Was this…the right dorm?

Hajime scanned the door in front of him as if his very life depended on it. The number was correct. He was on the correct floor. Even the neighbouring dorms had corresponding numbers.

This was most certainly where he needed to be but…why did he feel so uncertain?

Hajime took a deep breath and knocked on the door. After a few seconds, the door knob turned and he tensed up. The door opened and the person on the other side was…

…Chiaki.

"Hey hey." she greeted, a soft smile on her face.

Hajime felt eased instantly knowing that he was correct after all. "Hey Chiaki." he greeted back with a smile of his own.

Chiaki tilted her head to the side slightly. "What's wrong? You seem a little stressed."

"Is it that noticeable?" he asked. "Sorry, I worked myself up a bit thinking I might have been at the wrong dorm."

"But you've been here a few times before…I think."

"No, you're right, I definitely have been here before. I guess I was half-expecting something to go wrong. Especially considering what day it is." He added that last part with an awkward chuckle.

Chiaki was in thought for a moment before she responded. "…Come in."

As she spoke, she grabbed onto one of his hands with both of hers and gently pulled him inside the dorm.

Although Hajime didn't protest, he was surprised he didn't get flustered like he normally would with any physical contact. Maybe he'd finally gotten used to it?

Once he was fully inside, Chiaki let go and closed the door behind him. "Remember what we decided we were going to do today?" she then asked as she turned back to face him.

"That we were going to hang out and stay up playing games all night, right?" he answered.

"And what else?"

Hajime paused for a moment. "We were also…not going to worry about anything until tomorrow?"

"Yep." Chiaki affirmed. "Playing games together is nice, but that's not what today is about. Today is for us to enjoy each other's company and forget about the rest of the world for a while…I think."

Hajime looked away as he started to feel his face heat up slightly. "That's…true…"

"Oh!" Chiaki then exclaimed. "Speaking of which, did you want to start right away?"

"Sure, I don't mind." Hajime replied as he took off his shoes and slid his backpack off of his shoulder. "Although I think going with something more simple first would be best."

"That's a good idea." Chiaki agreed. "Did you have something particular in mind?"

"Actually, yes I do." Hajime answered as he knelt down and opened up his bag.

Chiaki gave him a curious look. "Oh, really? You don't usually-"

Hajime pulled out a small rectangular box wrapped in wrapping paper and showed it to Chiaki. "I think this should be a good choice." he responded with a smile.

Chiaki puffed her cheeks in response. "I thought we weren't going to be getting each other presents today."

"I know, but I wanted to give us something tangible to remember today by. Hopefully."

Chiaki's puffed expression changed to a soft smile as she grabbed Hajime's free hand and gently squeezed it. "Thank you, Hajime."

Hajime's face turned bright red. Maybe he hadn't gotten used to it after all. "D-Don't thank me yet. You haven't opened it up first."

Chiaki let go of Hajime's hand as he handed the present over to her. Once she had the gift, Chiaki delicately began to peel away the wrapping paper. After a few seconds, Chiaki looked at the present with shock.

Hajime noticed this and began to feel a bit concerned. "Chiaki…is everything alright?"

"Do you know what this is?" she simply asked.

"Well…I know it's a video game." he answered. "Duh, obviously." he then muttered, referring to himself as he touched his forehead in slight embarrassment.

"Have you heard of this game before, I mean." she clarified.

"Oh, um…not really." he admitted. "That was the main reason I got it for you actually. I figured it wasn't something you owned already."

Chiaki opened the lid on the top of the box and pulled out the CD-ROM disc contained within. "Did you want to play it first?"

"Me?" he asked. "I mean, I don't mind obviously. But is there any reason why you want me to go first?"

"It would be interesting to see your blind reaction…I think."

Hajime shrugged. "Fair enough."

Chiaki then moved over to her desk and turned on her laptop. Once it was operating, she opened up the disc drive and placed the CD-ROM inside before she closed it back up.

As the laptop was installing the contents of the disc, Hajime moved next to Chiaki. "So I take it you've played this game before, right?"

"Yep. It's actually available for free online."

"Wait, seriously?!" Hajime exclaimed. "Damn it. I'm definitely going to be more careful next time."

"If it makes you feel any better, the physical version is a slightly updated version of the online one."

"…Maybe a little bit." Hajime sighed.

A pop-up then appeared on the laptop that stated the game had been installed. Chiaki gestured to the office chair in front of the desk and Hajime took a seat. Chiaki grabbed a nearby bean bag, moved it closer to the office chair and sat next to Hajime.

Not knowing what to expect, Hajime grabbed the wireless mouse that was also on the desk, and clicked on the newly installed game.

The first thing that Hajime saw once the game opened was the main menu. No title screen or anything, just the menu screen. That was a little weird, but he didn't think too much of it.

"You use the mouse to select the options." Chiaki advised.

Hajime nodded and, sure enough, the cursor that was already on the screen moved when he touched the mouse. There were six options to choose from: Custom Race, Random Race, Options, High Scores, Credits, and Quit.

"Should I make any changes in the settings before I play?" Hajime asked.

"Nope. The only things that can be toggled are the graphics, but that's it. You have to use the arrow keys in order to move."

"Fair enough, I guess."

Hajime selected 'Custom Race' and was brought to a screen that displayed four different trucks with the words 'Select Car' featured on the side. He wordlessly selected the default truck, 'Thunder', and clicked on the 'Done' icon on the bottom right corner.

The screen then changed again, this time it displayed five images of different locations with the words 'Select Track' featured on the side. Hajime scrolled through the different options, selected 'Forgotten Road 1', and clicked on the 'Race!' icon on the bottom right corner.

Once the track was selected, a loading screen popped up. This caused Hajime to get confused and he turned to Chiaki.

"Uh, shouldn't there be more things to choose? Like the amount of laps and opponents?"

"Nope. You can only choose the truck and track for each race in this game."

Hajime's expression changed to confusion. He didn't understand how such basic features like that could have just been absent from the game.

But before he could try and come up with a possible explanation, the game had finished loading.

Immediately, the word 'READY' flashed in front of the screen as it slowly got larger and more transparent until it was completely gone. Once that happened, the UI popped up, which included a large speedometer on the lower right side of a screen and a grid which contained a lap amount, time, something simply referred to as 'PNT', and a checkpoint tracker, all on the top left of the screen. The time and 'PNT' both displayed timers that extended beyond the grid, although only the former had actually worked while the latter was stuck on "00:00:00".

Hajime's truck spawned next to another truck, both of which were behind a checkpoint that had a bright orange 'START' sign labelled on. He pressed the up arrow key, which (expectedly) caused his truck to move forward.

But for some reason…the other truck didn't move.

"Uh…okay?" Hajime commented aloud. "So there is another racer, but they aren't moving for some reason…"

Chiaki didn't say anything but merely continued to watch the game intently.

Once Hajime had moved past that first checkpoint, he realised how minimally the track was designed. Aside from a few randomly scattered trees and a single neon blue lamp post for some reason, there was only flat ground for him to drive on. Fortunately, there was a bridge not too far up ahead, so he used that as an indicator as to where he should go in order to continue the "race".

And as he had just started to cross the bridge…

His truck dropped through it.

"W-What the heck just happened?" Despite the truck no longer being visible and him letting go of the arrow key due to shock, it still seemed to accelerate forward. "This…can't be normal, right?"

"Give it a sec." Chiaki advised.

Sure enough, once the truck had reached the other side of the bridge, it reemerged the same way it disappeared just before.

Hajime's jaw dropped. He turned to face Chiaki with a bewildered expression. "Please tell me this game is some sort of joke."

"Nope." Chiaki simply answered. "This game was distributed to stores for anyone to buy…I think."

The truck continued to move forward without Hajime's input, although the speed of the truck was gradually slowing down somewhat.

"Just-" Hajime began before he stopped himself as he went to rub his eyes with his thumb and index finger. "Is this game even functional at least?"

Chiaki pointed at the screen. "Do you see that town up ahead?"

"Yeah?"

"Try touching one of the buildings and see for yourself."

"Oh come on, don't tell me…"

Taking Chiaki's advice, Hajime pressed the up arrow again and allowed his truck to accelerate faster to the small town. It only took a few seconds to get close enough one of the buildings, and just as he was about to drive right into it-

The truck passed through the building and drove out the other side as if it wasn't even there.

Hajime laughed at this. He had to. Not necessarily because it was funny, but because of how absurd this "game" kept getting. At this point he was convinced that the real game, if it even existed, got swapped with someone's amateur school project and no one decided to say anything about it as part of some cruel joke.

"Now do you get why I said it would be interesting to see your blind reaction?"

Hajime leaned back on the chair. "Uh-huh. I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't…this."

"What if I told you that it gets even worse?"

"…I'm listening."

"Try going off-track and driving up the hills."

As Hajime readjusted his seat, he couldn't help but get a bad feeling. Nethertheless, just like all of Chiaki's previous suggestions, he obliged. Instead of turning right and continuing the "race", he kept going straight ahead and drove through every building that should have been in his way.

"Let me guess, I'm going to drive up the hill with no problems, right?" he commented as he was nearly about to make contact with one of the hills.

Chiaki didn't respond however, because the game answered for itself.

"Yeah. Why am I not surprised?" Hajime remarked. "Gravity? What's that? If anything, let's make the truck go a bit FASTER instead. Seriously, there's no way this can get-"

The hill suddenly no longer rendered at the top and Hajime's truck was now up on thin air.

"…any worse."

"Yep. You can easily go out of bounds just by going outside of the map."

"What the hell? What the HELL?! How was this approved by anyone?! Did no one even test it out beforehand?!"

Chiaki laughed a bit and Hajime turned to her. "You…really like all games, huh?"

"Mhm."

"Even crappy ones like this?"

"Even crappy ones like this."

Hajime sighed. "Your tolerance is astounding. I'm about to lose my mind just playing this broken mess, I doubt I could stomach any more for the foreseeable future."

"Did you want to play something else now?"

"I think that would be for the best. Unless you wanted to play this for a bit."

"Nope. There is one thing I wanted to show you though, if that's alright."

"Go for it. Give me one last horrible impression of this game before I try to repress it from my mind."

Chiaki leaned over to the laptop. "Watch what happens when you go in reverse." she said as she pressed the down arrow key.

At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The truck drove backwards from the outside of the map and returned to it.

However, it kept getting faster.

And faster.

And faster.

The sound of the engine kept getting higher pitched. The speedometer kept rotating clockwise until it exceeded its limit and looped back to the beginning only to keep spinning. The truck kept driving through anything in its way, going through any objects or going up and down any hills it came across.

Hajime stood up from his seat and merely watched the speeding truck in awe. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what could be said. He didn't even know if he wanted to laugh or cry at this.

All he could do was observe as the truck eventually drove outside of the map again, only to completely disappear for no apparent reason.

"I…I-Is it finally over?"

Chiak let go of the down arrow key and turned to face Hajime. "I think so. It doesn't look like the truck can be moved anymore, at least not without resetting the entire race."

"Thank goodness." Hajime exhaled. "I think it's safe to say that this is my least favourite game. Ever."

"Did you get some enjoyment out of it at least?"

Hajime thought for a moment before he answered. "As a game, it's an absolute abomination, for obvious reasons. But…I still think I got something out of it. Somehow. If only because of how ridiculously non-functional it was."

"And that's what matters at the end of the day. The most important part is finding the fun whatever you play…I think."

"Well, I definitely think having you here with me certainly helped. I would have just quit immediately otherwise."

Chiaki smiled. "I'm happy to hear that."

"In any case, what's the next game you want to play?"

"I have a few ideas for some co-op stuff we can try on the TV." Chiaki suggested as she got up from the beanbag and walked over to the TV that faced the bed.

As Chiaki began to tinker around with some of the games scattered around the TV, Hajime took the chance to sit down on the floor with his back rested against the side of the bed and closed his eyes.

This was going to be a long night.