After that, our meetings were much more lively. I had bought my own copy of the game with the money I'd saved from my translating job, and we would spend countless hours playing together. Of course, he would always be the one calling the shots; I would just act as support. He would often get upset when I tried to give him advice, adamantly insisting that he knew what he was doing (and yelling at me when he failed time after time). However, none of that mattered. What mattered to me was that he was able to enjoy himself. He always seemed preoccupied with everything that he thought was wrong with the world, the horrible things that people were doing, or the things that he hated for seemingly no reason. But when the game started, he would forget about all of that. During the time we spent playing, he actually seemed...genuinely happy.

Then, he said something that I did not expect.

"Do you...wanna hang out at my house or something?"

This caught me off guard. Did he really hold me in such high regard that he would invite me over to his house? This was the first time I had received such an offer since moving to Inaba; not even Yosuke, who I believed to be my best friend, had made that offer.

"I mean, you don't have to, I don't really care..." He mumbled, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Sounds like fun." I answered.

This seemed to have caught him off guard. "Really?" he asked with astonishment before catching himself. "Alright, cool..." He slowly stood up and gathered his things.

I was led through the streets of Yasoinaba, past many blocks of houses, until we arrived at a particularly dark and shabby-looking building. I followed behind him as he opened the door and walked inside.

The house was silent, save for the dull whirring of a computer in the corner, which emitted a soft glow in the otherwise dark room. Even with so little light, I could see that the entire house was a mess. There were clothes and papers strewn about the place, and the tables were covered with trash.

"I'm home!" he shouted into the darkness. No one answered him.

He sighed as he carelessly threw his things to the side. "C'mon," he said as he made his way upstairs, kicking several empty cans as he did so. I followed, nearly tripping on a box of pocky.

We walked into a small room which I assumed to be his bedroom. Surprisingly, it was much cleaner than the rest of the house. I saw a small mound of papers in the corner, but other than that, this room was actually quite tidy. There was another computer here, as well as a small TV, and shelves upon shelves of games and gaming consoles, some of which I had never seen before.

He walked over and turned the TV on, then proceeded to sort through the vast assortment of games, taking a good deal of time before he finally picked one out. "This is Dragon Quest IV..." he said, presenting it to me as if it were some sort of trophy. "I mean, I've already beaten it twelve times, but it's still an awesome game." With that, he stuck it into one of the consoles and started it up, flopping down on the couch as the title screen appeared.

We were nearly silent as I watched him play the game. It seemed to be another one of those standard, medieval RPG-type games he spoke so fondly of. He didn't go into another long-winded rant about its supposed awesomeness, he just...played. Every so often I would ask a stupid question about the gameplay or the story, and he would give me a short and simple answer. The entire time, he did not turn his head even once. His eyes were glued to the screen, as if nothing else existed.

Soon, my mind began to wander toward other things. As I looked around the room, my sights fell upon the small stack of papers on the table next to me. Overcome by curiosity, I grabbed the stack, discovering that the papers had been crudely stapled together, making a book of sorts. I flipped through it with growing interest.

It was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen.

It looked like some sort of manga. The artwork was impressive; not professional quality, but still pretty damn good. The story featured a noble, valiant knight, known only as "Mr. Hero", on his quest to rid the land of evil and rescue a beautiful princess. He was praised by many for his selfless deeds, and his dashing good looks won him many admirers. There were many names that I knew I had heard before. For example, there was a corrupt and evil prince who went by the name of "Satonaka". The young princess also looked very familiar...I flipped back to the front page.

The title read "Mitsuo the Hero".

Now that I thought about it, the knight did look a lot like Mitsuo, albeit a more idealized version of him. And that man standing next to him looked a lot like...

"I'm kinda bored, you wanna play something else?" His question snapped me out of my thoughts. He was looking at me now. "We could play Street Fighter II Turbo or something-" His eyes went wide when he saw the papers in my hand. "Wh-Where the hell did you find that!" he demanded, snatching them away from me.

"It was sitting on the table..." I replied sheepishly, seeing his anger. He was now staring at the floor, blushing furiously. I sat awkwardly, suddenly feeling guilty about going through his things. Still, I didn't understand why he was so upset. "It's really-"

"It's nothing!" he sharply interrupted.

"But it's-"

"I said it's nothing!" he nearly shouted.

"It's nice."

He slowly looked up at me. "What?"

"It's really good," I repeated. "The artwork is really nice. I like it."

There was that skeptical stare again.

"Why would you want to hide this from me?"

He didn't respond right away. However, he didn't seem to be angry anymore. After a while, he let out a heavy sigh. "Because...I thought you wouldn't care..."

"Why not?" I asked, confused. "It's quality stuff. The attention to detail is remarkable!" I flipped through it again to emphasize my point. "You must spend a lot of time on something like this."

"Yeah," he said, sighing again. "A lot of time..."

"Do you have any more of these lying around?" I asked eagerly.

He seemed surprised at my enthusiasm. "Y-Yeah, a couple..." he replied, standing up and walking to the desk that his computer was seated on. Opening one of the drawers, he pulled out a bunch of papers, then walked back and handed them to me.

I was now completely distracted by the drawings. I went through them slowly, taking in the detail of each one.

"They're not really all that special..." he kept saying. However, the tone of his voice suggested that he really enjoyed the praise.

"Do you mind if I take some of these with me?"

"Huh?" He appeared to be in disbelief. "Sure, if you want."

After that, we played a few random fighting games until I decided it was time to leave. I said my goodbyes and headed home (after nearly tripping on the same box of pocky). On the way, I decided that tomorrow I would show my friends some of the drawings I had taken. Chie probably wouldn't approve of being the "evil prince", but I was confident that she wouldn't take it too badly. Besides, it wasn't as if Yosuke hadn't drawn more demonizing caricatures of her.

I wore a huge smile on my face as Nanako greeted me at the door.