For Her Sake

I had ended up haphazardly going for a larger number than him. Regardless, both of us had been too confident in Hongou-senpai's tear ducts: it had taken no less than 14 seconds for him to start streaming waterfalls during the farewell ceremony. Iruka had done the math and was sure to tease his sensitive senior about it afterwards... But that wasn’t important right now.

The song of our school was also still stuck in my head. Where the blooming flowers meet the cotton clouds, there resides a nest of wisdom and truth... But that wasn’t important either!

I was nervous, so nervous. I couldn’t even recall the last time I had left home for a reason besides school or work.

I looked like trash. My hair looked like trash. My uniform looked distorted and poorly fitting, like it was brought from the trash. It had been just fine in the morning assembly! If Neri-nee was in front of me, in the flesh, I'm sure she would’ve been grossed out. That was one of the great perks of being in love with a 2D girl: she couldn't reject me. But if she was right here with me, she wouldn't be here in the first place because she wouldn't get into a filthy room like this. I couldn't bring her even if she for some reason wanted to come here, which she definitely wouldn't. A guy like me was completely unworthy of her grace. As I was falling deeper into a pitiful loop of self-loathing, I was seriously considering clogging up my nose, calling Iruka and telling him I wouldn’t be able to make it into the gathering.

As my nerves were having a full-on brawl inside my brain, I decided that a man had to do what a man had to do. It was something I usually did when I needed to cope.

I flopped face first on my bed and opened Kira-Kira Party.

"Comfort me, Neri-nee..." I whined.

As I tapped her crimson hair on the screen, the game started playing one of her pre-programmed voice lines.

"Huh, what's wrong producer? Do you want a hug? Okay, here I come!"

"Oh, your angelic voice makes me feel so much better already. I seriously can't thank your existence enough”, I praised.

Our tender moment was cut short by the ringing of my phone. The call was from Iruka.

As the caller icon was blocking Neri-nee's radiance from my sight, I thought of denying the call. However, I decided that answering would be the quicker way to get it over with. Knowing my best friend, he’d keep calling until I answered. He was aware I was on the other end of the line even if I didn’t pick up – I was on my phone basically every free waking moment after all.

"Kujiran! What's taking so long ya lazy bum? Don’t tell me you’re thinking about bailing on me!"

Iruka had worded my exact plan as if it were his own. I swallowed the primary truth and gave him an alternative answer.

"Just a bad hair day. I’ll be on my way soon."

The boy on the other end sensed the uncertainty in my flimsy word choices straight away. He wasn’t taking maybe for an answer today, so he shot my excuse right off.

"Shut it, ya haven't cared about the way ya look for a day in your life.”

"Well, today marks the first! I need to be conscious of my appearance when going to a karaoke place”, I grumbled.

I was pretty sincere about wanting to look my best but on the other hand, too much effort would’ve made me look like a tryhard...

"Did ya read that straight out of a social situation manual or what? Everyone's seen ya at school looking like a rat's ass, just get out of the house and the rest will work itself out! Do I need to come drag ya out?" he offered sarcastically.

"You’d do that for my sake?" I played along.

“To be fair, I wouldn’t. Even though ya can be a bit of a pain sometimes, you’re not the kinda guy who would break a promise for no reason. I trust ya”, he laughed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come. See you soon, Iruka.”

After I hung up, my facial muscles began to tighten as shivers of horror crawled through my body. My eyes were naturally pretty big but if the standard size was equal to a dessert plate, at that specific moment you could’ve eaten a whole dinner off of them.

"Neri-nee! What should I do? I can't use the sick excuse anymore!"

I had been idle in-game for so long she actually answered.

"Producer, are you there? Do you need a power-up? You can do it!"

The timing was way too on-point to be a mere coincidence. She must have heard me! I interpreted it as a sign to purchase more kira-kira blossoms for her banner. I knew it was a bad idea to pull a gacha with the mindset of expecting something good, but once you had spent as much raw yen as me, it was kind of impossible not to.

"You actually want me to go? Okay, I'll do it for your sake, Neri-nee!" I cheered.

I psyched myself up by giving Neri-nee's 3D model one final glance before closing the application and making my way downstairs with all of my essentials. As I was struggling with my hair in front of the vestibule mirror, my mother took a note of my rare presence.

"Wow, you sure are ogling at that mirror, Kakuji. Where are you going?"

I told her our class was celebrating the end of the semester at the nearby karaoke place and as soon as I had admitted my intentions, she started tinkering with my hair. She was annoyingly fussy sometimes but I have to admit that this time around her idea of being helpful somewhat matched with mine.

"Hey, when I was your age, I used to go there a lot! It’s pretty unusual for you to be interested in that stuff though. What brought this on, have you met someone?" she inquired.

I didn’t like the smug smile that appeared on her face.

"Nothing like that. Iruka just needs someone to keep him company”, I explained.

After all, Neri-nee is my someone. I'm monogamous to my one and only! But my mother doesn't understand my love – she had told me to get a job when she had realized the level of my devotion in practice. And I did, so now she should’ve had nothing to complain about.

"Okay, have fun! I'll text you later to make sure you're not dead in a ditch”, she smiled and tapped my shoulders slightly.

"You know Iruka is a good guy. He'll take care of me”, I reassured.

I still looked pretty detonated otherwise but at least my hair looked slick: my mother’s skill and success in taming my wet poodle thatch was truly impressive. And so, for the first time in a while, escorted by a bunch of self-evident advice and a sniveling talk about me having become such a big boy already, I left the house well-nigh voluntarily.