The Most Stubborn of Players

While not part of his original plan, Aito found himself inside an apartment he’d never once laid eyes on the inside of before in his life. Seen from the outside, walked past, and all of those things, sure, but the same went for every other building in the town.

A small entranceway with a small number of shoes of two different sizes neatly lined up near the door. Two rooms visible from it, what seemed like a small kitchen to the left and a closed door to the right, a small sign hanging on the door indicating the presence of a bathroom on the other side. All in all nothing too remarkable and not much unlike Aito’s own abode. Still, he scanned the area for something he feared he would see, something he’d never have found in his own home.

From what Aito could make out of the two adjoining rooms (such as the two cups standing on the kitchen table just at the edge of what he could see from his current vantage point right next to the door leading back outside), the number of shoe sizes visible near the entranceway, and every other aspect that could be judged from his current position frozen in fear and blocking the way for Yuki who stood behind him after letting him enter first… so far all good.

A little bit more time spent looking for the thing Aito feared most, and he could conclude that the nearby environment showed no signs of the presence of any other people.

In other words, all clear! No sign of any parents being around and no need to meet them just yet. With enough luck, maybe no need to meet them at all. He’d still need to meet the sister that Yuki mentioned, but in comparison to the prospect of having to meet her parents a single little sister seemed a distinctly less dangerous encounter, even more so if she actually was single and not too young.

But rather than lull himself into a potentially false sense of security, Aito chose to get a more concrete confirmation.

“I see that your parents don’t seem to be home. Or?”

The remark caused a quick glance at Aito with raised eyebrows on Yuki’s part.

“They never are. Probably never will be either. Because they don’t, you know, live here in the first place. Anyway, why do you ask? You’re not planning to do something shady, are you? Because if you are…”

While letting the potential misunderstanding stand and hoping it would lead to something more could have been one move here, to Aito it seemed a better idea to preempt Yuki’s remaining arguments with an excuse rather than hear out the rest of the implied threat.

“Nothing of the sort. I promise. It was just the first thing that came to my mind.”

He, of course, had thought the thought, but nothing more than that, so while what had gone through his mind hadn’t quite been “nothing of the sort”, it was still mostly true that fear had been a much greater part of it than more trivial desires.

“Wait, never mind that. Yuki, you live alone?”

“Only like half the time. The rest of the time my sister is here.”

“So this sister of yours, what is she like?”

A question borne in part from genuine interest and in part from concern of what the future may hold, but nonetheless important to get an answer to asap.

“Picture me. Probably shouldn’t be hard while I’m right in front of you. Then just do the same thing again, except make your mental image of me a tiny bit smaller. Also a little cuter and slightly friendler and somewhat smarter. When I put it like that I sound kind of inferior, don’t I? But it’s true, I guess. My sister is pretty much just me but better. She’s not as good at maths as me though, so there’s that.”

“Kind of sounds like having her around could be though in its own way… But even then, what about the half of the time she’s not here? It doesn’t get lonely?”

"Not really? It has its advantages too. I'm free to do whatever I want, whenever and wherever I want to. There's less distractions, nobody touches my stuff, and I can look at… things without worrying about my parents or my sister walking in. Actually, I guess my sister walking in would be fine."

“Did I mishear that or did you just…?”

"What? I'm not that sheltered, you know. Or innocent.”

“I was just thinking that if you aren’t good with people, then—”

“You’re the one that said that. And I don’t think those things are connected in the first place, anyway. But to answer the question, yes, it does get a bit lonely at times. With how often my sister visits it never gets too bad though.“

“What about hanging out with friends and stuff? Couldn’t you just do that if you’re feeling lonely?”

“I don’t have any friends. Why do you think you’d be here otherwise?”

“Oh.”

“If you want to throw any insults my way on behalf of my relative lack of companionship, make sure you sandwich in some compliments and good things somewhere between them, alright? I don’t think I’d be able to take just insults.”

“What? I’m not going to say anything mean to you. Nothing I haven’t already said, at any rate. And I genuinely wasn’t trying to sound insulting this time. I mean it, Yuki. I legitimately only have one friend myself too.”

“I’m sorry too. I was sounding a bit rude back there, before I freaked out, wasn’t I?”

“You were? I didn’t notice at all.”

“Then I take that back. I wasn’t being rude at all.”

“Alright”, Aito shrugged, “but setting that aside. You’re the one that took us here, so, uhh, what do we do now? Or do you want my help with figuring that out too?”

“Nope! This time I do know. Home advantage, you know? I mean, even I know what stuff is in my own home and what you could reasonably do here. I may be somewhat lacking when it comes to the speed and breadth of my creativity, but not nearly to that extent.”

“Great. I will leave it all up to you.”

“Then I have just the thing. Video games!”

A statement that led to, as some already may have surmised would be the likeliest outcome, the playing of games of the digital kind. A development which in turn led to the two of them playing games of a competitive nature in particular, which in turn led to Aito getting his ass kicked both metaphorically and literally (albeit the latter in-game only) more times than any sentient life-form reasonably could count. This of course in turn led to Aito clamouring for rematch after rematch, long past the point where any reasonable human being would have given up and realised their chances of victory were so close to nil that the chance of a random fish picked out of the ocean being a coelacanth would be higher.

Aito’s willpower, however, faced no such trivial obstacles.

In fact, for all the weaknesses he did have, patience remained one of Aito’s stronger sides. Strong enough that he didn’t need to break concentration even once — the one time he sent his sister a quick text out of concern and some modicum of worry for the fact that she hadn’t been replying to him for most of the day aside, but that hardly counts, and as such it should be known that he did not break concentration even once aside from the one time he did.

If one were to consider what kind of cataclysmic event would break the concentration of such a steadfast spirit, then, only two possibilities spring to mind: the end of the world, something that this particular person already had experienced and as such would not be distracted by, and thus the process of elimination leads the reasonable individual to assume this effect to be caused by the only other possible remaining mode of distraction: weird noises coming from a closed door behind where Aito and Yuki were sitting, an area Aito had not paid much attention to once he’d confirmed the lack of hostiles in the building.

But nothing caught the attention of an average Aito-type teenage guy like the kind of sound that now graced his ears. Rustling, the sound of a piece of wooden furniture shaking, a set of sounds someone with the right sort of mindset would consider the wrong kind of suspicious.

“Yuki, do you hear that?”

“Yes? If anything, I’m more surprised you didn’t until now.”

“So… would you mind telling me what, exactly, is making those very specific noises?”

“Sure. A kidnapping.”

“You’re not taking a page of someone else’s book here, are you?”

“No? I have no idea who you’d mean with that in the first place.”

“Alright, but are you seriously expecting me to believe that a kidnapping is happening in the room next to the very one we’re currently sitting in and you don’t care in the slightest? Should I start getting concerned for my own safety here?”

“Not really, but that’s what they told me to say if you asked. But I think it should be fine if you just go check for yourself by now, they’ve probably mostly finished up already.”

And so Aito rose from the sofa, stood up, took multiple steps over to a door located at the back of the room, one at a time, and opened the door only to find his own sister sitting in there firmly tied to a creaky wooden chair.