Chapter 4: Dissonance in Preparation

“Morning! ♪” Aina said.

Kai didn’t expect to be greeted in such a dizzyingly normal way. When he met Aina again in the afternoon, she was back to playing the same innocent darling from head to toe, as if the events of their prior meeting had all been a terrible dream.

But every now and again when their eyes met, Kai recognized the same look from this morning peeking back at him. He realized she was showing off that side of herself on purpose, so that he wouldn’t forget. It was an appeal: she was practically demanding of him, ‘Watch my acting skills.’ Regardless, with such an intense display first thing in the morning, Kai wouldn’t have been able to forget even if she begged him to.

Once everyone gathered together, he repeated the explanation for why voice acting would have to wait for Nanaka, Aya, and the headphone-wearing Eru

Aina nodded along sensibly and agreed to follow his decision, but Kai knew the displeased look in her eyes was more than his imagination. From their ensuing conversation, he found that she had absolutely no knowledge regarding game development. In order for her to grasp the basics of social game management and the decision-making process, he assigned her to act as Nanaka’s aide.

“Professor Nanaka! ♪” Aina sang, turning to the other girl.

“P-Professor?! U-Umm...! I’m a little nervous, but I’ll explain anything I can!” Nanaka promised.

“Okay, professor!” said Aina, who immediately raised her hand.

“Yes?!” Nanaka called on her enthusiastically.

“I was told that I’m going to help you write up the master data... but what is the master data, anyway?”

Ah—Kai barely stopped himself from cutting into their conversation. He and Nanaka had divided up work to write master data plenty of times, but he had never explicitly defined what master data was to her before. Thus, he figured he’d need to explain, but... I don’t need to interrupt, he reminded himself.

“Oh! Right?! I get you! I really get you! You wonder, ‘What is master data? Is there non-master data?’” Nanaka stopped to glance Kai’s way for a brief moment before continuing on slowly, “Um... broadly speaking, social games have two types of data.”

Aina raised up a peace sign with her fingers and asked, “Two types?”

“Yup, two types.” Nanaka mirrored with a peace sign of her own as she answered. “These two types are ‘data that changes’ and ‘data that doesn’t change.’ The one that does change is like... for example, the player’s level keeps going up and up, right? So that’s the kind of data that changes. For the type that doesn’t change... for example, maybe the very first combat has a slime that gives you 100 EXP. That’s always the same for every user, right? That’s data that doesn’t change... Bringing this all back to your question, master data is the data that doesn’t change!”

After having explained all of that in one sitting, Nanaka whipped around to face Kai with such momentum that he could have sworn he heard the sound of her turning. “That’s right, right?! Master Kai...!”

“M-Master? Um, yeah, that’s fine,” he told her reassuringly. “Your explanation was basically right.”

“......I’m so relieved.” Nanaka felt reassured from the bottom of her heart, and it showed in her smile.

In truth, nothing about her explanation was wrong: master data effectively encompassed all the static parameters that were established within the game. The monster example that Nanaka used was easy to understand. Other examples included character names, skill names, dialogue lines, and story text. Even the list of items that could appear in the gacha was considered to be part of the master data.

The only nitpick Kai had was that the term ‘master data’ was colossal in scope. Therefore, it was common practice to specify what kind of master data was being discussed. There were separate Excel sheets for quests and gacha, often referred to as ‘quest master’ and ‘gacha master’ respectively. The general term ‘master data’ was usually reserved for discussing all these subcategories together, or whenever it was easy to discern what branch was being referred to through context.

“Wow! I get it now! Nanaka-chan, you’re so smart!” As Aina continued praising Nanaka with ‘Wows’ and ‘You’re amazings,’ Kai internally agreed with her.

There were tons of planners who began writing data files without a clue about what master data was. They’d go along, wondering what to call master data, questioning whether or not what they made was master data, and updating the master data all around them without a solid idea of what it was they were doing. Surprisingly, this was a good enough practice to keep working. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a planner to be unable to provide a clear explanation when asked what master data was.

These sorts of planners would often only stop to ask themselves, ‘Wait, what is master data?’ when working in an environment without preexisting data to build from (such as a brand new project). After asking that question, they’d finally come to understand a fundamental part of the whole process.

But Nanaka had been getting along with Akane since their joint project, so perhaps she’d learned that lesson from her. Kai looked over at Nanaka to see her smile of relief, and was pleased to see that she was capable of standing on her own two legs as a planner.

“Man, I’m really glad...” she exhaled. “I was really anxious that you might tell me I was completely wrong.”

“That wouldn’t happen...” Kai responded. “But why’d you call me ‘master’?”

“Well duh,” Aya cut in, “Aye-aye called her ‘Professor’ earlier, so she just chose something that sounded smarter than that. None of that matters right now, senpai. Right now, all you need to do is say, ‘Good girl, good girl!’ and praise Nana-sen like you would pet a dog.”

“I-I’d rather be praised normally!” Nanaka objected.

“So you do want to be praised, then?” Aya pointed out.

Nanaka didn’t say anything back, but her blank, stupefied face did all the speaking for her. Having effectively dug Nanaka’s grave for her, Aya grinned smugly, and Nanaka turned to Kai. When their eyes met, she blushed shyly and looked away.

Kai would have praised her as much as she wanted had he not been so self-conscious about doing so. With all the ado Aya introduced to the situation, he hesitated and couldn’t bring himself to speak up. After all, a ‘good girl’ was definitely out of the question, and ‘You did well’ seemed kind of condescending. What else could he say? he asked himself. ‘You’re amazing’ would seem sort of impersonal...

As Kai mulled over what to say, Nanaka’s emotions popped off and she exclaimed, “...Geez, Ah-chan! Don’t tease me like this!”

“Nana-sen...! Look at his face! Senpai’s definitely picking his words for you, so hold it in a bit longer!”

Led on by Aya’s statement, Nanaka looked over toward Kai again, and this time it was he who looked away. He ended up averting his eyes toward Aina, and for an instant, she turned sour and clearly mouthed, ‘Dumbass’ with large, deliberate motions so that Kai would understand. After blinking, he was again met with a flawless smile from a cheerful beauty.

“Don’t tease your upperclassmen like that! Hey, Ah-chan, listen to—” Nanaka tried to capture Aya as she made her escape, but then her phone vibrated from where it was resting on top of the table. Nanaka turned on the device and checked her LIME notification and—after looking over at the corner where Eru was working away—she sent a reply.

“Eru said she’s done working on the materials you asked her for, so she wants you to check over them,” Nanaka announced. “She said she’ll be working on her own art until you do.”

“O-Okay,” Kai agreed uneasily. “I’ll check them right away...”

Pen-on-tablet scratching echoed throughout the newfound silence in the room. There was an air of electricity surrounding Eru that didn’t require any language to ward off any attempts to talk to her.

Ultimately, Eru’s poor mood remained in place. Even after completing the pre-preparations, her attitude showed no signs of cracking. Without a word, she only notified Nanaka of her progress. She came to the club alone and left for home alone.

Nanaka had tried to ask what happened between her and Aina, but her inquiries were met with no new information.

◇

Development, debugging, and implementation—with their rigid schedule in place, the time passed exceedingly quickly.

Between Eru and Aina’s drama and the management-end preparations, it almost slipped Kai’s mind that the Summit Drawing Ceremony was only a day away. Summit was a development contest at its core, but their opponents had yet to be decided. The initial drawing ceremony was an opportunity for the participating students to confirm their opponents and mingle with other talented developers.

One way or another, the five of them managed to complete their pre-preparations. After confirming their meeting time for the following morning, they went their separate ways at the train station. Once he was alone, Kai remembered that he didn’t have any food at home and stopped by the supermarket.

As he walked out with his groceries, he was confronted with the lengthy shadow of Eru, who was waiting for him. This wasn’t the first such occurrence, and Kai mused that he was lucky not to have been assaulted by a package of sasa dango this time.

“...Um...” Kai was the first one to break the silence.

“Was it your order?” Eru began interrogating him.

“What?” Though Kai meant to exhibit his confusion, Eru only became surer of her position as she intensified her glare.

“You’re making my dear Nanaka investigate that tramp,” she accused him.

“Investigate... That’s—”

“Absolutely it,” said Eru, interrupting him mid-sentence.

“Not it at all,” Kai corrected.

“The fact is, Nanaka keeps asking me about her.”

“...Look,” he said, feeling frustrated. Why can’t she understand something so simple? “That’s because Nanaka-san is worried about you, Kuroba-san.”

“...I didn’t ask for her to worry.”

“Then what do you want her to do?” Kai could feel that he was getting confrontational, and didn’t like it. Despite being able to recognize that with his brain, he couldn’t stop himself. He found himself saying, “If you keep acting like this without any explanation... not even Nanaka-san will understand you.”

Eru’s glare sharpened into the point of a razor’s edge.

However, Kai didn’t feel like he’d said anything wrong. He desperately fought his instinct to avert his eyes and stood his ground against Eru, face to face.

“I don’t want that harlot around,” Eru told him flatly. “I thought I made that clear?”

“What Nanaka-san—no, what all of us are wondering is...” Why do you feel that way? But before Kai could say they wanted to know what happened, Eru ruthlessly cut him off with a dry smirk.

“Do you truly think that I would tell you if you asked? Don’t screw with me, dear,” she spat out.

“It doesn’t have to be me. Just tell Nana—”

“Even I!” Eru paused to swallow back her growing voice before repeating, “...Even I have things I can’t tell Nanaka... That I can’t tell Nanaka because it’s her.”

“Then—” Who can you tell? he wondered. Do you have someone you can tell? Kai began to make these statements, but quickly stopped himself. When nothing else came to mind, he stood at a loss for words. In his own case, Kai would never come to the same conclusion Eru had reached under normal circumstances. His sister was so careless that he’d like to swear never to rely on her again, but he still talked his problems out with her. In fact, she’d helped him out a ton recently.

Kai wondered if Eru had anyone like that outside of Nanaka.

“Don’t get the wrong idea just because of the episode with Tsukigase, dear,” Eru suggested. “So long as I can continue drawing alongside Nanaka... that’s all I need. I don’t need ‘everyone.’”

“Kuroba-san!”

Eru turned on her heel and refused to stop when he called out to her. As she walked away, her raven hair rocked with every gust of wind; each time, her long shadow swayed strikingly.