Interlude ~Ryota Ueda~

---Chapter 8: Interlude ~Ryota Ueda~

What exactly is ‘fun’?

This question is rather simple, but recently it’s something I’ve seriously started thinking about. I feel like ‘fun’, or rather, enjoyment, is something that everyone out there searches for in their day to day lives, each in their own way. As for me, what exactly is ‘fun’?

My name is Ryota Ueda. Growing up, I slowly came to the realization that most people would refer to me as someone rather subdued. I’m the kind of person who wouldn’t really stand out, often blending into the background. Personally, that’s fine by me. I don’t tend to like getting much attention anyway, so getting to casually go about my day on my own was fine.

But I also lacked ambition. Content with my average daily life, I didn’t tend to give much thought to the future. Sure enough, that kind of attitude eventually caught up to me. In my final year of high school, the curriculum was all about preparing us students to ‘become members of society.’

“Huh? Are we not already members of society just by living here?”

Uncharacteristically, I blurted that out in the middle of class. A few of the nearby students glanced back toward my desk. I’m sure some of them had probably already forgotten that someone like me was even in their class. As for my question, the teacher laughed it off, implying that us children still had to ‘leave the nest’ or something.

Those types of social structure ideals always bugged me. It felt like a self-serving concept leveraged by adults to place themselves above us. Of course, even if I thought such things, I wasn’t the type of person to pick a fight or argue. Most of the time, I simple went with the flow. I followed the path laid out before me, and just walked leisurely along it.

As I said, I had no ambition. There was no reason for me to go to university, despite my parent’s insistence. I’d already worked a few part-time jobs in high school, and was able to find my own tiny apartment after graduating. My parents were concerned with my choices, but they let me live my own life. For the time being, I manage to get by just fine by juggling part-time work and saving money whenever possible. What few friends I made in school were moving on to bigger, greater things than I.

Thus, stuck in an isolating daily routine of just going to work and coming home, over and over, day after day, I started to wonder…

“What exactly is ‘fun’?”

“Huh? What kind of question is that?” laughed my friend, Kousuke Arino.

I’d known Kousuke since middle school, and he just recently started college, so it’d been a little bit since I last saw him. He invited me out to a ramen shop he worked at part-time. I hadn’t eaten out in a while so I took him up on his offer. Plus, I was starting to feel a bit lonely, and I figured it’d be nice to chat with an old friend.

“Is it really so strange?” I asked. “It just feels like life has gotten so dull lately… Well, that may just be me, though.”

“Havin’ a tough time at your jobs?” Kousuke gave me a worried look.

“Oh, no… One of them has actually been rather pleasant, if a bit hectic.” I said, trying to ease his worries.

“You work at that game shop near the station, right?” asked Kousuke.

“Yeah, I work there in the afternoons. I also have some late-night shifts at the same convenience store I worked at in high school.”

“Bro, when the heck do you sleep?!” Kousuke smiled wryly.

“Usually in the mornings, haha. Sometimes I take a nap in the evenings between jobs too, but I try not to since I have to make sure to eat dinner around then.”

It was just some casual chatter with an old friend. A little while later, as I was preparing to head home, he said one last thing to me.

“Hey, your birthday’s comin’ up soon, right?” Kousuke asked.

“Yeah, next week.”

“Cool, I’ll get ya somethin’!” Kousuke grinned, waving me goodbye.

That ‘something’ he got me was a copy of the online game Myth of Genesis Online, along with the full dive tech needed to play. Obviously, he didn’t pay for all the equipment; apparently it was an older model he got from a friend who was quitting online games. Since Kousuke had already gotten a copy for himself, he was trying to find someone to play with, and apparently decided to rope me into the whole thing.

As an employee of a game shop, of course I was at least somewhat familiar with the title. Plus it just had an anime airing on TV recently. It actually used to air on Wednesdays right before I’d head out to my late-night convenience store job, so I just happened to have watched it every week. Without much care, I’d taken the name from one of the characters I liked from the show, Quartz, and gave myself the username ‘Quartz12’.

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I never really had much interest in playing online games before, but Myth of Genesis Online managed to keep me fairly engaged. I tended to play in the evenings between jobs, which worked out well since that’s also the same timeframe Kousuke was free, playing as his character ‘Striker’. Unfortunately, as interesting as the game was, playing an online game really put into perspective just how bad I was at socializing. At some point I gained a weird reputation as a ‘gloomy healer’, but thankfully that perception has started to die down as of late. Instead, I was beginning to fade into the background. I was just another player that most wouldn’t really pay any mind to. Although Striker rounded up a couple of others and we formed a party that would usually play together, I’d basically given up on interacting with others outside of the group. Thus, even my persona Quartz became just another dull person who faded into the background. At that point, I began to wonder whether I was really having fun or not.

But then… things started to change when I met a certain peculiar girl.

While doing a particular solo quest, I ran into her at the boss arena of the Water Cathedral. Her username was YUI-YUI, and she was quite quirky and energetic. Very kind and sociable as well. Basically, she seemed like the exact opposite of me. And yet… as we sat and chatted while waiting for the boss to respawn, I felt we actually got along rather well. So much so that I even asked for her friend code and invited her to play with my usual party.

We’ve known each other for a good while now, and she’s basically become a full-fledged member of the group. Over that time, I began to realize something…

Ah… I’m having fun.

Lately, I’ve been helping Yui out with a rather strange situation she was dealing with. She’s locked out of taking quests due to a strange priority quest asking her to find an item called the Mermaid’s Tear, which apparently was only a rumor most thought wasn’t actually in the game.

Another member from our group, a veteran of the game we call Rokugo, had given us a list of ridiculous methods to try and make this rumored item appear. Of course, I figured most of these were likely all made up internet rumors, but Yui and I both set out to give most of them a try anyway. And it’s been… a lot of fun.

Not because of what we were actually doing; it was the act of spending time with Yui in itself that felt… really fun.

She’s really silly, and a bit naïve compared to most other online game players I’d come across… It was like a breath of fresh air in this world that was starting to grow stale. Once I started to realize this, I began to look forward to seeing Yui more and more.

When I’d log into the game every evening, she’d be there with a smile on her face, ready to challenge whatever we had planned for the day. Just the other day, we’d trekked down to the Mage & Healer starter town, wearing some ridiculous fish-themed outfits, and fought the big boss of the area. It was silly and a bit embarrassing. Something I’d probably never do in this game on my own. But for some reason, having Yui by my side makes me feel like I can do anything.

When I think about it like that, she truly has become someone… quite special to me.

What exactly is ‘fun’? To me, getting to spend time with Yui and everyone else makes each day enjoyable. I think I can finally say it: I’m having fun.

[To be continued…]