This Ain't a Scene, It's An Arms Race

I hadn’t expected to be walking into a canon scene, especially because Sae and Mae were here, and they weren’t canon characters. But I realized in that moment; yes they were. Ryoya had walked into that café in the prologue with an unnamed Girl 1 and Girl 2 fawning over him. It was all to illustrate how cool he was.

I didn’t feel very cool right now. Hi? Seriously?

“Hi,” Konno Kanai drawled. “Those are two pretty girls you got with you.”

That wasn’t what Kanai had said in the original, so there was no pre-written response for me to follow. Mae shrunk closer to me, gripping onto my shirt; Sae looked like she wanted to fight.

“They’re with me.” Kanai already said that, dumbass.

“I already said that, idiot.”

“I wasn’t done!” I improvised. “They’re with me, so if you want them, you’ll have to go through me.”

Kanai leaned back in his chair. “Oooh, so scary. I’m so terrified right now.”

I leaned towards Yuu. “You captivated me from the moment I walked in, my princess. What is your name?”

Drama Points +1! Beginner Mission 1/3 cleared!

“Chihara Yuu.” Her voice was on the higher side, with an even, matter-of-fact tone and a Tosa accent.

I tried to ignore the heart-shaped notification in the corner of my vision. “I’m Miyazato Ryoya. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Yuu.” I took her hand and kissed it.

Yuu’s face flamed red. “Wha—what are you doing?”

“Aaa, she’s so lucky…” Sae said. “Getting Miyazato-senpai’s attention…”

“Who are they?” Yuu asked.

I still didn’t know Mae’s surname, and it would be awkward to introduce her without it. In a stroke of inspiration I said, “Two girls I’m taking on a date. Would you like to join us?”

Ryoya had said something like that in the game too, and it had turned into a multiple-choice for the player. Here Yuu said, “Um, no thanks. I’m at work.”

“Miyazato-senpai is like, the star of the school,” Sae said. “I can’t believe he kissed you.” She looked over at me. Kept her eyes focused on me. There was a clear request in those eyes.

“You’re so greedy, my pearl,” I improvised. “Very well, I’ll give you what you want.”

I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. It was my first time kissing anyone like that—it felt closer than Yuu’s hand a second ago. Her skin was soft and warm.

After I kissed her she buried her face in her hands and screamed muffled through them. Mae glanced shyly at me, and, figuring that I might as well go for it, I gave her a kiss on the hand.

“...Don’t get mono,” Yuu said.

Her expression was unimpressed. I could feel my chances to get love points draining away. Obviously: who would be into not being treated as special? Well, me… Well, but the charm of a playboy in an otome game was that you knew they would eventually be yours. This was real life to her, so I was just some guy. Sae and Mae seemed chill with me treating them both equally, but that was their character setting.

“Hey, so why are you hanging out in our territory?” Tana asked. “You got a problem?”

“Last time I checked, this was public property,” I said.

“They have math classes at your fancy school?” Takayama Fuuji asked.

How am I supposed to respond to that? “Yes, and I’m going to fail them.” Not like that.

This was like playing Delinquent Love!, but with a choice after every single line of dialogue, and a ticking timer of only a few seconds to make the choice. My palms were sweating. I was trying to match Ryoya’s personality and to handle a situation tenser than I’d ever been in at the same time, and I had never been a good multitasker.

“Wait, I was gonna say ‘then count how many of us and how many of you there are’, but if you’re failing, can you do that?”

“Well, I can count!” I said, face red in embarrassment. “That’s elementary!”

“T-There’s three of us,” Sae said, voice shaking with fear and passion. “If you want to hurt Miyazato-senpai, you’ll have to go through me.”

“Sure, whatever. Slicing up your pretty face should be fun,” Kanai said.

That was a canon line, though in the original, he’d said it to Ryoya (aka, me), not to a NPC girl. (Sae had gone off script. Maybe she felt like I needed defending because of how I was acting now? Unfortunate but kinda true.) The response was: “Are you looking for a fight?” I managed to keep my voice from shaking. “I assure you, I can give you one.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, no one fight here!” Yuu stood up, spreading her arms like she was keeping me and Kanai apart. Kanai hadn’t gotten up or gotten close to me yet, and he watched Yuu with an amused, sharp-toothed grin on his face.

“Look, I just got this job,” Yuu continued, “so I can’t afford to have anything crazy happen. Besides, three against six isn’t fair.”

Yuu’s words were almost exactly what she’d said in the game prologue, only there she’d called it one against six (because Sae hadn’t spoken up). And just like in the game prologue, Kanai’s next move was getting close up. In the game, his face just got closer… seeing it in real life, what he did was lean up and push her head down to look at him. I winced.

“I think,” Kanai purred, “that what I’d actually like to see is you crying into my shoulder as your café burns down and you find yourself never able to hold a job again.”

Yuu didn’t move. Her expression was twisted—a grimace that mixed pain, fear, and anger.

“Leave her alone,” Kazuhiro said.

Kanai turned to him, still holding down Yuu’s head. “Oh? Kazu-chan, you want to play hero today?”

“She’s—she’s not involved, okay? Cut it out.”

Yuu broke out of her frozen state and said, “Let go of me!”

“Okay. As a treat for you, Kazu-chan.” Kanai trailed his free hand over Kazuhiro’s lips. “But you know every reward comes with a punishment.” He let go of Yuu.

Kazuhiro scrubbed at his lips to get rid of the touch, a gesture I hadn’t seen playing the game. What a creep. It was pretty much impossible for me to like Kanai.

“Wonder what this girl considers fair.” Shobu Tana twirled his knife. “Don’t let that pretty face fool you. This guy Miyazato’s sent a few of ours to the hospital.”

A popup appeared in my peripheral vision. Misfortune Points +1. Beginner Mission: 2/3 cleared.

“Something is different about him today, though.” Kanai stood up and leaned close to me. I took a step back. He wrapped his hand around my arm and pulled me towards him. This near, the heady scent of tiger lilies sent my head spinning. Of course this guy uses too much cologne. Flecks of lavender were speckled across his odd purple eyes. He pressed his nose into my hair and took a deep inhale.

“Hey, what are you doing? I—I’ll send you to the hospital, too!”

“He smells… weak. He’s far more vulnerable than usual. I wonder what would happen if…”

I couldn’t look away from him. I could feel his breathing with every word he spoke. “Ah… If what?”

“Sho-chan.”

Tana tossed Kanai the knife.

Not today, Satan! I wrenched my arm out of his grip and hurried backwards, putting a table between me and him. My breath was loud in my ears as he leisurely strolled towards me. The blade glinted in the sunlight.

“Hey! Are you crazy?” Yuu said.

Kazuhiro put his hand on hers, holding it tight like a warning.

“Sorry, my dear…” Kanai cocked his head to the side. “What was it again?”

“I’m Chihara.”

“My dear Chi-chan. Let’s have this fight outside your lovely awesome place of work.” He waved a hand. “Grab him.”

What—Kazuhiro and Fuuji stood up from their table, chairs clattering as they shoved them back. One started to approach me on the left, one on the right.

“Kazu!” Yuu said. “Stop it!”

“You’d rather have a fight in here?” he asked her, glancing back over his shoulder. He didn’t stop.

My stomach churned. I’d been bullied a lot in middle school. This stuff, getting approached from either side by people who wanted to hurt me, badly, had been the subject of my nightmares and my days, the thing I’d worried about leaving the building every day for more than a year. I’d taken a couple self-defense lessons, but they’d never helped me against a crowd.

Tana was close—I grabbed his arms before he could grab mine, pushing him off and away. An intense pressure hit my windpipe and I realized Kazuhiro had his arms wrapped around my neck from behind; I gagged and choked and tried to kick backwards, then when that failed let go of Tana with one arm and elbowed him hard in the stomach. Kazuhiro let go of my neck but used both his hands that were now free to grab my left wrist, tight—I tried to maneuver to get out but he was holding my arm from both sides to make the weak point, where his thumb and fingers would meet, nonexistent, so all I was doing was giving myself a friction burn.

Meanwhile I kept trying to shove Tana off but it was impossible with only one hand. Sae and Mae stood anxiously on either side, each looking like they wanted to come help but were uncertain of themselves. I was uncertain too; I didn’t want to call them to help and have them get hurt.

Tana got a grip on me, holding my forearm tight.

“Let go of me!” I dug my heels uselessly into the ground as they dragged me outside. “I mean it!”

“Miyazato-senpai!” Mae cried. “L-let go of him!”

“If you touch his face I’mma make you regret it!” Sae said. She ran at Tana and tried to grapple with him, but he easily kicked her away and she fell into a table with a clatter that made me wince.

Outside, the sun shone bright in my eyes. The other two boys came out and surrounded me, Kanai standing in front and Fuuji taking a position behind me. I didn’t feel like I was being surrounded by hotties. It was more like a tank of sharks. I tried to think back to their game personalities, trying to think of a way out—their game personalities were much more appealing than these jerks. The earnest and sweet Okuda Kazuhiro, blithe and creative Shobu Tana, lazy and noncommittal Takayama Fuuji with his gorgeous long hair…Okuda Kazuhiro had a vice grip on my left forearm, and Shobu Tana had a vice grip on my right. Takayama Fuuji looked down on me from where he stood, hands stuffed in his pockets and hair getting blown by the wind into his eyes. Now, pick your route, I thought bitterly.

The head shark approached me. I twisted my head away, averting my gaze from the knife he was playing with. “Screw you, Kanai!”

“My given name? So familiar.”

Of course I’m familiar, you’re supposed to be an ikemen in a dating sim! In what world is this stuff sexy? This was just the backstory; that the teenagers in this neighborhood were delinquents that would beat each other up. Except I wasn’t up for this! It wasn’t sexy to play out—it was way too similar to my real, shitty life! I thought I’d gotten over this stuff when I switched schools! I never antagonized anyone—this was Ryoya’s fault, for getting involved in all of this.

“Look, why are you doing this? What’s your problem?”

Kanai grabbed my chin and turned my face sharply to look at him. His smile was sharp-toothed. “Why? Because I want to.” He trailed the cold blade of the knife along my cheek. I trembled violently. “Maybe because I’d like to hear what this vulnerable Ryo-chan sounds like when he screams.”

“I—I’m the same guy I was yesterday,” I argued, struggling to keep myself from stammering. My face and body felt hot. “Just happened to lose this fight.”

“You did lose this fight. What should we do with you?”

My gaze darted around as I tried to figure out a way to get out of this. Use my knowledge about the future of the game and people’s secrets? No, I only knew a little, nothing about Kanai, and anyway that would make them suspicious of me and they’d probably try to get more information by beating me up more or something; especially when they already had me pinned.

Kanai laughed. “Look at you! This is great! All anxious and vulnerable and fun to play with.” His voice actor did a really good laugh; clear, cold, slightly bitter. No, not his voice actor. No one was dubbing him over here—he was just a real person—was he a real person? Someone had written him, voiced him, drawn him, all artificially, it was okay, this wasn’t real life so I wasn’t in real-life danger…

Get it together.

I spotted a person through the gaps between buildings. An ordinary passerby on the next street over, texting on their phone, but it reminded me that we were in public.

“Help! Help!”

Kanai slapped me. Tana said, “Fuck’s wrong with you?”

I ignored my smarting cheek and yelled for help again.

“Miyazato,” Tana continued, “you know as well as anyone that this shit’s mutual, right? Do you want to get all of us in trouble—your little rich kid gang as well?”

“Help! I’m gonna get stabbed!”

Kanai laughed again. I flinched back. “Alright, everyone, scatter!”

“For real?” Fuuji said.

“Yep, run!” He leaned in closer to me, breath misting my nose. “I got what I wanted, after all.”

I stared at him. What you wanted…

To…scare me?

I don’t understand you…

He pressed a kiss to the bridge of my nose, brief and small. “See you later.”