Kouji opened the door. Inside, he was amazed by the vast difference this room held. Especially compared to the Waa’s bedroom.

“I see you’ve finally made it.” She said to him. It wasn’t exactly the best greeting he’d expect from someone that invited him over.

“Yeah, and thanks for welcoming me in, by the way.” He replied sarcastically. This girl couldn’t be bothered from what she was doing to even open the door for him.

The room she invited him into was absolutely magnificent. The walls were stacked all along with bookshelves filled with manga, DVD’s, and some rare collectibles. Add onto that, the massive TV Waa was sitting in front of. While she was on top of her beanbag chair. However, there was one thing that stood out about this room the most to Kouji.

It was clean.

There were no clothes strewn across the floor. No dirty plates or bowls. Just a nice clean floor. The only thing that seemed similar about her two rooms, would be the large amount of bottles of drinks around her. Not water, but some type of juice it appeared.

“You really can’t be bothered to keep both your rooms clean?” He sat down next to her. There was another bag for him to sit on.

“Hey, it took a lot of time to get this just the way I like it.” She slouched back in her seat. Her eyes still pointed towards the screen. “Who cares about some room I just sleep in?” That was the only time she spent in that room. Anything else such as eating, gaming, reading, even homework as of late. All that was spent here.

“Fine then.” He wasn’t going to argue it with her. It’s not as if he’s her dad. “So why’d you call me over?” Without saying a word, she handed the controller she was using over to him. Kouji took it, then looked over to the screen.

“And what am I supposed to do?” He hadn’t played a video game in years. Not only that, but he had no clue what this game was all about. There was just some girl in a frilly outfit in what seemed to be a fantasy world.

“Don’t be some dumb noob.” She responded. “You’re smart, just press some buttons and figure it out yourself.” Waa took out a manga and pretended to read it. This was her plan, to try and get him hooked on gaming. It worked on her, so surely there was a chance for it to happen to him. Maybe then he might reconsider his plans.

Of course, there was a hint in her mind that he might choose to not stay at the school. With this type of plan, he might only choose to stick with her. If it was just with her, then Waa wasn’t certain that would be a totally bad thing.

Kouji pressed a button, and saw the character jump in response. He could tell that this was the jump button. Another one was an attack command, it was obvious what the control sticks were for. Quickly, he was able to be semi-competent at whatever gave she put in front of him.

“So, what do you think?” She asked, confident that he was going to turn a new leaf from this.

“Meh.” Was his response. “Maybe it’s because I didn’t start at the beginning, but I don’t really care for what’s going on.”

“What?” She got offended, and not because her plan wasn’t working. “Are you kidding me, you get to play as this princess. And she’s going out and trying to defeat the demon lord that’s ruining her kingdom.” Her passion shined through here. Something that he wished she had for her schoolwork, or anything else in her life.

“It’s just that, well I’m not really attached to this character.” He said. “And the action’s all right, I guess.”

“Well, maybe we can try something else instead?” She decided that offering a different game closer to his tastes might work. “You like shooting things?” She pulled out a copy of the game, ‘Contract for Honor’. “Or maybe platformers?” In her other hand, ‘Jario’.

“Not really my deal.” He answered, disinterested in this conversation. As much as he appreciated that she was at least attempting to give him some fun. These games just didn’t seem like his cup of tea. Until the cover of one laying on the shelf caught his eye. “What about this?”

The cover of the game was of a cast of its cast of characters. Armed with medieval weapons, the scene appeared like a potential battle between two sides. The title of the game read, ‘Shining Emblem’.

“It’s kind of an old game.” She told him. This one was on a console from a couple generations ago. In a moment of reminding herself of games she played when she was younger, she had pulled it out. This one had gotten a bit mixed up during the cleanup. “I don’t know if you’d like it, but it’s a tactical RPG game.”

“Tactical…” He repeated. That word sounded interesting to him. “We could give this one a try.” She wasn’t certain if he’d like a game like this. It was pretty hardcore in both its premise, and gameplay. Still, if he was asking, then she was going to give it to him.

She pulled out the old console that ran the thing and set it up for him. The cables for this machine were foreign to him, mainly due to age. Soon, it was started up and they got to the main screen.

“Well, just pay attention and don’t come crying to me when you fail.” She was more than confident that he was going to get all the characters killed. This was one of those games, where people don’t come back to when they get killed.

However, she was a lot more wrong than she imagined. When he breezed through the first level. One that despite being the first in a game, where one would expect to be the easiest. It was notorious for being absurdly hard to introduce players to death.

“This isn’t so bad.” He said, getting into the game a little more. The movement and command of the units. It was something that was engaging his mind, as he planned out the next steps to be made. Their stats, their weapons, even the land itself. Everything had to be thought of, and he was making easy work of it.

“Pff, it is a classic after all.” She stuffed her face into the manga she was reading, feeling a little jealous. Somehow he was better than her at this.

“That sounds so sad.” He reference a scene of a conversation of the characters. “That dude is just going to leave them, after training them?”

“It really does, doesn’t it?” She answered, but that scene isn’t what she was thinking of in reference.

“Is something wrong?” He asked. “You haven’t been doing anything stupid since I got here.” Though in his mind, plenty of dumb things were done before he got here.

“Nah, I’m fine.” She pretended to not know better. Then she put up a bottle to his face. “Thirsty?”

“A little.” He took it, glad that for once she was being kind. “So you spend a lot of time in here?”

“Oh yeah, I pretty much never leave the room.” She cracked a sly smile. Something that put him on edge. “And I mean never.”

“Yeah, I guess the only time you leave is to use the bathroom or sleep.”

“Heheh, what makes you think I need to leave for the bathroom?” She said, her mischievous tone was shining through on purpose. At first he assumed that there was a bathroom attached to this room. But as he looked around, there was only one door in this place, which led to the hallway.

“I don’t get it.” He said, once he made his assessment of their surroundings. “Is there a toilet hidden here, or do you just, like, hold it?”

“…” Her unmoving smile was not answering his question. Instead, it was filling him with dread. “Boy, was that delicious?” She pointed over to the bottle she handed him.

“What?” Slowly, the realization hit him. Kouji started to breath heavily from what she was meaning. He got up and looked around for water, coughing, unsure of what to do with his mouth.

“Hahaha.” She rolled off the bag laughing. “You really fell for it!” He calmed a bit, looking over at her. It was just a joke.

“Come on, I thought I said no dumb pranks!” He glared at her.

“Relax.” She said, continuing to laugh in his face. “It’s not like I actually made you drink my pee.” He sat back down grumpily, going back to his game. “Or maybe because it didn’t taste so bad, is why you’re so mad.”

“Just shut it.” He said, she was getting him a bit hot under the collar. Waa continued to giggle as she got up.

“If you need me, I’ll just go and actually use the toilet now.” She said, grabbing his shoulders in a teasing manner. Things were going pretty well now. She was confident that she was going to win this small unofficial competition between the girls. “I was holding it a little bit anyway.”

“Whatever.” He replied, not turning to look at her as she left. He was a bit peeved by her small trick, even if it was harmless. She left. As the door closed behind her, he put a pause to the game he was playing.

Now, that she was gone, he could see what she was reading. Kouji was a little curious as to what she was looking at. Of course, he didn’t know that she was only just fake reading it. So it’s not like she really cared about what she took out. So Waa just grabbed out some doujin she bought at the most recent convention, which is why it was at the top of the pile.

If she knew he was going to check it out, Waa might’ve been a little more careful about her choice.

“Ahh!” He screamed as he took a glance through the photos. The content of said images, were to graphic to be described.

“Hey.” She said to him, as he stepped out of the room. “You going to the bathroom?”

“…” He had a look on his face, as if he had just seen a ghost. With what he saw, it might be worse than that. “I’m just going… home now.”

Operation… Well, she never came up with a name for it. But whatever it was called, it was a failure.