3: Multiplayer games have their own special appeal

Bottom Tier Character Tomozaki — LNCrawler · All chapters

Multiplayer games have their own special appeal

Finally, the day of the barbecue trip arrived.

I wasn’t waiting at Kitayono Station for long before Mimimi arrived.

“You sure are early, Tomozaki! Should we get going?”

“Okay!”

We’d all agreed to meet at Ikebukuro Station, but earlier in the morning, Mimimi had suddenly texted me on LINE and suggested we take the train together, so we ended up doing that. It was a situation typically reserved for normies, but I wasn’t too nervous. I was fairly used to hanging out with Mimimi, and at this point, I even felt slightly at home. What an incredible change that was.

As usual, Mimimi was simply dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, but she managed to look stylish anyway. Once again, I realized how attractive she was to pull that off. It was just like her, too, to be carrying a sporty backpack stuffed to the gills.

We charged our train passes with enough money for the round-trip journey and went through the ticket gates.

“Another hot day again, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect weather for a barbecue!”

“…You think so?”

Mimimi snapped a finger upward. She pointed at the ceiling, but I think she meant to indicate the sky. “Obviously, Brain!! The meat awaits us!”

“Oh right.”

I’ve heard people say hot days are barbecue weather before, but it never made sense to me. I’m not exactly an outdoorsy type, so personally I try to avoid the sun on hot days…

It wouldn’t do me much good to say that, though, so I changed the subject.

“A-anyway, I wonder how everything will go.”

“Me too! Hum, hum, shall our stratagem with Yuzu and Shuji meet with success or failure?” Mimimi pretended she was stroking an imaginary mustache.

“Um…well, I think it all depends on Nakamura.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha! True! Nakamu can be such a wimp sometimes.” Mimimi energetically bounced her full backpack up and down, laughing as she placed her hands on her hips. Where’d the mustache go? Or are we past that already?

“So do you have a good plan for us this time, Brain?”

Mimimi leaned in close and peered cheerfully into my face. Her perfectly formed eyes and nose were right next to mine. Wow, she has really good skin. I reflexively turned my eyes away.

“Um…that stuff isn’t exactly my strong suit.”

“So modest! You were perfect during the election!” She winked and poked her finger into the air.

“Oh, no, I meant anything involving romance…”

“Ah yeah! You definitely have a point there!”

“Ouch.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha!”

We were joking around as the train carried us toward Ikebukuro. Talking to Mimimi felt natural now; the conversation flowed so smoothly I didn’t even have to think about it. She knew I was a gamer and adjusted how she talked to me accordingly, but most important of all, her laughter was genuine, which made me enjoy myself, too. All we were doing was standing on a train talking, but I wasn’t bored at all. H-hey, is this…friendship?!

“That reminds me. I had an interview the other day for a part-time job, and it turns out Mizusawa works at the same place.”

“No way! What a coincidence. So now you guys are gonna be work buddies?”

I introduced a couple more topics, and pretty soon we were at Ikebukuro. Mimimi and I joined the huge crowd of people getting off the train.

“By the way, Tomozaki…,” Mimimi began a little shyly as we walked along the platform.

“Yeah?”

“Um, it’s just…” She looked away and scratched her cheek. “I wanted to thank you for everything recently! You really…saved my butt. So thank you again!”

“Oh, uh, yeah, it was nothing.”

That caught me off guard. I felt my face growing hot with embarrassment.

“When I thought about it, I realized you really did a lot for me! You were like…my hero! I mean it. Um, yeah! That’s what I wanted to say! Let’s go!”

With that very uncharacteristic speech, she sped ahead of me down the platform.

“Uh, yeah, okay. Wait!”

As I hurried to catch up, I thought about what she’d said. No one had ever thanked me for anything so directly. A pleasant warmth spread through my chest.

I’m not quite sure how to put it, but I guess I was glad I’d made the effort to involve myself in other people’s lives.

* * *

We’d all agreed to meet a short walk from the JR Ikebukuro exit, near the Seibu Ikebukuro Line ticket gate. From there, we were going to take the Seibu Ikebukuro Line to Hanno Station and transfer to a bus that would take us to the campsite. When Mimimi and I got to the meeting place, Hinami, Mizusawa, and Nakamura were already there.

“Hey.”

“’Sup.”

Nakamura and Mimimi exchanged casual normie-ish greetings. Everyone else followed their lead with brief “Heys.” I rode the greeting wave by copying them.

“So we’re waiting for Takei and Yuzu again, huh? Both repeat offenders,” Mizusawa said.

“Yeah, they’re always late! I know they read the LINE message I sent this morning. They probably just aren’t worried about being on time…” Hinami checked her phone while she talked.

After a few minutes, the two of them arrived. Izumi was first.

“Geez, you guys are early! Am I the last one?!”

“Nope, still waiting for Takei.”

“Huh?” She glanced around. “Oh yeah, no Takei…”

H-had she forgotten he was coming…? He hadn’t been invited to the strategy meeting either… Oh man, Takei…

A few minutes later, the man arrived.

“Shit! Am I last?! Anyway, let’s take a photo to get things rolling!”

With that slapdash attempt to distract us from his lateness, he pulled up the camera on his phone, herded everyone together, and snapped a couple of selfies.

“Okay! I’ll post these on Twitter!”

What planet was this guy living on? I felt sorry for him but also totally lost.

We piled onto the Seibu Ikebukuro Line and headed to Hanno Station, chatting about nothing much on the way. From there, we were going to take a forty-minute bus ride to a stop near the campsite.

The Nakamura-Izumi strategy was about to begin.

The key here was where we all sat. The first step in our plan was to have the two of them sit next to each other. Incidentally, there were four guys (Nakamura, Mizusawa, Takei, and me) and three girls (Hinami, Izumi, and Mimimi) on the trip. That made seven of us altogether, so if we sat in pairs, one person would end up sitting alone. I figured it would be okay if that person was me. Anything for the cause!

When we got on the bus, I saw the back row was already full, so we were indeed going to pair off. We’d discussed several strategies for making sure they sat together. Hinami was the first to take action.

“Let’s sit here, Takahiro!”

With that, she breezily plopped into a window seat and gestured for Mizusawa to sit next to her. The idea was for the girls to tell the guys where to sit, leaving Nakamura until the end so he ended up with Izumi. Mimimi moved next.

“Hey, Brain, mind if I take the window seat?”

She sat down behind Hinami and Mizusawa.

What?! She named me? Swallowing my surprise, I sat down next to her. Damn, she’s close.

All Izumi had to do now was tell Nakamura to sit next to her! Sorry, Takei, but you’ll deal, right? You’re used to this stuff. After all, you weren’t even invited to the strategy meeting.

“Um…,” Izumi mumbled, turning red. “I guess, um…Takei.”

“Huh?” Nakamura said.

“Hey, Takei! Let’s sit here!”

“Seriously? Okay!”

Seemingly oblivious to what was going on, he smiled happily at being chosen. He plopped down next to her, said something like, “Selfie time!” and snapped a picture with his phone. Was Takei genuinely an idiot? Well, I suppose since he hadn’t been told about the plan…

“Gonna post this on Twitter!”

He started messing with his phone. What was with him? He was in his own little happy world. Meanwhile, we were all absorbed in our plan.

Grimacing, Nakamura sat down alone behind Izumi and Takei. I leaned out into the aisle to look at him and caught his sharp gaze pointed at me.

“What?”

“N-nothing.”

Growing inexplicably apologetic, I shrank back into my seat.

That was how Izumi’s shyness caused Nakamura to sit alone, leading to the unbelievable failure of the grand bus seating strategy. This was not going well. Come on, Izumi; how about you get with the plan?

As we rode along, the seating arrangement stopped mattering because everyone was talking with the people in front of them and behind them. In that sense, the collapse of the seating strategy had probably resolved itself; it would have been the same even if Nakamura and Izumi were sitting next to each other. As for me, I managed to keep up with the conversation but not to push forward the couple strategy. Two assignments at once was still beyond me.

The bus pulled up at our stop. We had to walk about five minutes from there.

“Ooh, we’re definitely in the mountains now,” Izumi said, blocking the sun with her hand. The glitter on her nails sparkled in the sun. True enough, the road was paved, but there were trees on either side. Ah, nature.

“It’s so hot.” Nakamura’s scowl alone was enough to make me feel intimidated. As he’d pointed out, the sun was high overhead and getting hotter by the minute. The trees might be providing a little relief compared to the city, but it was still superhot.

“Okay, should we get going?”

Holding an oddly shaped branch she’d picked up, Mimimi took the lead and started walking.

“Mimimi, wrong way!” Hinami wasted no time in scolding her.

“What?! Really?”

Mimimi swept her error under the rug with a giggle. Oh, Mimimi.

* * *

Following Hinami’s directions, we made it to the campground. It was pretty big and surrounded by trees. According to the map posted up front, there were two areas: a big open field and a gravelly riverbed. The log cabins we’d be staying in were in the field. The plan was to have the barbecue by the river and then go to the cabins afterward. The guys and girls were staying in separate cabins. Totally kosher.

“Okay, guys, ten thousand each!”

Mizusawa collected the cash and used some of it to pay the camping fees. The rest would go toward other expenses, and we’d get back anything that was left over at the end. Very efficient. These guys were pros.

Inside the campground, a bunch of groups were already putting meat on the grill. The field was basically like an enormous park without many amenities aside from benches and little shelters, so people had set up canopies and parasols to shield themselves from the sun. There were families and university students and kids our age.

“Wow, it’s already packed! We’d better find a spot quick!” Izumi pranced around excitedly.

I almost wanted to do the same. It was exciting. Now just take that excitement and direct it toward Nakamura, Izumi.

“First things first,” Nakamura said, heading over to the building labeled CAMP CENTER in the middle of the field. The rest of us followed to rent a barbecue set: a grill packed with charcoal, some tongs, enough food for the seven of us, a chef’s knife, and a cutting board. With the canopy, we had a lot of stuff to carry. Now this was starting to feel like a barbecue. We lugged everything down to the riverbank and started to set up. It was a little cooler down there, probably thanks to the water nearby.

“All right, everyone, time for job assignments!” Hinami declared in a theatrical impression of a manager.

“Yes, ma’am!” Takei chirped in response. Hinami was supposed to give Izumi and Nakamura a job together. Knowing her, she’d probably pull it off with ease.

“First, Yuzu and Shuji…I’d like you to wash and cut the vegetables.”

“What?!”

“Gotcha.”

Izumi was caught off guard while Nakamura responded with imposing confidence. Hinami had boldly named the two of them right off the bat. Very like her.

I figured the rest of the assignments didn’t matter much—until I heard them.

“Setting up the tent and table will be a lot of work, so let’s have Takahiro, Takei, and Mimimi on that.”

“Got it.”

“We’re on it.”

“Okay!”

The three of them responded…which meant… Wait a second!

“That leaves me and Tomozaki-kun to get the fire started. All righty, let’s get to work, guys!”

Looked like I was working with Hinami. Did she want to have a meeting or something?

Everyone cheerfully took up their positions and started in on their tasks under the hot midsummer sun.

* * *

“What’s this about?” I asked Hinami, using my typical meeting tone. We were working far enough away from everyone else that they couldn’t hear us. The real point of having everyone spread apart, of course, was so Nakamura and Izumi could talk without being overheard. All I could tell from this far away was that Takei was monkeying around and taking a bunch of photos of the other two setting up the canopy. Like I said, he was on his own planet.

“What’s what about?” Hinami frowned.

“I thought you paired us up because you wanted to have a meeting about something.”

“…Nope.”

“Really?”

That was a surprise. She didn’t want to talk about anything special? Then why were we working together?

“Um, then why?” I asked, feeling a little shy now.

“Well, I put Nakamura and Yuzu together according to our strategy, correct?” Hinami answered coldly. “And then, since the canopy is a tough job, I chose Mizusawa for his leadership skills, Takei for his physical strength, and Mimimi because she would fit in easily. I wanted to do the fire myself because if you mess that up, we can’t do anything at all. You were left over, so you naturally ended up with me.”

“…Oh.” I sighed at her cold logic. Typical.

“Also, I get tired of putting on an act all the time,” she added in a barely audible voice.

“Huh.”

“…What?” She shot me a disgruntled glance.

“Nothing… I’m just surprised to hear you get tired of anything.”

“Obviously. I’m only human.”

“Now that you mention it, I guess you are…” I nodded. I’d almost forgotten.

“But it is a good idea to have a meeting. I still haven’t told you today’s assignment, after all.” Hinami stared at the piece of charcoal she was twirling around with the fire tongs.

“An assignment? The general goal is for me to make some guy friends, right?”

“Yes. That it is. Also, I want you to get more conversation EXP. Don’t forget that Fuka-chan said you’re hard to talk to.”

“Oh…right.”

As I reflected on that particular comment again, my mood fell a little. I really had thought I was doing a good job making conversation.

“That said, just staying here overnight is gonna net you a lot of EXP, and it’ll be a confidence booster, too. I think you’ll be able to complete the assignment just by acting naturally.”

“Huh… So as long as I actively try to make conversation, I don’t have any other assignments?”

“Gaining EXP is the biggest thing. But while you’re doing that, I also want you to do something else.”

“Like what…?”

“Mess with the person you’re talking to or contradict them, same as before.”

“…Oof.”

I shrank at the thought of repeating an assignment I’d struggled with. Hinami snorted.

“Three times—with Nakamura.”

For a moment I was struck dumb.

“With Nakamura ?!”

I barely managed to keep the volume of my voice down. Hinami nodded with satisfaction.

“If I don’t make your assignments progressively harder, what’s the point?” She sounded like she was baiting me.

“I—I get that, but…going up against Nakamura three times…”

I shivered as I imagined it. I—I mean…I could just see him glaring at me and giving some retort that would tear me apart… This was not a guy I should be messing with…

“Well, you’ve got plenty of time, so make sure you choose the right moment. I don’t think you’d lie to me, so you can do it when I’m not watching if you want.”

“I—I understand.”

I was happy to have her trust, but that feeling was rapidly disappearing under my terror of what was to come.

“Aside from that…this isn’t even really an assignment, but…”

Hinami looked over at Takei, Mizusawa, and Mimimi setting up the canopy in the distance.

“It would be great if you could actively try to become better friends with Mizusawa.”

“…With Mizusawa? As part of my goal to make male friends?”

Hinami nodded. “Mizusawa is currently your most likely candidate for a friend, and he’ll also be the most beneficial in the future when it comes to conquering the game of life.”

I smiled cynically at the words most beneficial . Hinami would think of it that way.

“You mean I can steal conversational skills from him, and he’ll make it easier for me to join the Mizusawa-Nakamura group?”

Hinami nodded. It made sense that she was pushing this angle, given the fact that she’d already strong-armed me into a job at the same place where he worked.

“Yeah, that’s the general idea. The closer you get with Mizusawa, the easier it will be for you to mess with Nakamura, too. Plus, you need to reach a point where no one will say you’re hard to talk to.”

Hinami sounded a little irritated. I wasn’t totally sure why, but I had an idea. The character she’d developed herself wasn’t getting the reviews she’d hoped for, and that was frustrating. After all, for her, this was practically a digital-pet game with me as the pet.

“Now that we’ve got that covered, let’s get this fire started. It’s not a glamorous job, but it’s the most important one.”

“Huh? Oh right.”

For some reason, she seemed excited as she set what I think was a fire starter in the grill and piled charcoal around it. Her expression was focused, but I could tell she was having fun. Not necessarily about the barbecue itself, though—I think her gamer’s spirit was on fire at the question of how she would clear the difficult and high-stakes puzzle of building a fire. Mizusawa called me weird, but I think this girl is way weirder than me.

She piled the charcoal like a chimney.

“W-wait, I don’t think there’s going to be enough pathways for the oxygen if you do it like that.”

“Don’t be stupid. If we leave the top open, an ascending current will form and create airflow.”

“Really? But oxygen flow is so crucial…”

“I know that. Combustion is ultimately just a chemical reaction between carbon and oxygen.”

“That’s true. If you think about it, charcoal and air are the most basic form of combustion.”

“Right. The primary component of charcoal is carbon. When the oxygen in the air reacts with that carbon, combustion occurs. And charcoal especially has lots of tiny holes for the air to flow through—another reason why it’s the simplest, most effective, and most beautifully structured fuel.”

“In that sense, the game of fire starting with charcoal is actually a very easy one once you figure out how to do it.”

“Exactly.”

“…So are you sure there are enough pathways for the air in that formation?”

“You’re very persistent.”

When we’d argued as we usually did up to this point, something occurred to me. I really had no right to get on a high horse talking about other people.

“Like I said before, this is perfect. An ascending current will form and draw air in from the base. Just watch.”

“I will.”

With that, Hinami’s technique scored her a nice win in the game of fire starting. I had nothing more to say. You’ve done it again, NO NAME.

* * *

“…Nice. Got the pic. It’s done!”

Takei cheerfully snapped a picture of the grilled meat with his phone before distributing it to the rest of us. Maybe this is a case of that “social media addiction” people like to say kids have.

“Yay, meat!!” Mimimi exclaimed. There was still plenty more on the grill. Every time a dribble of fat melted off the thick slices of marbled beef, the charcoal made a pleasant crackling sound. The onions, peppers, and corn had grill marks and gave off an appetizing aroma. I could hardly wait any longer.

“Hey, this onion looks weird. Who cut this?”

“Shut up and eat, Shuji!”

It was obvious from this little exchange that Izumi and Nakamura had a good time cutting up the vegetables together. Everyone aside from those two and Takei grinned, then dodged suspicion by complimenting the food instead or something. But seriously, the casual way Nakamura teased Izumi remined me of his top-tier status.

“Hey, Takei. You took the one I wanted.”

“Wait, wait, wait, Shuji! That’s mine!”

“You’ve been pigging out on the meat this whole time. Eat some veggies already.”

“Aww, c’mon, Shuji. Yuzu, save me!”

“What?!” Izumi yelped. “Don’t stress, Takei! You can handle this!”

“You’re no help at all! Mimimi, save me!”

“Leave it to me! Hey, Nakamu, I don’t see you eating any veggies, either!”

“Wow, Mimimi, bold words from someone who hasn’t even touched the shrimp.”

“Sorry, guys! I’ll eat anything but shrimp!!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll eat the shrimp and the meat for you,” Hinami offered.

“The shrimp are all yours… Wait—are you after my meat, too?! By the way, why do you never gain weight, Aoi…?”

“My little secret

.”

“Aoi loves to eat…”

“Takahiro, did you say something?”

And so the normie conversation unfolded. Watching them, I realized again how strong Nakamura was. One of his techniques was to store up little factoids like Mimimi’s hatred for shrimp and deploy them in situations like this.

Comebacks were flying as everyone enjoyed themselves in the roasting heat. I’d never experienced a meal this wild before. This must be the true pleasure of barbecue. I’d always rejected this kind of vibe, but once I tried it out with an open mind, I realized it was actually pretty cool; the smiles and the sunshine and the heat of the charcoal all blended together into one dazzling scene.

Finally, the feast ended.

“Ugh, I ate too much…”

Izumi rubbed her stomach, her face a sickly shade of white. Nakamura watched with a frown.

“I warned you not to overdo it!”

“B-but…it was so good…”

“What kind of stupid excuse is that?”

“Sh-shut up!”

They seemed to be getting along great, which was the main goal. By all appearances, at least, our strategy to get them together was succeeding. On the other hand, my terror of messing with the all-powerful Nakamura was growing by the minute.

We broke into groups to get rid of the charcoal, break down the tent, clean the grill, and other stuff like that. Mimimi scolded Takei for slacking off in the middle to mess around on his phone. Apparently, he was posting pictures of the meat on Twitter. He was hopeless.

We finished cleaning up in twenty or thirty minutes and returned the rented equipment. It was time to launch our next strategy. This one was extremely simple. We were all going to hang out by the river.

We didn’t know what to expect, so we couldn’t make much of a plan, but since the two of them liked each other, something good would happen as long as we gave them the opportunity to hang out on their own. If the vegetable cutting was any indication, the outlook was promising.

“Okay, everything’s been returned!” Mizusawa said as he and Takei came back. Surprisingly, he was wearing swim trunks. Hey, wait, are you that serious about hanging out by the river? I didn’t even bring anything to wear in the water.

“Hey, hey, looks like Takahiro is getting serious! In that case, I’ll follow his lead!”

Mimimi competitively pulled off her T-shirt and jeans. Hey, now… I couldn’t tear my eyes away, but as it turned out, she was all suited up. Oh right, I guess she’d worn her swimsuit under her clothes. That was a surprise. I instinctively looked away from her flat, white stomach.

“Tomozaki, what are you looking at her like that for?! Gross!” Izumi teased.

“I-I’m not looking at anyone…”

My eyes turned involuntarily in Mimimi’s direction again. She was wearing a blue patterned swimsuit, the kind with a sort of cloth that wraps around the hips. I already knew she had a nice figure from seeing her in clothes, but in a swimsuit, her slender waist and large chest completely knocked me out. Her legs and arms were long and slim but toned, with a faint tan that reminded you she was making the most of her youth. I didn’t usually think about how pretty her face was because she was always so cheerful and her expression changed by the second, but during the brief moment of quiet, her doll-like features made a striking image with the summery scenery and the swimsuit she was wearing.

“Me, too!”

Hinami started pulling her clothes off, too. So she was wearing her suit, too, huh? She took off the T-shirt-like thing she was wearing but left her denim shorts on. Without her shirt on, she brought to mind the word perfect . She had the perfect amount of feminine fleshiness, but I could still see the outlines of muscles on her flat stomach. Her belly button was weirdly sexy. Her chest was really hot even though I think hers was smaller than Mimimi’s—probably her posture. She was a hybrid of vibrant athleticism and feminine attractiveness. Wait, what the hell am I talking about?

“I wore my suit, too…but I think I’ll just take off my shorts for now!” Izumi said.

She must have been feeling shy, because she slipped out of her shorts but left her T-shirt on. The clear outline of her obviously huge chest under her shirt together with the unusual combination of clothes on top but not on the bottom got my imagination working overtime. I’m sure she decided on that option because she was self-conscious, but the result was an even more erotic impression than if she had revealed more skin. Argh, what the hell am I talking about? Someone please shut me up.

I expected to end up watching the stuff by myself while everyone else swam, but it turned out that Nakamura and Takei hadn’t brought their trunks, either. Okay, so I wasn’t the only one who didn’t immediately think swimsuit when I heard our plan of a barbecue followed by river time. At first, I’d thought I was just failing to keep up with the normies, as per usual, so it was a relief to know that wasn’t the case.

But how were we going to get Nakamura and Izumi alone?

“So none of the guys except Takahiro brought their suits? I should have told you to bring them!” Mimimi laughed self-consciously.

“What are we, little kids?” Nakamura scoffed.

“No worries! We can still get in the water!”

Takei, who had been standing next to Nakamura, thrashed into the river fully clothed. It wasn’t that deep, and he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, but I was sure if he played around like that, he’d get soaked through to his boxers. Wonder if he brought a change of clothes. Guess so, since we’re spending the night.

“Okay, guys, let’s take our stuff up to the lockers first!”

We all followed Hinami’s suggestion, then came back down to the river.

* * *

As I’d predicted, Takei was soaked through in minutes. He didn’t seem to care, though, since he was splashing around with Mizusawa, Hinami, and Mimimi. Hinami’s shorts (or should I say bottoms?) got wet, too, but knowing her, I figured she’d prepared for that.

I’m pretty sure the eyes of every guy on shore were glued to Mimimi and Hinami as they splashed around with girlish smiles among the water droplets glittering like jewels in the sunlight. A couple of guys in a nearby group of what looked like university students were watching them and whispering to each other. When the two of them got together, it was a real show.

Meanwhile, Nakamura, Izumi, and I were splashing around at the edge of the water. Sorry, guys… You’ll have to tolerate the trio since I didn’t bring my trunks…

Izumi kept splashing Nakamura, and she seemed to be having fun messing with him. He acted scornful but was still taking the bait. They were getting along super well, and I could tell how perfect they were for each other. Better figure out how to slip away.

For the moment, I focused on making myself invisible so they’d forget I was there. My long years as a bottom-tier character had helped me to hone this skill, so you could say I was in the perfect position. Everyone was probably already thinking, Well, they’re not alone, but it’s just Tomozaki, so… , and I had to meet their expectations. Leave it to me!

Unfortunately, the hopelessly dense Takei came over just then. “Hey, Yuzucchi! If you have your suit on, why don’t you come out in the deep water with us?” Man, just stay away. The only people allowed over here are Izumi, Nakamura, and nearly transparent people.

“I don’t want to get wet!”

“Oh, come on! Look, a little crab!”

Takei pulled his hand from behind his back and thrust it in front of Izumi’s face. A little black crab was pinched between his fingers.

“Eek!” In her surprise, Izumi stumbled and slipped.

“Careful…!!”

Nakamura reacted in a flash. Kneeling down, he caught her like a knight carrying a princess. But even though he broke her fall, she still ended up in the water. Her T-shirt was soaked, and her hair got wet up to her ears. The ensuing splash got Nakamura fairly wet, too.

There they were, the beautiful girl and the handsome guy, dripping with water.

“Oh! Th-thank you…Shuji.”

“…Are you okay?”

“Um, yeah… I’m not hurt.”

“…Sheesh, don’t fall over. Not cool.”

“Shut up! …But thanks.”

They looked very glamorous gazing at each other at close range with their hair and clothes all wet. Perfect setup for a kiss. I guess if you want to keep your position at the top of the class, you have to remember to say, “Not cool,” even when the moment’s perfect? Better take some notes.

“…S-sorry, Yuzu!! Are you okay? What’s wrong with me?!!”

And then came Takei, who began apologizing profusely as he shook Izumi’s shoulder. He seemed so regretful I half expected him to start crying at any moment. He totally destroyed the movie-perfect atmosphere, but he didn’t seem to do it intentionally, so I forgave him. Based on his reaction, I could only guess that he hadn’t considered how dangerous it would be to scare Izumi while she was standing in the river and had shown her the crab on a moment’s impulse. Seriously, though, who has a sudden impulse to show someone a crab?

“Are you okay?” Hinami shouted from a distance. She must have guessed what had happened.

“I-I’m fine! Everything worked out!” Izumi stood back up with Nakamura’s help and waved at Hinami.

Honestly speaking, Takei’s behavior just now wasn’t exactly the smartest or smoothest, but the end result was to bring Nakamura and Izumi even closer together than they’d been before… Oblivious idiots really are scary.

I glanced at Izumi. Her soaked T-shirt was clinging to her chest and stomach, outlining her body in unbelievable detail.

I could see the outline of her black swimsuit and even the color of her skin through the white fabric pasted to her form. The most suggestive part of it all was the way it clung to the two huge mounds on her chest, revealing every detail of their shape. The transparent, clingy fabric made me feel like I was seeing something I shouldn’t be seeing, something raw and sensational that affected my male sentiments even more than if I’d seen her bare skin. Yup, Izumi definitely has big boobs.

All the young guys in the vicinity were staring at her.

“…?!”

She must have felt all the stares, because she suddenly hid her chest with both arms. This had the ironic effect of pushing her boobs together and emphasizing their size. If I saw any more than this, I’d be in trouble. I turned in the other direction.

“Y-you should go change,” I said. The image I’d just seen seemed to be permanently displayed in my head: The clingy, thin fabric. The two large swells. The translucent shade of her skin. Her flushed cheeks and moist eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest in embarrassment.

So a wet, see-through T-shirt was sexier than a swimsuit. Interesting. I’d just learned another important lesson in the game of life. God, what the hell am I talking about?

* * *

“That was so fun!”

Mimimi sounded thoroughly satisfied. She had changed from her swimsuit back into a T-shirt.

The sun was setting, and the sky outside was turning shades of pink.

“Yeah. I feel like a kid again!” Mizusawa said, nodding as he took his stuff out of the locker.

“Takei didn’t just feel like one, he literally turned into one,” Nakamura teased.

Takei promptly offered a pitiful apology. That was all it took to reaffirm Nakamura’s superior status over Takei. I couldn’t even imagine Takei teasing Nakamura. It was even harder for me to imagine myself doing it in the coming hours, but do it I must.

After Izumi fell in the water, she went to change right away and then came back to play around in the shallow area with Nakamura again. I poured all my energy into fading into the shadows, which earned me some approving glances from Mimimi. I’m happy that my lowly self could be of service.

“What should we do now? Head over to the cabins and chill for a while?”

“Sounds good!”

Our next plans efficiently fell into place thanks to Mizusawa’s and Hinami’s leadership. We would go drop off our stuff at the cabins where we’d be staying that night.

“Okay then, let’s go.”

With those words from Mizusawa, we split into guys and girls. Which meant that from this point on, I’d be on my own with Nakamura, Mizusawa, and Takei. Seriously? This was terrifying… Still, it could be a chance to complete my assignment.

The cabin was about the size of a large bedroom made of wood.

“Wow! Nothing in here!”

The cabin had nothing but a floor, windows, a door, and a ceiling—and that was apparently exciting to Takei. He buzzed around checking it out until he got bored and sat down. I envy a guy who can get excited over literally nothing.

“Think we can use those cards?” Nakamura asked, sitting down listlessly.

“Yeah, looks like we can borrow them for free,” Mizusawa answered energetically.

“We’re going to the hot spring later, right? Guess we’ll kill some time till then… Hey, Tomozaki.”

“What?”

“Hey,” Mizusawa interrupted. “I’ve been wanting to ask you, how are things with Shimano-senpai lately?”

As soon as Nakamura said my name, Mizusawa changed the topic. I think Nakamura was about to make me bring him the cards. You are one scary guy, Nakamura. B-but just you wait, I’m gonna mess with you!

And this Shimano-senpai who Mizusawa had mentioned… I remember that name! That time in home-ec class when Hinami told Nakamura, “That’s why Shimano-senpai dumped you!”…Mizusawa must be talking about the same older girl at our school who broke up with Nakamura last semester. Nice one, Mizusawa. Gathering a little intel for the Izumi-Nakamura strategy. Information gathering is definitely crucial for beating a game. I always follow the top Atafami players on Twitter and 2channel threads to look for new info.

“…Why’re you asking all of a sudden? Nothing’s been going on whatsoever.”

“Nothing?”

Mizusawa and Hinami are probably the only two people who could get away with pushing Nakamura that hard. I, on the other hand, have an internal rule that says, Do not push Nakamura , which is definitely a hierarchy thing. And today I had to overturn that rule three times.

“We talk on LINE sometimes.”

“So you’re talking again, huh? You trying to get back together or something?”

Mizusawa sat down next to Nakamura and started asking him all the questions everyone else wanted to but couldn’t. Impressive. Would I ever be able to do this kind of thing? I listened to their conversation, waiting for my chance to get in a jab.

“She’s with someone right now…but seriously, why’d you bring it up all of a sudden?”

“No real reason. Everyone talks about romance on an overnight trip, right?”

Mizusawa looked at me. I needed to help out however I could with the information gathering and imitate his aggressive questioning, at least on a surface level; I sat down across from the two of them and gave a thumbs-up.

“True that.”

“Don’t get carried away, Tomozaki.”

Nakamura’s superiority hit me hard. Damn, he was scary. And I’d done such a smooth job of answering! It was like he was really saying, Someone like you has no right to answer smoothly . He was too far above me in the pecking order.

Still, he sighed and mumbled, “It’s complicated.” The information was trickling out.

“Complicated how?” Mizusawa asked.

“She’s dating someone, but she still texts me on LINE. She’ll be like, We’re not getting along , like she wants my advice. I’m not trying to get back with her, but like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Hmm,” Mizusawa said, frowning. “That is complicated.”

“Basically, I want to move on, but it’s hard.”

“If you feel like you still have a chance with Shimano-senpai, it’d be hard to date someone else.”

“And I mean, come on, look at her boobs.”

The two of them laughed. Ooh, guy talk. Anyway, to summarize what Nakamura just said, it sounded like they’d been dating until she dumped him, and she’d recently started sending him messages about problems with her current boyfriend. Which made him feel like he had a chance with her again, so he was having trouble dating anyone else.

To me, that sounded like…

“What’s that look for, Tomozaki?”

My thoughts must have shown on my face, because Nakamura glared at me.

“Oh, n-nothing.”

“Ugh, why are you being so weird?” Nakamura was grumpy and merciless.

Mizusawa smiled at me. “Fumiya, you must have some thoughts on this situation.”

“Uh, well…”

“What? Tell us!”

He looked at me, excited. What was he expecting? But I had had a hunch that now was the time to go after Nakamura. O-okay, time to gather my courage…! I took a breath and put my hunch into words.

“I-it’s just, what Shimano-senpai is doing…”

“Yeah?”

“Isn’t she stringing you along?”

The second I said it, Mizusawa burst out laughing. It spread to Takei next, and he started cracking up. I cautiously glanced in Nakamura’s direction. He was scowling fiercely at me. Y-yikes! Of course, that was unavoidable. I’d just called him the benchwarmer equivalent of a boyfriend.

“You’re pushing your luck,” he said. But he didn’t sound as intimidating as usual, and finally he seemed to give in.

“Yeah, I’m her backup,” he groaned, shrugging hopelessly. Mizusawa and Takei laughed even harder. This seemed to be a pattern of his: Nakamura-being-laughed-at had turned into Nakamura-making-the-guys-laugh. Was that a technique related to messing with people and being messed with? If it was, it was way too advanced for me.

Anyway, my heart was pounding, but I’d safely cleared my first attack.

Finally, Mizusawa managed to catch his breath, wipe away his tears, and continue collecting information.

“Okay, that aside, do you have your eye on someone else?”

Nakamura clucked his tongue in a very revealing way, then answered with some resignation. “That’s a tough one. There is someone, but she’s asked me for advice about her romantic situation, too.”

“…Seriously?” Mizusawa’s tone changed. I jumped a little myself. If our assessment was right and he was interested in Izumi, that would mean Izumi had asked Nakamura for advice about another guy. What the hell? Izumi liked Nakamura, right? So did Nakamura like someone else? If so, we’d made a major miscalculation.

“What kind of advice?”

“She was like, ‘I have a crush on someone, but I don’t think they’ve noticed me. What do you think I should do?’”

“…Ah…hah…”

Sounding very concerned, Mizusawa pressed his hand to his mouth. Was it just my imagination, or was he trying to hold back laughter? Anyway, the story was getting very weird. If Nakamura was after Izumi, that meant Izumi had gone to him with that line about having a crush on someone— Ohhhhh. I get it.

My little aha moment gave me quite a shock. In other words, Izumi had asked her crush for advice on what to do about her crush! She was asking Nakamura for advice about Nakamura! No way! What bittersweet tactics! Suddenly, Mizusawa’s laughter made sense.

“So your chances there are weak, too, huh?” Takei said innocently.

C’mon, are you okay? Even I figured this one out.

Still, I was a little surprised that Izumi had come up with such a solid plan. Or maybe this was typical for normies in their mysterious world.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a message from Mizusawa to the Nakamura-Izumi strategy group Hinami had set up.

[Apparently, Shimano-senpai’s been telling Shuji she’s having problems with her bf, ha-ha. That’s keeping him from moving on ], it read.

When did he type that? I saw him messing with his phone, but I didn’t notice him typing, even though he was right in front of me. Mimimi wrote back.

Mimimi: yeah, she does stuff like that
i don’t like her!

Mizusawa: Yeah, she’s bad news

Hinami: Is she stringing Shuji along? lol

Mizusawa: Fumiya said exactly that, right to his face. We freakin lost it

[srsly? go tomozaki go! ] Mimimi wrote, along with a GIF of a rabbit cracking up. This conversation was on fire. So this is what group conversations were like? I’d better join in. I glanced at Nakamura and Takei to make sure they wouldn’t think it was weird that I was on my phone, but both of them were on theirs. What the heck. In the turn-based battles of normie land, apparently there was a round devoted to phone time. Anyway, now was my chance. Incidentally, when I glanced at Takei, I saw he had Twitter pulled up on his phone. So predictable.

[He was glaring so hard at me when I said it ], I wrote, and pressed SEND .

Mimimi: lolololol

Hinami: Tomozaki-kun is getting aggressive, I see.

Mizusawa: He’s today’s behind-the-scenes MVP

Wow, that message went over well. We were having a wild conversation, while being completely silent.

Hinami: Hey! We heard a bombshell from Yuzu, too!

Might as well try out a LINE comeback.

Me: Bombshell?

Hinami: Yeah. Yuzu said she actually told Shuji she has a crush on someone! LOL

Mizusawa sent a GIF of a pretty boy with his hand up saying, “Wait a second!” [lol Shuji told us the girl he likes asked him for advice about her crush ]

Mimimi: oh shit lmao
they’re totally into each other

Hinami: Get together already!

Meanwhile, as the four of us were having a party on LINE, Takei and Nakamura had formed a little club of their own and were getting excited about something else.

“We’ve gotta go soon. No other options.”

“Yeah. Come on, Takahiro. You too, Tomozaki.”

“What’s this about?” Mizusawa said, standing up.

I hesitated, confused.

“Is that even a question?” Takei said, giving us a thumbs-up. “Breaking into the girls’ cabin, obvs!”

I was pulled into the normie wave of excitement, and we all headed toward the cabin where the girls were resting.

* * *

“Hey, hey,” Nakamura called, knocking on their door.

“What’s up?” someone answered from inside, and an instant later, he barged right in.

“Bet you girls are bored,” he said. “Let’s do something.” What was this power?

“I knew you would come over, Nakamu!” Mimimi said, sitting with her legs stretched out. I nervously followed Mizusawa and Takei into the cabin.

The three beautiful girls were sprawled casually on the floor among half-finished soda bottles and little bags of snacks. The outlets stuffed with chargers gave the room an oddly homey feeling, and there was an artificial smell in the air, maybe perfume or clothes, that was different from the guys’ cabin. The odd combination of carelessness and girliness made me feel like I didn’t really belong here.

“Something like what?” Izumi sounded slightly excited.

“How about a game? Like UNO or cards or something?”

A game. I wasn’t the only one whose eyes glittered at that word.

“Sure. Which one should we do first?” Hinami’s tone was smooth and gentle, but I could detect the competitive spirit underneath.

“How about Millionaire?”

“Okay! Millionaire it is!”

Hinami’s cheerful announcement was the starting bell for a fight to the death.

* * *

“C-can you do that?”

Izumi was starting to sound scared. Since there were seven of us, we decided to play with three Commoners, a Grand Millionaire, a Millionaire, a Pauper, and an Extreme Pauper. Banishing had been outlawed, per Nakamura’s claim that it was “boring.”

As a result, we were now on round nine, and aside from the second and fourth rounds when someone aside from Hinami and I had been Millionaire, the two of us had been monopolizing the top two positions. I wouldn’t expect anything less from NO NAME. She was really good, and I bet she’d probably practiced online.

Incidentally, we’d both been Grand Millionaire four times.

This was going to be our last round, and afterward we’d all go to the hot spring. In other words, whoever became Grand Millionaire this round would break the tie and become champion. I was determined not to lose.

I looked at the cards in my hand and thought over the best strategy.

Should I play a sequence…or keep back a pair?

If I played the sequence, I’d reduce my hand by four cards in a single turn. Since we weren’t playing with sequence revolutions, the strength of the cards wouldn’t be reversed, but I’d still be at a big advantage with four fewer cards. On the other hand, those four cards included half of three pairs, which was a major concern. Playing the sequence would mean losing three pairs. You were forced to play a pair fairly often, so losing cards I could play at those times would be a big hit.

In which case, I’d be conservative and play a pair now instead of the sequence.

A good decision as it turned out, because after that turn, I was able to quietly but steadily reduce my hand. When everyone else still had six or more cards left, I had two. A fairly strong position.

Plus, those two cards were an eight of hearts and a three of spades.

When my turn came around, if any single card lower than a seven was on top of the pile, I’d be able to play an eight ender and go out. Or if a revolution took place and three became the strongest card or if a joker was played, I could counter and go out that way. My preference was for a card lower than seven. I waited quietly for my opportunity.

But my opportunity didn’t come. The problem was the seating order. Hinami was immediately before me.

Of course, I didn’t expect her to casually play such a favorable card. But while I had two cards left, Hinami had six. With so many cards, it was highly likely that she’d have to play a weak single card at some point. That’s why I’d held back my eight.

I watched vigilantly for my chance.

Several turns passed. Hinami cleared the old pile and started a new one on her turn.

This should be it. Since the pile was empty, she could play whatever card she wanted.

A standard move in this situation was to play a single weak card. By getting rid of a weak card that would be hard to discard in other situations, the player took a big step toward going out.

In the last round, Hinami had been Millionaire. Even though she’d passed one weak card to Mimimi, a Pauper, she could be expected to have one more weak card. And she hadn’t yet played any single weak cards. In other words, the outlook was decent. If she played a single seven or lower now, I would win.

“All right, I think I’ll…”

She paused, thinking over her move, and finally pulled several cards from her hand to place on the new pile.

Well, that was a surprise.

She’d played a pair made up of a five of hearts and a joker.

“Uh…”

The joker could turn into any card. If it was played by itself, it was practically the strongest card in the pack, and if it was played with an ace or a two, it made an extremely strong pair. Plus, if it was played with three or four of a kind, it could be used to cause a revolution. But she’d played it with a five of hearts, which had no advantage whatsoever…

I was surprised by her failure to obey common sense, but…I was also admiring how thorough her logic was.

She’d read me like a book.

She knew I had an eight in my hand.

My guess is that the five of hearts was a weak card in her hand, not part of any pair or sequence. She had to play it at some point, or she wouldn’t be able to go out. It was a lousy inheritance. If the player after her was waiting for a chance to go out on an eight, like I was, she’d be setting them up perfectly.

That’s why she’d decided to play that lousy inheritance together with a joker, forcing it into a pair. But a pair of fives was not strong at all. In fact, Izumi easily played a pair of nines on it.

In other words, she’d wasted her joker.

Everyone had looked confused when she played the five with the joker; it was a genuinely baffling move. Someone might even have called it a bad one.

But I wasn’t able to play my cards.

In the game of Millionaire, there’s no best move that works in all situations, aside from going out. What’s important is to choose the tactics that match the situation. Hinami had just vividly demonstrated that principle.

Ultimately, she became Grand Millionaire without letting me play either of my cards. I went out right after she did. That meant she’d won five rounds, and I’d won four.

“No way! You’re kidding!”

“Looks like I just won!” Hinami was grinning triumphantly at me.

“Aw…shit.” I pouted dramatically, and I didn’t even care that everyone was watching.

“What, you thought I wouldn’t guess your hand?” Hinami was half playing her perfect-heroine role, half sneering at me with the tone she used in our meetings.

“Okay, you two. Why are you getting so competitive with each other? Millionaire isn’t really that kind of game,” Mizusawa scolded in a joking tone.

Hinami gave a fake giggle and pointed at Mizusawa. “At least I didn’t lose!” she said.

“Can’t argue with that!” Mizusawa said brightly, apparently satisfied.

Everyone laughed. As I was gazing at him in admiration, our eyes suddenly met. For some reason, he smiled in an almost lonely way, shifted his eyes away, and looked at his cards.

“Gotta hand it to people who take this stuff seriously,” he said with a cynical smirk.

His words were almost lost among the meaningless chatter, but I couldn’t get the sound out of my ears.

With that, the Millionaire tournament ended, and at Mizusawa’s suggestion, we started to put away the cards and other stuff to get ready to head to the hot spring.

* * *

“How about you, Hiro? Anything going on lately?”

Izumi grinned as she squinted suspiciously at Mizusawa and poked him with her elbow.

“Oh, here and there…”

Nakamura peered into Mizusawa’s face.

“Come on, dude? Aren’t you going to tell ’em about the thing with Misaki-chan from Nishi High?”

“Hey, Shuji!”

“What?! Tell us, tell us!!” Mimimi squealed.

“Well, actually…”

Twenty or thirty minutes had passed since the Millionaire tournament ended. We had planned to go to the hot spring, but we’d started talking as we cleaned up the cards, and now the heated normie conversation was dragging on forever.

“R-really?!”

According to Nakamura, Mizusawa had been hitting on a girl at another school, and they were on the verge of dating.

Izumi latched on excitedly to this news. I’d already heard a bunch of girls at the karaoke place had a crush on him, too… He really was a lady-killer.

“I swear, it’s true. Right, Takahiro?”

“Okay, I’ll admit we’re friends, but…”

“But you asked her out, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

“Yes! Confession recorded at six fifty-two PM !” Mimimi looked at an imaginary wristwatch as she jokingly noted the time.

“What? Well, if I’m going to confess…there’s this girl I met at the West High culture festival last year, and lately we’ve been exchanging messages on LINE, so sometimes I ask her to do stuff on the weekends…”

“One-on-one, you mean?” Mimimi asked suggestively.

“Yeah, just the two of us.”

“Second confession recorded at six forty-eight PM !”

“Mimimi, that’s earlier than the last confession,” Hinami retorted shrewdly.

Takei laughed loudly.

“Anyway! What did she say? Are you guys going to get together?!” Izumi leaned toward Mizusawa. She really liked this kind of gossip.

“Honestly speaking…yeah, seems that way.”

“Ooh!”

“Yay!”

“Eeee!!”

Everyone erupted at once.

“But I’m still not sure what I’m gonna do.”

“All he has to do is say he wants to get together, and it’s a done deal,” Nakamura said.

“Seriously?! Is she our age?! Older?! Younger?!” Izumi was practically insane with excitement.

“Older…”

“Older!”

“He likes the mature ladies!”

“Found yourself a cougar, huh?”

All this just because he said she was older than him? Of course, his smile wasn’t completely cheerful.

“Come on, you guys! Leave me alone!” he shouted. Everyone laughed.

Finally, the conversation wrapped up, and everyone calmed down. Mizusawa stood up.

“I’m going to the bathroom.”

I took that as my chance to say something I’d been holding in for a long time. It wasn’t a topic I’d memorized or anything.

“M-me too.”

…I had to pee. I stood up. I still didn’t know when to go to the bathroom when I was hanging out in a group, so my bladder was about to explode. There was no way I could say I had to go unless I was tagging on with someone else. It hadn’t occurred to me to go when I wasn’t so desperate. Something to remember next time.

But anyway, becoming better friends with Mizusawa was one of my assignments, so I’d be killing two birds with one stone.

We left the cabin and headed for the bathrooms.

…Also, this was another classic normie behavior: going to the bathroom in a group!

* * *

The two of us walked through the dark campground together. The bathrooms were a couple minutes away in the camp center.

“Well, that sure was a conversation.”

Mizusawa’s tone was cheerful, but his smile had a bitter edge to it. True enough, instead of going to the hot spring, we’d sat around talking that whole time. I hadn’t managed to participate much, but I’d had an unexpected amount of fun just listening. I was surprising myself here. Maybe it was because I’d gotten to know everyone so well.

If you have time to get all mushy, then you have time to bring up a new topic with Mizusawa! I felt like I could hear Hinami scolding me. Sorry, Hinami-in-my-brain. I will try harder.

“Y-yeah.”

As I cheerfully responded, I shifted my brain into gear. Might as well start with the cabin conversation.

“So you’re into a girl from another school!”

“Ha-ha-ha! We’re still talking about that?”

Same bitter smile. The dark woods around us swallowed up the sound of our footsteps and voices.

“No, it’s just…I don’t usually hear that kind of gossip at school…”

I remembered what Narita-san had asked me about Mizusawa, and I hadn’t been able to come up with anything juicy at that moment. But now that I’d seen a little more of him, his true nature as a handsome player became clear.

“True, true. Some weird rumors about me and Hinami were going around there for a while, though.”

For some reason, my heart jumped at that. I nodded. I could feel the sand crunching under my feet.

“But…are you really thinking of dating this other girl?” I was conscious of pushing along the conversation, but I was also just interested at this point.

“Huh? Not sure, actually. She’s cute, and I like her personality, but…I don’t know.”

“…No?”

His answer didn’t quite satisfy me. I thought he was the type to do things quickly and efficiently, so this was new. Guess even Mizusawa had uncertain moments when it came to love.

“Wonder what I should do.” His smile was fake, and his casual tone was somehow distant. It was like he wasn’t talking about himself anymore. Something didn’t feel right, and I worked my brain for a reply.

“You think she’d be willing if you decided you wanted to be with her?”

“You mean what Shuji said?” Mizusawa gave a short laugh. “Yeah, guess so.”

“Huh…wow.”

Why was he so naturally confident? I wanted to shiver, thinking about how much of a natural advantage he had over me.

“What? There’s nothing impressive about it. I’m just good at that stuff.”

He was apparently being honest rather than hiding behind modesty. I couldn’t read his expression in the dim light, though.

“…That’s the amazing part. Here I am copying the way you talk and stuff, and this is as far as I’ve gotten. Asking a girl from another school to go out is way beyond me.”

One of my few talents was playing myself down, and I used it to keep the conversation flowing smoothly.

“That so?” Mizusawa mumbled, looking down. After a minute, he continued.

“Yeah. Everything is easy for me. I don’t even have to try.”

I glanced at his face. There was something off about his expression.

He wasn’t boasting or joking around. His tone was quiet and serious, even introspective.

“Th-that’s, um…”

I wasn’t sure if I should ask him about the odd look on his face. Before I could decide, he smiled and brushed over it in a joking tone.

“But even us winners can get lost when it comes to dating,” he said.

“Huh…”

The conversation had moved on without me, and I’d missed my chance to ask about his expression a minute ago. Either way, he felt lost. About what, I wonder?

“You don’t like her that much?”

“Ha-ha-ha… You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

“Oh, no, sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize… That’s how you are, Fumiya.”

“Huh?”

Mizusawa pointed in front of him with his chin. “There it is.”

“Oh right.”

The camp center had come into view, and the cold fluorescent light was seeping through the automatic doors onto the damp dirt of the campground. Mizusawa took the lead going inside, with me following.

We stood next to each other at the urinals and peed.

Although it was night, a damp, warm breeze drifted in from the little window in a corner of the bathroom, along with the cool sound of pine tree crickets chirping. Only August and they were already out. Must be because we were in the mountains. Their quiet voices echoed gently in my ears.

“…Maybe I don’t really like her.”

“Huh?”

I turned toward Mizusawa. He was looking out the window at the slender crescent moon hanging in the night sky. Maybe it was the moonlight and the chirping crickets, but his profile struck me as faintly melancholy.

“What we were talking about before?” he said, shaking off the last few drops and zipping his fly.

“The girl at the other school?”

There was an unnatural silence as he washed his hands. Then he answered with more of his usual cheer.

“…Yep. That’s the one.”

So he didn’t like her.

“But you asked her out, right? Just messing around?”

“I don’t know. That doesn’t necessarily mean I like her.”

“Oh. Huh…really?” My comment was based on zero romantic experience.

“I mean, there’s still a chance I’ll date her.”

Once again, I had no idea what was going on. “…Uh, um, what do you mean?”

Mizusawa laughed at my confusion, then asked me in return, “About what?”

“I mean…I don’t really get what you’re unsure about…”

“…Huh?”

“I’m not an expert on this stuff, but if you don’t like her, seems to me you shouldn’t date her, right…?”

Or maybe she was really coming after him, so he wasn’t sure what to do? But he said he was the one who asked her out. Right?

Mizusawa looked surprised by my comment. Finally, he looked down and laughed, and I could tell he was hiding something. Then he looked out the window and scratched his head. “You’re not just being polite, are you?” he mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing! Let’s get going! …You sure do take a long time to pee, dude.”

“Oh, uh, gimme a sec.”

I wanted to say it was because I’d waited so long, but I didn’t. At long last, I finished up, washed my hands, and headed back to the cabins with Mizusawa.

That conversation was full of mysteries. Yeah. Everything felt unsettled. Guess some top-tier characters have problems that bottom-tier characters won’t understand.

* * *

When we got back from the bathroom, everyone took a change of clothes and headed over to the hot spring a couple minutes’ walk from the campground.

“Okay, guys, let’s meet here after we’re done!”

Hinami gave us instructions in the lounge before we headed off to the separate baths for men and women. There were showers at the campground, but since we’d come all the way out here and everyone loves the chance to sit in a big tub of hot water, we’d decided to go to the hot spring run by a different company. By the way, Takei had started complaining about how he didn’t have anything to change into afterward. I guess the outfit he changed into after he got all wet at the river was his last one. He said he’d just put his current outfit back on. The guy is an idiot.

“Don’t stay in there forever!” Nakamura said, slipping through the noren curtains hanging outside the guys’ bath. Mizusawa, Takei, and I followed him. He never missed a chance for a casual jab. Maybe the hierarchy was built from a subconscious accumulation of these kinds of comments.

“Don’t peek at us!”

“We can’t!” Takei shot back playfully at Mimimi’s joking voice behind us. I’m sure if he could, he would.

The four of us went into the changing room. I was insanely nervous. I put my wallet in a locker, found an empty basket, and…would now have to take off my clothes. Stripping down with three normies made me weirdly self-conscious. Terrified, to be more precise.

“What’s taking you so long, dude?”

Nakamura was making fun of me. He was already fully naked. His towel wasn’t even wrapped around his waist—he was carrying it. A force to be reckoned with. Even an amateur like me could tell he was extremely fit from soccer and general athleticism. I couldn’t help comparing myself to him or the sorrow that ensued.

“Uh, sorry. I’m taking off my clothes now.”

“What’s with you?”

Withstanding Nakamura’s suspicious gaze, I stripped down. My white skin and pudgy stomach were now exposed, the result of never exercising and spending all my time at home playing video games. Takei, who was already naked, pinched my stomach and laughed.

“Tomozaki, you look like an old geezer!”

“Lay off…”

Takei was at least as buff as Nakamura. His big shoulders and powerful aura were impressive. This guy was huge. After that second sad reminder, I stuffed my clothes into a basket.

“Not an old geezer…,” Nakamura said, pinching my stomach. “A Moomin…no, a Fumin! You’re in the Fumin clan!”

Takei started cackling. “Ah-ha-ha-ha! Oh yeah, he’s definitely a Fumin. Turn this way!”

“Sh-shut up!”

I made an effort to sound cheery. Not just Takei and Mizusawa but even Nakamura joined in the laughter for once. That was a first.

“Hurry up, Fumin,” Nakamura said as we headed into the bath. Takei cackled again. Oh man. I was the butt of the joke for all three of them. But when I thought about teasing them back, I had to admit I was the one with the saggy body, so there wasn’t much I could do. Maybe this was essential training for the battlefield of tease or be teased.

Mizusawa patted my shoulder as if to say Don’t worry about it . I glanced back at him. He was a little thinner than the others, but I could still see the shadows from his muscles. I finally understood the appeal of the legendary lean macho man.

I glanced at my own pathetic body in the mirror as I shuffled slowly toward the baths. Yup, no surprise they’d make fun of me.

* * *

“Hey, Takei, how about this bath?”

“Awesome!! Who’d guess a place like this had such a fancy bath?!”

Nakamura gave Takei a sidelong glance as he charged full force into the cold water. Mizusawa and I were washing our hair next to each other and talking about the Nakamura-Izumi strategy.

Meanwhile, Takei’s screams (“It’s so cold!!”) were echoing off the walls.

“So, Fumiya—er, sorry, Fumin.”

“You had it right the first time.” Hinami had trained me well in this kind of comeback.

Mizusawa chuckled. “Anyway, the question is, how do we use the information we’ve gathered to get them together?”

“Yeah…”

I glanced at Nakamura, who was soaking in one of the hot baths. Thanks to Mizusawa’s nice work, we had gleaned quite a bit of new information since we’d made the initial plans at my house. Based on that—well, no question about it, those two were perfect for each other.

“They definitely like each other, I think.”

“Ha-ha-ha, that is the key point.” Mizusawa laughed. We’d more or less known that to start with, but now it was an established fact.

“So now, if one of them would just admit it, they’d be dating.”

“Exactly. Our job is to remove the obstacles and make it as easy as possible for them.”

“Hmm…”

In other words, the goal of the trip wasn’t to make them like each other; it was to take two people who already liked each other and give them a little push to take the next step. What kind of plan was that?

“Problem is, for those two, that’s the hardest part.”

As he scrubbed his hair, Mizusawa sniggered, and I could tell he was trying to hold back a louder laugh. He looked genuinely happy; I could see it in his eyes. He seemed like a different person than the Mizusawa I’d been seeing lately, who stared into the distance and sounded lonely when he laughed.

“Got any good ideas, Fumiya?”

I returned my attention to the strategy. I didn’t have a plan…but I had a thought. “Well, I think the biggest obstacle in this situation is—”

“I agree,” Mizusawa interrupted me, nodding.

““Shimano-senpai,”” we said at the same time.

“Yup. Her,” Mizusawa said as he rinsed his hair.

“If she wasn’t an option, Nakamura would probably go for Izumi, huh?”

“Ha-ha-ha, no question. She’s leading him on.”

“But we can’t do anything about it.”

Mizusawa frowned. “She’s bad news,” he muttered.

“Bad news?”

I remembered that he’d said the same thing on LINE, too.

Mizusawa made a joking face. “I mean, she’s always going after younger guys. She acts all suggestive, so she’s got tons of guys to choose from.”

“Huh…?”

His unexpected answer puzzled me.

“Anyway, she’s got good looks and a fun personality, so why shouldn’t she play around with guys? And lots of them go right along with it. For half of them, it ends in a fling, and for the other half, they eventually develop feelings for her.” His words sent a shiver down my spine.

“S-so, Nakamura…”

“Belongs to the latter half.”

“Ohhh…”

I felt like I’d just heard something I shouldn’t have.

“He was actually her boyfriend for a while, so it’s hard to blame him.”

“Huh, really?”

In a sense, that information reassured me. I wouldn’t have wanted to hear that he’d had a little fling and then gotten overly serious about it. Even though it would make him easier to mess with.

“…Well, a bunch of rumors about her were going around even while they were together, but that’s just part of her charm.”

“S-seriously…?”

“Shitty, right?”

I felt my smile twitching. “In that case…shouldn’t we just say that to Nakamura?”

“Okay, question for you.”

“Huh?”

Mizusawa pushed his wet hair straight back from his face and smiled. He was handsome even with his hair sticking up.

“If we explained to Shuji that Shimano-senpai is a bitch who goes through men like tissues and he’s only one of many in her stable of backups—do you think he’d let me tell him to forget her without a fight?”

I couldn’t help laughing as I imagined Mizusawa explaining this to Nakamura.

“It would have the complete opposite effect.”

Mizusawa smiled. “Right? He’d stop listening to me completely. That’s why I’m waiting for him to realize the truth himself. He did laugh when you straight up told him she was stringing him along.”

“Ah-ha-ha…”

“But that’s the situation. It’s a tough one.”

Mizusawa stood up and walked over to the bath where Takei was doing push-ups in the shallow end and staying stuff like, “I could do this forever!” Mizusawa sat on top of him.

“Glubub! Pah! What the hell?!”

“Oh, sorry, sorry, you were going so fast I didn’t see you.”

“Seriously? This speed is dangerous, man!”

Takei was inexplicably pleased and started doing push-ups again. As I watched Nakamura and Mizusawa splash him in the face with water and push him under, I started to chicken out. There was no way I could keep up.

But Hinami had given me a mission.

I was supposed to mess with Nakamura and befriend Mizusawa.

I steeled my will, stood up, and got into the bath where the splash-Takei competition was going on. I walked right up to Takei with no plan whatsoever. As I was struggling to decide what to do, given that it didn’t feel quite right in terms of the mood or my assignment for me to join in the splashing, Takei lifted his face out of the water and looked straight at my crotch.

“…Huh?” I was startled when I realized what he was doing.

“Dude, your dick is huge!!” He started to splash around.

“Seriously?”

“I wanna see!”

Nakamura and Mizusawa stared at my crotch, too, and yelped in surprise.

“Man, it’s giant!”

“T-Tomozaki…!”

I could barely process anything anymore and sank down into the bath to hide, but it was too late. Mizusawa and Nakamura grabbed me, lifted me up, and examined the goods all over again.

“L-let me go!”

“This is crazy! It’s as big as my forearm!!” Takei cried, and the other two started cracking up.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha! His forearm!” Mizusawa laughed.

“I’m changing Fumin to Forearm. Forearm boy. Farm Boy!”

Once again, Nakamura had given me a questionable nickname. Takei laughed loudly. Come on, stop. Why do I have to get two new nicknames on a single trip to the hot spring?

Still, among all the ruckus, I glimpsed a ray of light for my assignment. When he’d made fun of my body earlier, I was clearly inferior to him, so I couldn’t return the jab.

Basic abilities and routine training seemed to play a key role in the tease-or-be-teased war. In those terms, how did my current prospects look?

I’ve never worried about average size or anything so I’m not sure, but based on his comments a minute ago, I might be bigger than him. Wouldn’t that give me an opportunity to mess with him? If that was the rule, then maybe even a bottom-tier character like me could fight on equal terms or better in this particular ring.

Giving myself over to this thin ray of hope, I directed my gaze at Nakamura’s crotch and confirmed my suspicion.

Oh yeah, I had a fighting chance here!

I focused on making my tone sound as teasing as possible.

“Wow, Nakamura, your dick is tiny!”

Nakamura grimaced, but Mizusawa and Takei clapped their hands and laughed. Bam, two down!

* * *

The four of us were in the lounge after getting out of the bath, drinking milk and joking around about various topics related to my nicknames and Nakamura’s dick. Nakamura had been messing with me overtime since I’d made the comment, but I felt like his hostility had lightened. What was that about?

“Drinking your milk, I see!”

Mimimi was striding energetically out of the women’s bath wearing shorts and a tank top, with a hand towel draped around her neck. She looked sporty, but with so much skin showing, it was inevitably sexy. Her cheeks were flushed and damp. I don’t think she was wearing makeup, but she was so naturally pretty there was hardly a difference. I didn’t normally think about it because she was so over-the-top cheerful, but she was incredibly gorgeous.

“I think I’ll have one, too.”

Hinami appeared from behind Mimimi. The first time I’d seen her without makeup, she’d softened her face so I didn’t even recognize her, but right now with her regular expression, she still looked like the charming, pretty heroine. Her flushed pink skin, which even I could tell was perfectly smooth and firm, had the power to ruin a man, no question.

“…”

Izumi came out of the women’s baths behind Hinami, her face turned down. She was half hiding behind her hand towel; maybe she didn’t want us to see her without her usual heavy makeup. But based on the glimpses I got, even though she looked a little different from what I was used to, she mostly just seemed a little younger. If you’re good-looking to start with, you’re gonna be cute even without makeup. Like the other two, she was flushed, but I don’t think it was from being in the bath. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes away from her comfortable-looking short-shorts and long legs.

When I looked at the three of them standing there together, I realized I was on an overnight with girls of this level, and I felt kind of weird. I was way underleveled compared to everyone else here, including the guys. At the very least, I’d better stand up straight…

Ten or fifteen minutes had passed since we met up in the lounge and drank milk together. Takei homed in on the Ping-Pong table in the game room near the lounge, and we decided to play a few rounds.

Hinami arranged a doubles match between Nakamura and Izumi on one side and Takei and herself on the other, although Nakamura and Izumi barely needed any prompting to make a team together. The Takei-Hinami pair was the result of Takei’s desperate pleading. The guy was out there enjoying his holiday exactly how he wanted to.

In the meantime, the rest of us could have a strategy meeting. With that in mind, Mizusawa, Mimimi, and I gathered around a small table in the lounge.

“We were talking about it in the guys’ bath, and we think the issue is…”

“Shimano-senpai?” Mimimi realized where Mizusawa was going before he finished explaining.

“Exactly. You’re making this easy.”

“What can I say? She’s a problem child.” Mimimi smiled cynically.

“But if we point that out to Shuji, he’ll dig in his heels. So we were trying to figure out what we can do on this trip.”

“Hmm, good question!” Mimimi thought for a moment. “Think he’d be in denial even if we showed him proof?”

“Proof?” Mizusawa asked, intrigued.

“Well…,” Mimimi said, taking out her phone. “How about this?”

The screen showed a Twitter account for Pretty Princess, with a bunch of replies: “I’m not getting along with my boyfriend right now” and “Cool, let’s go to Daiba!” and “Sekitomo High! Heard of it?”

“Is that…Shimano-senpai’s account?” I asked.

Mimimi nodded. “All these messages are to guys from Saitama who she met on Twitter.”

“Damn. Seriously?” Mizusawa face-palmed. “So she’s moved beyond our school…”

Mimimi smirked again. “This started out as a private account that only some of her female friends knew about. Guess she thought no one would find out, because she made it public recently, and now she’s pulling this crap out in the open… All the girls are talking about it right now. If this is just the public replies, imagine what’s going on in her DMs…”

Mimimi swiped the screen, and thumbnails of all the images she’d posted in the past came up. As she scrolled down, there were selfies of her face, pictures taken in a full-length mirror of her wearing a school uniform, of her lying in bed in the same short uniform skirt, her legs stretched out, a close-up of her cleavage titled “Look at my necklace,” a close-up of her thighs titled “Look at my tan.” Huh. Her profile was full of them.

“Th-this is…,” I said in shock, “…way beyond what I expected…”

“Right?”

I understood now why she’d reacted so negatively when Shimano-senpai came up in the LINE group conversation.

“If we told Nakamu about this, don’t you think he would cool off?” she said.

Mizusawa nodded, but he still looked skeptical.

“What, you still think it wouldn’t work?”

“No, it’s just—if you or me or Tomozaki told him about it, I think his lingering feelings would cool.”

“And? Isn’t that the point?”

“Yeah, but if he and Izumi ended up together during the test of courage after that…he wouldn’t ask her out.”

“Uh, really? Do you know what he’s trying to say, Tomozaki?”

I said I didn’t.

“Well, if he were to confess his feelings to Izumi right after he learned about the Twitter account, he could be accused of jumping into her arms on the rebound.”

“Oh,” Mimimi said, clearly convinced. “He’s a proud guy, so you’re saying he wouldn’t do anything to make us think that!”

“Exactly. He doesn’t like to be teased.”

Once Mizusawa said that, I was convinced, too. It was related to the teasing involved in my assignment. For example, if Mizusawa told him about the account and Nakamura immediately confessed his feelings to Izumi, Mizusawa would probably give him hell. What’s more, since I’d been messing with him during the trip, he might even worry that I’d tease him about it, too…leaving aside the question of whether what I’d done this far actually counted as messing with him, of course.

Since he occupied the top spot in the school hierarchy, Nakamura had to maintain a position that allowed him to give people crap without getting any in return. And in fact, I’d witnessed him many times messing with people at key moments and deflecting their attempts to push back—although I’m not sure if he was doing it consciously or unconsciously.

In other words, Nakamura was highly likely to avoid any situation that would make him vulnerable, like the current one.

At first glance, it looked like the stupidest kind of pride, but in the normie world—that is, within the value system of the school hierarchy—it was critically important. Through my assignments, I was gradually coming to understand that.

“Hmm, so maybe we shouldn’t show him the Twitter account.”

“Tough call. If we did tell him about it now, he’d probably make a move in the near future.”

“Those two are so wishy-washy. You really think either one would make a move on their own?”

“Good point…and if they wait any longer, time will be slipping away…”

“But we don’t really have any other strategy, so maybe telling him is the only choice.”

“Could be.”

They were thinking about the issue so seriously. They really did have good hearts.

I’d had the same thought at our first strategy meeting. Normies don’t just think about themselves—a lot of them take the feelings of all members of their respective groups into consideration. Of course, that doesn’t go for everyone, but maybe that serious consideration for other people is the reason they’re popular and accepted—the reason they’re normies in the first place.

I would never have realized that just by sitting alone in my room playing video games.

“It’s gonna be tough to get things moving when we do the test of courage tonight.”

Although Mizusawa was frowning, he seemed satisfied with that conclusion. Still, I felt like I should contribute. I thought about it for a minute and finally hit on something.

“Um…”

“…Aha!” Mimimi said, grinning at me. “Has the Brain had a flash of inspiration?!”

“Nothing that dramatic…”

“Come on, tell us!” Mimimi was looking at me full of eager anticipation. S-stop it!

“Well…you said Nakamura wouldn’t feel able to act even if I was the one who showed him the account, right?”

“Yeah.” Mizusawa nodded and looked at me searchingly.

“Okay, so right now Nakamura and Izumi like each other, and Shimano-senpai has already done plenty to make Nakamura stop liking her…which means all the conditions for clearing the challenge have been met. Now it’s just a game of connecting them all together.”

“True…but, dude, games again?”

“He’s a gamer, Takahiro. Let him have this!!”

“Ha-ha-ha, true enough.” Mizusawa nodded.

“Anyway, to sum it all up, I think the game consists of showing Nakamura the truth without hurting his pride…”

“Yeah, you could put it like that,” Mizusawa said, nodding again. “But how?”

I paused for a second, not sure if I should go on. But I did.

“What if we weren’t the ones who gave him the information…?”

“You mean have someone else show him?”

I nodded.

“Like who?!” Mimimi asked.

“Like…,” I said hesitantly, glancing at the Ping-Pong table. “…Takei.”

“Takei?” Mimimi sounded puzzled.

“We work it out so Takei tells him, and everything gets smoothed over.”

That was all I said, and then I waited for their response.

“What would that—?”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Mizusawa’s laugh drowned out Mimimi’s question.

“…Uhhh?” I wasn’t sure what he was thinking.

“No, you’re right, that could work. If that idiot tells him he’ll have no choice but to accept the truth.” Mizusawa’s gleeful cackling was reassuring.

“So…”

“I think it’s worth a try! But there’s no way he can act the part, so we have to trick him into doing it somehow.”

“Trick Takei, too? What are you guys talking about?” Mimimi looked at the two of us blankly.

Mizusawa seemed happy to explain. “Basically, we figure out a way to make Takei realize that Shimano-senpai has been going after other guys and that she’s dangerous. He’ll think to himself, Oh no! Shuji is being misled! I have to save him! And then he’ll go tell Shuji, because he doesn’t know to keep his nose out of it. But if Takei is the one who tells him, Shuji will probably accept it, and as long as he thinks no one else knows, he should feel comfortable telling Izumi he likes her right afterward.”

I was impressed by how perfectly Mizusawa had grasped my strategy. He may even have had a more refined understanding of it than I did. Anyway, the point was that if the idiotic Takei—who seemed to stand outside the teasing hierarchy entirely—was the one to tell him, Nakamura would be able to humbly swallow the truth.

“Aha! I see!” Mimimi clapped, and Mizusawa grinned at me.

“Did I get that right, Fumiya?”

“…Uh, yeah.” I felt embarrassed for a second, but I nodded.

“You sure did get a good read on Takei even though you haven’t known him very long.”

“I mean…hanging out with him all day today was more than enough…”

I’d had a front-row seat to his idiocy as he went around in his own little world—taking pictures on his phone, splashing around in the river in regular clothes, showing Izumi a crab and making her fall, apologizing profusely afterward, doing speed push-ups in the bath, discovering the size of my penis… Seriously, what was with that guy?

“So the issue is, how do we convey the information to Takei?” Mizusawa said, looking at me. “Do you have a plan for that?”

“Well…” I thought it over. “It’s a Twitter account, right…?”

I explained my plan to them. When I finished, Mizusawa and Mimimi both gave their approval, and we filled Hinami in via LINE.

I was worried she might not look at her phone in time, but count on Hinami to have that covered. She noticed our message right away and threw us an amused smile. She’d probably caught on immediately.

All righty, then. With the help of Hinami, Mizusawa, and Mimimi, everything should work out. It was a mass gathering of top-tier characters, after all.

* * *

The strategy swung into action.

“Millionaire champions, unite!”

“Uh…yeah, let’s show them who’s boss!”

First, with Hinami’s perfect performance and my monotone delivery of my lines, she and I formed a Ping-Pong team. Next, it was Mizusawa’s turn.

“Hey, Izumi, you’re on the badminton team, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Awesome. I’m sure you’ll rock this racket sport, too.”

“Oh, is that your point?!”

With that, Izumi and Mizusawa formed our opposing team. That left Nakamura, Takei, and Mimimi on the sidelines. Once everyone was in place, we started up our game.

“We were enemies in Millionaire…but yesterday’s enemies are today’s friends, as they say,” Hinami said as she executed a save and smacked the ball onto Mizusawa and Izumi’s side of the net.

“Nice, Aoi! This is gonna be intense…,” Mizusawa said, wielding his paddle. “How about this?!”

He returned the ball powerfully.

“Oh shit… Got it!” I lobbed the ball back softly with a less-than-inspiring call.

“Yesss!”

Izumi was surprisingly athletic given how clumsy she was in ordinary life. She skillfully sent the ball flying back to us.

Meanwhile…

“Hey! Can you take a picture of us here at the hot spring?” Mimimi suggested, and unsurprisingly, Takei responded with enthusiasm.

“Okay, here I go! Hot spring!” he said randomly, snapping a selfie of the three of them.

As soon as he was done, Mimimi excused herself. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom!”

“Gotcha.”

“Yup.”

Nakamura and Takei started to listlessly scroll through their phones.

Back at the Ping-Pong table…

“Take that!” Izumi said.

“Oof,” I replied. Pathetic.

The fierce battle continued, even as three of us were watching Takei out of the corners of our eyes.

“…Huh?”

I could hear him muttering something. Had he fallen into our trap? He was silent for a moment, examining his phone with great concentration as he swiped the screen.

“Anyway…”

“Shit!”

Takei let out a little yelp at the same time Nakamura started to talk. We pretended to be so absorbed in our game that we didn’t notice—except for Izumi, who was genuinely absorbed.

“What?”

“Shuji, look! Look at this!” Takei handed his phone to Nakamura, and a minute later, Nakamura reacted with shock, too.

“…What the fuck?”

I couldn’t see what he was looking at, but I was pretty sure it was Shimano-senpai’s Twitter account. Our attention divided between the Ping-Pong ball and the sidelines, we worked up an exciting-as-possible volley. Izumi was genuinely excited.

“She did this…?”

Now, I bet Nakamura was looking at Shimano-senpai’s collection of sketchy close-ups and replies to various guys saying, “Yeah, let’s hang out!” and stuff like that. His tone suggested a mixture of shock and liberation.

“…God, she makes me sick,” he hissed.

“Sh-Shuji, I think you should forget about that girl…”

“…Yeah.” He gave a humorless laugh. “But where’d you find this shit, man?”

“Uh… It popped up on my timeline… I think someone retweeted it.”

“Who?”

Takei fiddled with his phone for a minute. “Huh? Where’d it go?”

“What the hell?” Nakamura sounded a little tired of Takei’s antics but not aggressive. He was smiling.

Of course, Takei couldn’t find the retweet. Because it didn’t exist anymore.

The plan was extremely simple.

First, we lured Takei into opening his Twitter account.

Normies typically look at their phones whenever they have a free minute, but it’s hard to predict what exactly they’ll look at—could be LINE, could be Facebook, could be Instagram. But Takei almost always looked at Twitter.

So we had Mimimi go to the bathroom after a short conversation, therefore creating an opportunity for the two guys to look at their phones. But that alone wasn’t a guarantee, so we added another twist.

We had Takei take a picture right before she went to the bathroom.

Takei had a high likelihood of opening up Twitter at any opportunity, but if he took a picture, his guaranteed next action was to post it there. We took advantage of that habit to ensure he would do what we wanted.

Next, Mimimi retweeted one of Shimano-senpai’s infamous tweets with a photo attachment. Then, since Takei follows Mimimi and would be looking at Twitter at that moment, the photo would pop up on his timeline.

And since Mimimi had a private account, Shimano-senpai wouldn’t get a notification on the retweet.

The key point here was for Mimimi to change the display name on her account. The way Twitter works is that when you retweet something, the original tweet shows up on people’s timelines with a small note above saying who retweeted it. So normally, if Mimimi had retweeted Shimano-senpai’s tweet, it would be displayed on Takei’s timeline with a small note above saying “Mimimi Nanami retweeted,” but no other information like icons or IDs.

Meaning as long as you change the display name, you can disguise who did the retweeting. Of course, if someone opens the tweet and clicks on the link that says “so-and-so retweeted,” they’ll go to your user page, so it’s not possible to fully disguise your identity.

But honestly, how often do people look into who retweeted something? Or to be more specific, how often would Takei ?

So we had Mimimi temporarily change her display name to the innocuous pseudonym Yu before retweeting Shimano-senpai’s tweet. Then we secretly monitored Takei, and as soon as we detected signs he had seen it, we had Mimimi delete the retweet.

All trace that Mimimi was involved in this would be gone.

When she changed her username back, the miniature perfect crime was complete.

At Nakamura’s instruction, Takei searched for the source of the retweet for a while, but eventually he pointed out there was something more important to think about.

“Either way, you should still forget about her, right?”

“…Yeah, guess so.” Nakamura gave a vaguely forlorn nod.

“Hey, guys!” Mimimi returned just at that moment.

“Hey, Mimimi! You’ll never guess what…”

“Takei.” Nakamura shot a harsh word and glance at Takei before he could reveal all to Mimimi.

“Uh, oh…um. Nothing!”

“Ooh, what’s the secret?!”

“Shut up. It’s a guy thing.”

“A guy thing?! Then it’s hopeless…’cause I’m a girl…” Mimimi pretended to cry dramatically.

With that, Nakamura had sealed Takei’s lips. Wonderful. All the pieces should now be in place. We’d communicated Shimano-senpai’s true colors to Nakamura without injuring his pride, and he’d prevented Takei from sharing the information with anyone else. In other words, no one would be able to tease Nakamura over this.

By the way, nice performance, Mimimi. A bit too real, actually. Girls are scary.

We had just removed the last small obstacle standing between Nakamura and Izumi. Meanwhile…

“Ooh, nice one!” Mizusawa smashed the ball into our court.

“Ack!” Unable to respond in time, I let it fly off the table.

“Yes!”

“Nice one!”

Mizusawa and Izumi high-fived, and then Mizusawa gave me a meaningful look.

“…Looks like Fumiya is the winner of this game.”

“Huh? …Oh right.”

It took me a second to realize he’d just complimented me on the success of my strategy. Hinami smiled and nodded, too. Izumi was the only one who looked confused.

* * *

Having finished both the Ping-Pong game and our big gambit without incident, we left the hot spring and wandered naturally toward the little woods nearby.

Needless to say, we were going to walk through the forest at night for our test of courage.

In a sense, this would be the final step of the Nakamura-Izumi strategy.

Even though the air was warm and damp, Izumi looked chilled. Her eyes were filled with pure fear, and she was shivering as she asked, “We’re really doing this?”

“Of course we are! This is the main event!”

Ironically, even though we hadn’t told Takei about the plan since he was so useless, his comment was close to the truth. This definitely was the main event.

“S-seriously…?”

Mizusawa patted Izumi on the back as her steps became smaller and smaller. “Don’t worry, this is a normal road in the daytime. It’s just dark and creepy right now. It only feels like a ghost could pop out when you least expect it.”

“That’s what’s so scary!!” Izumi cried desperately. Mizusawa’s clever teasing was extremely effective.

“Oh, here’s where we start.”

Ignoring Izumi’s reaction, Mizusawa was looking down a dark, narrow path leading back to camp. There were two ways to get there—the one we’d taken on the way to the hot spring, which was a normal road that cars used, and this one, which was a paved but dimly lit path through the woods. The plan was to walk back to camp on this path in groups of two or three.

From what I could see, the path that veered off the main road was fairly dark, and honestly speaking, even I would have been afraid to walk down it alone. Not that I’m a scaredy-cat or anything.

“Listen…it’s really dark down there.” Izumi’s voice was weak, and her eyes were pooling with tears. I saw her reach toward Nakamura and grab onto his sweatshirt.

Mizusawa’s sharp eyes caught the movement, and he pointed to her hand. “Ooh, look at the lovebirds! Go on, you two; you first!”

“Yeah, I think she wants to go with you,” Hinami said, piling on.

“Hey, no, wait! That’s not what I…!” Izumi pulled her hand back from Nakamura’s arm in a hurry.

“Too late. These guys have made up their minds. Let’s go,” Nakamura said. Sounding resigned to the fact that we’d never back down, he led Izumi toward the path.

“Hey, w-wait for me, Shuji!”

“Geez, keep up.”

“Hey!!” Her voice echoed away as she vanished into the darkness.

“Nice one, Takahiro!!” Mimimi gave him a thumbs-up, grinning from ear to ear.

“Ha-ha-ha, what can I say? But it looks like…” He nodded several times. “Our strategizing ends here, huh?”

He was right. By waiting twenty minutes or so to send the next pair down the path, we’d give them some time alone at the campground, at which point it was up to Nakamura to finally make a move. That was the final stage of our plan.

“If we’ve set them up this well and Nakamu still doesn’t do anything—C’mon, man up!” Mimimi snickered.

“Yuzu might be the one to make a move!”

“I hope you don’t let that happen, Shuji! Think of your honor!”

Hinami and Mizusawa laughed along with her.

“Huh? What are you guys talking about?”

We all completely ignored Takei’s question and started talking about who should go down the path next.

“Okay, I’m off!”

“Watch your step, Mimimi!”

“Aah!”

Mimimi and Mizusawa were the next to set off, twenty minutes or so after Izumi and Nakamura. We’d done rock-paper-scissors to decide on groups, and they ended up as the first pair. Hinami and Takei and I would leave after them. That was one unique trio.

“Actually, we planned it all out…”

“What?! Really?! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Come on, Takei, you know you can’t act.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that, but…”

Since everything was over, Hinami was telling Takei about the true goal of the trip. He seemed crushed to learn he was the only one who didn’t know.

Ten minutes or so had passed since Mizusawa and Mimimi had set off.

“Okay, guys, should we head out? …S-sure is dark in here,” Hinami said fearfully, and the three of us set off.

* * *

“Eek!”

Hinami freaked out as Takei stepped on a branch, snapping it in half with a loud crack.

“A little on edge, Aoi?” Takei leaned in toward Hinami, cackling happily.

“Sh-shut up, Takei! Scary stuff scares people sometimes, okay?!” she said sullenly, speeding up her pace.

“I’m not scared at all. Impressive, huh?” Takei crowed.

Hinami nodded. “It does make me feel safer to be with a guy who’s not scared by stuff like this.”

Takei smiled excitedly at Hinami’s playful comment. This guy really was a simple creature. “Seriously? I make you feel safer?!”

“But…,” Hinami said, looking at both of us. “Don’t you think having three of us is part of it?”

Takei shook his head vigorously. “No way! Not at all!”

“So you could go by yourself?”

“Piece of cake!”

“Really?”

“Really! Would you be impressed if I did?”

“Totally. Only someone really cool and manly would do that.”

“Seriously?! Okay, then!” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “Just watch me!”

“You’re really gonna do it?!”

“Of course!” Takei strode confidently ahead of us.

“W-wow!” Hinami applauded softly.

“That’s me! Ah-ha-ha!”

The two of us stood and watched him disappear down the path.

Um, what’s going on? Hinami just tricked Takei into going ahead of us, right? So there we were alone on the dark path. Now I was a little…nervous.

“…What are you up to?” I asked quietly, my heart beating just a little faster than usual. Hinami gave me a satisfied nod.

“I figured it would be an efficient use of time to have a meeting right now. How’s your assignment going?” She was back to her usual self.

“Oh…so that’s what this is about.”

She’d chased Takei off because he was in the way. I sighed at her cold, hard logic—my fault for letting my heart get excited.

“Hmm?” Hinami seemed to be enjoying my reaction. “What do you mean? What else could it be about?”

She brought her face right up to mine so her hair brushed my neck. Intentionally, I’m sure. Ergh, okay…

“N-nothing.”

“Is that so?”

I felt my face growing hot. As I leaned back to avoid her attack, she gave a satisfied snort.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“We’re going to do some special training right now.” She wasn’t even trying to hide her sadism now. I had a very bad feeling about this.

“Wh-what do you mean, ‘special training’?”

“You know what I said to Takei, about being cool and manly?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“For example…” Suddenly, she shrieked and grabbed onto my arm.

“H-hey, what are you doing?!”

She looked up at me with watery eyes as I went into a panic.

“A-at times like this…you have to act manly and strong, right?”

Her voice was weak and feeble, somehow inspiring a desire to protect her, even though I knew she was making fun of me. I got her point.

“…You want me to practice walking in a manly and strong way with a frightened girl…”

My heart was pounding from the warmth of Hinami’s palm on my bicep. She looked up at me with her frightened eyes and nodded.

“Yup, that’s it… I’m counting on you, okay…?”

She wrapped both of her arms around my right arm and pressed herself against me.

“Uh, um…”

She looked so thoroughly frightened and vulnerable that if it weren’t for the smile that briefly twitched at the edges of her lips, she would have had me fooled. I knew it was an act, but I still felt my heart beating faster. I—I won’t let you beat me, Hinami!

* * *

Hinami walked along slowly, clinging to my arm, and pressed to me like glue.

“Ooh, it’s so dark…”

“Y-yeah.”

I was matching my pace to hers, my attention completely distracted by the very definite softness of her body all along my arm. Her chest…probably wasn’t touching my arm, but her armpit and side definitely were. There was only a thin T-shirt between me and her bare skin.

“Eek!”

With a cute shriek, she squeezed my arm tighter against her soft body.

“C-come on…you’re taking this too far.”

I tried to take an objective approach to keep from losing my cool completely. Hinami, however, couldn’t have cared less.

“Oh, Tomozaki-kun…,” she said, bashfully looking into my eyes. “Don’t let go…”

“…Uh, yeah.”

The overwhelming power of the heroine was practically beating me into submission, and I found myself nodding. Don’t worry. I won’t let you go , I thought.

No, bad! What am I thinking? She had me wrapped around her finger. She was just trying to confuse me…but her face and expression and gestures were so adorable, and her body was so soft and warm, it didn’t matter if it was all an act… And we were all alone on this dark path…

No.

Snap out of it!

I slapped my cheek lightly with my left hand to clear my head. I felt Hinami’s finger tracing my ribs.

“Eee!” I yelped, and instantly my head was in a fog again.

“Tomozaki-kun…are you okay?” Hinami said in a concerned tone. Hey, that was your fault!

Anyway, I was supposed to be practicing my strong-and-manly act. She must be instructing me to focus on that.

“…Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”

I made up my mind to just complete the special training and kept walking forward. After all, she was my teacher in life. Even if she did have sadistic motivations, I had to obey her.

As I walked along, my mind blurred by the totally abnormal and slightly risqué situation, a small insect flew in front of me.

“Oh!”

“Wh-what?!”

Overreacting to my small exclamation, Hinami let go of my arm and clung to me from behind. My brain turned to mush as I felt her soft body pressed against my back and her delicate, trembling arms around me.

I was done for. My brain was in panic mode.

“I-it’s nothing. J-just a bug,” I managed to say, albeit incredibly awkwardly.

“R-really…?”

She peeled herself off my back and reattached to my arm. I was disappointed that she hadn’t stayed on my back a little longer, but I pushed down the regret and examined her expression. A satisfied smile was hovering around her mouth. You’re letting your true colors show, Hinami!

But…shit. It was humiliating to be so completely at her mercy. I wondered if I could get her back somehow.

I looked around, feeling even more humiliated that I liked the weight of her head resting on my shoulder, and noticed a cicada on the ground in front of her.

There we go!

It was a risky bet, but if the thing was still alive…I could stomp loudly when we got close to it and sic the cicada on her. Since I knew what to expect, I should be able to control my own reaction.

I didn’t want her guessing my plan, so I looked away from the insect and held my ground as she started making extremely girly comments, such as “Tomozaki-kun, your arm feels so strong and manly!” A few seconds later, we reached the cicada.

Boo!

I stomped loudly, and sure enough, it went flying into the air with a loud clicking sound.

“Eek, what’s that?!”

“Whoa!”

Hinami’s squeal this time wasn’t quite so fake. Ha-ha. Aside from the fact that I was startled, too, my little scheme was a big success. Serves you right, Hinami! I looked at her with a self-satisfied smile. She glared at me for a second. What? Then she removed her arms from me and covered her mouth with one hand.

“Th-that was so scary…!” she whimpered theatrically, sinking to the ground.

“H-hey, Hinami…”

She looked up at me tearfully and shook her head weakly. “I—I can’t stand up…”

What a faker. Bet this was her revenge for me giving her a little scare. Fine, then. I’d caught her off guard with the cicada, so I’d put up with it.

“A-are you okay?”

“I—I just can’t…”

She looked up at me pleadingly. Uh, so she wants me to…

“You want me to lift you up?”

She gave a little nod. “…Uh-huh.”

She lifted her arms slightly, so there was a gap beneath her armpits. Okay, wait a second. There? In a situation like this, wouldn’t you normally pull someone up by their hands? But her gesture suggested she wanted me to wrap both arms around her and lift her up that way. Seriously?

“H-hurry…”

She looked on the verge of tears. I knew it was an act, but she still managed to make me feel like I had to rescue her before she started crying. What the hell.

“Uh, okay…” I did as she wanted, wrapping my arms around her under her armpits.

She put both her arms around my neck.

“…Huh?” I froze.

She gazed into my eyes.

“Wh-what?”

She kept staring at me silently, smiling and playing dumb. Her lips parted. Why was she acting so seductive?

But after my successful revenge with the cicada, a rebellious spirit had blossomed in my heart. I just stared right back at her.

She licked her lips.

Then she slowly pulled my face toward hers using the arm wrapped around my neck.

Okay, wait just a second. I stared at her with my useless determination to rebel. Was I going to keep putting up with this treatment? But if I looked away, she’d probably make fun of me for it later.

Through pure force of will, I managed to stay put. Very, very slowly, Hinami’s face, her skin, her lips, moved straight toward me. The distance between us shrank from fifteen centimeters to ten and then to just a few. The faint, warm breath from her mouth caressed my lips.

Eventually, her nose was about to touch mine, and she tilted her head slightly out of the way. Hey, people do that when—

“Aah!!”

Unable to hold out any longer, I jerked my face away.

The next moment, I returned to my senses and realized what had happened… I’d lost.

I glanced at Hinami. She was standing there with her head still tilted and a victorious smile.

“Sh-shit…,” I muttered. She was way beyond me. But then I realized something else. Huh? Her lips…are where…

“You have a long way to go, I see. Well, let’s get out of here.”

She stood up and I followed with a mumbled “Okay.”

Her lips had ended up—exactly where mine had been a minute earlier.

…If I hadn’t dodged, what would have happened?

…Had she been sure I would dodge?

My heart was beating like crazy once again, and the two of us made our way back to the campground.

* * *

The other five members of our group were already gathered near the camp center.

“Hey, slowpokes. I made it by myself, Aoi!” Takei called out.

“It wasn’t that scary after all,” Hinami said casually. She waved both hands, a blank look on her face. How was I supposed to interpret that?

“Oh, come on! It was super scary!” Izumi wasn’t trying to put on a brave front, but now that a little time had passed, she seemed happy again.

“You were shivering like an idiot!” Nakamura commented.

“You don’t have to call me an idiot!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, should we head back?”

Ignoring Izumi’s question, Nakamura started walking toward the cabins.

“Wait for me!”

Izumi hurried to catch up so she could walk next to him. I’m not sure, and I might have been imagining things, but they seemed closer than before.

“Psst,” Hinami whispered to Mizusawa. “What happened with Shuji and Yuzu? Did you hear anything?”

Mizusawa smiled like he was enjoying a private joke, and I listened in on their conversation as I walked next to Hinami.

“Apparently, he didn’t tell her how he felt.”

“What?” Hinami’s shoulders slumped in disappointment.

“But…” Mizusawa smiled as he looked at Nakamura and Izumi. “They did make plans to hang out together.”

He looked at Hinami, raised his eyebrows comically, and laughed.

“…That’s all?” she asked.

“Yup, that’s all,” he said with the same silly expression.

Hinami sighed and gave a faintly tender smile. “Geez…I swear, those two…”

Mizusawa nodded. “Yeah…things move super slowly with those idiots.”

His laughter was chagrined but happy, like he was watching with fatherly joy as an adorable little child took its first small step.

“I wish they’d take a page from your book—you got yourself an older girl in no time at all,” Hinami joked.

Mizusawa shrugged. “Seriously. They’re both good-looking and smart enough to talk if they wanted to. I just wish they’d be a little less awkward…you know?”

Despite his funny tone, Mizusawa’s eyes seemed lonely and distant, even contemplative. He got that way sometimes, but I had no idea why.

“I hope things go well with you and that girl!” Hinami said.

“Ha-ha-ha, yeah. I hope it works out with her, too.”

For some reason, he sounded like he was talking about someone else.

* * *

“So, nine?” Nakamura asked

“Yeah,” Mizusawa said.

Takei had turned out the lights, and we were all setting our phone alarms and going to sleep…or not, as it turned out.

“Man, Izumi’s wet T-shirt sure was sexy!”

Takei’s excited comment set off a full review of the day’s swimsuits.

“All she’s got going for her is the curves,” Nakamura said haughtily.

“You think so? I prefer someone like Mimimi,” Mizusawa said.

“No way. Izumi’s tits are the best,” Takei said, continuing to push for Izumi.

“Hey, Farm Boy, you pretending to sleep?” Nakamura jeered.

Who’s Farm Boy? Guess I have to go along with it.

“I’m not asleep.”

“So what’s your opinion?”

“I—I…”

Should I avoid saying the same things they’d already said?

“Hinami’s posture…is pretty hot.”

Nakamura burst out laughing. “I’ve never heard anyone having a thing for a girl’s posture , dude!”

“Fumiya is a weird one.”

“Farm Boy cracks me up!”

“I don’t have a thing for posture…and stop calling me Farm Boy…”

As the raging wave of normie aggression washed toward me, my words tapered off weakly.

“Why? It suits you,” Nakamura said meanly.

“True…,” Mizusawa said, pausing for a beat. “They do say horses have big dicks.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Takei cracked up. This was hazing…! Th-this was how guys joked around…? But in this ring…I could fight…!!

“Well…,” I began quietly.

“What?” Nakamura snapped.

“No harm in being big. Better than being small like Nakamura.”

Maybe because it was the second time I’d said something like that, Nakamura grinned combatively and took on a confident tone.

“Go ahead and say that, but I bet you’ve never used yours.”

It was a flawless counter, and I couldn’t reply.

“Uh…”

Mizusawa burst out laughing.

But even if Nakamura hit right back, that was number three! I’d completed my assignment! Yesss!

We joked around like that for another half hour or so, and then everyone started to get drowsy and grew steadily quieter. Finally calm, the three normies began looking at their phones. The light from the screens illuminated their faces faintly in the dark room. I took out my phone, too, and got to work gathering information related to Atafami . Not much later, a private LINE message arrived from Hinami.

[You awake? ]

Wondering what this was about, I replied.

[Yeah, what’s up? ]

[If you’re going to be up for a while, I figured we could review your performance on the trip. You want to do it now? ]

Review my performance, huh? I guess it made sense. We’d still be here tomorrow, but today was the main event.

[Sure, but what’s the rush? ]

[We could meet up afterward, too, but I thought this would be more efficient. ]

Logical as usual.

[Okay, where? ]

[Come to the front of the girls’ cabin. We’ll decide from there. ]

[Gotcha. ]

I told the guys I was going to the bathroom and headed for the girls’ cabin.

* * *

“There you are.”

Hinami was a slim figure in the dark, her hair fluttering like silk in the night breeze. She sounded as cool as ever.

“Hey.”

“How about we go to the camp center?” she said.

“…Huh? Oh, sure, we can sit down there, too.”

We walked toward the center. When we got there, she asked me to give her a minute and disappeared into the girls’ bathroom. She must have really had to go. We should’ve just met here. Oh well.

After a couple minutes, she returned. We sat on chairs in the lounge and started our meeting.

“I’ll start with my overall assessment,” she said.

“Please do.”

“First, regarding your assignment to mess with or contradict Nakamura…”

I grinned. “I did it three times! The first time…”

I gave her a rundown of the “stringing along” incident, the “small dick” incident, and the “no harm in being big” incident. Huh? Two out of three were dick jokes? Oh well, we’re guys. What did she expect?

“God, you’re all dumb…” Hinami face-palmed. “But sounds like you completed the assignment. Pass.”

“Yes!” I said, pumping my fist.

“I hope you understand now the important role teasing plays in multiple arenas: becoming a normie, making friends, and establishing equal relationships.”

I nodded. “Relationships and hierarchies sure are scary…”

“Well, you have to kinda establish positions to make group interactions smoo—” Hinami broke off midsentence.

“What’s wrong?”

“Wait, someone’s coming.”

The ice in her voice made me think maybe I should hide. I stood up and slipped into the little kitchen nearby. I heard Hinami saying I didn’t have to hide, and then the automatic doors slid open. I peered out through the window in the kitchen door. Mizusawa was walking into the lounge.

“Takahiro? Did you come to use the bathroom, too?”

“…I thought you and Tomozaki were in here together… I must have been wrong.”

“…Huh?”

Hinami played dumb, but I could tell she was on edge. Mizusawa went into the guys’ bathroom and came right back out again. That was weird. What should we do?

“Huh. We must have just missed each other.”

“Did you not have to use the bathroom?”

“No, it’s just… Anyway, since we’re both here, why don’t we talk a little?”

He sat down next to Hinami. Uh-oh, was he staying for a while?

He sounded relaxed and loose, but the mood was awkward and tense.

First of all, I was curious why he suddenly wanted to talk to her. I also didn’t understand why he’d said he thought Hinami and I were in here together, which was an oddly accurate guess. I kept stealing glances at them, but all I could do was sit there and sweat in terror.

“I wish those two would have made a move already.”

Hinami introduced the topic searchingly, as if she were avoiding a definite conclusion.

“Yeah. I mean, just promising to hang out after we set them up so perfectly? They’re beyond awkward.” Mizusawa chuckled good-naturedly, but he had less energy than usual.

“Exactly! Just how naive can you get?”

“Right? Those two are awkward, naive idiots…no joke.”

“Yeah.”

Hinami sounded like her usual self. But Mizusawa was staring out through the automatic doors with that distant, lonely look in his eyes. As usual, I didn’t know what was behind it. Finally, he went on talking.

“But at the same time…I’m impressed.”

“…Huh?”

Hinami seemed mystified by Mizusawa’s quietly mumbled words. Still staring out the doors, Mizusawa laced his hands over his head and stretched. He was keeping it light. Maybe he was trying to hide his embarrassment or avoid getting too serious.

“It’s like… Okay, Yuzu and Shuji—and Fumiya, too, honestly—they do what they want. They listen to their own emotions. When they’re happy, they’re happy, and when they’re sad, they’re sad… They’re always so sincere.”

I jumped a little to hear him mention my name. But I remembered that he’d mentioned my “sincerity” and “effort” a couple of times before. And every time he mentioned those things, he had that same smile—that lonely, mystifying smile. In my head, I heard him mumbling introspectively, Everything is easy for me. I don’t even have to try .

“…Yeah,” Hinami murmured.

Mizusawa let his hands flop back down by his sides before continuing in that same light tone.

“Seriously, all Yuzu and Shuji have to do is make eye contact and they start blushing. Even though they like each other, they’re so self-conscious together that nothing ever happens…and Fumiya, he’s just so earnest about everything. Even if he screws up, he acts like he’s having a blast…”

“…Shuji and Yuzu really are hopeless…” Hinami giggled and nodded. “But you think Tomozaki-kun is the same?”

“Yeah, Fumiya might be a little different…”

Mizusawa started laughing, too. “Yuzu and Shuji are idiots through and through,” he said, repeating what he’d said to me before. “When I watch their little romance, and…when I’m with Fumiya, it makes me think about something.”

“What’s that?” Hinami asked sympathetically.

“I’d like to try being a little more of an idiot myself.”

“…You would?”

Mizusawa nodded. “If I put it like Fumiya, every day is like a game, but I’m not really playing . I’m manipulating the controller, but it’s like…I’m not the one moving through the world. Even if I mess up, it’s the character I’m controlling who takes the hit, not me. And when things go well, I’m not the one who feels happy… I’m not the one having fun.”

The joking tone Mizusawa had been using to hide his self-consciousness gradually faded into something more serious.

“…You mean it’s like you’re always watching yourself from a distance?” Hinami carefully broke down Mizusawa’s explanation into something simple.

“Yeah, basically. So okay, the thing with the girl at the other school. I’m going through the motions because I know she’s got everything you’d want in a girl, and dating her would probably be fun. I know what I have to do for it to work, but it has nothing to do with emotions or feeling shy or liking someone or disliking them or with what I really want.”

Hinami nodded, chewing on her lip.

Mizusawa smiled with that same lonely look in his eyes.

“All I’m doing is putting on a good performance.”

Mizusawa’s small, earnest words echoed across the large, empty room.

“Hmm,” Hinami said, looking him in the eye as she listened. The only sounds in the quiet room were their two voices and the soft hum of the vending machine glowing in the corner.

Should I be overhearing all this? The guy with everything, the top-tier character who could do anything, the one who was so perfect I used him as a model for my own attempts to become a normie—he was showing his vulnerable side, his true feelings. I think he was revealing his sense of inferiority and regret for not pouring his true self into anything. Was it okay for me to be eavesdropping on that conversation?

I tensed my legs.

Mizusawa sighed softly. “…Anyway, I just don’t know,” he said.

“Know what?”

Mizusawa looked straight at Hinami. She didn’t look away.

They were silent for a second, their eyes locked and utterly serious. Finally, Mizusawa spoke. It was like he was tearing through the tension with his fingernails.

“Isn’t it the same for you?”

I gasped. My whole body was tense now.

He’d just leveled a quiet accusation at her. He’d looked into the face of the perfect heroine—that face that fooled everyone—and realized that it was a mask born from a perfectly calculated performance.

I’m not sure if it was fake or real, but Hinami glanced around the room like she was at a loss for what to say.

“You’re asking if I’m watching myself from a distance, too?”

“Yeah.”

Mizusawa nodded. I knew the real Hinami, and he’d hit the bull’s-eye with his guess.

To play the part of the perfect heroine, to reign from the top in our school hierarchy, in athletics, and in academics, she wore a mask made of blood, sweat, and tears. There was no question that mask was there with her perfect, brilliant smile.

The mood grew tense and still once again.

Mizusawa didn’t try to escape the awkwardness with one of his embarrassed smiles. He simply gazed deeply into Hinami’s eyes, utterly sincere. She grinned back at him.

“You could be right.”

And she confirmed his guess.

The look she gave him was equally earnest, and he didn’t look away. I couldn’t turn away, either.

“Yeah…that’s what I thought.” Mizusawa smiled and looked down. Hinami nodded, still watching him, and spoke again.

“I…”

I was so focused on her voice, it was like my mind wasn’t my own anymore.

“…I’m gonna be totally honest here. People expect so much from me, right? They’re like, ‘Aoi Hinami is good at everything!’”

But the words that came out of her mouth—

“I unconsciously suppress my real self… Honestly speaking, it’s more like I’m playing the part everyone wants me to play, instead of doing what I really want. I feel like I have to live up to their expectations, so I work really hard. And of course, the more I achieve, the less I want to disappoint people! I’m just too proud, I guess. Oh, but don’t tell anyone!”

—They weren’t the words of the unmasked Aoi Hinami I knew.

“So I think I might understand how you feel. When you never do what you want and never listen to your emotions… When you just do what you think you’re supposed to do, it always gets boring. That…happens to me, too.”

—They weren’t her usual rational, coldly logical, painfully truthful words.

“But I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it. People like Shuji and Yuzu are unusual. They’ve got so much going for them, right? And they’re idiots! And Tomozaki-kun is a weird one, too. Ah-ha-ha. That stuff is impossible for normal people! I think all normal people…are acting a little bit. I think…you need to find at least one person you can show your real self to, as a kind of compromise, right? That’s just how I see it, of course!”

—It was a flimsy, casual confession from the mask of the perfect heroine.

I was dumbfounded.

I mean, this was Aoi Hinami.

The truth was, the person she showed to everyone on a daily basis was a mask, a created character she was controlling through a never-ending video game. Without waiting for her permission, Mizusawa had suddenly crashed straight into that truth. But she couldn’t have cared less for his attempt at honesty. She was like the final boss kicking aside an NPC; without even breaking a sweat, she had magically transformed truth into fiction and performed a perfect role-play of the school heroine earnestly responding to a classmate who had opened up to her.

I couldn’t hear a single trace of NO NAME in the words she had just spoken.

“…Ha-ha-ha.”

There was no humor in Mizusawa’s laugh.

“Wh-what?” Hinami said, making her voice sound confused.

“You’re truly incredible, Aoi.”

“Huh? I didn’t say anything that—”

“You can stop now.”

Mizusawa’s serious tone shut Hinami up. But that, too, seemed like part of her performance. As he stood before that overpowering final boss, Mizusawa smiled belligerently, like he was enjoying the fight.

“Strange, isn’t it? Usually, I’m the one who’s playing the perfect guy for whatever girl I’m talking to. I’m the one drawing out her real feelings, listening kindly, and wrapping her around my little finger the whole time.”

To me, Mizusawa looked excited by the current situation.

“…I just showed you the real me, but you’re still acting. Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around? This has never happened to me before!” He cackled with genuine amusement.

“H-huh? What are you talking about…?” Hinami made a perplexed perfect heroine face.

“You’re the only one I can’t beat.” He was admitting defeat, but he sounded oddly satisfied.

“Is that a compliment?” Hinami’s joke was delivered with a perfectly light, teasing tone.

“Listen. I’ve been open with you, so I might as well tell you one more thing.”

“Huh? Wh-what?”

Mizusawa grinned, his eyes glittering.

“I think I like you. I’d like to talk to the real you sometime.”

Hinami made a fairly surprised expression at that. Then she mumbled, “Thanks.”

“But even if I asked you out, you’d say no, wouldn’t you?”

“…I’m sorry,” Hinami murmured, looking down.

Mizusawa laughed cheerfully. “Ha-ha-ha. I mean, if you won’t open up even after all that, there’s no way we can date.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her second apology seemed like an attempt to evade the real meaning of his words.

Mizusawa nodded, still smiling. “Yeah, it does sting a little. Opening up and getting shot down.”

“…Yeah.”

Mizusawa’s eyes looked sad and anxious, but at the same time, a satisfied expression played around his mouth. “But…,” he said, stretching both hands toward the ceiling and smiling as if the storm had passed. “Sure does feel good to get it off my chest!” With a boyish, friendly expression, he chuckled. I’d never seen him laugh at himself that way. “Man, it’s been a long time since I asked myself what I wanted and really gave it a shot.” He scratched his neck.

“Ah-ha-ha. So you like me that much, huh?” Hinami continued her perfect performance, this time playing the girl who said the right thing to smooth over the awkwardness after she’d turned down a guy.

“I’m gonna tell you something, though. Now that I’ve bared my soul, I don’t intend to give up.” He sounded deadly serious.

“Is that so? I’m a formidable opponent, you know.” Hinami added a silly smile to her joking tone, but Mizusawa didn’t crack the slightest smile. He just looked at her once more.

“Hey, Aoi.”

“…Yeah?”

He was advancing on the final-boss-level monster Aoi Hinami head-on. “Tell me something.”

“…What?”

He was talking straight to the Aoi Hinami behind the mask.

“How long are you gonna be on that side?”

His eyes were focused very intently and very earnestly on her.

* * *

Once again, the only sound in the quiet room was the soft hum of the glowing vending machine. Everything felt weird. I kept my breath quiet as I thought things over, then finally arrived at a conclusion. In the shadow of the kitchen door, I got ready to stand—and burst out of hiding.

“—I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for this to happen!” I flew out of the little kitchen.

“…Fumiya?” Mizusawa looked at me in surprise.

Out of his view, Hinami slapped her forehead in exasperation.

“I—I thought you’d get suspicious if you saw me here with Hinami, so I hid, but I didn’t think it would end up like this… I’m so sorry!”

I was working my brain to explain myself as fully as possible.

Hinami followed suit. “What happened was, we bumped into each other coming out of the bathroom. We’d been talking for a little while when you showed up, and Tomozaki-kun went and hid for some reason, and then he didn’t come back out.”

Mizusawa sighed lifelessly. “Damn, you really overheard some weird stuff.”

“I-I’m so sorry…” I really did regret what had happened.

“But I don’t think you meant any harm… I mean, who would jump out and admit everything now of all times?” He laughed cheerfully.

“W-well…ha-ha-ha.” I followed his lead and laughed, too.

“Seriously, man, only an idiot is that honest.” He sounded a little fed up.

“I-it’s just… I thought…it wasn’t a good idea to keep hiding…”

Mizusawa smiled as I stumbled through an explanation and then mumbled, “Figures.”

“Huh?”

Suddenly, Hinami clapped once. “Okay, let’s pretend none of this ever happened and get back to our cabins!”

“…Yeah. Come on, Fumiya.”

“Oh right.”

Still flustered, I followed along. We walked Hinami back to her cabin and then headed to our own.

“…I don’t intend to pretend none of that ever happened,” Mizusawa murmured after her as she headed into the girls’ cabin.

I’m not sure if Hinami heard him or not.

The next day as we headed back on the bus, Nakamura and Izumi were chatting as compatibly as ever, and Hinami and Mizusawa were making conversation with everyone as cheerfully as ever. I felt like laughing at how little had changed. But to me, even if Nakamura and Izumi were more or less the same after their test of courage, the lack of change in Hinami was something different altogether.