eyes sparkling. Her face was super-cute, and her boobs were huge, and she smelled good. Shit. But I didn’t see any of that when it came to Atafami. (Well, I was still aware of the nice smell.)

I selected training mode and showed her how to control her character.

“When you do a normal jump with the character you were just using, this is what happens.”

Found leaped into the air. Izumi’s deep black eyes followed him intently.

“But if you tap the button really lightly, this happens.”

“…Oh, he doesn’t jump as high.”

Found had jumped about a third as high as he had before.

“This is called a short hop. When you really get into Atafami, it’s about paying attention to your opponents timing and moves, then fine-tuning when to leave yourself open and competing to see who can attack with the least risk. With the technique I just showed you, you can get your timing really precise, so it’s essential to perfect it.”

“W-wait a second!”

Izumi sprang up and trotted over to her desk, stumbling a little.

“Ouch! Pins and needles!”

She pulled open the drawer, took out a pen and notebook, and came back to her spot.

“…And?”

She jotted down what I’d just said, then looked up at me with an anxious but intent expression. She was definitely serious about this. She was sitting formally on her knees again, ready for instruction, which worried me slightly.

“Try it.”

“O-okay…” She picked up the controller with extreme caution and tapped the jump button.

“Huh?”

“…Yup.”

Found had jumped high into the air.

“W-wait! Let me try again!”

Boooing! Boooing! Boing! Boooing! Boing! She was getting it right about 30 or 40 percent of the time.

“Yeah, it’s pretty hard. But if you can’t do it, you probably won’t be good enough to play Nakamura…”

“Not good enough…? Okay then, I’ll practice!”

“Yes, but that won’t work, Izumi.”

“Huh?”

I wasn’t stumbling over my words any more. This was my battlefield.

“Here, you can actually practice playing Atafami. You shouldn’t be wasting your time on short hops. Practice the real deal, because you’ll get more out of that.”

“O-oh, really? …But what about the short hops?”

“Well, you do need to practice those. But when you’re playing the actual game, it’s more effective to practice in a real match. So what do you do? …There’s only one answer.”

I visualized a very familiar proud face and tried to mimic it.


“You should practice when you’re not playing Atafami.”


“Wh-what do you mean?”

“Well,” I said, pulling something I’d made sure to bring along from my pocket. “You use this.”

“…A stopwatch?” Izumi became even more confused.

“Yeah. Watch this.” I pressed the button to start the timer running, then I clicked it again. “Look.”

“…Huh? The timer didn’t stop… But it definitely sounded like you clicked it…”

“…Now you try, Izumi.”

“O-okay.”

She took the watch from me delicately, as if she were handling a precision instrument. She pushed the start button, leaning her whole body into the motion, and then pressed it again.

“…Huh? …It stopped.”

“Yep… This stopwatch is slightly broken.”

I took it back and started the timer, then clicked the button again, showing Izumi the face of the watch. Click, click, click, click, over and over.

“Huh? It’s not stopping.”

“Right. If you don’t press the button for long enough, it won’t stop, even if it makes the clicking sound.”

“Huh. Really? …But what do I use it for?”

“It’s simple,” I said, holding up one finger like a certain someone. “From now on, whenever you’re going to school, moving between classes, or watching TV—in other words, whenever you’re not with other people—I want you to practice pressing the button too quick for it to stop! Pretty soon you’ll be able to do the short hops in no time at all!”

“Really?!”

She looked surprised, probably as much by my tone as by what I was saying. Whoops, I’d emulated Hinami’s style a little too much.

“When you’re doing other things, practice with the stopwatch. When you’re at home where you can practice Atafami, practice actually playing. That’s the most effective way to improve.”

“That makes sense…! But why are you acting like you’re my big sister?!” she said, carefully writing down my instructions in her notebook. She looked so silly I couldn’t help wondering if she’d really understood, but she also seemed so totally convinced that I almost started laughing. About my tone, I simply hand-waved it with a “Don’t worry about it, it was a mistake,” and she nodded, satisfied. Excellent. Disciples who listen make the best progress.

“And as for practicing with real matches…that’s easy, too.”

Izumi gulped.

“It’s all about memorization.”

“M-memorization?”

“Yeah. Here, look.”

I switched the game mode to replay, chose a game from the memory card I’d stuck into the slot, and started it up.

“This is a game between two top players that I saved.”

“Um, nanashi? And NO—”

“Don’t worry about the names. Usually both of them use Found, but in this game, nanashi was trying out Foxy, and the other player was using Found.”

Izumi watched in shock, frowning intently.

“…Whoa. Their moves are as freaky as yours were earlier.”

“Yeah, Found is a top-tier, no-BS kind of character. The player controlling him isn’t going by feel like I—I think this guy nanashi does. They’ve used logic to refine their moves. That’s why they make a good model to learn from.”

“…So I’m supposed to watch this over and over and, like, remember it?”

“Close, but not quite.” I handed Izumi the controller.

“Not ‘like.’ I want you to perfectly memorize this game from start to finish until you can use the controller along with it as you watch.”

“…Are you serious?”

Dead serious.

“This match starts with four stocks for both players. Neither of the players gives the other many opportunities to attack, so it lasts over ten minutes. Memorizing it will be tough, but if you do, you’ll have a feel for all the important techniques you need to play this game. I…um, I mean, nanashi tries out all kinds of fighting methods to explore what Foxy can do, and Found’s responses are also really varied.”

“O-oh.”

I could practically hear Izumi’s brain short-circuiting, but I hadn’t completely lost her yet, so I continued.

“Once you’ve memorized all of Found’s moves, move on to Foxy. Once you’ve memorized both, I think you’ll be ready to play Nakamura.”

“R-really?”

Her face broke into a truly joyful smile. So this is the smile of a maiden in love. I nodded.

“…But,” Izumi said, her face clouding over, “I won’t know how to use the controller just from watching the recording. Like, I won’t know how to make them do the techniques…”

She was right. Even if she wanted to copy the moves, she wouldn’t necessarily be able to… But the solution was simple.

“That’s why I said ‘memorize.’”

“Huh?”

Ignoring her confusion, I pulled some paper and a pencil box out of my bag and drew a simple diagram and table.

“…You’re going to memorize this.”

“What is it? …A table of techniques?”

“Yeah,” I replied, filling in the boxes. “This column that says ‘Command’ tells you what button presses you do to deploy the technique. This stick figure shows the position the character will be in when you do it. The area inside the blue line shows about how far the attack reaches, and the red line shows where you’re invincible. The ‘Start-Up’ column shows how long it takes after inputting the command for the first hitbox to appear.”

“Um…”

Right from the start, she seemed lost.

“What does this ‘F’ mean…?”

“It means ‘Frames.’ In Atafami, the frames are 1/60th of a second. Just remember that the shorter it is, the sooner the technique starts. The ‘Damage’ column shows how much damage you’ll do to your opponent. The ‘Knockback’ column shows how far they’ll go flying. Pay close attention to that column because with some techniques more damage leads to more knockback, and with others it leads to less.”

“Uh…okay!”

She sounded enthusiastic, but her face revealed that she was totally lost.

“Anyway, you don’t have to understand it all right now. If you just memorize the game and this table together, you’ll gradually get a sense of each technique and why the players used them when they did. Actually, you should be thinking about that while you’re memorizing the match… But even if you just physically remember what to do, your level will go way up, so that’s good enough.”

“G-got it…,” Izumi replied, finishing up her notes. “…But, like, Tomozaki, did you memorize everything in this table? You wrote it all out so smoothly. You didn’t look at anything…”

“Huh? Oh yeah, of course.”

Izumi seemed surprised by my answer, but I kept talking.

“I’ve perfectly memorized all the techniques for all thirty-eight characters, not just Foxy and Found.”

“…S-seriously?”

“Yeah. Want me to write them down?”

Izumi’s surprise turned to revulsion, and then to interest.

“It’s amazing,” she said, a curious look in her eyes.

“What is?”

“It’s like…okay. I’m impressed, but…you’ve done all that, and you don’t get anything in return, right? I mean, why put so much into it?”

What was she saying all of a sudden? Was this her way of putting me down for my geekiness?

“Huh? You’re asking me why? I don’t do it to make friends or get compliments, that’s for sure.”

To me, that much was obvious, but Izumi widened her eyes in surprise.

“Really?! But it’s a game!”

“Of course. What do you think games are about, anyway?”

On second thought, our generation does play games to make friends.

“I mean, if you’re that good, people avoid you. No one stands a chance against you, and it kinda put me off earlier, too. If you’re just a really flashy player, people might act impressed. But if you go too far, they’re gonna say you’d have to be a freak to be that good. I bet that sucks.”

She looked strangely earnest. Right then, I remembered a similar recent conversation—the one I had with Mimimi when we walked home together. I think she was getting at the same thing.

“Well, it does kinda suck… But I set myself a goal to master the game. I’d hate to fail way more than I hate being avoided by everyone.”

“Huh…really?”

I decided to ask her a question and confirm my suspicions. “You’re asking if I don’t care what other people think?”

“R-right!”

Just like I thought. Mimimi had said that she would bend for the sake of the mood or keeping things fun. As far as I could tell from our current conversation, Izumi seemed to be the same type of person. It was like a habit, part of her personality. Of course she’d approach gaming the same way.

It wasn’t a coincidence; this seemed like proof of what Hinami had said—that most people were this way. They had no solid set of values, so they were constantly questioning their unstable selves.

“It’s not that I don’t care…it’s just that other things are more important, or…”

“But isn’t it rough being an outsider? You must not have fun during breaks, or really at all. Actually, I’ve never seen you having fun at school.”

“Aw, leave me alone!”

“Ha-ha-ha!”

For a second, the mood relaxed. Still, this could be a serious problem. I think.

“But laughing with your friends isn’t all there is to life…”

Going along with everyone else, getting their approval, being part of the group, not being avoided… People went along with the values someone else created—in other words, with what Hinami called the “mood”—just to keep from being excluded, just to be part of something. For Izumi, it was probably her current definition of happiness.

“Huh. Wow… I could never have that thought. Why not, I wonder? I’ve been like I am forever, and even if I wanted to change, I couldn’t… Argh, I’m sorry! What am I saying?! Forget it, forget everything I said! The point is, everyone is different! To each their own!”

She flapped her hands like she was trying to turn it all into a joke. She was smiling, but I could see tears in her eyes as she avoided looking at me. It was probably partly embarrassment, but there was something else in her expression, too, something that suggested this was a very significant problem for her.

That’s when I started to wonder about something. Mimimi and Izumi both had the same problem, so why was only Izumi so upset about it? With Mimimi, everything seemed light, like, “I’m Tama’s guardian angel!” or “Life’s better when it’s fun, so I’m happy with how things are!” But right now, Izumi seemed so lost and serious.

What in the world explained the difference?

Was Mimimi just better at hiding it?

Suddenly, I remembered something. After my conversation with Mimimi, something had felt off. I couldn’t have explained why, but it had occurred to me that Mimimi seemed like the one who was being supported. Now I felt like I was starting to understand the reason for that intuition.

I think Mimimi really was getting more support from Tama-chan than the reverse.

I remembered their conversation in home ec.

“Thanks for earlier, Minmi.”

“…What for? I didn’t do anything.”

That relationship.

“Hanabi’s heart is always laid bare, which means it’s poorly defended. Someone has to act as her armor. Someone has to come swooping in and fend off the attacks, or else her heart will get all torn up…”

That was Hinami’s analysis, but it matched up with my own guess.

Tama-chan was definitely being supported by Mimimi. But more than that…

I think Mimimi found meaning in protecting Tama-chan—in the person she was rescuing. It was like a goal inside her, just like continuing to play Atafami for me, and aiming to be the best at a variety of things for Hinami. She found real meaning in that goal, and in its results. And that was why she didn’t feel lost.

Izumi didn’t seem to have anything similar. For her, there was no meaning in swallowing her feelings to accommodate other people. Without any goal of her own, she was simply swept along. She probably had lots of friends, but I was certain none of them filled the place that Tama-chan did for Mimimi—of the person who gave real meaning to her act of bending. That was why she felt unsteady and lost and questioned herself.





Sure, this was the analysis of a novice founded on the events of a mere week, but it’s what my experiences were telling me.

And those experiences led me to another thought. The point wasn’t to get other people to compensate for what you lacked, or to dole out what you had in surplus. It was to use your own strength to compensate yourself for your own shortcomings, all by yourself.

“I think you can change.”

“What?”

“I mean, if you still want to.”

“What? Change my personality? No way, I can’t do that! What are you talking about? I’m about to turn seventeen! It’s too late! I’m done talking about this!”

To ease the tension, Izumi gave a fake smile so perfect you couldn’t even tell it was fake. Without even seeing it in action, I knew it was the expression she used to fight her way through the battlefield of the classroom.

And then—I don’t know how to explain it, but I put together my conversation with Mimimi the other day, what Hinami had told me about Tama-chan’s strengths and weaknesses, and Izumi’s attempt to hide her feelings that actually ended up revealing them, and then I considered all of it in my own way. I also remembered two things Hinami had said.

“Conversation essentially consists of telling another person what you’re thinking.”

“Apparently, you’re good at saying what’s on your mind.”

If that was true, and that’s what genuine conversations were, why not try telling Izumi what I was thinking? If I’m gonna fight my way through this super-hard dungeon, I might as well get annihilated giving it everything I have. That was more or less my attitude anyway.

“…I was like that, too. From the day I was born until now, actually. I had a personality that never changed. Or maybe more like a worldview.”

“What?”

My suddenly serious tone must have caught Izumi off guard because her fake smile wavered a little. I’d consciously tried to make my voice sound as intent as possible, and I was surprised that it had worked, even slightly, especially with a normie. I continued my line of thought.

“To me, life is the worst kind of game. Life is absurd. High-tier characters profit, and low-tier characters are exploited. There are no principles worth mastering. It’s just a game of chance. There’s no point in pouring my time and energy into something like that, and there’s no need to. That was my way of thinking.”

“O-okay…”

Izumi’s smile was steadily turning to shock.

“So even if I lost at the game of life—for example, people ignoring me in class, not having a girlfriend or even regular friends, having a low social status—none of that mattered. ’Cause the game was shit to begin with. On the other hand, Atafami was a great game, so it was way more meaningful to win at Atafami than at life. It was awesome, and most of all, it made me genuinely happy. My whole life, that’s what I thought.”

Izumi stared at me silently.

“But recently, I met another gamer who’s kind of insufferable, but also just about as good as me. According to them, life’s one of the best games of all time. To tell you the truth, at first I was like, What are you talking about? If you’re a gamer like me and you haven’t even noticed how shitty the game of life is, we have nothing to talk about. But in the end, they said a bunch of stuff that convinced me. I still don’t fully believe it, but they do know their stuff when it comes to games, so for now I’ve decided to test it out. In other words, I’m trying to take the game of life more seriously.”

Izumi blinked in surprise.

“I’ve been learning strategies and ways to practice, and putting in as much effort as I can, and along the way, something clicked… I hate to say it, but I’m almost sure it’s true now.”

The next thing I said wasn’t directed at Izumi so much as at the gamer with the best work ethic, the most confidence, and the worst personality in the world.


“As a game, I don’t know if life’s god-tier, but at the very least, it’s good! That’s what I think.”


Izumi opened her mouth wide and smiled.

“So it’s not one of the best, then, huh?”

I smiled, too, naturally this time instead of consciously making an expression.

“Yeah, I’m not that convinced yet. And I don’t say something if I don’t think it’s true.”

“…Wow.”

“…Anyway, I’d been thinking life was a shitty game for more than sixteen years, but given just a small opportunity, I’ve come this far. Pretty amazing transformation, huh?”

“Ha-ha-ha. Yeah, it is, isn’t it? Ha-ha, you’re funny.”

No, don’t “ha-ha-ha.” I’m not done talking.

“Point is, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if your personality hasn’t changed for years and years.”

Maybe she realized what I was getting at, because she gazed into my eyes with surprise.

“So Izumi, if you want to change, I think you can.”

I forced myself to return her gaze.

“…Even now. I’m positive.”


And that’s how my attempt to clear the super-hard dungeon ended: not in victory and not in defeat, but in an unexpected outcome—persuasion.


*


“Y-you really think so…?”

Izumi’s eyes were shining. I’d finished saying everything on my mind, so I was back to my old self, the one who couldn’t ad-lib conversations.

“Yeah, well, maybe.”

Izumi burst out laughing. “Ha-ha, what’s that supposed to mean? You’re not very reassuring!”

“…Sorry.”

Since I’d managed to have such a long, natural conversation here at Izumi’s house, I figured my skills must have improved subconsciously or something. Nope. It was just my regular abilities: talking about Atafami and saying what I was thinking.

“…But…yeah…I think I’ll give it a try.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, practicing Atafami, and…seeing if I can stop worrying so much about what other people think… Like you said, you don’t know until you try.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah…oh, that reminds me,” Izumi added, taking out her cell phone. “Give me your number. I want to have it in case I have questions.”

“What?! It’s not like I’m some expert on what other people think!”

“Not that! Questions about Atafami!”

“Oh right…”

We exchanged numbers as Izumi gave me a look like, What is this idiot saying?

“Okay!”

“Uh, um, well…I’d better get going.” After all, I’d taught her what I could about Atafami.

“Okay—oh, don’t forget the game!”

“Oh, no worries, that’s a spare. The memory card is a backup, too.”

“Spare? Backup?”

“…Never mind. It means I have another one at home.”

“Really? But…if you’d lent me this to start with, couldn’t we have played online…?”

“Oh yeah! That’s true…sorry.”

“Ha-ha. Right! But this way let us talk about a lot of stuff, so it’s fine!”

“Ha-ha.” It was nice enough of her to say that. “Okay, bye.”

“Okay, take care! Oh, wait…um, uh—”

“What’s up?”

“Oh…nothing. See you later!”

I left her house wondering what she had wanted to say. Less than five minutes later, a short text arrived from her.

“Thank you.”

Just those two simple words, no emojis or anything. I guess that’s what she had wanted to say when I was leaving. Huh. She was a normie, but in some ways she was easy for me to connect with.

Right away, I sent a message of my own.

A message to Hinami, that is, asking her how to reply.


*


“The sword you were carrying just happened to work against the boss’s elemental weakness, and the shield you had just happened to resist the elements she used. A miracle, I’d say.”

It was Saturday. I’d sent Hinami an e-mail briefly describing my encounter with Izumi, to which she’d replied by telling me to report to her in person. Thus our emergency weekend meeting.

“A pretty amazing one, too,” I said, already tired of the huge parfait on the table in front of me. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about it, and it feels like things are going a little too well lately. There was the thing with Izumi, and the thing with Kikuchi-san, too. Are you sure you’re not laying any groundwork behind the scenes, Hinami?”

Incidentally, for some reason we were meeting at a famous parfait place in Tokyo, instead of in Saitama. Hinami was calmly eating an weapons-grade sugary concoction made up of strawberries, banana, and melon drenched in whipped cream and condensed milk.

“What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything. You’re the one who’s laying the groundwork.”

“Huh? Me?”

“Yes, you. I mean, if you didn’t always go to the library between classes, and if you hadn’t talked to Yuzu and borrowed a tissue from Fuka-chan, she wouldn’t have talked to you in the library. If you hadn’t crushed Shuji Nakamura in Atafami, and if you hadn’t been talking to Yuzu Izumi every day for a week, then bumping into her when she was feeling down yesterday wouldn’t have ended up with you going to her house. You’ve summoned all of this yourself through your own actions,” Hinami explained, working her way through 80 percent of the parfait we had agreed to split half and half after she made me order it. She did have a good appetite. I had already had enough after my 20 percent. By the way, it was called a Peach and Whipped Cream Cheesecake Parfait, or something like that.

“Okay, that’s true, but…”

“You’re so stoic. You can give yourself a little more credit for your hard work, you know. I mean, of course you don’t have to. As long as you can stay motivated.”

I wondered how she managed to speak so clearly with her mouth full.

“Well…I do give myself some credit.”

Hinami stopped eating. “…Really?”

She looked pleased, but maybe it was just because of the parfait.

“That’s fine, then. So what do you think? Isn’t improving your life through your own hard work a beautiful thing?”

She grinned and peered into my eyes. I didn’t know what to do, so I looked away.

“…I guess.”

“Huh. So you’re shy about that kind of thing.”

“Shut up.”

“Whatever. Anyway, your mid-range goal just got a little closer.”

“…Did you even hear what I just told you? The reason Izumi is doing all this is because she likes Nakamura.”

“All the same, I doubt she’s ever had a deep conversation with Shuji like she did with you yesterday. Plus, you have something she doesn’t. Okay, that’s probably not enough to make her fall for you. At least, not this you.”

“This me?”

“You may have grown a little, but you still have a lot to work on. In the long run, though, if you keep up the hard work and move forward step by step, it’s not at all out of the question that something would happen this year.”

“Seriously…?”

With Yuzu Izumi? The normie? Well, the fragile normie, that is.

“Yeah,” Hinami said, polishing off the parfait. “I’m talking possibilities, of course.”

“I can’t believe you ate that whole thing…”

“Anyway, have you decided yet? About Fuka-chan?”

“Uh, I’m still going back and forth. But I’m almost there.”

“…Huh. Well, I won’t ask what you’ve decided. Tell me after you do it,” she said, taking out her wallet. “If you do decide to ask her out, use these.”

“…Movie tickets?”

“Yes. They’re for a premiere of the new Mari Joan film next Sunday.”

“A premiere? …You think I should invite her to a movie?”

“Yeah, that’s part of it. But the bigger thing is the first time you ask her out, you shouldn’t come on too strong. With these tickets, you can act like someone gave them to you and you don’t have anyone to go with. Since they’re for a specific day, she can say she already has plans if she doesn’t want to go. Plus, if you do end up going together, you don’t have to talk as much, and afterward you’ll have something in common to talk about, right?”

“Oh, okay…”

“Also, if she’s really into you and she genuinely can’t make it that day, it’s very likely she’ll suggest that you go out another time. All in all, it’s a low-risk proposition.”

“Huh… Well, I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I’ll go ahead and take them. Thanks.”

“Sure,” she said, standing up with her wallet in hand. “Sorry, I have to get going. I have a lot to do today. Since I ate most of the food and you had to pay to come all the way into the city to meet me, I’ll get the bill.”

I thought about protesting, but I knew that once she’d made up her mind she hardly ever changed it, so instead I thanked her meekly and left it at that.


*


That night, I was using the recorder Hinami had given me to tape my voice, play it back, and practice my tone, as I always did. But as I was trying to play it back, I accidentally pressed the wrong button.

“Oh shit, what’s going on? Did I just switch folders?”

The file number should have read 63, but instead it read 781.

Uh-oh, how do I get back?

Suddenly, as I started pushing a bunch of buttons, a file started playing. Shit! I probably shouldn’t be listening to this without her permission! As that thought ran through my head, I started to press the STOP button, when my hand froze. The first thing I heard caught me off guard.


“That’s why Shimano dumped you! She’s like…Younger guys are so… No, that’s not right.”


What the…?


“Younger guys…shoot! You just…aaah! …Younger guys are soo…damn!”


It’s what she’d said when she came to rescue me and Mimimi and Tama-chan in home ec.


“That’s why Shimano dumped you! She’s like…Younger guys are sooo immature…there! Younger guys are sooo immature! Younger guys are sooo immature! …Got it!”

The recording ended.

I do have some respect for people’s privacy, so I didn’t consider listening to another file. But what I’d heard was enough. More than enough. Why was this girl amazing? I’d sensed it vaguely before, but now I knew without a doubt.


The amazing thing about her was how hard she worked to make herself that way.


*


The following week, on Monday and Tuesday I chatted casually with Izumi about Atafami during all our breaks. Nothing much happened aside from a few surprised looks from other people. Izumi was memorizing the techniques way faster than I’d expected. At this pace, she’d probably be able to play Nakamura before the week was out. When I told her as much, she seemed extremely happy. I’d found myself a good student. Plus, talking to her was easy since she sat next to me.

Hinami and I didn’t talk about much in our strategy meetings. She just told me to keep diligently working on my posture, facial expressions, tone, and topic memorization, along with talking to Izumi and Kikuchi-san as often as possible.


And then Wednesday came—the most momentous day since I first met Hinami.





6



Sometimes you conquer a dungeon only to find a strong boss back in your village


Today, one of our classes was in another room. Which meant that when I went to the library before that class, I’d come face-to-face with Kikuchi-san.

I’d been talking to Izumi since morning about Atafami, and now it was time for the break before we moved to the other classroom. I headed for the library as usual, but not in my usual state of mind.

When I opened the door to the library, Kikuchi-san was already there. She noticed me and gave me a smile like a soothing spring breeze. She’s beautiful. Then her gaze swept back down to the book she was reading. It would have been easier if she’d started talking to me about Andi-whatever again, but it looked like this time I’d have to make the first move. So as not to startle her, I intentionally made some noise as I walked over. When I was very close, she turned toward me with an impossibly graceful movement, like some sort of sacred dragon.

“Hey… Is something wrong…?”

As it always did, her voice entered my ears like the splash of an angel’s tear.

“Uh, I wanted to talk…,” I said, pulling over the chair next to her so it was an appropriate distance away before sitting down. If the sacred aura of a beautiful girl envelopes a genuine social outcast like me at close range, his body will dissolve in the light and evaporate.

“What’s the matter…?” she said.

“Um…”

I know her eyes are pure black, but for some reason they appeared to be a deep green imbued with elf magic. Before them, my resolve wavered.

“It’s about that writer we were talking about the other day, Andi?”

“Oh, yeah…!”

Her eyes lit up. But I’d made up my mind.

“Actually…” I was determined to tell her point blank. “I lied when I said I liked that author. I mean…I haven’t even read those books!”

“What…?”

To my surprise, Kikuchi-san was able to produce not only the aura of a fairy or an angel, but also that of an innocent young child.

Still I soldiered on. “It’s true.”

“What…? But I saw you reading…”

It was a natural question. If you saw someone sitting in the library with a book open in front of them on a regular basis, it was a normal conclusion to draw. But you would be wrong.

I told her how much I love Atafami, and how I spend my free time on it, and that the reason I come to the library is because I don’t like the atmosphere when I get to the other classroom early…that I was just pretending to read books while I was actually planning out strategies for Atafami.

“So the truth is…I don’t have any particular interest in that Andi person, and I haven’t read any of their books. But I didn’t know how to explain all that, so I just went along with what you were saying.”

Kikuchi-san’s expression was not condemning or forgiving—purely disappointed.

“Really? But what about the secret greeting…?”

“The secret greeting…? Oh! Ebi-whatever?”

“Yeah, it comes up a lot in the book you were reading that day… It’s what they say instead of ‘good-bye,’ or ‘let’s meet again…’”

“Oh, they say it a lot? That makes sense, because it was written on the page I opened to. I blurted it out to keep from letting you know.”

“Oh, I see…”

“Yeah, so it seems wrong to me—letting me read the book you wrote. Your offer was based on a misunderstanding…well, on my lie, really… I’m sorry.”

“Oh…yes, I guess that’s true.” She let out a long breath. “Please don’t worry about it.”

She smiled forgivingly, washing clean my guilty conscience. I might have been getting ahead of myself, but I’d say she looked a little lonely, too.

I had to decide what to do next. I hadn’t made up my mind until right before I got to the library. Now that I’d apologized, should I invite her to the movie or not? I brushed my hand over the tickets to the premiere in my inner pocket.

“…But,” I added, conscious of my heart pounding. “I’m sure I’ll come to the library again, so…next time, I thought maybe we could have a normal conversation about something else. Maybe not our favorite authors or anything. Also, I want to try reading some of Michelle Andi’s books… What do you say?”

Kikuchi-san responded to my proposal with a few blinks her long eyelashes. Then she giggled cheerfully, like an ordinary girl our age instead of her usual fantasy-story self.

“…Ha-ha-ha! Tomozaki-kun. It’s not Michelle—it’s Michael! …You really haven’t read his books, have you?”

“Oh… Michael. Uh, ha-ha.”

“He-he.”

“B-but, um, is it still okay…for me to come here?”

Kikuchi-san smiled a warm, heartfelt smile, like sun filtering through trees.


“…Of course it’s okay!”


Her smile made me feel shy all of a sudden. “Good, okay, bye,” I said quickly, leaving the library behind.

From there, I headed quickly to the home-ec classroom.

I thought it would have been unfair to invite her to the movie right then. I’d only just told her I’d lied, and she might still have some lingering excitement from thinking we shared a favorite author. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her out until that excitement had completely disappeared and we were on even ground again. It would have been an insincere thing to do, and I’m glad I didn’t.





Having sorted out the situation with Kikuchi-san in my own way, I felt more at ease for the rest of the day. Izumi and I had gotten into a routine of chatting a little about Atafami between classes, after which she joined the normies by the back window and I stayed alone at my desk. My confidence was rising, and I felt like I was making progress.

Of course, that’s always when something has to go wrong.


*


“Tomozaki.”

“Huh?”

Class was done for the day. The voice saying my name wasn’t one I was used to hearing talk to me.

When I turned around, I saw Nakamura’s buddy Takei glaring at me with his arms crossed. Mizusawa was standing stoically next to him like an impassive observer. It was the pair who hung out with Nakamura in home ec.

“C’mere.”

“What?”

What was up? Was I being “summoned,” as they say? If these two were doing it, Nakamura was definitely involved. But why? Hinami had let the air out of the balloon when it came to the Atafami incident. Had I done something to upset Nakamura? Or maybe this wasn’t a negative summons at all? Fat chance of that, considering their tone.

“Just come with us.”

Protesting probably wouldn’t get me anywhere; following them was my only option. I glanced around the classroom to see if Hinami was watching, but she wasn’t anywhere to be found… Maybe she was already in Sewing Room #2. Guess I’d be relying on my own strength to get through this sudden boss fight.

They led me—more like dragged me, really—to an empty room across and a little down the hall from the staff lounge that used to be the principal’s office. Traces of its former identity—an old but still usable sofa and desk, a CRT TV—still remained.

Nakamura was there, along with a couple other normie guys.

“…Uh…?”

Including Takei, Mizusawa, and Nakamura, there were six of them altogether. What the hell? Am I about to be lynched or something?

“Hey, Tomozaki.”

It was Nakamura. Just hearing him say my name was intimidating. I reflexively looked away and happened to see something familiar. Huh? A console.

“Hey, wait a second. Is this about Atafami?”

I didn’t know how to react to this unexpected development. Does he want to get his revenge by playing me again?

“Sure is. Sit there.”

I sat down in front of the controller he’d gestured to. The console switched on, and the familiar start screen appeared on the TV.

“Wait a second, what’s going on?”

Nakamura’s crew ignored my confusion and lined up at a distance from us, toward the back of the room.

“Exactly what it looks like,” Nakamura growled. I see.

“So you want a rematch.”

Nakamura clicked his tongue softly. “You sure are full of yourself,” he snapped.

“Honestly, though…”

I glanced behind me. We had an audience. Meaning there would be witnesses to whatever happened. The last time we played, I’ll be honest, I beat him so bad it was embarrassing. Most likely, the only people who knew that were me, Nakamura, and Hinami. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone else thought I’d won by a narrow margin.

But this match was going to be different. There would be witnesses to every last detail.

True, Nakamura might have practiced a lot over the past few weeks. Given his existing ability, that extra practice probably meant he could easily beat every one of the guys in the back of the room without losing a stock.

But I was another story. I was just too good. No matter how much he practiced in that short period of time, it would be a drop in the bucket. Plus, I was confident I’d improved more than him since we last played. If I genuinely, truly avoided any risks and didn’t worry about how long the battle went on, I could most likely avoid damage completely. Even if I didn’t do that, beating him with four stocks would be easy.

Which meant we shouldn’t be playing each other to start with. This would be more than a little embarrassing for him. Maybe if I could hold back on purpose, but when it comes to Atafami, that’s something I just can’t do. This was not a good idea.

“You shouldn’t do this,” I said.

“Seriously? You’re that cocky?”

I’d glanced at the peanut gallery as I spoke, so he probably took my words to mean “You’ll embarrass yourself.” Once again, I’d pissed him off. Of course I had. Sugarcoating was way too advanced for me at this stage.

“No, I’m being serious. I know you’ve been practicing every day…but still…”

I stopped mid-sentence. I’d only piss him off more if I continued: …it won’t make up for the difference in our levels. I’d already implied it, though, so it was probably too late.

…But his next question surprised me.

“Who told you I was practicing?”

I’d never heard him sound this intimidating. Huh? Why’s he asking about that?

“Uh, Izumi,” I said. There wasn’t any reason for me to hide her identity.

“…Figures,” he said, frowning. “Seems like you guys are friends now.”

“Huh?”

…Wait a second. It was too soon to be sure, but wait a second. Logically, he shouldn’t want a rematch yet, so I’d been wondering if there might be some other reason he’d called me here. You don’t think he…?

“Why are you friends with Yuzu? Sounds fishy to me.”

Yup, I was right. Hard to believe he’d said that so boldly in front of all those guys. Okay, let’s stop messing around here, Nakamura. The reason I talk to Izumi all the time is because she wants to go out with you, and that’s why she’s working so hard to get better at Atafami. I’m helping her get you. I’m Cupid’s arrow in this scenario.

And now you’re picking a fight because you’re jealous I’m friends with Izumi. Why do I have to put up with this?

“We’re not really friends.”

“What, then?”

I couldn’t tell him the truth. Only a true asshole would out a girl in love to save himself. I might be inexperienced, but even I know that much. I had to use my skills to get out of this.

“No, it’s just, we shouldn’t play here. We should play at your house or mine.”

“House…? Speaking of, you went to Yuzu’s house, didn’t you? Someone told me they saw you.”

Seriously? I’d just woken another sleeping dog? I was done for.

Think about it. Some super-geek crushes you at a video game, acts cocky as hell, then befriends the girl you like—or maybe don’t like? Anyway, they become friends and he goes to her house. Yeah, you’d be pissed. There was no getting out of this one.

“Um, it was more complicated than that…”

“Explain.”

“…Uh, sorry, I can’t talk about it…”

I couldn’t think of a lie, and he must have interpreted my answer as “It’s a secret just for Izumi and me.” He got even more upset, clamped down his grip on the controller, and snarled, “We’re playing. Now.”

But social awkwardness is my specialty, and I hemmed and hawed and wasted time saying things like “But…” and “Come on” and “No…” and “I don’t like the way you said that,” hoping something might change in the meantime. I was praying for Hinami. It should be easy enough for someone like her to get suspicious when I didn’t show up in Sewing Room #2, gather some information, and come galloping to my rescue. If I just killed enough time, I was sure she would come. I knew what she was like.

As I fervently prayed for Hinami and spun my wheels with nonsensical comments, the door to the room opened with a bang. There is a God!

“Sorry to interrupt y— Huh?! Tomozaki?!”

RIP lol, as they say. It was Izumi. I can’t believe this.

“Why are you here, Yuzu? I told you not to come around.”

“Oh sorry, Shuji. I just thought I might be ready…to play…you…”

She must have sensed the tension in the room, because the excitement suddenly drained from her voice. Sorry, Nakamura, this really is the worst situation possible for you. I’d told Izumi she might be able to play you before the week was out, and then I’d been killing time until she got here. This really is all my fault. I should have played you right off the bat. Now that Izumi’s seen you, you can’t back out, can you? Is there any way you can let me go?

“Whatever, it’s fine. You can watch us play.”

“Um, okay…!”

Damn. He’d done it. It was really over now. Izumi joined the guys lined up in the back of the room.

“Yuzu, come on. I told you it’s not gonna happen. Let’s go home.”

The door opened for a second time, and in came Erika Konno, the girl Izumi had told me about, and her crew. Even among a group with bright, bleached hair and short skirts, Erika Konno stood out.

“Huh? What’s going on?” one of the girls said.

“I’m gonna play Tomozaki right now. Watch me,” Nakamura told her.

Oh geez. Erika Konno and her battalion filed in, joining Nakamura’s crew. What was this? Super Attack Families Normie All-Star Mode or something? Why was he so intent on self-destruction? Well, he’s on his own now.

“Let’s go, Tomozaki. Can’t run now, can you?”

“Fine,” I sighed, steeling myself. Like I said, I can’t hold back when it comes to Atafami. “…But you’re the one who can’t run, Nakamura.”

In more ways than one.


*


Up till now, Nakamura had been the only person to experience how scathing I could be when I got cocky, but now a murmur rippled through the gallery. “Whoa!” “He doesn’t hold back!” “That is Tomozaki, right?!” “This is getting intense!”

I wish they’d all shut up. I didn’t care. If I have to do it, I’ll do it and do it right. This is my art. Hate yourself for picking a fight with me over Atafami, Nakamura. When it comes to this game, I’m A-tier.

“Still as sassy as ever, huh, Tomozaki?” Nakamura whined. He was obviously mad.

I don’t care. If you’re gonna hit me, go ahead and hit me. If that’s enough for you, great. But if we’re gonna do this, let’s do it and be done with it.

“Come on. Are we playing or not?” I coldly shot back, not looking at Nakamura as I picked up the controller. I’d had enough. Once we started, I’d let the sum of all my experience take over. I’d jump on the barrel at the headwaters and ride the river all the way to the ocean. I didn’t need logic. My experience would automatically draw out the possibilities and carry me to the right one.

“Of course we’re playing. Hurry up and choose your character.”

Before he even finished talking, I’d chosen my usual character, as if this was just another match.

Tch. From my position near Nakamura, I heard him give an angry click of his tongue. Right. He was choosing his character. Foxy, as usual. Let’s go.

I dashed toward Nakamura the instant the battle started. He started with a short hop and hit me with two long-distance projectile shots. Pairing the landing from a short hop with a ranged attack is a technique for eliminating the vulnerability after firing. Last time we played, Nakamura wasn’t able to use such a subtle technique. He really had been practicing. But it was nowhere near enough to stop my flow. Without hesitation, distress, or any loss of focus, I let the current of my own knowledge sweep Found along. It was time to style on him.

I don’t care if you can do a little more now that you’ve practiced, Nakamura. It’s irrelevant. For you, it may be an earthshaking development, but from my perspective, you might as well have done nothing. It’s like telling me, “Hey, I heard a species of ant in some African country evolved wings and now it can fly.” Really? Huh.

You might have tried a new strategy on Found when he rushed toward Foxy, but it’s about to be destroyed by my skill and experience.

As he approached, I wavedashed away with perfect timing five times. Gachachachachacha. There was no way he’d be able to respond to a move this insane and beyond his range of knowledge. I grabbed Nakamura, who was wide open, and comboed him all the way to KO. One stock down.

“What the hell was that?”

“His moves are so freaky.”

“No way!”

“Huh?!”

The peanut gallery was in chaos. Sorry to tell you, guys, but that’s gonna happen three more times, and then this match will be over. Of course, I wouldn’t do five wavedashes in a row again—that only worked as a surprise attack with some extra flair.

The paths I could take next came into view of their own accord. There were seven or eight of them, like flashing channels of light. Which one should I choose? Guess I’ll go with this one.

I intentionally started my dash attack slightly late, continuing the tiniest bit past Nakamura’s block before stopping. He’d stepped forward, totally exposed, and he reached out to grab me right there. Too bad. I passed you, so I’m right behind you now. The grab left him wide open, so I turned and grabbed him instead. Then I threw him. Another combo. Second stock down.

“What?”

“He couldn’t escape?”

“Is it just over once he grabs you?”

“That was sneaky.”

“No way.”

No, you can escape. If you’re good enough. Nakamura was rattled now, and he wasn’t using his controller well. Which left me with an infinite number of options. Flash, flash, flash.

They were so bright, and so many of them, too. Guess I’ll go straight ahead. If I take time choosing one, my eyes are gonna start hurting, and Nakamura’s going down no matter which one I choose.

I launched a simple dash attack. He blocked and grabbed me.

“Oooh!”

“He grabbed him!”

The peanut gallery was buzzing. It was the first time one of Nakamura’s attacks had succeeded. He was probably planning to do a combo—guess he didn’t know better. Yes, Foxy can start a combo from a throw when Found hasn’t taken any damage, but only if the Found player sucks at DI—directional influence: the control that a player has over their character’s knockback trajectory once they’ve been hit. If the Found player can use DI well, then the opposite thing happens—Foxy becomes vulnerable to a combo from Found. I guess you wouldn’t realize that unless you’d practiced with someone who did it to you. Blame the situation, man.

Boom. Third stock down.

“…” “…” “…”

The peanut gallery was silent. No surprise there. The first two times, I took Nakamura’s lives by starting with a throw and killing him with one combo. Finally, this time around, they think, “Wow, he grabbed Tomozaki!” But the very next instant Nakamura’s getting stomped. At this point, the only thing left was cleanup. Easy. Routine stuff. The channels flashing in front of me were spread across a wide-open field. No matter which direction I walked in, I’d reach my destination. I leaped upward, and it felt like I was flying as my body floated and danced through the air. When I looked down, I saw an extraordinarily complex path stretching off toward the right of the field. Since I’d end up in the same place no matter what direction I went in, I figured I might as well get some practice in. Why not take that one?

I ran toward Nakamura and did a short hop. Back air. Right wavedash. Neutral attack. Short hop. Up air. Land. Jump. Slight neutral B charge, fire in midair. Land. Dash to where Nakamura just landed and grab him. Down throw. Jump. Forward air. Forward air. Double jump. Down B. Land. Neutral B charge. Jump. Double jump. Down B. Up B. Land. Short hop. Fire the neutral B. Dash. Run off the ledge. Forward air. Double jump. Down B spike.

Fourth stock down.

Game over.


*


Whew. Now I’d done it. To get through that high-pressure situation, I genuinely focused on the game, and as a result I completely destroyed him.

“…Shit,” Nakamura muttered, like he was holding back his anger and distress. The peanut gallery watched in utter silence. With good reason. He’d been defeated in a four-stock game without taking a single one of mine. There was no way to explain it except that I was just that much better.

When I took his first life, people were saying things like it was creepy how good I was, but probably because Nakamura looked so deadly serious, they had fallen silent now.

I glanced toward the back of the room. Aside from Erika Konno, no one was looking at us. They were either exchanging awkward looks with one another, smiling in an attempt to ease the tension, or staring at the floor. Sorry, Nakamura. But I didn’t have a choice. I really didn’t want to do it!

“Well, I guess I’ll be going,” I said, hoping to escape the incredibly uncomfortable room. But three unexpected words stopped me in my tracks.


“One more game.”


The person who spoke was none other than Nakamura.

What the hell was he saying? One more game? After what just happened? He couldn’t be serious. It was impossible. No exaggeration, if we played a hundred times, he wouldn’t win once. There was absolutely no reason for him to play me again.

“Uh, but…”

“I said, ‘one more game.’ Pick up your controller already.”

“…Um, I want to change characters.”

“No, it’s fine like this. I’ll keep mine, too. I’m not blaming it on the characters, so don’t make fun of me.”

“…Fine.”

Nakamura didn’t so much as glance at the peanut gallery. He kept his eyes fixed on the screen as he spoke. Everyone behind us was staring at the back of Nakamura’s head in shock, and just a slight hint of fear.

I had no choice but to pick up the controller.

My brain wasn’t on fast-forward like it was in the first match, so I took a little more damage, but once again, I beat him without losing a single stock.

Of course I did. I looked back at the audience. Among all the downturned faces, I saw Hinami’s. Shit. She must’ve slipped in during our second game. She and Izumi were whispering to each other, probably getting Hinami up to speed.

But I doubted that even Hinami could fix this situation. I didn’t see it blowing over unless either Nakamura or I became the villain condemned to die.

When Izumi finished talking, Hinami seemed extremely troubled. Then she looked at me and shook her head.

I don’t know exactly what she meant, but it certainly wasn’t anything good. My situation probably wasn’t going to improve much.

“One more time.”

…I couldn’t believe it.

He’d announced in front of practically every important member of the normie group that he wanted revenge, and then he’d lost two games in a row. Why hadn’t he lost heart yet? What is going through your mind, Nakamura? Why do you still want to fight?

“Hurry up.”

Apparently, my own opinions didn’t matter.

“…Fine.”

For the third time, I won without losing any stocks.

The mood was getting heavier by the second. If even I could feel it, those sensitive normies must be ready to suffocate. I looked back. Everyone except Erika Konno and Hinami was looking down. Under normal circumstances, I’d say they were being melodramatic. Hinami’s face was blank. Erika Konno was glaring at us harshly.

“…I’ve got cram school today…,” one of her crew said, attempting to leave.

“Oh, me too…,” another one chimed in.

“Stop lying. You two have cram school on Wednesdays.” Nakamura hadn’t turned around, but his tone was still intimidating.

“Uh, well…”

“Ha-ha…”

And then—

“One more game.”

You’re lying, right Nakamura? Why are you doing this?

But there was no way I could talk him out of it.

“…Fine.”

Again I full-stocked him.

Nevertheless.

One more game, one more game, one more game—three more times. The mood was like lead weighing us down, but Nakamura didn’t change his attitude at all. Finally, in the last game, I lost one life before winning. And I swear I didn’t hold back.

Great! That should satisfy Nakamura’s thirst for revenge somewhat. Failing to KO your opponent even once over the course of so many games would cause more than a little damage to your pride; I get it. So…

“Nakamura, let’s…”

“One more.” He was staring fixedly at the screen.

“No, I’m done.”

“Did you think I’d be satisfied with one life? I told you not to make fun of me. One more round.”

For the first time since we started playing, he moved his gaze away from the screen and looked at me. There wasn’t the slightest glimmer of self-doubt in his eyes; he was ready to fight. Apparently, this was more than mere stubbornness.

“…Fi—”


“Hey Shuji, give it up already, okay? I’m starting to think you’re a geeky weirdo yourself.”


I looked over my shoulder. The voice belonged to Erika Konno.

“I mean, come on. Why are you getting so serious about a game? It’s dumb.”

Nakamura turned his piercing gaze on Konno. “…What’s it got to do with you?”

“What? You stop me when I’m trying to go home and tell me to watch, then say it’s none of my business? Seriously? I don’t actually think you’re insane, but you’re sure as hell acting like a creep,” she scoffed with a mocking laugh. Nakamura’s big show of intimidation hadn’t had the slightest effect on her.

“I don’t remember stopping you. Why are you following me around anyway, Erika? That’s what’s creepy.”

Her face contorted.

“Wow. You sure are full of yourself. You think you’re hot shit ’cause I said I liked you the other day? God, what a freak. Congratulations on misinterpreting everything. I only said it because I thought I’d be lucky to go out with the guy at the top of the pecking order. I’d never, ever have said it if I knew you were such a weirdo.”

She sounded giddy, but her words cut like a sword.

“I couldn’t care less what you think. Doesn’t change the fact I don’t like you,” Nakamura said.

Erika Konno scratched her head with her pointer finger uncomfortablly.

“I mean, you can play him a million times; you’re not gonna win. He’s so much better than you it’s hilarious to watch. If even I can see that, you must be pretty bad, huh, Shuji?”

“…”

For the first time, Nakamura hesitated. Swooping in for the kill, Konno turned to one of her crew for confirmation.

“Right, Miho?” Her timing was cruel.

“Uh, yeah, it’s so weird. Like, I wish he’d just go home.” The girl’s contempt sounded completely heartfelt.

“Right? …Anything else?” Erika Konno was fanning the flames. I could hardly believe the techniques she was using.

“Uh, yeah, I mean, Nakamura’s so lame to start with. Seriously, I wish he’d die.”

“Right?!” Erika Konno crowed.

That was the cue for the rest of her crew to lay into Nakamura. Izumi was silent.

“He told us to watch him get his revenge, remember? What an idiot.”

“Totally! Now look at him. It’s insane. I want my time back!”

“Hear that, Shuji? You’re lame and weak, and you always have been. You. Lost. Get it?”

Erika Konno’s abuse was one level harsher than all the rest.

“What’s it to you? Go home, then. Hurry up, get out of here.”

Even Nakamura’s verbal arsenal was withering under her force.

“What’s it to me? That’s funny. Hey, wait a second, is that a tear I see in your eye, Nakamura?”

“Oh my god, it is! What? He’s crying? How old are you?”

“You’re crying because you lost a video game? Are you kidding? You’re not in preschool! I mean, I heard you’ve been practicing in here every day after school lately. Ha-ha-ha, you idiot. This is the best you could do? All your work was pointless. I’d be so embarrassed if I was you. This game is bullshit.”

With that, Konno gathered her crew and made for the door. Hinami watched, moving her lips so slightly only I could have noticed.

But just a second before that, the voice of a furious boy echoed through the room.

“Hey! What did you just say?”

Hinami’s blank mask turned to surprise, more shocked than I’d ever seen her. With good reason.


After all, it wasn’t Nakamura or one of his crew who had just spoken. It was me.


“Huh?”

Konno glared at me, enraged that one of the rabble had dared to snap at her.

“…What? Tomozaki? Did I say something that offended you? Huh, freak?” she said in the kind of light tone you reserve for the smallest small fry.

“Is ‘freak’ the only word you people know?” I retorted caustically, forcing myself to return her glare.

“What? Obviously not! Why are you talking to me like that? Ugh, gross!”

“You sure are cocky all of a sudden, Tomozaki. I can barely handle how much of a freak you are right now.”

“I mean, why are you protecting him? Come on, it makes zero sense.”

“Right? He’s not even saying anything! It’s hilarious.”

“Freaks hang out with freaks, huh? I’ll stay away, thanks.”

The malice in every one of their words cut through me. I’d lashed out before, but this time, my hands were shaking.

“This is stupid. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”

“Huh?”

All that tone training, facial expression training, posture training, speech training…for the first time since I started, I understood the point of it. I was nothing compared to these girls when it came to those skills. They’d polished their abilities day in and day out. They could deploy them at will, so much better than me it wasn’t even worth comparing us. They knew full well I was nowhere near their level, and they scoffed at me for it. Whatever I said probably wouldn’t matter—they weren’t going to pay attention to me.

“You know,” I began slowly, making my voice as loud and earnest as I could, “there’s nothing I hate more than a person who loses and then blames it on the circumstances or the character or something like that instead of making any effort to improve.”

“Huh?”

“So what?”

“What’s he talking about?”

“Shut the hell up!” I shouted at the top of my voice. “…When I beat Nakamura before, he made excuses. He said it was the character’s fault. I thought he was worthless. But what about this time? He lost so bad, in front of all these people, but he didn’t make a single excuse! He just kept fighting and fighting! And eventually he took one of my stocks! You people probably have no idea how amazing that is! Not just anyone can do that!”

There are things even I can’t overlook.

And what Eriko Konno had said are among them. There was no way I was letting that slide.

“Huh?”

“What’s he talking about?”

“I mean, what’s the point if you don’t win, right?”

“Nakamura doesn’t make excuses anymore!”

I took a long breath and screamed my next words.


“But that doesn’t matter right now!”


My totally nonsensical words rendered Konno’s crew speechless.

I looked Erika Konno straight in the eye. She glared back at me. I was scared, but I refused to look away.

When it came to this, I had guts.

“Konno. You said something a minute ago. You said this game is bullshit.”

My level and my equipment were both inadequate for this battle, and I had no way of making up for that. Defeat was staring me in the face, but I refused to give in on this point. These people probably didn’t know about story battles, where players don’t collapse even when their HP drops to zero. It happens a lot in RPGs.

Of course, even I didn’t know if this was one of those!!

“Listen! I hate people who lose and make excuses instead of trying to improve! …But!”

I poured as much of my genuine personal hatred as possible into the words I screamed next.

“…But I hate people who make fun of Atafami even more!!”

Konno’s crew had gone completely blank. This was a glaring contest between Konno and me.

“Listen! This is an incredible game! The balance is good. If you practice, there’s no limit to how good you can get, and there’s no move you can’t escape. If you practice enough, there’s no combo that can instantly kill you. The characters are all unique and full of ideas. Every one of them could be a main character in another game! The game has plenty of secrets and plenty to do as a solo player, enough to compete with the online mode. And the online environment is outstanding, so you can fight stress-free! The user support is good, too! And! You have normal techniques, but the specials and super-attacks are flashy and fun even if you’re not hardcore. Atafami combines consideration for hardcore players with the showy effects that casuals like. The two opposites exist in perfect balance. It’s an immortal masterpiece!!”

“Huh? You freak. Is that all you wanted to sa—?”


“But absolutely none of that matters right now!!”


I screamed so loud my voice started to get hoarse. Even Eriko Konno looked shocked.

“You’re so full of shit! What the hell do you mean, ‘All your work was pointless’? Don’t even try with that BS! You’re being a huge bitch, and you don’t even know what you’re talking about! And I’m not just talking about right now! It’s been weeks!! Nakamura’s been working his ass off!!”

Nakamura threw me a surprised glance.

“I know what I’m talking about!! Listen to me! That move he used to get out of my combo on the second stock of the second game? It’s insanely hard!! Normally, it takes months to master!! And it’s even harder to do under pressure like today!! It’s not something you do by accident, do you hear me?! And that’s not all! The move he used in the last match to spike me? That’s a super-hard combo; not even I can nail it every time! It’s called MLJ! Moonlight Jail! It’s a crazy-hard combo!! He’s incredible! Nakamura is incredible, okay?! Clean out your damn ears and listen to me!! You probably wouldn’t understand, but Nakamura? He has a goal! Every damn day! He didn’t run! He kept going and going and going and going even when he didn’t want to! And he achieved this! Maybe it’s not the biggest deal! But he got results!!”

I was practically shrieking.

“So stop laughing at him!! Stop laughing at people’s hard work!! People who actually work for things? They’re doing it right! What they do is something beautiful! More than anyone else, without question!!”

My field of vision was turning white—or black, I couldn’t tell.

“I hate people who lose and then make excuses instead of working to improve!! And I hate people who make fun of Atafami!! But more than any of that!!”

I kept shouting with everything I had.


“The thing I hate most, in the whole damn world, is idiots like you who don’t know how to do anything but then have the nerve to laugh at other people’s hard work!!”


*


Silence. Erika Konno didn’t say a word. Her crew watched her. Nakamura stared at me, frozen with surprise. Nakamura’s crew fidgeted uncomfortably. Hinami’s eyes were moist. Seriously? Come on. Hinami was a master actress. Incredible.

The first one to move was Erika Konno.

“…God, what are you even talking about, freak?”

That was the signal for the girls in her crew to come back to life.

“Seriously!”

“Why’s he so worked up about a dumb game?”

“What a freak.”

It was no good. So this was “the mood.” Erika Konno’s comment had just established a new rule stating that “taking something seriously is bad.” I sensed it with my whole body.

My moment was over. I’d fired every bullet I had. Hinami, the rest is up to you. I managed to get this far.

You’d probably have done better.

I glanced at her. She was smiling slightly and nodding. Then she faced forward and opened her lips.


“Actually, I don’t think it’s such a bad thing—to be serious about something, I mean.”


The cheerful, friendly voice echoed through the room.

—Cheerful, friendly, but slightly frightened.

Huh? Frightened?

“…Huh? What do you mean? Yuzu?”

Erika Konno’s eyes flashed toward Izumi. What?! I-Izumi?!

I looked next to Izumi, where Hinami was standing. Her lips were frozen in an open circle before they had formed any words.

“No, I mean, like… It’s a beautiful thing in, like, a boyish kind of way, y’know what I mean…?”

“What? You’re defending Tomozaki instead of me?”

A visible shudder shook Izumi’s shoulders.

“No, it’s not that! But lately, I’ve been playing Atafami—is that what it’s called? I’ve been trying it out, and there’s a lot of depth to it! You should try it too, Erika!”

“What? Are you trying to change the subject?”

“N-no, of course not! I mean, he was talking about Atafami, right? So like, there’s this thing called a short hop, and it’s actually really hard. It’s hard to get it right! Oh, but I’ve been getting pretty good at it recently!”

“…Huh?”

It was painful to watch her flounder. Izumi was so good at reading the room; there was no way she didn’t know what was happening.

“Plus, it always seems like the strongest techniques take too long to start up, so it’s hard to get them right. But I figured something out! First you use one that kicks in quickly, and then you link the strong move from there! That’s a combo, right? …Is that obvious? Ha-ha…”

She was going on pure willpower. It was tough, but she was persevering. On the surface, though, it appeared pretty strange. The crowd was incredibly confused by Yuzu Izumi’s awkward struggle and the incomprehensible single-minded franticness of her words. It was like the focus of the scene had blurred.

“Right! So what I’m saying is, Found is a pretty hard character to master. I’ve got a long way to go. But Foxy is even harder, because, like, he drops faster! And that means he dies from accidents more often. No joke, Atafami is hard. I plan to work at it, though. The reason’s a secret of course, ha-ha…”

Every person in the room had their eyes on Izumi. For someone who cared so much about what people thought, this had to be excruciating for her.

“Also, when it comes to the other characters…”

Unable to stand it any longer, Hinami took a step forward. But a second before she did, Erika Konno’s hand reached Izumi’s shoulder.

“Enough already, Izumi. I’m getting bored.” She turned to her crew. “Let’s get out of here.”

The Konno battalion filed out of the room, leaving Izumi behind. Nakamura’s crew took that as their opportunity to leave, too.

The door slammed, and for a second the room was silent. Then Izumi collapsed onto the floor.

“…I…I was so scared…!”

She started crying. Really?

Nakamura walked over to her. “Hey, what was that all about? It’s not like you to push yourself like that.”

“But…but…!”

Nakamura put his hand on Izumi’s shoulder. Hey now, don’t touch my student without asking first! Oh wait, maybe it’s okay, they seem like they’re into each other. Yeah, it’s fine.

“Shhh, you don’t have to talk about it. You did a good job.”

“Ngh…! Shuji…!”

“It’s okay now. Hey, you don’t want everyone to see you crying, do you?”

Nakamura reached his hand out to Izumi.

“Nuh-uh, I’m okay…!”

Izumi rubbed her tears away fiercely with her sleeve, pulled herself together, and stood up on her own two feet. The two of them walked out of the room…or were about to, when Nakamura turned back and looked sharply at me. In a voice so quiet it barely reached beyond his own mouth, he muttered something. It definitely wasn’t loud enough to reach me, but for some reason, I heard it with extreme clarity. As far as I could tell, the will behind it was real.


“Next time, I’ll win.”


With that, Nakamura and Izumi left the room.

Um…?

“…What just happened?” I said.

“…I have no idea,” Hinami answered, gaping. For once, she was defenseless.

As I was looking at her face and trying to piece together the events myself, I realized something.

“Oh, hey…”

“…What?”

“This time…”

I consciously imitated Hinami’s favorite ironic tone.

“You didn’t do a thing.”

For the first time since I met Hinami, I could tell from her expression that my words had landed a direct hit.





7



I always want a sequel when the final credits end


It was Saturday, three days after the incident.

Hinami and I were at an Italian place in Kitayono, eating the most delicious salad in the world.

“This is insanely good…”

“Ha-ha. Right?”

Okay, I might’ve expected the pasta or pizza to blow me away, but not the appetizer salad. An attack from an unexpected angle. Very sneaky. Too sneaky. But I was happy about it.

As I reveled in the perfect harmony of the dressing and the natural sweetness of the vegetables, we began our usual meeting. I’d have preferred to talk to her right away, but she had been concentrating on getting the situation back under control, and this was the first time she was able to make time for a real conversation.

“But anyway, it really was terrible…”

The scene that unfolded in the former principal’s office was so dramatic and had been witnessed by so many people that tons of kids at school had heard every last detail. They knew about Nakamura’s string of losses, my cocky comments, my freakishly high level of play, my heartfelt tirade, my…huh? Pretty much everything was a criticism of me. Ha-ha-ha.

But the impact on the class power structure had been…surprisingly minor.

As always, Nakamura reigned at the top of the hierarchy, and no visible battle occurred between his group and Erika Konno’s. Of course, the groups didn’t hang out as often anymore, but on Friday, I saw Izumi mediating in a slightly awkward conversation between Nakamura and Konno. They really were ridiculously good at repairing interpersonal relationships. Seemed they were just seeing how things progressed and waiting for a full recovery.

While all that was going on, two major changes took place.

The first had to do with Izumi. Practically the whole class figured out that she’d been practicing Atafami so that Nakamura would pay attention to her, and the general attitude was that her efforts were heartwarming. Nakamura might have been the only person in class who didn’t realize how she felt. “Dense” was becoming his class nickname, and his obliviousness to that, too, became a joke in itself. He was too wrapped up in Atafami. If he was that competitive, he just might have a gift for gaming.

The second change had to do with Nakamura. After the incident, he got even more into Atafami, maybe because he hated losing to me. That alone would have been fine, but he didn’t care at all if people thought it was weird. Seems he’d taken to using even short breaks and lunchtime to practice like a man possessed.

In other words, it was like…I was supposed to serve as Cupid’s arrow, but as it turned out, I actually caused him to pay more attention to Atafami than to Izumi… Nakamura, you used to pay a fair amount of attention to Izumi, didn’t you? Um, sorry. Guess my plan backfired.

“Well, all in all, I’m glad the damage to you was limited.”

“…Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

It’s true. The impact of all this on me was smaller than I imagined.

The incident took place on Wednesday, which meant I had two days of school between then and now. A handful of my classmates were born-and-bred rubberneckers, and they asked me a lot of questions, but most of them did it out of simple curiosity rather than good or bad intentions. When I answered with the truth, they’d say something like “Wow!” and walk off, satisfied. The whole confrontation didn’t make me any new enemies. Then again, it didn’t make me any new friends, either.

But I think the main reason Nakamura and I didn’t suffer more damage was because Hinami was running interference for us behind the scenes.

She missed both of our after-school meetings. All she said by way of explanation was that she had “some stuff to do,” but I witnessed her spreading good PR for Nakamura several times during that period. The time I remember best was when she cheerfully announced to the class, “Wow! But if Shuji is that crazy about Atafami, it must be fun!” Guess that’s what they call “stealth marketing.” She was sneakily manipulating the impression people had of Nakamura and Atafami.

I’m fairly sure she was doing the same for me…and for that I was grateful.

Also, this may have been happening before, or I may have just noticed it because of that conversation we had, but one time I heard her enthusiastically say “Hexactly!” in front of a classmate. She really does like that phrase.

“Anyway, what else do you want to hear about?” I asked.

“Aside from that whole mess before…there’s Fuka-chan.”

“Right. Well, a bunch of stuff happened.”

I told her about admitting the truth and not inviting her to the movie. Hinami sighed with exasperation.

“You mean to tell me you had two good prospects, and you let both of them slip away? Honestly, do you even want to do this?”

“Of course I do!”

“…Well, no use crying over spilled milk. Let’s think about what to do next.” With that, she began cooking up a plan.

“…Right,” I said, once again appreciating her powers.

This was where she excelled. For some reason, I had taken it for granted that she was amazing and never thought about why she was so amazing.

The answer was actually simple. She was amazing because she made a huge effort to be that way. She faced reality and buckled down to work, moving forward one step at a time, propelled by her own will.

And it was incredible.

I’d fully realized it after I’d heard the file on the voice recorder. Ever since, I’m not sure how to put it, but I’d felt something like respect or awe for her.

And that made me want to start taking initiative beyond her instructions.

“Hey…this is off topic, but…”

“What?”

I brushed my hand over my inner pocket and tried to make my comment as innocently as possible.

“You know that premiere of the Mari Joan film tomorrow? Well, how about we go together?”

Hinami looked confused for a second. Then she smirked and said, just as innocently, “Oh, I’m sorry. I have plans tomorrow. I can’t go.”

I made an effort to brush it off with a laugh, but then I genuinely crumpled. I didn’t stand a chance.

“But, well…,” she said.

“…What?”

She gave me a kind but playful smile, like a parent watching over her dull child.

“I’m free after this. Do you want to go to a different movie?”

For a second, my mind went blank.

After that, a feeling of excitement that was almost like elation or accomplishment overtook me. I’m not exactly sure why I felt that way, but I don’t think it had to do with getting close to a normie or going out with a girl. I think it was the primal elation that comes from working hard and getting the results you want in the real world, plain and simple. I’m not positive, but that’s what I suspect.

“…Hexactly!” I said, trying out Hinami’s favorite phrase for myself. She pointed out that I wasn’t quite using it correctly. Huh. Guess that’s another area for improvement.

But that’s what life’s all about, right? Well, I’ll show her a thing or two.

I may be a beginner at this game, but I’m about to get serious.

—By bottom-tier character nanashi, the best noob gamer in Japan





AFTERWORD



Greetings. Yuki Yaku here, first-time author and undeserving recipient of the 10th Shogakukan Light Novel Grand Prize.

Of course, I didn’t create this book published by Gagaga Bunko alone; many people have collaborated to make it a reality. I hope that I can at the very least express my thoughts honestly and straightforwardly in this entirely superfluous afterword.

That said, talking about myself isn’t one of my strengths, and describing the content and themes of the novel would basically be taking away space for independent analysis and making demands on the book after it’s already left my hands, so I figured I’d talk about my initial feelings when I saw the cover illustration instead.

When I received the illustration from the editor in charge of cover art, my first reaction was surprise at how cute it was. There was so much to admire: the energetic, determined expression on Hinami’s face, the light texture of her hair, the fetishism evoked by the placement of the schoolbag and blazer… But the part that got me the most was the depiction of her thighs. (I will leave discussion of additional points to future opportunities, which I am sure will present themselves.)

As for what exactly I found so moving about those thighs, well, the answer is quite simple. It was the hip joint of her left leg (the right side from the viewer’s perspective). Now that I’ve said this much, half my readers will probably be nodding in understanding. Yes, dear readers, your guess is correct. I am speaking of the swell of her hip.

I don’t know whether it would be better to call it flesh or the gush of youth, but the round swelling in the area of her hip joint really got me.

At that juncture, however, I composed myself and examined this leg starting at the knee by tracing the line up to the thigh, which brought about a realization. The line starts out concave, expressing the slimness and suppleness of the leg, but the moment it reaches the hip joint, just past where her hands are planted on the ground, it rounds outward.

An electric shock ran through my brain.

I had sensed viscerally just how much intention this choice of a few millimeters contained. My analysis may have been uninvited, but nevertheless I was quite confident that it was correct.

There was a reason for my confidence. That is, you can draw thighs on a stick figure, too. In case my meaning is not immediately clear, let me explain. Once you’ve drawn the head, body, and lower legs on a stick figure, and made a bend for the knees, the area above this bend will automatically become the thighs. If you tell someone those sticks are thighs, no one will complain. At the very least, I won’t.

In other words, if the illustrator had simply wanted to express the fact that these were Hinami’s thighs, he could have done so with a stick figure. He could even have gone a little further and enclosed the area in straight lines and colored in a skin tone, and that would have been more than enough.

But the cover illustrator for this project was Fly, and Fly decided not only to add curves to those thighs, but to give them the most delicate of contours. The purpose of this innovation was to add realism to the picture and infuse it with a very particular allure—no, those roundabout phrases are no good. The purpose was simply to lend warmth to Hinami through the magic of a few millimeters.

I urge those of you reading the paperback version to turn to the cover, and those of you reading the ebook to bring up the cover on your screen, and gently touch those thighs with your finger. Your pointer finger is probably best. Well, what do you think? Do you feel it? Do you feel that certain warmth—the warmth of Hinami?

At the very least, I feel it. Right now I am touching both thighs with the tip of my right pointer finger as I type with my left hand. Certainly, that warmth is slightly different from the physical warmth one experiences when actually touching someone. It is different. I accept that. Nevertheless, a warmth breathes beneath my fingertips—so faintly I almost can’t feel it, but it’s real.

I hope that I have succeeded in communicating my feelings.


And now on to the acknowledgements.

First, thank you to everyone involved in the selection of this book for the 10th Shogakukan Light Novel Grand Prize, as well as those who assisted with its editing, publishing, marketing, and sales.

Second, thank you to my editor Iwaasa, who gave me so much severe yet sincere advice; to my roommate T, who read the manuscript before I submitted it to the contest and helped me revise it through valuable and candid comments; and to Fly, the illustrator, who contributed so many surprisingly cute and sexy illustrations to this work of a complete unknown.

Finally, thank you to everyone who reads this book. I hope you will join me for future volumes.

Yuki Yaku