Chapter 3: Two Sides of a Sakura

They had planned to meet the following afternoon, so Kai decided to spend his morning cleaning up his home. As per usual, he woke up and made his way to the living room but did not come across Misako. He figured it was around time for her to show up, sipping tea with frizzled hair and bags under her eyes, but it appeared that she was still struggling with her manuscript.

First, he washed his face in the powder room. His bed head was especially bad today, so he took a quick shower to fix it and wash away his sweat. He had been leaving the AC on at nights so he wouldn’t get heatstroke, but just lightly enough that he wouldn’t catch a cold, either. Even with the cooling unit running, Kai still woke up to the heat of the morning sun and covered in sweat.

Before moving, Kai had imagined Niigata to be similar to Hokkaido, which had cool summers. However, the summer heat didn’t feel any different from Tokyo. After a quick search online, he’d realized that the temperatures of the two regions weren’t all that different.

Kai wiped himself dry with a bath towel and began to boil some water in his electric kettle before returning to the bathroom to dry his hair. By the time he was nice and dry, the kettle had worked its magic, and the water was boiling hot. He grabbed his usual mug from the kitchen cabinet and measured out some instant coffee.

After setting it down onto the coffee table in his living room, he went back to his bedroom to retrieve his laptop and four smartphones. Turning on his laptop, he opened Excel to the same file upon which he always recorded his data. He took a single gulp of coffee and began simultaneously tapping away at all four phones. Up until this point, it was just another morning.

Ding dong, the doorbell rang out of the blue, and Kai’s eyes snapped to the time displayed at the top of his phones’ screens. It wasn’t that early, but it was still too early for it to be a package delivery. To begin with, he didn’t think he had ordered anything, and his parents in Tokyo hadn’t told him to expect anything, either.

With that possibility crossed off, it was most likely to be Misako. However, she had never rang the doorbell before (after all, she had a spare key), and since she would probably devote herself to her manuscript for a little while longer, these odds weren’t all that high, either.

With these things in mind, Kai recalled that something like this had happened before, and his pulse quickened. Back then, he had come to the conclusion that it was Misako and had opened the door to find Nanaka instead.

As the scene played back in his mind, her smile came to life and made Kai nervous. Ding dong. Again, the doorbell served to rush him along. Kai rose to his feet and took a deep breath before opening the door.

“Ah! I’m so glad you were awake, Kai-kun. Morning! ♪”

“Wha, uh, good... morn... ing?” he managed to choke out. This made it twice, he lamented to himself. He’d been sure that he was going to be able to say ‘Good morning’ properly this time, but it was clearly not meant to be.

The girl in front of him—Yozakura Aina—practically wore a halo above her head with the way the morning sun shimmered off of her dark hair. Paired together with her gorgeous looks, she truly resembled an angel.

“...Kai-kun?” she said, after a short pause. “You okay? Did you just wake up?”

“N-No, I’m fine,” he denied hastily. “Um... Aina-san, what brings you here?”

“I came over because I kinda wanted to talk to you, Kai-kun. Is that... a no?”

The faintest angle, he thought distractedly. She’d tilted her head to the side by the slightest of angles, yet the sway of her hair and the upwards glance of her eyes turned that tiny movement into something special. It was her own magic spell that activated at ten degrees to the right.

“No, but—my room is dirty,” Kai had to admit. For the past few days, he’d been too busy preparing for the pool trip to clean up around the house. The laundry and dishes had piled up into a mountain.

“I’m the one who wants to talk, so I don’t mind, you know? Or... maybe...” Aina trailed off, before activating her ten degree magic once again. “Do you not want to talk to me?”

“Th-That’s not—”

“Then that’s that! Excuse me! ♪” Aina sang out, pushing Kai back into his own home. She took off her shoes instantly and he could hear the light tip-taps of her footsteps following behind him.

While wondering how someone could be so cute on every level down to the sound of her footsteps, Kai had a thought. Hold on, wait. Why is someone like that in my home, anyway?

“Ahh, I see what you mean now,” Aina said as she observed the piles of plates and clothes that needed to be washed. “...Kai-kun, are you living on your own?”

“Y-Yes,” he admitted.

“I see.” She looked around the room and then twirled around to face Kai. With a bashful look on her face, she said, “This is my first time visiting a boy who lives by himself... ♪”

“Right, um... Sorry.”

“Geez, what are you apologizing for?” Aina laughed and turned her eyes to the laptop in the living room. “Ah...! Sorry... It looks like I really did get in the way of something.” Pointing a slender finger toward the devices on the coffee table, she asked, “Is this something you do every day? Like a daily routine of yours?”

“Um... I’m always studying other social games,” he told her, “and I happened to be in the middle of that process.” How did she know I do this every day? he wondered.

Kai didn’t put that question to words, but Aina answered it all the same. “A laptop, four smartphones, and coffee,” she explained. “There’s a lot of stuff here, but it’s strangely organized... Like there’s not any unnecessary clutter? The whole thing seemed well-polished so I figured, ‘Kai-kun must do this all the time.’ But... do you really need this many phones?”

“Oh, that’s because I stay up to date with all of the games in the top 100 on the rankings,” he said automatically. “I wouldn’t be able to keep up with just one.”

“All of—?! S-Sorry! I’m really sorry for dropping by out of nowhere like this,” said Aina, rushing to apologize.

“I-It’s fine,” Kai said, dismissing her concerns. “I can always do this later.”

“...No, you shouldn’t put these kinds of things off! I have some basic training I always do in the mornings too, like running and voice checks... Wow. So this is the secret to your big success with Rondo. That’s amazing,” she concluded, while tenderly running her fingers across the keyboard. A small click click click rang out as her hand slid across the keys.

Then, Aina hopped up like a bunny and turned Kai’s way. “...Okay,” she sang out. “Kai, you go ahead with your daily routine. ♪”

“Huh? But what about the thing you wanted to talk about?”

“While you do that,” she said, pointing toward the dishes and laundry, “I’ll clean up for you. ♪”

“N-No, you don’t have to—”

“Hey... Kai-kun? The way things stand, I’m already bothering you, and the topic I want to discuss is kind of heavy to boot. I want to thank you... or, like, I’d be happy if you let me earn a favor here.”

Despite the fact that Aina had said her topic was only ‘kind of’ heavy, her grim face was far darker than the cheerful tone of her voice. Kai could only think of one subject of discussion that would make her feel that way; it must have been about Eru and Aina. There was no mistake that something had happened between those two. That being said, they couldn’t let the feud continue on forever; that would cause unending trouble for the club’s activities.

“...I understand,” he told her.

“Good!”

Kai only agreed to make it as easy as possible for Aina to speak up, but she was way happier than he anticipated. Her brilliant smile was infectious and tugged directly at Kai’s own emotions.

“Leave it to me! I might not seem like it, but I’m really good at housework!”

◇

“Whoa... it’s good.”

“Really! I’m glad to hear it! ♪” Aina’s small lips relaxed into a smile as she watched him from across the table. “Eat up!”

The food she was offering Kai was a plate of sandwiches she’d made from the contents of his refrigerator. Her homemade sauce was so delicious that Kai couldn’t help but wonder how in the world she’d managed to whip it up with the few ingredients at her disposal.

Aina clearly hadn’t lied about being good at housework, as the laundry and dishes were wrapped up in the blink of an eye. She even cleaned up every nook and cranny of his bedroom while the washing machine was running.

After all that, she still had time to spare, so she made these sandwiches for him, as well.

“So, the thing I wanted to talk to you about...” Aina’s expression suddenly grew serious—though she didn’t look him in the eye—and she got up, silently walked along the edge of the coffee table before sitting back down next to Kai. As he sat cross-legged, his left leg was in range to bump into her knee. In fact, it already had.

“...!” Kai was caught off guard by the jolt of lightning that ran down his spine. When he looked down, Aina’s thin, white hand was resting atop his left thigh. The warmth of her palm felt as though it went straight through the fabric of his pants and made direct contact with his skin.

As Kai turned toward Aina, the pair naturally came to face one another. Aina’s eyes were tinged with melancholy, and he could discern each individual eyelash that ornamented them. And yet, he couldn’t find a single pore on her smooth skin, even from this distance.

If he made a wrong move, he’d end up making contact, so Kai was stuck in place.

Aina took a deep breath to harden her resolve, and said, “I want you... to use me as a voice actress.”

“............Huh?” But—your fight with Kuroba-san, Kai thought, struggling to reconcile the two topics. “...Um...” Was that not what you were going to talk about?

“You mean... in MiSt?” he finally brought himself to ask.

“Of course,” Aina told him. “I want to be a voice actress, no matter what. Once I graduate, I’m going to go to Tokyo to enter a training program... but that’s not enough to guarantee success, right? So, I think it’s important to get some experience now.”

“...Is that why you joined the social game club?” Kai asked.

“Oh, no...! That’s not it!” Aina leaned in and closed the gap between them even further. “I had already been playing Rondo. But after... that, I thought it was curtains for the game until—bam! A miracle! And what’s more, I found out that the person who brought this miracle about was a boy in the same grade, at the same school as me... Right then, I knew it had to be you! I want to be a voice actress in the game you make!”

“L-Like I said before, that wasn’t just—”

“That’s fine! I wanted to be in the MiSt that you were working on!” Aina asserted once more. “So... Kai-kun, I want you to make up a plan that involves my voice. Will you do it?”

This entire time, Kai’s brain had been paralyzed by the sweet fragrance radiating from Aina right into his face. Her whispers slid into his ears to tickle his heart, one after another. He could tell that his heart was on the verge of exploding and shooting out of his mouth. There was no helping it; he didn’t have the experience to stay calm when Aina was so close to him.

“...Aina-san.” Kai took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes, which were twinkling in anticipation of his answer.

“...I’m sorry,” he said, but that wasn’t enough for him to cede. “I... can’t take that request.” Removing her hand from his lap, Kai put a good deal of distance between them before taking a deep breath. One was not anywhere close to enough, so he took another—this time even deeper—and only expelled the air in his lungs once he had quelled his excited heart.

“Do you recall what we discussed at our meeting yesterday?” Kai began to explain. “Our club is locked into participating at Summit, which means we need to work ahead of schedule to complete our managerial responsibilities... so we won’t have much leeway for a little while. After that, we will go to Summit and participate in a development competition. At the very least, that’ll take up our entire summer break. Even afterwards, MiSt is lacking in a lot of fundamental places, so we still won’t have the elbow room to squeeze in voice implementation... This is our current state of affairs. Therefore—”

“Ahaha!”

Kai was about to conclude his statement with, I can’t promise you that, when he heard laughter akin to a sudden blast of wind. Of course, if it wasn’t Kai, then there was only one person who could have laughed.

“Aw, man. You’re so obviously a virgin that I figured it’d be easy to win you over,” Aina admitted. “You’re stronger than I thought.”

“Huh? ...Huh?”

It was as if a different person had appeared before Kai’s eyes. Her face, hair, clothes, body—everything was the same as the Yozakura Aina from a moment ago, but the aura around her was distinctly dissimilar.

“Well, it’s whatever. If you’re the logical type, that makes it easier for me anyway,” she went on.

“...A-Aina-san, is that you?” he spluttered.

“That’s right,” she sang. Her smile had the same shape as before, yet it, too, was altogether different. What was more, this seemed to be her true nature.

“You said you didn’t have any leeway... but I’m sure you’ve noticed? This game needs voice acting,” she pointed out. “What I’m about to explain is something you already know, deep down. Are you ready?” she asked, and went on to logically explain the points of her ‘The Pros of Appointing Yozakura Aina as the Voice Actress for Miracle Stage’ lecture.

First off, the most fundamental issue was that MiSt did not have voice acting.

The truth was that this could actually be seen as a critical flaw. In this day and age, there were as many social games as there were stars in the sky, so the bare minimum requirements to be an average game kept going up and up—not to mention anything beyond that. The specifics varied by genre, but for a character-focused game like MiSt, it was expected that there would be voice acting in some form or fashion.

If the team had extra time and manpower, the story would be fully voiced. If not, there would still be shouts and grunts for battle scenes along with proper lines on the character’s display page. At any rate, the lack of voice acting meant a character-focused game was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Of course, it wasn’t as if adding voices fixed everything, and it wasn’t impossible to succeed without it. Still, if they weren’t beginning from the same start line as their competition, they’d need to make up for the deficit with some other incredible feature.

In that sense, Aina was correct in assuming that Kai had also considered voice acting a necessity. While MiSt had RPG elements, at the end of the day it was a character-focused idol game without voices. Unless they found a truly outstanding workaround, the team would have to overcome that obstacle eventually.

Users want to play the best, most amusing game. A social game that can’t even keep up with everyone else’s bare minimum won’t even be looked at, and that was the simple truth.

Based on such an analysis of the current social game landscape, Aina concluded her monologue by once again pushing Kai to build a plan that included herself as the voice actress.

“Well, I’ve been playing a bunch of social games to appraise their merits, so I get what you mean when you say there are more important points to be fixing,” Aina concluded.

But then she said, “I’m looking forward to your optimistic deliberation, okay, Mr. Planner? I’m sure you got personal experience with how good my acting is, didn’t you? Anyway, I’ll see you later in the club room,” she told him as she headed toward the front door.

Right before leaving, Aina turned around and flashed him the same soft, honest smile that she’d worn up until now—that is, up until showing Kai her true nature.

“Bye-bye! ♪” she sang out.

Like a tornado personified, Aina came and went.