Chapter 378: Red Pill or Blue Pill?
In the middle of the game.
"Damn it, why is this guy flaming me?"
Fujiwara Chika pointed at the black-and-white computer screen, where lines of chat messages kept popping up in the bottom left corner.
Sakurai Saki, holding a manga he'd borrowed from the shelf, flipped through it silently.
He was dead too.
In this match, he and Chika were on the same duo lane.
Everyone knew — sometimes, no matter how skilled you were, you just couldn't carry your teammates.
Especially when you were playing a fragile marksman with zero survivability.
If it had just stopped there, fine.
But no — their team also had a guy who was both bad and loud, blaming everyone else whenever anything went wrong.
Sakurai Saki honestly no longer felt like carrying the match.
"All you have to do is type 'I'm a girl,' and he'll stop flaming you right away."
There wasn't even the slightest hint of a dating mood.
Today felt no different from hanging out and gaming with a friend — that's what Sakurai Saki thought.
"Alright then." Fujiwara Chika started typing.
A dozen seconds later.
"He said I'm bad and just making excuses."
Fujiwara Chika let go of the mouse and keyboard, flopping back onto the bed.
Indeed, this net cafe had a bed that was fairly wide — though it would be a bit cramped for two people.
"So annoying."
Fujiwara Chika looked at Sakurai Saki's calm expression and grumbled, "Saki-kun, aren't you mad? He's flaming us, you know!"
"No, you've got it wrong. He's flaming you."
Sakurai Saki put down the manga, glancing at Chika lying lazily beside him — and at the pair of "mountains" on her chest that seemed enough to rewrite Newton's laws of gravity.
If, back then, Newton had been hit not by an apple but by a woman's breasts, then "universal gravitation" would've been replaced by "universal boob-attraction."
Shaking off those stray thoughts, he turned to look at the screen.
Instinct kicked in — time to move.
The Nexus was about to be destroyed.
"But didn't you just say that the overall strength of the duo lane depends on the average skill of both players?"
"Chika, have you ever heard of the 'water barrel theory'?"
The moment Sakurai Saki finished speaking, Fujiwara Chika immediately sat up straight from the bed, glaring at him.
Alright, it seemed she got it.
(Note: I don't get it.)
"But really, this match has nothing to do with our bot lane anyway."
Sakurai Saki glanced at the bottom left of the screen where the insults were getting worse, his brows furrowing slightly.
Normally, he wouldn't bother arguing with random people online.
Unless they truly pissed him off.
"Chika, have you ever watched The Matrix?"
While speaking, Sakurai Saki reached into his pocket and took out two pills.
One red, one blue.
"Of course!!!" Fujiwara Chika was instantly captivated.
Of course she'd seen it.
The blue pill represented continuing to live inside the illusion, while the red pill represented awakening to the truth and returning to reality.
The protagonist had chosen the red pill without hesitation.
"What do these do? Can they let us enter a virtual game world?" Fujiwara Chika looked excited — she was always into VR-type stuff.
"No."
"Then what do they do?"
"The red pill can make you feel good for a day."
"And the blue one makes people feel bad for a day, right?" Fujiwara Chika guessed.
Sakurai Saki looked toward the bottom left of the screen, where filthy insults were still appearing like machine-gun fire, and said calmly, "No, it lets me slap that idiot on the other side of the screen."
...
Inside a dark room.
A tired-looking young man sat cross-legged, hammering on his keyboard furiously.
Watching his teammates struggle to defend the Nexus on-screen, the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.
Heh, as if you losers could win without me.
So what if I quit mid-game? Not only will I AFK, but I'll also spam until you're all pissed off.
"Feels great. Mad yet? Haha, you're mad but you can't touch me!"
Online, as long as you don't break the law, there are no consequences.
After all, it's anonymous — just a cable between us. Who can hit me through that?
The young man was typing when suddenly, in front of him... a hand appeared.
He rubbed his eyes, the red veins from sleepless nights making his disbelief even clearer.
'Am I hallucinating from staying up too late?'
The next second.
"SMACK!!"
A loud slap landed straight on his face!
Before he could even react, another "SMACK!!" followed right after!
"MotherF!! I've met a damn ghost!!!"
He sprang up from the chair, rolling backward in a panic.
His movement was so frantic that he even yanked the power cord right out of the socket.
...
[A teammate has left the game]
How refreshing.
The Internet is not a lawless place.
Sakurai Saki withdrew his hand, looking at the notification on the screen, feeling as though his very soul had been enlightened.
If this were a cultivation novel, he probably would have just "attained enlightenment."
"It… it really worked!!" Fujiwara Chika had only seen Sakurai Saki wave his hand a few times in the air, and then the teammate on the other side just quit the game!
"Of course it did."
Sakurai Saki had thought this trash ability was useless, but who would've guessed some idiot would walk right into his trap.
"...What a shame, though, the other two teammates were actually pretty nice."
Though their "niceness" was a bit peculiar… they were busy cursing out the toxic guy instead.
The online world truly was mysterious.
"It's fine, we can still win."
Sakurai Saki straightened up, grabbing his mouse and keyboard.
The thing that pisses off blame-happy players the most is when they leave a match — and the team still wins.
Besides the fact that quitting mid-game means no ranking points, the more important thing is to make him understand one truth: the win or loss has nothing to do with you.
...
Since playing MOBA games could easily raise one's blood pressure, the two quickly switched to another game.
They moved to a co-op game for couples, and the atmosphere instantly became cheerful — the two of them played all the way until afternoon.
However, this wasn't quite what Fujiwara Chika had hoped for.
'The game is fun and all, but why is Saki-kun only focused on playing?'
Compared to gaming, Chika wanted to get a lot more intimate with Sakurai Saki.
Her current mood could be summed up like this: she wanted to be "controlled" by him, wanted to be "played with" by him — just like in the game.
Unexpectedly, right when Chika was thinking of how to get Saki-kun interested in her, his phone rang.
"Umu… got it."
After chatting for a bit, Sakurai Saki glanced at the bottom-right corner of the computer screen. "Yes, I'm in Shinjuku. No need for Mashiro-san to come pick me up."
A few minutes later, he put the phone down.
"Something important?" Fujiwara Chika noticed his expression looked rather serious.
"Nothing much. I'm just going to audition for the male lead in a movie."
Sakurai Saki answered calmly.
"Oh, I see…" Fujiwara Chika thought for a moment, then suddenly reacted: "Wait, did I hear that right?! The male lead in a movie?!!"
( ˶°ㅁ°) !!
Since when did Saki-kun join a talent agency?!
No! That can't happen!
If Saki-kun really became a famous star, he'd soon become the dream lover of countless girls…
At that point, he wouldn't just be "Shuchiin's shared boyfriend" anymore — he'd become "Japan's national boyfriend"!
If that really happened, then wouldn't she and Ai-chan be facing millions of girls "trying to give them a green hat"?!
Just like when Kimura Takuya married Kudo Shizuka!
Fujiwara Chika's imagination always ran wild, and she was already picturing the scene a few years later.
"Right, do you want to come with me?"
It wouldn't hurt to bring someone along to watch.
"I want to!!" Fujiwara Chika immediately made up her mind.
This time, she would definitely stop him from passing the audition! — No matter what it takes!
...