Chapter 5

You and Satou walked to the nearest noodle shop and ordered two specialty ramen bowls. This isn’t a date, you told yourself. This is just a friendly lunch between two classmates. Nothing more. Someone should tell Satou that, though. You could practically see hearts in her eyes as she looked at you.

God help me, you prayed as you pulled your Perrier bottle out of your bag and took several swallows.

“Let’s play a game,” you suggested as you waited for the waiter to bring out your noodles.

“Spin the bottle?” She asked hopefully, eyeing the bottle in your hand. You quickly put it away. Underage drinking could get you in trouble.

“No. Twenty questions.” She pouted but nodded her assent. “What’s your favorite game genre? Fighting games, murder mystery games, racing games, or-“

“Dating games, hands down! I love character-driven games about interpersonal relationships.” Satou crowed before crossing her arms on the table and leaning in close. You leaned back to maintain the distance between you. Distance was a safety net for you. “Now it’s my turn! Why don’t you like me? Everyone likes me! Except you, it seems.”

Because I wasn’t programmed to like you, you thought with a scowl. But you didn’t know that quite yet. “You remind me of someone I’d rather forget. What do you think of the simulation hypothesis?”

“What’s that?” Technically that was a question, but you would overlook it.

“Basically, do you think we live in a simulation?”

“Duh, of course we live in a simulation. Have you ever had your heart broken?”

You thought about the first time Minoru drugged you, the time you discovered the plush Hinata gave you had a camera in it, the time Kimiko gave you a lollipop with a razor blade in it, the first time Oshiro hit you.

“Yes,” you said through gritted teeth. “Have you ever heard of transmigration?”

“Yeah, who hasn’t?” Satou scoffed, then, “Wait, that’s not my question. Do I remind you of the person who broke your heart?”

“No.” You were heartbroken when you found Hiro’s head on your desk, but that wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t the one who broke your heart. It was the girls who did that. “Would you believe me if I told you I was Isekai’d into this world?” That was the big money question.

“You too? I mean, I guess I wasn’t technically Isekai’d, just transmigrated. This isn’t my original body. I designed this girl, Satou Wannabe, from head to toe in the character creator. But when I pressed play, suddenly I was in the game.”

“What game? What was the title?” You demanded, just in case she was just fucking with you.

“Academic Pursuits II!” She let out a little shriek and wiggled around in her chair in excitement, like how a puppy might suddenly bark and wag its tail. “I was so pumped for its release! I spent almost two hundred dollars on the dev team’s Patreon to get all the character details before launch.”

You were right. You were in the sequel to the original game, Academic Pursuits. That game didn’t exist in this world. “And you’re the main character?” You asked, feeling a little numb from your initial discovery.

“Hell yeah, baby!” Satou said before leaning back as far back as her chair allowed and gestured to herself. “Bow down before the queen!”

“So that makes me the tutorial girl,” you realized. This date sealed your fate. You were already dead.

“Psssh, no.” Surprisingly, she shook her head and waved you off. “I skipped the tutorial. Her older sister’s one of the capture targets and she’s way hotter.”

You could only guess that this game was like the previous, where the true nature of the game was revealed at the end of the tutorial. Which meant she didn’t know… “You don’t understand! This isn’t any regular dating sim. It’s-“

“A yandere dating sim. No, I know. Yanderes are kinda my kink. I played the original game religiously. I don’t expect the sequel to be any different. Except for adding more girls and allowing the player to create their own female character. In the original, you could only play as a girl if you unlocked the ability to play as Aina by getting the endings of all the girls.”

You couldn’t do much more than look at her in shock.

“I can’t believe they made Aina’s secret ending the canon ending! She was always my favorite. And now she’s one of the love interests!” She squealed, reaching across the table to grab both your hands. You jerked away as if her touch was electric.

Aina’s secret ending, she called it. The hell you’d been living for the last few months was Aina’s secret ending. That meant you’d been playing the game since the start. Were any of your choices really your own, or were they what the developer had planned for you?

You couldn’t afford to fall down that rabbit hole right now. There were more pressing matters. “If I’m one of the love interests, that means…”

“You’re supposed to be one of the yanderes. The possessive yandere, to be specific. Your subtypes are reverent, aware, manipulative, and lenient.”

“I’m not,” you told her firmly. Your numbness was starting to wear off, leaving behind only rage and sadness.

“You’re not one of the yanderes? My character sheet says differently,”

You stood up from your seat, slamming your hands on the table, making the silverware jingle. “I’m not Aina! My name is Y/N, and I transmigrated into this world at the beginning of Academic Pursuits! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” You screamed at her.

The owners of the establishment were throwing you dirty looks. You must look unstable, you realized with a crazed laugh. Then all your manic energy abruptly left you. You collapsed back into your chair and began to tear up.

You didn’t think Satou really understood just what you’d gone through, even though it was obvious she had played through “Aina’s secret ending,” but she still rushed to comfort you.

She reached out to pat your shoulder and made sympathetic noises. “Aw shucks, I’m sorry, dude… Please don’t cry,” she begged before admitting, “I don’t know how to take care of someone who’s crying.”

It took nearly fifteen minutes for you to calm back down. The waiter must have felt too awkward to throw you out. You were allowed to stay, but you ended up dripping into your ramen. Eventually, your eyes dried up and your sobs trailed off.

“Tell me everything you know about Academic Pursuits II,” you all but ordered.