"So, there are loose souls and devils and goddesses, and you were fighting them," Chihiro said. She sipped her tea. She had to admit, Keima's mother made a really good cup of tea.

"I never did any fighting," Keima said. "I found the goddesses and woke them. They did the fighting."

"And they're in love with you."

"They had to be. They get their strength from love."

"And you thought I was one of them."

"I never told you—"

"You didn't need to," Chihiro said. "You wouldn't take a break from saving the world just to get revenge on some girl you barely knew. So, what was it? Why did you say those things?"

Keima sighed. "I had one goddess to find and two candidates. I was trying to conquer two girls at the same time, and it was taking too long. I only had two days. Once I eliminated you as a candidate, I needed to take you off the board."

"How did you eliminate me as a candidate?"

Silence.

"You promised you wouldn't lie or hold back," Chihiro said.

"Candidates had to be a prior conquest," Keima said. "The goddesses allowed the conquests to remember those events. You didn't remember."

"What didn't I remember?"

Keima looked away. "Our kiss."

"I don't remember my first kiss?"

"No."

"Why did you think I remembered?"

Keima sipped his tea. "The girls that remembered would be angry with me after Kanon's declaration. I didn't know that you liked me before the loose soul."

She drank some tea and looked around. "Where were you while I was singing?"

He looked down. "I was on the roof crying."

"Why were you crying?"

"I realized I was in love with you."

She turned away. "Why were you in love with me?"

He sipped his tea again. "I understood that— I realized— You made more—" He sighed. "I don't understand you. And you challenge me." He took a breath. "And you loved me for me."

She watched him for a while. "Tell me about my conquest."

"I never conquered you. You liked me before the loose soul."

"Why did you call it a 'conquest'?"

He looked down. "You weren't the one conquered."

"Tell me about it anyway."

"You were average. You were supposed to be a background character. You were the most unimaginably real girl I ever saw." He watched her, worried he might hurt her again. "You confessed to any cute boy that caught your eye, to make yourself feel special by comparison. You had no flags, no parameters, nothing. I had no idea how to proceed."

Chihiro started to speak but stopped.

"And, you hated me. Acted like you hated me." He laughed. "You called me a cockroach and drove me into my room for days. No one has ever affected me like that."

Chihiro smiled. "I remember calling you a cockroach."

He watched her smile until it faded.

"Ayumi finally got us together," he said. "She didn't like seeing us arguing. I think she was beginning to remember me and didn't want her best friend arguing with a guy she liked. Anyway, I tried to conquer you. As expected, nothing worked. You had no usable parameters. Then, you fixated on someone new. I had an inspiration. I decided to turn you into the hero. I tried to help you conquer your latest crush." He looked away. "I think you agreed to it, because you liked spending time with me. You stalled confessing to Yuta."

"Yuta?" she said. "Oh! Him."

He turned back. "You finally snapped, because I was too dumb to see anything. You ran to the Akanemaru. I thought you were going to kill yourself."

"Over that?" Chihiro said.

"It's what the heroine would do," Keima said. "You complained you weren't special. I said you were. I said you were as special as you wanted to be. I kissed you, and I said I would always be there for you." He turned away. "I lied. I knew you were about to forget everything. I still thought you were average, and I knew I would never need to keep that promise."

"Even a jerk when you saved me," Chihiro said.

"Yes," Keima said. "But, I didn't stop thinking about you. You were the only girl I could never figure out. I said what I thought you wanted to hear. I kissed you when you wanted to be kissed. I played the game by your rules, not mine. I couldn't shake the idea that you beat me, that you forced me to live in the real world." He stared at nothing for a moment. "A few times, I hoped you would need me, so I could keep my promise. But you never did."

"You tutored my band," Chihiro said.

"That doesn't count," he said. "I wanted to rescue you. And kiss you again."

"Wait. How did you know I wanted to be kissed?"

"You were about to hit me with an umbrella," he said. "In retrospect, that logic may be faulty."

"Really?"

"Like that," he said. "You're infuriating sometimes."

"Because I don't let you get away with bullshit?"

"Yes," Keima said. "People need some bullshit to get through the day."

"I'm sorry I'm inconvenient," she said.

"I said 'infuriating'. And it's how you got me to love you."

"Yeah, well," she said. "It's how I fell in love with you too." She glared at him. "Don't look at me like that. I don't know if I'm still in love with you."

"Chihiro—"

"You crushed me the worst way you could, because I was an inconvenience. You hurt me, because I loved you but wasn't special enough!"

She dropped her face into her hands and sobbed. Keima felt a cold, hard stone sink into his gut.

"I guess you weren't good enough to find the goddess without hurting me," she said.

He tried to speak, failed, and tried again. "No. I wasn't. I couldn't read your parameters. I could never understand you. I could never predict you. I knew how to push you away, but I never understood what kept bringing you back. I pushed too hard. I used the worst scenario I could think of. I had to find the goddess. I had to simplify the game." He rubbed tears from his eyes. "It's not supposed to hurt when you drop a character arc. She just stops showing up." He closed his eyes. "Saving the world is supposed to be the excuse for anything. It's not."

"I'm not a game," she said, scowling at him.

"I know."

"No you don't!"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't hurt more than this."

"I can!" She shook with pain. "You see story arcs, scenarios and endings. I see my life! You pull out one game and put in another. You finish one girl and move on to the next. But you can't restart me. Everything you've done is still here. And it still hurts."

"You're wrong," he said. "You're not a game to me. You're the most real girl I know. It's why I love you." He sighed. "I can't hurt more than I do. Not ever. I avoid reality, but I know what it is. I hate reality, because you can't restart it. Because real pain never goes away."

"Not never," she said. "But you can't delete it."

"What can I do?"

"Grovel."

"I thought I did."

"No," Chihiro said with a laugh. "You haven't even come close to groveling."

"You're right," Keima said. "I was always good enough to avoid the groveling scenarios."

"Keima, if you call our relationship a scenario one more goddam time..."

"What should I do?"

"Call it a relationship."

"I mean how should I grovel?"

Chihiro said, "Tell me why you need to."

Keima heard, Show me how much you hurt.

"You beat me." He felt the tears begin but ignored them. "You scared me. You made me fall in love with you. You made reality matter to me. You beat me at my own game. You made me angry. I could have said any number of things to make you leave. I picked the worst, because I wanted to get back at you. I wanted to hurt you for beating me. But, you even beat me at that. Saying all of that left me in agony."

Tears poured down his face, and Chihiro watched him without flinching.

"I was a spoiled child," he said. "I lost at my game and turned over the board. I need to grovel, because I hurt you for no reason and took away your happiness." He took a deep breath. "I want you to be happy. I don't care about anything else. Real pain fades, it doesn't go away. Sometimes, it doesn't fade enough. It's possible to hurt someone so much, you can never recover. I don't know if I hurt you that much. But it doesn't matter. I want you to be happy, even if you're not with me. Tell what you want me to do."

"I figured that out," Chihiro said.

"What?"

"That bullshit you told me on the roof. No one sets up an elaborate revenge like that just because I called him a cockroach."

Keima laughed. "You beat me again! There were days it literally took the end of the world to get me out of bed. And you were over it, because I used clichéd dialogue."

"I wasn't over it," Chihiro said. "It was still a rejection. It still hurt like hell. I thought you were some asshole who couldn't commit and used bullshit from one of your games instead of telling me the truth. I thought I was going to get my first kiss from the boy I loved. Instead, he was just some childish prick."

"So, I went too far," Keima said.

Chihiro sighed. "I would never have helped you with Ayumi if you'd gone that far. I would have tried to save her from you. Besides, I figured out you were in love with me."

"When?"

"I'm not telling you that. Not yet, anyway." She looked away. "I'm amazed you had the guts to tell me yourself."

"Okay," he said, wiping his eyes. "How much groveling?"

"First, you'll spend more time on me than the games."

"That doesn't sound bad."

Chihiro said, "If you try any of those game moves on me, I'll break my guitar over your head."

"They don't work on you."

She thought for a while. "The band might need more tutoring to keep our club."

"That doesn't sound too bad either."

She tilted her head. "My band needs a roadie."

"Anything else?"

"Hell, yes. That's barely enough to cover making me forget my first kiss."

He winced. "How long will this take?"

"Years. If you do a good job."

"And if I don't?"

Chihiro stared at him and waited.

Keima sighed. "Do I need to buy a van?"