3

When you’re fighting in your element, you hardly ever lose

It was Saturday, a few days later.

I was walking outside a train station in Tokyo with Hinami.

“Still, I’d never have guessed this was where you wanted to take me.”

“Ha-ha-ha, caught you off guard, huh?” I asked triumphantly.

She rubbed her temples like she was sick of me.

A few weeks earlier, right after the school festival ended and I’d told Hinami that Kikuchi-san and I were dating, I’d also told her there was somewhere I wanted to take her.

Unfortunately, we’d been too busy to go before school started again, but we were finally there.

“Listen. You can do what you want, but I’m not gonna talk about myself.”

She was still putting up a little resistance, but I ignored her and nodded confidently.

“That’s fine by me.”

“…Hufff.” She sighed audibly.

“Okay, off we go.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Still, the fact that she followed me despite all her whining made me think she wasn’t completely uninterested. After all, NO NAME would never do something totally pointless.

“…Anyway, I’m pretty nervous about this, too.”

I glanced back at her, but she ignored my confession and cut in front of me.

“Your problem, not mine. If we’re going, let’s hurry up and go.”

“H-hey, wait for me!”

She walked briskly forward. All that complaining, but when I show the slightest vulnerability, I get this. She always has to be in control.

With that, we headed off toward an offline Atafami meetup.

* * *

“…This is it?”

We’d been walking from the station for couple of minutes, using a map I’d pulled up using the address listed on the More Info page.

We were at the venue.

“I’d hardly call this a venue… More like an ordinary apartment,” I said, peering around.

Hinami nodded. “Yeah, looks that way. I read that some people who live together just started holding regular events.”

“Wow, you did your research.”

“Shut up.”

All her complaining aside, she seemed like she might actually be excited…which was a good thing.

We were at a venue called AtaHouse—or more accurately, a group of adjacent apartments occupied by Atafami players who held regular offline tournaments. Hence the nickname.

“The room number is…”

I pulled up the More Info page on my phone and checked the number again and again to make sure I had it right, then rang the bell on the intercom in the lobby.

A few seconds later, a male voice answered. “Hello?”

“Um, we’re here for the tournament.”

“Okay, come on up.”

The lock on the door to the first floor clicked open, and the two of us walked into the elevator.

“M-man, I’m nervous…”

“You are?”

I was the one who’d invited her, but she was still way calmer than me.

“Wh-why are you so unaffected by this?”

“I mean, all we’re doing is going into a room with around ten people we don’t know, right? We’re in our home field.”

“Uh, I beg to differ. I’d call this an away game.”

I smiled cynically, but her business-as-usual attitude was slowly dissolving my anxiety.

“What are you talking about? This is your home field even more than mine.”

“I guess so…,” I said vaguely.

Hinami grinned. “I mean—you are the nanashi.”

“…True.”

She was right.

The room we were about to enter was one of the few places in Japan I could call my home field.

We walked up to the door and pressed the intercom. “Door’s open, come on in,” the voice said, so I put my hand on the knob.

“Ready…?”

“Yup.” Hinami nodded.

I gripped the knob. Then held it for a few seconds.

“…We’re really going in?”

“Just hurry up and do it.” Hinami’s grin was gone.

At her urging, I opened the door—and we stepped into the gaming venue.

* * *

I shuffled in with tiny, embarrassed steps; nearly ten people were already inside. Hinami was behind me, but she was brimming with confidence.

Three monitors were lined up on a table, their cords snaking around, and of course, Atafami was on the screens. On two of them, one-on-one games were already underway, with two players and a small audience in front of each one.

“H-hi.”

At the sound of my voice, a couple of the people watching glanced toward me, then quickly shifted their gazes to Hinami with obvious surprise. Predictable, I guess. Everyone here aside from Hinami was a guy, and even if that wasn’t the case, a girl of Hinami’s caliber would cause a stir anywhere she showed up. I mean, people turned their heads even when we were walking down the street.

“Welcome, uh…?”

A guy who I guessed was the host walked up to us, smiling. He appeared to be in his early thirties, the neat and tidy type you’d see working at an electronics retail store. He glanced back and forth between me and Hinami like he didn’t know what to say. He was probably wondering which of the registered participants we were.

“Uh, we’re here for the first time…”

“Gotcha, nice to meet you! And your names?”

He opened his phone and started looking through what must have been the list of participants. I took a nervous breath.

“Uh, my name is—”

Come to think of it, I probably hadn’t used that name in the real world since I’d met Hinami.

“I’m nanashi.”

In that instant, every eye in the place turned toward me. Both the players in the middle of games as well as those watching. Uh, I think you should focus on your screens, guys…

When I looked back at the host, even he seemed nervous. What do I do now? I knew my name was fairly well-known, but to get such an openly shocked reaction made me unsure what to say.

“Uh…you mean that nanashi…?” the host asked timidly, peering into my face.

“Uh…yeah, I mean, I’m the nanashi on the leaderboards.”

A murmur went through the room again. Right away, everyone’s eyes drifted to Hinami but then were redirected back toward me. Probably because she was so blindingly attractive. Nope, you never get used to someone that beautiful. By the way, she was giving them a friendly smile as she bowed adorably. So we’re in this mode today, huh?

“Wow, you’re younger than I expected. Oh, I’m Harry, the host for today.”

“Nice to meet you. And this…”

“Nice to meet you! I’m nanashi-kun’s friend Aoi.”

Just as I glanced over at Hinami to introduce her, she beat me to it. She’d registered using her real name written in English letters.

“Pleasure’s mine, nanashi-san and Aoi-san. Do you play Atafami, too?”

“I do! But I’m still nowhere near as good as nanashi-kun…”

“Ah-ha-ha! You could say the same about basically everyone in Japan.”

“Very true!”

Hinami was smoothly easing into a friendly conversation with Harry-san, using her skills to full effect.

By the way, Harry-san was an Atafami player as well as a play-by-play commentator on YouTube. His voice was famously velvety, attracting a steady audience.

“So about the system we use here…,” he began, evidently about to start a little tour.

“Th-this is nanashi-san…?”

A guy who looked to be in his late twenties had walked up, addressing his question to Harry-san. He was short with cropped black hair, glasses, and a muscular build. He kept making eye contact with me and then looking away, obviously nervous. Hey, no need to freeze. I’m just a high schooler who’s good at video games, dude.

I tried to make my expression as natural as possible.

“Nice to meet you. I’m nanashi.”

I bobbed my head at him. He clammed up for a minute, seemingly panicked, then dipped his head down and up.

“N-nice to meet you. I’m Max.”

“Oh, so you’re Max-san.”

“Wow, you know who I am?”

I nodded. I didn’t know all that much about him, but he showed up in Harry-san’s videos sometimes, covering games with him. He played the role of question-asker—I guess you could say he was the Watson to Harry-san’s Holmes.

“I’ve seen you on Harry-san’s videos a couple of times. Now that we’re talking, I recognize your voice!”

“Ha-ha… Yup, that’s me. I’m honored that you watch us.”

“Oh, no, it’s great to meet you.”

Once we finished introducing ourselves, Max’s gaze flicked back to Hinami.

“Um, is th-this your girlfriend?”

“Oh, no, no way!” I almost burst out laughing as I firmly shot that question down. “Not at all, she’s a friend. Just a friend.”

As I waved my hand back and forth, Hinami smiled impishly. “You’re so mean! You really want them to know I’m not your girlfriend!”

“Come on…”

I knew she planned to hide the fact that she was NO NAME, but now I realized she was going full throttle into perfect-heroine mode. Understood.

“Ah-ha-ha, you two seem like very good friends…”

Max-san’s slightly probing words sounded a little envious. So I explained, “Uh, she likes Atafami, too, and that’s why we decided to come together.”

“Really!” Max-san exclaimed, his eyes glinting. “Not many girls like Atafami!”

He looked at her, and she nodded.

“Ah-ha-ha! Is that so?”

She must have guessed that he had accepted her because she swiftly moved to consolidate her advantage.

“It really is a great game. It’s fun to play in a group, but when you get into it, it’s so deep.”

“Exactly!”

“And the balance…”

She went on like that, hitting all the right spots in her performance of game-talk. Well, she is genuinely a fan.

“…I just love that part of it!”

“I know! Me too!”

Max-san and Harry-san had both lost their initial nervousness by now and seemed to be enjoying the conversation, enjoying Hinami’s presence. I mean, she was already incredibly good at communicating, so add in the common language of Atafami, and they were going into this battle with Fullheal on their side.

I was joining in here and there, awed by Hinami’s skill, when the other participants started coming over to us. I guess their games had ended. Their sparkling eyes were focused fervently on me. Who would’ve guessed that I’d be attracting more attention than the one and only Aoi Hinami?

“Um…I played you online once, and you crushed me… I really wanted to meet you!”

“Uh, thanks?”

“I’ve learned a lot from watching your games!”

I didn’t know how to react to this flood of emotions from my Atafami fans. Then they started asking me questions, like “Can I shake your hand?” “When did you start playing?” “Do you do offline tournaments?” and on and on. Wow, I really was a celebrity. I knew I was somewhat well-known in the Atafami world, but I had no clue this would happen.

As I was fighting my way through the wave of people and words, I suddenly heard something unexpected.

“—And you’re so good-looking!”

“What?”

I couldn’t help feeling surprised.

I’d never heard that before in my life.

I started to protest, but then I thought about it and stopped midsentence.

I mean, I was probably getting compliments because I’d chosen my outfit carefully based on what Hinami had taught me, gone to the salon regularly, and practiced doing my hair every morning. On top of that, I’d dutifully trained and taught my face how to look cheerful.

Which meant I shouldn’t reject the compliment, but I shouldn’t get all full of myself and let my guard down, either.

What I should probably do is simply accept it.

That’s why I chose to reply:

“…Thank you.”

I stood there confidently, smiling back and meeting the eyes of the person who complimented me.

I don’t know if that was the right response, but after I said it, I felt refreshed.

Interesting. I’d never done that before.

Maybe accepting compliments felt better than I thought.

But the other participants kept on talking.

“He’s also stylish!”

“And he even sounds cool when he talks!”

“It’s like nanashi’s a top-tier character in real life, too!”

My whole set of internal values was threatening to crumble under this rush of unfamiliar praise. No one had ever said this about me before. “Stylish”? “Sounds cool”? “Top-tier character in real life”??? Everything I thought I knew was breaking.

“Uh, um, how about we talk about Atafami…?”

Unsure what to do, I made a feeble attempt to stop them, but the rain of words kept coming. It even intensified.

“Don’t be modest! You’re so cool!”

“You seem like a real extrovert!”

“Um…she is your girlfriend, right?”

Okay, this is not how I pictured a real-world Atafami tournament would go. I was imagining more of an epic battlefield where players stoically won and lost—

“Enough!!” I didn’t mean to shout, but I was truly suffocating. “I’m just nanashi, guys!! I play Atafami. Nothing more, nothing less. My looks have nothing to do with it! And this is just my friend, definitely not my girlfriend!! Okay?!”

My sudden outburst was followed by silence, and then everyone broke into grins.

“This guy’s pretty interesting!”

“Yeah, definitely an extrovert…”

“I bet he’s on the leaderboard in his class, too.”

I took in their words, my eyes squeezed shut, and then it dawned on me.

“No matter what I say, it’s not gonna make a difference…”

Behind me, Hinami was smiling as I caved. Stop enjoying my suffering!

That’s when it happened.

“Excuse me!”

To my surprise, the voice that came out of the blue from my right side, by the door, sounded feminine.

And the speaker clearly was not Hinami.

I turned toward the voice—and saw a girl I didn’t know looking back at me with glittering eyes. So there was another girl here aside from Hinami. She seemed to be around my age. Her dark-brown hair was cut straight across, and she was wearing a black beret-like thing over it.

“…I’ve been wanting to meet you, nanashi-san!”

Her voice was nasal but somehow warm, too.

She was wearing a tight, grown-up-looking gray sweater with long sleeves—which had a heart cutout over her chest. Seriously? (Well, I’m fairly sure there was one there anyway. I didn’t look directly, since I’ve heard girls always notice.) The neck was high and unobtrusively frilly, and she had on a gold chain with a white charm on it.

Despite her unusual sweater, she looked more elegant than eccentric, maybe because of the simple black skirt she was wearing with it. It was relatively short and tight around the hips, then flared out above her slim, fair-skinned legs. Overall, she reminded me of a Korean pop star or something. I sensed an animal kind of strength in her.

The vertical stripes on her tight sweater made the contours of her body quite obvious—overly obvious, actually—and to be honest, I’d never been so lost as to where I could safely look. It was overwhelming. No matter where I directed my gaze, I was pretty sure I could be accused of sexual harassment. So I stood firm and stared her straight in the eyes.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m nanashi.”

I visualized Mizusawa and grinned. Channeling Mizusawa at moments like this is crucial. When you have a model, things tend to go better, and focusing on imitating him prevented me from being distracted by the parts of her I shouldn’t be looking at. I’d even say that went well.

“I was so surprised when I looked at the list of participants! It’s amazing! It’s really you!”

She brought her hands together in front of her face, her eyes still sparkling. This meant her arms were squeezed against her sides, which I’m pretty sure were also squeezing something else at the edge of my field of vision, but I was Mizusawa. I kept my eyes focused unwaveringly on her eyes and searched for a conversation topic.

“Ha-ha-ha, thank you. Uh…what’s your name?”

“Rena!”

“Rena-chan, got it… Ah.”

As I fought to keep my gaze upward, I’d channeled Mizusawa a little too much and accidentally called her “Rena-chan.” That was way too chummy for someone I’d just met, and I scrambled to correct my mistake.

“I’m sorry. I meant to say Rena-san.”

For some reason, her eyes glittered even more brightly when I said that, and she sidled up to me.

I think she was even closer than Izumi gets. The heavy scent of flower nectar and shampoo tickled my nose seductively, and for a second, my thoughts dissolved into a haze.

“Oh, you can call me Rena-chan!” Her voice was high and sweet, and her eyes were moist.

I felt like that scent was melting down my brain and eating away my consciousness as it dreamily wafted around me. Logic was disappearing into a dizzy fog.

“I—I can? Okay, then Rena-chan it is.”

Damn, that was fast. The Mizusawa software currently running my brain might be one reason I was being so friendly, but I also felt manipulated.

Well, I do use chan with Tama-chan, so maybe it wasn’t so weird…right?

“Yay! Can I call you nanashi-san?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s fine.”

She was kind of controlling the pace, but I think I was managing to carry on a fairly smooth conversation without getting too flustered. I’d already been sucked into an unusually casual interaction, but I guess that was fine.

“Back off a little, Rena-chan, you’re overwhelming him.”

I guess Max-san couldn’t bear to watch anymore, because he finally jumped in for the save. Sounds like he knew her.

“What? No, I’m not! Are you overwhelmed, nanashi-san?”

“Very.”

“You are?!” she squealed, before eventually laughing and turning toward me. It was an intimate gesture, as if she was wordlessly saying, This is fun, isn’t it?

By the way, the joke I made is like a basic combo that I’ve done a million times since I started playing this game, so I’m able to use it fairly freely now. It’s a form of teasing that’s just exaggeratedly agreeing with whatever the other person says. To put it in Found’s terms, it’s like a down throw, up air.

“You’re so mean!” she said, looking at me with sleepy eyes and lightly touching my shoulder. Why was she acting so vulnerable? I could probably get her into a fully charged Attack right now, no problem.

She was staring at me, so I looked back at her. Her skin was so pale, it seemed almost blue, and her dark eyes were bottomless wells. Her near childlike features were symmetrical, and her constant smile was mysteriously magnetic.

I glanced at the bottom of her sleeves, which were as tight as the rest of her sweater, and noticed she was wearing a bunch of heavy black bracelets. Their design was so rough that they struck an interesting contrast with her girly frilled collar and sexy, tight-fitting clothes, and the wrist beneath them was worryingly fragile.

She kept staring at me as she spoke.

“So it turns out nanashi-san is a stud!”

There was something inviting in her moist eyes. Earlier, I’d felt embarrassed when the other participants said I was good-looking and stuff, but having a girl look me in the eye and say it hit way harder. And on top of that, Rena-chan’s gaze and voice seemed glued to me. My head was heating up; this was a major assault on my instincts.

“Ha-ha-ha, um, thanks.”

Somehow, I managed not to stutter. I bet Mizusawa wouldn’t even say um, but for me, that’s unavoidable. She smiled, then suddenly glanced away. For a second, I almost thought she was sad. What was going on?

Once the conversation had passed like a stormy wave, she blinked exaggeratedly at Hinami.

“…There’s another girl here!”

She stepped closer to Hinami, sounding genuinely shocked.

“Hello, I’m Rena.”

She peered into Hinami’s face with observing eyes, her lips forming a smile. I was struck by the contrast between Rena’s cool gaze and her soft tone.

“Hi, I’m Aoi,” Hinami answered cheerfully with a five-star smile, looking her over from head to toe. “Those are so cute!” she said, pointing to her clunky black bracelets.

Um, are they? I think a word like cool might be better for that design.

“Ooh, you get it! They’re so clunky!”

“I know! They look good on you!”

But apparently, they were cute. There it was again, that unique normie take on the word cute. It was the same with the famous haniwa key chains, and I didn’t get it this time, either. How does clunkiness equal cute? Can cuteness and clunkiness cohabitate?

“But you’re the stylish one, Aoi-san! I love your earrings!”

“Thank you so much! They’re my favorites! I think we have the same taste.”

“We do! Wow! And your hair is so soft and your face is so small and your skin is so nice! Like a pretty doll!”

“But look at your figure, it’s amazing!”

I didn’t get it, but they seemed locked in a relentless competition over who could compliment the other one more. Really. It felt like an actual battle.

“This is your first time here, right?” Rena-chan asked Hinami.

“Yes!”

“If you have any questions, you can ask me!”

“Thank you! Do you come a lot?”

“Yeah, I’m becoming a regular here!” Rena-chan smiled wanly before continuing. “Did you…come by yourself?”

“Oh, um,” Hinami said, glancing around until her gaze landed on me. “I came with nanashi-kun.”

And then.

Rena-chan swiveled her head back and forth, bewildered.

“…You did? …Are you friends?”

“Yes! Atafami friends, I guess you could say.”

“Huh…”

Rena’s face was blank, or maybe I should say frozen.

Then she took one more look at us and grinned. “What a handsome pair! I hope you come often!”

“Ah-ha-ha. I plan to.”

They both smiled. I felt like they’d just completed a round of hand-to-hand combat. Were girls always this intense when they first met? I couldn’t even keep up.

As I was reeling from this unknown world, Rena-chan slid over to my side again and tapped me softly two times between my back and my flank. I think she was just trying to get my attention, but her touch was oddly ticklish—if my guard wasn’t up, I would have made a noise.

“What’s up?” I asked, pretending to be calm.

She brought her face up to my ear. Since she moved her whole body along with it, our clothes rubbed together, warming my upper arm like a fever.

“Um…”

Along with her breathy voice, that sweet scent washed over my consciousness again.

“Y-yeah?” I asked, staring straight ahead.

“…to be totally honest, it seems like you two are dating,” she said in an even breathier voice.

I turned toward her, intending to correct her—but since she’d just been whispering in my ear, we ended up facing each other at close range. And yet she didn’t retreat—she just kept watching me. How was she able to stay so close? We were centimeters apart, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her pitch-black pupils.

“W-we’re really just friends,” I said, taking a step away.

She continued to stare me down. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“…Well, that’s good.”

She turned suddenly back toward the rest of the room. I was finally free from the pair of eyes holding me in place, but what was “that’s good” supposed to mean?

* * *

After the question attack by the other participants and my conversation with Rena-chan, the group started up versus mode, which was more what I’d imagined an offline Atafami meetup would be like. That was a relief. By the way, Harry-san encouraged Hinami to join in, but she said she wasn’t good enough yet. I guess she’d blow her cover if she played at her real level, and knowing her, she probably couldn’t bring herself to go easy on her opponents. Watching was a wise option if she didn’t want to give herself away.

“Nanashi-san, let’s play!” Harry-san said, rolling up his sleeves.

Even though he’s better known as an announcer, he’s actually a solid player with a steady upper-middle ranking in both online and offline games. He uses a little one-head-tall character called Wigglypoff, who’s a fairly unique fighter thanks to her high number of jumps and fast aerial mobility.

On the upside, her aerials are solid in terms of damage, active frames, and hitboxes, so she’s great at midair encounters and close-quarters combat. On the downside, she’s super vulnerable to characters with good reach, which makes her a challenge to play. I don’t often come across people online who use her well, so I’d been wanting to play Harry-san for a while.

“For sure!”

We headed over to an empty screen and sat down to get ready to play. I could hear Rena-chan shouting, “Ooh, exciting!” in the background. I would’ve recognized her voice even if Hinami wasn’t the only other girl there.

We checked our controller settings and chose characters. To decide on a stage, we figured we’d go old-school and do rock-paper-scissors, with the winner picking from a couple of simple options.

“You good?”

“Yup!”

I won at rock-paper-scissors, so I got to choose the stage. I went with Buono Volcano.

It’s a simple stage, a little narrower than average with one platform each on the right and left.

Since Wigglypoff can move so freely in the air, she generally does best on stages with multiple platforms. That’s why I ruled out the Arena, where she’d be able to use that advantage to the max, but since I was curious to see how Harry-san used platforms, I went with Buono Volcano.

It took a couple of seconds for the game to load. I got myself psyched up, spinning the stick around with my left thumb. It made a satisfying sound as it scratched the edge, firing up my instincts.

The game ended after a couple of minutes…

“Man, you really are good,” Harry-san said, smiling bashfully.

Like before, I thought rejecting his compliment would be wrong, so I just thanked him.

“That was a surprise for me, too. I didn’t know Wigglypoff could do that much.”

I’d watched videos of the character before, but playing was different. Wigglypoff’s playstyle is basically just throwing out attacks and then striking during an opening; it isn’t such a threat as long as you kept an eye on your spacing. And managing that spacing is my specialty.

What is a threat is the way she uses her aerial mobility to edge guard.

“I was getting worried there—you just kept coming after me,” I said.

Harry-san’s style was to mercilessly pursue his opponent when they got knocked off the stage, trying to KO them as fast as possible. Since Found, my character, has a recovery move that makes him disappear briefly, he’s harder to edge guard. But the range on that move is short, so it’s not the most versatile. If Wigglypoff uses her aerial mobility to guard multiple routes, the situation gets a whole lot tougher.

“Ha-ha-ha. Thank you. But you react fast, nanashi-kun.”

“Ah-ha-ha. No one’s gonna kill me without a fight.”

I smiled. At first glance, Harry-san’s edge-guard style, which involved pursuing his opponent dangerously close to the blast zone, did seem like a threat to Found. But if you looked a bit closer, you’d see fairly quickly that before he had a chance to guard multiple routes, he dived into one choice and threw away the others.

You wouldn’t notice it if the edge guarding freaked you out, but he would always reveal the route he was going to guard.

“With Found, if you up-B early as you’re approaching the stage, you can intercept and use the i-frames to avoid attacks. Even when the invincibility ends, Found can get back to the stage faster than Wigglypoff, so he won’t get punished for it.”

“That is exactly right. Once you know that, I can’t do anything!”

Harry-san sounded regretful but also somehow happy.

We each started with four stocks and were playing first-to-three. The final score was 3–0. Harry-san KO’d me first, but after that, I figured out on the fly how to deal with him, and in the last game, I won with three stocks left. I think being able to come up with countermeasures midgame is one requirement for staying at the top.

“It really was an honor to play the famous nanashi.”

“No, it was my pleasure.”

With the postmortem finished, I glanced over my shoulder. An audience was gathered around, avidly listening to our conversation. Next to them, there was Rena-chan, with a slightly different kind of glint in her eyes—and behind her, obviously spoiling for a fight, was Hinami. If she wants to play that bad, she should just play.

I walked up to Hinami and smiled wryly.

“You sure you don’t want to play?” I asked.

“…Oh, no! I mean, I’m not worth playing.”

“…Really.”

She wasn’t budging. She’d be better off dropping the act.

* * *

After that, since this was an offline meetup, a simple tournament got underway. Of course, I joined in. Everyone aside from Hinami, including Rena-chan, was competing for the top spot. Hinami watched, chewing her finger.

First round. The guy I’d just played had his jaw on the floor.

“G-good game, man…! Dang, I couldn’t do anything…”

“Good game!” I answered, taking the controller from the stand.

I won the next game easily, too—obviously, I guess I should add. Anyone who came to a meetup like this would be a decent player, but that said, I’m still the long-standing top player in Japan. From what I saw, I was a level or two above anyone else here, so I didn’t think I’d lose to anyone in the first-to-three system they’d set up.

Second round. My Found was zipping around the screen, and my opponent was at my mercy. I seized an opening to deliver the KO.

“Oh my god! He just took advantage of the ending lag from that dash attack to up tilt out of shield! How does he keep so calm?”

“You can see why he’s number one. He just calmly comes and takes everything he can when he gets a freebie.”

“He was on the edge of the platform, too. If it was me, I’d want to grab the other guy and do a back throw. He’s watching really carefully.”

“Yeah. The basics are so key.”

The audience was vigorously analyzing my play. Just stop, okay? It’s kinda embarrassing. And terrifying, because everything they said was spot-on.

But I also realized something.

Up till then, I’d never openly admitted just how obsessive a gamer I was, but in this setting, everyone understood technical stuff about Atafami as if it was totally natural.

After racking up another win, I looked around the room again.

Everyone here loved Atafami, and each of them took their game seriously.

That was enough to make them feel like old friends, even though we’d just met. I felt strangely at home.

“Good game!”

Everyone I was playing loved this game. We were all different ages, and we had no idea what one another’s real names or occupations were.

And yet I was able to be my real self around them, no-holds-barred.

“How come he was able to charge an Attack there?”

“He saw right through that tomahawk grab. Was the reason he shielded so hard to prepare for that…?”

“You’re right that he could KO with an up throw at that percentage, so a grab would make more sense than an aerial.”

“So that’s how nanashi thinks…!”

…But still, having my thought process analyzed this closely made it a little hard to play.

“Ooooh!”

That’s when it happened.

Cheers erupted from the next table over.

Thinking someone must have done something cool, I glanced over during the pause before my next game—and burst out laughing at what I saw.

Who was in front of the monitor but…?

“You killed me! Aoi-san, you’re so good!”

“I am? Thank you for the compliment!”

A male player was grinning in defeat as he complimented the girl who’d just won.

Yes, it was NO NAME, the second-best player in Japan, wearing the guise of the perfect heroine. What the hell was she doing?

“Uh…she’s in the tournament, too?” I asked.

Max-san, who was standing behind me to observe my games, nodded.

“She is! She said she wanted to play after all, so I added her in a match against a seeded player.”

“Ah-ha-ha…got it.”

I thought she’d been watching enviously this whole time, but as it turned out, she couldn’t stand the temptation. Well, she did get super emotional when it came to Atafami. Normally, you had to bring your own controller to places like this, so I guess she’d brought hers? Which meant she’d been raring to go all along.

But would she be okay? Her playstyle was so precise that it was almost otherworldly. I don’t think many people use that style with Found. Some of the people watching might recognize her.

Well, better focus on my own game first.

I turned back to my third match and took a deep breath to regain my concentration, when Max-san burst out excitedly.

“Wow, her Foxy sure is strong!”

“…Foxy?”

I glanced back at Hinami. I was fairly sure her main wasn’t Foxy—it was Found, like me.

I wonder if she’d gritted her teeth and chosen a different character because she wanted to play without getting caught. If that was true, she must really, really like Atafami, although I’m not one to talk. If she was going that far, why not just admit who she was? I smiled cynically to myself, then refocused on my own game.

“…Here we go, game number three.”

“I-I’m ready.”

With that, I kicked his ass again.

* * *

Having safely won the second round, I headed over to Hinami’s table. A game was just starting. According to the people watching, this was the third, and Hinami had won the first two.

“She’s…really, really good, isn’t she?” Harry-san asked me.

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just nodded and made a noncommittal noise. Rena-chan, who was standing next to us, jumped in.

“Did you train her?”

“Train her? Uh, not exactly, but…”

Rena-chan stared at me as I groped for words. Come on, Hinami, you want to hide that you’re NO NAME, but what story do you plan to use? You went and started playing without telling me, and now I’m stuck. I don’t want to blabber on inanely to these people, so you’re really on your own here.

“We play here and there…and she’s gotten a lot better, partly by copying me,” I said, avoiding any specifics. She genuinely had improved by copying me, so I wasn’t lying. Thanks to all the time I’d spent with Hinami’s mask, I was getting a lot better myself at lying without really lying.

Harry-san nodded, impressed.

“Wow! I haven’t seen many girls that good.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

Rena-chan seemed to enjoy poking fun at Harry-san’s offhand comment. But her face quickly grew serious again as she turned back to the screen.

“But you’re right… I was totally defenseless against her.”

“You played her?”

That was a surprise.

“Yeah, I played her in the second round, and she beat me three times in a row,” she said casually.

“Ha-ha, sorry to hear it.”

I smiled weakly. Her tone was lax, but ever so slightly empty. It probably was bothering her.

But wow, three victories in a row with Foxy. I didn’t know how good Rena-chan was, but if they’d faced off in the second round, she’d beaten someone in the first. Which meant Hinami had done more than beat a beginner three times in a row.

“Get her back for me, okay, nanashi-san?”

“Wait, am I on your team now?”

“Oh? Were you on Aoi-san’s team, then?”

She stared at me with a challenging expression. Her gaze was direct, but not open like Tama-chan’s. It was more like Hinami’s—impossible to read beyond the surface.

“I’m not on anyone’s team… I mean, I’m on nanashi’s team.”

“That’s so mean. I hate you.”

“Wait, why?!” I said in my well-practiced style of cheerful comeback-slash-reaction. She smiled happily, then thumped my shoulder. I’m not sure how to describe how I felt every time she touched me—ticklish, or maybe fidgety. Anyway, I have zero resistance against that, so please stop.

“You’re funny, nanashi-san.”

“Ha-ha…thanks.”

While I was chatting with Rena-chan and Harry-san, Hinami’s game started. Since her usual character was Found, I didn’t know how good she was as Foxy.

When the game started, Hinami’s Foxy used his blaster to poke and pressure the opponent and kept him moving with some minor punishes while doing fast-fall nairs. (A nair is a neutral aerial attack, which you do by leaving the stick in a neutral position while pressing the attack button.) While it’s not that powerful on its own, it sends them up at a good angle and has good landing lag, so as long as you’re able to land the blow, it’s a really convenient way to start all kinds of combos. Hinami got the hit and skillfully segued into a combo.

“Very steady…,” Harry-san said, nodding softly.

Even if your opponent shields, neutral air doesn’t have many vulnerability frames, so you won’t get punished much. Actually, depending on the character, there might be no punishment at all even if they shield. To be blunt, it’s one of those moves you can just kind of do and get good results. In addition to using it to segue into a combo and deal damage, if you land it when their percentage is high, it can be powerful in itself while also leading into an attack. It can even be used to KO. It’s pretty scary.

“Aoi-san sure is good at those nair combos.”

“…Yeah.”

Hinami unleashed her short hops, fast falls, and preemptive forward airs and back airs, at the same time predicting what her opponent would do and taking the initiative. Then she suddenly landed a beautiful fast-fall neutral air, flowing into a high-firepower combo. Her opponent fled out of her reach, but she came after them with a blaster attack, determined to up the damage by even 1 percent.

“Damn…,” I couldn’t help saying as I watched.

The precise way she moved around was so completely Hinami. She repeatedly chose low-risk, mid-return moves, waiting for her opponent to make themselves vulnerable. When they did, she went to a spot where she could unleash her firepower, then used precise movements to initiate a combo and inflict more damage. When she couldn’t do that, she blocked her opponent’s combo starters to limit the damage she took to single hits. The result was that she was landing combos while her opponents were only getting single hits. It wasn’t a showy way of playing, but before you knew it, she was way ahead.

But when had she found the time to practice using Foxy? The character has good specs to start with, so you can be a bit sloppy and still get okay results, but combos that good had to require some practice. If you want to main Foxy, you’ve gotta put in some serious work, and even Hinami would have a hard time getting to that level without investing the time.

“That tomahawk was very accurate,” Harry-san suddenly commented next to me. I nodded.

“Someone uses that many nairs on you, you’re gonna freeze up even if you don’t want to.”

The tomahawk throw. It’s a mind game you use against a shield, where you don’t attack with an aerial but instead land right in front of your opponent and grab them.

There’s a chance you could get hit when you land, but Hinami used it so precisely and smoothly that it was a pleasure to watch.

At first, it seemed mysterious, but the trick was simple.

“She’s baiting those shields.”

Hinami’s neutral airs were always accompanied by fast falls after a jump. Unlike the normal version, which started up quickly and suddenly from the ground, she was always in the air before she did it, so in a sense, as long as her opponent always shielded when Foxy was in the air, he wouldn’t take damage from neutral airs.

And she was clearly using a lot of them, so her opponent knew that if one of them made contact, he’d take a lot of damage from the combo. At a high percentage, he might even get KO’d then and there.

That image would be seared into her opponent’s mind whether they liked it or not.

I can’t let myself get hit by that attack. That’s dangerous.

And those thoughts invited hasty shields.

He wasn’t just shielding to protect himself from neutral airs; it was almost like he was being conditioned to shield now that he had been taught to fear.

And when her opponent saw Foxy in the air and shielded to protect himself from an illusory neutral air, that’s when she made her move.

Without attacking, she landed right in front of him and grabbed him.

As I watched her play, I was steadily coming to understand her overall strategy.

“…Actually, she chooses that option essentially every time.”

“Really?” asked Rena-chan, who had come over to listen.

I nodded.

Hinami was doing this well with Foxy, who wasn’t her main. I wondered when in the world she’d found time to practice, but the answer was simple.

She’d done it during the tournament.

Or more likely, during all the games she watched earlier.

Pokes and the bare essentials aside, she was basically only using combos from neutral airs and tomahawks.

Of course, she used the blaster while she was moving around and throwing out back airs. There were also the various aerials she pulled out during combos, the dash attack for when she got attacked or whiff-punished unexpectedly, and the jabs she used when her neutral airs were shielded.

But basically, it was just those two moves—nairs and throws—that she used to rack up damage. All the rest was just window dressing, thrown in to make her maneuvers look better.

In other words—I’d been wondering when she managed to practice so much with Foxy, but I wasn’t coming at it the right way. She wasn’t using all of Foxy’s abilities; she’d just practiced neutral-air combos in a couple of ways until she could do it flawlessly, and she was using that to lay waste to her opponent.

Her moves were all performed perfectly, so if you looked just at that, you’d think she was a seasoned Foxy user. But in truth, the only moves she used were the handful she’d practiced. Everything you could see had been baptized, you might say. That was about it.

“She’s probably trying to hide that she’s only using that one pattern…but the fact is, almost every time she deals damage, that’s how she does it.”

Foxy moved fast on the ground and vertically through the air, so even if her attacks all followed the same pattern, it was hard to notice because you naturally focused on the speed. On top of that, after the neutral air, she used a wide range of combos depending on percentage, so at first glance, her attacks looked varied.

But even though she was trouncing her opponent through her underlying mastery of spatial management and maneuvering—when it came to her core attacks, she was relying solely on two options. What the hell kind of playstyle was that?

“…Now that you’ve pointed it out, you’re right.”

“You sure picked up on that fast, nanashi-san.”

After watching her play a little longer, Harry-san and Rena-chan both seemed to notice it, too. It was simple once you knew what to look for.

“Doesn’t mean it’s easy to deal with, though…”

Foxy attacked fast, and once Hinami’d created an advantage for herself, she would bring on the pain. It was less like her opponent was rationally making choices and more like he was being guided into certain actions while his brain was floundering to keep up with the angry tsunami of her attack—which was exactly what she wanted. If this was a game of rock-paper-scissors, she wasn’t predicting which one he would make; she was whipping him into a panic so he’d clench his hand into a rock, then make paper herself.

And if that was the arena you were playing in, the crucial thing—even more crucial than noticing her trick or being good with the controller—was to not panic. That wasn’t something you could learn overnight.

“Oh…it’s over.”

The game ended with two stocks remaining for Hinami. That made the final score of the first-to-three 3–0. She’d won.

“Thank you so much!”

Hinami smiled happily and gave her opponent a shallow bow. Her attractiveness and innocence apparently affected him, because he didn’t seem to mind the loss. I’m afraid to imagine her when she’s all grown-up.

As I was gazing at her with a wry smile, she suddenly noticed our group of three. She stuck her finger in the air and smiled at us.

“Nanashi-kun, Harry-san, Rena-chan! I won!”

“Yeah, congrats.”

“Ah-ha-ha. Congratulations. I love that cheerful attitude.”

“Congratulations!!”

Hinami was stacking up one win after the next while easily putting everyone present under her spell. She was staging such a good performance, in fact, that I was almost starting to worry if she’d be okay with everyone liking her this much. Her technique is unrivaled, both in Atafami and life. She uses the combos she’s practiced at just the right moment.

“Uh, guess I’m up next…,” I said, looking at the leaderboard. That’s when it dawned on me. “Which means…”

“You noticed?” Hinami said, grinning boldly.

Yup, you guessed it. Well, of course you did.

If I won my next game, Hinami and I would be facing off in the final round.

* * *

“There we go.”

Yeah, I knew this would happen.

“Oh my gosh! There’s no way I can beat you, nanashi-kun!”

“Uh-huh…”

The final round. Predictably, we’d both won our earlier games, and predictably, we were now colliding head-on. That’s what you get when the players with the best and second-best winrates in Japan show up at a tournament. Hinami might be using a different character than usual, but her basic level was still on a different plane from her average opponent.

But what was her plan now? She was fairly good at using Foxy, but now that I knew her only highly polished weapon was nair combos, it wasn’t going to work against me. She probably knew I’d been watching her last few games, and she must have guessed that I saw through her trick.

On the other hand, if she used Found, she risked revealing her true identity, so she couldn’t do that. All the more so if she was playing nanashi. I mean, there’s only a handful of people in Japan who can go toe to toe with me using Found.

With those questions on my mind, I sat down at the table, connected my controller, and let it rest lightly in my hands.

“Hey, nanashi-kun?”

I turned around at the sound of her voice.

From the way she was grinning, I just knew she had some plan up her sleeve.

“…What?”

It was enough to get me excited, strange as that sounds.

Her next words were like a single drop of water on the surface of a smooth pond.

“Since I could never beat you on regular terms…”

She proposed this:

“…can we play with special rules?”

I didn’t know exactly what she had in mind, but an alarm bell was blaring instinctively in my brain.

“‘Special rules’… You’re not asking me for a handicap, are you?”

“Of course not.”

Maintaining the bare minimum of cuteness, she gave me another bold grin.

“It’s simple. We ban both of our mains. So neither of us can use Found or Foxy.”

“…Okay, I get you.”

This would be a showdown of pure Atafami skill, played with characters we weren’t used to. Found would blow her cover, so she wanted to use someone different.

“Fine. A contest of skill, then?”

I grinned, and she looked back at me like she was really having fun. This plan would let her keep her identity hidden but still enjoy facing off with nanashi. I was starting to relax, now that I saw her strategy, but then she added another condition.

“And let’s make it a ditto.”

A murmur ran through the crowd of people watching us.

Once again, a jolt of excitement shot through me at her hawkish suggestion.

A ditto match.

So this depended completely on our skill and ability to read each other as players, regardless of our characters’ abilities or compatibility.

“Ha-ha… So a contest of skill and nothing else, no excuses allowed.”

Instead of nodding, Hinami just grinned at me again.

“That’s right. What do you say?”

The challenge was from NO NAME, hidden behind the perfect heroine’s mask.

And I was nanashi, without any mask at all.

Of course, I couldn’t turn down a proposition that good.

“I’m in.”

Another murmur went through the audience. The setup would be rare enough with nanashi taking part, but to have NO NAME as my opponent brought it to another level. No one realized just how incredible the battle they were about to see was. The final match in the tournament was a ditto match between the top two players in Japan.

“Heh-heh. Well then, time to choose the character.”

“Exciting.”

Our eyes locked, neither of us backing down. We were so fired up now that a couple of people in the audience shouted, too.

The final match between Hinami and me was about to begin.

A ditto match with our main characters banned. Obviously, the key point now was which character to use.

If one of us got to choose, it was possible we’d cheat by choosing a character we were decent at, and while I highly doubt either of us would do that, the important thing was to rule it out completely.

We discussed and came up with a plan.

“Harry-san!” Hinami called over to our host.

“What’s up?”

“Choosing at random would be boring, so I was wondering if you’d do the honors!”

Harry-san hesitated. “I don’t mind, but what do you think, nanashi-kun?”

I nodded. “I’m fine with it.”

“Well, in that case…”

He paused, looking at the character-selection screen on the monitor. Then he gave a satisfied nod and looked back at us.

“Gonna go with Wigglypoff. I want to see how you two use her so I can get some tips!”

Hinami nodded solemnly. “Understood! Nanashi-kun, is that okay with you?”

“Fine by me.”

Continuing our little act, we casually accepted his choice. He threw us a slightly worried look.

“I’m just curious… How much experience do you two have with Wigglypoff?”

“Almost none!” said Hinami. “I’ve done the bare minimum. Seen a few videos. That’s it.”

“Same here.”

“Okay, then it’s fair!” He smiled boyishly. I guess he was just crossing his t’s and dotting his i’s as host.

I half suspected Hinami was fishing for Wigglypoff by calling on Harry-san, but I don’t think that’s in character for her. She probably simply wanted to create the appearance of fairness.

“All righty then, it’s a Wigglypoff ditto between nanashi-kun and Aoi-san! I have a feeling this is gonna be good!”

The audience buzzed with excitement.

“Oh, by the way…,” Harry-san said bashfully. “Would you mind if I put this one on my channel? I think people would like to see it…”

“…Oh, on YouTube?”

“Yeah.”

He probably wanted to livestream it, specifically.

Well, there were already plenty of videos of me online because people I play against would post them without asking sometimes, and I wasn’t trying to hide the fact that I was at this meetup. I didn’t see an issue.

“Sure, but…”

I glanced at Hinami, who turned to Harry-san with a pleasant expression.

“It’s fine! Just don’t share my face or voice, please!”

“Oh, don’t worry about that! I’ll be covering it myself!”

“Ooh, commentary? Got it, ha-ha.”

She giggled. The fun, bright aura she gave off at little moments like this was another characteristic of her perfect-heroine mode. I’m fairly sure anyone watching her would be willing to do whatever it took to make her smile some more. Although strictly speaking, I wouldn’t be.

“Okay! I’ll get everything set up. It’ll just take a minute.”

Well, that was decided fast. Hinami and I were going live on YouTube. All I had to do was play without talking—so the usual—but who can help being nervous in that kind of situation?

* * *

An offline meetup five minutes from a train station in Tokyo.

A dozen or so people stood around one of three tables, waiting to watch the game. The monitor was hooked up to a laptop via some little device.

“Hello, hello! Harry here.”

“And Max.”

Harry-san and Max-san were speaking crisply into a mic connected to the laptop via a different device. Compared with a minute earlier, they’d taken on their usual roles. Guess their announcer switch just got turned on. I’d never seen a broadcast being recorded before, and I was struck by how they commented on the most insignificant stuff. Also, they were a lot louder than I expected.

“Believe it or not, today…”

Harry-san gave his viewers a brief rundown of the day’s event. He explained that this was the final match in a tournament at an AtaHouse meetup, that it was a ditto match—and that one of the players was nanashi. In order to keep unnecessary information out of my brain, I didn’t listen or check the chat to see how many people were there or what kinds of comments they were making.

“Well, I hate to keep everyone waiting, so let’s get this game started! Please nod if you’re ready, players!”

At that unspoken hint from Harry-san that we didn’t need to say anything, we both gave our silent approval. Personally, I was ready the second I sat down.

“Then let’s begin!”

That was the signal for Hinami and me to choose Wigglypoff as well as the stage we’d agreed on in advance. It was a simple, medium-sized stage with a platform on either side.

A new screen appeared. Two Wigglypoffs floated down to the stage.

“Three! Two! One!”

I released the unnecessary tension from my hands around the controller.

Sweeping all other thoughts from my mind, I calmly took in the screen.

“GO!”

As the game’s announcer signaled the start, Hinami’s and my Wigglypoffs both did a short hop at almost the same instant. We moved closer to each other in a rapid swirl of air attacks, taking advantage of Wigglypoff’s excellent horizontal air speed and ability to jump multiple times—both of which she did better than any other character—and then moved away again.

We both did a series of jumps, performing long-lasting moves while watching our start-up and ending lag. To the people watching, this negotiation might look like we were simply flying back and forth, desperately inputting a bunch of random moves that never hit their mark. You see the same kind of strategy a lot with other characters, but only a Wigglypoff ditto could have this level of repeated aerial approach and retreat.

“What are they doing?” Max-san asked Harry-san. I guess his voice was traveling through the mic to people all across the country.

“Well, they’re sizing each other up, getting a sense for the timing they’ll need in order for their attacks to capitalize on the other player’s lag. They’re also figuring out if they should move forward or back when they attack.”

“Ah, I see.”

Our negotiations continued against the backdrop of Harry-san’s commentary.

If this was any ordinary opponent, I’d be able to assess their attack timing, movement quirks, and distancing, and that would give me a sense of timing, so if I closed in at x moment, my attack would be sure to hit home—but in a way, that strategy depended on my opponent making mistakes. And with a player as good at judging the situation as Hinami was, mistakes hardly ever happened. My inability to easily create an opening for myself was the sure sign I was playing a high-tier opponent.

What happens when neither player exposes themselves to attack—it’s a deadlock. The two Wigglypoffs did not expose themselves, instead repeatedly poking at each other in the hopes of baiting out a whiff and shouting “Wiggly!” “Poff!” as they desperately kicked at nothing in midair. That was all that happened for nine or ten seconds.

“They want to be sure their poke will catch their opponent if they happen to come flying toward them. Or they want to be ready to act in the lag after their opponent makes theirs. They’re adjusting their timing and positioning over and over so that it stays advantageous.”

“Ah, I see.”

But if you don’t at the very least take some risk, you don’t get any results. Hinami moved first. She took a step into my space to shake me up.

But my forward-air hitbox was waiting for her. And Hinami’s Wigglypoff crashed defenselessly into it as she tried to narrow the distance between us. A low-risk poke on my part had worked out perfectly.

“Ooh, the first hit!”

“Nanashi-san has just successfully attacked.”

Hinami’s Wigglypoff bent backward slightly. But I’d only grazed her, and she didn’t freeze long enough for me to start a combo. I bore down to follow up with another hit, but she dodged.

And back to the stalemate.

“In situations like this where your opponent approaches to attack, if you’ve already made a move in advance, that will hit your opponent before their attack hits you. That’s what we call a poke.”

“Interesting. So the other player crashes straight into the hitbox.”

“Right. Since they’re sussing each other out, the hit is almost inevitable. You could also call it luck, though.”

The game moved on. Most players would probably get a little scared and pull back slightly, but Hinami was not so weak. Realizing that she was going to come after me again, I maneuvered steadily, preparing another poke.

Right then, with exquisite timing, she caught me in my own ending lag. A hit.

“And you can see here that it goes the other way sometimes. If a player reads their opponent’s poke and punishes during the ending lag, they’ll land the hit instead. Of course, the timing is very difficult.”

“You’re talking about whiff punishing a poke, which is really hard to do.”

“Exactly.”

We’d both scored a hit, but too late in the animation to start a combo.

“You know there’s a lot of different patterns, but essentially, you can think of it as a game of rock-paper-scissors where you’ll do best by fading back.”

“…That’s part of rock-paper-scissors?”

“It’s a little hard to explain. Basically, when you make an attack, it’s a good idea to keep your distance.”

“What do you mean?”

Hinami had faded away from me, then attacked during my ending lag. Even though it didn’t lead into a combo this time, either, I’d probably made a mistake by giving her the chance to punish me.

“See what just happened? If you fade in tandem with an incoming attack, as long as your opponent isn’t way more mobile than you, you can dodge, right? Which also means that you can go after the ending lag from the attack you just dodged.”

“Right.”

“So basically, you can’t lose if you fall back.”

“Why not just do that all the time, then?”

Apparently, instead of proactively attacking me, Hinami used a main strategy that seemed to be to evade and counter. In terms of return on risk, that makes sense for Wigglypoff.

“…You’d think, right? That’s what the platform is for.”

“How so?”

“I mean…it ends.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Hinami had backed up all the way the edge of the stage, shielding. If I landed right where I was and successfully baited her, I could throw her off the stage, but Wigglypoff can go from shielding to aerials really quickly, and she’s also got good damage and hitboxes. It wasn’t a choice I could make lightly. Watching and waiting was probably a good idea.

“Since you’ve got that to worry about, falling back is a no-risk, middle-return action only if you’ve got plenty of room behind you. But as soon as you run out of room, that’s the end of that.”

“Right, ’cause there’s nowhere to go. And then you’re in danger of losing neutral, right?”

“Exactly. Meanwhile, the player who pushes the other person to the edge still has plenty of room, so they can fall back as much as they want.”

“Ah, I see.”

Hinami was close to the edge, so now she could only win through reading me. She was reduced to desperately doing rock-paper-scissors with only two options.

That’s why I poked with an aerial just close enough to barely touch the edge of Hinami’s shield. This prevented her from gaining more ground, was low risk for me, and put pressure on her. I’d wait until she couldn’t hold out any longer and made herself vulnerable, and then I’d fire the decisive shot. After all, I could retreat as much as I wanted to avoid Hinami’s attacks.

“When you’re in a good position to fade, you have an incredible advantage because you can choose that option as much as you want. It’s a very strong action, but the more times you use it, the less times you have left to use it, and the more opportunities you give your opponent. That makes it a fairly unique choice.”

“So it’s a superpowered double-edged sword?”

“Pretty much.”

I watched Hinami’s movements intently, poking at her with my Wigglypoff from positions where I could predict her jumps and rolls, and where I’d be safe from any out-of-shield counterattacks. Once nanashi has you at the edge of the stage, he doesn’t back off.

“If you fade back, it’s hard to lose at that particular round of rock-paper-scissors, but if you do it too much, things get harder and harder. That’s why people fall back after lunging way forward and keep an eye on their opponent’s moves as they attack. It’s what they call ‘playing footsies.’”

“Ah, that makes sense. Each player is trying to make the other one move back to the edge of the platform and choose the moments when their opponent doesn’t fall back to deal damage… Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but that’s the essential structure.”

As Harry-san and Max-san were carrying on their smooth and pleasant commentary, Hinami and I were continuing our negotiation at the edge. I could fall back freely, but she could not.

Finally, my relentless pressure paid off.

“Bad move.”

She couldn’t afford to fade, but moving forward was tough, too. Without forgetting the light shield she’d done to keep an eye on the situation, I grabbed Hinami’s Wigglypoff.

Down throw, forward air, forward air. At a low percentage, I could segue from the throw into a combo. Hinami’s Wigglypoff flew off the platform, and I chased after.

“Ooh, here we go!”

Harry-san’s cheer got me fired up.

Now for the all-important edge guard. When I did the combo, I used up two of my jumps, so I couldn’t chase her that far. Still, as soon as I landed on the stage, I got all my jumps back, and she hadn’t been blown so far back that I couldn’t go for a wall of pain. I went in the direction she’d fallen and launched an aerial.

But she expertly used a downward air dodge to escape my strike and grab straight onto the ledge.

“Aww! Anticlimactic.”

“Would that have led to a combo?”

“No, not a combo, but nanashi-san would still have an advantage. When an attack lands, the person getting hit freezes for a period of time. If that period lasts longer than the attacker’s ending lag, then the victim gets that much of a later start on their next move.”

“You’re talking about frame disadvantage, right?”

“Right. If that happens, then the victim starts at a disadvantage in the next round of rock-paper-scissors.”

“Huh…so it’s like you lose even if you both do scissors and it’s a draw?”

“That’s a good way of putting it. And if the person who has an advantage wins that round, then they have an advantage again in the next round. So even if you don’t land a combo, it’s important in this game to hit your opponent as hard as possible when you have an advantage.”

My Wigglypoff returned to the stage before Hinami finished her recovery.

“And you were saying that this time, he only got in one hit.”

“Yeah. Aoi-san judged the situation well. She knew that from that position, her downward air dodge would be faster than her opponent’s fast fall, and she could grab the ledge, too.”

“Very simple.”

“Yes, very simple—but even if you know that mentally, it’s scary to angle it downward there, so personally, I have a hard time doing it when it counts. Ha-ha-ha!”

“Not exactly a laughing matter!”

She’d avoided another hit. But she still had virtually nowhere to go, and I still had the advantage. I ramped up my poking and put pressure on her again.

“…Thirty percent, down throw.”

But what was this? Hinami was muttering something, and I didn’t have to see her face to know she was cool as could be.

She tried to leap over my head to recover more ground, but I moved back and prevented her from doing so. At the same time, I landed another hit. Hinami had to continue fighting at a disadvantage.

I maneuvered so she wouldn’t retake her space now that I had it, maintaining my advantage. That’s one important element of this game.

“Nanashi-san sure is tough.”

“He sure is. Aoi-san’s been in a fairly bad way for a while now.”

“Since they’re using the same character, she can’t brute force it with an advantage in mobility or hitboxes. If she keeps taking damage, she’s gonna be in real trouble before too long.”

When you’re edge guarding, obviously KOing your opponent was ideal, but when their percent was very low, racking up damage is important, too. Using Poff’s jumps to the full, I continued to make scattershot air attacks, building a wall of hitboxes. The person on the receiving end of this strategy would want to get back on the platform—but moving forward would put them in range of my attack, and they couldn’t fade because they were already at the edge. The noose gradually tightened until they finally cracked. Even a top player like Hinami was no exception. All I had to do now was carry it through.

“…Five,” Hinami mumbled.

At the same time, her Wigglypoff landed from a double jump and dashed on the ground toward my midair position a slight distance away.

Oh.

That’s when I realized.

My Poff had run out of jumps.

“…Shit!” I hissed.

Normally, I’d be able to parry with my extra jumps and midair mobility to retreat. But my Wigglypoff couldn’t do that, so she was doomed to drop to the ground from her current position. I could air dodge to change the position and timing of her fall, and I could attack while landing, but to a certain degree, where she would land was predictable. And the instant she hit the ground, she’d have some landing lag, tiny as it was.

The second I used up my last jump, Hinami predicted all this, landed right away, and started running. She was ready for me. From here on out, I was at a disadvantage in our game of rock-paper-scissors.

“Ouch.”

Wigglypoff could do five jumps altogether. She must have been counting my jumps.

The second I landed, I tried for an aerial. But Hinami had control, shielding out of her dash to block my aggressive attempt and grabbing my Wigglypoff.

And then.

“Thirty percent…,” she hissed. “Down throw.”

As she said it, Hinami’s Wigglypoff pressed mine onto the ground and then hopped up at an angle. I was in the thirties, the same level of damage Hinami had when I grabbed her before.

“Forward air… No,” she mumbled in a terrifyingly cold voice. Done with her throw, she pivoted, jumped diagonally, and hit me with a back air.

“Uh-oh, a back air!” Harry-san shouted excitedly.

I was surprised myself.

I’d grabbed Hinami at a similar percentage and done a down throw, too. And I’d followed up with a forward air.

But that was wrong. Wigglypoff’s back airs were just a tiny bit more powerful than her forward airs. They’re a little harder to perform, but if you were going from a down throw to an aerial combo, then rather than jumping straight into forward air, you’d get more damage if you switched directions right when the throw ended, did a backward jump after your opponent, then attacked with a back air.

…But if I wasn’t mistaken…

…Hinami had just copied me by doing a down throw at 30 percent, then segueing into an aerial.

The percent where a particular throw will lead into a combo is different for each character, and of course, while anyone would know those numbers for their own character, it’s really hard to memorize them for every fighter. Okay, so I actually have done that, but unlike me, Hinami took the shortest possible path to becoming a top player: She copied me.

Since she wants to spend time on other parts of her life, she probably divides necessary from unnecessary information so she doesn’t waste any time. She probably considered combo memorization unnecessary, and instead of asking herself which direction to throw those characters in order to segue into a combo, she’d only have to ask which direction she should alter her own launch angle after being hit so they wouldn’t be able to start a combo. For example, if such-and-such character grabs you, you’ll be okay if you jam the stick all the way in such-and-such direction—that sort of thing tends to exist for a lot of characters, Wigglypoff included.

Thinking back to what Hinami had said before her attack, it’s probably safe to assume that she had learned about the throw-to-combo route from me, which I learned from watching someone else.

Which meant that she was learning combo routes from her opponent during a battle, then improving on them from the very first time she used them to make them hit harder, and turning them back on that same opponent.

“…You’re kidding me.”

It would be scary enough if she watched her opponent carefully during the game and completely absorbed everything they did, but she was actually making their strategies better, as if that was a totally natural thing to do.

This player, Aoi Hinami—her specs were just too high.

* * *

“Now that was a match!”

“Ha-ha-ha, yeah, that was exciting.”

The final match was over, and I was running through it in my mind as I smiled at Harry-san.

“Also, you’re amazing, Aoi-san.”

“Ah-ha-ha. Thank you.” Hinami gracefully accepted the compliment.

“Seriously, you’re a star in the Atafami universe to give nanashi-kun that much of a run for his money!”

“Thanks,” she said, looking down. “But…in the end, I still lost.” She couldn’t hide the regret in her eyes.

We’d played the match according to the usual first-to-three rule.

I beat Hinami 3–1 to take first place.

“Ha-ha-ha. Better luck next time.”

“…Hmph.”

Hinami intercepted my boasting with a razor-sharp glare. I think she was genuinely pissed off. Hopefully it doesn’t affect my assignments.

“I knew I could count on you, nanashi-san!! We won!”

“Uh, you didn’t do anything.”

“Hey!”

For some reason, Rena-chan seemed overjoyed to get a brush-off. Maybe she’s the type who likes being mistreated.

Harry-san was looking at his laptop with a satisfied expression.

“Thanks to you two, that stream went great! Chat couldn’t believe nanashi’s first live game was with Wigglypoff, but in general, everyone really enjoyed it! Some people were asking who Aoi is. Got some new subs, too. You guys are awesome!”

“Ha-ha, happy to be of service.”

This guy was definitely more at home with streaming than I was, but I made an effort to sound natural when I answered. I may be a nerd, but I’m purely a game nerd, and I don’t spend much time in that culture.

“Actually, this was a really great experience for me, too, since I’ve never played so many people in real life before. Thank you!” I replied.

That seemed to remind Harry-san of something.

“Oh right! There’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask you!” He pointed at me, his tone tense.

“What’s up?”

“Ordinarily, players who start out online have some trouble adjusting to the real world. But even though you mainly play online, you were a natural with the controller. What’s your secret? If you have some special way of practicing, I’d love to learn from you!”

“Uh…”

The words stuck in my throat.

I mean, the main reason I was so good at playing offline was…

I glanced to my side. The second-best player in Japan, who I’d played a million offline games with, was looking back at me with an expression that said, Whatever. I think she meant I could tell them the truth as long as I didn’t connect NO NAME to her.

So I decided to go with that.

“Actually…NO NAME and I play each other offline a lot.”

“What?!”

“That NO NAME?!”

“You’re kidding! How do you know each other?!”

At this earth-shattering news, even the silent onlookers craned their necks toward me. Yeah, I mean, the mysterious top two players in Japan, who’d never showed their faces offline before today, had actually been meeting in secret all this time? I think it was enough to shake up everyone slightly.

“Ha-ha…that’s a surprise.”

“What’s your winrate?!”

“How many times have you met?!”

“What’s NO NAME like as a person?!”

Without waiting for me to answer, they were shooting questions at me rapid-fire. I glanced at the player in question, and this time, she scrunched her eyebrows irritably. So she didn’t want me to give away the details. Understood. I could see her point—if I said the mysterious NO NAME was a second-year high school student like me and went to my school and on top of that was a beautiful girl, the Atafami world wouldn’t be able to handle it. No doubt it would be the start of some kind of myth.

“Well…they prefer to keep a low profile, so I can’t say much…”

“Oh, th-that makes sense… No worries!”

Harry-san sounded disappointed, but he quickly obliged and dropped the subject. Man, I felt guilty. He’d helped us out so much throughout the day, I wanted to say a little more.

“But if I keep it to what I can say…”

“Yeah?!”

A murmur ran through the crowd. Just as NO NAME implied, the player’s age, gender, and everything else were totally unknown. Whatever I said was sure to cause a stir in the Atafami world.

I racked my brain for personal information about Hinami that wouldn’t reveal her identity.

“Well…if I were to compare them to something…”

“What, man?!”

I thought for a second, then hit on the perfect answer. There was probably only one phrase that accurately summed up NO NAME as a player and a human being.

I turned to the crowd, full of confidence, and told them:

“…NO NAME is like—a final boss.”

“A f-final boss…”

A shiver seemed to run down the spine of everyone listening.

“…Huh?”

Somehow, I felt like I’d just created a massive misunderstanding, but I hadn’t lied, so I was in the clear…right?

By the way, the player herself was staring at me with the face of a captured princess as she mingled with the crowd. Sorry, you’re the one doing the capturing here.

* * *

Half an hour or so passed. After the excitement from the tournament died down, everyone hung out and talked more calmly for a while.

“Wow, you’re all so connected.”

We’d split the bill for a pile of snacks and juice and alcohol from the closest convenience store and were chatting about the Atafami world while we shared everything. I was learning that all kinds of new information was flying, since I usually only played online. Obviously, Hinami and I and the rest of the underage crowd were having soft drinks.

By the way, Harry-san and Rena-chan were sitting by me, and Rena-chan in particular kept bumping my feet because we were fairly close. Also, every time I looked at her, I saw that heart-shaped hole, which I wish she’d just cover up. If I didn’t install Mizusawa quick, I’d probably die.

“Yeah, we are. Oh, by the way, Ashigaru-san shows up here a lot.”

“Ashigaru-san? The pro gamer?”

“That’s the one.”

I latched on to the meetup gossip Rena-chan was doling out. Ashigaru-san is the top Lizard user in Japan. He’s a pro Atafami player who regularly participates in international tournaments, and when he’s in good form, he sometimes ranks at the top. He’s incredible.

“I bet he’s really tough.”

“He is! At least, when I played him, I was totally useless.”

“Ah-ha-ha. That’s not surprising.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Rena-chan complained, but she smiled at the same time and touched my leg between the knee and the thigh. Please stop, I’m ticklish. Weirdly, even after she took her finger away, the sensation stayed.

Next to us, Harry-san nodded enthusiastically.

“I mean, his main is Lizard. If you don’t know how to handle him, you’re gonna be useless.”

“Yeah, with Lizard, you have to be extra careful.”

Lizard’s a thief character who scatters firecrackers and steel traps and other projectiles like that all over the stage, and he fights at mid- to long-range with heavy blows. There’s a lot of techniques and set plays you’ve got to learn, and when you’re fighting, you have to always be thinking about multiple things. So even though he’s a top-tier character, people say he’s hard to use.

But once you’ve mastered him, you can really control the game, and if your opponent doesn’t know how to deal with Lizard, you have a huge advantage. I’ve seen a lot of games where Lizard’s opponents short-circuit mentally from dealing with all projectiles, so he’s able to seize control and beat them before they can do anything.

Ashigaru-san probably used Lizard better than anyone else in Japan. Maybe in the world.

Harry-san picked up a piece of smoked squid and went on in a pained voice.

“Oh yeah, you’ve gotta take some serious special measures. When we played, I knew I was screwed.”

“I know what you mean! He’s beyond me, too,” Max-san said, which convinced me they weren’t making this up.

“If you’re playing someone who’s mastered him, I don’t think you can even get him with mind games.”

“Right?! I mean, you can’t get close to him. And if you do, you gotta be perfect, or he’ll intercept you with a dash attack or a forward tilt, just like wham! You’ve gotta keep your cool, but it’s so hard…”

“Huh…I’d like to play him some time.”

As we chatted about Atafami, Harry-san, Max-san, and Rena-chan were all drinking canned cocktails, while I had a cola. Just being able to talk openly about what I love made those totally ordinary convenience-store snacks and drinks taste like the most delicious things in the world.

…Uh, wait a second.

“Rena-chan, are you drinking alcohol?”

“Yes, and?”

Wait, I thought underage drinking was illegal…

“Um, how old are you?” I asked her. She smiled nonchalantly.

“I know what you’re thinking! I’m twenty.”

“What?!”

She was way older than me! No wonder she had that weirdly adult magnetism. I’d gotten carried away and started calling her Rena-chan and using casual language with her, but we never properly introduced ourselves. I did say I was in high school, but now that I thought about it, I hadn’t asked anyone else how old they were. Damn, human interactions are tough.

“I should be calling you Rena-san! Sorry about that,” I said.

Rena-chan…Rena-san smiled invitingly.

“Oh, no, nanashi-kun gets to call me Rena-chan.”

“Um…”

She just took a giant step closer to me—metaphorically and literally. That sweet scent blurred my awareness again. Shit, I had to install Mizusawa. Otherwise, I was going to sit there gaping like a fish.

So what would Mizusawa do?

I remembered a conversation he and I had a little while ago.

And then…

“You’re right… I am technically nanashi-kun. I’ll stick with that,” I said in a confident, joking tone.

I don’t know if that was the right answer, but that’s what my inner Mizusawa said. I think it’s because of that conversation we had about our plans after high school, when he very confidently said he’d be all right because “this is me we’re talking about, after all.” Aside from the discomfort of acting so full of myself, I think it worked in the conversation.

“Ah-ha-ha! That was a very nanashi-like answer!” Rena-chan said happily. Maybe she really does enjoy it when someone messes with her or talks down to her. Weird.

“Um, so, Rena-chan?” I said hesitantly.

“Yes, nanashi-kun?” she answered.

I felt like we were so close, we were actually touching—is that normal when you’re twenty? I was trying to act like it was totally normal for me, too, and I think I was scoring a ton of EXP.

As I was successfully navigating this new kind of conversation with grown-ups…I suddenly heard Hinami’s voice from a slight distance.

“Nope, no one! I mean, there are some guys, but no girls. That’s why I don’t talk about it much at school.”

I glanced over. She was surrounded by three or four guys, apparently talking about herself at the center of the circle.

“Yeah, I haven’t seen many female players.”

“Right?! One reason I came today is because I felt so lonely.”

I think they were talking about whether there were any other Atafami players at her school. She was babbling on in a leisurely, charming way, and the guys listening and nodding along seemed to be enjoying themselves just as much—wonder if she was fine with acting like a princess? I just hoped this didn’t turn into a clash of the princesses. I glanced over at Rena-chan. For a few seconds, she stared at Hinami, her black eyes unreadable, before looking away.

“You never go to offline tournaments?”

Harry-san’s question brought me back to our conversation. Max-san and Rena-chan were looking at me curiously. Offline tournaments?

“Honestly, I was never very interested before now.”

“Really?” Rena-chan asked.

I nodded.

Until now, I’d stayed in the online world, but of course, that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about it.

“Winrates are calculated from hundreds or thousands of games, but the results of a tournament might depend on how I feel the day of. So I thought maybe it didn’t mean as much.”

“Yeah, I can see your point.”

It was similar to how I used to think about life.

No matter how high your winrate normally is, if you get nervous on the big day and mess up, you’re treated like a loser. Atafami is the best of the best, and I didn’t want it to be contaminated by elements of a shitty game the second it got pulled into the real world—aka life.

I wanted to remove as much randomness as possible from a competition of effort and ability.

“But…”

“But?”

I thought back on my literal “life experience.”

“…lately, I’ve started to think I should just enjoy all of it. That’s why I came here today.”

Harry-san grinned. It was a kind smile, with deep lines at the corners of his eyes.

“Interesting… So you’ve gone through some mental and emotional changes. Well, you are a student, after all!”

“You could be right,” I said casually and smiled. Hinami is my mental image at moments like this when I want to seem approachable. “I’m planning to check out some of those tournaments in the future.”

“You are? That’s great! I’ll let you know next time something’s going on.”

“Would you?”

“Sure. How should I get in touch? I can’t remember if you’re on Twitter or not.”

“Uh…no.”

I did have an account, but it was a private one that I basically just used to keep an eye on other people and never tweeted myself. So I actually didn’t have one for interacting with people.

“You don’t? It’d really be handy for you to have an account as nanashi.”

“You think so?” I asked.

Rena-chan nodded. “Twitter is the main way everyone stays in touch around here, with replies and DMs.”

“Guess I better make one, then.”

“The second nanashi makes an account, I bet you’ll get tons of followers,” Rena-chan said, eyeing me. She seemed pleased, although I’m not sure why.

“Do you have one?” I asked her.

“Of course! Wait a second…” She took out her phone and showed me her profile.

“Thanks.”

The account for rena@atafamiaka was pulled up, with an icon that was very obviously a selfie. She followed 56 people and had 521 followers, which was fairly impressive.

“This is the account where I chat with everyone!” she said, handing me her phone. I took it, slightly embarrassed by her trust, and scrolled down through her tweets. There was a big mix of content—a picture of an Atafami screen with the words Training mode, anyone? as well as tweets about her everyday life with selfies attached, and comments about real-world meetups. There were even lists of stuff she wanted from Amazon and ones saying, It’s here! I wonder if she’s well-known in this world. I guess you stand out if you look like that in the Atafami world.

“Cute!”

I’d found a picture of Rena-chan holding a cat, with the words At the cat café.

“I know! Actually…”

She sidled up right next to me and started telling me about the picture. Since we were both looking at the screen, we were super close, and our shoulders were actually touching. That sweet scent drifted into my nostrils and attacked my brain again, and a warm sensation was spreading steadily from my shoulder. I’m fairly sure I’d be in trouble if she stayed this close for long.

I mumbled the appropriate responses as she told me her story, then when she paused, I handed back her phone and continued talking to Harry-san and Max-san.

“Anyway, I’ll get in touch after I make an account.”

“Got it. But you still haven’t told me how,” Harry-san said jokingly, laughing a little.

“Ah-ha-ha. Very true. Wanna exchange LINE info?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Me too!”

I traded info with Harry-san, Max-san, and Rena-chan. These days, that’s not enough to get me flustered—but I did feel slightly guilty about doing so with a girl while I was dating Kikuchi-san…

Once we were friends on LINE, Harry-san turned to me with wide eyes.

“I saw you use your real name on there—are you okay with that?”

“Oh yeah…”

I only realized after he pointed it out; I’d been using my gamer handle the whole time at this meetup, but my LINE name was just Fumiya Tomozaki.

I felt a little shy about having the two names connected, but it wasn’t like anything was going to happen just because people knew my real name.

“It’s fine! No loss for me!”

“Ah-ha-ha. Gotcha. I’ll still add you as nanashi, though.”

“Fine by me,” I said, nodding.

By the way, Harry-san was just Harry, Max-san was Shibata/max, and Rena-chan was R*.

Rena-chan gazed at her phone intently, then smiled.

“Your name is Fumiya-kun?”

“Um, yeah.”

She locked eyes with me. “Can I call you Fumiya-kun?”

“Um, I guess so…”

It was technically fine, but again, I was dating Kikuchi-san. I felt guilty—but I would sound crazy if I said, No, you can’t call me Fumiya-kun because I have a girlfriend. This was a tough situation.

“Yesss! Fumiya-kun it is!” she joked.

“‘Yesss’? What’s so exciting about that?” I joked back.

Wow, we sure were getting friendly. It was strange; I felt like my position was being eroded but not in an unpleasant way.

Now that we’d all exchanged info, we went back to talking about Atafami. I wanted to ask them a lot of things.

“Interesting! So depending on the location, some characters are easier to defend against than others?”

There were YouTubers like Harry-san and Max-san, and others who wanted to be pros. There was the Kanto region and the Kansai region, the online scene and the offline scene. A whole wide world was out there, and of course, as an Atafami player, I wanted to know about it.

“Yeah. The number of players in a certain area who’ve mastered a given character is surprisingly important.”

“It’s so…mundane, you know?”

I tried to sound as cheerful and funny as possible as I asked the questions I wanted to ask and responded to other people’s questions or made my own comments. What was slightly different from other parts of my life was that it was all based on Atafami, which I love.

To my own mild surprise, I felt totally at home here.

I hoped that Hinami was feeling the same way.

* * *

The next morning, I was sitting on my bed, checking various social media sites and smiling awkwardly.

“Top Online Player nanashi Turns Out to Be a Hunk…”

As I was scrolling through the feed on my private Twitter account, an Atafami news roundup with that title popped up. I opened it and saw that the main Atafami threads were all about nanashi appearing at a real-world meetup, sweeping the tournament with overwhelming skill—and being a stud who brought a beautiful girl with him.

“…Oh man.”

That wasn’t all.

An Atafami player who I followed had rt’d a tweet saying nanashi-san is super handsome, can’t believe he’s in high school! by someone who was at the meetup and then added For reals? There were clips of the live broadcast of my final match against Hinami and videos of past online games posted by my opponents. Nanashi had apparently been the talk of Japan’s Atafami world since the day before.

“Wow…this is getting more attention than I expected.”

I knew I was somewhat well-known because of my ranking, but I honestly had no idea that just taking part in an offline meetup would get this much attention. Even famous pro players who went to international tournaments were tweeting stuff like So nanashi finally showed up offline and Good-looking on top of it all. S-tier? My stomach was full of butterflies just reading them.

There were also some tweets saying stuff like Good at Atafami, handsome… God’s unfair. Unforgivable, nanashi, where I couldn’t tell if they were being mean or joking or both, which made my stomach flip.

But anyway, if the rumor was that the top online player in Japan was a high school student and handsome to boot, I felt like I needed to say something.

“‘Handsome,’ huh…?”

I’d gotten that compliment multiple times the day before. It was the polar opposite of what I’d always been called in the past—gloomy or creepy or ugly or a freak. And now I was being hit with words like stylish and easy to talk to and chatty, which I normally associated with the normies in my class. This was definitely a first for me.

I stood in front of my full-length mirror and stared at my reflection.

“…Interesting.”

I realized something.

In the past, I’d looked at this guy in the mirror, with his hair done and his mannequin clothes on, and thought, He’s pretty stylish. That gave me a confidence boost.

But this was different.

The guy in the mirror hadn’t styled his hair, and he was wearing his pajamas. He sure as hell wasn’t stylish. The real me was on full display.

But that didn’t matter.

My own reflection didn’t gross me out.

My hair was a mess, considering I’d basically just woken up and run my hand through it.

I was wearing a set of threadbare black sweats that were obviously very well-loved.

My ordinary bedroom added nothing.

But…I didn’t feel like I was a freakish nerd.

I don’t know if that counts as growth or vanity.

Maybe I just felt that way because I could see the changes in how I was holding myself.

Or maybe I was a little buzzed from all the compliments I’d gotten the day before.

But I was sure those changes meant more. Way more than dressing well or being able to hold a conversation.

“…All right!”

I was staring at my face.

I’d been living with this face for seventeen years. It was the first thing people would see about me, and I couldn’t change it.

My features weren’t especially even, but they weren’t too bad, either. I didn’t hate it quite as much as I used to—and as I studied, I found myself accepting it unconditionally.

“‘Handsome,’ eh? …Well, I’m not sure about that,” I muttered—to who, I didn’t know. Eventually, I started to feel silly and laughed to myself.

It’s not that I wasn’t happy. But I didn’t think those compliments determined my value.

Any value I had came from the action and determination that made me decide to change and then follow through.

I’m a gamer to the core, and that was my genuine belief.

“…Here I go!”

I pulled myself together and sat down at my computer to start doing some research.

I wanted to find out more about the world of Atafami that Harry-san and Max-san had told me about the day before.

First, I looked up Harry-san’s YouTube channel and scanned the list of uploaded videos. At the top of the long list was one titled “Japan’s top player is even better than me at using Wigglypoff! nanashi VS Aoi on Atafami.” I smirked. I got his point, but that’s really the kind of title he uses?

Skipping over my own video out of embarrassment, I played some of his other videos in the background as I continued my research.

I looked up schedules for real-world meetups, and the differences between Kanto and Kansai style. I read about players like Harry-san with profitable YouTube channels, and pros who played internationally.

These days, the majority of pro players actually seemed to have YouTube channels, too, and when I searched for famous pros on Twitter, a high percentage of them had links to their channel. They all posted fairly often, but how did they balance practice with making videos? Considering that a lot of them also had regular jobs, I figured they must be posting their practice games on YouTube.

And how did they cover the costs when they went overseas for tournaments? How did sponsors support pro teams? How big were the prizes, what social standing did pros have, what was the history, and how did future prospects look? I researched all of it.

Unlike the game itself, this way of having your life wrapped around Atafami was new to me. I’d assumed I knew about that world, but I’d never actually looked into it, and now that I did, its breadth and depth surprised me.

“These guys are incredible…”

I looked at some videos by people other than Harry-san, too. I’d watched a lot of serious games and tournament videos in the past, but I’d skimmed over the lessons for beginners and the character intros. I hadn’t realized it, but like Harry-san, a lot of people made money off this stuff. I could tell from the variety of the editing choices, conversational styles, and structures that a lot more went into it than simply playing the game.

“Interesting…”

I’d thought online winrates were the be-all and end-all of Atafami, but maybe I was wrong. I mean, even a quick glance around revealed this hugely varied universe.

It was like…well, like real life.

Some people played for fun, and others more seriously. Some were pros, others were YouTubers.

Some pros specialized in serious matches, while others were entertainers who attracted viewers more with their commentary than with their playing.

There were people who did this as a job and others who did it for fun on the side.

Their perspectives and the information they provided were all over the board, and none was “better” than any other.

Well, in that case…

…if I wanted to do it myself, what approach would I choose?

Part of me was casually mulling over the question now.