Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes

Nobita trembled and didn't dare to speak.

"I've told you so many times, no games! No games! How many times do I have to tell you before you understand?! A thousand times? Or ten thousand times?!"

Nobi's father, his eyes filled with disappointment, bit down on Nobi, stood up, and, clutching the game console, walked step by step toward Nobi Tomoaki. His voice gradually rose, making Nobi's ears ring.

Nobita bit his lip, forcing himself not to turn and run away, his eyes fixed on the game console in his father's hand.

"I only do it occasionally."

Nobi's father laughed out loud, turned on the game console, and saw the save screen with the playtime clearly displayed: "You think you can fool me? The tricks you're using now are the ones I used back then!! You think I don't understand games?? It's games, pachinko, that ruined my life! Ruined everything!!"

Nobita lowered his head even further and didn't dare to say another word.

The father, panting heavily, suddenly asked.

What's wrong with your glasses?

"He fell."

"Ha, you idiot, is this how you idiot?!" Nobi's father's rage finally reached its peak. As he roared, he slammed the game console he was holding onto the floor.

Thud!

A piece of the game console flew off, bounced a few times on the ground, and the flickering screen was covered with numerous cracks.

That wasn't enough; he also picked up a baseball bat that he had prepared beforehand and smashed it hard against the game console.

"Let you play, I'll let you play!!"

One, two!

With each slam of the baseball bat, the game console, which had been barely intact, was reduced to scattered fragments.

Nobi Tomoyoshi stared blankly, his mouth agape. Each blow felt like a heavy pounding on his heart and a bombardment on his skull!

"The police called me first thing this morning, asking if I, Nobi Tomoyoshi, was home last night. What was I supposed to say? Tell them you secretly went out last night and did something?! Did you think you could leave without anyone noticing?"

"Is this the result of my tolerance?!"

"How much more trouble do you want to cause me before it's enough?!"

"I spent so much money to send you to Komagome Academy so you could take the college entrance exam! Not to learn how to have fun! If we're talking about having fun, I know it better than anyone else, why would I need you to go to school specifically to learn it?!"

Despite his father's roar, Nobi Tomoyo moved slowly and knelt before the shattered game console fragments. He remained silent, tears streaming down his face uncontrollably, dripping onto the tatami mat and broken parts.

"stand up."

Nobi didn't answer, continuing to gather the remaining fragments.

"stand up!"

The father roared and kicked away most of the collected fragments, sending the broken pieces crashing around him with a clattering sound.

Nobita lay prone, stretching out his body to pick up and grope for the items. His knees and palms, which were supporting him on the ground, were cut, and blood was smeared on the tatami mat, but he was completely unaware of it.

"You won't listen, huh? I'll show you—get up!!"

The father grabbed his son by the collar, lifted him up, and slammed him against the wall, staring intently at his son, whose glasses were askew and whose eyes were lifeless and tearful.

“This is the path I stumbled on. Your grandparents and your mother all tried to persuade me, hit me, and scolded me—but I just wouldn’t change. It wasn’t until they left that I finally woke up with great difficulty. Do you know how painful that process was? It was a thousand times, ten thousand times more painful than what you are experiencing now!”

"I'm doing this so you won't follow in my footsteps. Read books, read good books, and only then can you—"

"Enough!" Nobi Tomoyoshi interrupted loudly.

His eyes, which had been lifeless, were no longer there. He pushed his father away with his bloodstained hand.

Then he continued to lie on the ground, groped around for a while, found the cassette tape, and held it in his palm.

"Throw it away." Nobita's father picked up a baseball bat and pointed it at Nobita's hand.

Nobi clenched his fist tightly, suppressing his body's instinctive fear, and stared stubbornly at his father.

"I said, throw it away."

"I said I won't throw it away." Nobi took two steps forward and stared at him.

The father's face was terribly dark, his expression shifting, but in the end he picked up the baseball bat and swung it down.

Boom!

A loud bang, and an echo.

"Ho ho."

Nobi slowly lowered his blocking hand. He didn't feel any pain in his hand. His gaze shifted downwards, and he saw that the baseball bat had hit the kotatsu table, not his arm.

His father, breathing heavily, glared at him hatefully: "Do you really have to be a useless piece of trash to be satisfied?"

"You really want to spend your whole life playing with these precious things, being a NEET forever, and never being able to hold your head up high?!"

Nobita bit his lip until it bled, then roared back.

"My classmates can call me trash, my teachers can call me trash, anyone can call me trash, but you have no right to call me trash!"

"I know I'm not a genius, I've known that since elementary school! Studying is just this hard for me, even if you beat me to death, your son will never become the genius you want. I am your failed, worthless son, just like your failed life!!"

"Over the years, you've blamed games, gambling, and me, but you've never dared to blame yourself! Because you know you're the culprit, you've dragged everyone down with you! You've killed almost all your loved ones! You're afraid that once you come to your senses, you won't have the courage to live in this world anymore!! So you can only place all your dissatisfaction and hopes on me, but I can't handle it! I really can't handle it!!"

"Shut up!!!" the father roared, his eyes bloodshot.

"Your arrogance can only be used on me, because in other people's eyes, you are a complete loser, a jinx! They laugh at you and ridicule you without restraint!"

"If there is such a thing as retribution, perhaps my stupidity is the greatest retribution of your life!!"

"I told you to shut up!!"

Snapped--

The resounding slap landed heavily on Nobita's face. The force was so great that he seemed to see a flash of white light, as if he had seen the gates of heaven open for a moment, and he didn't even feel much pain.

"ho"

Filled with resentment and disappointment, Nobita glanced sideways at his father, who was lost in thought, picked up his glasses, which were barely intact, smashed open the door, and ran off in a certain direction without looking back.

Leave this home.

He left this place that didn't belong to him.

He ran wildly, the wind whipping his face, his adrenaline receding, and the burning, persistent pain returning. He could barely feel anything on the left side of his face except pain.

With his swollen face, he weaved through the strange looks of many people, running all the way to the vicinity of his and his friend's secret base—a construction site that had been suspended for a long time.

"Huff...cough cough cough vomit"

He had run too intensely, venting his emotions on the sprint, which caused him to cough and vomit due to the excessive intensity.

He retched for a while before he calmed down, wiped his mouth and eyes, and prepared to go to the construction site.

But a bottle of ice water was handed to him.

It was a girl who looked a little older than him. She wasn't particularly pretty, and she was wearing a convenience store uniform. In the twilight of the setting sun, she held a bottle of ice water and pointed to her face with a smile.

It roughly means to have him apply an ice pack.

"Th-thank you!" Nobita said, accepting the gift.

The girl waved, flashed a bright and cheerful smile, pointed to the convenience store next door, made a goodbye gesture to Nobi, and jogged back to the convenience store.

Nobita stood there stunned for a few seconds before picking up the ice water and applying it to his swollen face.

"hiss"

The sensation, both pleasurable and painful, made him grimace.

But the stranger's simple kindness made him feel that this pain was nothing.

He continued walking towards the construction site.

The construction site is adjacent to Zhongchuan Park, and in one of the fenced-off corners, there is a path that seems to lead nowhere.

But there is actually a relatively secluded corner inside, surrounded on three sides, and all that's needed is to put up a sheet of metal to keep out the wind and rain.

It was discovered by his friend who had transferred schools. Later, Nobi, who lived nearby, gradually built it up. When his friend came over, he would bring him here to play, but rarely took him inside. The two of them slowly and gradually took shape this secret base.

A sponge mattress I picked up and assembled into a bed, bottles I collected while playing a throwing game with friends, and comic books I found at a used bookstore.

Only here could he feel true freedom and ease, free from the oppressive feeling that made him feel suffocated.

He skillfully returned to the secret base, restored the abandoned appearance of the entrance, sat on the sponge cushion he had salvaged, applied ice water to his face, and pulled out a photograph cut in half from under the cushion. It showed a smiling woman.

"Mother."

Nobita's long-standing grievances turned into tears, which couldn't be held back from his eyes. He quickly put the photo away, afraid that it would be stained by his tears.

He cried for a long time, and before he knew it, he hugged the photo to his heart, lay down on the foam mat, the mat he was using as a pillow was wet, but he had already fallen asleep peacefully.

Boom boom!

The sudden roar of a cheap motorcycle startled Nobi awake, who had been asleep for who knows how long.

It was pitch black all around him. He felt parched and instinctively put the photos away carefully. He used his phone's light to find the bottle of mineral water, opened it, and drank half of it in one gulp.

"call"

He let out a long sigh, then stared blankly at the light on his phone.

12:30 minutes.

It's late at night.

What should he do next?

Should we go back to that home?

He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the cassette tape, on which his blood had already congealed into scabs.

"I'm so sorry, Fujimoto. I failed to protect your save file. Someone like me can never become a hero like in a game."

Nobita carefully wiped the cartridge clean with his clothes. On it, Link stood proudly atop a mountain, raising the Master Sword and pointing it at the terrifying monster that filled the sky with darkness.

Just then, a square suddenly appeared on his retina, a clarity he hadn't experienced in a long time.

The "unknown" has started a game; will you, who are qualified, enter?

【accept】

【reject】

Chapter 26: New Game Refresh

"Brother, brother, I've found out."

During the meal, Dongshan lowered his voice and kept looking around, even though he was at home, as if afraid that someone would hear them talking.

Higashiyama Shin casually replied, "Oh, what did you find out?"

"What happened at school! Inoue Yuka, the leader of the Seven Clan, is dead, and I heard that a total of seven or eight people have died! The police included detectives from the First Investigative Division, so this could very well be a murder—no, a massacre! Our school is harboring a serial killer who takes pleasure in killing, and the authorities and the school are using us as bait, completely disregarding our safety."

Dongshan Du's expression was exaggerated, with his hands outstretched.

"Wow." Higashiyama Shin complied.

Dongshan, heartbroken, concluded: "...They still went to class after all this, it's absolutely insane."

Sure enough, after all that talk, it all comes down to getting a holiday.

They weren't concerned about whether so many people had really died.

To put it more broadly, we just want to make the holiday system more reasonable.

"So, bro, let's ask for leave tomorrow! That's a serial killer, a super-ruthless and deranged murderer! I heard that Inoue's little 'kidney' was chopped into seven pieces, a full seven pieces!"

“That makes sense. I’ll buy you a pair of iron underwear.”

"Eh?!"

Dongshan stared wide-eyed, utterly incredulous.

"Remember to wash the dishes, and don't stay out too late." After finishing his meal, Dongshan Shen put down his chopsticks and prepared to go back to his room to read a book, waiting for eight o'clock to arrive.

Dongshan, having failed to obtain leave, sighed, "Oh well~"

When Higashiyama Shin returned to his room, the computer screen was on, displaying Tom and Jerry. Ueda Yoshi was huddled in a chair, watching intently, his mouth occasionally agape or letting out a snicker.

He showed this to Ueda so he wouldn't be bored.