This was his chance now, thought Hakuta. Ino was sitting right besides him and she was the one who choose to join them. Though he wasn’t entirely certain as to what led to her change in heart. It was easy to assume by taking a peek at the vice president, who whispered something to the boy sitting in the middle of all this, had something to do with it.

“Now I need to head off and handle some things for tonight. Have fun and try not to cause any trouble.” She trusted her own friend though to take care of the other three should things get a bit too rowdy.

“Your cousin is a real nice person.” Hakuta said once the older girl left them to their own devices. “I see you two share a lot in common.” It wasn’t just the personality he had alluded to. The cousins, despite not being actual siblings, looked fairly similar to one another.

“Thanks.” Ino responded in a short and concise manner.

“Don’t worry Hakuta.” Rouko spoke in a somewhat whispering voice, but this was only for show as she continued to speak with the boy. “I’ll just ignore you for now so I don’t distract you from taking to her.”

“Don’t say that kind of stuff out loud!” He scolded her, all the while the boy they were with was just stuck in the middle.

“All of you guys are weird.” He commented, returning his attention to the game. “But I guess I’m not one to complain.” After all, his group of friends were certainly far from normal themselves.

“So you two have just been playing video games?” Ino asked as the pair of boys resumed their activities.

“Yeah, you want to try?” The boy asked.

“I just meant that I’m surprised Sugisawa decided to stick around even though she’s not into this. It’s somewhat expected from Yamamoto, but even I would’ve imagined he’d want to do something else considering our setting.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to hang out with Hakuta.” Rouko responded, breaking her promise on not taking part as quickly as she had made it. “And of course you’re not going to play any video games. Your dad would get so angry if he found out.”

“It’s not just the act of playing video games he’s against. My father is simply not a fan of people wasting away their lives playing them all the time. It’s considered an epidemic, he says.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about politics here.” Hakuta told them both to knock it off. The subject only served to depress him from the fear that there could be laws limiting his ability to enjoy his pastime.

“Wait, her dad’s a politician?” The boy asked in shock. His friend never mentioned this before, but it did make more sense to him why the student council president was more interested in the girl.

“Fine, I’ll drop it.” Rouko let go what obviously appeared to be a sensitive subject to everyone. “But I bet you still won’t touch that controller because you’re scared.”

“There’s nothing in my body that feel fear just because you’re playing a video game.” This goading was more than enough to finally push Ino into making a decision that girl had been hoping for. It wasn’t anything special, but it was in a direction she preferred. “May I?” She beckoned one of the boys to give her their controller.

“Sure.” It was the boy who gave it to her. “I guess since the two of you are friends, it makes more sense to play against each other.” He laughed, knowing what he said wasn’t true. After his last year with all his friends. This boy understood much better about how people act during certain situations.

“Thank you.” She accepted and they both went into choosing their characters. The girl surprisingly didn’t ask him anything in terms of advice or even much about the game they were playing. It was as if she already knew what she was doing ahead of time. Though admittedly she could’ve just been paying attention to what they had been doing before she grabbed the controller. Ino was always a bright girl after all.

She would also go on and select her character without much thought going into it. He figured she must’ve just liked them from her childhood, which was a fair assumption about anyone who was playing this game for the first time.

Since he was aware of the fact he was the superior gamer among most people. Hakuta decided to go easy on her. It would be rude to destroy her when he was attempting to rekindle their relationship as friends. She needed a reason to trust him even with his current relationships.

They began their match and he took thing slow. Which was an obvious mistake when she rushed in on his character to deliver a powerful and long combo which brought his damage meter into the triple digits in a near instant. Then, despite him throwing back a few moves in a futile attempt to make things even. She hit him with a good technical move to blow his character off the screen and lose a life.

“Wow.” He said. What she had done to him was breathtaking. “You’re really good at this game.”

“I am?” She replied in a bit of shock, then realized how badly she just destroyed him. “Oh, that was probably what some people call beginner’s luck.” He would disagree with that assessment, which is why when Hakuta’s character respawned he knew he couldn’t afford to hold back.

He returned to the stage and began his attack on her in a fast and aggressive manner. The boy then proceeded to pummel her character with dozens of punches, of which he figured at some point she should’ve gotten out of it for how predictable he had been.

Instead, she attempted to flee. Which only ended in embarrassing failure when she apparently accidentally ran herself off the battle arena and fell off on the screen. “See, I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

“I guess you don’t…” He couldn’t believe his eyes. It was as if he just battled against two completely different people. So different that he’d be surprised if they were even living on the same planet. “It’s not really a surprise, but I still can’t help but be disappointed.” Said Hakuta, taking a deep sigh. “You don’t know them, but there was this guy I kind of knew who was so much to hang out with.”

“Really?” Him bringing up the masked gamer perked her interest.

“He says that, but all they ever did was play video games online.” Said Rouko, breaking up the moment. “They hardly ever did anything in person.”

“It was still real to me.” He defended his feelings. “Even though we only chatted with text and I never heard their voice. I really enjoyed talking to them. It’s different than when I’m spending time with people like her.”

“That must’ve been nice.” She replied, trying to stay concentrated on the game. “You two must be close.”

“Sadly not anymore.” He said, his voice growing weak from the sorrow which this fact gave him. “I don’t know why, but they don’t want to talk to me anymore. I don’t think I did anything wrong, but maybe I wonder if it has to do with what I’m doing in school now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asked, confused as if he never met this person in real life, then why would he believe his real life would have an impact on online interactions.

“Ino, are there other people you talk to a lot?”

“Wh-what does what I do with other people have to do with your friend?” His question was enough to throw her off from her usual composure. Ino broke a sweat just trying to stay calm and answer it in as normal as a fashion as she could.

“When I talked to them. I got the idea that maybe they went to the same school as us. And since they stopped talking to me after… You know, you did…” It was hard to want to discuss such topics while people such as Rouko and that other boy, who hardly knew any of them, were around. Yet Hakuta soldiered on. “I wonder if maybe you talked to them without realizing. Telling them something about me that maybe they decided they didn’t like me anymore.”

“I’m sorry if I did anything to harm your relationships.” Ino finally got a handle on her emotions, but her bit of apprehension from before wasn’t ignore. Only that it was Rouko to paid attention to it as she listened in on the conversation. There wasn’t anything else better for her to do outside of checking her phone. So personal drama was the next best source of entertainment.

“I’m not blaming you at all.” He put up his hands to assure him there was no attack coming from him. “It’s not like you knew or anything, but maybe if there are any people you know who might like video games. Just tell them that I’m sorry I did anything to upset them.”

“I… Suppose I’ll try.” She answered, but her body told another story. One where she couldn’t believe what was happening.

“Hmm…” The boy who sat besides him had also been listening in on the conversation. After all, they took his only controllers so he couldn’t do anything outside of watching the game being played by others. He was reminded of his own online friend and how things had turned out for him.

Was she…? No, she couldn’t be, he thought. What were the odds of something so unlikely occurring twice in a lifetime?