EX 2 — Maybe I should’ve been a little more proactive.

"Seriously, aren’t you going to stop drifting around and just come home already? You’re not getting any younger, you know. Isn’t there anyone nice in your life? If not, I can introduce someone for you."

"...It’s fine. Really. Don’t worry about me."

"There you go again, saying it’s fine when it clearly isn’t. Your company went under, and you’re not even working right now, are you? You said it was a good company, with decent pay and benefits. Why did you go and do something like that?"

"I didn’t do anything wrong! The ones who were in the wrong were the people running the company!"

"But if you end up without a job because of it, that doesn’t help anyone. It’s already been six months—you really need to start thinking seriously about this..."

"Sorry, Mom. Looks like I’m getting a call from a friend. I’ll call you back later."

Saying that, Arisaka Natsumi ended the call from her mother.

It was a lie. There was no incoming call. And in the first place, Natsumi didn’t have any friends who would be calling her.

"...Why does it always end up sounding like I’m the one at fault?"

She murmured the words in her one-room apartment, empty save for herself. Of course, there was no one there to answer her.

Six months ago, Natsumi had reported the executives of the company she worked for.

When she had first joined, it had been a tiny IT firm. “IT company” sounded impressive, but in reality it was a nameless little business that handled subcontracted system management work for regional banks.

Then one day, the company brought in an outside consultant and launched a new business, investing customer funds in online cryptocurrency trading.

The company’s performance skyrocketed, and its name spread rapidly.

But behind the scenes, upper management had been working hand-in-hand with the consultant, embezzling those funds.

Natsumi was part of the systems development team, but by chance she witnessed a girl from accounting crying as she spoke with a superior. That was how she learned the truth—and she went straight to the police.

Soon after, customers and shareholders filed lawsuits against the company, and before long, it went bankrupt.

She hadn’t told anyone, but inside the company it was already common knowledge that Natsumi had tipped off the police. Everyone looked at her with accusing eyes.

Even the girl from accounting—the one who had been crying—did the same.

She had done the right thing. So why was she the one being condemned?

Driven into despair, Natsumi shut herself away in her apartment.

Come to think of it, something similar had happened back in high school.

In the art club she belonged to, the club president—a senior—had been submitting other seniors’ artwork to competitions under his own name. Apparently, it hadn’t happened just once or twice.

Natsumi confronted him, but the other club members—and even the supervising teacher—refused to take it seriously.

She pressed him, asking if he truly felt no shame.

She thought she’d delivered an impassioned speech, but the senior replied:

"Sorry, I wasn’t listening."

It turned out he’d been staring at her chest the entire time instead of paying attention.

Exasperated, Natsumi tried again, earnestly attempting to persuade him—but once more, his gaze stayed fixed on her chest, his replies half-hearted, as though he’d already lost interest.

"Sorry. I thought I was being subtle, but I guess girls notice that kind of look right away."

Subtle? He’d been blatantly staring. What was he talking about? Was he an idiot?

"Whatever. I kind of thought I was being pretentious anyway, and I never liked those pieces that much. I figured I’d take them along, but I didn’t think you’d actually enter them under your own name."

When she finally dragged those words out of him, Natsumi felt all the strength drain from her.

He probably wasn’t a bad person—but he was far too oblivious to the malice around him.

Natsumi tried again and again to convince him, but in the end, he quit the art club. Soon after, Natsumi followed suit and left as well.

They spoke a few times after that, but gradually drifted apart, and eventually he graduated.

On the phone, her mother had asked, "Isn’t there anyone nice in your life?"

If she thought about it, the person she’d spoken to the most from the opposite sex in her entire life was probably that senior.

Every time she heard questions like that, she remembered him.

Whenever they met, he always stared at her chest.

To Natsumi, most men were like that anyway, so she’d resigned herself to it. And his expression had been oddly serious, so she hadn’t felt disgusted.

Whether he was simply quick to give up or just not particularly attached, the way he quit the club so cleanly—without hesitation—made him seem fragile somehow. She couldn’t bring herself to leave him alone.

Looking back now, had she been attracted to him?

Even now, she couldn’t say what it was about him that had appealed to her.

"...Maybe I should’ve been a little more proactive."

What was he doing these days, she wondered.

He was old enough to be married with kids, but for some reason she couldn’t picture him that way.

Not that it mattered now—thinking about some high school senior from years ago.

Natsumi gave a wry smile at herself.

She wasn’t good at fitting in with others.

She was shy, bad at matching her conversation to other people, and terrible at putting on a friendly smile.

With a sigh, she moved the mouse. The PC screen, which had been in sleep mode, lit up.

Displayed on it was a town rendered in cheap-looking 3D graphics, and a long-eared boy with blue hair wearing a skirt.

She’d started the game thinking that even someone bad at socializing might be able to make friends in an MMORPG—but here too, Natsumi was alone.

She couldn’t even imagine how players who were complete strangers were supposed to become “friends.”

Sometimes she joined random parties, but they would either chat only among themselves or bark orders at her to follow instructions. It was never comfortable, so she quickly went back to playing quietly on her own.

It was an MMO—a multiplayer game—but it had been designed so that solo play was still reasonably viable.

To Natsumi, it was no different from a single-player game.

She didn’t find it especially fun, but she liked the character designs by her favorite illustrator, and it was free-to-play. With too much time on her hands, she became absorbed in raising a cross-dressing boy character all by herself.

By the time she started, the game had already lost popularity and become a ghost town. But today, for some reason—compared to usual, at least—it felt more crowded.

People gathered here and there, chatting, or clustering together and making their characters perform strange motions.

Was there some kind of event?

As she wondered that, a message addressed to everyone in town appeared in the global chat log.

"The service will be ending soon! Let’s gather and take a screenshot together!"

That was when Natsumi learned, for the first time, that the game was shutting down today.

Well, damn. Guess I’ll have to find another game to kill time with starting tomorrow. I’m done with MMOs. I want a proper single-player game—something I can grind away at endlessly.

She left the unusually crowded, uncomfortable town and headed out onto the plains, gazing at the forest visible in the distance.

He’s an elf. Maybe I should let him go back to the forest.

The wind sweeping across the grasslands brushed against Natsumi’s cheek—against the cheek of the blue-haired, cross-dressing boy she controlled.