So she knew they existed and still wanted to force this game on me. Not that I could entirely blame her. There were a bunch of issues with copyright and whatever, and besides, I wouldn’t want to watch someone else playing an RPG. I was surprised and frankly impressed by this judicious approach. But she ruined that right quick.
“Besides, this game has a special function where the voice actors actually say the name you choose for the protagonist. Who wouldn’t want to hear their name during events? Not to mention the scene where they express their feelings for one another!” She closed her eyes, letting herself fall into reverie.
Shoulda known. She’s hopeless. And jeez, what the hell were the devs thinking, adding a bloated feature like that? It’d be way simpler to pick a static name for the protagonist and save themselves—and me—the hassle. At least my little sister wouldn’t have been harassing me about it.
I mean, come on—playing a dating sim with a protagonist who had my sister’s name? That’d be pure torture.
“If you’re so hung up on this, then like I said: clear it yourself.”
She sniffed. “Isn’t it obvious that I’m gonna be busy? I’m heading overseas with my friends.”
“Overseas?!” I squeaked, acting surprised. In fact, this was more like the missing puzzle piece that made everything click together. Now I knew why she was all dolled up.
“Anyway, beloved big brother of mine,” she said in that sugary-sweet voice, “won’t you please give me some spending money, too?”
I grimaced. “Hell no. If you’re that hard up, ask Dad. I’m sure he’d love to shell out for you.”
My little sister had always been a natural at everything she tried. My parents babied her far more than they ever had me. What was worse, they trusted her more, too. She put on an immaculate facade in front of everyone we knew and had them all fooled.
“Dad already gave me money,” she said.
I slapped my hand over my face. “Seriously, Dad?” It was all too easy to picture him obliging her without so much as a fuss. My old man was particularly soft on her.
“If you do as I ask,” she said, “I’ll help you resolve that little misunderstanding with Mom.”
This was an allusion to a certain incident that had, as a matter of fact, occurred only a few days ago. Blood rushed to my head.
“That was your fault in the first place!” I bellowed. “I wouldn’t even be in this mess if you hadn’t been stashing your boys’ love crap in my old bedroom!”
I still had a room back at our family home, even though I didn’t actively live there, and my sister had taken to hiding her BL books and merch in all its nooks and crannies. None of our relatives knew about this specific hobby of hers—except me. Problem was, our mom had stumbled on the stash while cleaning. I got a phone call the same day. “If you’re into that sort of thing, Son, you could have just told us.”
It wasn’t until Mom explained what she meant that I realized what was going on. Try as I might to correct her, it did no good. The more desperately and vehemently I denied it, the more suspicious she and Dad became. The worst part was how understanding they’d been, saying things like, “It’s fine if that’s what you’re into,” and “There’s no reason for you to hide it.”
Intense fury washed over me then—not toward my parents, of course, but the true culprit. They had believed her the second she pointed the finger at me and genuinely thought all that BL crap belonged to yours truly. Just more proof that they would always take her word for it rather than listen to me.
A devious smirk crossed my sister’s face. “If you clear this game for me, I promise I’ll clear things up with Mom for you. You like dating sims for guys, right? This should be a cakewalk.”
Admittedly, it would be hard to put up with my family having the wrong idea about me forever. No matter how I insisted to my parents that I was only interested in women, and no matter how I tried to explain what had happened, they wouldn’t believe me. Could anyone blame me for giving in at that moment, knowing how awful that felt?
“You…you mean it, right?” I said.
“I swear I’ll hold up my end of the bargain, my dearest, beloved older brother. Oh, but I am counting on you to fork over some cash for my trip. Don’t worry. I’ll bring you back some souvenirs.” She grinned from ear to ear.
I snatched some bills out of my wallet and slapped them into her open hand. “There.”
“Thanks, Big Bro.”
As soon as she had what she wanted, I wasn’t her “dearest beloved” anything anymore, just “Big Bro.” That was the clearest possible demonstration of her rotten personality. She didn’t have a job, so she didn’t have much in the way of spending money. That was also probably why she’d come here. She figured she could bum some cash and shove her nightmare-mode otome game off on me all at the same time.
My little sister spun around and strode out the door before pausing to glance back. She lifted a hand, waving lazily. “See ya. I’m counting on you to beat the game. And I mean a full clear.”
Full clear meant all the endings, all the CGs, all the ending movies, everything… That way the player could freely view them later on. I was less concerned with having to finish out all the routes than I was about the supposed monstrous difficulty level.
I pulled the plastic game case out of the bag she’d handed me and furrowed my brows. “I wonder how many playthroughs it’ll take to finish this stupid thing.”
I glanced at the cover. The dudes pictured there did nothing for me, but the protagonist caught my interest—mainly because she didn’t have the sort of design you’d expect for a game aimed at girls.
My eyes landed on what I assumed was the subtitle—or perhaps the Japanese title of the game. “Ancient Love, huh?”