“Here, have some cake,” she said. “Get some sugar in you.”
“Thanks. Wow, it’s good.”
“Yes, it is, isn’t it?”
I sat up so I could chow down on my cake. Wow, Satsuki-san openly liked it. She said something nice about the gift I brought her… Oddly, I felt a spark of happiness in me. You know what? It wasn’t half-bad to bring gifts for people.
With a happy sigh, I said, “I could really go for some sort of brain-dead activity right about now.”
“Brain-dead? I have just the thing.” Satsuki-san put a hand to her mouth and simpered, “Oooh, Amaori, what’s your blood type? For, like, fortune-telling? Y’know?”
Wait. Simpered? Who was this friendly stranger, and what had she done with Satsuki-san?
For a moment, I was too stunned to speak. Then I went, “Huh?!”
“C’mon, tell me. What is it? Huh? Huh?”
She never let up on the attack. Oh god, what was this? A horror movie?
“I-I’m type O, but I’m not sure why you’re asking,” I said.
“Ooh. That’s so cool.”
“And you are…?”
“Aww, can’t you guess?” she pouted.
“Um. You seem pretty type A,” I said.
“Got it in one!”
“Go me. Wait, Satsuki-san. You never talk like this!”
Satsuki-san knocked it off. “What?” she said. “You asked for brain-dead.”
“As if a sudden personality switch doesn’t take brainpower?!”
Satsuki-san tucked her hair behind her ear and smirked, as if a little thing like this was child’s play for her. God, what was that just now? She girl-talked like a pro.
“I bet you could talk to just about anyone, huh,” I said.
She gave me a long, hard look before nodding. “I suppose.”
What was that supposed to mean?
Just then, I noticed something weird—that is, a weird object in the room.
“Hey,” I said, “that’s one of those last gen handheld consoles, right? Why do you guys have one?”
Come to think of it, Satsuki-san said, way back when, that her mom played shooter games. Was her mom a gamer?
Satsuki-san hesitated for a second before saying, “I’m borrowing it from Kaho.”
“Say what?” Talk about the surprise of the century. Not the Kaho-chan having a portable game console thing—I could picture that in a heartbeat—but Satsuki-san borrowing it from Kaho-chan.
“After my last foray into video games, she suggested I try this sort,” she explained.
“Huh. Can I check it out?”
“Uh. Sure, be my guest…?”
What was that pause for? Still, she said yes. So surely she wouldn’t start kicking me or thwacking me with the corner of a book.
I picked up the game and came back to sit next to Satsuki-san. I then turned it on, only to find yet another surprise:
“Say what? You’re playing a dating sim?”
And like, one made for guys. A dating sim where you romanced girls!
“Sure, dating sims are fun,” I said, “and there’s a bunch of cult classics with longtime fans. But why would Kaho-chan recommend one to you?”
Satsuki-san hugged her knees and feigned ignorance. “‘Fun,’” she repeated. “What, have you played dating sims yourself?”
“Hm? Yeah, just casually. And like in junior high.”
“Oh ho? Dating sims where you pursued female characters?”
Satsuki-san averted her eyes from me, and for some weird reason, I started to feel awkward. Hey, wait a minute.
“Hold on!” I said. “You’ve got the wrong idea. I didn’t, like, have a waifu or anything! I just enjoyed them for the gameplay. That’s all.”
“I don’t care about your sexuality,” she said. “You don’t need to keep hiding it.”
“I’m not!”
Had I not told her over and over and over and over and over that I wasn’t into girls?! Could someone please believe me already?
“Besides, you’re the one playing this!” I snapped back. “What about you, huh? Are you into girls? Huh?!”
“Perhaps I am.”
“…What.”
I thought that was going to be the comeback of the century, but she just agreed with me. And that threw me. For. A. Loop. Satsuki-san was into girls?
“My father has never been in the picture,” she said, “so I have no close relationships with men. Perhaps that is to blame. My mother has likewise filled my head with her warnings about men.”
“I’m scared to ask, but what warnings?”
Satsuki-san adopted the same expression she wore when the teacher called on her in class. “That I must stay vigilant. For I have always been a beauty, even as a child.”
“Ah. Okay, that makes sense.”
I hadn’t known that Satsuki-san never knew her dad. Now that she said that, everything kinda clicked—you know, like why her mom had a Taser. The hyper-preparedness. Or why they lived alone. No doubt, Satsuki-san’s mom had drilled it all into her from the toddler stage.
“Not to say that you can’t be assaulted by a woman,” Satsuki-san added. “As you can attest to.”
“Yeah! It happens!”
Moving on from the Mai thing, Satsuki-san put a hand on her cheek. “Looking back on it, I suppose it’s been mainly women who have showed me any kindness. My mother’s colleagues often looked out for me and such.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Besides, girls are just easier to talk to in general. And they’re nice and cute and pretty and sweet. And they smell better than guys! They just. Girls, man. They rock. So yeah, I get what you mean.”
There was a bafflingly long silence. Huh? Wait, look—this didn’t mean I was into girls myself!
Satsuki-san finally said, “I was not going to go that far, but I suppose you’re right. At any rate, it must all depend on the environment you grow up in and the sort of people you meet.”
“For sure.”
“Yes, but be that as it may…” Satsuki-san smirked. “I don’t like anyone in a romantic sense, so me ‘liking girls’ is entirely theoretical.”
Wait, didn’t that contradict everything she’d just said?
“Fine!” I snapped. “Here, play your game. I’ll watch.”
“If you insist. I haven’t started it yet, just so you’re aware.”
She pressed Play, and I scooted closer to watch. Oof. We were awfully close now. N-not that my mind wandered in any untoward directions. I wasn’t into girls, as we all knew. Oh, but who were we kidding? I was nothing but a mess of excuses. Look, it was just because she was so pretty and my ex-girlfriend to boot!
“Oh, hold on,” I said. “You have to name your MC after yourself whenever you play dating sims. It’s just one of those things everyone does.”
“Is it really?”
“Yeah, duh. It increases the immersion factor and makes the game more fun.”
“Hmm. Much like a second-person story, I would assume.”
I didn’t know what the heck that was, but I said, “Yup!”
Thus, Koto Satsuki made her video game debut…sorta. Because when the game said, “I’m Koto Satsuki, your average high school boy. And before the end of my three years at my new co-ed school, I’m going to get a cute girlfriend!” Satsuki-san groaned.
“Good God almighty. What on earth is this atrocity?” she said.