Chapter 91

LOST DAYS · 6 “Huh. So that’s how you got friendly with each other? A classroom, late at night…That’s pretty romantic.” “You don’t have to make it sound all gross like that! It’s not like anything happened.” “Aw, what’s the big deal?” Not spending any of the money I was gifted for the past several New Year’s Days resulted in a pretty decent amount of savings. It let me buy a much better PC than I was expecting. Having a computer made me realize all over again how useful the Internet was. You could play games while using voice chat to talk to people without a phone, and it was all free, too. Amazing. I was using the software Shintaro had told me to download to talk to him right now. But was this really a good thing? We weren’t going to put the phone company out of business, were we? I was a little worried about that. Several months had passed since the school festival. Ever since that day, it had become a nightly ritual for me and Shintaro to play online games together. It was the first time I’d done anything like that, but I found them both incredibly deep and astoundingly fun the more I got into them. I always pictured video games as these things you played by yourself, but online games were kind of like virtual worlds, places where you could interact with people and compete with them in real time from anywhere in the world. Some of them were newbies like me, and some were virtual mountain hermits who spent years honing their craft. Working on my own skills and taking on these faceless opponents felt less like a game and more like interacting with a different culture. I quickly found it incredibly addictive. These days, I was spending nearly every evening online, playing Dead Bullet -1989- (Takane’s home turf) and a variety of others. I mixed up my choices because Shintaro told me to. “You’ll be less one-dimensional that way,” he said. “It’ll make you a better player.” Perhaps because of that, I was building a pretty decent record for myself in Dead Bullet. My handle, “Konoha,” was starting to get a little name recognition whenever I showed up in the lobby. Shintaro, on the other hand, never played it. The game helped me overcome my fear of zombies for good, but apparently his case of undead-phobia was a lot more serious than mine. “You’ve gotten really good, though, haven’t you? At this point, I bet you’d get up there in the rankings for pretty much any game you tried.” “Huh? Y-you think so? Well, that’s just because you’ve been such a good teacher to me, Shintaro.” “Teacher? I don’t think I really taught you anything. Oh, hey, more squids incoming.” The moment Shintaro mentioned that, the windows of the mansion that loomed on-screen shattered, a swarm of multitentacled aliens slithering out of each one. The “squids” he mentioned, in other words. I wrapped my fingers around my controller and calmly began sniping them down. Today we were playing Pumpkin Shooter, a free-to-play game with a Halloween motif. You chose your own character from a witch, a werewolf, some kind of Frankenstein-like thing, and so on, then you fought to defend Earth against a giant alien invasion. A little light on plot, maybe, but seeing it in action was a thrill. I loved it. Playing it, you got the idea that the developers took a pretty direct approach. If monsters are scary, and aliens are scary, then mixing them together ought to be super-double scary. Shintaro still liked it, though. “Deep,” he called it. By the way, Ghoulish Gourd, the game’s de-facto mascot, was a pretty useless power-up by default, but if you didn’t mind shelling out for microtransactions, he’d fly over to the nearest alien horde and blow himself up. This selfless fighting spirit meant that players universally just called it “the pumpkin bomb.” That didn’t matter to me as much as Shintaro just mentioning I’d “gotten really good.” Receiving praise from Shintaro was an achievement in itself. It elated me as I fired a few more salvos into the next wave of squids. “Y’know, if you keep that up, maybe you could even beat her next time. What was her name? Enomoto?” “Huh? Oh, no way. Takane’s still way too tough for me, heh-heh-heh…” “You think so? I dunno. You really got your moves down pat these days. I think you got at least a fighting chance. Why don’t you challenge her to a duel?” That’s easy for you to say. But Takane (well, Ene, really)? She was on a whole different level. I’d seen videos of her in competitive tournaments, and what I saw made me doubt I had any chance. Not that I couldn’t take her on, of course. I mean, I’d lose, but I could always try playing her anyway. But I didn’t want to yet. Why not? Well… “Lemme guess. You’re afraid that if you lose real bad to her, she’ll never play you again, right?” Bingo. It felt like one of the squids on-screen had wrapped a tentacle tightly around my heart. “Well, that…that’s…part of it, but…Oh, it’s all riiight, though, okay? I’ll ask her when I feel like it! Give me a break!” “Yeah, yeah. Not like it’s any of my business anyway…More squids.” The warning was followed by the sound of a door creaking open. Not from the game, but from Shintaro’s room, through my headphones. Then, a girl’s voice. I began to get a little nervous. “Hey, bro, can I talk to you for a sec?” “Huh? Dude, are you stupid or something? I told you to knock before coming in! I’m kind of busy right now—” “Ooh! You’re playing that game with the squids in it! Cool! I wanna play the squid game, too!” Oh! This must have been Shintaro’s little sister I’d heard about. He said she liked “weird” things, didn’t she…? “These squids are sooooo cute!” Yep. It had to be her. But what did she want? Something related to Shintaro? “You can end the call if you want,” I said. No reply. He must’ve already removed his headset. “Look, I’m playing with somebody right now. Can you just go away? You’re annoying me.” “What’s with that? How come you’re willing to play with some random stranger, but not me? What’s so bad about me, huh?” “Okay, well, one, you’re a total sore loser! You start crying and punching me and stuff. That’s not exactly fun for me, you know, putting up with you!” Eesh, Shintaro. Kind of going too far, aren’t you? As I expected, his sister’s voice began to grow shaky. She wasn’t raising it yet, but I could tell she was angry. “Is that what you want? Well, fine. I won’t play any games with you at all. Ever! For my whole life!” “Yeah, do what you want. I don’t care. But if you come back later and ask to play, don’t expect me to say yes.” Oh, Shintaro! That’s just being mean! You’ll make your sister cry! I craned my ears to find out what’d happen next. After a couple of sniffles, she shot back, her voice almost at a whisper: “I—I actually stopped by a video arcade on the way home from school today. I wanted to practice a little. The owner came out and asked me if I wanted to be in some event they’re holding next week. He said he liked my voice, and maybe I could be a big star and things…I was kind of nervous about it, so I felt like I should ask you first…” “Huuuh?! What the hell’s up with that?! He wants you to go up onstage or something? There’s no way you could—” “But I’ve already decided to do it! I don’t need to listen to you anymore, bro!!” Then, the slamming of a door echoed across my ears. “Hey! Momo!” Shintaro cried out at the end, but there was no reply. The audio fell silent for a bit. Was he chasing her down? It seemed possible, but from the background noise I could pick up, it sounded like he was just sitting there, unsure what to do next. After a while I heard him say “Oh” softly and pick his headset back up. “…Uh, sorry. I forgot we were still on a call.” “Oh, no problem. Man, your sister, though…” He didn’t respond at first. Maybe he was thinking about something. I decided to press on. “Um, maybe you should try discussing things with your parents or something…?” It seemed like a smart move to make, judging by their conversation. “No,” Shintaro began. “If I told my parents that she went to an arcade, they’d probably ground her forever. Besides, I can’t put up with every single one of her tantrums. If I did, like…all this wouldn’t be…” Shintaro sounded dead serious about it. Myself, though, I felt relieved. I admired him in a way. He was playing the big-brother role after all, wasn’t he? “Yeaaah…Well, guess we’ll just have to do something about it ourselves.” “…Huh?” I closed the game window and brought up my calendar to check what dates the next weekend fell on. Then I opened a browser window. In the search box, I typed the date, the name of the local neighborhood, “arcade,” and “event.” There was only one relevant result. Man, was having a computer ever helpful. “All right, Shintaro. Wanna hit the arcade next weekend?” “…Oh! There she is, Haruka! Right there!” “Huh? Where, where?” “Right over there! Um…I can’t…ngh…” Shintaro tried his hardest to lift his head above the crowd and point in a certain direction. He couldn’t pull it off before the waves of people claimed him. I had no idea where he had been trying to point. It was hard enough to keep myself from falling down and getting trampled. For Shintaro, a fair bit shorter than me, it must have been a harrowing ordeal. When I heard the term “video arcade,” I was expecting someplace a bit cozier; lines of machines, little kids running around with a pile of 100-yen coins in their balled fists, that kind of thing. That didn’t describe this place. It was people, people, people, people, a few game machines, people, people, people…I mean, what the hell? Was this really a video arcade? It felt more like a people arcade. “…Dahh, I lost her! What’s with all these people…Oww!! Hang on, I caught on a corner …No, no, sorry to bump into you…” Shintaro apologized as he let the crowds swallow him for good. If we got separated here, we’d probably not see each other for the rest of the day. “Shintaro?!” I shouted, frustrated. “Where are you?! Shintaro?!” I saw him just barely erupt above the surface, gasping for air. “Aghh! This is insane! And quit running around, Haruka! You’re so huge, I promise I’ll never lose you!” True. My height usually earned me nothing but panicked stares from toddlers and an occasional bump on the head against the ceiling, but at times like these, it was pretty useful. I stretched out as high as I could and looked around. Shintaro was pointing…toward the main stage, it looked like. If Momo was in this building, I assumed that’s where we’d find her. “Haruka, this is totally nuts. If Momo gets put onstage in front of this huge crowd, she’s gonna…” Shintaro placed a hand against his forehead in anguish. “Y-yeah, I know what you mean. Um, how much time do we have until the event begins? …Twenty minutes?” “There’s still twenty minutes?! Agh…nh…M-Momo! Momoooo!” “Whoa! Chill out, Shintaro! …Oh! Sorry, I’m okay! No, I’m not a creepy weirdo or anything…” It turned out that Momo was chosen to join a major event at an oversized video arcade and entertainment center, one of the largest in the area. I guess they were debuting an arcade version of Pumpkin Shooter, the game we were playing not too long ago, and the whole place was already in party mode…Well, not just party mode. It was a party. The whole place. This was in part because, borrowing from the game’s Halloween theme, the event was also a costume contest. You had to be wearing one to get in, which only made things more difficult. We were nowhere near Halloween on the calendar, so I figured there wouldn’t be that many participants. Boy, was I wrong. It made me realize, all over again, how little I actually knew about the world. So, anyway, that was why everyone in the arcade was dressed up like one monster or another. That included me and Shintaro, of course—we did our homework on the event in advance. He was Dracula, and I was Frankenstein. We got a picture of ourselves just a bit ago, but to be frank, we were almost scarily perfect for our roles. But if this was going to be some kind of mega-event, why did the arcade manager ask some girl milling around the machines to participate? I had trouble figuring out what he was thinking. Maybe Momo had some kind of special ability to hypnotize people at a glance. I didn’t know. It could all be some huge misunderstanding on Momo’s part, too—and if it was, no harm, no foul. I’d just get Shintaro to take her back home, and we’d be clear. On the other hand, if she really was emceeing this event, I’d be a little concerned. That depended on the nature of the job, of course, but if worse came to worst, her parents—or the police—might need to get involved. Either way, before things got too hairy, we needed to find Momo. “Haruka…are you thirsty…?” I looked around to find Shintaro speaking to me, soft as a buzzing mosquito. All the people around us were making it uncomfortably hot. I could understand where he was coming from. “Yeah, but…Look, look at that line! We’d probably have to wait half an hour to buy anything…!” “Ugghh…You gotta be kidding me…” Shintaro hung his head, drained of all strength. The light was already gone from his eyes. Yikes. If this keeps up, Shintaro’s gonna be in trouble before Momo is. Between this enormous crowd and everyone dressed in disguises, trying to search for someone right now was a fool’s errand. I recalled what my friend told me earlier: “Shintaro, you said you saw her a few minutes ago…?” “Yeah. I think it was her, but…” “Do you know what kind of costume she’s wearing? I can look for it!” Shintaro shook his head. “No, I don’t know. I haven’t even seen her once since that fight we had…” “Huh? Then how’d you know it was her in the middle of this crowd?” “Oh, easy. Just look for craziest-dressed person in the room.” The way he put it suggested that he thought it was the most obvious thing in the world. The “craziest-dressed”? Kind of a matter of personal opinion, wasn’t it? I couldn’t really use that as a baseline for my search. I didn’t know how to respond to it, so I turned my head around a few times, trying to spot the weirdest costume I could. It seemed like a silly idea, but… …Whoa. What’s that crazy outfit? “…Wait, I got it! Sh-Shintaro, I found someone really crazy. What’s up with that thing?! There’re pig’s feet coming out of the head…” “Oh, thank God! That’s her! Let’s get going.” “Going? We have to go near that thing?!” Faced with this costume, literally the craziest costume on the planet, I could feel every hair on my body stand on end. It was like I was bewitched by some sort of curse. Just approaching it made me fear for my life. But even as I hesitated, Shintaro was cutting through the crowd. I couldn’t just stand there, so I decided to follow him. We managed to make it about thirty feet from her when the cell phone in my pocket began to ring. The crowd made it difficult to even reach down to retrieve it, but I somehow managed to jam a hand down there, fetch the phone, and bring it up to my eyes. Takane’s name was on the screen. I pressed the button, wondering what was up. “H-hello?” “Hello? Hey, Haruka. Wow, where are you? Sounds pretty loud.” Between the roar of the crowd and the music piped in through the PA system, the arcade was extremely loud. I cupped the bottom of the phone with my hand to try to block whatever sound I could. “Sorry! What’s up, though?” “Well, today’s Ayano’s birthday, so…Did you know that?” It was news to me. “No, not at all! In fact, how’d you know, Takane?” “Surprised huh? We’ve actually been texting buds for a little bit. Hee-hee-hee!” Takane sounded weirdly happy about this. Texting buds itself was a new term to my ears. “So anyway, I thought we’d celebrate it today, but what’re you doing right now?” “Huh?! Well, I’m, uh…” It’d be easy to just tell her I was out with Shintaro, but they were still bitter rivals. If I was too indiscreet about revealing that, it could lead to some rough sailing. The way Takane put it, she was organizing some kind of party. I wanted to attend, as long as it was after we took care of Momo, but I had no idea how much time that’d take. Now what? What should I say…?! “…Um, I’m sorry. I, er…I’m out shopping a little.” “Wh-why’re you phrasing it all weird…? All right, though. I gotcha.” Ugh! I just told such a stupid lie! Takane, I’m sorry! There’s nothing I can do about it. If I told you the truth, I know it’d just put you in a crappy mood again. “…Oh! Right, I had one more thing I wanted to ask you. Can I?” “Hyah?! What is it?!” “Well…” She lowered her voice. “Like, he’s there with you, isn’t he?” Putting it like that, I assumed she meant Shintaro. I nodded. “Yeah, but what’s up?” “Well, I guess Ayano told him when her birthday was, too, before. She’s acting really restless today, so I feel kinda bad for her, so…You know, I doubt he forgot or anything, but I just wanted to see if he had some kind of present for her. Did he mention something about that?” …If Shintaro was here right now, then no way did he remember. “I—I got no idea! No, none at all!” “…Oh. Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t…Oh, here we are!” “Here we are”? Was she going out somewhere? Come to think of it, I was starting to hear some background noise from Takane’s side of the line, too. “Anyway, I’m gonna be out with Ayano for a bit. Hee-hee! Hope you don’t regret your shopping trip now, Haruka. If you were free, I was gonna take you someplace you would’ve died to visit!” “Oh?” I was starting to feel tremendously guilty about all this. “Uh, heh-heh-heh…Next time, then, okay?” “Not gonna happennnnn!” she lilted at me before hanging up. I could feel the tension suddenly drain from my body. Why did I have to lie to her like that? I couldn’t have handled that any less smoothly. Let’s just get this deal with Momo wrapped up so I can go to their party or whatever. Even if I showed up a bit late, I knew where Ayano lived, so… I proceeded onward until I spotted Shintaro standing near the wall off one side of the main event stage, head hung down. I ran up to see what the deal was. Apparently he had tripped over a cord and accidentally unplugged the lighting system they were about to use for the event. It didn’t look like anything serious, but one of the stage crew was in the midst of giving him a little lecture about it. However, my attention was focused less on the apologetic Shintaro and more on the girl nearby, grimly glaring at him. She had what looked like pig’s feet growing out of her head, and her outfit was the same one I spotted before. At long last, it was Momo. Once the crewman left, Momo went up to Shintaro and started talking to him about something. Whatever Momo said to him made Shintaro’s face erupt in abject sadness. She then left him standing there, blending back into the crowd. I rushed up to Shintaro and patted his shoulder. “You all right, Shintaro?” “Oh, Haruka…I’m in the doghouse now…” He must have been talking about the lighting. It riled up Momo, too; that much I knew without asking. “Well, hey, what’s done is done, okay? I actually wanted to talk to you about something else, but what did Momo just say to you?” Shintaro’s face seemed to be drained of all life as he furtively moved his lips. “She was like, ‘Why did you come here if you were just gonna make trouble for me?’ Then she was like, ‘I’m never gonna call you my brother again’…Heh-heh. It just makes you laugh, huh?” Then he slid down, skidding against the wall as he slumped to the ground like a burnt-out husk. “I…I’m not even her brother anymore. I can’t believe this. Ahh…Haruka, how am I looking right now?” Well…Um. Pretty gross, Shintaro. Pretty gross. “Ugh, I’m dead. You can just go ahead and call me ‘Shintaro the Ex-Brother’ from now on, Haruka. Ha-ha-ha…” I think I won’t, thanks. As a nickname, I couldn’t stomach the idea of it. It surprised me, though, to see how much his sister affected his emotions after all. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters so I couldn’t commiserate, but even I could tell it was tough for him. I crouched down next to Shintaro and flashed a smile. “Well, there’s no point just sitting here, you know? Besides, we need to convince Momo to get outta here, remember?” “Oh…Yeah, actually, I guess we had the wrong idea the whole time. Check that out…” Shintaro pointed at the main stage. From the other side, a woman dressed like a somewhat provocative nightclub bunny jumped into the spotlight, accompanied by Ghoulish Gourd, the ol’ pumpkin bomb himself. Once she was front and center, the bunny girl breezily reminded the audience that it was almost time to sign up for the event. Checking the clock, I saw that only about ten minutes remained until things kicked off, but I didn’t see any role for Momo to play in this show. So maybe she just got it all wrong after all…? As I pondered that, the guy in the Gourd costume struck a wacky pose and shouted “Pump -kiiiin!!” to the audience. The crowd adored it. “You’re so cute!” I heard someone say. …Hang on. I think I’ve heard that Ghoulish Gourd’s voice before. “So I guess they hired Momo to do the voice for that ‘pump-kiiiin’ thing, and that’s all she did. Apparently they didn’t have anyone else handy.” I see. She was the big star of the show, in a way. Her voice was, at least. Which meant all our concerns about stage-show mishaps were probably for naught. Which was great…but something about this still didn’t add up. There were already a million voice actors out there. Why would they just pick Momo up off the street to handle that job? “Yeah, what can I say?” Shintaro said, picking up on my concern. “This kind of crazy stuff…like, it just happens to her. It’s not normal.” That may sound harsh on paper, but Shintaro didn’t mean it that way. There was no scorn or regret to his voice. And besides, he mentioned that before when we were searching for her—about her “propensity” for being easily spotted. For all I knew, maybe this really was the status quo for the two of them. But it was nothing I had a chance of understanding, and Shintaro didn’t seem too eager to go into more detail. I decided to stand up and stop thinking weird thoughts. “Well, at least everything’s okay. You wanna do something else now?” “Oh, you can do whatever. I’ve made you hang out with me long enough, besides. I just…” Shintaro began to lightly bang his head against the wall. “I’m no longer her brother, so I think I’m gonna turn into a wall or something instead…Man, this is pretty solid. You bastard.” Oh, great. If you keep this up, we’ll have the cops here for reasons that have nothing to do with Momo. And you’ve completely forgotten about Ayano’s birthday, too, haven’t you, Shintaro? All you’re thinking about is walls and giving yourself a concussion with them. Now what’ll I do? I can’t just leave him and go home. Suddenly, I heard a louder cheer from the audience. I looked up, wondering if the pumpkin had finally decided to explode, only to find that a giant “squid” trophy had popped up behind him. It was draped with a sash that read CHAMPION PRIZE. Wow. Tacky as all get-out. But then I remembered what Momo had said… “H-hey! Hey, Shintaro, you think Momo might like that as a present?!” The question was enough to make him stop beating a wall and turn his eyes to the stage. “Yeah, maybe…Momo really goes nuts for that character, too…” The arcade version of Pumpkin Shooter was a kind of tag team shooting game. We were both experienced players. If we teamed up, maybe we had a chance. The thought filled me with excitement. Yeah! It’s not every day I can join a competition. We came all the way here and everything. It won’t hurt to try. “Let’s join in together, Shintaro! We can’t let this chance slip away from us!” “Yeah. If you’re cool with it, then I…Oww.” Shintaro let his hand dangle as he stood up. It looked like he must have twisted his wrist when he got tangled up in the light cord and fell down. “Are…are you okay?!” “Oh, sure. This is fine. Let’s just hurry up and get signed in…” Only five minutes were left before the event started. There was no time to lose. Shintaro and I dove into the crowd. The registration desk was near the front entrance. If we hurried, we might just make it before the bell. As we shuffled along, I had a sense of déjà vu as I passed by a pair of girls dressed like witches. I didn’t dwell on it, though. Their faces were blocked by their large hats anyway. “Owww…owwwwww…I wanna go home.” Shintaro’s voice was shaky as he rubbed his wrist. “Just hang in there,” I replied softly. “We’re in the final match now…” The championship round was about to take place on the main stage, currently drenched in a variety of colored lights. As the bunny girl and the Ghoulish Gourd got the audience revved up, the four of us—including the team we were about to play against—were lined up front and center. Having the two of us, Shintaro and me, up onstage like this…it was nothing short of a miracle. After all, with Shintaro’s wrist giving him too much pain midway to continue on as normal, it was pretty much up to me to take the reins and play the game two-on-one style. But it somehow worked. Between our opponents making a litany of mistakes and one of them facing an emergency case of diarrhea in the middle of the match, I somehow managed to drag us all the way to the final. Coincidence can be such an amazing thing sometimes. Really, it scares me. I looked out of the corner of my eye at our opponents—Takane and Ayano, both dressed as witches. It brought home exactly how scary it was. As we watched the semifinal round, realizing that the two of them were part of the championship threw us into a panic. Why wouldn’t it? It was Ayano’s birthday, and not only were we playing in some video-game contest instead of spending it with her, I had just lied to Takane about it over the phone. There were obviously going to be repercussions. I had no right to complain, even if they used their witch powers to transform me into a frog or something. I was seriously considering ditching the whole contest and going home, but I held my ground in the end. Something told me that if I suggested that to Shintaro, he’d try to become one with the wall again. Getting seen here was not a smooth move. But I couldn’t leave Momo and Shintaro’s relationship in tatters like this. Thus, we stuck around, going for the utterly hopeless plan of somehow winning without letting them recognize us. This being a costume party, our masks were keeping us somewhat anonymous. If we were caught, it was all over—but given that we were all lined up onstage and Takane wasn’t kicking at my shins, I figured it was so far, so good. This mask, though. It felt like something more suited for a masquerade ball or something. It was incredibly fancy and well detailed. Hearing them comment about it right next to me (“Those guys look totally freaky, don’t they?” “Shut up, Takane, there’re gonna hear you! Hee-hee…”) was starting to mess up my mental game. “Why did they have to be in on this…?” Shintaro whined, his voice still soft and shaky. He had shown up in a Dracula-style suit, but the domino mask he had later put on for insurance purposes made him look like a certain famous superhero from 1990s-era magical girl anime. I, meanwhile, was in a Frankenstein outfit and mask. We were a pretty freaky-looking pair, I’ll freely admit. After the Ghoulish Gourd wrapped up his seemingly endless audience pump-up session, the hour of competition was finally upon us. Both teams were guided to their respective arcade cabinets and seated. We faced one another—me and Takane, Shintaro and Ayano—and while the video screens prevented me from seeing Takane at all, it sounded like she was having fun chatting with Ayano. I sat back in my chair and was just about to steady the grip on my gun controller when I noticed something. “Sh-Shintaro?” “Damn, my wrist hurts…What? What’d you say?” “I…I’ve never played against Takane before…!” Ene herself was right in front of me. The thought filled me with a mixture of joy and morbid fear. My hands began to quiver with excitement. I thought we had a half-decent chance at winning this, but now? Yeah right. Her entering the picture just changed everything. I wasn’t sure I could even fight her, much less defeat her. Wait. No. I gotta get myself out of this headspace. Personally, I shouldn’t be caring if I lost or not—but this time, at least, I couldn’t afford to lose. I’ve got to do this…somehow. Somehow. “…You’re gonna do fine, Haruka.” I turned to see Shintaro looking back at me, doing his best to deal with the pain. “Just do it like you always do, and we got this”—he said with a smile when our eyes met—“so hang in there, okay?” Simple as it was, that was enough to make the tension melt away from my shoulders. “…Thanks. Let’s do it.” Oh man, this is just like how the climax of every sports movie starts out. If I wasn’t dressed up like some kind of masked stalker, it would’ve been one of the coolest moments of my life. Well, nobody’s perfect. The bunny girl gave the signal, and the stage suddenly went dark. “Ready to win this?” I heard Takane say in the blackness. “Uh-huh!” Ayano replied. Nope. Sorry, but we’re not here to lose to you. Just before it began, I turned to him one more time. “We’ve got to win, Shintaro.” “Yep.” This must be what they mean when they say “grinning from ear to ear.” Those were the only words that came to mind when I saw the smile on Momo’s face. “Wow, bro! Are you really sure I can have this?” “Dude, I’m not gonna say it again. But you gotta thank Haruka, too, okay?” Momo turned toward me in response. “Thank you very much!” she said, bowing her head deeply. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” I said, trying to restrain myself as I returned the smile. I really didn’t need any thanks. The main MVP today was Shintaro, who kept plugging away, hands on the gun controller the whole time. That, and that squid currently buried in Momo’s arms, too. Me? I didn’t need anything. It took a bit of time to change back into my regular clothes, but we managed to get out of the arcade while it was still bright and sunny out. We spotted a few costumed attendees on the road back to the rail station. They all looked a little embarrassed. “Haruka, though…” Takane leered at me. “If something was up like that, don’t you think you should’ve just told me? Like, next time you lie to me, don’t expect any mercy.” She was completely right. I had nothing to say in my defense. I swear I’ll never lie again. “Oh, it’s fine, isn’t it, Takane? It got us all together in the end, at least!” Ayano, meanwhile, was in high spirits. Not only did she get to see Shintaro after all, but she also had a chance to introduce herself to Momo. Takane, meanwhile, was more of a mixed bag, incapable of anything but nodding. “Yeah, but…Like, why did you hide that we were playing against him? That’s the thing that bothers me the most!” Her finger, and her eyes, were pointed right at Shintaro. Shintaro stared back, ready to take this fight another round. “Uhh? What’s with you, lady? You’re just all whiny because you can’t stand how Haruka beat you, huh?” “Whaaa?! Are you kidding me?! And how can you even call that losing?! I was just startled because Haruka called my name out in the middle of the freakin’ match! Besides, how come you get away with saying stuff like that? You want Ayano to beat the snot outta you?!”