6

Whenever you trigger one flag, another one always seems to break

The next morning, I was unexpectedly the central topic of conversation.

“Tomozaki, are you serious?”

“I am.”

That’s right. I decided to tell everyone else what I’d told Mimimi about trying to be a pro gamer. Since I’d made up my mind, I didn’t have any regrets about my choice, and there was no reason to feel embarrassed about it.

“Shit, how am I supposed to beat you if you’ve got the best winrate in Japan?” Nakamura whined.

“It’s your own fault for trying.”

“What was that?”

“Gulp…!”

I’d gotten to the point where I could talk back to Nakamura when he complained, which I think you could call a sign that I was closing the gap in our ability levels.

“I always knew you weren’t an ordinary kid, Fumiya. Pretty good judge of character, eh?”

Mizusawa was using my announcement to boost his own reputation, but I’ll forgive him. This was Mizusawa, after all.

“Show me your ways, too, Farm Boy!”

“I will, but you should know it takes a fair amount of thinking.”

“Awesome! Then I’m sure I’ll be great at it!”

“Ha-ha-ha. Okay, glad to hear that.”

We were all wound up. Being the best in Japan is fairly impressive, but gaming is still gaming; the excitement in the group didn’t really spread outside it. Honestly, I was grateful for that, but I did want to tell them all how incredible Atafami was.

I wondered if having other people find out about this would negatively impact my chances in the game of life. I glanced questioningly at Hinami, but since she wasn’t about to murder me with her glare, I figured I was probably in the clear.

“…Huh?”

When I looked away from Hinami, I noticed Kikuchi-san glancing at me. That reminded me that I’d meant to send her a LINE message about it when I got home last night, but in the end, I decided not to.

Now it seemed better to wait till break or after school instead of telling her right now. I wanted to be able to really talk about it with her, just the two of us.

* * *

During break after first period, I walked over to her.

“Kikuchi-san,” I said. Her shoulder twitched in surprise.

“Oh…Tomozaki-kun.”

She looked down awkwardly. I guess she wasn’t over what happened the previous day.

“I was wondering…,” I said, trying to draw her out. “Do you want to walk to the station together after school?”

She met my gaze. But her expression was somehow dejected.

“Um…”

“What?”

She gave me an appraising look. “…Your plans.”

I was surprised by what she said next.

“You decided on your plans for the future?”

“Huh? Oh, uh-huh. I did.”

“I see…”

It was sort of a strange way to respond to my question, but it’s true that everyone was making a big fuss over it before homeroom. Since I hadn’t told her yet, surprise was an understandable reaction. The reason I had invited her to walk to the station was so I could tell her about it, but given how loudly everyone was talking, she must have overheard.

“Um, I wanted to talk to you more about it later…but I think I want to be a pro gamer.”

“Yes…”

Her expression was still gloomy, and I felt like she wasn’t fully there. But she wasn’t acting truly strange, so it was hard to ask her what was wrong.

“Um…why?” she began hesitantly. “Why did you decide that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Uh, um…”

That was a big question, and it would take a long time to answer, which was why I wanted to walk to the station together.

“Some things that happened at the meetup, and talking with Mimimi, and other stuff. Of course, I want to tell you about all that.”

“The meetup…and Nanami-san,” she echoed, then smiled sadly.

“That’s why I wanted to—”

She interrupted me, which she hardly ever did. “I’m sorry.”

“Um…” I didn’t expect that answer, either.

“Today…I think I want to walk to the station by myself.”

I had no idea what to say.

We didn’t walk home together every day. But this was the first time she turned down my invitation because she wanted to be by herself, not because she had other plans.

“Oh…okay.”

“…Yeah.”

There was another awkward pause.

“…Okay. Then we’ll go home separately today.” I swallowed the sadness that was welling up in my chest.

But it was me, not her, who wanted to walk to the station together. Even if we were dating, I needed to respect her wishes.

“Yeah…,” she said, looking down.

I didn’t know what else to say, so I just stood there, staring at her.

She held her breath for a second, then nervously met my eyes. “Um…if we go home separately, who will you—?”

Just then, the bell rang, drowning out her soft voice and cutting off our conversation.

She’d started to say something, and the classroom was growing steadily quieter. If it was important, she could have repeated it, but she didn’t pick up the broken thread of words.

We silently returned to our seats, and class began.

The image of Kikuchi-san biting her lip anxiously was burned into my mind’s eye.

* * *

At lunch, something else unexpected happened.

“…Huh?”

It happened when I was eating lunch with the group that was going to Spo-Cha.

A LINE message from Kikuchi-san arrived.

[I’m sorry. I do want to walk to the station together today.]

I sat there, silently staring at my phone, surrounded by the joking and talking of the rest of the group.

What the heck was going on?

In the morning, she had turned down my invitation, and now it was lunch. What emotional change had taken place in the space of a few hours? I had no idea.

And there was another problem, too.

“Let’s figure everything out after school!” Takei was wrapping up the conversation.

That’s right. We’d decided to all meet up in class after school let out. And since Kikuchi-san had already turned down my invitation, I’d said I would be there, too.

But Kikuchi-san was clearly acting strange. Leaving things as they were would be a bad idea.

I went along with the conversation as I typed my answer to her.

I was certain the most important thing in a situation like this was to tell her everything up front.

[I’m supposed to get together with everyone after school in our classroom to talk about this weekend. Would you be willing to wait until we finished? I want to walk to the station with you, too!]

I sent the message, then switched off my screen.

I’d never had a girlfriend before, so this was all new to me.

But I felt sure that if I was honest and open, we would be able to understand each other.

* * *

The school day ended.

The Spo-Cha meeting (aka random chat with the normies) ended up lasting over an hour, and Kikuchi-san waited for me in the library until it ended.

Chatting for so long with a group that included slightly less familiar members like Tachibana and Kashiwazaki-san took a lot out of me, and by the time I headed for the library, I was fairly drained. On top of that, I’d been worrying about things with Kikuchi-san all day.

When I walked into the library, I saw the familiar sight of Kikuchi-san sitting there with a book. When she saw me, she smiled and closed it. It was like I was seeing her for the first time in ages. A relief.

“Hello.”

“Hi. Thanks for waiting. I’m beat.”

“You are?”

I nodded and sat down next to her, setting my bag on the table. “Can I rest for a second?”

“Tee-hee. Of course. It’s been a long day.”

“…Yeah.”

Time was flowing slowly now.

“Let me know when you’ve rested enough.”

“Okay. Mind if I run to the restroom?”

“Go right ahead.”

I walked over to the bathroom next to the library. I couldn’t tell her that I’d actually had to go for half an hour, but I got swallowed up in the normie wave and couldn’t make an escape.

I finished my business and stood in front of the mirror, washing my hands, staring at my reflection, and psyching myself up.

I was glad we’d decided to meet in the library. I felt like just being there melted away some of the awkwardness from earlier.

I was sure I’d be able to talk to her about everything—

With that thought on my mind, I walked back to the library, and that’s when it happened.

I opened the door and looked inside.

I saw Kikuchi-san. She had my phone in her hand.

“…!”

When she noticed my presence, she looked over at me with an expression that could be interpreted as panic, despair, or sorrow.

“…Kikuchi-san?”

She set my phone on the table, picked up her bag, and started running.

“Hey, wait!” I called.

But she just kept running out of the library. Should I chase after her? What in the world was happening? I tried to organize my chaotic thoughts and decided that first I had to figure out what the cause was.

So I picked up my phone—and got a shock.

A LINE message from Rena was pulled up on the screen.

It said:

[I’m sorry for bringing up sex out of the blue the other day.]

Full of regret and panic, I flew out of the library.

But Kikuchi-san was nowhere to be found.

“…This is bad.”

My relationship was in serious trouble.