Story of a Rhythm Game Couple

Chapter 1: An unexpected encounter

During the first free week, Asahi made acquaintances with quite a few people on campus. But conversationally, he tended to keep himself curt, leading others to believe that Asahi was difficult to talk to. But to Asahi, that was good news. The last thing he wanted to do was stir up trouble.

As expected, he didn't join any club at school at all, and coupled with the fact that he didn't have to work any part-time jobs, he was very much considered a shut-in. Asahi wasn't the type of person to take note of other people's thoughts on him, however, so he paid them no mind. He knew for himself that he didn't lead the life that many thought he did, and that was enough for him.

That mindset was certainly not what Asahi's parents were expecting, but he had put them out of his mind for the time being.

Naturally, on the first day at school, thanks to his effort, he wasn't the center of attention like many students were deliberately trying to be. He thought that the first phase of the plan was a success.

On his way home, he planned to let off some steam for a few hours in FunZone, which is the arcade that he has been frequenting since last week. Even though there wasn't much going on at school given that it's the first day, Asahi thought he might as well treat himself to a little self-indulgence to compensate for the time-consuming assignments that seemed to come later on in his course.

Upon entering the rhythm game section in the arcade, Asahi was taken aback to see a student who had already been there before him, with familiar clothes.

"...A schoolmate?"

Just like most universities, the institution Asahi attended supplied uniforms to new students on the first few days of the previous free week. Since universities generally didn't enforce any strict rules when it came to dress code, many students weren't very fond of wearing it, but there were still a number of students who did, for they were too lazy to bother thinking of anything else to wear, probably. The student playing in the corner was wearing a uniform that had the same color scheme and emblem as his, so he immediately could tell that the student was going to the same university as him.

But the uniform of the student was a bit different from Asahi's. It was because the one wearing it was a girl.

The students were given two sets of uniforms based on their gender. They got both summer and winter variants at the same time, so they wouldn't have to go through the trouble of going to the office to obtain the uniform again when the weather got cold. The summer uniform for boys was a white T-shirt with a red collar and short red sleeves, whereas the female version, for some reason, had an extra white stripe on the sleeves. For the winter attire, they were given a heavy coat to ward off the freezing wind, with a layer of feathers inside to retain body heat. Much like the summer variant, the coat also featured the red color on both the collar and the sleeves, as well as an additional white stripe on the female model. All of them had a circular emblem sewn to their left chest position. The boys were also handed a pair of long-sleeve black trousers and, for the girls, a skirt of medium length.

The girl had a good physique, though she was more on the petite side. She probably stands at the same height as Asahi's ears. She had her long brown hair tied into a bun, probably to avoid it getting in her way of playing. She had a very serious look on her face as she focused on the game, and to Asahi, it was intimidating. While she was still wearing the uniform shirt, she had changed into her sports pants. Since she was playing a physical rhythm game, she probably didn't want it to flutter around too much as she moved, even though her delicate movement coupled with the appropriate length of the skirt wouldn't reveal anything suggestive to onlookers.

Asahi froze in bewilderment. It was rare for girls to play games, much less rhythm genres. Besides, the arcade in his neighborhood was quite a distance from school. It seemed strange that a student of his school would spend the effort to go to this little arcade rather than the larger ones that were closer to the student town. Of course, people could go wherever they wanted, but the likelihood was really low, especially when he had deliberately chosen to live in this area to stay away from school.