Chapter 22 Intermission Kusunoki Aoi ~ The First Love Inside a Birdcage ~ (1/2)

The discovery of unexpectedly having something in common with Kusunoki-san made our conversation more lively than I had expected, and I think was able to get to know both of them pretty well. Well, Yuzuki-san wasn’t able to keep up with our conversation about the internet game and was now slightly sulking……

Unexpectedly, Kusunoki-san has been playing internet games since she was in elementary school, and the total number of years that she had been playing the game was longer than me, who had retired from the game when I entered university.

However, perhaps because of her diligent character, she seems to be a light user who only connected for about an hour a day and I seemed to be of a much higher level than her, which made me reflect on my past.

I’ve been surprised at the fact that she has been playing internet games since she was in elementary school, but I’ve actually seen and heard of players like that when I was still playing the game and there have been some of them among the players who were close to me…… It kind of makes me nostalgic thinking about it.

There was a newbie child I happened to meet back then, and as I taught him various things, we had become friends. I thought he was close to my age or older, as he had been very polite and always using honorifics while we were chatting, and he seemed to be a smart guy, with good memory and a good head on his shoulders, so I remembered being surprised when he told me he’s 11 years old.

I remembered back when I was retiring, he was pretty supportive of me, even though I was pretty much saying goodbye to him…… I wonder how he’s doing now? Is he still playing that game, or have he already retired from that game like me……? Even though we were close, our relationship is just something online. There’s no way for me to confirm it now, but I hope he’s doing well.

(T/N: He doesn’t know the newbie’s gender, so I’m going to assume he’s a male. Just as I’m taught to assume that most people in MMOs are male.)

As I was thinking about that, it was almost time for the date to change before I knew it. We are going to the temple tomorrow, so I’ve decided to switch my mind away from reminiscing nostalgic memories about to past and went to bed.

I was born in a privileged family and lived in a privileged environment—– I think that’s how the world sees me.

I may have been blessed to be the only daughter of the Kusunoki Group, the owner of a large company, and I was given many things from an early age, but for me, the environment at home was never a comfortable one.

Visit lightnovelworld.com for a better experience

I learned more lessons than I can count on one hand, and while the other children of my generation were playing together outside, I was constrained in my home, studying all the time.

More than anything else, those eyes that looked at me and those affectionate smiles they gave me…… I hated them very much.

Everyone isn’t looking at me. They don’t see me for who I am, but as the “daughter of the Kusunoki family”. And even if I hated it so much, I couldn’t do anything about it.

Even if I had lots of things, freedom isn’t something that I could acquire from inside my birdcage—– the environment I thought I was in.

I started playing online games as a bit of a break from those days. It was just a short 30 minutes to an hour before I finished my lessons, ate dinner, took a bath, and went to bed. I chose to play online games in my free time, time which I considered precious at that time…… because I was attracted by its catchphrase “The place where you can be your ideal self”.

Being conscious of those words “a self that isn’t yours”, I created a male character and played the game, but to be honest, I didn’t know what to do at first, let alone enjoy it, since it was my first time playing this kind of game, let alone an online game.

Even the help on the official site isn’t very clear. There’s a lot of technical jargons and in-game chatting is rife with incomprehensible conversations, and of course, there is no one I can ask about it, so I was already at a loss in the town where I started.

And that was when—– I met “that person”.

That person, who was wearing strong-looking equipment, approached me when I was in trouble and took good care of me, who was new to internet games and chatting.

He gently and politely guided me through not only the game, but also the technical terms and unspoken rules of the internet, and even though I was slow with typing my responses, I was able to play the game properly and enjoy it.

Visit lightnovelworld.com for a better experience

Once I got used to it, I really enjoyed playing online games. Nobody saw me as the daughter of the Kusunoki family, but rather as myself, which made the young me very happy, making me look forward to those short times of relaxation each day more than anything else.

Especially that guy who taught me a lot of things in the beginning, and because I didn’t like the idea of my levels being pulled up like that, he took the liberty to create a new low-level character and always played with me in a fair party, where our levels matched.

He would pick me up when I logged in, take me to various hunting grounds without complaining about my poor skills and lack of knowledge, and listened to me chatter and complain about all sorts of trivial things.

……I enjoyed my time with that person the most. He was kind and dependable, and yet, somehow laid back and relaxed. I felt at ease just being with him. Having no siblings, I had thought that this may be what it feels like having an older brother.

Looking back on it now, that must be—- when I first felt love.

If I had to confess, it would be better to say that my state of mind in playing online games at that time was so that I could meet that person, rather than going online just to play the game itself.

Though I said that, I still didn’t have any idea about love at that time, and all I wanted was to play with the kind older brother……

It may sound strange to say that I’m in love with someone whose face and name I didn’t know, but at the end of the day, the ideal love interest I had in mind is a kind and dependable older man…… In short, someone like him and I think there’s probably no doubt about it.

At any rate, for the me at that time, talking with him is without a doubt, the most enjoyable and happiest time I had.

However, those times of happiness came to an abrupt end. When he told me that he was retiring for real-life reasons, I was so shocked that my mind went blank.

Visit lightnovelworld.com for a better experience

I didn’t want to be selfish and bother him, so I gave him some words of encouragement, but if I’m being honest, I didn’t want him to quit. I wanted him to stay forever.