Lower than low, Haruyuki ignored his afternoon classes and the homeroom that followed, dashing out of the classroom as if fleeing the scene. Banishing from his mind the voice telling him that he should go wait for Chiyuri outside her classroom two doors down or at the school gates or somewhere along the road home, he made a break instead for his other hiding spot, the library.
Spaces like libraries had functionally ceased fulfilling their original roles long ago. However, there were some grown-ups who thought that, just like the school itself, paper media was essential to a child’s education, and the walls were lined with the spines of brand-new books set atop bookcases that could only be considered a waste of space and resources.
But then, thanks to this attitude, he was guaranteed precious personal space within the school, so he couldn’t complain. Carrying two or three books for camouflage, he locked himself up in one of the reading booths along the wall and stuffed his body into the narrow chair before executing the order for a full dive at a volume just barely loud enough for the Linker to catch.
Precisely because it had only been a few minutes since classes ended, the school net was deserted. He needed to hole himself up in his usual refuge while the net was still empty, and he cut through the grass at top speed to climb the tree building.
Naturally, the virtual squash corner was bare. To be honest, he would have preferred a bloodstained battle game to this simple racquet sport to banish the gloominess in his heart, even temporarily, but given that he couldn’t connect to the global net, he was stuck with the school net and its limited selection of gaming apps.
Although his hunger was already more than he could bear, he didn’t feel like going home straightaway. He had no idea what he should do, what he should say if he ran into Chiyuri on the way home. Well, first off, he should apologize, but he wasn’t so sure he could make his mouth do what he wanted it to.
That day, it was just like this.
On the verge of remembering another time a long time ago when he had made Chiyuri cry like that, Haruyuki shut his eyes tightly. Keeping them closed, he brought his right hand up to the control panel and logged in.
Fumbling, he gripped his racquet, changed the orientation of his body, and faced the court before opening his eyes and trying to beat back the heaviness in his heart using the ball that dropped down when—
Haruyuki froze.
The primary colors of the 3-D font in the center of the court displayed a different number from the one he remembered.
“Level…one sixty-six?!”
More than ten levels higher than the one Haruyuki had achieved just a few hours earlier.
For a second, he wondered how this could have happened given that scores are managed by student ID, but he soon figured it out. Because Haruyuki had been forcibly logged out when Chiyuri hit him on the head, the game had been disengaged with him still logged in. So someone could have picked up where he left off and destroyed his score.
However…
Someone other than him getting a score like this?!
The one thing that had kept Haruyuki’s pride from crumbling completely was his VR game technique in the full dive environment. Obviously, this didn’t include quiz and board games, where winning depended on how smart you were, but when it came to shooters or action or racing games where what mattered was how fast your reflexes were, it was a point of pride for Haruyuki that there wasn’t a soul in school who could best him.
But he never made a show of this. Since elementary school, he’d had it drummed into his head—often painfully—that nothing good came of making himself conspicuous. Up to now, he’d been of a mind that he didn’t actually need to confirm his superiority, but…this awe-inspiring squash score…
Just then.
A voice behind him. Not Chiyuri’s. It was a girl, but her voice was lower and sounded smooth like silk. “So you’re the one who got that ridiculous score?”
Turning around trepidatiously, Haruyuki saw: a dress inlaid with silver in the darkness. An umbrella piercing the floor like a cane, a sword. Snow-white skin and inky black eyes. Kuroyukihime.
Even though she was an avatar, there was not even the faintest hint of digital about her appearance, almost a type of extreme beauty. The most popular person in school moved forward noiselessly. A faint smile playing across her red lips—the only part of her entire body with any color—Kuroyukihime continued, “Don’t you want to go further, boy…to accelerate?”
If you do, come to the lounge at lunch tomorrow.
Leaving just these words to linger, Kuroyukihime abruptly logged out.
The time her avatar had existed in Haruyuki’s field of vision was likely not even a full ten seconds. The event was just too impossible; he could even have believed it had been a bug on the local net server or an illusion, but the incredible score still floating above the court was real enough.
Unable to muster up the desire to try for a new high score, Haruyuki ended his dive and sat in the library reading booth, staring off into space. Three lines looped endless in his ears. Kuroyukihime’s tone was not like that of a regular girl their age, but he didn’t feel it was out of place in the slightest given her incredibly powerful presence. It actually made him see at least part of the reason she was so tremendously popular, not just with the boys but with the girls as well.
Haruyuki finally left the school on wobbly legs, his body essentially on autopilot as he made his way home. Had it not been for the traffic prediction display in the audiovisual mode of his Neurolinker, he likely would’ve been run over at least two or three times.
When he arrived at his deserted luxury condo in Koenji, Haruyuki immediately warmed up a frozen pizza, scarfing it down with a soda. His parents had gotten divorced ages ago, and though he lived with his mother now, she never got home before midnight. He only ever saw her when she gave him his lunch money just as he was about to leave for school.
His once-empty stomach now full of junk food, Haruyuki retreated to his room. Normally, he’d do his routine check on the global net, run around a battlefield in Europe for a few hours, and go to bed after giving his all to his homework, but today at least, he didn’t feel like doing anything. Maybe because too many things had happened his brain felt heavy, as if it were swollen, and Haruyuki flopped down onto his bed after taking off his Neurolinker.
His sleep, though, was nothing particularly restful. The sneers of Araya and his gang, Chiyuri’s tears, and Kuroyukihime’s mysterious words played over and over in his head, turning up in his dreams, toying with him.
Don’t you want to go further…to accelerate?
The Kuroyukihime in his dream was not her avatar but the actual vice president of the student council. Even though he had only ever seen her onstage at school assemblies with an aloof, expressionless look on her face, for some reason in his dream, a mischievous, almost inviting smile curled up at the corners of her lips, and she whispered in Haruyuki’s ear. Come here.