A Headphone Actor

by Jin (Shizen no Teki-P)

  “What’s up, Takane?”

  “I dunno…There’re these weird guys down the hall. You think we should call for a teacher or something?”

  “Weird guys? Here, lemme take a look.”

  Haruka stuck his head out the door above mine and peered down the hall.

  “You see? Really weird, huh? That’s definitely not the sort of thing you wear to a school festival…”

  “Well, who knows? Maybe that’s just the new fashion or whatever. The military look, you know?”

  Hearing Haruka use the word “fashion” threw me for a loop. Does he…actually know about that sort of thing? Like, a lot more than I thought?

  Maybe these people I was repeatedly describing as “weird” were simply up on the latest trends…Would that mean I was the one being weird after all, with my so-last-year teenage look?

  “Yeah, uh, I guess you do see that a lot lately. Must be getting pretty popular. Did it start in…uh, Tokyo or something?”

  I had no choice but to play along and compliment the drill sergeants down the hall. I didn’t want anyone, particularly Haruka, to think I didn’t care about looking good.

  “Oh, it is popular, huh? I have no idea about any of that stuff, so…Guess I should’ve known you would, Takane!”

  Haruka’s guileless smile stung me inside. Thinking about it, someone willing to strip half-naked in class would have no business talking about fashion at all.

  Yet again, my ego had been kind enough to shovel my grave for me. “Yeah, thanks,” I replied, which only served to further guilt my conscience.

  “Um…would it be all right if I asked you a question, perhaps?”

  “Huh?”

  Looking upward at the sudden request, I was greeted by the platoon from before, now standing at attention right in front of us.

  They had gotten worryingly close while I was distracted by my inane exchange with Haruka.

  “Waugh! Y-yes! What is it?”

  Up close, the group was terrifyingly intimidating.

  Dressed beyond inappropriately for a high school, they had somehow multiplied since I first spotted them, now a full squadron of six.

  Haruka noticed the same time I did. He yelped, reared back, and tried his best to hide behind my back to avoid them. Pathetic bastard.

  “I apologize for surprising the two of you. You see, we’re searching for this one display…We heard there was a certain booth in this festival holding a shooting-gallery competition.”

  “Uh, huh…Huh?! Oh, uh, I think you’re looking for us, but…”

  I was surprised at first by how breathlessly polite this group of young men was, then surprised a second time by the fact they were looking for our booth.

  The men began to murmur among themselves, as if taken aback themselves.

  “Ohh, this is it, huh? B-by the way, who would our opponent be…?”

  The moment they realized they had the right place, the men began to eagerly question me, as if they were about to challenge their commanding officer to close-quarters combat.

  “Um? That…that would be me, but…?”

  I peeked my head out the doorway just a small distance, trying to keep a safe zone between myself and this bizarre army.

  The moment I replied, the group cried out joyously in unison.

  The man in front speaking with me even began to sob uncontrollably. What’s this reaction all about…? I was starting to have a very bad feeling about this…

  “P-pardon us, ma’am…! So, so you must be Dancing Flash Ene, then…? It’s such an honor to meet you in person—”

  That was all I needed to hear. I slammed the door in their faces.

  I knew it. They were fans of mine from the world of online gaming.

  I should have realized it the moment I spotted their stupid uniforms.

  They were dressed that exact way the last time I saw them, at one tournament or another.

  If I was just a little quicker on the uptake, I could have hidden both my identity and our booth. And none of this would be happening! I am so damn stupid!

  But how did they know…? Ah, that much was simple, at least. That eternally pissed-looking guy I played with this morning had to have posted something like “Dancing Flash Ene is running a shooting game! Any gamers nearby, check it out and send pix!”

  That was the only way I could imagine word getting out. I knew I should have been a lot more firm with him when I still had the chance.

  “T-Takane…who were those guys…?”

  “Huh? Oh, nobody! They’re already gone!”

  I smiled through my rapidly beading sweat as Haruka gave me a worried look. Immediately afterward, there was a heavy knock on the door behind me.

  “Please! We just want to have a single match with you!” they mewled through the door. “Please! Whatever it takes!”

  Who was the idiot who suggested the shooting gallery in the first place? Oh, right, it was me. If I had known this would happen, running a maid café would’ve been a thousand times better.

  The commotion on the other side of the door grew louder. Judging by the voices, the squadron had grown into a full company of would-be soldiers gathering here after word got around.

  “…Let’s get it over with.”

  With a final oath to myself, I opened the door to find the warriors now numbering a dozen or so. The moment I appeared, a wave of elated cheering erupted across the hall.

  I flung the door wide open. “All right!” I shouted. “I’m Ene, and I’ll take all of you on one by one! Who wants to die first?!”

  “Ene…So cool…” muttered one buck private in stark admiration. The stream of tears indicated to me, once and for all, that the years of my youth were over.

  …Two hours or so passed.

  The classroom was filled to the brim with onlookers, the crowd spilling out well into the hallway.

  Right then, I was in the midst of creating a “New Legend of the Dancing Flash” with the several dozen people I had taken on. The tears, and my sense of humiliation, had all but dried up.

  “…She won again! That’s forty-five in a row!!”

  After what seemed like the eight-hundredth round of cheers and applause, my challenger complimented me and took his leave, weeping in joy at the opportunity to play against me.

  The pool of challengers consisted of nothing but gamers now, the general public left to quizzically stare at the events from afar. It was a strange sight, a distinctly non-school-festival-like one.

  “You still doing okay, Ene?! We’re closing up in ten minutes, so hang in there!”

  Haruka, crouched down to my right, had started calling me “Ene” somewhere along the line, cheering me on like a boxer’s corner man.

  “Yeah…it’ll be over…Though it’s been over for me for a while now…heh-heh…”

  I leaned back in my chair, babbling incoherently. I couldn’t guess what kind of rumors would start going around school tomorrow.

  Maybe I should just write “Ene” on a nameplate, hang it around my neck, and prance around the school grounds all day.

  As I lost myself in dread and idle self-pity, a new challenger sat down next to me.

  All the opponents up to now were big, burly (or just plain obese) men, but this time I was taking on a boy in a red jersey, about the same height as the teenage pair who visited this morning.

  I was visibly bewildered. Haruka patted my shoulder from the side.

  “Ene…I’m sorry to interrupt you while you’re in the groove, but we better give out our prize before we have to close. Would you mind much if you let this kid beat you…?”

  Haruka seemed honestly reluctant to broach the topic. How long was he going to have the wrong idea like this? I’m not “in the groove.” Nothing even close to that.

  But, timewise, it might be a good idea to throw a match sooner than later.

  Losing to a boy would be something of a blow to my pride, yes, but this wasn’t really a competition—it was more of a service to our vis
itors.

  And it sure beats having to lose against anyone in this gaggle of gamers…

  If I wanted this event to end successfully, now was no time to try to show off. This was the final opponent, besides. I decided to paint a smile on my face for the first time in hours.

  “Okay, you’re the next opponent, right? Great to meet you! Do you know the rules, or do you need a quick rundown?”

  I somehow managed to drum up my “cutesy big sister” voice for him. Who knows if this experience might affect this kid’s taste in girls, after all. —I am such an evil woman.

  “…You know, maybe you think you’re good, being number-two in the country and all, but you don’t look that tough to me at all. Your moves are so predictable, and you’re getting sloppy, too. It’s getting me pissed just watching you.”

  The kid in the jersey didn’t even look at me as he spoke. It was the exact opposite of what I imagined.

  “Huh…? Uh, I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you quite right…”

  I had to have misheard him. How could a cute little kid like this be so harsh with me?

  “I said, you suck. Can we get started already? You can set the difficulty to whatever you want.”

  —Something inside of my head cracked. There was no mistaking it the second time. He said that I “sucked.”

  This snot-nosed kid was bashing my play. The gameplay that earned me worship and adulation as the Dancing Flash.

  “Uh…you think I suck, huh? So you think you can beat me, oh?”

  “Sure do. In fact, I’m guaranteed to win. You suck, remember?”

  My temper was wearing thin. The blood in my face burned so hot, I was afraid it would burst out of my arteries.

  But my opponent was younger than me. There was no point throwing a tantrum over him.

  It’s nothing that really matters. Just beat him, and everything will be fine. Kids like these are all bark and no bite. Someone needs to teach him that the only thing that really matters in this world is the win/loss column.

  “Oh, reeeeeally…? I see, I see…! In that case, how about we play a match at the highest difficulty? And just to inform you, I am not!!…going to lose.”

  The controller in my hand was groaning and straining from the strength of my iron grip.

  “Wait a sec, Takane,” Haruka whispered to me. “You have to lose this, remember?” But I was in no mind to pay attention to him any longer.

  —I was staking my pride in this fight.

  Right here, right now, the only way to keep my pride intact was to take this kid and his stupid red jersey and tear him limb from limb.

  “Fine by me. If you beat me, I’ll do whatever you want me to. But what if you lose?”

  For the first time, the boy looked me in the face. His eyes were sharp and a bit melancholy somehow. They seemed to see right through whatever they perceived, such was the frigid aura they presented.

  “I-I’ll do anything you say! Anything! I’ll become your servant and call you ‘master’ and everything! But I’m not gonna lose!”

  “Yeah? Man, you are so lame. Let’s do this.”

  With that, the boy turned back toward his monitor.

  I was agitated, to the point that I knew without checking a mirror that my face was bright red.

  I’m gonna beat the crap out of him…! No matter what it takes, he’s going down!

  Taking a deep breath, I selected the “Extra” difficulty and pressed the “Start” button.

  “I’ll make you regret…treating me like an idiot…”

  The duel had begun. The screen began to swarm with monsters.

  In the end, I managed to smash my previous top score for the day. My performance was terrific, something I could physically feel, and my sense of focus allowed me to put every ounce of strength I had into the match.

  But on the results screen, the word LOSE was printed in blue over my name.

  The boy, meanwhile, was marveling at the WIN in gold letters on his screen…as well as the word PERFECT!! in bright red below it.

  “You’re…kidding me…?”

  “Forget about the promise,” the boy said as I struggled to grasp the reality of it all. “You’d just get in the way, anyway.” And then he left the classroom.

  Haruka, flustered, stood up to fetch the fish specimen prize.

  “Uh…I gotta go give him this! Ene, that was awesome, right up to the end! Great work today!”

  I was unable to offer Haruka so much as a single eye blink.

  The debating was already under way around me. “Ahh, she let him win!” “But that was her high score for the day, right? Which means that Ene actually lost?!” But it didn’t matter to me.

  —I was mortified. It was the only emotion I could feel, as I found myself unable to put the controller down.

  “Um…listen, I apologize that my friend was so rude to you…”

  I was suddenly approached by a girl with midlength black hair.

  Today wasn’t particularly cold at all, but she had on a red scarf for some reason, making her seem weirdly fragile.

  “…You’re friends with that kid?”

  I placed the controller on the desk. “…More or less,” the girl in the scarf replied sheepishly.

  Which meant that guy in the jersey, with all that talent, even brought a girl along with him to the school festival?! I could feel pyres of rage about to erupt within me, but the girl’s honest, apologetic face quelled the flames.

  “Huh…Well, it’s all right. He was really good. That was the most fun I’ve had in a while. But he should really watch that attitude a bit more! ’Cause he’s gonna have problems if he doesn’t.”

  I snorted haughtily as I spoke. The girl smiled bitterly and sighed.

  “I…I guess you’re right, yeah. He kind of has a tough time interacting with people, and he’s got kind of an ego, too, so…I’ll talk to him about it later. Again, sorry about that…”

  “No, no, you don’t have to apologize…I mean, at that age, we all go through a lot of different stuff, so…just talk it over with him, okay?”

  “Certainly. But, oh, he’s gone and left me behind in here! I’m sorry, I need to get going. We have to go meet my father in a little while, so…”

  The girl bowed her head, then ran out of the room in a hurry.

  With our sole prize gone, the crowd slowly began to disperse. Even my fans left the room with undue haste, as if berating me for taking the act too far in the end.

  As I watched this take place in my seat, the school clock rang four p.m., the end of the school festival.

  The speaker in the hallway squawked to life: “Ladies and gentlemen, the exhibition hours have ended. All classes, follow your planning committee’s instructions and begin the tear-down process.”

  The announcement caused my entire body to be suddenly racked with fatigue. From the moment I arrived until right now, I felt awash in a torrent of unexpected and/or unwelcome events. It was utter chaos on more than one occasion, but now that it was all over…I guess it might have actually been pretty fun.

  Now if people can be nice enough to gradually forget about the whole “Ene” thing without word getting spread any farther than it already has…

  I pondered over this as I waited for Haruka to return.

  I had to hand it to him today. He really outdid himself, helping out around the booth.

  Maybe I could treat him to something on the way home…Wait, no. Treating him with my puny allowance would make my savings disappear in five minutes. We could split the tab evenly…No, let’s just buy our own stuff instead. That works.

  Oh, wait, he probably still has a lot of money left over from Mr. Tateyama anyway.

  Better make sure we use it all before he inevitably turns up and asks for a refund.

  I put my head down on the table, playing around with the controller in my hand as I waited a quarter hour or so.

  …Haruka didn’t come back.

  He just went out to give the kid his prize. Th
is was taking way too long.

  Where on earth could he be, taking all this time?

  The click-click-click of the second hand on the classroom clock was the only sound I could hear. After the exhibition ended, all the classes needed to clean their homerooms and head home by five p.m.

  We were no exception to this, but it’d take quite a while for just the two of us to get everything squared away.

  “…That bastard isn’t trying to skip out on the work, is he?”

  —No, that seemed extremely unlikely for someone like him. He knew that I’d punch him out once I tracked him down, and besides, he was way too straight-and-narrow to pull something like that.

  But if not, then it was unnatural for him to be gone for this long.

  I thought over what might be taking up so much time when a worrisome concept crossed my mind.

  Could it be that he had one of his attacks while running around, trying to catch up with the kid?

  I knew from before that Haruka’s illness was life-threatening.

  But what with his personality and the way he acted, it sure didn’t seem that way. I’ve never given even a second thought about it.

  Still, think about it. He’s been working day and night on this stuff for the past while, was on his feet all day today with me, and now he’s running around like a chicken with its head cut off outside.

  The more I thought it over, the larger my sense of dread ballooned. My heartbeat quickly began to accelerate.

  I shot up off my chair, accidentally knocking it over in the process. It clattered to the floor with a loud, echoing bang.

  But I wasn’t concerned about that any longer.

  For all I knew, Haruka may be collapsed on the ground somewhere right now.

  He might be in pain, struggling, someplace where nobody would notice him in time.

  The thought made it impossible for me to just sit there.

  I really should have realized it sooner. He was a weak guy. Very weak.

  But I never paid him any concern whatsoever. I forced him to go through all of this hard work.

  “Haruka…!”

  I headed for the door and whisked it open…and as I flew out of the room, my body slammed against the person standing in front of me.

  “Aghh!”