#um well to get the answer youd have to look at some unhinged tags i left on a poll. LOL

[aranarumei]

day negative fourteen.

hiii everyone. i've been really thinking about it lately so here is a sort of. fun(?) prelude for the sasamiya dating sim au.

In the end, everything is built with a switch. You have two choices. On and off. That’s all there is to it.

I don’t get it. Could you explain that a little more?

You’re talking about binary code, right?

…Hana-san, you’re quite strange.

Shirahama’s hands pause on the buttons of his controller. First, he yawns—it’s quite late, and this is probably going to be the last bit of progress he makes in this game. Hana’s sprite is staring back at him. She’s usually ducking her head or fidgeting, the glare of her glasses obscuring her eyes, but right now she has her hands folded politely in front of her, shoulders set straight.

It’s a pretty sight. Shirahama’s been trying to get into Hana’s route for a while—there’s a lot of characters he was interested in learning more about, but after he’d gone through a tumultuous relationship with the secret daughter of a prime minister, he’d wanted to pick a character that seemed a little more mundane. She’s the shy and nerdy type of character who’s beautiful once her glasses are removed, which Shirahama would be fairly ambivalent about were it not for the fact that whoever did the art for the game had gone all out on the expressiveness of her eyes. When he’d first seen her sprite switch from a dull, downcast look into eyes that glowed and glittered in purple tones, it was like magic. He’d avoided everyone else in the game since then.

As for how to respond…

Calling her strange is definitely the wrong play. Shirahama’s not that stupid. The correct answer is probably to say the line about binary code. Hana’s pretty good with computers, and in the last time they’d chatted, she’d showed him something she’d programmed. He’s about to select the second option when he finds himself hesitating.

It’s just that… the second option sounds so confident. What if it’s faking out people who try to sound smart without knowing anything? Shirahama honestly doesn’t get what Hana’s talking about, and if he wasn’t playing a game, he’d probably just ask. Didn’t people like it when you asked about things they liked? What was wrong with that?

I don’t get it. Could you explain that a little more?

Oh… you don’t get it.

Hana’s sprite reverts into her gloomy self.

It’s just… I thought someone would finally get me, you know? But it’s still really nice of you to ask… it’s just something about coding or whatever. It probably won’t make that much sense to you. I’m sorry, ˹Shirahama˼.

His eyes are stinging. Maybe sleep deprivation is the reason for Shirahama’s stupid choices.

Making sure to not save his progress, he exits out of the game, turns the lights off in his room, and flops down on his bed. If he replays that section of the game tomorrow, he’ll just pick the right answer. That’s the entire point of dating sims. Picking the right answer. Being the right person. No room for anything else.

His gaze drifts to the vague shadow where he knows his bag is. There’s a copy of Boys Life Romance! tucked deep in the bottom, separated from its original game cover. For such a peppy title with such a garish looking cover, some of the routes are pretty depressing.

It’s also a game that’s way harder than the one he just quit out of. If he’d tried to assume what Hanzawa-senpai meant to say whenever he drifted into a strange monologue, he’d get dropped from his route immediately. Now that was a character like a real magic trick—every once in a while, he’d say things so perceptively it felt like he was piercing Shirahama through the screen. His favorite route, though, had probably been Kagiura—sweet, jealous, and possessive, but never in a way that felt troubling. Really good at basketball, too. That was probably what Shirahama liked best in any character in a dating sim. Passion. Interest. One thing, and now you had a character with a life outside being romanced but also the kind of intensity that could turn you head over heels in an instant.

Miyano had said he’d never really played visual novels before, but he had talked about reading BL manga, yesterday. He’d also been blushing like crazy. It was kind of cute, seeing him get so worked up. To spare his embarrassment, it would probably be best to hand it off to him some time before he left to catch the train, or something. Find a secluded enough stairwell and recommend it in a way that didn’t come off as too awkward… well, it would be a little awkward. But Miyano was the kind of person that you wanted to talk to even if it felt a little strange.

He’d probably like it, anyways. Shirahama kind of wonders if his ears will turn red when he finds out just what kind of visual novel Shirahama’s lending him.

That image in mind, he drifts off to sleep.

Maybe it's nerves, but he dreams of nothing and wakes up with enough time to play the correct option on Hana’s route.

Yes! If we treat ‘on’ as ‘one’ and ‘off’ as ‘zero’, we get binary code. And when we read certain patterns of ones and zeroes, we can make larger numbers and letters… and everything cascades into more complex code until we get to what a modern-day programmer uses. It’s amazing that something so versatile is born out of something so simple, don’t you think? I’m so glad I can talk about this with you, ˹Shirahama˼!

Hana’s eyes are sparkling. Shirahama heads to school with some extra cheer in his steps.

—

Two weeks later, Miyano Yoshikazu wakes up in a bed he doesn’t know. It’s a good thing he’s in the nurse’s office, because he feels immediately, deeply sick.

He’s not the only one.