"No, I don't understand. Why did I have to cater to those people? Besides, Eriri was clearly the one who betrayed me..." Facing Sawamura Eriri's questioning, Tomoya Aki roared through his swollen, pig-faced bruises, as if only by doing so could he prove that his conscience was clear...
But before he could finish, Sawamura Eriri laughed.
"Aki, see? Don't you understand it better than anyone? Otherwise, why would you care so much about the word 'betrayal'? Right, was it so you could make a girl feel guilty toward you because of her identity as a so-called traitor? Ah, I was only testing it out at first. I never expected that idiot Eriri to actually do it..."
Those all-too-familiar words made cold sweat break out on Tomoya Aki's forehead. "E-Eriri, what are you talking about? H-how could I possibly have thoughts like that? This is just..."
"But Aki, didn't you say that yourself?" Eriri interrupted again with a question.
Tomoya Aki: "..."
H-how could that be? How could he possibly have told anyone something like that!? But if it wasn't him, why did Eriri know the thoughts he had always kept buried in his heart...
Wait!
Tomoya Aki suddenly remembered something—a rather supernatural experience he'd had in middle school.
Back then, while still a middle schooler, he had already become a prominent figure among the otaku circle in his class. Even so, compared to his childhood friend Eriri, the treatment he received was worlds apart.
In particular, some boys in class who had only recently become otaku would often say, "Actually, instead of playing games after school, it feels pretty nice to go out with friends..."
Persuaded by such talk, even some deeply entrenched otaku were moved. They still loved games, but they no longer refused to go out with friends,