Chapter Fourteen #6
In the game, maybe she was only interested in dungeons because that was the only way Seth could think of to get her closer to the player.
Or maybe there were some weird programming limitations since every other character in the romance system was a companion who could join the party.
Or, maybe Stella was just the kind of girl who was desperate to have someone who liked her, so she was willing to go to the dungeon so that she didn’t have to stay single.
It was time for me to turn the tables on her.
“You know, if you say something like that,” I said. “It’s going to make me imagine you waiting for me at home every day after the dungeons. Especially while wearing some cute apron.”
Stella started reddening up. “I—I wouldn’t look cute in—”
“You would look incredible in an apron.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table and my chin on my hands as I looked straight into her eyes.
“And each day I get home, I’d make sure to take you into my arms and kiss you.
Every. Single. Day.” I knew that a daily hug and kiss shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it definitely was in a world like this.
I knew that it was going to fluster Stella even more to say that.
What I didn’t know was that it was going to make her cry.
“Wa-wait,” I said. “Hey, are you alright? I didn’t mean to make you—”
Stella sniffled and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.
“I’m sorry, it’s just—I… I never thought I’d hear a guy say anything like that, aha…
I—I guess my confidence is even more shot than I realized after all those years with that asshole.
Fetishizing my fat is one thing—it’s something that made me think, ‘Maybe if I can’t get a guy who appreciates me, I can at least get a guy who isn’t disgusted by my body.
’ But… you’re talking to me, listening to me, telling me I’d be cute, supporting my crazy fantasy…
asking me if I’m alright. It’s not fair.
And that’s not even bringing up how incredible you were with that girl yesterday.
I felt like I was watching a holy saint in action.
How could I ever make a guy like that feel as special as he makes me feel? ”
“That’s easy. You can spam my phone with any random thoughts you have or memes you find throughout the day.
You can smile and purr whenever I pet your head, and act like you’re addicted to me petting you.
You can smile whenever you see me and give me the biggest, tightest hug you can each time.
And… yeah, that’s all. Do that and I’ll feel insanely spoiled. ”
Stella sniffled while chuckling some more, smiling with the crying. “That’s all selfish stuff that’ll make me happier. It’s not fair.”
“I guess that’s a good sign for compatibility. The things you want to do to be selfish just so happen to be the things that would make me happy and feel special.”
“Would you still be saying all of this if I wasn’t so fat?”
“One, you’re not fat, you’re pretty with an incredible body. Two, I love all boobs. Whether they’re flat like the plains or grand like the mountains, I love every size. There is no such thing as boobs that are too small nor too big as far as I’m concerned.”
“I can’t believe a boobs fetishist actually exists. It’s like you’re some crazy unrealistic fantasy guy written by a female author who doesn’t know how men work.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but nobody wrote me. As far as I know, anyways. If anyone did write me, then I’m going to sue them for my childhood.”
Stella’s ears did a little twitch and that smile of hers started to fade. “Rough childhood?”
“You could say that, but let’s save that for another time.” To distract her, I pulled out my new phone and asked, “You know any good games?”
“Uh… if you’re into gacha games, I can totally hook you up with some great ones.”
“Hey, the gacha games in this world… do you collect guys or girls in them?”
“Girls, obviously.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’d be weird to collect guys, wouldn’t it? The whole appeal is to play as a guy who collects a harem and to self-insert into the girls you pull for. It’s like with every single roll, you get to free another girl from the worst fate: being single.”
It was a completely different way of viewing gacha games that obviously pandered to men, but it was a pretty cute way of looking at it that I wasn’t going to complain about.
There were a lot of things I wasn’t going to complain about in this world.
Stella ended up installing a few different games onto my phone.
All gacha games, of course, because those were inescapable.
One of them was about schoolgirls with guns, the other was some modern-fantasy tower defense game, and the last one was about a small group riding a bus in a city full of eldritch horrors and other abominations.
According to Stella, the first one had the cutest girls, the second one had the best gameplay, and the third one had the best story.
But she assured me that the girls in each one were cute and worth pulling for.
I wasn’t sure when exactly I would have time to actually play these games, but Stella was looking forward to me texting her about how I enjoyed them, so I had to make time for them at some point.
And with that, our date came to an end.
The sun had fully set, and the city was illuminated by streetlights and fairy lights. The modern kind of fairy lights, not the fantasy kind of lights made by fairies. It had an extremely cozy look.
“It’s nice out at this time of day,” I said. “It’s cool and not so loud, but I think the lights could be a little less bright.”
“Totes,” Stella said. “This is my favorite time. It’s like the whole city starts getting sleepy which has this mega cozy vibe. Makes me want to get into pajamas, curl up by the window on my bed, and watch my favorite streamers.”
“Who’s your favorite streamer? I’ll check them out now that I’ve got a phone.”
“That’s a tough one. Probably… oh, no, it’s definitely gotta be Bulia, the Dragon of Blackest Nights. Yep, totes.”
“That’s a pretty crazy title for a streamer.”
“It’s her whole gimmick. She’s a girl who streams with a male avatar that looks like this super edgy dragon guy someone designed in middle school, and she does her best to act cool and smooth all the time, but then she makes the silliest mistakes and gets all embarrassed and starts yelling at the chat not to clip her.
I swear, she makes me laugh for like, ten minutes straight sometimes. She totally made me pee myself before.”
So, vtubers were still a thing, but they were girls pretending to be guys instead of the other way around. I should have expected that. “Maybe I’ll make a donation to her stream and have her read a love letter to you out loud in front of everyone.”
“On one hand, I want to say, don’t you dare. On the other hand, it would totes send her into a thirty-minute rant about normies showing off in front of her, and that would be hilarious. But also, don’t you dare.”
“We’ll see.”
“I—”