Stargazing with You

Such carefree days lasted until second grade of junior high. At that time I got addicted to playing games, doesn’t matter if it’s single-player or online games. Meanwhile, Bai Ying became obsessed with computers. He would often invite me to play PlayStation at his home while telling me to keep my home PC on stand-by mode. So while I’m headshotting zombies, he’d be typing some gibberish codes of sort on his computer in his room. Sometimes when I got stuck in the game, I’ll yell from the living room, and he’ll reply me back in simple words:

“Bai Ying Bai Ying! I’m out of the alley now, where should I turn next??”

“Left.”

“Alrig- Wait no- Ahhhhhh! I died!!”

After a burst of gun shots, with zero hit on the BOSS, I simply turned around and fired the last shot at his door. After throwing away the controller, I laid on the sofa and said weakly to him, “It’s the right side..” He definitely misguided me on purpose!

“Sorry,” he said, still typing away with his head down, “I forgot my left is your right”

I picked up the controller and rolled my eyes at him. I turned right this time and finally managed to throw off the BOSS this time around, but something kept nagging at me, “Ehhhh BULLSHIT! This is a FPS1, where did ‘your left is my right’ BS even come from? Did you think you’re the game boss?!”

To be frank, I am horrible with roads, it didn’t take long for me to get lost again. Yelling from the living room, “Bai Ying, Bai Ying!! I’m almost out of HP2!! Do you still remember where the healthpack you forgot to take last time?? I’m at the hall now, where do I go next??”

“Second door to the west.”

“What?! Which way is west?? North South.. East-…Fuc-!! Ahhhhhhhhhh I diedddd!!”

“Bai Ying, how do I get away from these rocks?? I kept getting killed by them!”

“Just run faster.” he replied lazily at me.

“I’m already running as fast as I could!! There must be some special technique needed! Bai Ying! Hey! Ignore me and the two of us are done!”

“…Breaking up over such trivial things” He must have got so annoyed by my nagging that he took off his black-framed glasses and grabbed the controller from my hands. “Look carefully.” Then he started from the respawn point, met a few zombies but managed to go around them, not wasting even a single bullet or HP. When the rocks came crumbling down, he calmly turned and ran away.

“Dieeee, crush him to bits!” I muttered bitterly on the sofa.

He didn’t die, and even managed to evade the boulder that has tormented me for so long with ease. He then lowered his head and glanced at me, “Who are you cursing just now?”

I apologetically smiled at him and asked for the controller back. He threw it back at me and went back to his room.

“Hey, why do you wear glasses anyway, you’re not even short-sighted”

“Cuz I look good in it.”

He sat back in front of the computer again and put on the black glasses.

God… this guy sure is narcissistic to the core, that even I, someone who grew up with him, couldn’t stand it. There’s no one else here, who are you doing it for? Miss Oxygen?

As he lower his head, the giant black-framed glasses slipped a little from the bridge of his thin and upright nose. This contrasting charm of his, how do I put it, he’s like someone with the looks of a handsome young lad with red lips and white teeth, but with the soul of a mature and detached age-old demon.

Bai Ying’s hair is longer than mine. The bangs covered up his eyebrows but rather than making him look unenergetic, on the contrary, his naturally soft hair made them look quite delicate. He also has long eyelashes, so it’s very picturesque when he tilts his head and lowers his eyebrows. Me on the other hand, I can’t match his hairdo as my hair has a mind of their own. Both curly and curled, if I keep long bangs I’ll look like those kelp-headed Japanese delinquents. So to avoid causing a ruckus with all the girls and boys, I usually keep them short, but they still go on a strike like a row of waves at sea.

When Bai Ying is hacking away on his computer he often make demonic-like creepy laughs. Ever so curious, I saved my game and went to check up on him. He waved at me from behind the computer, “Jiang He, come and have a look, do you recognize whose desktop is this?”

I leaned over to look, “Whose is it? Why does it look exactly like mine?”

It’s not just the wallpaper, even the icons on the deskto- WTF! IT IS MY DESKTOP!

I stared at him, flabbergasted.

“How did you do it? Is this why you told me not to shut down my computer?! Y-you hacked my computer!”

“Is it really hacking if it’s your computer?” He said as he leaned back on his chair, shamelessly. “You promised me your heart and soul, naturally that applies to your computer as well.”

What is this flawed logic!

It looks like he amused himself with his own words, so he sat back up and move the mouse around, “Now lets see what you’ve been browsing on the web eh?” said him as he launched my web browser. I launched myself forward to block him and almost fell on his lap. “You do know what you’re doing is against the law right?!”

Before he could say anything, I hurriedly powered off the computer, and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the Windows shut down screen.

He laughed out loud from behind me, “Are you stupid, I’ve already seen everything you have to show a long time ago, there’s nothing more than just a few gigabytes of idol videos and photos”

He said, as his eyes fluttered, as if reminiscing, “There are a few good ones—”

I pointed at his nose with anger, “Don’t you dare!”

He sneered, “It’s not like your love for them are very noble or something, you just like them for their oppai3 right?”

“Nonesense!”

His eyes lit up, “So you DO know what oppai is?”

WTF I got played! “So only you are allowed to know but not me?”

“Nah, it’s not a big deal to like oppais” he said as he put his two hands in front of his chest, as if grabbing something. This act of his made me imagine some bad bad things, and my face immediately blushed.

Staring at me, he stopped teasing me. Lets go play some games, he said.

You know, it’s so strange, I performed so much better in the games with him by my side, my headshot rate even increased exponentially. He’s a genius after all. Even if I’m heavily surrounded, I’ll still be confident if he’s around.

Later, we played a two-player fighting game. He was idling as I was picking the fighters, so I stopped and asked he to start picking. He told me to go on ahead as he needed more time to think. I rolled my eyes at him, it’s just a game, not a war.

Once I was done, he immediately made his picks, with Mai Shiranui4 going head first with my team!

When the lady with a very revealing red outfit came onto the stage, a pair of oversize breasts kept bouncing around on the screen. Oh he definitely did it on purpose. I stared at him with all I got, and he only looked back innocently. The pair of pure and innocent eyes contrasted greatly with the flirty big lady on the TV. Anyhow, this turn of events made me played so badly that he defeated all three of my fighters with her alone!

He pretended to be innocent after winning, “What’s the matter? You’re not in good shape today”

Well DAMN YOU! You pretentious fox!

We’re both fourteen that year, an age where one rightly yearns for Oppais.

Rightfully so!!

Translator's Notes
So we’ve basically caught up to the comic, as Ch.5 is from the final chapter of the novel (Shocking, I know!!)

FPS — First Person Shooter, shooting games that is played from the first person perspective. ↩

HP — Health Points, referring to the game character’s health level. The character will die when it reaches zero. ↩

おっぱい Oppai — Japanese term for breasts a.k.a. boobs. ↩

不知火舞 Mai Shiranui — Character from Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters series of fighting games by SNK. (Source for animation) ↩