Then I rushed to change the subject. I may not have known my economics, but any kid could talk about video games.
“Anyway. Let’s play already. Check out the character I made!”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready too.”
She showed me her character. Silver hair, similar build—heck, even the character’s name was Lucie. (I think. She had the Latin alphabet turned on, not any of the Japanese keyboards.) Lucie-chan was clearly one of those people who gets to a character creator and just makes themselves. I could vibe with that. I was the same way, see. I used to model my avatars after my favorite fictional characters, but nowadays I made my avatars my ideal version of me. Sure, I made tweaks to my appearance sometimes. I gave myself long blonde hair periodically. Or long black hair. Or soft, wavy light brown hair…
My ideal version of me, huh. Hmm.
Anyway! “Let’s go questing together!” I said.
“Thank you. I look forward to working with you.” Lucie-chan bowed to me, the picture of politeness.
Then, without further ado, the two of us set off on our adventure.
“Man, this is fun,” I said. I was impressed. I’d never played a primarily co-op game before, and I hadn’t known that it could be so much fun.
“It is,” said Lucie-chan. “I’ve never enjoyed a game more in my life.”
“Aww, come on,” I said. (Meanwhile, I was dying of happiness on the inside.) “You’re exaggerating.”
The combination of Lucie-chan’s words and her innocent smile cleansed the shadowy a-hole from my heart. Junior high Amaori Wraithnako’s spirit had moved on at last.
Except for the part of her that whispered, “As fun as it is, you’re not always going to have friends ready and willing to play, you know? Whenever you go back to playing on your own, you’re going to think, ‘Man, that sure was fun…’ The unquenchable desire will have a stranglehold on you for life. You’d have been better off never knowing this happiness kek, Sucks to be you lolololol”
Darn it! She was still here! Why did she always have to have the last word? Ohh, I was furious. Why? Because she was right! Still! I would keep striving for such glory! Because I’d promised myself I would!
“What’s the matter, Renako-sama?” Lucie-chan asked. “Why are you lying on the ground? Do you have a stomachache?”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all. I just think, it’s pretty lazy of these darn game companies. If they’re going to sell co-op games, how come they don’t include friends bundled into every copy?”
She looked completely baffled. Poor Lucie-chan was so innocent my question only served to flummox her. Sorry, Lucie-chan, I apologized mentally.
Just then—“Crap”—I made a mistake (I was still playing with trembling hands) and got bopped by a giant monster with a mallet. My HP dropped to zero, and I got kicked back to the death screen before I respawned at camp.
“Whoops,” I said. “Sorry.”
I took a glance over at Lucie-chan and discovered, to my horror, that she was sobbing.
“Huh?!” I yelped.
The tears rolled right down her cheeks and plopped onto her screen, refracting the image. She usually wasn’t all that expressive, but now her face was warped in sorrow. She glared at the monster that had killed me like her life depended on it.
“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. “I couldn’t save you, Renako-sama.”
“N-nah, you’re good! It was my bad.”
“Renako-sama, you’re dead!”
“No, I’m alive! See? I’ve still got it in me!” I thwacked myself on the chest to prove it.
Lucie-chan didn’t look over. She kept sniffling, sobbing, and beating the crud out of that monster.
“L-look, you did it!” I said. “You killed it. Woo-hoo!”
“…Right.” Lucie-chan took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. Ready for the next quest?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure. You bounce back fast…”
What was with this girl? Maybe she was more than projecting into her character. Maybe she really was her character. At least, that was the impression she gave off.
“Uh, just out of curiosity…” I said. “Do you cry when you play shooters too?”
“Hm? Why would I?”
“You were literally crying just now…?”
Lucie-chan looked puzzled. Don’t tell me she didn’t notice her own tears!
“I feel sad when my allies are defeated,” she said.
“Really? You, uh, do?”
“Yes. If I see anything that looks like a threat, I do my best to protect my teammates.”
“Wow. But that must take a lot of jumping into danger yourself. Don’t you ever end up dying right alongside them?”
“Oh yes. All the time.”
Um. That one shut me up for a good second. No one played like that. Right? Like I knew I didn’t have any other gamer friends, but still. People always treated their teammates like pawns of varying degrees of usefulness. Right? This wasn’t just me being heartless, right?! I posed the question to my inner Satsuki-san. Right?! Her response? “Why are you asking me? You’re a coward to seek out my opinion on the matter.”
I was looking for a voice of agreement, not a critique on my character, but go off! Anyway, if Lucie-chan had made it to Platinum playing like that, she was a way better gamer than I was.
Now that I thought about it, I realized Lucie-chan had almost never gotten hit. Even when she was soloing the mallet monster. What in the heck? Boy, I was really seeing all kinds of new sides to Lucie-chan today. The more I learned about her, the more mysterious she got.
She looked up and met my eyes. Her long eyelashes quivered as she smiled at me. “It’s fun that way,” she said.
Eep. My heart skipped a beat. Lucie-chan was ten billion percent not a replacement for my sister, but having a little sister like her—someone so honest, someone so sweet and cute—would’ve been really, really fun.
“If only I had someone like you,” she said.
“What?”
Lucie-chan looked down at the screen and said in a very, very quiet voice, “If only I had a family member like you who would always be there to play with me…I’m sure I’d be very, very happy.”
“…Oh.” I searched for words and didn’t find any.
“Mm-hmm,” she said. She blushed slightly and ducked her head.
Nah, I mean…I was a failure of a big sister. I couldn’t do anything for my little sib.
“Could I, uh, ask what makes you think that?” I said.
Lucie-chan looked up at my faltering question. She turned her enormous eyes on me, parted those soft lips, and said, “Because you came to my rescue. You’re so kind.”
“Me? Kind?” I tried my hardest to smile so I didn’t freeze up. “Th-thanks.”
I mean, maybe. But what else was I supposed to do? I was so friggin’ useless that the least I could do was be kind. Otherwise, no one would ever have deigned to keep my sorry ass company. And I wasn’t saying that to be pessimistic—those were just the facts. All my friends and loved ones were super kind and loaded with amazing qualities on top of that. They could do sports, cheer people up, knock tests out of the park…
“Wait. Tests?” I said. The moment the word came out of my mouth, my body lurched to its feet of its own accord. “Shoot, my tests!”
“Hmm?” said Lucie-chan.
“I’m so sorry, but my finals are coming up. Lucie-chan, what time is it? Oh god, it’s already dark! When did the sun go down?”
Step one: panic. Step two: uhhhhhhh.
“Oh! Right!” I said. “Here, let’s exchange contact info. Then you can get in touch with me without waiting for me to pop up like a random encounter. Where’s your phone?”
As I said that, I looked Lucie-chan up and down. The way she sat on the bench with her legs placed together was manners incarnate. And apart from the tote bag she brought the game consoles in, she didn’t have a single thing on her.
“…You do have a phone, right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh thank god.”
I pulled a notebook out of my backpack, tore off a corner of a page, and wrote down my LINE address for her. Then, in case she wanted to text me, I added my phone number.
“Here,” I said. “This is my contact info. Add me to your friends list later.”
“Thank you very much.” Lucie-chan took the paper with a bow, but I still had my doubts. Could she make it home and send me a friend request without messing it up?
“Make sure to take advantage of these modern conveniences,” I told her. “It’s like in an FPS. You always need to find a gun. You can’t just use your fists the whole time, you know?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“Yup. Anyway, I gotta get going. Thanks for gaming with me! See you later.”
“Yes, see you later.”
I stood up, and just then. Lucie-chan. Hugged. Me.
“Wha—” I spluttered. Did this girl have no sense of danger or what? People could see and get the wrong idea about us! Not like I was getting wrong ideas—I bet Lucie-chan hugged just about anybody. But still! She smelled so good! Oh my god, pretty girls!!!
“Let’s play again someday, Renako-sama,” she breathed in my ear.
“U-uh-huh…” I warbled back.
And that was it. With one final wave, she turned and left. She looked so darling as she trotted off that I almost thought she was a princess in a fairy tale. Heck, if someone like her thought so highly of me, then maybe I had it in me to try a little bit harder.
First things first, though: studying for finals. Hey, Satsuki-san! Are you free this Saturday?