“S-so what’s the genre?” My own voice sounded hollow.

“As far as the programming goes, as long as we get a free-use game engine, we’ll be fine. Let’s just take the soundtrack off a copyright-free music CD, too. I’ll draw the CG, Satou, and you write the scenarios.”

Scenarios? Oh, that should be easy as long as I just had to write something appropriate. Like, say, “the hero has to rescue a princess who was kidnapped by villains.”

“Okay”, I said. “I’ll write as many game scenarios as you want! What’s the genre?”

“You’ll do it, Satou?!” Yamazaki patted me on the shoulders.

“Yeah, let’s do it, Yamazaki. Let’s make a game together! So, like I was asking, what’s the genre?”

“As long as the CG and scenarios are good, we can become totally famous. It might not even be that hard to become pros in the future. If we make some money with a self-published project, we even could start a company!”

“A company! That would be amazing, Yamazaki. You could be the president, and I’ll be the vice president! What’s the genre?”

“You’ll do it, right, Satou?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it.”

“If we go this far, there’s no turning back.”

“How many times do I have to say it?”

“Well then, let’s shake on it. Together, we can run toward tomorrow!” Yamazaki took my hand and grasped it firmly. “We’re kindred spirits.”

“Like I asked, what’s the genre of the game?”

“We’re friends!”

“What’s the genre?”

“We’re creators!”

“Like I keep asking, what the hell is the genre of the game?!”

Yamazaki finally proudly answered the question that I had asked repeatedly. “Erotic games.”

Someone, please save me.

I shakily tried to return to my own room, but Yamazaki pulled me back.

“Here are the materials. Please, look through them as soon as you get a chance. If you play all these games, you should be able to understand the industry trends.” Saying this, he handed me about thirty game boxes. These were the packages slathered with words like “torture”, “wet”, “abuse”, “lewd”, “tie”, “academy”, “confinement”, “rape”, “savage”, “pure love”, “training” and “adventure”.

I wanted to cry. But Yamazaki was grinning.

“These games aren’t for sale to minors because they’re erotic games. Well, these are really, really erotic games—but they’re the only path open to us, so let’s become erotic game creators. Let’s get back at all the people in my class with our erotic games! Let’s become billionaires with our erotic games! Let’s become famous around the world for our erotic games! We’ll go on to Hollywood with our erotic games! Let’s get accepted into the Order of Culture with our erotic games.[17] Let’s get a Nobel Prize for our erotic…”