5

The most important thing in any game is whether you can genuinely enjoy it

It was Sunday afternoon, and I realized I’d messed up.

“…Huh?”

I turned off Atafami’s training mode and checked my message notifications. A new message from Kikuchi-san had arrived ten or fifteen minutes earlier, but the content was slightly strange.

[I’m sorry, were you busy…?]

I opened the app and checked the chats. To the right of the chat message from Kikuchi-san was a notification reading “1.” It was strange that even though we had ongoing conversations about multiple topics, she’d only replied with one message. When I clicked on it—I understood why.

“Shit.”

The previous day, before the meetup.

While I was waiting with Hinami for the other participants to show up, we’d been talking about how Kikuchi-san acted at the café, and I was thinking about how to reply to her message. I’d come up with a decent reply, but just then, before I sent it, Harry-san had shown up, and I closed the chat—and never opened it again.

In other words, while I’d actually written a solid response, all Kikuchi-san knew was that I’d read her message almost a day ago and not sent a reply.

“Noooo!”

I was screwed. It’s not that there’s some rule saying as soon as you read a message, you have to respond, but I’d definitely made her worried. I decided to start by answering right away.

I cut and saved the message I’d originally written, then replaced it with a new one.

[Sorry! I was at that Atafami meetup I told you I was going to, and I didn’t realize I never responded!]

I sent off this honest explanation of what had happened.

A few minutes later, a reply arrived from Kikuchi-san, even though usually she only sends one or two LINE messages a day. There were two separate texts.

[Oh, okay, that’s fine!

Would you like to get together today…?]

“Huh?”

Something was definitely out of the ordinary. Obviously, we ask each other to hang out sometimes, but this was the first time either of us had done it so last minute.

But what to do? I had a shift at Karaoke Sevens from five to nine that night. Meeting up after that…probably wouldn’t work.

I glanced at the clock. It was already two. Meeting before my shift was probably unrealistic, so today was looking tough. I sent a message along those lines.

[Sorry! I’ve got to work until 9 tonight.

Let’s get together another time!]

Her response came right away.

[Okay…sorry to bother you when you’re so busy.

Hope work goes well!]

I responded with a [Thanks], then started getting ready for work.

The whole exchange consisted of apologies, but I was at least glad to have cleared up the misunderstanding. I’d have to make it up to her later.

* * *

“I heard the news! You got a girlfriend!”

Gumi-chan approached me in the kitchen of Karaoke Sevens with intense interest.

“Uh-huh,” I said, smiling wryly.

She sidled up right next to me and started interrogating me.

“Did it happen at the school festival?! Was that your chance?!”

“I guess…”

“Oh my god! What a player!”

“What?”

For once, she was practically shouting. She was super excited. If only she could direct that energy toward our customers.

“There were so many cute girls in your class!! Which one is it?!”

“Not sure how to answer that…”

“Is it the one with the ponytail?! Is it Ponytail Girl?!”

“Uh, n-no.”

My heart skipped a beat at this sudden mention of Mimimi, but it seemed like Gumi didn’t have any actual details. I was glad Mizusawa or someone hadn’t told her for fun or something. I guess he doesn’t do shit like that.

“It isn’t?! Is it someone I talked to?!”

“I don’t think so…”

“Do you have a picture of her?!”

I was speechless before this tsunami of questions. As I made the parfait a customer had ordered, I remembered that someone had sent a shot of the whole class taken after the festival to our class LINE group.

“Actually, I do…although it’s a group shot.”

“Show me!”

“After work.”

I set the parfait on a tray and headed for the customer’s room, calling out “Delivering!” as I left.

“Oh, wait a second, Tomozaki-san. The parfait’s for 306, right? My order’s on the third floor, too, so it’s more efficient if you delivered mine with yours.”

“Okay, sure.”

Yeah, this girl’s lazy, but she’s capable of work. Her obsession with efficiency is real.

* * *

Since we’re both in high school, the two of us got off at nine.

I’d changed into street clothes and, at Gumi-chan’s insistence, was reluctantly showing her the group shot from the school festival.

“Oh my god!!” she shouted, zooming in on Kikuchi-san with her pointer and middle fingers. “You’re kidding me! She’s so cute!! And her clothes are immaculate!!”

“She is immaculate,” I said, privately amused by the image of Kikuchi-san as a saint.

“So that’s your type!”

“I g-guess…,” I said, giving in to the force of her enthusiasm.

Gumi-chan stared at me, covering her chest with both hands. “Which means… Ooh! I’m you’re type, too?!”

“Uh, I wouldn’t call you neat and tidy.”

“You’re mean!”

I’d definitely categorize her as a gyaru-type mollusk. She definitely wasn’t immaculate in either sense of the word.

“Tomozaki-san, you wound me.”

“Did I?”

“You can make it up by treating me to dinner. You can even get something cheap.”

“I’m not treating you to dinner, cheap or otherwise! Stop acting like that’s a compromise!” I said, fending off Gumi-chan’s typical attempt to mooch off me.

“Good-for-nothing cheapskate!” she shot back as we left Karaoke Sevens.

As we headed toward Omiya Station, I asked Gumi-chan a question.

“Have you decided what you want to do in the future yet?”

“Well, that was sudden! Do you mean my dreams or whatever?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded, and she struck a cutesy pose.

“I wanna be a trophy wife. ”

“Oh…”

Her answer was so predictable that I felt I’d wasted both of our time by asking.

“It would give you plenty of chances to do nothing…,” I said, disappointed.

She rested her finger on her chin and pouted. “But I do think it’s bad to be completely dependent on someone else.”

“You do?”

This was slightly interesting. Unlike her original answer, it was unexpected.

“Yes. I have the feeling I should be able to do something for myself.”

“Wow, I’m surprised to hear you say something so responsible,” I told her.

“Obviously!” she said, puffing out her chest. “I mean, if he dumps me, I’d have to stand on my own two feet. If I was starting from zero, it would be hard even to get back to normal. Not efficient at all.”

“You’re not responsible. You’re just realistic.”

She was simply taking her laziness seriously.

In that sense, she wasn’t really a dreamer. For her, being lazy was a skill, and you had to maintain the right environment for it. Being lazy brings its own problems if you simply do nothing. I think she intuitively understood that.

“What about you, then, Tomozaki-san?”

“Me? Well…”

Since she asked, I decided to tell her my thoughts about the future—or, well, my basic stance to live life as a gamer.

“The specifics don’t really matter, but what I think I want to do is take life seriously, set goals for myself, and achieve them one by one.”

“You’re kidding me. That sounds like hell.”

“Ha-ha-ha. Yeah, that would be rough for you.”

She said “hell” very casually, but the word reflected her fundamental life philosophy. She genuinely hated to work.

“I mean, to me, goals and achievements are like some kind of punishment. I’m the opposite of you. I want to avoid taking life seriously at all costs. I wanna stay as far from challenges as I can. I just want to take it easy.”

I couldn’t help smiling at all the details of her aesthetic.

But now that she mentioned it, I realized that our stances really were polar opposites.

“And I, on the other hand, think constantly taking on new challenges is fun.”

“Bleck,” she said, throwing me a look of disgust. “You really are an alien, Tomozaki-san… I could never live like that. We’re starting from different premises. We were born on different stars.”

“Ah-ha-ha, you might be right,” I said, but I was caught on something she said. “But…”

“What?”

The word premise.

True, we were opposites in that I wanted to pursue challenges for my whole life and she wanted to take it easy by running from them.

But.

“I think we both want to enjoy life, at least,” I said, feeling I’d hit on a key point. She tilted her head like she didn’t understand. Guess she didn’t follow.

* * *

The next day was Monday.

At our morning meeting, I told Hinami about Kikuchi-san’s LINE messages.

“That’s typical. It’s not an issue that would threaten your relationship,” she said but didn’t elaborate. What was her problem? I didn’t have anything new to report with my assignment, but I had that LINE group, so I’d just have to launch off that.

I headed to class and asked Takei and Mimimi if they wanted to plan a “Finding Ourselves” event. Since I’d already gotten a lot of input on my own future at the Saturday meetup, my purpose now was mainly to complete my assignment. I needed to either go out of the prefecture in a group of at least four or do something else in a group of at least six.

“Since this is about finding ourselves, I think we should go to a place where we can do lots of stuff,” I said.

“Hmmm,” Mimimi said, thinking, then she turned to Takei and asked, “Do you have any ideas?”

Oh boy. Well, it’s true that I’m not an expert in this sort of thing—but today was going to be different. I butted in.

“How about we go somewhere like Shinjuku or Shibuya where there’s tons of different places and have a look around?”

“That sounds fun!”

“Or somewhere like the Spo-Cha amusement center; they’ve got stuff to do.”

“That sounds good, too!”

Takei seemed excited about everything I threw out. He’d make a good stooge.

As far as why I was able to make so many suggestions, it was simple—I’d done some research beforehand. It wasn’t even a trick; it was the most basic of basic strategies.

“Ooh! Spo-Cha is a good idea! I’ve actually never been there!” Mimimi nodded enthusiastically. I felt like the plan was falling into place. I’d suggested Spo-Cha, but of course, I’d never been there, either. And I’d only been to Round One game centers by myself. I mean, it’s called “Round One,” so I think that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Apparently, Spo-Cha has everything from basketball and futsal to darts and billiards, as well as a game center where you can play every imaginable video game for free. It probably wasn’t a bad choice for “finding ourselves” in that you can experience a lot of things in one day. And it was all new to me, since I’d only played sports in gym class.

“Okay, so we’re going to Spo-Cha, then? I heard there’s a good one in Odaiba,” I said, trying to take on the central role. Both of them agreed. Ooh, I feel like I just decided something. And I casually planned it for out of the prefecture. Did you see that, Hinami?

“You guys talking about Spo-Cha?” Nakamura said, sauntering over. Izumi was behind him, and she seemed pretty excited.

“I wanna go!” she said. Count on a popular girl to say what she wants.

“Yay! Nakamu and Yuzucchi! It’d be awesome if you came!”

Mimimi was getting excited now, too. The group did stand out, and with these two added, it was starting to sound like a party. I even felt like everyone was looking at us. Mimimi and Takei were attention-getting enough, and now we had the top couple in the class involved.

“Me too!” Kashiwazaki-san said, coming over, and Tachibana followed, saying “That sounds fun!” What was with these party animals? When I thought about the fact that I was the one who got this whole thing started, I felt like I was living a fantasy. But wait, this was supposed to be about finding our way forward. Now it was starting to be more about having fun.

Anyway, what to make of this? I was supposed to go out of the prefecture with a group of at least four or go somewhere else with a group of at least six. It looked like I’d end up going out of the prefecture with a group of more than six people. Was it okay to tick off both requirements at once?

“C-can we invite Tama-chan, too?” Takei was obviously blushing.

“Uh, yeah, but…”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. Like, yeah, it was fine, but now I really would have to protect her.

* * *

It was break before we switched classrooms.

“Kikuchi-san?”

I was in the library.

“Tomozaki-kun!”

Her face brightened instantly when she saw me. I’d been nervous about meeting because of the incident on LINE, but seeing her in person was enough to reassure me.

“Sorry about yesterday.”

“Me too.”

We both apologized, which made me feel slightly shy. It was like our awkwardness was being reset to zero. Sometimes, communicating solely via text doesn’t work so well.

We sat next to each other as usual and read Andi books. If we had something to say, we said it, and if we didn’t, we just sat there quietly. I liked our time together.

“…Tomozaki-kun?”

“Yeah?”

I looked over at her. She was doing something on her phone. She held it up to show me the website for a café and bar.

“I’d like to go here.”

“Show me!”

I took her phone and looked at the website.

Apparently, the place was famous for its nonalcoholic cocktails and especially for serving unusual drinks inspired by various fairy tales and fantasy stories.

“Oh, this looks great! Yeah, let’s go.”

She nodded, smiling, and said, “Yes, let’s!” Then she took her phone back and opened the calendar. “Um…how about this Sunday?”

“Sunday? Um, Sunday…,” I said, then remembered something. “Oh, sorry, I can’t.”

“Oh, do you have plans already?”

I nodded. I’d literally made plans just before coming to the library.

“Yeah, um, I’m going to Spo-Cha with some people…”

“Oh…”

Her expression clouded over—and her attempt to smile made me feel even worse.

“With…Nanami-san and the other people you were just talking to?”

“Y-yeah.”

She glanced down with a slightly lonely look, smiled bravely, and looked up again. I wanted to do something, but I didn’t think it would go well if I invited her to hang out with that group. It was an extreme normie lineup, and to further complicate things, Tachibana was coming.

“How about Saturday?”

“Yeah, Saturday sounds…” I pulled up my calendar, then stopped. “Not good. I’ve got a meetup that day. For Atafami.”

“Oh, again?”

The conversation ground to a halt.

Our plans for the weekend didn’t happen to mesh, nothing more, so why was the mood suddenly so heavy?

“Um…so I guess we’ll do it next week?”

“Yeah, for sure! Uh…my manager is making the schedule now, but I think I’ll have one day off. Sorry, can I tell you later?”

“…Yes, of course.”

She smiled, going along with what I said. But I felt like her smile was slightly forced. It bothered me.

“Um…that reminds me, Tomozaki-kun.”

“What?”

“…Your Twitter is amazing.”

“Oh…you looked at it?”

After the meetup on the weekend, I told Ashigaru-san about nanashi’s Twitter account. He followed me back and tweeted about my account. The same day, the video of my match against him was uploaded on YouTube, and partly thanks to what a nail-biter it was, it got twenty or thirty thousand plays in one day.

As a result, I’d glided right past a thousand followers, and not even a week had passed since I created a Twitter account for nanashi.

“It’s getting way more out of hand than I expected…”

Over the past few days, I’d had a couple of difficult Twitter incidents not unlike when Rena-chan called me Fumiya-kun…but I think Ashigaru-san had a lot to do with my popularity.

“I can tell. But I wouldn’t expect any less for the best player in Japan,” Kikuchi-san said, giggling. I smiled wryly.

“Ah-ha-ha…thanks.”

She gave me a slightly concerned look. “Um, the woman who…called you Fumiya-kun…”

She seemed to have a very hard time getting her words out. My heart was thumping. I felt slightly guilty about my relationship with Rena, which made me suddenly uncomfortable.

“Y-yeah?”

“I was wondering…if she’ll be there on Saturday…”

“Uh, I’m not sure, but I think…she might be,” I said, fumbling for an answer.

Kikuchi-san startled and pressed her hand to her mouth. “Oh! I’m s-sorry to be so nosy…”

“You’re not being nosy!”

“Um…anyway, it’s not important. I’m fine.”

“You are? …But really, we only met once at a meetup, so please don’t worry.”

“…Okay, I won’t.”

She nodded and then forced another smile.

A kind of sadness was settling over me, as if I’d done something wrong, but I didn’t know how to put her completely at ease. Also, considering that phone conversation we had, saying “we only met once” was probably slightly misleading.

“Oh…we’d better go.”

“Yeah, let’s get going.”

Break was ending, so we headed toward the biology room.

…I’d wanted to talk about other things, but somehow, I missed my chance.

* * *

That day after school, I was at Kitayono Station.

Usually, everyone went home with their own group, but today, since everyone was talking about the Spo-Cha trip, we naturally ended up walking home in a big group. Because of that, I once again ended up alone with Mimimi. I was getting used to it—but I still felt uncomfortable because of Kikuchi-san.

“So, Brain, has anything changed since our last talk? Did you make any decisions?”

“You mean about careers?”

“Yeah! About what you want to do!”

I mentally ran through what I’d thought about over the weekend. “Actually, I went to another offline meetup.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded. Mimimi’s eyes sparkled with interest.

“I actually met a current pro gamer.”

“No way!”

I told her about meeting Ashigaru-san and playing by official rules.

“You finally got to play a pro gamer! Exciting!”

“And I lost.”

“What? You did?! I thought you said you were the best player in Japan!”

I wasn’t sure how to explain.

“I am…but online winrates are different from winning or losing a single game.”

“They are?”

“Yeah, it’s like— Well, first of all, using the controller feels different offline, and you’re in a different mental state…”

Mimimi made a satisfied noise. “I think I understand what you mean.”

“You do?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “It’s the same with track.”

That made sense.

“Yeah? Like when you go to meets and stuff?”

“Right!”

She nodded with a little smile, then sighed comically. “I get really nervous. The meets are tough for me.”

“I could see it.”

“Ah-ha-ha, you can? Yeah, that’s how I am!”

For some reason, she sounded proud of the fact, then pursed her lips in a pout.

“I work so hard to get good times in practice…but it’s all for nothing if I screw up on the big day.”

“Yeah…that sucks.”

As I listened to her, I was envisioning my game against Ashigaru-san.

“But in my case…”

I’d never experienced that level of nervousness playing online for my winrate, that panic of absolutely having to win a specific game.

“…it was like…I only had that one chance, so I was really on fire.”

I should be feeling bad about my loss, but all I remembered was that seething excitement.

“Each individual game was more important than any game I’ve played before, and that was super exciting.”

My thumb twitched on an invisible controller.

“Hmm…but didn’t you feel bad because you’re number one online?” Mimimi asked.

I hesitated for a moment.

“It’s true that it’s a little nonsensical for the winner to be decided in that one game, regardless of winrates…but betting everything on that one game was what made it so fun.”

Suddenly, I realized I was surprised.

“…Whoa.”

I touched my lips, blinking. I’d just realized the meaning of the words coming out of my mouth.

Actually, of what we’d been talking about all along, and of what Mimimi said a minute earlier.

That if you lose the big game, you lose everything. It was nonsensical and unfair.

That’s how I’d felt about life until I met Hinami.

That’s why I’d called life a shitty game. Why I’d thought I didn’t need to play it seriously.

But what did I say just now?

“…Interesting.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Mimimi leaned forward and peered into my face.

“I said I thought of life as a game, right?”

“Yeah, you did.”

That was consistent with my core perspective on life as Fumiya Tomozaki and nanashi’s core perspective on games.

“But for pro gamers…I think the opposite is true.”

“The opposite?”

I nodded and stared down at my palms.

“They’re the opposite of me—they think of games as life.”

That’s an amazing level of determination, I thought as I said the words.

At the same time, my instincts said it must be amazingly fun.

You had one shot, and every result was final. In a sense, it was the pulse of reality that came from the illogic of life.

I was certain that was why I’d felt so excited when I was playing Ashigaru-san.

In which case, if…

…if I could make Atafami my life…

…could anything be more fun than that?

“…Huh.”

I took a breath and let it out, giving shape to my abstract emotions.

As a gamer, I’d always thought I wanted to be a character in all kinds of games.

I wanted to dive into each game with my whole self and enjoy that world completely.

I thought about those few minutes of fighting.

In the game of Atafami, and in the game of life—

—there’s no question about it: I was a character.

I felt like the boundary between Atafami and life was melting away.

The sweat on my hands around the controller was real, but the reason I was able to get so totally absorbed in the game was because it was Atafami.

Found fought so hard because he didn’t want to lose. He existed on the screen, but the reason I bet everything on a single game was because it was life.

Life and Atafami swirled together, giving off a single quantity of heat.

And I was playing with everything I had, as one character.

I was sure that was exactly what I wanted to do.

In other words—

—I wanted to make my life more brilliant by throwing myself completely into Atafami, the game I loved.

And I wanted to dive deeper into Atafami by betting my life on the game.

If that’s not a hybrid playstyle, I don’t know what is.

“Brain?”

Mimimi was giving me a puzzled look.

I’d been ignoring her as I came to a conclusion in my own mind.

“I’m going to try to be a pro gamer.”

“Really? …I mean, what?” Mimimi yelped, surprised by the sudden revelation. “What? That came out of nowhere! You just decided right now?!”

“I think I want to give it a real shot,” I said, like that was completely normal.

Mimimi was clearly confused.

“Wait, what is going on? You’re just that sure you’ve got the gift?!” she asked excitedly.

I thought for a minute.

“Um…that’s part of it, but…”

“You really are amazing, Brain!”

“But more than that…”

I told her very directly what I’d just realized.

*   *   *

“…I thought, if I use games to enjoy life, and life to enjoy games—that should create a positive feedback loop that makes the world infinitely more fun.”

When I said it out loud, I was surprised by how childish it sounded.

“…You’re kind of an idiot, you know that?”

“H-hey…”

Apparently, Mimimi had the same thought.