“Come back again soon!” the chef called after me, his booming voice following me as I stepped outside the ramen shop I always went to after a long day of working overtime. I immediately fell into a brisk walk, my eagerness to return home driving me forward in the direction of the train station.
The sun had long since set and the night sky was full of stars. Despite the late hour, though, the city was still teeming with lights. That being said, this particular ramen shop was quite far from downtown, and there were few people about milling around the streets as I strode along.
There was something liberating about the night, even in the cramped, polluted recesses of a big city like this one. I felt as though the entire world had shrunk down to the distant rumble of car engines and the occasional sounds of other people’s footsteps.
A random song popped into my mind, and I started humming it as I speedily made my way through the relative emptiness of the night streets. Along my way, I passed a young white-collar worker who was hurrying home with her head down, and sidestepped a balding old man who was leaning against a telephone pole and vomiting up the contents of his stomach.
The only thing that managed to halt the swiftness of my progress was a red light, which stopped me in my tracks when I was only a few blocks away from the train station.
Man, this light takes forever to change... I thought, clicking my tongue in annoyance.
I glanced to my side and saw that there was someone else waiting at the crosswalk with me—a high school girl with neat, shoulder-length black hair. She was still wearing her school uniform.
I wonder what she’s doing out this late... I mused. Eh, she was probably visiting a friend or something, and is on her way home now. Either way, it’s got nothing to do with me—in this day and age, all a guy of my years has to do is talk to a school-age kid like her, and then they’re in trouble.
I shifted, making sure I was standing a good three paces behind her, before pulling out my phone. Staring at the dull, multicolored light that emitted from its LCD screen on a dark night like this probably wasn’t the best for my eyes, but I thumbed it on anyway.
I’d been planning on playing a mobile game I’d downloaded recently to kill some time, but instead my gaze was drawn to a notification that had popped up in the corner of my phone screen.
“Huh...” I muttered, eyes tracing over the text. It read: “BB—A Masterpiece Forgotten by Time.”
Now that’s a clickbait title if I’ve ever seen one, I thought. Normally I wouldn’t have paid an article like that any attention, but I was familiar with the game in this one’s title.
BB, huh...? Now that brings back memories.
BB was a shortened version of the game’s official title, which was Braves and Blades. It was a big budget game that the developer had thrown their full weight behind, but had ended up languishing in obscurity due to various factors. Back when it had first released, I’d thought the action-oriented gameplay was quite novel; the game had eaten up tons of my time when I’d been a student.
Maaan, I realized, now that I think about it, BB was the last real video game I played.
I’d been more of an otaku in the past, but ever since I’d gotten a job, I hadn’t had much time to spend on my hobbies. I certainly couldn’t afford to forgo sleep for them like I’d used to. The amount of anime I kept up with had been decreasing with every season, and I didn’t have a moment to spare for more time-consuming pursuits like playing games or reading light novels. At this point, BB felt like it’d become an important hallmark of my youth, though that might have been a bit of an exaggeration.
It’s pretty pathetic, though, I thought, smiling ruefully to myself, that my youth ended up being spent waving motion controllers around in front of a TV screen all day, instead of hanging out with friends or going on dates...
I gave in to curiosity and clicked the link to the article, skimming through its main points as the webpage loaded. “These are the five greatest strengths of BB!” it proclaimed. “First, there’s the History Junction System, which lets you spin an age-spanning tale that’s uniquely yours! Next, you’ve got the game’s real-time hack-and-slash combat, which puts both your reflexes and your tactical prowess to the test, and the Fatal Event system, which makes rescuing your favorite characters an enjoyable, fulfilling challenge. There’s also the game’s rich, branching, multi-end story, which initially received a rocky reception, but is now deeply appreciated by fans! And lastly, BB has a ton of polished extra and postgame content—100%ing it won’t be easy!”
The sight of all that nostalgic game terminology brought a smile to my face, which only grew wider when I saw the illustration on the article’s second page. The image was of Ain, the Prince of Light, and Rex, the Aloof Adventurer, fist bumping each other. I beamed down at my screen, so charmed that I didn’t even care if anyone saw me grinning at my phone like an idiot.
And then...I realized I’d gotten so into the article that I’d forgotten where I was and what I was doing.
“Whoops,” I huffed, wiping the smile off my face as I glanced up to check if the light had changed.
It had—the schoolgirl who’d been standing in front of me had already made her way halfway across the road. Something was off, though. She was standing stock still, her pretty face frozen in fear.
“Huh?” I mumbled, turning in the direction she was looking. “Wha—?!”
My heart nearly stopped—a truck was barreling toward her at a terrifying speed. The vehicle’s rumbling filled my ears as it grew closer, its bright headlights setting my retinas on fire.
Before I knew it, I’d started running toward the girl. Honestly, I have no idea what drove me to be so reckless. I was no hero—I wasn’t the sort who was capable of sacrificing myself to shove her out of harm’s way. Instead, I reached out and grabbed her hand.
“Th-This way!” I shouted, trying to pull her back to safety.
The world fell into slow-motion as the force of my tug sent the girl’s slender body lurching toward me. My touch must have finally broken her out of her stupor, because she looked up at me then, her expression tearful but relieved. A few long, drawn-out seconds passed as we stared at one another, and then something hit me with bone-shattering force.
Everything went black.
❈❈❈
Huh...? My body...it feels like it’s burning.
I tried to move but failed. It took every ounce of effort I had just to open my heavy eyelids. My vision was blurry, but I could still vaguely make out the white strips of the crosswalk. There was a bunch of red liquid spreading out over them, and the lights of the city seemed brighter than usual.
Oh, I thought blankly. I got run over. That truck must have hit me before I was able to make it to safety. Guess that’s what I get for actually trying to do something good for once. I let out a rattling sigh. I hope that girl’s okay at least.
Considering how fast that truck had been going, even my accidental bodily protection might not have been enough to keep her alive. Still, I wanted her to survive, even if she hadn’t made it out entirely unscathed.
I’m so...cold... I moaned internally, shivering against the pavement. Even though my body still felt like it was on fire, my core was growing more frigid with every passing second.
Oh, I realized. I’m dying, aren’t I? I wonder what’s going to become of me...
My family, my friends, the company I worked at...they all passed through my mind, until eventually my memories of them dissolved into a white nothingness. They were all so important to me—or, had been so important to me, I guessed—and yet they slipped away with the same ease as my fading vision.
After that, my mind was mostly blank. Only a single, truly pointless thought managed to surface, mere seconds from the end. Man...if this is it for me, I wish I could have at least been able to play BB one last time...
But that idle wish was just as momentary as all the rest of my musings—slowly, slowly, it drifted away.
Death finally closed over me then, my consciousness plunging into darkness. But I could have sworn, right before I took my final breath, that I heard a voice speaking from just behind my back.
“I will grant that wish of yours,” I thought it had said.