◆◆◆ The Young Duo on the Other Side of the Mic

“Wow, that was crazy,” the boy and girl said in unison. They glanced at one another and chuckled at their jinx, still in sync.

“No matter how this ends up, I look forward to working with you, Play-by-Play Caster Endo,” the girl said with a smile.

Her expression caused the boy’s heart to pound, but he did his utmost to keep a cool poker face while shaking her hand.

The boy’s name was Endo Aoto. He was in his second year of high school, was currently a member of his school’s broadcasting club, and he had a one-sided crush on the classmate-slash-clubmate grinning from ear to ear before him: Kobayashi Shihono.

————

The tale began when Shihono brought a certain otome game to their club. The Broadcasting Club wasn’t very strict—in fact, it was infamous for being incredibly lax. Unless they had a competition coming up, the members only got together to practice on Wednesdays.

However, their club had a responsibility to deliver a broadcast at morning, noon, and the end of school hours every day, regardless of whether or not they had practice. As a result, on every other weekday, the two regular announcers were left all alone with little to do. To kill the time, the tight space of their soundproofed clubroom had been lined with manga volumes, a TV, and a game console someone had brought.

One day, Aoto’s beloved Shihono added yet another game to their pile: Love Me Magically!, also known as Magikoi. Set in a fantasy world styled after early-modern Europe, the main character Fiene finds her fifteen years of life as a commoner coming to an end as she is suddenly thrust into the world of nobility. All of it is thanks to her ability to use a noble’s greatest privilege: magic.

The romantic simulation game begins when Fiene finds herself admitted into the Royal Academy of Magic, surrounded by a prince here, a knight there, and a teacher over yonder. In total, there are five potential suitors to pursue (plus one hidden route where she woos a god). From there, she loves, swoons, loves again, and even goes on an adventure or two.

Although students enter the academy at fifteen and graduate three years later at eighteen, the game only covers the first year of her time at the school.

“But the best character is definitely the tsundere villainess, Lieselotte! I’m sure her dignified cuteness will make even a guy’s heart seize up, so try it out, Endo! And once you do, cry with me!”

After fully clearing the game herself, Kobayashi Shihono had given in to the primal urge to share the story she loved with as many people as she could. She didn’t skip a beat as she passionately made her appeal to the young man she always delivered the morning, noon, and after-school announcements with.

Aoto was so plainly infatuated with her that the rest of his clubmates secretly conspired to give the two of them as much alone time as possible. Thus, although he wasn’t too keen on Shihono’s suggestion, he was so overjoyed that she’d chosen to share this with him of all people that he had ended up agreeing to play an otome game near the beginning of June. That was around a month and a half prior to their peculiar episode.

At first, Aoto had no interest in Lieselotte, and even less understanding of why someone would appreciate a tsundere. However, he was curious to see the game that had caused Shihono to squirm in excitement, empty whole boxes of tissues, and dance a cute (according to Aoto and Aoto alone) little jig of joy in the clubroom.

Furthermore, he had the ulterior motive of finding more common interests to talk about so that the two of them could grow closer. With all this in mind, he swallowed his pride as a high school boy and began playing a dating sim for women under Shihono’s instruction.

“So, where do I start?” Aoto asked.

“I think you should go with the fan disc! The game is way deeper when you have an understanding of Liese-tan’s charm, after all! Oh, and, Liese-tan’s this ultra-high-spec marquis villainess who pops up in the main story and butts into the main character’s business all the time. And she’s always saying hurtful things and crossing a bunch of lines and gets possessed by this Witch of Yore demon-thing to turn into the final boss, but the truth is...she’s a huge tsundere!”

Aoto felt slightly disturbed at how his simple question had been met with an unyielding onslaught of an answer, but Shihono only grew more fervent, wildly swinging her hands as she continued.

“You’ll figure out that Liese-tan’s just a big ol’ tsundere if you play through the fan disc! Oh, and, you see, this disc has a bunch of visual novels that talk about the after story or expand on behind-the-scenes stuff during the main scenario, right? And there’s one called Lieselotte’s Memoir—which, since she’s the last boss and all, ends right before she gets killed. It’s really sad, and honestly kinda heavy all around...”

Recalling the sadness of Lieselotte’s story toned down Shihono’s vigor. Aoto grinned at her boisterous emotions and enthusiastically nodded to signal that she could keep going.

“First, you have this romance option in the main game, His Highness Siegwald, who’s the crown prince and Liese-tan’s fiancé. In her memoir, she confesses her secret love for him and her hidden admiration for Fiene’s innocence. You can see her slowly break down as the Witch of Yore eats away at her psyche, all while she struggles with her inability to be honest and her terrible relationship with Sieg. Her misery and bravery in this part already bring me to tears, but playing through the main story when you know Liese-tan’s true feelings makes her giga-cute! She’s! So! Cute! So start with this!”

Shihono’s eyes were shimmering as she looked up at Aoto. Taken by her excitement, he conceded and began working his way through the aforementioned story in the fan disc.

The conclusion? Aoto bawled. A mere otome game turned this high school boy into a sobbing wreck. It was a testament to just how miserable, brave, and prone to misunderstanding Lieselotte was in spite of her young, purehearted love for Siegwald.

Lieselotte bore some of the blame, what with how she’d let the Witch of Yore manipulate her jealousy, but she was only sixteen at her time of death; at her age, she was expected to be immature. The heavy sense of duty that came with her status had instilled her with a respectable work ethic, and her diary was full of self-admonishment. In the end, her lovestruck heart cracked to the evil witch and she perished. The tragedy of her suffering had caused Aoto’s floodgates to swing wide open.

“The cover art is so pretty and cute, and Magikoi is such a peppy title... Why is it so dark?” he asked weakly, wiping his eyes with his palm. Seeing his vulnerability, Shihono callously piled on more pain.

“What’s more, Liese-tan ends up dying in every single ending except the reverse harem end!”

“That’s so unfair! What did she ever do to deserve this?!” Aoto had developed enough compassion for Lieselotte that he found himself legitimately upset at the news. At first, he’d laughed it off when Shihono told him to cry with her. Yet here he was, crying and fuming from the bottom of his heart.

“Isn’t it awful?” Shihono said. “There are even a lot of deaths among the romance targets. I swear, all the deaths in this cutesy-looking game are the devs’ way of trying to scar a bunch of young girls for life. Then again, that’s why it got enough attention to put out a fan disc right after release...”

Aoto stared at her, mouth agape, and sucked in the lingering sensation of tears that remained in his nose.

“How about you try playing through the Happy End now?” Shihono smiled as she made the suggestion.

And Aoto, who still had trouble with just how malicious the developers were, ended up playing through the main game’s Reverse Harem Route. This route was only unlocked after clearing each character’s Best End, but Shihono had collected all of the endings and CGs to 100% the game. She’d also unlocked the Hidden God Route. Thus, Aoto started his journey on the Reverse Harem Route.

This storyline even included yuri elements: not only did all five of the main heroes fall in love with Fiene, so did Lieselotte. The six of them went on to bicker over the heroine, and most notably, Lieselotte’s love for Fiene allowed her to kick away the Witch of Yore. With all their powers combined, they easily slayed the witch and lived happily ever after.

By the time Aoto finished his playthrough, it was already late July.

“Wha... What do you mean, ‘happily ever after’?! You’re telling me these well-to-do ladies and gentlemen, including the prince and a teacher, fall in love with Fiene...and she goes out with all of them?! There’s no way this is gonna work out! Is this kingdom gonna be all right?!” Aoto shouted at the top of his lungs when he experienced what Shihono had described as a “Happy End.”

The girl in question snickered. “But see, in every other route, at least one of the others dies,” she said.

“This is savagery,” Aoto said with a straight face.

“C’mon, didn’t I tell you? The main characters in this game have a really bad habit of dying all the time. Number two on the dying-ness scale is the knight Baldur—you remember Bal, right? He dies in every ending except the Best and Good End of his own route, so he’s got it tough too.”

Second place only gets him an extra two ends on one route? Aoto thought to himself. He couldn’t help but feel like the difference between gold and silver was a photo finish. His face became a stony mask; it was as if the developers’ venom had withered his very soul.

“You know Fiene’s ‘Awakening’ thing?” Shihono said. “The one that lets her level up and get God’s Favor? Bal’s the one that dies during that scene. It gets to the point where I wanna cheer him on, like, ‘Do your best to live a little longer!’ Honestly, he sacrifices himself to protect Fiene from the possessed Liese-tan so often that I started worrying he might be a die-aholic. Well, since he and Liese-tan are cousins and act like siblings, maybe he dies so much because he feels responsible for her...”

Aoto could only muster a weak nod while Shihono prattled on.

“Anyway, the fact that both Baldur and Lieselotte are alive and well makes the Reverse Harem Route the Happiest End in Magikoi.” After she casually summarized her case, Aoto groaned, unconvinced.

The Reverse Harem Route he’d just finished featured the cast cornering the Witch of Yore seven-on-one and beating the existence out of her. She hadn’t been able to take over Lieselotte’s body, so she didn’t even have a physical form and no one had to sacrifice themselves; the Witch simply manifested for the final fight and got pummeled without accomplishing anything evil—though, of course, she did plenty in the other routes to deserve it.

In some ways, Shihono was right about this being the Happiest End. It was the only one where the pitiful duo of Baldur and Lieselotte survived. Still, Aoto couldn’t let it slide.

“Look, I get that not dying is great and all...but after reading through Lieselotte’s Memoir, all I can think is, ‘Where’s the route where Siegwald and Lieselotte get along?! How can you call this the Happiest End?!’”

Shihono nodded along and let loose a listless sigh. “Doesn’t Liese-tan have the worst luck? Well, in my humble opinion, that just makes her cuter and more lovable, but...I did kinda want to see a better ending. In the end, Liese-tan’s just a villainess and the true heroine is Fiene.”

She looked over at Aoto with a bitter smile and saw that he still didn’t seem quite satisfied.

“You sure have fallen for Magikoi, huh, Endo? Or should I say, you’ve fallen for Liese-tan?”

Aoto awkwardly turned away from her teasing, but her tone only grew more mischievous and devilish to the point that it was borderline sadistic.

“Okay, next up...we’re finally getting to Liese-tan’s saddest route! Let’s watch her beloved Siegwald get snatched away by our heroic Fiene!”

“No way, I’m gonna feel so bad for her!” Aoto said reflexively, whipping back toward Shihono.

“But that’s the best part! Let’s watch Liese-tan suffer through her cruelest fate and cry together! And once we’re done, we can use our depression as fuel to write Sieg x Liese-tan fanfics!”

Was this her master plan all along? Aoto wondered.

Shihono, still spouting her madness, inched toward him with a controller in her hand. Aoto, for his part, inched away from her. Of course, their game of cat and mouse came to a rapid close in their tiny clubroom, and Aoto literally had his back to the wall in seconds.

“I don’t wanna!” he said, pushing back the controller. “Uhhh, oh! Hey, I think we should really get some practice in. You know, like vocal exercises and stuff. We’ve been slacking off a lot lately, right?”

He wasn’t wrong: the two of them had done nothing but play games as of late. They hadn’t done any practicing, but it wasn’t as if their clubmates had either. As mentioned, the Broadcasting Club was infamously laid back. They didn’t even bother aiming for prizes when they went to competitions.

This was a plain and simple excuse born from Aoto’s genuine desire to avoid seeing Lieselotte suffer. Little did he know this was all a part of the trap Shihono had laid for him, and her better grasp of the situation let her poke at his mind in all the right ways.

“Siegwald is sooo cool in his own route! Like, to the point that you start to get why Liese-tan’s so in love with him! I want you to see that. Besides, this is the main story that Lieselotte’s Memoir pairs with! Aren’t you interested?”

Aoto wavered. He tilted his head with a strained expression, leaving one ear pointed toward Shihono’s ongoing pitch.

“And on top of that, the last fight has Sieg x Liese-tan undertones! Despite not being able to love her, Sieg can’t bring himself to kill his fiancée and childhood friend, and then Liese-tan—ahh, no more! Spoilers are bad! Let’s play through it for real! Please?!”

Spurred on by Shihono’s fiery speech, Aoto reached out for the controller, then pulled his hand back. He repeated this process over and over, making his swaying resolution as obvious as possible.

“But, no matter how you slice it,” he said, “this is a tragedy from a Siegwald x Lieselotte perspective. I’ll admit that I’m curious... Oh, but I’m definitely not writing that fanfic with you. Aaah, but, man...”

“Oh, I know!” Shihono suddenly had a wonderful epiphany as she watched him deliberate. “How about you do some play-by-play on the game? I’ll handle the analysis!”

“Uh, what? I feel like this isn’t that sort of game.”

Shihono ignored Aoto’s doubts and tossed him the controller, bending his fingers into place with her own.

“Nope, nope, nope! There’s no such thing as a game you can’t commentate over. Even an otome game can be proper practice if we talk over it! Right?!”

The holes in the logic of her cheery conclusion were gaping to say the least. Yet her refreshing, confident grin practically screamed, “Isn’t this a good idea?!” To cast a shadow over the blinding cuteness of his crush was too much for the boy to handle.

Endo Aoto and Kobayashi Shihono packed up all their sympathy for the tsundere villainess Lieselotte as they took on their roles. And so, their play-by-play and color commentary of Love Me Magically! began.

————

As a result, their play-by-play and analysis reached Prince Siegwald and began shifting the fate of the other world.

“Hmmm... There’s something off about the save data screen,” Shihono said.

Aoto had been in deep thought trying to recall how all of this had happened, but turned Shihono’s way when she spoke up. He peered over at the TV to see something very peculiar.

The save data screen was meant to list the date, route, Fiene’s location, and most recent play time. However, the route and main character’s location were glitched out and unreadable.

Before the two of them had taken up the mantle of gods, the in-game date had been April 18th, right after they’d entered the academy; the route had been the General Route, where Fiene went around earning affection points by chasing the heroes and talking to them in events; and the location had been the courtyard.

To elaborate, the General Route lasted from spring to fall. One of the male leads would then confess to Fiene based on their affection ratings, and ask her for a dance at the closing party of the cultural festival held in late autumn. From there, the player entered that character’s route.

In the Reverse Harem Route, Fiene and Lieselotte snuck away to dance while the five men bickered. Aoto had been totally bewildered by the surprise yuri development when he’d played through it.

“Hmmm? What’s with this? I can’t even copy it...” Shihono tilted her head as she continued fiddling with the save file.

“It was already weird when I was messing with it earlier,” Aoto said. “I know you saw that all of the dialogue options were gone, but I couldn’t even stop the autoplay. It was like the characters were moving on their own.”

Shihono’s expression only grew grimmer at this news. “Does that mean the only things we can do are quicksave and load? I guess we could look at our stats... What the heck? We haven’t done any leveling yet, so why is Fiene totally maxed out?” she asked, eyeing the character page with suspicion.

Magikoi had an RPG leveling system, and Fiene’s strength was based on her level. The main heroes, on the other hand, had hidden stats. Their strengths were based on how much they wanted to help Fiene—in other words, their affection rating.

Furthermore, Magikoi was full of bad endings that triggered when the player lost a combat encounter. In short, Fiene died; the main heroine of the game could die. Those were the kinds of bad endings in this game.

To the two high schoolers aiming to avoid all bad endings, Fiene’s stats were an important thing to check. Two things awaited them: the exact data of a max-level heroine and the names of all her potential suitors with glitched out affection ratings next to them.

“Oh my god, she could clear the game solo at this point. What is she, a gorilla? That’s terrifying.” Aoto tilted his head alongside Shihono and let his true opinions slip out.

His mention of clearing the game solo was a reference to a specific Solo Clear End. The player had control of Fiene’s activities on the weekend and after school: you could ask someone on a date, trigger a special event, or go train.

If Fiene was too weak, you were bound to run headfirst into the heroine-dies-in-combat endings. The player was meant to delicately balance earning affection points with training, but you could instead choose to use up all of the free time training her to max her out.

If—and only if—Fiene was as strong as she could be, she would win against the Witch of Yore during the scripted loss sequence at the end of fall. That was what led to the Solo Clear End.

The scripted loss came after the dance that brought the General Route to a close. Lieselotte would run out of the ballroom in despair because of Siegwald’s cold attitude, Fiene would give chase, and the knight Baldur would follow to protect the two young ladies. Once the three of them were together, the scene began.

The Witch of Yore possessed Lieselotte, turning her into an unspeakable monster. Fiene and Baldur tried to fight her off, but Baldur lost his life. Fiene awakened to her true powers upon seeing her friend die, and her chosen dance partner rushed to the scene upon hearing the commotion. The two of them joined forces to fight the Witch off and barely survived.

Still, the Witch escaped, and the heroine deepened her ties with her partner as they continued to fight against the aberration in his personal route...or so the story was meant to go. (As an aside, Fiene awakened after Baldur got roughed up a bit in his routes.)

A max level Fiene had the power to brute force her way through this scene, all by herself. She was an absolute gorilla.

Incidentally, the Solo Clear Ending left no time to raise affection, so Fiene ended the game as little more than an acquaintance to all the main heroes. Lieselotte died alongside the Witch, and Baldur lacked the affection points to show off his true power, and died a meaningless death in the battle.

All in all, the ending was totally pointless. It didn’t even have a CG. However, Shihono had gone through it in the desperate hope that some dialogue option—maybe even after 100%ing the game—would contain salvation for Lieselotte.

At the time, she’d complained to Aoto, saying, “Isn’t that awful?! This ending had literally nothing to it!” That had been when he’d first heard about the power of a max level Fiene.

“Argh, I don’t get it!”

In the time that Aoto had been contemplating Fiene’s gorilla-like strength, Shihono had been mashing away at buttons to test all sorts of things. Despite her efforts to try and investigate the strange phenomenon and the equally mysterious save data, she finally threw in the controller.

“Oh, have you given up?” Aoto asked. “We’ve only got two minutes left, so let’s hurry up and get in the broadcast booth.”

Shihono rushed to her feet. The only reason they were still at school in the first place was to deliver the after-school announcements, and it was nearly time.

The boy held open the heavy soundproof door for her. Not wanting to make him wait any longer, she hurried over and went in.

————

After finishing their announcements, the two of them headed home. They were polar opposites when they walked side-by-side: Aoto was a tall, well-built athlete, and Shihono was a fair, dainty maiden more suited to the arts than sports.

“We ended up not figuring out anything...” Shihono rewound the conversation to the peculiar phenomenon as soon as the two of them passed through the school gates. Her worry was written all over her face, and the ponytail she wore today gently swayed as they walked along.

On the other hand, Aoto didn’t seem the least bit bothered. In his deep, calm voice, he said, “Well, we don’t know anything and it’s honestly kinda creepy, but it’s still a story on the other side of a TV. Let’s just relax and enjoy it.”

“Hrm... I mean, you’re not wrong, but...” Shihono still didn’t look convinced.

A tender smile came to Aoto’s lips when he saw her perplexed. His gaze was infinitely gentle, overflowing with his love for her.

Shihono’s usually sluggish pace was worsened by her contemplation. Aoto’s stride was far longer than hers, since he was a head taller and all; still, he slowed his steps down to match Shihono’s.

To begin with, despite living in the same general direction, Aoto’s home was much further and he rode a bike to school. Yet he went out of his way to slowly push along his bicycle and walk home with her. His love for Shihono was evident even in the finer details like these.

“I don’t think you’ll figure anything out no matter how long you think about it,” he said. “Personally, I think we’d be better off playing the game and clearing things up that way.”

Shihono glanced up at him when he spoke. Their height difference naturally caused her gaze to turn upward, and Aoto couldn’t help but appreciate how small and cute she was. Still, he managed a straight face and asked, “What are you so worried about?”

The gentle baritone of his question was met with a contemplative moment of silence as Shihono carefully picked her words.

“Hmm... I think both the fact that it’s so mysterious and creepy, plus the fact that I got you mixed up in all this are eating at me.”

In contrast to her furrowed brow, Aoto’s smile was bright and cheery.

“I’m fine. Besides, it seems fun. I wanna see Lieselotte live a happy life too. But if you don’t want to keep going, I’m okay with that.” Truth was, he wanted to spend as much time as he could with Shihono, and he was willing to do anything to make her happy. Despite omitting this final secret, his words had plenty of impact on the girl.

“No, I wanna see a Happy End to End All Happy Ends too! One where I don’t have to worry about the future of the kingdom like in the Reverse Harem End—a real happily ever after where Liese-tan and everyone around her can live in peace!” Reinvigorated, Shihono once again declared her determination.

Let’s use our play-by-play and color commentary to clear up Siegwald’s misunderstandings about Lieselotte and guide everyone to a Happy End to End All Happy Ends!

This was the conclusion the two had come to when they found out that their voices had reached the prince.

Naturally, the strange circumstances were plenty disturbing; seeing a game character reply to them and call them by their names had freaked them out. But even so, their love for Lieselotte had won them over.

Lieselotte was the villainess and Fiene was the heroine. Aoto and Shihono decided to change this unreasonable fate—they’d live up to their names as gods and bend destiny itself.

And after thinking it over, their determination remained steadfast. Shihono reaffirmed her resolve with a refreshing smile and sparkling eyes, only for Aoto to tease her with a smirk.

“You sure are in love with Lieselotte, huh, Kobayashi?”

His voice was full of sentiment. He loved the way she gave everything her all, how her tiny body was packed full of all sorts of emotion, and how she could express them—including love—in a straightforward way.

“Hold up, you read Lieselotte’s Memoir too, didn’t you?! And you cried, just like me!” Upset, Shihono pushed up against him as Aoto tried to reassure her.

“I did, and I did—but only a little. I only cried a little bit.”

The definition of “a little” varied from person to person, but Aoto had shed enough tears that both he and Shihono knew he was lying. However, being the high school boy that he was, he simply couldn’t admit that.

“But you’re still gonna cheer Liese-tan on, right?! You’re a Sieg x Liese shipper, aren’t you?! I really want to see her live happily ever after with Sieg...” Shihono elected to overlook his understatement and was on the verge of crying herself as she spoke.

“Well, I’ll admit that sounds pretty good,” Aoto said coolly.

“Right?!” Shihono spoke up in a burst of passion. “If Lieselotte finds love—or at least, if nobody misunderstands her—I’m sure she won’t turn into the final boss. Plus, Fiene’s already maxed out for some reason. At the very minimum, I can see this being a route where no one dies!”

“The difficulty setting seems really high, though. I can’t tell if we’re lucky or cursed for Sieg to be the only one that can hear us.” Aoto’s somber truth instantly doused Shihono’s excitement and she began to mope.

“Yeah,” she said. “We need Sieg to fall in love with Liese-tan to stop her from getting possessed, but it’s a one-way ticket to a bad ending if he finds that out.”

This was why the two of them had dodged Sieg’s question when he’d asked about the incident.

“That would just sound like we’re telling him to fall in love for the sake of the world,” Aoto said. “Or at least, he might start acting weirdly friendly with her. Not only would that not work, but I don’t wanna see them like that.”

Aoto and Shihono sighed in sync. They’d lost control of the game, and the characters acted of their own volition. Their voices were the only tool the duo had, but they couldn’t be totally transparent with the one character that could hear them.

Their goal was to create a Happy End to End All Happy Ends with all of these restrictions. If nothing else, the challenge was sigh-inducing. However, Shihono whipped her head left and right to shake off the anxiety and confidently faced forward as she pumped her fist in the air.

“But Liese-tan’s super cute and she loves Sieg so much, it’ll totally be all right! With our commentary, I’m sure her charm will come through! Let’s make it come through, okay?!”

Put on the spot, Aoto weakly raised his fist, but didn’t seem that enthused.

“Sure, let’s do our best. But summer break is starting in two days, you know? It’s not like the two of us will have any chances to play the game together.”

“Two days?” Shihono repeated blankly.

The end-of-semester ceremony was to be held on the day after next, and the two of them wouldn’t kill any time in the clubroom for the whole break that followed. Shihono had completely forgotten about all that, and stood petrified in shock.

“...What?!” Shihono suddenly broke free from her paralysis and began shouting as she swung her head back and forth. “No way, I wanna see Liese-tan be happy now! I can’t wait a month!”

Aoto loved the way she always went a bit overboard. He chuckled, watching over her tenderly, when she suddenly froze. A giant smile bloomed on her face and she turned up toward him.

“I know! Endo, you should come over to my house during summer break!”

Now it was his turn to become a statue. Her cheery invitation had turned him to stone. He wasn’t even blinking.

“Sieg might not hear me if I’m not with you, and it’s really hard to do color commentary without a play-by-play to fill the space. So if you’re up for it, how about you come over and we get as far as we can over the break?! Come on!”

Shihono merrily piled on her pleas, but Aoto remained an unmoving sculpture.

“W-Wait. What? Your...house?”

Creeeak. His response was so awkward that you could practically hear his discomfort. To be invited to his crush’s home was a daunting challenge to the high school boy who’d internally complicated the daylights out of his one-sided love. Furthermore, Shihono’s nonchalant invitation only exacerbated the bewilderment in his heart.

“Yup, my house! I know you might be sick of seeing my face throughout the school year, but please!” Utterly oblivious to Aoto’s infatuation, the girl clapped her hands together as if to beg him to come.

“No, I’m not sick of you at all!” Aoto said, waving his hands in a panic. “In fact, I want to see you every day if I can!”

“Then that settles it! It’s okay, my parents both work, and my sister’s in college and barely comes home. I think I’ll be alone for the whole summer outside of the Bon Festival!”

Shihono had either missed or ignored the pseudo-confession that had slipped out amidst Aoto’s confusion. Either way, she smiled from the bottom of her heart.

“Hold on, that’s not okay at all! There isn’t a single part about it that’s okay!” The thought of being alone with her worsened his alarm and he harshly rebuked her.

However, Shihono couldn’t quite put her finger on what the problem was. She tilted her head with a perplexed expression. “Then I guess I could go to your house instead?”

“That’s, uh, even worse... Anyway, I don’t have the console to begin with.” Aoto both looked and sounded like he was in great pain as he wrung out his answer.

Not owning the console was a real problem, but more importantly, personal circumstances had led to him living by himself—and not in a cheap apartment with paper thin walls either. He only had one room, but it was a steel-reinforced condominium.

Does she not understand how dangerous it is to say she’s willing to come to a place like that? Aoto wondered. He glared at her, but she only returned a confused, innocent gaze. All he could do was sigh.

“I don’t really get it, but just come over to my house. The console in the clubroom belongs to our upperclassmen and sis bought mine, so I can’t bring it over to your place.”

Aoto had gotten a headache from how far off the mark she’d been. He massaged his temples and delivered her a simple fact.

“You know I’m a guy, right?”

They were a boy and girl of sensitive age; he didn’t even need to reference the old adage that men are beasts. Aoto thought an adorable girl like Shihono should be more cautious, and the fact that he wasn’t even on her radar made him want to cry. She didn’t seem to notice his pain, though.

“Yeah, I know. You’re taller, your arms are longer, and even your hands are completely different.”

She innocently closed the gap between them and lined up her arm against the one coming out of Aoto’s short-sleeved shirt.

Although she could see the differences in skin texture, color, and the thickness of their arms, Shihono seemed to be missing the fact that their power disparity meant that Aoto could easily hold her down if he chose to do so. He couldn’t tell whether she didn’t understand that or if she naively believed that “Endo wouldn’t do something like that.”

Regardless, Aoto was so pure that the sight of her fair arm next to his own was enough to blind him. He would never do anything that might risk her approval.

“Oh,” Shihono said. “You mean you don’t wanna play an otome game?”

Her guess was wholly wrong. Aoto began to grow frustrated at how little notice she paid him; it was as if he were invisible.

“No, that’s not the issue. Besides, it’s a little late to be saying that.” Aoto had already played through the fan disc and cried his heart out. If he had qualms like that, he would have refused outright to begin with. That wasn’t the issue at hand. “...Well, I’m fine with it if you are, Kobayashi.”

Still, he didn’t have the mental fortitude to ask her, “What are you thinking, bringing a guy that’s in love with you to your own home?” He wasn’t even brave enough to let her know how he felt, and ended up caving in.

“Thanks! Okay, let’s iron out our plans tomorrow!” And of course, Shihono replied with purehearted enthusiasm, happily shaking his hand up and down.

“You’re very welcome.” Aoto couldn’t have been happier. Shihono was enjoying herself, he was going to spend the summer break with his crush, and he was going to make himself useful. Yet in frustration he added, “But you’re really cute, so don’t invite any other guys to your house, okay?”

Shihono released his hand and looked somewhat irked.

“Do you really think I’d invite over a guy that wasn’t you? That’s scary and gross,” she said, making her disgust clear.

Aoto felt proud, content, and still a bit frustrated at her appalled attitude. He waded through the feeling that he was still being taken lightly in search of a reply, but the two of them had reached the Kobayashi residence before he knew it.

“Okay, see you later! Don’t forget about tomorrow!”

Shihono’s smile was as infinitely innocent as a sunny day as she waved him goodbye. Her gesture had drained Aoto of all spite. He sighed and muttered to himself, “Well, I guess I’d better do my best to catch her attention over summer break...”