Page IX - Misunderstandings

Within an hour of cleaning, the whole dorm room was squeaky clean. He also spent around some money on buying wire cases. To his surprise, all the materials he asked for were delivered 10 minutes after he requested to buy it on his phone. It seems that students from this school are considered very important people or in other words, VIPs.

Having no clue on what goes where and the function of those cables, he did his best to organize them in a way so that nothing will intersect with each other. It was perfectly neat organization by Theodore.

As he was tidying up the final preparations for his cleaning, he found a false trapdoor under a drawer. "This mechanism..." There was a small hole under the drawer. "If my memory serves right... This was a mechanic from an anime..." He pulled out a ballpoint pen then opened it up to get the thin ink holder inside and pushed it in the small hole in the drawer which then raised the false trapdoor.

As he opened it, he just found games. Disappointment was showing in Theodore's face as he discovered that the thing he found were just useless crap that Ray was hiding.

But he was curious on it though.

He picked up the top game and read the title. "Doki Doki Highschool Life? What's with that ridiculous name..?" He flipped it over and looked at the description of the game. "Let's see... A visual novel game about Satoru, as he enters his high school life. He meets multiple people in his life where it can fully change his destiny."

Theodore tilted his head trying to understand, "Visual novel..? As I remember its kind of a game but it's just textboxes with the art of the characters in it and you click to read it. Hmm..." Theodore thought for a while after reading the rest of the description. "So its a romance visual novel about Satoru and his romance life as a teenager? And the ending will be based on the choices that I make? This is... interesting. I must know further."

Without hesitation, Theodore booted up one of the consoles Ray had and inserted the disc inside. "I have never seen a visual novel. I must know further if this is a new way of reading novels instead of books. This might be a great source of information." He thought to himself.

"Doki Doki!" The game started up with a loud music and the announcer's voice and a giant text of Doki Doki was in the screen with a heart behind it. "Highschool Life!" A flash emerged from the screen and the second set of text appeared.

'New Game,' 'Load Game,' 'Options,' 'CG,' 'Music' and 'Quit Game' slid up to the lower middle part of the screen.

"I'm literally ten seconds in and I already hate this." Theodore muttered to himself.

The obnoxious music, the cutesy voice of the announcer, the cute sound effects and visual effects. Apparently Theodore hates everything about this.

With hesitation, he clicked on New Game and the 'obnoxious' cute voice of the announcer were heard.

"Satoru!!!" A loud shouting sound was heard from the television. About a woman in her teens. The camera panned around and showed the woman with a pink hair panting hard. "Good morning! I was about to wake you up but you woke up too early."

The man in the game suddenly spoke, "Listen here Akari, we're not kids anymore. You don't need to wake me up."

"There's no sprite for the man... So visual novels are like first person? I see. I'll take that in mind. So that means... I'm Satoru? I see... That's interesting." Theodore muttered.

"Are you sure?" Akari's sprite in the game suddenly got closer, "So you're saying you don't want to take a bath with me anymore?"

"S-h-u-t u-p!" Satoru then flicked Akari's forehead in the game. "We already stopped doing that years ago."

The next textbox had the voice of the main character but it seems to be his internal dialogue. "This is Akari. She's a childhood friend of mine. We've been a good friend for ten years. Even though I hit her, she hits me back. Its our little bonding moment whenever we meet each other alone."

"Hmm... why does he let himself get hit? This is starting off weird... And seriously? This plot looks like a plot that would happen in the 90s." But Theodore couldn't stop playing even with his complaints. "Oh? A new character."

Theodore played the game for several more hours until he heard a knock at the door. As he opened it, Ray greets him with a big hug. "Hey Theodore! Good to see ya!" An overfriendly gesture but Theodore just ignored it. Ray looked over Theodore's shouder, "You're playing a game?"

"Yeah. Sorry for using your console." Theodore replied.

"HAHA! Don't mind, don't mind! It's all good. And I see that you've also cleaned the room. So what are you playing?"

"I don't know. I just found it somewhere. You've always been inviting me to play so I guess I'll learn some thing or two."

Ray walked in and looked at the television, "Let's see what are you play-" Ray's words suddenly got stuck at his mouth.

"Its Doki Doki Highschool Life or something. I never knew that you like to read a lot Ray."

"Uh- Uh- Uh-" Ray starts to panick as sweat falls down on his face. "Uh- UH-" Ray grabbed Theodore's shoulders with both of his hands and shook him. "WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS!?"

"The hidden compartment in the drawer. The mechanism you put was pretty genius. I'm impressed."

Ray looked at the television and as if a spear has struck his chest, he began to panic again. "UH- THIS SCENE UM- UH- THEODORE! UH- LET'S PLAY OTHER GAMES SHALL WE?"

"Hmm? Why? I'm pretty sure I'm nearing the end. I'm also a book writer so this information is important to me."

"But... YOU KNOW! These games are for single player. So I was thinking more for a multiplayer!" Ray began to do weird things to his hand as if preventing Theodore for watching it.

Theodore looked over to see. "What is it that you're trying to-"

As Ray overstretched his toes to prevent Theodore for seeing the screen, he lost his balance and fell on the ground and hit the confirm button on the controller. "AH- NO-"

The screen turned dark then lit up. It was no longer the visual novel that Theodore was playing. "Is this a cutscene? Wait why is Satoru and Akari undressi-"

"UWOOOOOHHHHH!!!" Ray moved like the speed of light and dived into the outlet and ripped it out causing the television to shut down and so does his console. "Ah... Finally..." Ray let out a sigh of relief. But as he opened his eyes and looked at Theodore he felt something was wrong.

Theodore looked at him like he was a piece of garbage. "So you want to play those kind of games with me..? So you swing that way..?"

"WAIT NOOOOOO-" Ray explained to Theodore for two hours on what those games are in his drawer and clearing up the misunderstandings.