Chapter 6: Jump off the roof!

“Aaah! So this is what it feels like to eat up on the roof!”

Aiko leaned back to fall on the floor with a muffled ‘thump’ and raised her hands over her head. “Look at all those puffy clouds!” She pointed at one particularly fluffy cloud. “Doesn’t that look a bit like-…eh? Mi-chan?” Sitting up suddenly, she stared in amazement at her friend. “Your eggroll is going to drop!”

Michiko’s hands were trembling so much that she could barely hold her chopsticks properly. Beads of sweat began to form on her cold forehead. The aforementioned eggroll was actually shaking in her loose grip, until it fell to the floor, bouncing several times before coming to a halt. Aiko’s eyes widened. “Mi-chan, don’t tell me you’re…afraid of heights?” She leapt to her feet and raised a finger in Michiko’s direction. “And more importantly,” she continued, her voice rising to a higher pitch, “w-what…what did you put in that eggroll?!!”

“Huh?” Michiko blinked, her acrophobia momentarily forgotten.

“It bounced! I saw it!! What is in that thing?!”

Before Michiko had the time to answer, the door to the roof flew open forcefully. Both Michiko and Aiko were filled with a sense of dread, having forgotten at that moment of sudden intrusion that though eating on the roof was banned at their old school, there was no such rule in their new one.

“I have no intention of backing down, Kanzaki!!”

“You have to face it, Tsujimoto. You’re completely broke. You can’t even send the challenge, not to speak of defeating him.”

Yamato charged through the door with an enraged expression, stopping short as he saw the two female students.

“Ah…?”

Michiko frowned, as if she had recalled something, “Isn’t that-”

“It’s the guy who’s allergic to women!” Aiko shifted her focus from Michiko to Yamato’s pale face. He backed away slowly towards the doorway with the frustrated expression of an ambushed warrior. “Geh! I’ll just have to…jump off the roof!!”

As he began a complicated-looking flying leap, Genji grabbed hold of his collar and tugged sharply, causing him to fall backwards. He hit the ground with a painful ‘crack’, and both Michiko and Aiko winced simultaneously. Genji merely stepped over the crumpled form of Yamato with an engaging smile. “Hopefully we didn’t disturb your lunch. I’ll have to apologize for him too, I’m afraid. Tsujimoto isn’t really allergic to women, he’s just shy.”

“What do you mean by that?!” Yamato leapt to his feet and cuffed Genji roughly.

“Oh? What amazing powers of recuperation.”

“You…! Just wait! Meet me online and I’ll thrash you!!!”

“Online?”

Michiko’s sudden interruption caused Yamato to freeze up. Genji unhooked his stiff hand from his collar and nodded. “That’s right. We are both playing the same online game at the moment. I believe it’s called…Ancient Blade?”

“No way?!” Aiko gasped in surprise. “So you play online games as well?”

Genji laughed. “Why? Do I look like the type of person who doesn’t play online games?” he asked, with an amused glint in his eyes.

“Ye-! Uhm, I mean…well…hey! Mi-chan!!” She grabbed Michiko and pulled her close, until they were staring at each other face-to-face. “You never told me that this game is so cool!”

“Ara…” Michiko smiled hesitantly. “It’s because I’m a beginner, you see. I can’t really tell if the game is worth playing until the ‘new’ feeling has worn off.”

“I think it is,” said Genji, as he sat near them and opened his lunchbox. “And I should know, since I’ve been playing it for quite some time. Do you mind if I…?” his voice trailed off and he held up his chopsticks questioningly. When Michiko and Aiko shook their heads, he nodded. “Then I’ll begin. Itadakimasu.”

“I see…” said Aiko, flopping down next to Michiko. “If that’s the case, then maybe I should try it out as well.”

“Ehh?” Michiko paused. She had been examining her dropped eggroll to see if it was still edible. “But you don’t like games like this!”

“Well…” Aiko rubbed the back of her neck and grinned. “I haven’t really tried, so I can’t say I don’t like it, right? H-hey! Mi-chan!!?”

“Mmph?” Michiko had popped the eggroll into her mouth, deciding that it looked clean enough to be eaten.

“Don’t do that! It’s dirty!!”

“I do this all the time.”

“No. Way.” Aiko drew back in shock. “What kind of iron stomach do you have?!”

“Can’t be too picky about food,” replied Michiko, poking at another eggroll with her chopsticks.

“This is not about being picky! This is about being hygienic!!”

Genji choked, prompting Aiko to thump him on the back several times. “Thanks,” he said, wiping his eyes. “You must have been friends for a long time.”

Aiko and Michiko smiled. “Yeah. It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Mi-chan?”

“Yup.”

“Speaking of a while…” Genji glanced up at Yamato, who was still frozen in a strange pose. “How long do you intend to stand there, Tsujimoto?”

Yamato didn’t reply, though it wasn’t clear if he didn’t want to, or simply couldn’t.

“Hm. If you can’t even come close to your own classmates, then you have absolutely no chance of approaching the dark assassin again.”

Yamato gritted his teeth and threw himself down. “Fine! Then I’ll show you! I’ll show you that I have no problem associating with-” he broke off mid-sentence and paled. His eyes wandered slowly towards Michiko, but he turned away quickly.

“That’s better,” said Genji with a smile. “Isn’t it nice to eat together with everyone?”

Michiko was silent for a while, and seemed oddly focused on rearranging the food in her lunch box. Aiko watched her for a few moments before nudging her. “Do you have a stomachache, Mi-chan?”

“N-no. Uhm…Kanzaki-san?”

“Yes?”

“This dark assassin…do you know him?”

“I suppose you could say I do. I’m not surprised that you’ve heard of him, since he is the top player of Ancient Blade.”

Aiko looked up at the mention of the game. “Hey, tell me more about this ‘Ancient Blade’!”

“Well,” Genji placed his lunchbox on the floor and crossed his arms. “It’s one of the best online games around, in my opinion. It’s very different from the usual grinding online games that we have, where you have to train for hours on monsters, but it’s also different from the fighting games that we have, where players fight with each other for titles or rewards.”

Aiko was clearly confused. “Could you rephrase that?”

Michiko laughed. “Ai-chan, you’ve always stayed away from these games, haven’t you?” She laid her lunchbox down as well and folded her hands in her lap. “I guess you could say that this game is very unique. It has very real character development, and you join as a warrior, a support character, or even a normal citizen. The game is like a real-time simulation of a medieval Japanese community, except that it involves quite a bit of fighting.”

Genji nodded in assent. “Unlike other games, where the occupation and role is already laid out, in this game you are allowed to choose your own character development, such as a ninja or an official. If you want to become a samurai, for example, you have to place yourself under the tutelage of a reliable master, and after that you can choose to serve the emperor, or you can join a faction, or you can travel as a lone warrior. You can even choose to have your own students, or to leave your job and start a family, and if you are skilled enough, you can have a following. I…can’t really describe it, since it is so different for each person,” he said, ending with an apologetic smile.

A sound from Yamato’s direction caused them all to turn towards him. “Did you say something, Tsujimoto?” asked Genji.

Yamato swallowed and turned away. “I said, ‘Why don’t you try it out yourself?’!”

“That’s a great idea!” said Aiko, slapping him hard on his back. He immediately began to cough violently, and was still writhing on the floor when Genji stood up to leave.

“I’ll be heading back now. I hope we can do this again sometime,” he said, smiling at the other two.

“Yes, definitely!” replied Aiko happily. “Also, if it isn’t too much trouble, do you think you could show me this game we were talking about?”

“I will. Why don’t you meet me after school? You’ll come as well, Inoue-san?” He threw her a questioning glance.

“I think I can make it,” said Michiko in a preoccupied voice. Her fear of heights was back at the front of her mind, and she had been trying to keep her eyes off the edge of the roof.

Genji reached for Yamato and pulled him to his feet before walking off with a wave. Yamato followed with a grumpy face, annoyed at having been induced into eating with them.

As the door closed behind them, Aiko grabbed hold of Michiko with a reproachful look. “Mi-chan, how could you? If you had said no then it would have been a date between us, right? Mi-chan? Mi-chan?!”

“I-…I think it might be a date after all, Ai-chan,” said Michiko. She thrust her lunchbox into Aiko’s hands and rushed off at top speed, covering her mouth with her hands. Aiko slapped her forehead. “This is bad! Wait, what am I saying? This is good! Uwaa! No! No! Mi-chan’s sickness is not good at all! Wait up, Mi-chan!!”