Chapter 5: The Misleading Revelation

The scent of burnt toast filled the apartment. Shouka stared blankly at the blackened square of bread he had just scraped out of the toaster, his mind a million miles away. It had been twenty-four hours since the cryptic meeting invitation. Twenty-four hours since his entire perception of reality had been put on standby, waiting for a system reboot that might never come.

Spicarie was his childhood friend. A girl with pigtails he couldn’t quite remember. And he was going to meet her. Today.

He ran a hand through his messy hair, groaning. Who could it possibly be? He mentally scrolled through the fuzzy, low-resolution images of his elementary school days. There was the girl who was great at kickball, the one who always had cool pencils, the one who cried when he accidentally stepped on her ant farm. None of them seemed like a future global gaming champion.

Then a thought, both obvious and insane, struck him. Yuki. His next-door neighbor. The girl he played League of Champion with almost every night. They had known each other forever. Could it be her? He immediately dismissed it. No way. Yuki was quiet, a little shy, and while she was a fantastic MOBA player, her personality was the polar opposite of the cold, ruthlessly efficient phantom that was Spicarie. It was too much of a stretch. He decided to stop thinking before his brain melted.

"Brother! Are you even listening to me?" Shita’s voice snapped him back to the present. She was leaning against the kitchen counter, phone in hand, looking at him with extreme impatience. "I asked you for the tenth time! What are you going to wear? You can't meet the goddess Spicarie dressed like a sentient laundry basket! Did you get her autograph in advance? A picture? Did you tell her I’m her biggest fan? Did you faint preemptively?"

Shouka just blinked at her. How was he supposed to answer that? 'Well, I'm going to meet a complete mystery woman who may or may not be one of several girls I barely remember from twenty years ago. Also, I think I'm having a minor psychological breakdown.'

"I'll figure it out," he managed to say, his voice flat.

Shita narrowed her eyes. "You are so unbelievably boring!" She huffed and stormed back to her room, muttering about the tragic fate of having a brother with zero sense of occasion.

An hour later, Shouka found himself outside "The Daily Grind," the cafe they had agreed to meet at. His heart was hammering against his ribs. He pushed the door open, a little bell chiming his arrival, and scanned the room. It was mostly empty. He picked a small table in the corner, his back to the wall like a cornered animal.

He waited. Every time the bell chimed, his head snapped up. A college student. An elderly couple. A delivery driver. Ten minutes passed, feeling like ten hours. He was starting to think he'd been pranked. Then, the bell chimed again.

A girl stood silhouetted in the doorway. As she stepped inside, his breath caught in his throat.

It was Yuki.

She looked around, her eyes landing on him. A nervous, hesitant smile bloomed on her face. She was wearing a simple sundress, her hair down, and she looked… well, she looked like Yuki. But as she walked towards his table, Shouka's brain went into overdrive.

It was her. It had to be. The childhood friend. The neighbor. The gamer. The pieces, however mismatched they seemed, were slotting into place with a deafening click. Spicarie was Yuki. The insane theory was the correct one.

"Hey, Shouka," she said softly, sliding into the chair opposite him. "Sorry, did I keep you waiting?"

"No! Not at all! I just got here!" he blurted out, a little too loudly. He was a terrible liar. "Yuki… so… it was you?"

She tilted her head, a confused but amused expression on her face. "Of course it's me. You live next door. Did you hit your head?"

"No, I mean… in the game!" he whispered urgently, leaning forward. "Spicarie! That’s you, right?"

Yuki’s eyes widened in surprise, and then she let out a small, tinkling laugh. "Me? Spicarie? Shouka, what are you talking about? I wish! I'd be rich."

Shouka deflated. His entire, carefully constructed reality shattered in an instant. "Oh. Right. Of course not. That was… that was a joke. A stupid joke." He felt his face burn with embarrassment. He wasn't meeting Spicarie. He'd been stood up. And now he was making a fool of himself in front of Yuki.

"Why are you here, then?" he asked, trying to salvage the situation.

"You texted me," she said, holding up her phone. The message on the screen read: 'Hey Yuki, feel like grabbing coffee at The Daily Grind this afternoon? My treat.'

Shouka stared at the phone. He didn't send that message. He checked his own phone. There, in his sent messages, was the text to Yuki. He hadn't written it. Had he been hacked? Was this all an elaborate, cruel joke?

Meanwhile, across the street, three young men sat in a parked car, a pair of high-powered binoculars aimed at the cafe window.

"That's him. MrJanitor," the one in the driver's seat said. He had sharp, intense eyes and a confident smirk. This was Kenji, known in-game as Tempest.

"Who's the girl?" the wiry young man in the passenger seat, Haru "Riptide," asked. "Is that her? Is that Spicarie?"

"Can't be," the tall, silent one in the back, Daichi "Void," muttered. "She doesn't look like a killer."

"Looks can be deceiving," Kenji said, a thoughtful frown on his face. "He gets a mysterious message from her, and then immediately sets up a meeting with this girl. It's a classic misdirection play. She's using him as a go-between. Clever. Very clever."

Back in the cafe, Shouka was trying to apologize to a very confused Yuki when his phone buzzed. It was an in-game message in Delta Strike, from Spicarie.

Spicarie: Sorry about the confusion. I had to make sure you’d come alone. The girl you’re with, Yuki? She’s perfect. Your first recruit.

Shouka's eyes widened. He read the message again. This wasn't a prank. It was a test.

At another table, tucked away in a shadowy corner of the cafe, a girl with her hair tucked into a beanie lowered her phone. A small, mischievous smile played on her lips as she watched Shouka's bewildered expression. She took a quiet sip of her latte. Phase one was complete.