nanashi: gg
✦ ✦ ✦
It was time for the usual parting exchange. I was planning to cut out as soon as my opponent offered the default reply…
✦ ✦ ✦
NO NAME: Do you live in the Kanto area?
✦ ✦ ✦
Huh? They’re asking where I live? What are they up to?
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nanashi: Yeah…?
NO NAME: Would you like to meet up?
nanashi: You mean irl?
NO NAME: Yes. If it’s okay, I’d like to talk and have a rematch.
✦ ✦ ✦
An invitation to meet offline. Probably one-on-one. Am I reading this right?
What should I do? True, it’s getting easier to meet face-to-face with people from the Internet these days, and honestly, it’s not that dangerous. Given we’re already connected by our status as the top two Atafami players, meeting up could be interesting. So…
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nanashi: Okay, let’s do it.
NO NAME: Thank you! What’s the closest train station to your house? I was the one who initiated, so I’ll come to you.
nanashi: Oh, okay, it’s…
✦ ✦ ✦
I gave the name of a station, and we made plans to meet. It wasn’t actually the closest one to my house, but the major terminal a stop over. I figured that would be more convenient for them.
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NO NAME: Got it! So I’ll see you next Saturday at 2:00. Looking forward to it!
✦ ✦ ✦
And thus, right after our long-awaited match, NO NAME and I agreed to meet offline like it was no big deal at all.
✦ ✦ ✦
After playing Nakamura on Saturday and NO NAME on Sunday, Monday’s homeroom in second-year Class 2 was more ordinary than I’d expected. I’d been prepared to find that my place in the pecking order had plunged even further thanks to Nakamura, so I felt a little deflated, but mostly relieved.
Nakamura had a reputation as the best player back in junior high (and thus probably in high school, too), and I was known for my unusual skills, but the match between us hadn’t exactly been earthshaking news. Still, word had filtered through the class that it would be the most interesting thing to happen for a couple of weeks. I figured the reason no one was mentioning it now despite the buildup was that they guessed what had happened and were treading lightly around the sore spot. Well, that was the most peaceful outcome I could have hoped for.
✦ ✦ ✦
My days as a loner passed as they always did. Nothing exciting happened, but I wasn’t particularly unhappy. As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This was my life, and I was fine with it.
That was the general situation until a minor event occurred on Wednesday afternoon.
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I was walking down the hallway on my way to eat lunch by myself, as always, when I ran into Nakamura. Under normal circumstances, we’d have ignored each other, but this time something was different. Nakamura had a girl with him: Aoi Hinami.
Aoi Hinami was the ideal Japanese girl—beautiful and talented, but a little innocent, too. The inarguably perfect heroine, popular with guys and girls alike. Of course, she was at the top of our class academically, but she was also way better than any other girl at sprints and throwing and the rest of PE activities. And not just girls—she was neck and neck with the top guys, too, like some kind of game-breaking character. She wore pleasant, natural makeup and had a friendly smile, and there was something about her that was impossible to hate. I’m not sure whether to call her simple-minded or sincere or just kind of a ditz, but that minor weakness crossed the final t on her perfect-girl identity. Admittedly, her charm was a little sexy, too. It’s beyond me how she made it all work. I’m terrible at real life, and even I couldn’t help liking her. Or maybe I should say I was in awe of her.
I have no idea what she’s doing at Sekitomo High School. This may be one of the better private schools in Saitama Prefecture, but it’s still Saitama, and compared to the college prep schools in Tokyo, we’re average at best. Plus, we’re out in the middle of a bunch of rice fields. Get a couple kilometers from a train station in Saitama, and you’ll generally find yourself in the middle of nowhere.
I remember overhearing a conversation in class once, when I was sitting behind two other kids. They weren’t exactly cool or uncool, but they were definitely cooler than me.
✦ ✦ ✦
“So what do you think about Aoi-chan?” one of them had asked.
“You mean Aoi Hinami?” the other one said.
“Yeah.”
“What do I think? I mean, she’s awesome. Doesn’t everyone think that? She’s a superstar.”
“Yeah.”
“She’s, like, a prodigy. School, sports, looks…everything about her is perfect. ‘Genius’ still feels like an understatement.”
“True that. I know I could never beat her at anything. Neither could you.”
“But she still gets along really well with everyone; that’s the weird part. If you asked me which girl I got along best with, I’d say Aoi Hinami.”
“…Me too. I’m closer to her than any of the others.”
“Right? It’s strange. She doesn’t get anything out of being friends with us, but she doesn’t pick and choose. She doesn’t use people, I don’t think.”
“What is it, then? I guess we could call her a genius at life…”
“That’s the perfect way of putting it. She’s not a baseball genius or a genius inventor or whatever—she’s a genius at life. A goddess.”
“I wish I could thank her parents for putting her in school here.”
“Right? The only thing better about Saitama than Tokyo is that we’ve got Aoi Hinami.”
✦ ✦ ✦
As I listened to their conversation, I thought, What’s that say about me, then? I can’t even make friends with Aoi Hinami—I’ve never even talked to her! Maybe I’m my own kind of genius.
I was also thinking they should stop talking about Tokyo all the time and focus on beating Kanagawa first. Or maybe Chiba. We’d never lose to Chiba.
Anyway, Aoi Hinami was there in the hall with Nakamura. Of course, she would have known that Nakamura and I were going to play each other, and that knowledge was the gunpowder for our little explosion.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, Tomozaki-kun! I heard you played Shuji in Atafami! How was that?”
“Um, uh, hi, Hinami-san, uh, it was grape.”
I was a stuttering mess. I even said grape instead of great. I’m not going to blame my status as a super-geek; I bet even a casual geek would have stuttered with Aoi Hinami.
“Ha-ha-ha, ‘grape’? What are you talking about?!”
She was obviously laughing at me, but weirdly enough, I didn’t feel like I was being made fun of. Maybe it was the innocence in her smile, or the beautiful sound of her laugh, or maybe it was how gracefully she covered her mouth with her hand. All I felt was happiness at having made Aoi Hinami-san laugh. What the heck was going on? Her smile was bewitched or something.
“Ha-ha-ha, I enjoyed that! Oh yeah, I almost forgot to ask! Who won?”
Enjoyed it? She enjoyed it! Could there be anything more wonderful than Aoi Hinami-san enjoying something I did?
She was like some kind of saint with the power to put these thoughts in my head. What was this?
“Uh, um…”
“Yeah?”
But Nakamura was right there next to us. The sight of me had obviously put him in a bad mood. I couldn’t do much about it, though. I’d dug my own grave with that overzealous speech after we played.
The problem was, I didn’t know what would happen if I said I won when he was already irritated, and especially when he standing next to the school heroine. He probably wanted to impress her, and he probably wouldn’t be too happy if I stole even more of his thunder. Yup, this could get nasty.
Okay, I’ll admit, part of me wanted to show off in front of the most popular girl in school. I may be messed up, but I’m still human. On the other hand, I knew it wouldn’t lead to anything. In fact, people might be like, He’s too good, what a freak, LOL! Why? Because life is an unfair, shitty game.
And in that case, it would be better to just smooth things over and say I lost. Then again, I might end up hurting Nakamura’s pride… And that was when I realized something.