Headphone Actor by JIN Read Free Book Online Page A

Festival, and turns out there’s this fun-looking booth. He’s really good at shooting games, y’know, so we’ll be taking off your prizes, alright?”
    As my eyes gradually got used to the light, I saw that behind the man that had entered first, was another, giddy-looking man. It would seem that these two were a pair.
    “U-um, I’ll be doing my best as your opponent, so …”
    Even as I felt sweat running down my back, I tried to keep calm, and continued with a smile on my face.
    From the minute they’d started talking, I already knew that they were some malicious customers, but that still didn’t change the fact that they were the first.
    I wondered if they planned wreck havoc for booths during the festival just for the heck of it. I couldn’t read the expression of the able-looking man with the sunglasses, but I could feel a devious attitude from the man behind him.
    “Well, whatever. A homemade game is probably going to be shitty, anyway. Just child’s play, in the end. Although I feel bad about taking away the prize so early on, don’t lose hope, and think of this as lesson for growing up.”
    As the man said this, he passed by me and dropped himself down in the challenger seat.
    “It’s really too bad for you, since he doesn’t go easy or anything. Girly, you may not know this, but, he made it to the semifinals in the tournament for a game called “DEAD BULLET-1989-”. He’s also participated in a number of other tournaments, so if it’s you, girly, there’s nothing that you can—”
    Speaking up until this point, he stopped his annoying rambling with a small scream.
    That might have been because I’d stopped smiling to glare at him, or because he’d bit his tongue from rambling too much.
    “Ta-Takaneee ….”
    Suddenly, I heard a familiar, miserable-sounding voice. From the other side of the door, Haruka was looking this way with tear-filled eyes, and judging by his frightened expression, he’d probably been intimidated by these men.
    With a hand gesture, I signaled for him to close the door. Haruka hesitated for a moment, but after managing a quiet, “Good luck ….!” he slowly closed the door.
    Making sure that he had, I was once again in the darkened room, and walked towards where the booth was set up.
    Sitting down in the chair beside the one the sullen-looking man, I faced the display with the title screen and once more, started to explain.
    “Allow me to explain the rules one last time. This is a shooting game with a point system. The one that takes down the most targets will be the winner. There are different levels of difficult, so which level would you prefer?”
    “The hardest one, obviously.”
    “Understood.”
    Pressing the select button on the title screen, I set the difficulty to “extra”.
    This level was one that Tateyama-sensei had said was so difficult, that “if someone’s able to get a perfect score with this, they’re a monster.”
    “Oi oi, wait a minute, girly. I’m sure you already know, but no cheating, got it?”
    Before I’d even noticed, the gaudy-looking man had stood behind the sullen man, and said this in a slighter more threatening tone than earlier.
    Certainly, that was something to be worried about. There was a possibility that they’d think we would change the difficulty for only our side of the stage, and furthermore, cheat with the points.
    “Of course we wouldn’t rely on anything like that. Therefore, would you like to switch places with me? As it’s a point system, this way, there will be no complaints about who the winner is.”
    As I said this, the sullen simply said, “I don’t care either way. Just hurry up and start,” and took off his sunglasses.
    “… Let’s begin, then. May the best shot win.”
     
    I tightened my grip on the controller once, loosened it …. then gripped it again. Once I was sure that I was feeling absolute confidence, I clicked the start button for the game.
    As the monster enemies flooded out, for a