“Hey, Itchy. What have you been up to lately?” Asuha asked after finally gulping down her 1,200 yen orange juice.

“You mean in work, or in my private life?”

Asuha stared at him, exasperated. “I thought you didn’t help out with Uncle Meiro’s work that much.”

“I don’t help at all. Well, what I’m up to is much the same as ever. I’ve been spending a lot of time in Yamanashi lately.”

“Another weird bug?”

“That appellation is a matter of perspective. I think of them as beautiful insects, myself.”

As one might imply from Asuha’s use of “another,” bug-watching was something of a hobby for Ichiro. He’d set out for Yamanashi on a quest to find the rare species of Japanese emperor, the national butterfly.

Ichiro could spend all night talking about the fabulous appeal of its unique spot pattern, but he refrained in this case. He did have some self-control, after all.

“If you keep this up, Itchy, no girl’s ever gonna want to marry you.”

Asuha’s words caught the attention of the many beautiful girls around them. All of the eligible ladies at the highest levels of society were infatuated with Ichiro Tsuwabuki, young heir to the Tsuwabuki Concern. Many were wannabe Cinderellas who dreamed of marrying up into his beyond-rich-and-famous lifestyle.

But Ichiro’s response...

“As the human race has already reached its apex in me, I have no interest in spreading my seed.” That line was an immediate interest-killer, awakening the girls from their Cinderella dreams in a snap.

But his cousin Asuha, who had known him for a long time, was well accustomed to his unsettling outbursts, and responded without batting an eye.

“Itchy, are you interested in online games?” she began.

“No,” he replied without a moment’s hesitation.

She stared at him.

He gazed back at her.

“You just cut me off before I could talk!” she exclaimed, finally.

“Nonsense. You of all people know what my personality is like, Asuha.”

“Y-You’re so mean...”

“I may appear that way to some.”

Asuha sighed, then started again. “Okay, um. Well, I’ve been playing a VRMMO lately.”

“Oh?”

The unexpected word caught Ichiro’s attention. A VRMMO, was it?

VR stood for “virtual reality,” technology for creating fully immersive fictional worlds. About ten years ago, some genius girl who had graduated from MIT had proposed “drive technology,” a form of VR that used particle waves that created sympathetic neural resonance to immerse the consciousness in a virtual space. Most talk of virtual reality nowadays referred to this.

MMO stood for “massively multiplayer online.” It was almost always followed by the word “RPG,” and, simply put, they were online games that were popular all over the world. When someone talked about playing games online, most of the time, they were talking about MMORPGs.

A VRMMO, then, was an MMO that ran on VR technology.

Asuha was still in middle school, as far as he knew. A girl of her tender age shouldn’t be spending a lot of time in online games, which fostered relationships in a virtual space and required significant investment to remain competitive in...

Or, at least, that was the conventional wisdom of the world, but Ichiro Tsuwabuki refused to be bound by such things. So he did not scowl excessively in response, but instead merely expressed mild surprise that the outgoing and athletic tomboy Asuha was devoting herself to playing a video game.

“That’s unusual.”

“Y-Yeah. The truth is, um, well...”

From the way she was stammering, he wondered if there must be more to the situation than she was letting on. Perhaps her inquiry about his interest was actually an invitation. Perhaps she was asking for his aid in some way.

“So, um. I was wondering if you might play with me, Itchy...”

“Hmm...” Ichiro stroked his chin and thought.

Relatively speaking, out of all his blood relatives, Asuha was the one he was closest to. He would feel bad about turning her down flat, but that alone wasn’t enough to motivate him. He would first do a thorough cost-reward analysis in his mind, and act based on that. Ichiro took it as a fundamental rule of life to only do things he really wanted to do.

What would it be like, he wondered.

He had certainly been lacking for amusements lately. A regular MMO he would dismiss out of hand, but the addition of those two little letters — that cutting-edge technology, “VR” — sparked an interest in him that he couldn’t deny.

“Is it interesting?”

“Umm...” Her lack of immediate confirmation indicated an honesty that he greatly appreciated. “It feels a little weird, really. It’s like a video game, but it’s also like you’re playing pretend. I guess because you’re really moving around.”

“I see.”

“But, but... I think you might really like it, Itchy. The graphics are really pretty.”

“If you insist, Asuha, perhaps I will try it.” Ichiro’s words caused Asuha’s expression to light up.

“Really?!”

“Really.”

If it would help to relieve his recent boredom, that alone would make it worthwhile. It wouldn’t carry much of a monetary investment, and if he truly enjoyed it, all the better. Even if the game itself didn’t tickle his fancy, depending on the nature of Asuha’s request, he might still be happy to help her out.

Just then, he recalled something. His live-in servant had recently made mention of a VRMMO she’d been addicted to. He wondered what the title was.

“So anyway, the game’s called Narrow Fantasy Online.”

Yes, that was the one. Then again, there were only two actual VRMMO games on the market right now. Among those in the financial world quietly monitoring the state of virtual reality technology, they were known as “the popular one” and “the unpopular one.”

He seemed to remember that Narrow Fantasy Online was “the popular one.”

“Sakurako-san plays that game, as well.”

“Oh, her? Yeah, I bet she would...”

Asuha had only met Ichiro’s live-in servant a handful of times, but she seemed to remember her well. Ichiro didn’t consider the servant’s personality terribly eccentric, but she must have left a strong impression on a girl like Asuha.

For now, Ichiro’s indication that he would try the game out seemed to inspire a relieved-looking smile in Asuha.

She didn’t seem overjoyed, which lent weight to his theory that there was more to this than a simple desire to play a game together. What, then, could have gotten a girl of Asuha’s age so deeply immersed in a VRMMO? He could speculate, of course. But without more solid proof, all he could do was wait for her to tell him.

“By the way, Itchy, do you even play video games?” she asked.

“A friend of mine in college liked games quite a lot. He lent me Populous, which I quite enjoyed.”

“Oh, come on,” she protested lightly.

Well, Ichiro’s college days were ten years in the past. He hadn’t played a computer game in a long time. He didn’t exactly yearn for those days when he’d been lionized as a prodigy, but looking back now, perhaps there might have been a more age-appropriate way to enjoy them.

Although he had said he didn’t play video games, he did enjoy feeling out his own playstyle within the strict limits of what was allowed by the program. Perhaps it would be stimulating.

“I’m so glad,” she said. “The truth is, I came to the party to ask you that.”

“You could have sent an e-mail or called.”

“You can’t ask someone a favor if you’re not face to face.” For a girl her age, Asuha was very conscientious about such things.

Well, one way or another, the girl in the white dress was now smiling. Ichiro nodded in approval. He asked her about how the game was played and other things, and made it through the rest of the party relatively free of boredom.

“By the way, would you like another juice?” he added.

“No, thanks. If I keep drinking this stuff, I’m going to go crazy thinking about how much it costs.”