A week after break, the summer-brain had mostly worn off, but school was still depressing. Fifth period had just ended and I was stretching at my desk when Reona came over.
“Ryouya-kun, still looking exhausted.”
“That’s me.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Then why are you pointing it out?”
“Killing time?”
Reona engaging with me; classmates not bothered. Reona-engaging-with-me had become so routine they were inured to it.
Before summer some classmates had been whispering about me, but Reona’s classroom-wide intimidation had stuck and there was now silence on that front.
There were probably classmates who still resented me internally, but as long as they did nothing visible, damage to me was zero.
“Should we move? Riona’s waiting too.”
“Yeah.”
Sixth period was the school-trip homeroom, which meant going to a different classroom. The Hokkaido group, Okinawa group, and Kyoto group each had their own. Headed off in different directions after class.
The Hokkaido and Okinawa groups were large, so they used the multi-purpose room. The Kyoto group was small enough to fit in the social-studies room.
We arrived at the social-studies room. The moment Reona stepped in she was swarmed.
“Wait — Reona, you picked Hokkaido?”
“I talked the teacher into changing it for me.”
“Oh, you can do that?”
“You could’ve told us at least!”
There was a literal crowd around Reona. Friends-everywhere superstar normie. Same scene was happening around Riona on the other side of the room.
Both of them are massively popular. Needless to say, no one came over to me. I picked an open seat and pulled out my gacha game.
I had been thinking about napping on the desk, but the last time I tried that I’d been pranked, so I’d switched strategies.
“Oh — the Moon-Viewing Gacha launched.”
The headline SSR for this event was ten different popular female characters in bunny-girl costumes. I had to pull one.
I dumped my saved gems into a ten-pull. First batch — low expectations — and on the tenth pull the SSR-confirmed animation triggered.
“Wait — that fast? Lucky.”
I was watching the screen excitedly to see which character I’d get when a hand reached in and took my phone.
I looked up. Reona, dark smile. Riona, holding my phone, expressionless as ever — but on closer look, also radiating a dark aura.
“Hmm — so this is what Ryouya-kun does when we ignore him.”
“This calls for a penalty.”
“No, no, I just didn’t want to interrupt your time with your friends—”
The SSR-confirm animation hadn’t finished and I was very invested in seeing the result. Trying not to dig myself deeper, I scrambled.
“I’ll think of an appropriate punishment for Ryouya-kun. Look forward to it.”
“Until Ryouya reflects on what he’s done, I’ll hold on to this.”
“Hey — wait, what?!”
Riona had turned the phone screen toward me, and I could see Trade Complete. My freshly-pulled SSR had been traded away to Riona.
It is one of the very few mobile games that has a trade feature. I had not anticipated it being weaponized against me. Also — Riona, you play this game?!