Chapter 8: Gifts

The train was relatively empty for a weekend. The Protagonist-kun and I sat side by side on a mostly deserted row of seats.

For starters, the station we had boarded at, "Gensō High School Front Station," was hardly ever used by ordinary people.

This was the front line in the fight against the "Incursion of Fiction." It bordered an area affected by "Fictional Material," and the risk of being attacked by the "Incursion of Fiction" was high.

The only people around here were Bluffer or members of the Fiction Countermeasures Committee who managed them.

Ordinary people didn't come here unless they had a reason. For that matter, hardly any ordinary people lived in the old downtown area anymore.

As a result, hardly anyone used the station.

Even so, Gensō High School Front Station continued to operate so that the Bluffer, who were all minors, wouldn't have their transportation restricted.

"Have you ever gone into town since becoming an Anchor?"

"Yeah. Once, with Mana."

Oh, as expected of the childhood-friend heroine. She's already one step ahead.

"We watched a movie and got something to eat, but… honestly, I couldn't tell whether Mana was enjoying herself. Her expression never changes, as usual."

"Come on. Knowing Mana, she must have been absolutely thrilled just to be able to go out with you."

She's the number-one diehard romantic from the very beginning. She was one of the few people on your side when everyone else was against you.

"What? No, no. I've never seen Mana all excited about anything. She's practically expressionless all the time, so I never know what she's thinking."

……Looks like the advice I gave Mana was a waste after all.

Oh well. That genius math girl has the equivalent of an IQ of thirty when it comes to romance.

"…You can tell when someone is lying, but you can't tell how your childhood friend feels?"

"What do you mean?"

Whether he's just dense or what, I don't know.

Then again, Mana's poker face is practically carved in stone, so I can't really blame him for not noticing.

Once you figure it out, she's actually pretty easy to read, though.

"If you want to know how Mana feels, watch her actions instead of her eyes and face. Why do you think someone who prefers staying cooped up in her room would go out of her way to spend time with you? Why do you think someone as quiet as her talks so much when she's with you?"

"……That's…"

My words left him frozen in surprise.

"You always look people in the eyes when you talk to them. That's a good thing, but you have a tendency to rely too much on the emotions you can read from their eyes and expressions."

It's probably a side effect of being so good at reading emotions from people's faces. Someone like Mana, who barely shows anything on hers, is a terrible match for him.

Then again, maybe that's exactly why they've been misunderstanding each other this whole time.

"……You really pay close attention to everyone, don't you?"

His eyes stared straight at me as he carefully observed me. I almost reflexively looked away.

"Raika is hard to read, but you're pretty easy to understand in that regard."

"I don't want to hear that from someone who's brutally honest. Besides, I'm a liar. Everything I just said could have been a lie, and I might be trying to deceive you."

"No. Your lies are hard to figure out, but it's easy to tell when you're being sincere. You really do care about your comrades."

"…………"

I looked away from the Protagonist-kun, who was looking at me with such a warm, knowing gaze.

I let my eyes wander aimlessly through the air and quietly thought.

Then, a hanging advertisement caught my eye. It proclaimed the tagline of a romance manga:

"A jaded girl is saved by a straight-laced boy in this classic love story!"

Wait a second. Am I somehow becoming the heroine who's being romanced here?

This is bad. If I say anything more, I'll only dig myself deeper. To keep him from seeing through my true feelings any further, I resorted to the defensive strategy of staring at my phone and shutting up.

〈TIPS〉Using gifts purchased from the shop on characters can raise their Affection Level. Each character has specific preferences, which can sometimes be inferred from conversations on the home screen and elsewhere.

When we arrived at the shopping mall, the Protagonist-kun finally told me the purpose of our trip.

"I was going to ask after we went wherever you wanted to go, but… I want you to help me pick out gifts for everyone, Raika. They've done a lot for me since I came here, but I haven't been able to give anything back. And I figured you'd probably know what everyone likes."

……When he puts it that way, I feel like helping him out.

Gifts are important for romancing heroines, after all.

In "Bluff of Girls," each Matoi-hime has something called an Affection Level.

The level can normally be raised from 1 to 5 through regular gameplay, and increasing a character's Affection Level also provides advantages in battle.

But the biggest attraction is the individual stories.

The episodes where you're alone with each girl get sweeter and sweeter as they progress, and by Affection Level 5, they're completely lovestruck.

However, raising Affection is ridiculously difficult.

Even if you give gifts, invite them on outings, deploy alongside them, and do all sorts of other things, it takes half a year to raise the level to 5.

And once you go beyond that with an Affection "Limit Break," the experience required increases by three or even four times.

That's what you call endgame content in a social game where the story almost never truly ends and you have to keep satisfying your hardcore players.

And for someone like me, who had played BOG pretty extensively, I could remember the preferred gifts of the main characters even with my eyes closed.

On the first floor of the shopping mall, we left a store that sold snacks in huge bags, and immediately started discussing our spoils.

"Wow, we really bought a lot. Bags of chocolate. Value-pack cookies. And a jar of dried squid. …I feel like that last one was your personal preference, though."

"Hey, hey. You think every smoker likes booze and bar snacks? Making assumptions like that doesn't exactly fit the spirit of diversity in this day and age."

"I think cigarettes are the thing that doesn't fit the spirit of this day and age the most… Wait, you haven't actually been drinking too, have you?"

"Of course not. Alcohol isn't alcohol until it reaches twenty-five percent."

"You're definitely drinking, aren't you!?"

I brushed him off with a casual "Just kidding," and although the Protagonist-kun still looked unconvinced, he returned to the topic.

"Still, do you really think Hazuki will be happy with all these snacks?"

"Of course she will. If she pretends to hate sweets, assume it's all just her way of hiding her embarrassment."

I could already imagine Hazuki pretending not to like them while secretly happily stuffing herself with snacks.

The plastic bag in my hand was packed to the brim with colorful bags of treats.

"Actually, I'll carry that bag. Give it here."

"Huh? Oh, sure."

I was slightly confused when he took the bag from me. Why had he done that?

I thought about it for a moment.

A shopping bag. My relationship with the Protagonist-kun. The way I looked right now.

"…………Oh! Hey! Don't treat me like some helpless girl!"

Next up was choosing a gift for Mana, his childhood friend.

Yet despite having known her for so long, the Protagonist-kun was clutching his head because he "had no idea what Mana would like."

Pathetic. No wonder he can't get anywhere with the childhood friend who's hopelessly in love with him.

Fine. I felt sorry for Mana, so I'd give him some advice.

"Get Mana something that'll last. Accessories, clothes, something like that."

"Eh? Isn't that a little too serious?"

"That's fine. She's the serious one. She'll be happy about it. If anything, she'll appreciate it even more."

"……Really?"

"Really."

If anything, she was anxious. She couldn't talk to the Protagonist-kun properly, and she couldn't convey her feelings to him.

That's why he needed to give her something that would remain as proof. She lived according to reason, so rather than memories that could eventually disappear, she wanted tangible proof that wouldn't.

We entered a somewhat stylish accessories shop.

"Wait, I've never been in a place like this before… Are you sure this is okay? They're not going to kick me out saying, 'Tch, what a country bumpkin!' or something, are they?"

"Where the hell did you get that idea…? Just act confident. Looking intimidated will only make you stand out more."

I walked a little ahead of him.

The glittering store was patrolled by employees wearing friendly smiles.

The display shelves were filled with colorful accessories: necklaces, earrings, rings, and more.

"It's not like this is some store selling things that cost hundreds of thousands. Even if you broke something, you could afford to pay for it."

"That's not the point, is it!?"

With the pathetic Protagonist-kun trailing behind me, I looked through several accessories.

"What about this?"

"Eh? I can't really imagine Mana wearing it."

"If you think it's good, then that's what matters most."

"That's pretty selfish…"

Gifts are supposed to be something you give because you want to.

In the end, we bought a small necklace. An accessory that would add a subtle touch of color to her neckline without being too conspicuous.

She'd probably be happy with it.

"Next is Hibari, huh? She seems like the type who'd be happy with anything, but I don't really know what she'd genuinely like."

"Well, she's the type who is happy simply because someone gave her a gift. Leave it to me."

With Hibari, it was the thought behind the gift that mattered more than the object itself.

What she liked was the feeling contained within a gift—the desire to make someone else happy.

She liked the bright emotions of other people.

"But Hibari is an amazingly good person, isn't she? She's always cheerful and considerate toward me, too. …Sometimes you can see a different side of her, but even that included, she's a good person."

"Yeah, she is. But she's a little different from you."

"Different from me?"

"Yeah. You're a good guy who does what you want to do. She's a good girl who does what other people want her to do."

"I feel like you're giving me too much credit…"

"No, I'm talking about the type of person you are. In Hibari's case, she tries too hard to live up to other people's expectations. She pushes herself sometimes, so could you help her out when that happens?"

"Yeah. …If there's something I can do."

You can. You're the protagonist, after all.

"Come to think of it, everyone in the Fox Squad says similar things, don't they…"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Never mind."

In the end, we bought a letter with an old-fashioned envelope and a fountain pen.

"Handwritten letters carry more feeling… Though I guess that's pretty old-fashioned," he said with a laugh.

"What about Victoria?"

"She'll be happy with pretty much anything that's cool. Give her something that your middle-school self would have liked."

"Something my middle-school self would like…? No, I have absolutely no idea what you're getting at. Why would my middle-school self like the same things Victoria does? Do you have any evidence?"

"Hey, your eyes are darting around."

The Protagonist-kun really was terrible at lying.

His eyes wandered conspicuously through the air, and his voice trembled. It was a lie as obvious as a baby's.

Saying that no guy could possibly fail to understand chūnibyō might be an exaggeration, but pretty much everyone had gone through some form of it.

Once he admitted his lie, he immediately picked up an item from the shelf of a general goods store based on my advice.

"When you say something cool… how about this?"

"Pfft… I see… Heh… Yeah, that's pretty cool. If you think so, then that's fine. After all, it's what you think is cool. …Pffft."

"You're picking a fight with me, aren't you!?"

Of course I was, though I didn't say that out loud.

I, too, had once been a boy. Having the things I once considered "cool" sullied like this would have been the ultimate humiliation.

That's why I mustn't laugh.

I must never make fun of his feelings—or the chūnibyō that had once existed within him.

I desperately forced my face into a straight expression.

"No, sorry. But I really do think it's good. It's just… pfft."

"You really are picking a fight with me, aren't you!?"

After bickering back and forth while receiving icy looks from the store clerk, we bought a sword-shaped keychain.

"Thanks, Raika. I feel like I actually managed to do some shopping I'm satisfied with."

"Yeah. Make sure you actually give them the gifts."

We'd looked around at all sorts of things. And as I spent time with him, I became certain of something.

He really was a good person.

The kind of person I had admired. The kind of person I had yearned to become.

Someone who does what they believe is good and finds happiness in doing so. The way a human being ought to be.

A person who stood at the exact opposite end of the spectrum from a liar.

"See you. I've got somewhere I need to stop by, so make sure you get home safely."

"Okay. You too, Raika."

I reaffirmed my purpose in this life—to help him.

Then I watched his back as he walked away.

I stepped into an alley and took a lighter and a cigarette from my pocket.

I smiled faintly and lit it.

The distinctive smell stung my nose.

"……"

Ah.

I'm having fun.

I genuinely thought it.

──And at that exact moment, an unbearable wave of nausea hit me.

I dropped the lit cigarette and covered my mouth.

"Why… am I enjoying myself?"

The image of the person I'd once deceived and murdered flashed through my mind.

The smell of blood.

The sight of their brains splattered across the ground.

It all came rushing back in a sudden flash.

"No. What I'm doing is atonement. It's the tiny bit of good I can do at the end of my life after being such a hopelessly evil person."

This wasn't some dreamlike period of happiness.

This was overtime for a goddamn miserable life.

A chance at redemption that someone had given me.

"That's why I'm not having fun."

I stamped out the cigarette on the ground, extinguishing the ember.

I took out a new one and lit it again.

I drew the smoke into my lungs and exhaled deeply.

That sickening feeling I experienced every time I smoked.

My fingertips were faintly numb, and the hand holding the cigarette trembled slightly.

My immature body was crying out in protest.

I put the cigarette to my lips again.

"……"

My thoughts became hazy, and I could no longer clearly remember what I'd been thinking just moments ago.

All that remained was a vague, shapeless sense of self-loathing.