Sometimes the characters closest to you end up holding the keys to the toughest dungeons

I was playing Atafami like my life depended on it. I pulled the curtains tight in the middle of the day and cranked up the air conditioner in my dark room, only leaving to eat, take baths, and use the toilet. I didn't even know if one week or two had passed since the night of the fireworks, when Hinami and I talked on the platform. I was so focused on Atafami that I lost all sense of time. I'd been too busy to play much lately, but even my pre-Hinami self hadn't played this much in a long time. "Bang!" Hinami hadn't contacted me since that night. She hadn't given me any new assignments or checked to see whether I was keeping up with my daily training routine. I guess she didn't feel like it anymore. Which meant I didn't have anything to do aside from Atafami . "Gotcha!" I played people from all over Japan and gradually increased my rating. That kept me from thinking about anything else. I felt like I existed in the Atafami world instead of the real one. "Bam!" But that wasn't anything special. I'd always spent my summer vacations like this. Shut up in a dim room, staring at the glow of my little old CRT TV, playing game after game like my life depended on it. Before I knew it, my back was hunched, and my mouth was slack and gaping. "Boom!" I threw myself into the characters on the TV screen until I was fully absorbed. And it was a blast. I know I'm just a player sitting in front of the screen, but when it came to Atafami , I was totally engrossed in trying to get as close as possible to my character. "Ping!" Time rushed by even though it felt like it was standing still, and I welcomed it.

I wanted to lighten the heavy, complicated chains those words had created around me even a little, so I shut my eyes and curled into a ball and floated in something warm and viscous. But the chains were too heavy, pulling me slowly but surely toward the bottom. I let that comfortable, sickening sensation seduce me. I'm not sure how many hours passed. Once again, the sun set without my noticing and the light seeping in between the curtains disappeared. Suddenly, the door opened. "Sorry, I knocked, but…you're still playing…?" I turned around. My sister was poking her head in from the living room with her nose wrinkled, like I was something dirty. "…Huh, what? …Dinner?" "Yeah." "… 'kay." "Hurry up," she said, walking back into the living room. After a minute, she turned back to look at me. "…Can I ask you something?" She sounded grumpy. "What…?" She glared at me. "Why are you turning into a freak again?" "…Huh?" "I'm asking you a question!" She stomped her foot and scowled. "Why do you look like you did a couple of months ago?!" I felt like I knew what she meant, but I just nodded vaguely. "What can I say?" "Grrr! And you were so much better, too!" She slammed the door violently. "Whoa…," I whimpered. I wasn't sure what to do, but I stood up and opened the door to go into the living room. My sister was still standing like a statue in front of the door. "Okay, so when you brought those cool kids over and called them your friends, I wondered if you were really my brother." "Huh?" She was glaring at me fiercely. Page 166 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com "But it's really not like you to look so bored staring at your games." With that, she strode over to her chair at the table and glared at the TV. Her words had cleared away a little of the fog in my mind. Huh. So I had looked bored when I was playing Atafami just now? Not good. Still, I felt so wishy-washy. I didn't know where to look or where to stand. I looked around. Dad wasn't home. Mom was in the kitchen cleaning up. I sat down unsteadily at the table. My sister glared at me and started talking again—apparently, she'd forgotten something. "…And also!" She pressed the phone I'd left lying in the living room for the past few days to my chest. "Huh…?" "It's not like you to ghost a girl on LINE! You're getting a little full of yourself, I'd say." "Huh?" That was a surprise to hear. I'd been getting messages from a girl? Someone must have contacted me in the past few days. But who? …Probably not Hinami. I glanced at the screen of my phone and saw a two-day-old LINE notification. [Kind Dogs Stand Alone comes out on the twenty-first. I'm planning to buy a copy from a bookstore in Omiya. Would you like to come? ] As soon as I realized it was an invitation from Kikuchi-san, a wave of regret and guilt washed over me. She'd sent it two days ago. What the hell was I doing? Assuming Kikuchi-san was like me, sending a message like this to a classmate of the opposite gender couldn't have been easy. Not even if the recipient was the lowest-tier character in our school. And I'd let it sit for two days. First, I'd actively pursued her for my "assignments" and "goals," and then I'd turned around and shut her out when she took the initiative in asking me to do something. Page 167 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com What a jerk. I'd told Hinami it was weird to interact with people for the sake of assignments and goals, that I had to be truer to what I really wanted. I'd rebelled against her for that idea, and then I went off and did this. I was full of it. However you looked at it, I was incredibly self-centered. Once again, I was disgusted by my own bottom-tier behavior. Had I defied Hinami just so I could act this way? I looked at the LINE message again. No, this definitely wasn't why I'd done it. In which case, I should at least make an honest attempt to act according to my own ideas. The realization spread across my foggy brain, and I started composing a message to Kikuchisan. So what did I want? At the very least, I needed to base my actions on that. As I began to write, my mood was still dark, but I was fighting my way into the light. [I'm sorry! I haven't checked my phone in a while! Do you still want to go on the twenty-first? ] It took all my energy, but I managed to type that up. The one thing I didn't want to do was run away from seeing her again. An assignment or goal may have started everything, but Kikuchi-san still decided to get involved with me, and it was wrong not to take her seriously. I didn't want to distance myself from people I'd connected with anymore. That was the weak-willed, passive approach; in this case, my feeling that I needed to keep things going won out. Plus, I decided this was what I really wanted in the current situation. I sent the message and turned off my screen. When I took a deep breath and glanced to the side, I saw that my sister was staring at me. "…What?" She made a silly face and shrugged her shoulders. "Sometimes…life is tough. Just do your best, all right?" she said theatrically. I think she was trying to irritate me. "…Right… Thanks." Just this once, though, I wanted to express my appreciation. * * * Page 168 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com On the twenty-first,

I went to Omiya Station. What did I want to say to Kikuchi-san? I had no idea. I thought about what I'd said to Hinami, and I wasn't sure what would happen with her. I'd defied her to get across my feelings about doing what I wanted, but was I right? Or was she right, and I was pursuing an illusion and a temporary misconception? Those were the questions knocking around in my mind as I walked through Omiya Station inside the ticket gate. I didn't really feel like going anywhere, but I'd decided to come anyway. I got to the place where we'd agreed to meet and looked around. My eyes were immediately drawn to a certain spot, and there was Kikuchi-san, elegant yet striking among the crowd. I walked up to her. "…Hi." "…Hello." Her greeting, which came after an odd pause, was somehow comforting. I'd felt like my heart had been trapped in a large cold box until now, and warmth came flooding in all at once. "Um, sh-shall we?" I didn't use any of my conversation skills, and I knew my words and gestures must have seemed halting, but I was frantic to say something. There was a lot I didn't know, and my thoughts were very scattered. But my first task was to deal with the business at hand. "…Yes, let's go!" We were headed to a bookstore in the SOGO shopping complex outside the west exit of Omiya Station. Just like at the fireworks, I had decided not to use any memorized topics to smooth out the conversation or try to stock up EXP. For the current me, that was the most sincere thing I could manage. It was also just what I wanted to do. I wasn't wearing any of the clothes Hinami had chosen for me, either. I felt like they were their own kind of mask. "I'm really looking forward to this…!" Kikuchi-san's eyes glittered as she talked about Andi's newly published book. She apparently couldn't care less about my dorky outfit. "Yeah. I wonder what the story of this one's gonna be like…" "It's impossible to tell from the title, isn't it?" "True…but the title feels a little different from the others, don't you think?"

"Yes, I thought the same thing…" "…Yeah." "…Uh-huh." The conversation fizzled out. We walked quietly for a while. The plain old me was exposed, without any made-up fronts or airs. If I wasn't mistaken, though, that didn't seem to make Kikuchi-san feel awkward. We cut through the station, and as we walked outside through the west exit, she pulled on a black cardigan. "Oh right… You always put that on when you're outside, right?" "Yes…" She nodded, blushing a little. "You're not hot?" "I'm a little warm, but…when I get a sunburn, it just feels even hotter. Plus it stings." "Ah-ha-ha…yeah, that sounds really uncomfortable." The exchange ended. That was how it went—there were long pauses now and then, and I was clumsy, but the conversation never truly died. I talked about myself, and if I was curious about something, I asked Kikuchi-san. I didn't feel uncomfortable. I was interacting with her based strictly on my true feelings. When I thought about it, that was what I'd always done until recently. "…So recently, I've just been playing Atafami at home all the time." Kikuchi-san giggled. "All I've been doing is reading…" "Ah-ha-ha. You're an indoor type, huh?" "Seems like you are, too!" Kikuchi-san sounded a little excited. Then she giggled again, and I couldn't help laughing, too. Our insignificant conversation jolted along. It didn't matter if an exchange faded or if my clothes were dorky or if I played Atafami at home all the time. Kikuchi-san accepted it all and responded honestly. And she thought the real me was easy to talk to. That alone was enough to thaw some of the chill in my heart. After walking for a while, we came to the SOGO building. "Aah, it's so cool," I said as we got into the elevator and rode up toward the bookstore. "I love how bookstores smell," Kikuchi-san whispered, breaking into a gentle smile as we stepped out of the elevator. To me, her steps looked just a little lighter than usual, like a forest fairy flitting happily from one branch to the next.

"Really?" It had never occurred to me to love the smell of a bookstore, but it seemed extremely fitting for Kikuchi-san. Maybe the reason she looked so elegant no matter what she wore and had that outstanding magical power was that she routinely recharged her MP by surrounding herself with books. I walked behind her as she excitedly ogled the bookshelves and signs. It struck me as unusual for her to walk ahead so independently. She really did love books. "Oh, look!" she exclaimed, slipping into a row of shelves. "What?" She was leaning in close to a lineup of teen romances. "This one was amazing!" she said, entranced as she gazed at the cover of the book she'd pulled off the shelf. Not exactly what I was expecting. "Huh… You read this stuff?" "Uh…um, yes… I do…" She blushed and stiffened. "Oh, s-sorry…it's just not quite what I would have guessed." "Actually, I—I…," she said, looking down. "I'd like to write books like this one day." She was clamming up, her cheeks red and her eyes glistening. "…Um, r-really?" "Um…y-yes." Flustered, she returned the book to the shelf and started walking a step behind me. But soon it happened again. "Oh!" She pattered down another aisle and gazed at the bookshelf. "I've read this so many times…" "You have?" And again. "Oh! …This was such a fun read." Over and over. I found it endearing, but I also wanted to take her comments about the books seriously. Up till now, I'd always seen her as a fairy or an angel, but now that we'd hung out a few times, I realized she was the most honest, straightforward girl I knew. Her entire life centered around what she really wanted. After a few minutes, we came to the shelf that held Kind Dogs Stand Alone . "Here it is!" "Wow…"

She leaped in front of me with glittering eyes, pulled the book off the shelf, and began to examine the front cover, spine, and back with such intense emotion—something like surprise. Then she devoted the same attention to the inner flaps. "…I feel like I'm dreaming," she said softly, holding the book in front of her chest with both hands and gazing at it. Her emotional tone, expression, and gestures struck straight at my heart. After a few moments, I gradually realized why it was getting to me so much —Kikuchi-san's devotion to what she wanted was pierced through with a quiet strength that was not only entirely natural but essential to her way of life. Without exaggeration, she was living every second of her life as a character. "…Yeah." I nodded. We each took a copy of the book and walked over to the register to pay. * * * "I come here a lot after work," Kikuchi-san said. After buying our books, we'd walked over to a café near the east exit of the station. Maybe because the atmosphere was calming for her or maybe because she felt satisfied after buying the book, her expression was more serene and relaxed than usual as she sat primly in her chair. "Everything on the menu sounds so good." "It is!" Kikuchi-san said happily and a little more loudly than usual. "… And it's all so pretty." All the pictures on the menu were gorgeous. The red tomatoes, yellow peppers, green parsley and asparagus, and everything else was colorful and appetizing. The whole place suited Kikuchi-san perfectly. We eventually both decided to order rice-stuffed omelets. "I can't believe I finally got to buy it!" "…Yeah." Kikuchi-san hadn't put the book in her purse since buying it. Instead, she'd carried the plastic bag in her hands as we walked and had now set it on the table next to her. She was treating it so carefully. The conversation broke off abruptly again. There was no sign of our meal.

"I'm gonna run to the bathroom," I said, standing up. I'd had a hard time saying even that when I was surrounded by normies, but with Kikuchi-san, it felt natural and easy. That made a big impression on me. Just another reminder of how I could be myself around her. I got to the bathroom; took care of business, casual and content; and went over to the sink to wash my hands. That's when it happened. I saw myself in the mirror. I'd made a point of coming in my natural state today, so I hadn't paid attention to what clothes I wore, and I hadn't put wax in my hair. I hadn't even looked in the mirror before leaving the house. Dressing up had struck me as just another "skill" for lying about who I was. Now the results were staring me in the face. I looked like a gross gamer nerd. My posture was slouched, the corners of my mouth were drooping, I looked dirty, my clothes were definitely not stylish, and my eyes were dull. I was disgusted with myself. I'd gotten used to seeing my hair spiffed up with wax, so the flat nonstyle with tufts sticking out here and there just looked dirty and lazy. Hinami had taught me to pay attention to what I wore, so the wrinkly, baggy clothes that I used to wear without a second thought stood out almost shockingly. It had become a habit to stand up straight and lift the corners of my mouth, so my expression and posture struck me as weak, childish, and hollow. To take it to an extreme, they made me sick. I didn't recognize myself.

What did I want to become? Hinami's words as we parted ways on the platform echoed in my mind. "If you're going to abandon your goals in life, then you're abandoning your personal improvement." I'd believed that improving myself by carrying out goals established from a player's perspective, like the ones Hinami gave me, wasn't what I really wanted to do. I'd thought I had to improve myself by doing what I really wanted. I'd concluded that the improvements I'd gained by reaching those player-perspective goals—things like dressing nicely, consciously making facial expressions, and styling my hair—were meaningless. I'd come to see those kinds of improvements as nothing more than a mask, and that was why I'd come dressed in my nerdy old clothes and bedhead today. I was even trying not to stand up straight or adjust my expression. I thought that was what it meant to be true to myself. But just now, when I saw myself in the mirror, it wasn't my player self judging from a distance the impression I gave. It was the character—Fumiya Tomozaki, living in the real world—who didn't like how I looked. I remembered the day I went to buy Nakamura a present with Mizusawa, Izumi, and Hinami. I'd glanced in the mirror as we were going down the escalator and seen myself. I looked like a normie. I'd felt uplifted, happy, and genuinely motivated. And not only then. The time Mizusawa, Mimimi, and Hinami came to my house, the smooth conversation we'd had had given me a powerful sense of accomplishment. In other words, when I improved myself by working toward goals I'd set from a player's perspective, the character living in the real world had felt genuine happiness. That real-world character had been happy to improve. But somehow, I'd convinced myself that anything I gained by reaching player-perspective goals was meaningless.

What the hell did I want? I felt that life was meaningless if I didn't stay true to what I really wanted on the one hand, but how could I reconcile that belief with the meaning I'd found from accomplishing those player-perspective goals? Was it okay not to base my actions on what my heart was telling me? I didn't know. Part of me instinctively wanted to prioritize my own desires, while another part felt it was meaningful to take a step back and work to become a better person. I left the bathroom still mulling over that strange contradiction, with no answers in sight. * * * "Oh, the food came?" "Yes!" Kikuchi-san's omelet was still untouched. She must have been waiting for me to come back. I wouldn't have cared if she'd started without me, but I was still oddly happy she'd waited. I sat down and thought about what to do as we both dug in. Finally, I looked up at her. Was I being overly dependent? I was about to ask her for advice. She was entirely focused on what she wanted, and she'd seen through my little mask immediately—but still accepted me as I was. And her willingness to accept me was why I wanted to talk to her. "…Um…" "…Yes?" Kikuchi-san responded slowly, like I would have. It was comforting, and I couldn't help taking advantage of it. She was so easy to talk to. "Um…remember how, after the movie, you said that sometimes I was hard to talk to and sometimes I was easy to talk to?" "Oh, uh-huh…"

She nodded, looking a little surprised, probably because I was bringing it up again. "Well, I think there's…a reason for that," I said, hesitating just a little. I was about to reveal my mask to her. "Lately…someone has been coaching me on how to talk and things like that… I've been using a recorder to check whether my voice is coming out like I think it is, and copying people in class like…like Mizusawa, and other stuff like that." The only thing I kept secret was Hinami's name. "Someone…" Kikuchi-san zeroed in on that point as she listened to me seriously. "And as one part of that training… Well, you can't start a conversation without something to talk about, right? So I made flash cards for each person…with topics on them that I memorized…" I was afraid she wouldn't like me once she knew that, which was why I kind of trailed off at the end, but I still managed to keep talking. "Before we went to the movies together… I made a bunch of those cards about things like 'Hinami's clothes' and 'the details of what happened with Mimimi,' and I memorized them so I could actually use them when we were together." "…Oh." As I expected, Kikuchi-san looked somewhat surprised, but she kept listening earnestly, looking me in the eye. "But at the fireworks and today, I didn't use any memorized topics or make an effort to keep the conversation going. And you said I was easier to talk to these two times." "…So that's what was going on." She smiled kindly, like she was satisfied with my explanation. "I figured that when I used those cheap tricks to make conversation, there was something unnatural about it…and that's what made you feel like I was hard to talk to. I thought it was because you'd seen through my mask and realized I was insincere." I searched for the words as if I were gathering up the emotions that had sunk to the bottom of my heart. "But…when I used that mask or those skills with Mizusawa and Hinami and Mimimi, and it made the conversation go more smoothly, I felt a sense of accomplishment. And that wasn't fake. It was a genuine sense of accomplishment."

"I see…" Kikuchi-san nodded several times as she listened. "So I really don't know if I should keep working on those skills or if I should just be myself. I'm not sure which one is closer to what I really want." Kikuchi-san looked down, like she wasn't sure what to say. Suddenly, I snapped back to reality. "Oh…sorry for talking about all this weird stuff all of a sudden. I'm sure this makes no sense." Once again, I was regretting my actions. Why was I acting so weak and unfair? Since Kikuchi-san accepted everything about me, maybe I just wanted her to accept the weak parts of myself that I hated. I wondered what I else should say to her. She was still looking down. But when she lifted her face up a second later, her expression was strong and kind. "…I…" She looked me in the eye. "The reason I think you're easy to talk to…is that I can picture what you're saying." "…You can picture it? …How?" That came out of left field. Kikuchi-san nodded deeply. "A lot of the time, I feel like you directly say whatever pops into your head…and when you do that, an image pops into my head, too, although I'm not sure if it's the same as the one you have. It's just like…I'm reading a novel." "How so?" I glanced at the book on the table in its plastic bag. "Well…I don't mean that your sentences sound like prose… It's more like the things you've seen come across to me unprocessed. I feel like you're directly, honestly relaying whatever mood or emotion or texture you noticed." As she talked, Kikuchi-san slowly moved both of her hands like she was shaping a sculpture in midair. "I think that's your personality…and that's why you're easy to talk to…" "Th-thank you…" "Oh, uh-huh…" Although she was blushing now, Kikuchi-san kept explaining. "But sometimes the picture doesn't come across very clearly… and I was thinking just now, those are probably the times you were using the topics you memorized from the cards…" "Oh yeah…" Her point was slowly coming into focus. "And I think that's what makes you hard to talk to."

That was why she had looked satisfied a few minutes earlier. But that meant… "So you think making an effort to develop those skills is a bad idea…?" "Not necessarily." Kikuchi-san looked at me. Her earnest, shining eyes pulled me in. "…Really?" She smiled like a goddess overflowing with gentle affection. "I do think you've changed a lot lately… Being hard to talk to sometimes is part of it… but it's more than that…" "More than that?" Other changes? What had changed aside from my skills? "Ever since the first time we talked, I've found it interesting that I'd get these images when you're talking." "…Uh-huh." I nodded, as if her words were drawing me toward her. "…But the images were all in black and white." "…Oh." Once again, she completely surprised me. "When I talk to you, your colorless world feels a little lonely, but in a certain way…it's similar to the world that I see." "What…do you see?" Kikuchi-san stared at her palms, then smiled a little sadly. "Sometimes… the world I see when I'm reading books looks more beautiful than the real world in front of me. Every time I read a book that makes me feel that way, I'm jealous of the author. After all, the world must look so colorful to them…" She gently patted the book inside the plastic bag. "Especially Andi's books," she said with a smile. "And…the world that appears when I talk to you is black and white…like mine… So when I heard that you like to play Atafami …I wondered if the world of that game is filled with color for you, just like the world in books is for me." "…Yeah." I think she was right. The reality I'd written off as a shitty game did feel like it was all in gray, and diving into the world of Atafami was full of color by comparison. "I think that's true."

"But…you know what?" she said as if she were about to gently correct me, gazing quietly at me. "As we talked more…and you talked about your life, the images that I saw…" She sounded as if she were reading a classic children's story to me. "…I could see the color coming in." I felt as if she were picking up a very important part of my heart that I had happened to drop at her feet; I think I already understood what she was getting at. "That really surprised me," she continued. "Ever since I was a little girl, the world I saw was gray. Nothing changed when I got to high school…so I thought it would always be the same. That it would always be gray." "Yeah…" I knew that feeling. "But over a very short period of time, you—" She must be talking about the crazy changes I'd gone through in the past few months. "—you managed to change the color of the world you see." Yes. Exactly. I'd always seen the world as the worst kind of a game, a stupid conspiracy created by the normies—but lately, I'd been making an effort to improve my ability in it, one step at a time. I'd gradually been changing my environment, and as I did, my relationships with other people transformed, too. My prejudices faded, and my experience of the world had become something new. The effort I invested in the real world allowed me to do more things and transformed my surroundings. But more than that, the color of the world I saw was completely different now. It hit me with crystal clarity that this change was something truly precious. I listened, absorbed and silent, to Kikuchi-san's words.

"That's why I think it's really wonderful that you're making an effort to change yourself," she said, and her smile seemed to embrace the whole world. "Oh…you do?" It was like I'd just taken a full-body blow, and all I could do was nod. I felt like the answer I'd been searching for was there in Kikuchi-san's words. "Maybe…you're right," I said haltingly. "Also, this is just a maybe, but…," she said, looking down pensively, as if an idea had just occurred to her. "…Yeah?" She pulled the Michael Andi book out of its plastic bag. "If there's a wonderful, magical person in your life," she said, hugging the book softly to her chest. "Someone who's painted your gray world in color…" She looked straight at me and smiled a warm, direct, very human smile. "Then I think you should treasure that relationship." Once again, she'd taught me something important. For a long moment, I couldn't stop staring at her. Then finally… "…Yeah. Thank you, Kikuchi-san." I wanted to communicate the deep, heartfelt gratitude I was experiencing to her, so I used my "serious tone skill" to thank her. She shook her head kindly. "Consider it a small thanks for showing me that it's not too late for me to change how I see the world." She smiled. Maybe I was seeing things, but I swear the twinkle in her eyes was a color that was just a little different from usual.