[Location: Tomodachi Game - Japan - Saitama Prefecture - Saitama - Residential Apartments.]
Yuuichi Katagiri, a young high school student, worked in silence, his skilled hands shaping paper roses with precision and delicacy.
Before him stood two empty boxes that, by the end of the weekend, needed to be filled with these delicate handcrafted flowers.
He had barely begun, but he knew the task would consume several nights and hours of sleep.
It was simple, tedious work, but he couldn't afford the luxury of turning it down.
Ever since the tragedy that claimed his family, Yuuichi had learned to survive on his own, accepting any job that allowed him to make ends meet.
For years he had dedicated himself to small, poorly paid odd jobs, but recently he had begun taking on even more modest tasks with a clear objective: saving enough money to go on the school trip with his cherished friends.
And he had succeeded.
Through sheer effort and sacrifice, he gathered the necessary amount, though the price was steep. He had even spent the money meant for rent.
Now he had to keep working to cover his basic needs.
Even with all this, he didn't seem worried. To anyone's eyes, Yuuichi was just another student—reliable, kind, and burdened with a streak of bad financial luck that inspired sympathy.
But that facade concealed something far darker.
Few could imagine that beneath that ordinary appearance lay a calculating mind, someone capable of manipulating situations and people with unsettling coldness.
Though he possessed slight traits of antisocial personality disorder, his true nature lay closer to the pillars of the Dark Triad of personality: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.
Yuuichi, however, stood out for his mastery in Machiavellianism, employing strategic manipulation as a primary tool to achieve his goals. With cognitive and emotional intelligence far above average, a pragmatic morality unconstrained by common social standards, and a selective empathy displayed only when convenient, Yuuichi could control any situation to his advantage.
But there was more. Not only was he a brilliant, resilient, and psychologically impenetrable youth.
He was also a killer.
In that moment, as a pile of paper petals accumulated on his desk, Yuuichi allowed himself a brief pause. His arms stretched, his eyes closed for a second, and a thought crossed his mind.
'Did someone return the money?'
Just a few hours earlier, while in class, their homeroom teacher made an announcement that left everyone in a state of shock. Someone had stolen the two million yen designated for the school trip.
Shiho Sawaragi, Yuuichi's close friend and class vice president, had made the mistake of storing the money in her locker—a location that, in retrospect, was as insecure as it was naive.
Shiho, desperate to fix the problem, decided to stay late at school in hopes that the culprit would have a change of heart and return the money.
But Yuuichi, who understood the human mind better than anyone, held few expectations. The probability of the thief acting out of remorse was microscopic.
Despite this, he couldn't help but worry about Shiho. Though his emotions were carefully suppressed, a part of him genuinely didn't want his friend to suffer.
With a sigh, Yuuichi prepared to resume his work. It was late, and his mind was wandering.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar sound stopped him in his tracks.
Ding!
A holographic text window appeared before him, obstructing part of his field of vision.
[What's the point of maintaining this theater of yours...? For the wish of the dead?]
"...".
"...? What is this...?" Yuuichi muttered, frowning as he stared at the window.
Though no tech expert, video games and science fiction movies weren't foreign to him. His mind shifted rapidly from surprise to concern. Someone was watching him.
Quickly rising from his seat, he began inspecting his apartment. He examined every corner, every possible device that might be projecting the window.
After several minutes of fruitless searching, his patience began to wear thin.
'There's nothing...' he thought, letting out a resigned sigh.
It could be a prank or an hallucination, but he wasn't willing to take that risk. He sat back down, this time with a different purpose: trying to understand what was happening.
"Who are you? What are you looking for?" he asked softly, yet firmly. Yuuichi was interested in understanding the nature of the message, not just what it represented.
Shortly after, the familiar chime resonated once more.
Ding!
A new window overlaid the previous one, bearing an even more perplexing message.
[If you're really interested in knowing, then answer.]
The window disappeared momentarily, replaced by another.
[Do you want to know who I am, and what I offer?]
[Yes / No.]
Yuuichi observed the holographic window with a faint smile barely curving his lips. The message before him was undoubtedly strange, but it didn't disturb him as much as it might have disturbed anyone else in his situation.
And looking at it from another angle, the message seemed tailor-made for him—as if the other party knew aspects of his true nature that no one should know.
'A direct approach to grab my interest. Not bad... but still not enough,' he thought, his gaze turning analytical, as though trying to decipher what lay behind the words on the screen.
The fact that he couldn't identify the source of the message meant one thing: he lacked information. And that was unacceptable.
Right now, the only thing that truly mattered to him was maintaining control, and to regain control, he needed more data.
This message—be it an elaborate prank, a threat, or an opportunity—represented an unknown he couldn't ignore.
'What do I gain if I accept?' he wondered, his fingers lightly tapping the edge of the table. 'At least time and context. If the other party is human, sooner or later they'll make a mistake.'
Resting his chin on his hand, he narrowed his eyes while analyzing the potential ramifications. The fact that someone could project a holographic window inside his apartment was already reason enough to take the situation seriously.
Refusing, on the other hand, might close a door that his pragmatism told him to keep open.
'If this is all a joke, they underestimate how much I enjoy uncovering secrets... and using them to my advantage,' he thought as he slowly extended a finger toward the option marked [Yes].
Ding!
The window reacted immediately, displaying a new message.
[Great! Then, welcome to the "Part-Time Workers Group"!]
Yuuichi blinked, a fleeting look of confusion crossing his face. "Eh?" he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
He was given no time to process the meaning of those words. The moment he finished reading the text, everything turned white—as though everything in front of him had somehow been erased.