Part 2: Friendly Invite

A screen filled with pink hearts of various patterns glittered everywhere in the background. That was when a girl wearing this mahogany dress popped out to indirectly introduce herself to both of us.

“Welcome to Candiere’s Cafe! Tartropolatté is home to our lovely locale where visitors, like you, will get to experience all that your heart desires! We treat all of our guests to a variety of meals, drinks, and desserts filled with the passion, creativity, and dedication of our hardworking chefs. Best of all, we have many fun stage parties or featured contests where you can earn delightful rewards and prizes! Charming farewells sweeties! I look forward to seeing you!”

At the beginning of this game, we are greeted with a pixelated candy world full of color and life. When I looked at the avatar for which I was thrust into as the player, I found something odd. It looked quite like me. Long brown hair cut to my neck, walnut-colored eyes, and the same white uniform I wore. How was this possible? Even my father pointed it out during my time playing.

As much as this somewhat shook me, from years later to today, I got used to it. The gameplay was enjoyable and allowed me to explore the inner workings of the place. Maybe this isn’t as bad as I thought. It was just a small coincidence after all. Right? Well, that’s the thing…

It wasn’t.

During my days off, there was a possible replay factor that made Candiere’s Cafe more than just cafe simulator fodder. It had a deeper history which could be found in this abandoned library. How I found it is my secret. The library contained many strange stories documented about, well, the players themselves. Mine wasn’t the only one, but from what I saw, it mentioned that Tartropolatté was a real place and randomly chosen from an avatar database that supposedly knew who would be first to play it.

It also stated the uncanny message that if I were to complete the 45 days and earn Candiere’s Heart Badge, an inescapable life-altering event would occur that would send me to that world where I could never leave. Of course, they said that if I got caught in this library, it could also happen. Fortunately, it never got to that because I immediately left the area unnoticed, returning to the entrance of the cafe before taking out the disc. I left the game behind volumes of manga collections I had decked out on my new shelf. That way I would never play it again.

Many questions arose from this. Why was this game allowed to be sold if it had such dark messages implemented into it? Was it just to play with people’s minds? I mean believing in supernatural superstitions like this felt childish. There was no way a game like this meant what it said. Being the coward I was though, I did not want to test the idea anymore. Maybe I could see what happened to other players in the game.

When I was on my lunch break at Dream Academy High, I decided to ask the smartest person I knew from my Astronomy class: Cherry Brooks. The only problem with doing that was she had this reputation for being mute.

Okay, not completely.

She never really said much in conversations though. No one really knows why either.

If this didn’t work, I would have to go to the second smartest student in that class which was Cat Nakahara. She is pretty subtle in being self-centered and flirts with the boys a lot. Also shows pictures of her white cat named Elise whenever she gets the chance. I never saw anyone in her friend group talk about anything serious, so my initial response that I had planned was going to be a hard thing to arrange.

I walked over to Cherry who sits with a few friends of her own that I also recognize from Astronomy class. You have Hiroto Miyamoto who constantly gives small awkward looks at Cherry every time we are in the middle of lessons. Otherwise, he usually has a straight face in any normal situation.

There is also Aoki Fujii. He clowns around a lot. His jokes are hilariously bad. For some reason, I find them funny when others don’t. I feel embarrassed for even pointing that out but whatever.

Lastly, you have Miri Ishikawa. She has that balance of leadership in the group but also comes off as annoying others on purpose. Sometimes she even puts words into other people’s mouths that they didn’t say. She has a crush on Aoki which is the strangest thing I have ever heard. Mostly because she’s always gut-punching him around. Aoki always laughs it off whenever that happens.

I have no idea how any of their relationships work the way it does.