Rejected and Abandoned

Keitaro was a bright young man. He performed well in school, was respected by his teachers, and liked among his classmates. Once he graduated, he would almost certainly go to a prestigious university and get a great job at a good company.

However, the more Keitaro thought about his future, the more he didn't want to become just another salary man. Endless hours spent in a boring office, filing paperwork, kissing ass, it just wasn't what he wanted to spend his life doing.

So he chose a different path.

Much to his parents' chagrin, he went to an art school with a focus in design and software.

His goal was to become a video game developer.

In high school he went to a game development club at the behest of one of his friends. He had always loved video games, but he hadn't ever thought about making them until then. Watching the process unfold before his eyes, seeing a video game develop from conception to finished product really inspired him, and it wasn't long until he took a crack at it himself.

It was a difficult learning curve, and while his first game was short and clunky, it was the most satisfying thing he had ever done.

Toko had been the first to play it, providing a glowing review despite its numerous flaws.

Keitaro continued making games, and as he enrolled at art school, he learned so much more about game design and programming. School had been a real bore for him, but there he looked forward to his classes every day.

His parents still didn’t approve, but they tolerated his choice, assuming he could make a decent career out of it.

After a few years, he finally graduated. It was satisfying to be rewarded for his efforts, but more importantly he could finally start fulfilling his dream by getting a job as a video game developer.

It didn’t take too long to find one as a junior designer at Nami Company, a branch of an industry juggernaut.

He worked hard, harder than he really should’ve. While the official work week was forty hours, employees were expected to do overtime. However, Keitaro did more than anyone else with pleasure. While he was passionate about his work, it wasn't just for the love of the job itself, though. Keitaro had ambitions. He wanted to rise the ranks and become a game director one day, and the best way to do that, he thought, was going above and beyond at every opportunity.

But, this fervor had unintended consequences…

“Damn it…!” Yuto Soejima slammed his fist on his desk. He was young, but thanks to family connections, he managed to secure a job as lead gameplay programmer despite his inexperience.

“What’s wrong?” Keitaro overheard his outburst as he was walking by.

“It’s nothing…” Yuto stared at an error screen. He had been struggling to fix a gamebreaking bug for several days now.

“Hm? Really? Let me see.” Keitaro leaned over, and in just two seconds, he realized what was wrong. “Ah, I think I know what it is.” He grabbed the keyboard and mouse and started fixing the problem. “See, your variables are messed up here. A really simple mistake.” Once he was done, he immediately ran the game. It booted up and ran flawlessly. No error screen and the bug had been fixed. “There you go.”

Yuto could only stare in disbelief as the issue that he struggled with for days was fixed so simply by this random newbie. However, he didn’t feel thankful at all. Only annoyed, and later enraged. Getting upstaged by a junior, that was unacceptable.

***

Keitaro always stayed late, but today was different. It was Toko’s birthday, and their parents were out of town, so it’d be just them. He wanted to spend the rest of the day with her, but unexpectedly, he was called to the producer’s office. Unsure of why, he was a bit nervous, but he hadn’t done anything wrong, so everything should’ve been fine, right?

He entered promptly, seeing the producer and, surprisingly, Yuto.

The producer of the video game Keitaro was working on was named Gentaro Soejima. He was also the general manager of the office and Yuto’s uncle. “Keitaro, it has come to our attention that certain sensitive information has been leaked…”

“Leaked? Are you serious?” Keitaro knew that leaks in this industry were no joke.

“Yes, but you should already know…”

“Hm?” Keitaro had no idea what he was talking about.

“Quit playing dumb!” Yuto yelled. “We know you’re the one who did it!”

“Easy there, Yuto.” Soejima reined in his nephew. “See, we found that certain sensitive files were exported from our servers with your credentials.”

Keitaro blinked. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You can deny it all you want, but we have all the evidence we need. Yuto is the one who discovered it.”

Keitaro shot a look at Yuto who was smirking.

“Because of your misconduct, you have been deemed unfit.” Soejima pulled a piece of paper out of his desk and handed it to Keitaro. “So henceforth, your employment at Nami Company has been terminated.”

Keitaro looked at his dismissal notice, the reason given being “Breach of NDA.”

“Sir, I don’t know what to tell you but there’s been a mistake–”

“You’re lucky you’re only getting fired!” Yuto cut in. “You violated your NDA! We could sue you to hell and back if we wanted! So pack your stuff and get out now!”

“But I didn’t–”

“You heard him,” Soejima said sternly, his cold gaze making it clear that Keitaro’s fate had been sealed. “Now leave before we call security.”

Keitaro grit his teeth, furious, but there was nothing he could do. Without even a word, he stood up and left. As he packed up, word had already spread around the office, and those who once looked at him with admiration only saw him as a rat.

As he left for the last time, he turned around, getting one final look. He had grown up playing their games, poured in so much of his life, only to get thrown out like garbage. Now even just the sight of the company logo made him want to fly into a violent rage.

The train ride home let him simmer even more, but once he walked through the front door and saw his sister, his mood shifted.

Toko immediately saw the box of his stuff, a very bad sign. “W-what happened?”

Keitaro didn’t want to bring down the mood on her birthday, so he dodged the question. “I’ll tell you later, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay…”

The two had a decent time together, but the night was mired by Keitaro’s termination.

But the truth was soon revealed. Toko was empathetic, but his parents gave him no sympathy.

“You couldn’t even hold that job for more than a few months? Seriously?”

“How could you mess something like that up? How useless are you?”

He tried to defend himself, but there wasn’t anything he could say to satisfy them.

He quickly went on the job hunt, looking for a new position, but game companies talked, and no studio wanted to hire some weasel who leaks company secrets.

He eventually lost count of how many resumes he sent out, but it was well into the hundreds. He’d be lucky to get even a rejection letter.

No matter how hard he tried, it just didn’t matter. It slowly became apparent that he would never get another job in the video game industry again.

As he sat alone in his room in the dark, he thought about everything. He never did anything wrong, but he was still rejected and abandoned.

It was then when he heard some sounds coming from the room next to his, Toko’s room. She was playing a video game. He thought long and hard about that, how she’d left the world behind, falling into anime and video games.

And he thought that maybe she had the right idea…