The summer trip to the beach was a resounding success, but it was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to the summer break as a whole. Hakuta had absolutely no other plans set for the rest of the time outside of just being able to sit down in front of his computer and play some video games.

He would’ve assumed this would be the first time in the break that he’d be able to do his own personal activities, but there were some surprises to be had at the beach. One of the most surprising was his time with Ino. Never once did he consider he’d run into her there at the party, even more so that they would become proper friends instead of being distant acquaintances, or worse when she gave him the cold shoulder.

But an unexpected turn of events led to some rather positive results for the boy. One that didn’t really matter much in the grand scheme of things would’ve been her fashion malfunction. It’s not everyday that a boy like himself would have the opportunity to see a girl nude in real life. Especially not someone of her status.

For a moment, his mind wandered into the image of seeing her pure body. Which the boy promptly shook out of his head. She was supposed to be his friend, so he shouldn’t be having such impure thoughts about her.

As the boy took a deep breath, he turned on his computer to see a message was left on his messenger app. The sender shocked him as it was none other than than ‘TheMaskedDemon’. They had sent him something asking if he would be willing to message them back. Without hesitation he quickly wrote down something quick to send them he was still willing to chat with them.

He didn’t get an immediate response, probably because it was morning and this message was sent to him shortly after he had headed to bed for the night. Hakuta worried he might’ve taken too long to respond. After they had avoided him for a couple weeks, it would’ve been unfair to expect him to always be available. But the boy was more thinking they might believe him to be upset with them.

Since there was no use in waiting for a response when there was still a full day ahead of him. The boy decided it was best to get back to his original plans. This being to fire up a video game to have some fun and pass the time. Just as he was about to load something up, he realized there as something missing.

He needed to go grab himself some snacks and refreshments to prepare for a longer session. So this was what he did, getting out of his chair and room to head into the kitchen to pick up a few things for himself.

One of the best things about living with Shiuka would be the food. Her family had more than enough money to support themselves, which became more apparent since there were only two of them living here. So they usually had a surplus, but also more junk food than a pair of teenagers should have because of her poor habits. At least he was around to keep things balanced for them.

But her buying a lot of chips meant he also had access to some quick and easy food for gaming sessions. This was most certainly not the best way to start a day off when it came to a meal, but he didn’t care. What Hakuta did care about was the person hanging around in the kitchen.

“What are you doing up so early?” He asked Shiuka as the boy walked into the kitchen and headed straight for the cabinets.

“It’s not that early.” She replied taking a good look at the clock. It was only nine in the morning, but normally he had gotten used to her sleeping in closer to noon during weekends and through this break so far. Considering she was still wearing her night gown, it was clear she had only just woken up. “I just got thirsty.” She had been bent over looking into the fridge for something to quench her thirst.

“You probably shouldn’t…” He was about to tell her not to do what she did anyway. That being to grab their carton of juice and take a swig of it directly from it. “...Never mind.” Hakuta instead decided to ignore her indiscretion and raid their cabinets for a bag of chips.

“What’s wrong?” She was the one who continued their argument on the etiquette of what to do with these large containers. “You always just pour them into glasses. It’s not like you’re touching the lid.”

“I just think that manners are important, that’s all.” He responded. “Anyway, I’m going to go play some video games.”

“I kind of missed when you used to play more in the living room.” She said to him as the boy attempted to walk up the steps to his room. “What’s the difference between playing on a computer instead of a nice big TV?”

“Actually, it’s because of that masked gamer guy.” He answered. “They messaged me for the first time in a while. So I was going to hang around to see if they’d message me after my response.” Hakuta understood this was a contentious topic between the two of them. It got Shiuka to be mightily upset with him. Much more than any other transgression they did towards each other. “Look, I know how it might sound. But I promise that it’s not going too far.”

“Hmpf.” She pouted at him upon getting the bad news. “Of course you’re back to your obsessions. I don’t know what it is your after exactly, but I guess I’m not going to stop it.”

“You’re not?” He was surprised to hear her take a more muted response this time. “Why?”

“Well.” Then she grew a mischievous grin on her face. “You can just owe me for it.” This suggestion sounded worrisome for the boy.

“And what does that entail?” He asked with caution in his voice, a suspicious look on his eye as he stared back at her.

“Obviously if you’re going to be gaming a bunch with some random stranger. You gotta give me some time too.” She answered. “I’m taking we set something real fun up on the TV and we can play some game you like. Just the two of us.” Shiuka would call it a family game night, except those usually involved things such as actual family entertainment such as board games rather than video games.

“Oh, just that.” He was expecting her to drag him into something that only the gyarus enjoyed. So it was a nice change of pace. “Hmm, I guess we can do that.” Hakuta was more than happy to enjoy just a night with the two of them on the couch in front of her family’s large television. However he had been hesitant in asking her to do so since he was concerned she would much rather spend the weekends with her friends.

“Don’t sound too excited.” She said sarcastically. It didn’t give her much to look forward to considering his reserved response, but Shiuka wasn’t worried about that. She knew that when the time came, she would be able to take full advantage of it. “Look, you just go and have fun with your little online friend. Meanwhile I’ll be hanging around doing real stuff.”

“You make it sounds like I’m some sort of otaku who thinks 2D is better than 3D.” He sighed both in disappointment and relief as he ascended the steps. At least she wasn’t mad at him.

Hakuta reentered his room and set down the bag of chips he was going to fully enjoy once he got into his gaming session. So far he still had no response from the masked gamer, so it worried him, but the day was still young. Hopefully they didn’t regret sending him that message and decided to go back to ignoring him like they had been doing the past couple weeks.

It would be a shame if that were the case, but it wouldn’t surprise him if there as more disappointment in his life. After all he wasn’t sure what they might be doing right now in their normal lives. Apparently they cared deeply about hiding their identity, but since he knew they were just a teenager just like he was. That they shouldn’t have important stuff like school. So what could they be doing?

It didn’t matter, he knew what he already wanted to do for the day as he ripped open the bag of chips and took one. Today was going to be just for him and his own personal video game library, which wasn’t that big considering he was playing on a computer he only recently got thanks to his dad’s fortune. On the bright side, it meant having less of a backlog to worry about as he fired up a shooter based on a popular mech franchise that had come out. A bit ironic that with newfound money, he was playing a game that was free to play, but it didn’t matter.

He loaded into the game, took another chip, and clicked on to get into the matchmaking service. As he waited for the game to put him into a match, the boy received an invite which gave him pause.

It was from ‘TheMaskedDemon’.

bigbear51

I was originally going to make a new story, but I wasn't feeling it as I tried writing it. So we're back to the new volume of Game Gyaru!