Coincidences Do Not Exist

Characters: All of them

It all started with Honoka. When the new MMORPG, Elder Tale came out at the end of her third year of middle school, she just had to try it. The commercials for the game were so amazing; the visuals took her breath away. She worked hard at helping around the store and saved up all of her allowances, even for-going buying some of the other games that had just come out, all so that she could purchase a copy right when it hit stores.

The hype was justified. Honoka thought that this game was the best one she had ever played. There was a whole world to explore and she was ready for it. The only down-side was that, since she had bought the game first, Umi and Kotori couldn't play with her right away, but she would definitely fix that as soon as possible.

The next time her two friends came over, Honoka eagerly showed them her new character, explained how awesome it would be for the three of them to party together, and asked them to join her. Kotori was an easy sell. She always agreed right away to anything that sounded even remotely interesting, much to Umi's dismay. Umi was the one that tried to steer them all down the right path, and in this case, away from games and toward studying for the high school entrance exams.

Umi was right this time, Honoka had to admit. She had thought that she would be fine if she studied extra hard and then relaxed by playing her new game. It turned out, that plan wasn't the best one that she had ever come up with. As the studying dragged on, she would end up staying up later and later in order to play as much as she could, and end the end, the lack of sleep caught up with her and she ended up completely bombing most of her entrance exams.

Honoka was extremely grateful to Umi and Kotori for standing by her side and choosing to join her at the only school that would take her, though Umi's punishment for the trouble she had caused had been beyond scary. Afterwards, Honoka had been made to promise that she would not play games during the study period right before exams ever again.

The first time Eri heard about Elder Tale, it was from her dear sister, Arisa. Arisa wasn't all that interested in role-playing games, but she had given it a try one day while visiting her friend, Yukiho. Yukiho had gotten into the game in order to get her older sister, Honoka, to stop talking about it every second of the day. This had backfired in that now Honoka constantly talked about what she was doing in the game, rather than about how awesome it would be to play.

While Arisa hadn't thought much of the game itself, she had decided that maybe it would be the perfect distraction for Eri, who was working way too much all the time. A gift from her sister wasn't something that Eri would ever put away without even trying, so she had dutifully started up the game and created a character.

Eri had to admit that the graphics were quite nice and the game-play was pretty well done over all. Exploring was a nice option, but so was fighting monsters. Overall, it was a nice game, but that was it. She was only going to play a few more times in order to satisfy her sister's wish for her to relax more, and then she would put the game away on a shelf and get back to using her time for more important pursuits.

What changed her mind was just a small thing. A trip through a small village, while wandering the countryside, to restock supplies. The NPC who ran the only local merchant shop was an odd one. Not only did she not have an actual shop, but she was also extremely difficult to track down. The village NPCs only could tell her that the merchant lady existed, not where to find her, so she had to spend all day searching the village.

Eri finally located the merchant at a small shrine that was barely visible through the surrounding forest on the western edge of the village. She was completely surprised to find that the village merchant was also the shrine maiden, and it made perfect sense that she would be here at the shrine instead of in a shop. Despite this, Eri was still somewhat miffed that the villagers hadn't just told her where to go.

"If you keep frowning like that, you're beautiful face will stay that way, you know…" Eri stared at the NPC incredulously. Non-player characters weren't supposed to have dialog like that, she thought. The girl in front of her just giggled playfully at her and proceeded to tease her a bit. Eri could feel the heat creeping up her cheeks, and was grateful that there was no way that the game character would be able to tell what her actual reaction was.

Five full minutes of teasing interaction later and Eri wasn't so certain that the NPC couldn't tell what she was feeling even with a computer interface between them. It was right then that she decided not to stop playing this game. She wanted to know if this NPC, a village girl named Toujou Nozomi, really could tell things about her just from interacting with her avatar. She wanted to visit her and talk to her more. She thought that maybe, it would be nice if they could become friends.

Kira Tsubasa was a life-saver, or in this case, a relationship saver. That is what Nico thought the day that her high school friend told her about Elder Tale, a game that a college friend, Ayase, plays all the time. It was perfect. If she could get Maki to play with her during the week, then the time they spent together would triple. They could go on virtual dates, get to know each other more, and then there would be more time on the weekends for more intimate things.

The hard part, of course, was getting Maki to see the point in playing a silly game on a school night instead of doing her homework. It took Nico three weeks of petty arguments and absolutely no cuddling, kissing, or hand-holding to convince Maki to even give it a try, and even then, she had to agree that studying came first and the weekends were reserved for real life dates. Nico was okay with the second thing, because she really wanted to move to second base, but she sucked at studying and it was so boring. However, she would do it because she loved Maki and didn't want to make her angry.

It came as a surprise to both of them that Maki was the one to really get into the game. For Nico, the entire point of playing was to be with Maki. Maybe she had entertained the idea of becoming a virtual idol, but that was a secondary goal. Maki, however, was completely taken in by the virtual world and wanted to do everything when they played together.

After a while, Nico started to expect the text from Maki informing her that the girl had finished her homework and wanted to go online. Nico, of course, wasn't anywhere near done with hers, but any excuse to avoid homework and see Maki was welcome. They played together almost every night, meeting lots of different players, but on the weekends, it was all about them. Their weekend dates were the one thing they always agreed upon as being more important than anything. Nico was still hoping for the opportunity to take their relationship to the next level, and she wasn't going to let a game or anything else get in the way of that.

It was Maki that got them interested in Elder Tale. Neither Hanayo nor Rin were the type to be interested in playing computer games. Rin especially usually didn't have the patience for games that required you to sit still for long periods of time, preferring fast paced arcade games instead. In fact, she loved playing games at the local arcade with a hyperactive girl named Honoka that she often ran into there.

Ever since Maki started dating Nico, and subsequently started playing Elder Tale, she didn't have as much time to spend hanging out with her old friends, and while Rin and Hanayo were perfectly happy to spend time with each other, they also wanted to stay close to her. The only solution was for the two of them to start playing Elder Tale too. Then they could all be together. Nico jokingly described it as virtual double dating.

Even though it started out at a way for Rin and Hanayo to spend more time with Maki, they quickly became enchanted with the game and started playing it for their own enjoyment.

One day, when Rin was at the arcade, she ran into Honoka again, and since she thought it would be awesome to get to know her more, she invited Honoka to play Elder Tale with them. It turned out that Honoka had been playing for over two years already, and the two of them had a loud and energetic conversation about how awesome the game is, right there in the arcade, to the annoyance of most of the people around them.

And so, everything came full circle, one month before the release of the expansion that changed everything.

Bonus Addition

Nozomi was lonely. She had spent her entire life in this one small village, and there was no one her own age to play with. The adventurers who passed through were boring, with completely flat personalities, who only ever seemed to say a handful of stock phrases. They never bothered to stay and talk anyway.

She had considered leaving once or twice, and this last time, she was really planning to do it, but fortune has a way of changing your mind. On the day that she decided it was time to move on, she was located by an adventurer who wanted to sell an extremely peculiar magical item. This was no bother to Nozomi, since buying and selling items was part of her job. It was the item description that caught her attention.

'Invocation of this item will grant you a glimpse of the deepest desire of your heart.' Normally, Nozomi would store away magical items for resale later, but this time, she really wanted to use it. How could she resist the chance to see what was in her own heart? If she was lucky, perhaps the glimpse would give her a clue to its location, so that she could seek it out, whatever it was.

With that thought, Nozomi invoked the magical item and eagerly looked on as a picture formed in front of her eyes. The picture that appeared before her was that of a beautiful blond girl, who appeared to be sitting upon the steps of the small shrine Nozomi often worked at. In the image, the girl was completely focused on some sort of pad that she seemed to be drawing upon. An artist, maybe? The time limit for the glimpse was rapidly approaching, and just as the image faded, Nozomi saw herself enter the scene and that blond girl glance up at her with a warm, loving smile.

Nozomi was shaken to the core by what she had seen. The deepest desire of her heart was to be smiled at by that girl. She had never met her, but she wanted to. The scene had been shown to her took place at her shrine, so now it was obvious to her that she shouldn't leave. Nozomi would wait at the shrine everyday from then on, so that when her blond came to meet her, she would be there.