Interlude

“Well, that’s basically the gist of it,” Sakura said as she finished laying out the story of her game.

“That’s it?” Chaeyeon asked in a confused voice. “That isn’t much of an ending.”

“That’s the end of the gameplay. There’ll actually be several different possible endings. Each one will depend on your progress with each girl. If you don’t manage to get anywhere with any of the girls, there’s a ‘bad end’ ending which usually involves bad stuff happening somewhere like a boat.”

“I see,” Chaeyeon said as it dawned on her. “So, if they don’t want to get the ‘bad end,’ they’ll have to play it again and again until they make enough progress with one of the girls. What’s a ‘good end’ like?”

“Usually, there’ll be some big event near the end of the year mark. Sometimes, it’ll be like a legend that the person you see the school bonfire with will be with you forever. Some games will make a big deal about the person you spend Christmas Eve or New Year’s with. There’s also Valentine’s Day or White Day near the end of the school year of course. Graduation day would be the next possible big event.” Sakura held up her fingers as she counted off some of the possible end scenes that happened in these types of games.

“That sounds pretty romantic,” Chaeyeon had to admit. It was still odd to her that their fans might be interested in such a game, but she was beginning to see the appeal. “What’s this game’s ‘good end’ like?”

“I always like it when we get cutscenes of all the previous events. We can do it from point of view of the target and include a whole bunch of cute pictures. If they want to see all the pictures and the other endings, they’ll have to usually play multiple times. Replay value is pretty important in any game.”

“What’s one of the endings like? What’s mine like?” Chaeyeon asked.

“Eh? They’ll all probably be pretty similar so we can cut costs. We’ll want the girls to be interchangeable. Wedding pictures are usually popular. People will still pay money to see us in different outfits and poses even if the ending is the same,” Sakura said with a shrug, drawing on her extensive game knowledge.

“That’s not good enough!” Wonyoung shrieked.

Sakura blinked. She looked around the living room of their doom and noticed an additional ten extra bodies. She’d been so engrossed in telling her game story to Chaeyeon she hadn’t even realized all their members had come in. “Wonyoung? How long have you all been here?”

It was Eunbi who answered, however. “Uh, since day one of the story. Chaeyeon pocket dialed Hyewon’s number and she put you guys on speaker phone. We came here around day four. But anyway, I’ve been holding my tongue for awhile. If this is a dating game, why doesn’t my character get any romantic kiss scenes?”

“Speaking of kissing, I don’t think I’m that much of a kissing demon that the story makes me out to be,” Yuri chimed in, miffed.

“Do you like it that much when I call you, Unnie?” Wonyoung asked shyly as she had noticed her character had been the only one to do so. And all of a sudden, the rest of the voices spoke up all at once.

“I don’t think I’m that much like a boy. Why are there so many comments about my height? My stare isn’t that scary! My scenes are mostly us arguing. Senpai, some of those scenes were a little gross. Was it just me or did my character cry a lot? I liked it!” came a garbled mess of critiques that Sakura had trouble making out.

“Hold it!” Eunbi scolded in a loud voice. Everyone stopped and looked at her. “I think there are more important things to talk about. Wonyoung is right. That ending isn’t nearly satisfying enough.”

“If you’re going to use our likeness for the game, we should get to decide our endings,” Yena chirped in.

“That’s a great idea,” Minju said, nodding enthusiastically.

Author’s note:

Happy birthday to Sakura!

I managed to get the first of several endings ready for Sakura’s birthday. I hope you enjoy the final parts of this story.

Let me know your thoughts!