Chapter 1: The Post-vacation Class Belle Is Sexy!
“How did you all spend your summer vacation?”
The long summer vacation was over, but that didn’t mean it was fall or that the air was cool all of a sudden. The assembly marking the beginning of the second semester was taking place in the hellish heat of the school gymnasium.
There had been calls for more measures against heatstroke recently, and the gymnasium was equipped with a fantastic new AC unit. It was just a real shame that the Japanese education system hadn’t caught on yet that not gathering every last student in the same room was a good way to help prevent heatstroke too. As a guy who valued efficiency, it’d be nice if the school would adopt remote assemblies— and sooner rather than later.
“You are all students of this school with its long and upstanding traditions, and so I trust you kept all fun within the appropriate limits.”
Kageishi Midori, the top student in the second year, spoke over the languid, oppressive heat. In the closing ceremony of each semester, a student from each year would get up on stage and deliver a speech. For this opening semester, it was only the representative from the second-years who would do so. Apparently, it was to prepare that representative for leading the entire student body. Plus, it gave the third-years space to focus on their entrance exams.
Honestly, I suspected the more likely reason was that they knew everyone’d still be spaced out from the summer vacation and wouldn’t have the attention span to listen to three speeches in a row. If so, that was a highly efficient way of thinking that I could approve of.
“There may be times where human instinct takes over and you start to forget yourself, however...” Thinking about it now, the majority of students weren’t even listening to this one speech. Some of them were dozing off while others were whispering with their neighbors. There was a general feeling of laziness in the air.
“They say that around thirteen percent of internet traffic is people accessing adult content...” I let her voice fade into the background as I began to ponder some other worries. For a second I thought I heard some strange words there, but I probably imagined it. There were some kids in the advanced class who were actually listening, and I felt like I noticed them murmuring, but right now I didn’t care enough to pay them any attention—because I was currently focusing elsewhere. “Don’tcha think Tsukinomori’s been acting weird?”
“I dunno about weird. I think she’s gotten more...mature, though. I feel all...funny when I look at her now.”
“Hey, dumbass. She’s Ooboshi’s girlfriend. Don’t get too ahead of yourself, yeah?” “I know, all right? I’m just saying, she’s always been pretty, but now she’s like, fifty percent prettier. D’you think maybe she and Ooboshi ran the bases during break?”
“Will you morons shut up? Kageishi-san’s trying to talk about...uh, something important, probably.” “But it’s true Tsukinomori-san’s gotten prettier. Her makeup’s gotten better too.” “Is it just me, or is her chest a little bigger now? Like she’s releasing more pheromones. She’s definitely gone all the way with Ooboshi-kun! Think I should ask him later?”
“No way. That’s gross!”
“Lay off the honor student act. What do you really think?”
“I think I’m super curious!”
“Right?!”
All that fuss was about the girl sitting next to me. There were countless curious gazes centered on her: Tsukinomori Mashiro, my cousin and fake girlfriend.
I glanced at her face. Her fair-colored hair. Her pale, almost sickly skin. The tiny ear poking out from a gap in her hair and its shell-shaped earring. She still looked modest and reserved, but she’d clearly taken a lot of care of her appearance. Her beauty always did lie somewhere between demure and adorable. The shell she’d put all that effort into breaking out of over the summer vacation gave her a much more charming impression than ever before.
Our classmates weren’t wrong. It was hard to say exactly what it was or where it came from, but it was like there was a certain alluring scent coming off Mashiro right now, which was making even me nervous as I sat next to her.
Mashiro herself seemed completely unaffected. The attention didn’t seem to bother her, as though she hadn’t even noticed it; her serious gaze was focused on Midori up on stage.
“Wow, I didn’t know that. Midori-san knows so much, doesn’t she, Aki?”
“Huh? Oh, sure,” I replied half-heartedly.
I didn’t have a single clue what Midori was talking about. I searched through the words I’d pick up. There was “internet,” something starting with tr...uh, “truck”? Like Truck-kun? Was she planning to publish a novel series online or something? I dunno...
“You seem kinda spaced out. What’s wrong?” Mashiro inclined her head.
“Oh, er... Nothing. Right. Nothing at all.”
There was even something alluring about her body language when she asked an innocent question,
and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.
It was only natural that our class thought Mashiro and I had come together over the summer vacation like I was some sleazeball and she was my indecent queen. If that doesn’t make much sense to you, don’t worry, because I don’t know what I just said either.
I couldn’t blame them. Because truth was, I was also affected by Mashiro’s new attractive luster, even as someone who actually had an idea of where it came from. Just looking at her made me think that maybe we had done it, and that single second’s thought was almost enough to have me rewriting my own memories.
“Hm?”
“I’ll pay attention to Midori-san’s speech now, okay?” I quickly averted my gaze from Mashiro’s curious head tilt.
This was not good. In fact, it was very not good. I knew everyone was staring at us way too much, and it was making my heart thump stupidly loud and destroying my concentration.
Was this one of those teenage things? Canary, my senpai in all things producer-related, said that letting loose in your teenage years was key to growth, so I’d tried to allow some of that flavor of fun into my life. Now I was worrying that I had let it go too far.
“P*rnhub, XV*deos, Fa*za. I hope you’ll avoid accessing these sites, even by accident, and maintain the discipline expected of high schoolers like you as you prepare yourselves and work hard during the coming second semester.”
In the end, the warmth coming from Mashiro’s arm brushing casually against my shoulder and the sweet toxic scent coming off her broke my brain enough that I didn’t take in a word of what Midori said.
***
After the especially arduous ordeal that was the semester’s opening ceremony, we returned to our classrooms.
The stares from our classmates continued as we moved from the gymnasium and through the corridors. I glanced sideways at Mashiro. Her expression was cool, and she kept on firing off pheromones while humming and tapping away at her smartphone.
This was probably the best mood she’d ever been in during her entire life. I frowned as I reflected on the injustice of it all. How come she wasn’t feeling as awkward as I was?
I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see the handsome Kohinata Ozuma standing behind me. He was OZ, my only friend and the genius programmer of our indie development group, the 05th Floor Alliance. His constant smile was “princely” according to the girls in our grade, where he was one of the most popular boys. He was also lucky enough to encounter beautiful girls in places like the
student council room and on the street, so he was more like the protagonist of a dating sim than a prince. Thing was, he didn’t realize that himself, and had barely made any romantic progress since I’d met him, which was kind of a waste.
Anyway, for once Kohinata Ozuma wasn’t smiling. He lowered his voice, as though something was worrying him.
“Did you do...y’know...with Tsukinomori-san?”
“You too, Ozu? Of course I didn’t.”
“Thought not. Makes sense. But...” Ozu glanced at Mashiro. “She’s obviously excreting more female hormones than normal. You should see the readings she’s getting on the hormone counter I made.” “Way to unveil your latest patent. Whaddya need something like that for?”
“Nothing, I was kidding.”
“Don’t kid about stuff like that. Knowing you, you probably could and would invent that kinda thing.” Humans were more likely to believe ideas presented to them with scientific or mathematical language. That was apparently why the sketchier cults were more likely to talk about “electromagnetic waves” or scientific concepts instead of occult topics, and why I was wary of such things.
“Anyway, I’m hoping it’s nothing, but Iroha was acting kinda off this morning.”
“Iroha?”
“She didn’t barge into your apartment like usual, right?”
“Now that you mention it, no, she didn’t. I just thought it was probably ’cause she had a lot on her plate, what with the new semester and practically being her class’s rep.”
“That much is right at least. Her homeroom teacher apparently asked for her help with something.” Ozu sighed and shrugged. “But usually she’ll head over to your place, whether she’s busy or not.” “Yeah, you’re right.”
Thinking back now, it was the same all through the summer vacation. When Iroha had to go to school to help with the festival, she’d asked me to walk with her. Her reasoning was beyond dumb: she said she got mad at the thought of me lounging around in my air-conditioned room reading manga while she worked hard on a blazing hot day. I figured that much was just her being her usual annoying self.
The point was that she still came to my room even though she was busy that day. “I was thinking maybe it’s because you were taking things further with Tsukinomori-san.” “How does that work? Not that we did ‘take things further.’ I’m just saying, why would it affect Iroha if we had?”
“I’m more surprised you don’t realize the connection.”
I seriously had no idea what he was talking about.
Because of my uncle’s watchful eye, I had had to reject Iroha’s prior invitation so that I could go to the
summer festival with Mashiro. I ended up bumping into Iroha at the festival, and she’d seemed pretty cheerful. She’d looked like she had been enjoying herself with her school friends too. I hadn’t seen her after that, but even then, it was hard to think that Mashiro was the direct cause of— Wait, unless...
“Hang on. I think I get it.”
“Finally penetrated your thick skull, huh?”
“Iroha’s keeping her distance out of respect for my fake relationship with Mashiro! She used to pretend-flirt with me all the time because she knew it made me feel awkward, but since she realized that kinda stuff wasn’t funny anymore, what with my uncle keeping an eye on everything, she—” “You get a C.”
“Hey, cut me some slack. What am I missing to get an A?”
“You said you realized Iroha’s annoyingness is cute, but you’ve barely made any progress since then. It’s even more frustrating than debugging the most cursed program ever. My experience may come from playing dating sims, but even I know people have this emotion called ‘jealousy.’” “I’m more frustrating than debugging? Come on now...”
Did that mean Ozu thought Iroha was finding it hard to face me right now because she was jealous? It was true that I now realized that annoying (in certain cases) and cute weren’t mutually exclusive. I had established the theory that pestering someone you liked wasn’t necessarily inefficient nor inappropriate behavior.
Did that mean Iroha’s feelings towards me were romantic? Hmm.
When I spoke to her at the festival yesterday, she was her usual self. I wasn’t convinced that she was acting off because she was jealous that Mashiro and I had gotten closer.
The reason didn’t matter, though; my reaction was going to be the same.
“I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“Thanks. That makes me feel better, as her brother.”
“No prob.”
Hopefully Ozu was just overthinking things, but if there was something on Iroha’s mind, jealousy or not, then of course I was going to be worried. I decided to ask her about it the next time I saw her. Just then, the door slid open with a loud rattle, and the noisy classroom fell into immediate silence. It was Kageishi Sumire, the class’s dictator, also known as the Venomous Queen. Her heels clicked commandingly as she walked up to the teacher’s desk and took up her position as its gallant master, her violet ponytail fluttering behind her and her icy glare deriding the students in front of her. There wasn’t a whisper to be heard as she swept her gaze over her subjects and then turned her back on us without her expression so much as twitching. We’d kept the volume down to under a decibel, and she just picked up some chalk and started writing on the blackboard, as if she didn’t seem to find our efforts worth any praise.
Special project for the Nevermore Festival: King and Queen contest.
Sumire hit the board with a bang as if to emphasize the large letters, then turned back to us. “Our school’s traditional beauty contest to crown King and Queen Nevermore is once again going to be the main event of our annual culture festival,” Sumire announced. “If you think you have the looks to win, then I urge you to volunteer yourself.”
Even Sumire’s presence couldn’t stop the stir that rippled through the classroom then. This was a rare event. Normally, she was all about studying—berating us for having too much fun when we could have been spending that time honing ourselves for our future. Now, however, she was encouraging us to get involved in something that was the height of frivolity and should have been long past its time.
None of those students noticed the look in her eyes, but I recognized that sinister sparkle. Sumire definitely had her shipping goggles on!
I knew what Murasaki Shikibu-sensei was really like, which was why this was no surprise to me. A king and queen contest was just the sort of thing she’d try to sell to the students. Especially considering the fate that would befall our attractive winners (assuming I wasn’t misremembering things).
“The winners of the king and queen contest will pair up with each other for a folk dance during the festival’s after-party. It will be a wonderful sight to behold: the school’s hottest—of course, I am referencing the viewpoint of a full-fledged member of society, the type of person to value the pursuit of beauty and its appreciation.”
She just about managed to save herself from revealing her true thoughts on the matter. The cracks in her mask were starting to reveal the depravity within, but none of the other students seemed to notice. “The pursuit of beauty... That’s so deep! Now I wanna learn how to appreciate the beauty of muscles even more!”
“Physical beauty... Is there anything sweeter?”
The boys were hanging onto her every word. It was too late for them; Sumire had them trained like monkeys.
I should say now that I had no interest in this contest, and that I was far from the target audience anyway. My only memories about it from last year were how excited the highly sociable members of the class had gotten.
But this year was completely different from last year. This year, there was a beauty in our class who was immediately a top pick for the winner. And that beauty—Mashiro—was my (as far as everyone knew) girlfriend. The extended vacation had only made her more gorgeous and amplified her feminine allure. “I bet Tsukinomori-san would win if she entered!”
“Yeah. She’s always been cute, but now she’s kinda sexy too!”
The girls were already raring up to support her. It looked like there was no getting out of this now. “You should totally enter, Tsukinomori-san!”
“M-Me? U-Um... I’m not sure...” Mashiro answered timidly; the girls’ encouragement had triggered her shyness.
Unlike before though, she was able to give a proper reply, even if she still found it hard to maintain eye contact with the girls. Mashiro was just like me though: unsociable. She’d grown a lot, but she still wasn’t at the stage where she was ready to be the center of attention of every student in the school, which was why she was glancing at me now.
“Are you gonna go for king, Aki?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Did you hear what the prize was? The folk dance. I don’t want to dance with anyone but you.” “Right.”
Fair enough. We were technically dating, and Mashiro had feelings for me. She probably wouldn’t want to dance with some random king, and worse than that, it might lead to trouble—the last thing we needed.
For once, the other students in the class were looking at me with an open friendliness. Often their uncomfortable gazes were filled with envy because of my relationship with Mashiro. Most of the time, they treated me as part of the wallpaper, like they didn’t even know whether I was there or not. Why did it have to be when awkward stuff like this came up that they suddenly started paying attention to me? “So, Aki?”
“You should already know what I’m gonna say. There’s no way I’m entering.”
I wasn’t interested in the least. I did consider Canary’s advice to enjoy my youth a little more, but even then, an event like this was just too wild for me.
“Even if I entered, I’d never win,” I said.
“Huh? How do you figure?”
“How do you figure? The kinda guys who enter that contest are handsome, sports club aces, or just naturally popular with girls. Someone like Ozu might have a shot, but I’d be kicked out in the first round.” “I disagree.”
“You shouldn’t underestimate just how much people don’t notice me. People only know who I am now because I’m dating you, but before that they paid literally zero attention to me. I know I’m totally uninteresting. I can’t bring myself to think I’m anything more than that—even though you...fell for me.” My voice became hoarse with embarrassment as I finished off my sentence.
Mashiro’s face turned red right up to her ears and she shrank back. She quickly averted her gaze and turned back to the bright-eyed girls.
“Aki says he’s not gonna enter. So I won’t either. I’m sorry...” she stuttered, timid. It wasn’t surprising that she found it hard to give a firm refusal, given what had happened to her before she came to our school. Rejecting her classmates was something that would bring up the trauma of her past, where she was the victim of bullying. She was probably worried about offending them, scared that they would suddenly stop fawning over her and start treating her as an outcast. Now though, Mashiro was stronger. She had the courage to reject people—to be hated, a courage she was displaying now.
“Aw, that’s a shame.”
“I thought you could win for sure! Oh well.”
“But that’s just how much you value your time with Ooboshi-kun, right? Aww, I wish I was in love!” The more Mashiro made use of her newfound courage, the more she’d realize that the world could be surprisingly kind.
I’d do well to reflect on that too. These people wasted their youth and precious time by indulging in inefficient trends. But I’d learned by looking at these normies and social types with a wider lens that many of them were pretty good people. That was something I’d never have noticed in the days I kept my distance from them.
I’d like to say that quiet returned to the classroom once the fuss over Mashiro had died down, but it was a little too soon for that.
“You’re gonna go for king right, Kohinata-kun?”
“Hey, we should totally enter for him! Then he’ll have to do it!”
“Kohinata-kun’ll win for sure!”
That’s right, we didn’t just have a new-and-upcoming beauty in our class. We also had the handsome Kohinata Ozuma, the reliable mainstay of our class with a proven track record of popularity. “Hm... I’m not really interested.” Ozuma laughed nervously while the girls practically screamed at him. “What do you think, Aki? Should I go for it?”
“Why are you asking me too?”
“I was thinking I’d enter if you wanted me to.”
“Why though?”
Why was everyone leaving all the decision-making to me?
Mashiro was fair enough: we were lovers as far as the outside world was concerned, but Ozu was just a friend. Although, I had helped him fix up his personality flaws in the past, so in some ways you could say we had a deeper relationship than lovers. Or maybe it’d be more accurate to say I was like his dad, as far as communication was concerned.
Anyway, this could be a huge event in my best friend’s youth. I should at least think about it seriously. I would’ve definitely said it was too inefficient to be worth bothering with before, without even giving it a second thought.
“Why don’t you give it a try? I think you’d have a good shot at winning, and it might actually be wicked fun.” I gave him a little push.
His eyes widened in surprise for a split second, but then he nodded.
“If you say so, Aki, then I don’t doubt it. All right, I’ll enter.”
The girls let out a chorus of high-pitched cheers. Even the boys picked up on it, with some of them jumping on the bandwagon.
“What?! Kohinata’s going for king?!”
“I’m not gonna let my throne get stolen by some lanky pretty boy! I’m gonna teach him that a guy without muscle is a guy without charm!”
“Yeah! You show ’im, bud!”
Apparently, muscle training had become a thing among that group of guys, who were now flexing their biceps and getting rowdy over their desire to participate. One of the reasons the Nevermore Festival’s King and Queen contest was so popular was because several people from the same class were allowed to enter.
Everyone was cheering and getting excited, like they’d forgotten this was morning homeroom. Sumire watched the class with a steely gaze, and for once she showed no desire to quieten them down. It wasn’t a conscious choice of hers. I knew that, below that mask, she was busy fantasizing about Ozu as the next King Nevermore. Eventually, her eyes widened like she’d just come to her senses, and her expression stiffened without anyone noticing.
“Silence! Is this a zoo or a classroom?! Actually, I already know the answer to that.” She cleared her throat. A friendly smile appeared on her face, something that would be normal for Murasaki Shikibu sensei, but was incredibly odd coming from the Venomous Queen, Kageishi Sumire. “I shall allow you to act like the monkeys you are during the Nevermore Festival. You may draw upon your savage roots as much as you like until it’s over.”
The classroom erupted into an ear-splitting cheer, and Sumire found herself at the center of a standing ovation.
I suppressed a sigh and wondered whether I’d ever witnessed such an extreme display of counterproductivity. I didn’t resent them or anything, though. I felt like a grade schooler watching my friend play an enjoyable video game. Unfortunately, as someone for whom looks didn’t play a part in life whatsoever, I couldn’t get as excited about the King and Queen contest as them.
When the chime sounded to signal the end of homeroom, I opened up my phone. I put the volume down to zero before launching a game: Koyagi: When They Cry, of course. The debut, representative, (and only) work of the 05th Floor Alliance. In some ways, this game was my youth itself. I thought back to that middle schooler we’d met at the summer festival who’d shared his thoughts on the game.
His name was Tomosaka Chatarou-kun, and he was a self-professed fan of the game, as well as the younger brother to Tomosaka Sasara, a suspicious girl who declared herself Iroha’s rival. I’d never sought out our fans’ opinions on Koyagi, because I didn’t want them to influence me, so until then, I’d focused solely on numbers. His passionate feedback on the game had been like a joyful breath of fresh air for me.
Perhaps it was my newfound acceptance of enjoying my youth that meant I was able to appreciate his opinions. Since then, I’d allowed myself to look up feedback on the game now and then. “Kokuryuuin Kugetsu...annoying...cute...”
I typed those four words into the social network’s search box. This was a method of searching for stuff about your own works that Sumire taught me. You need to put a proper space between the words instead of stringing the characters together like in regular Japanese text, and search for positive adjectives only.
You’re more likely to get positive results this way, though if you’re the type to get easily hurt by unrestrained abusive comments online, I suggest you don’t search yourself or your works to start with. Oh hey. There are quite a lotta people talking about Kokuryuuin Kugetsu online.
We used some voice samples for the character’s announcement, and summarized the new story to make it sound as interesting as possible. All our hard work was paid back now in the form of internet comments, which was incredibly satisfying. I knew there’d be some users who didn’t write up their thoughts online but were quieter in their enjoyment. Ignoring that part of our playerbase was beyond stupid, and so I made sure to keep an eye on our stats too.
“Stats... Huh?! Wait... No way!”
Uneasiness shot up inside me the moment I saw what was on the store page’s admin section. “What’s up, Aki?” Ozu asked from the desk behind; he must’ve heard my gasp.
“Something bad’s happened. Like, seriously bad...”
“Oh?”
“Our humble team of developers would never have seen this coming a year ago!” “Okay?”
“Just how am I supposed to react to this shocking truth before me?!”
“You can explain now. This is starting to get annoying,” Ozu said with a terrifyingly sweet smile. “R-Right, okay. Well...”
I could understand why Ozu was mad. If Iroha had tried the same stunt with me, someone who despised wasting time, I’d have been at her pressure points by the second line. Ozu did well to last three. This time, though, I wanted him to allow me just a little inefficiency. I mean, this was something else.
You couldn’t ask me not to get excited about these sorts of numbers.
“Koyagi’s reached over two million downloads!”
“Whoa!” Ozu gasped.
“Really?!” That was Mashiro, who’d apparently overheard us.
Most of the class was getting heated over the upcoming festival. But Ozu, Mashiro, and I were shooting thumbs-up at each other for a totally different reason. One that no one besides us knew.
***
“Two million is a huge leap up from one million. Nice job, Aki.”
“It’s all thanks to the amazing game you guys made. I felt kinda bad, y’know, not being able to cash out on advertising it properly or launching it with any fanfare. But I’m so glad we kept at it.” “You know what a day like this calls for?”
“Yup! A party!”