Hakuta’s heart stopped when he saw that notification pop up onto his screen. His brain needed time to process if this truly was the person he had been waiting on this whole time. When the boy finally was able to collect sanity within his mind, he quickly exited out of matchmaking to go to their profile. Lo and behold this was indeed who he thought it was.

For a moment, he paused right before continuing on. Rarely was he this concerned about the interaction he was about to have, but the boy didn’t want to mess up this opportunity.

“Hi.” He accepted the invite and sent over a short message. “It’s been a while.”

“It has…” They responded to him. “Sorry about that.” It was an oddly lackadaisical way of putting what had been causing him sleepless nights, but they would’ve had no way of knowing how this affected him. “I wish I could say I was just too busy to play with you, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“If I did something to upset you, you can tell me.” He assured her. If it really was his fault, then Hakuta wanted to make sure he didn’t repeat any potential mistakes. Though he couldn’t only assume the only wrongdoing he could do to this person would be getting too close to learning their true identity.

“It’s not that.” They replied, but failed to provide him with more details. Them wanting to keep that private made him feel as though he was to blame for their short separation. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just hoping you’re not upset with me for what I did.”

“I can’t hate you.” Even though he had no connection to them beyond the words on the screen. Hakuta couldn’t muster such a strong negative emotion towards them. It was more his fault for getting real depressed on the matter anyway. “If you’d like, we could play a game here.”

“I would love to.” They answered, much to his delight. So the pair entered up together in-game as a party and he got himself back into matchmaking. Hakuta couldn’t suppress the smile on his face even if he wanted to try. Being able to rejoin gaming again with the masked gamer on his team filled him with joy.

It was no wonder Shiuka might’ve gotten a little jealous of this person whose face they didn’t know. He lived with that girl, but playing a video game was much better with someone who might as well have been a complete stranger.

Without having to wait long, they got themselves into one of the matches for ‘Mech Evolution’, a shooter starring the mechs of a popular anime franchise. Hakuta couldn’t say he was a major fan of said series, but if there was a game worth checking out, he would at least give it a shot.

And it was fairly mediocre. Perhaps it would’ve been better for him if he was a fan of the franchise and therefore knew more about who he was playing at. But the gameplay itself wasn’t anything to write home about.

Though it did once again show him just how good this masked gamer was. While he always prided himself on being rather skilled in just about anything video game related. Whether it be something as hardcore as an online shooter or even something super simple such as ‘Chef Mom’, he made sure to not suck at any of them.

And while he certain wasn’t sucking by any means while playing this game. Whenever he was dead and checking out the screen view of his friend, they seemed to be much more skilled than him nearly every time. At this rate, he might need to find a new hobby or else his friends would think his personality was redundant when there was someone much better than him.

It was a good thing they didn’t know this person in real life. At least, that’s what he assumed.

“Well that wasn’t that great.” He said to them as they hit the defeat screen. “Maybe we should do something else.”

“I would prefer that too.” The masked gamer responded to him. “Perhaps something more relaxing might do us both good.” He agreed and decided they could just mess around in an open world game with crafting in it. The name didn’t matter because there were so many games which fit this description and he didn’t care which one they chose.

An advantage of playing something with a lot less stressful moments meant he was able to properly chat with them as well. Since voice chat was unfortunately out of the question due to his friend wishing to hide their identity. It was much harder to chat with them during games where he needed to focus solely on controlling his character with the keyboard. It was a good thing he didn’t play with them through his console. There would be no way he could type to them in a reasonable manner.

This meant he was able to ask them things that always went through his mind. Most of it was usually more mundane stuff he didn’t bring up to Shiuka since she would just laugh at him about it anyway. Though it also gave him the time to lean into some questions to finding out who this person really was.

I have to wonder, since you know what I look like.” He began. “Does this mean you’ve seen me around? Like, if we were to say go to the same school, then that means we’ve seen each other before?”

“I see you’re still trying to get the scoop on me.” They replied. “But yes, we do go to the same school. I’ve seen you around and you’ve likely seen me without knowing.”

“I have?” He was awestruck they would go far enough to tell him that. This meant he was getting real close to them. That perhaps they might begin to trust him enough to reveal who they really were to him. “Have we talked to each other?”

“I’m not telling you that.” They put a stop to him trying to deduce the clues. At the very least, he could narrow it down to his school, but that was still a lot of people to try and go through. The only ones he could eliminate were his friend group, which didn’t help him in the slightest. “Is it really so important to you to find out who I really am?”

“…” He took a moment to stop and think on their question. It seemed even the stranger was beginning to think he was obsessed just like everyone else kept telling him. Maybe they were right, but it wasn’t just a matter of him getting in to deep without realizing. “I want to be your friend.” Hakuta steeled himself to give the honest answer. “It is important to me because I don’t just want to play games with you over the internet. I want to be able to spend time with you in person.”

“You say this without even knowing what I look like.” They replied.

“It doesn’t matter what you look like.” He quickly fired back. “Ugly, pretty, mean, or nice, I don’t care.” Hakuta made sure this was known as best as he could through text. “We can be proper friends. I don’t know the reasons for why you hide your face, but it doesn’t matter to me. I just want to see you in person.”

“You know I have a good reason for hiding away who I really am when it comes to this.” They typed back. “But… You are a good person. I enjoy the time I spend with you, so I’ll give you this instead.” What they told him was surprising. While they had no intentions on ever telling him who they were. The masked gamer did offer him the chance to see them again. “At school, I can let us into the classroom.”

“Sneaking into school?” He responded, surprised at their apparently ability to do so.

“It’ll only be for a little bit. Just maybe 5 minutes, but that should be enough to quench this thirst you seek with knowledge.” Personally he doubted this would be enough to get him to simply give up as they hoped for. But there was a small part in his mind which hoped that maybe they might decide to let him know the truth on who they were. Not to mention it was summer, so pretty much no one was in school anyway outside of potentially some clubs who were taking care of their own stuff.

That meant if he got enough of their trust. They could share with him who they were. Hakuta would never consider blabbing to anyone about their identity. No matter how scandalous. Not only because he considered them to be friends and that would be disrespectful. But also because it would be hypocritical of him to expose someone’s secret, when he had one that was pretty big on its own.

“Okay, we can do that.” He accepted the offer.