My love game with them that will lead to certain death

After the guitarist said this, Goto Ichiri became fascinated with guitar.

"After learning the bass, you can hit someone on the head with it if you don't like him."

After the expressionless bassist said this, Ming Hai became interested in the bass - although the next second the scene cut back to the host who was forcing a smile and trying to make up for it.

Little Goto, who had been avoiding communication, gradually opened up to little Narumi because of their shared love of music. Although she had changed from running to her room on the second floor when she saw Narumi and then being dragged out by her mother, to hiding behind her mother, timidly showing half of her head and waving a finger at him.

As they got to know each other better, Goto Ichiri, who was extremely shy, would slowly start to see the boy's cute smile without any defense. They chatted more and more about music, and the two children in their early teens were getting closer to each other through the same interests.

"When I grow up, I will become someone as shining as that guitarist...!"

Little Goto, who always talked to himself while holding his doll, tried for the first time to express his thoughts to another living person.

"Okay. Then we can perform together."

Xiao Minghai also showed a sincere smile, and the two made an agreement to form a band together in the future.

But everything came to an abrupt end when the two of them went to different junior high schools and Ming Hai's family moved away.

One morning, with the help of a moving company, the Minghai family packed up all the daily necessities they needed to take away and disappeared quietly in the morning sun.

From then on, Ming Hai never saw Goto Ichiri again.

Five years passed in a flash, and the agreement between the two seemed to be forgotten in the corner of time. When they met again, they were on the same performance stage.

Goto Ichiri, who is still afraid of interacting with others, chooses to hide in a mango box and play the guitar. Ming Hai, who was standing in the audience and staring at her blankly, gradually comes to his senses.

When you meet your childhood friends again after a long separation, you should feel joy and surprise.

But Ming Hai, with his brows gradually furrowed, said nothing, turned around and picked up his bass.

The emotion lingering in my heart is unhappiness.

Although Goto Ichiri's performance was not perfect due to nervousness and other reasons, and there were some minor flaws, her overall grasp of the rhythm was just right, and the appropriate transitions and small adaptations made the performance even more surprising.

The more this happens, the more unhappy I become.

"Why should I feel unhappy...?"

Ming Hai was originally a person who was not sensitive to his own emotions, but at this moment he could clearly feel how strong the unhappiness that was lingering in his chest was.

[Although you are not such a person in real life, the emotional characteristics you randomly extract will certainly affect your thinking and actions in the simulation - otherwise how can it be called a "simulation"? ]

Sure enough, only at this time would the system respond to his questions.

"Is it because of that pink caterpillar that I feel unhappy?"

Even when he was performing on stage, Ming Hai was troubled by this problem.

Logically speaking, it is normal to feel unhappy.

I have lost contact with old friends who had agreed to form a band together for five years. During this period, neither of us forgot to improve our guitar and bass playing skills, but we all formed our own bands.

"What's there to be angry about? You didn't even wait until you met him again before you rushed to form a band with your friends."

Ming Hai criticized himself in his heart - more of an attempt to convince the "self" in this simulation.

But when he was playing the bass diligently along with his companion's music and looked at the audience who were not interested and even started to yawn, he suddenly realized.

He was angry not just about the agreement that the two had failed to keep.

There is also the fact that Goto Ichiri's current performance skills and stage appeal have surpassed his.

"..."

The curly-haired boy lowered his head and plucked the last chord of the song with his fingers.

So this is what it feels like when a mixture of jealousy and longing fills your chest.

Chapter 21: The Hum of Love

As his memories gradually awakened, Toru Narumi became more and more convinced that his "future" self was a very troublesome kid.

He has the most sincere and passionate love for rock music and has never slacked off in his practice. However, his mediocre qualifications always make him lag behind those geniuses who can master music instantly.

Even so, the boy would grit his teeth and stay up late to continue practicing. Even if it was twice as effective as the others, even if it took him nearly twice as long to catch up with the talented geniuses, he was still happy to do it.

It sounds like he is a good kid who is very competitive and hardworking, but his tense nerves not only make it difficult for him to concentrate on studying, but also leave a void that needs to be filled after he relaxes.

Unfortunately, Toru Narumi, who regards his studies as a "burden" in the future, has not mastered the good way to relieve stress - not to mention that no one taught him how to do it, and by the time he realized it, he had already developed many habits that were not good.

For example, smoking, drinking, hanging out in Internet cafes, staying up late, sleeping late, and eating one or two fast food meals a day.

What's worse is that this is a guy who, no matter how passionate his emotions are, is unwilling to show any of his true feelings to others.

“It’s understandable that I would become like this. A sensitive boy in adolescence with the buffs of “desire for approval” and “insecurity” easily feels that giving your true heart to others is equivalent to exposing your weakness - and it’s not cool at all.”

Over time, this awkward and complex emotion will slowly make him develop a habit of saying one thing and thinking another, and he will repeatedly push others away to verify the reliability of the relationship, even though doing so can easily hurt others.

To sum up, the "Toru Narumi" in the future is actually a bad kid who rushes around in society without anyone to show him the direction. He is very lacking in love but pretends that he doesn't care about anything.

The road to growth is long and difficult, kid.

[Are you now analyzing the reasons for your own personality? You are indeed a natural role-playing player. ]

The system's voice of approval sounded at the right time, bringing Minghai back to his senses somewhat.

"There's no benefit to flattering me. As long as the customer evaluation channel comes out, I will still deduct points from your crappy simulation."

Ming Hai rolled his eyes and gave the system a look in his heart, then walked off the stage with his bass after the performance.

He formed a band about three months ago with Hikigaya Hachiman, Hayama Hayato, and Totsuka Ayaka, all of whom were classmates that Narumi knew from his original high school.

Although students' opinions of Minghai became subtle after he made the confusing statement "Studying can't save Japanese gold" and dropped out of school, these three people still got together with their friendship with Minghai and their common interest in music and formed a boys' high school band.

Keyboardist Hayato Hayama is a top handsome guy who is the center of attention at school and has a bright future in his career. Just because he likes to play the piano, he readily accepts the invitation from Narumi to form a band.

Drummer Ayaka Totsuka, despite her slender body that makes people want to protect her, is an excellent drummer. Many otaku friends who mistakenly think she is a girl would sneak out to watch their performances, but most of them would go home disappointed when they found out that she is a boy.

Of course, there are also a few homosexuals who become more excited after knowing his gender.

In response to this, guitarist and backing vocalist Hachiman Hikigaya said: It’s a fairy-tale.

He was also one of the people who were invited by Ming Hai's band to join the band. Especially after hearing that some music fans like to explore the chemistry between the guitarist and drummer in the band, he became more convinced that joining was the right choice.

Currently they are just a third-rate unknown band, and most of the time they just serve as warm-up guests in small livehouse venues, or are specially invited to perform medleys with very low ticket prices, and the audience response is generally lukewarm.

When these four high school boys get together, they really don't have much competitiveness compared to other bands of the same category. They are not as popular as the bands composed of beautiful high school girls, and they can't compete with other bands that can be considered veterans.

By the way, the beautiful girl band here refers to the "Ending Band" that just performed at the same livehouse venue.

"Damn it, why is it that no matter what a beautiful girl does, there are always people cheering for her?"

Hikigaya Hachiman drank the mineral water bottle in his hand and wiped the sweat from his face. His already sharp eyes now looked even more aggressive.

It was clearly the same audience, but their reaction to their performance and their reaction to the band ending their performance were two completely different things.

"Haha, because beautiful girls are pleasing to the eye no matter what they do."

Hayama, who didn't care about the comparison of winning or losing, just smiled and comforted Hikigaya, then raised his head and drank most of the mineral water in the bottle in a cool and handsome manner.

"Damn it, why am I not a pretty girl... I also want to be treated like this, and be praised for being cute even if I mess up everything."

Hikigaya-kun clenched his fists in indignation, while Totsuka Ayaka, who was standing beside him, just smiled and said something like "Thank you for your hard work~" and tilted her head to hand the clean towels she had prepared in advance to her three companions.

"Well... Ayaka, Ayaka is much better than those pretty girls...!"

Ming Hai subconsciously nodded in agreement with Hikigaya Hachiman's words - only after a moment did he realize that his idea was a bit dangerous, and quickly shook his head to put it out of his mind.

By the way, Hikigaya in this "simulation" is really no different from the real one...it's so lifelike.

"It's better to say less about the ending of the band. Boss Ichichi seemed to say that he would invite both of us bands to dinner later."

Ye Shan spoke up in time to change the direction of the topic. He couldn't deny how cute Totsuka Ayaka was against his will - he was just worried that it would be difficult to end a romance within the team.

"Hey~ Do we have to go out to eat at this time? I should go home and rest quickly, otherwise my mother will worry..."

"Me, me too. My sister has been urging me to buy her something to eat on the way home."

Totsuka and Hikigaya both explained the reasons why they were unable to get away, not to mention Hayama. As he had strict family education, it was already an exception for him to be allowed to join the band. If he didn't go home early, he might be grounded.

"...Then I will be the representative to attend the banquet."

Ming Hai shrugged helplessly, not knowing what to do when he looked at his unreliable companions.

A few of them packed up their things and turned off the lights in the lounge. Ming Hai also planned to go to the front desk to meet up with Boss Ijichi -

"Well."

"Wow...!"

He was walking in front, but just as he pushed open the door, he was hit hard by something pink.

The curly-haired boy was only pushed away slightly, but the pink unknown creature staggered back several steps and almost fell to the ground.

“It hurts, it hurts… ow?”

Goto Ichiri stumbled and raised his head - the moment his eyes met the boy's, it seemed as if the passage of time slowed down by half a beat.

"What's wrong, Toru-kun?"

At this time, Totsuka Ayaka, who had just caught up, poked her head to look at the pink-haired girl who was barely standing on her feet, her big, blinking eyes full of curiosity.

"Hmm... is it someone you know?"

He had never seen the real mango carton that had just performed on the stage.

"........."

Goto Ichiri seemed to want to say something, but the panic and nervousness that followed the surprise made her unable to open her mouth no matter what.

After a long silence, Ming Hai turned his head casually without waiting for a response.

He took a step and walked in the opposite direction, seemingly not caring at all about the expression of the pink-haired girl behind him who opened her mouth slightly but seemed to be hesitant to speak.

"No, I don't know him."

Chapter 22 Suger Girl

The reason why Goto Ichiri was drawn into this "future simulation" was something she herself had not noticed. If this is some kind of word game, after clearing the ending, if you want to sort it out from the beginning and see where you can change the direction of the story, this is the special key point that will be specially marked.

That was to muster up the courage to send a private message to express her gratitude to the original author of a short story, which was the inspiration for her fan song "Facing the Shooting Stars in the Daytime".

Her real identity is the YouTuber who uploaded the popular online single mentioned above, "Guitar Hero", whose video has been played more than 300,000 times.

She only had over 30,000 subscribers and only uploaded some guitar cover videos and transcribed some of her favorite songs on this account where no one knew her real identity. On weekdays, if she could get a stable number of clicks of 1,000 or 2,000, she would be considered a good performance, but she never expected to become a hit overnight.

However, when she saw the comic written by Eri Kashiwagi and traced back to read the original novel posted on the writing forum, she could no longer suppress her desire to create. The song "Facing the Shooting Stars Passing by in the Daytime" that she wrote while locking herself in the room for several days easily exceeded 50,000 views in one night.

Next came one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, and three hundred thousand.

Locked in a narrow but safe closet, Ms. Goto Ichiri rubbed her eyes to make sure she had not misread the number of digits following the 3.

"How could this be... am I so angry?"

She was very glad that the above exclamation was not spoken through her lips, otherwise she would have bitten her tongue in embarrassment.

After hesitating for a long time, Goto Ichiri decided to explain the situation to the original author and express his gratitude - of course, by sending a message through the Internet.

“After all, my videos have been viewed so many times. If the original creators see that I have made secondary works without obtaining authorization in advance, they will definitely come to my channel to question me… If we can’t come to an agreement, I might even be held legally responsible for compensation… I don’t want to be burdened with huge debts at such a young age…!”

Miss Goto, who was feeling a lot of inner drama, clicked on the forum post with trepidation, and after thinking about her wording for a long time, she finally clicked on the private message button of the poster.

Then, an outrageous phenomenon occurred.

The word originally read "Private Message", but when her mouse arrow stopped on it and she was about to click it, it changed to "Simulation".

"Eh?"

Before Goto Ichiri could react, the action of pressing his index finger executed the command that his brain had just issued.

What followed was a strange sound that suddenly echoed in the brain.

【Thank you for choosing to play this game. This product is designed to provide you with a novel, interesting and realistic future simulation. 】

"Wait... what did I just click? Mom...!"

[It should be noted that once you enter this simulation, you are not allowed to exit midway - until the simulation ends. ]

"Wait, what's going on? Am I going to be transported to another world? Am I going to become an unlucky hero who sets out on a journey to save the princess but ends up being played around by the devil...! At least—"

[Unfortunately, this simulation does not have the above plot. Please enjoy it. ]

"At least - let me go to the bathroom first...!"