“…Or so I thought, but despite my name, I don’t always inform people of what I should. A slightly mischievous side to me, if you will.”
“You realize I have absolutely no context for whatever you’re saying.”
Masato had been playing a game in his room when a voice suddenly announced itself behind him. He’d turned his head to find Shirase standing there.
“At least knock…”
“I did not want to break your concentration, so I knocked as quietly as humanly possible.”
Then the knock meant nothing.
Shirase looked over his shoulder at the screen.
“Hmm, an MMORPG?”
“Hey! Don’t look at…!”
“That frame rate is buttery. Your computer has an excellent graphics card, Masato. The whir of that fan is so comforting. And a low-latency monitor, too! Excellent taste.”
“Th-thanks…but this is just what my mom picked out for me. Said someone nice helped her out. You know a lot about computers?”
“In college, I spent a time holed up in my room, afraid people would mock me for my name. The computer OS was the only one who understood me. I did what I could to understand him, too.”
“I think that’s the kind of tragic backstory you’re best not informing people about.”
“Whether you wish to know or not, it is my duty to inform. That is the Shirase seal of quality. Now, to the point…”
“You’re here to inform me that you’ve finished interviewing my mom?”
“Indeed! And…I’m here to inform you that we’d like you to lead a different kind of life.”
“…What?”
Convinced she was talking nonsense again, Masato rolled his eyes. In that instant, Shirase yelled, “You let your guard down!” reaching out to tap the ESCAPE key. The game screen vanished instantly.
As Shirase stretched over Masato’s shoulder from behind, her breasts flattened against the back of his head. He yelped, and she snatched the entire keyboard away from him, opened the browser, and typed in a URL:
www8.cao.go.jp/ksn/mmmmmorpg……
“Hey! What are you doing?! What kind of site is that?!”
“One question, for reference purposes. Surveys conducted by the Cabinet Office have found that many players of online games harbor a desire to enter the game world, if they only could. Do you share that ambition, Masato?”
“W-well, sure. If I could. But I can’t!”
“What if I were about to grant that wish?”
“Huh? B-but that’s…”
Impossible. The word stuck in Masato’s throat.
The instant Shirase tapped the ENTER key, light poured out of his low-response monitor. The light washed over Masato like beachfront waves, enveloping him. Then it returned to the monitor, dragging Masato with it.
“Th-this isn’t… No way!”
“Yes! This is exactly that twist! You never saw it coming!”
“I’m being sent into the game wooooooooooooorld?!”
Masato stopped struggling. He released his hands from the edge of his desk, letting his body ride the current.
His body slipped inside the previously impenetrable monitor. Just then…
…Ma-kun! …Wait for me!
He thought he heard Mamako screaming. Had the commotion caught her attention and sent her running upstairs?
The light was blindingly bright. Masato couldn’t see his mom, but he turned to her and whispered:
“Sorry, Mom… I gotta go.”
Why had he apologized? Because he genuinely felt sorry.
With his father transferred away for work, it was just him and his mother. If her son vanished, his mother would be all alone. Masato knew how hard that would be on her. Part of him didn’t want to do that to her.
It wasn’t like Masato hated his mother.
Of course, he would never admit aloud that he loved her.
But she was the only mom he had, and that was important to him. He thought about her happiness sometimes and wanted to live up to the expectations she had for him.
But it was incredibly hard to express those emotions in actual words. He’d gotten hung up somewhere. Whether it was the fact that she looked too young to be his mom or something else, he just couldn’t handle her anymore. That was Masato’s current circumstance.
But…
I’m gonna have an amazing adventure, get really strong…then maybe I can be more honest with her. That would be nice…
He’d come back some day. And that day, he hoped to tell her, “I’m home,” gently, without embarrassment, and be welcomed with a hug.
With that lovely thought in mind, Masato crossed the boundary between worlds.
✦ ✦ ✦
At last, Masato landed.
He found himself somewhere quite unlike his room. He was standing on a rock altar on the edge of a floating island, one of many such islands dotting the world beneath a wide-open sky.
There was a magic circle at his feet, still glowing dimly.
“Yikes…?!”
Something tiny ran past Masato’s feet: A lizard. With eight legs.
The tiny eight-legged lizard reared up, threatening him with a tiny burst of fire breath—but as ready for combat as it seemed, it immediately turned tail and fled.
There were no creatures like that anywhere in Japan. Or anywhere on the planet Earth, for that matter. Which meant… “No way… Really?” It had to be.
This was the game world? A fantasy world? For real? For real!
Masato yelled, “I’M HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE!”
I made it! I’m really here! Good-bye, reality! Hello, fantasy world!
The story I’ve been waiting my whole life for is finally, finally, finally about to begiiiiiiiin…!
Or so he thought.
“For goodness’ sake, Ma-kun. I said to wait a minute so I could come, too, but you didn’t even hesitate! You make me so sad sometimes.”
“…Huh?”
Hearing a really familiar voice, he turned around and saw a girl.
She was wearing a nice dress and holding an overnight bag so filled with stuff that the zipper wouldn’t close, as if headed out on a journey… No, wait.
She looked like a girl, but in fact, she was a little too old to be one.
It was none other than Masato’s mom, Mamako.
“…Uh… H-hold on… This can’t… This can’t be happening…”
“Ma-kun, you and me are going to have so many adventures together. Hee-hee!”
“WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!”
Masato had been transported into the game…with his mom!
Seriously?! With my own mom? No, no, this can’t be…
But it was.