Hakuta wasn’t upset about what he learned about Ninka. It was more of a feeling towards disappointment. Perhaps it was because there might’ve been a tiny piece of him which hoped that maybe a girl was truly interested in him. While it was true he had believed her to only be messing around with him. It came from a belief that she would just say it was a joke all along and make fun of him should he have actually accepted her advances.

But when she got offended by him calling out her skills. It did make the boy wonder if perhaps maybe she took it more seriously than he originally assumed. But with what she just said, that seemed to be incorrect.

Did she really just view him as a standard nerd? Maybe there was some truth in this belief though. A lot of people assumed plenty of things about Hakuta simply because he wore glasses. It didn’t help that him playing a lot of video games only served to strengthen their beliefs.

“We’re ba~ck.” Rouko loudly announced her return with the other pair of girls. “Hope you two had plenty of fun while we were gone.”

“Eh, it was all right.” Ninka answered, acting as if they barely had a full conversation. “Just walked around, that’s all.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t anything special.” He followed it up. “Nothing bad happened and we never saw that guy you were all worried about.” That last part was a lie. Given that he was the person they were feeling a bit fearful about. At the very least, he knew they had nothing to fear. “The security probably already took care of him.”

“I sure hope so.” Said Iruka, breathing a major sigh in relief. “Someone terrorizing people trying to enjoy themselves are the worst. If I ever saw that guy, well I’d certainly make sure he had what’s coming to him.” When she described it, Hakuta realized he should’ve paid more attention to how his actions might’ve been perceived to the public. In his mind, he didn’t think what he did was wrong, seeing as he knew he had no plans on doing any harm.

Despite being able to meet with that masked figure, his actions didn’t exactly work well for him afterwards.

“Well, if that weirdo is out of the way, then we should be good.” Said Rouko, who didn’t appear to be acting any different knowing the supposed stalker was out of the way. Almost as if she wasn’t worried in the first place. As if she already had an idea on the identity of the person they were afraid of.

“That’s great and all, but what are we going to do now?” Asked Shiuka. The girls were a bit out of their element on knowing what to look for outside of people who were famous online. For a moment, they had blank expressions on their faces upon the realization. Then they all turned their heads to look over at Hakuta, the only one who wanted to be here in the first place.

“Maybe we should just check out the main stage to see who’s competing.” He had no idea on what he wanted to do next. So he simply blurted out something just so they wouldn’t stare at him. Pretty girls staring made it real easy for a guy to become anxious. “We can get there this way.” This was one of the rare times where Hakuta was the leaders of a group as the girls followed him. If it wasn’t these girls in particular, he might’ve felt a bit of an ego boost of being one of the guys here surrounded by cute girls.

Where they ended up was around the main area for people wanting to watch some competition to see the players up close. While one could see the stage well enough here, there was also a massive screen showing the gameplay footage available for those unable to make it that were watching the showing through a livestream.

There were dozens of people huddled together near the stage. Since they were late to the party, and not wishing to want to deal with a bunch of strangers, the group found themselves towards the back.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve had enough time to talk with you.” Hakuta spoke to Shiuka when they found themselves a lull in all the excitement. He had been so busy dealing with Ninka and Iruka, that he nearly forgot to give her some attention. Perhaps it was easy to not bother much with her since they already hung out with each other all the time at home. At the same time, there was something different being in this environment compared to her house, where they were all alone.

“Looks like now’s a good time to make up for lost time, right?” She replied, perking up a bit now that he did send some attention her way. “I don’t know, I guess I’m not as into this as you are. I like playing games, but all this fanfare for some competition isn’t really for me.”

“Sure, says the girl who challenged me to a game of ‘Way of the Fruit’.” He responded. They didn’t even get the opportunity to face off against each other that day. Since Itsuki made a mistake and accidentally chose co-op for them. “But yeah, it’s fine that you don’t like it that much. I’m still really happy you came along.”

“I think it might’ve been more worth it if it was just-”

“Whoa, no way.” Hakuta stopped her from finishing her sentence when he witness a famous player come on stage. “There’s ‘3asy’.” He pointed out the man, whom spelled his username with the three, instead of an ‘E’, to add a bit of flair.

“I’m guessing he must be pretty good if you know who he is.” She replied, not having a single clue what that man was known for.

“Good?” He slowly turned to look at her as if she made a massive understatement. “More like the best. A lot of people think he’s better than anyone else playing right now in ‘Courageous’”

“I’ll believe you.” She took his word for it. There was no reason for him to lie about someone’s accomplishments. Though she wished he’d get more excited about other things in their lives over someone else’s who he didn’t know personally.

“You know once, he broke up with his girlfriend so he could focus on a tournament. Then right after his team won the whole thing!” The absurdity in his story made it sound like all professional players were strange. Then again, they were known for being the best of those playing certain video games, so perhaps that was true. “Now that’s staying focused on what’s important.”

“Huh, that’s interesting…” She stopped to ponder on it. With how Hakuta seemed to treat this man, did he take some behaviors from him as well. “Can you be honest with me here? Is the real reason you don’t want to date Ninka is because you want to focus more on video games?”

“Ninka…” Hearing that name brought his mood down once again. It was like crashing down from Heaven all the way down to the deepest abysses. “I know she’s your friend, so you think the world of her. But the reason I’m not interested is because it just never was going to work out.”

It wasn’t even a matter of what she had told him before about them likely breaking up so quickly. Even Hakuta didn’t see much of a future with a gyaru, not as the person he was now. “You know I say it all the time, that I don’t think I mesh well with gals.” Maybe he was willing to make exceptions, but matters of romance were a much more serious and permanent situation in his eyes.

“You really don’t think there’s anything there at all.” She turned her head down in disappointment to his answer. “That you can’t ever really like a gal?”

“That’s what I want to say, but…” Even after everything he had always complained about. Whether it be about Shiuka or her friends or even some random ones they keep running into. Hakuta knew deep inside that she was one of his closest friends and she was a gyaru. “But if I still felt that way, we wouldn’t be friends then, right?”

Hakuta recalled that dream, or rather nightmare, he had where Shiuka had declared they could on longer be friends. As she had apparently said in that dream, people like them don’t have a future together. So what would be the point in continuing the relationship?

He didn’t think that was true at all. He didn’t want to believe that could happen. There was no way Hakuta wanted them to stop being friends. The truth was, he did want to have a future with her. “Logically speaking, it shouldn’t make any sense. I doubt I’d have much chemistry with anyone who’s a gyaru, but maybe I should never say never.”

“You mean there’s a shot?” She asked, her eyes widened in seeing his epiphany.

“I’ll just say maybe.” He didn’t commit to a full answer, content with leaving it up in the air. “All I want is someone I really like. That should be all I want in a girl.”

“Heheh.” She wrapped her arm around his shoulder in joy, a wide grin filled her face as Shiuke drew near him. “Sounds like someone seen the light.” She laughed.

“Heh.” He chuckled in response. “Or maybe you just want me to join the dark side.”