Leo's fingers danced across the controller, the faint blue glow pulsing beneath his thumbs.
"Shit," he muttered as the word [FAILED] flashed across his forty-inch NEO screen for the nth time. The screen was so crystal clear it felt like he was staring out his window.
The Absolute Game Station Custom Series X hummed quietly on his entertainment center—five thousand dollars worth of gaming power.
His gaming chair—a vibrating monstrosity that cost more than most people's first cars—sat abandoned against the wall. Leo preferred the sofa today. Something about sprawling across the cushions made playing this particular game feel right. Less intense. More... casual.
Casual, like how he'd slept with Elvis's girlfriend last night.
The corner of his mouth twitched upward at the thought. Casual, like how he'd made sure Elvis found out.
The game unfolded before him—technically an eroge, one of those Japanese dating sims with exaggerated female characters and convenient romance scenarios. But this one was different.
"What kind of perverted genius makes an eroge this challenging?" Leo wondered aloud, selecting [Continue from last checkpoint]. The loading screen didn't even have time to display properly before the game thrust him back into its world—a testament to the quantum-grade neural engine that made load times a memory.
Most men played these games for simple fantasy fulfillment. Quick satisfaction. Leo originally had too. But somewhere between the incredible world-building and the physics-based combat system, he'd found himself genuinely invested. This wasn't just another shallow game with pretty faces and predetermined endings. This was something... real.
The NPCs remembered your choices. The women weren't just prizes to be won—they had personalities, flaws, motivations that often contradicted your objectives. Entire story arcs could be missed if you made the wrong choice six hours earlier. The game punished arrogance and rewarded patience.
Leo had neither patience nor humility, which explained the [FAILED] screens.
He glanced at his wrist. 2:15 PM.
Elvis would be here soon—probably within the hour. The thought should have frightened him. Instead, it sent a thrill of anticipation through his body that mirrored the excitement he felt playing this impossible game.
"Just enough time to finally get past this fucking mission," he said to no one.
On screen, his character navigated a lavishly detailed academy corridor. The lighting engine rendered shadows that stretched and receded as he moved, creating an atmosphere that felt more cinematic than any AAA title Leo had ever played.
PING!
"FUCK! MY NOODLES!"
The microwave timer dragged him back to reality. For once, he'd actually remembered to set the timer instead of burning another cup to charcoal. So yeah, good for him.
Leo returned with the steaming cup and placed it carefully on the side table. The controller felt cool against his palms as he resumed play.
His character approached one of the game's most difficult NPCs—Aria, a cold beauty with silver hair and a perpetual scowl who'd rejected every dialogue option he'd tried over his twenty-six hours of gameplay.
["How about it... It would just be the two of us,"] he selected.
["I... I don't—"] she began her usual rejection.
["Come on Aria, I know you want to,"] he chose the riskier option, expecting another [FAILED] screen.
Instead, the impossible happened. A faint pink tinge colored Aria's cheeks.
"Holy shit," Leo whispered, leaning forward. "Did she just... actually blush?"
After all this time, after all his failures, he'd finally cracked her code. He'd found the right combination of choices, the right path through her defenses. The game suddenly unfolded new possibilities before him—dialogue options he'd never seen before, story branches unexplored.
DING!
His phone lit up with a message notification. Leo grabbed it without taking his eyes off the game—he wasn't about to miss this moment after twenty-six hours of failure.
[Elvis: YOU BASTARD! I SWEAR I WILL KILL YOU!]
A quick glance at the notification bar told the rest of the story: [System Security: Blocked Calls: 42 | Blocked Messages: 0]
"Poor bastard finally figured out how to get around the call block," Leo chuckled. He tapped out a reply, the most inflammatory one he could think of, designed specifically to push Elvis over the edge:
[You: >.<]
Two characters. A wincing emoji face. The digital equivalent of "come at me, bro."
Leo tossed the phone aside, listening as it bounced once on the sofa cushion before settling into silence. In the distance, sirens wailed—unrelated, but eerily appropriate. The setting sun cast long shadows across his apartment, turning the space into something from a noir film.
His attention returned to the screen where Aria stood waiting for his next dialogue choice. Leo settled deeper into the sofa, savoring the moment. The cup noodles steamed beside him, forgotten. The game beckoned, promising new secrets, new pathways, new experiences.
And somewhere, not too far away, Elvis was coming—fury carrying him forward like a missile locked on target. Coming to deliver exactly what Leo had been engineering for weeks.
Leo smiled. The final game had begun.
Two stories unfolding simultaneously: one virtual, one real. Both leading to the same place.
An ending.
His ending.
And Leo couldn't wait to see how it all played out.