Love Addict's RPG Ch. 40 (Patreon)

The mood between Oliver and Mia shockingly did not improve in the point five seconds it took to fast travel to the nearest GameGo. Things got a little better after entering the store, though. Finding a copy of My Cute Hellagers and Me took only a few seconds, allowing them to roam around the building as a minor continuation of their date.

They held hands while chatting about things they saw on the shelves, but very early on, a recurring thread made itself apparent. Because Mia didn't play that many games outside of turn-based RPGs and life sims, much of her gaming experience came from a particular friend. Whenever Mia had something to say, it was usually prefaced with the word 'Zoe'.

'Zoe really likes this series', 'Zoe played this one a lot when we were kids', 'Zoe wouldn't shut up about how bad this one was', and so on.

Going off of the things that Mia had told him about her, the only things Oliver knew of his girlfriend's mysterious roommate were that she secluded herself in her room while working a stay-at-home job, was addicted to energy drinks, and every spare moment of her life was spent playing video games. He somewhat envied such a simple existence.

Mia was more interested in looking through the various nerd-related merchandise on offer. In a sense, she was precisely the sort of clientele that this desperate and dying retailer hoped to attract in massive droves. Unfortunately for them, Mia wasn't interested in picking up any of the mildly interesting things that caught her eye. They did have some anime and videogame pins, but none were deemed worthy of joining her expansive collection.

Checkout was harmless, and the cashier was significantly more friendly than the guardian of the prize room for what little that said about him. Oliver forked over his debit card and walked out with the first game that he and Mia would play together in their relationship.

--- Spent $30

Item Received! My Cute Hellagers and Me ---

Next up was a brief trip to his apartment. They zipped over there in the blink of an eye, and Mia almost gave him a heart attack when she pointed out they were making good time. He was terrified that repeated exposure to his fast travel powers was starting to give her a glimpse under the hood, but when pressed, all she said was that he was a decent driver.

Mia opted to stay in the car since this would only take him a second. Oliver went up the two flights of stairs to get up to the third floor, grabbed his Synthstation Odyssey from its dock, and then stored it in his inventory before heading on his way.

He stopped in the hallway after stepping out of his apartment. Two grown men sped down the stairs so fast that Oliver almost thought they would trip. He didn't get a good look at them, and he didn't have much knowledge about his neighbors to guess who they might've been, but it wasn't really his problem either way, so he put the incident out of his mind.

When he returned, the two men weren't in the parking lot, but Mia raised a hand and smiled lazily to greet him. It was stupid, but at that moment, he couldn't being excited that there was a cute girl in his car waving at him, and that the cute girl was his girlfriend. You couldn't say he wasn't easy to please.

The afternoon's final bout of fast travel took them back to Mia's apartment at around three thirty, leaving them plenty of time to play once they got situated. Before that, though...

"Becca?" Mia called out after unlocking the door and leading Oliver inside.

A fascist-adjacent hat poked up from behind the couch, a mousy voice replying, "Present."

"Come on out for a couple of minutes. Wanted to properly introduce you to Oliver before we headed back to my room."

"Oh," the hat sank by an inch. "He's still there with you?"

"Yeah, I'm right here," Oliver spoke up. "Hey."

"Hello..." Rebecca crawled forward until her face was exposed. She looked at him like a cautious house pet, unsure what to make of the new guest. Then, she turned to her friend with a question. "This is the same Oliver you're always talking about, right?"

"Yes," Mia owned up to it. "The one and only."

"And you're spending time with each other because?" Rebecca innocently tilted her head. Though her blunt question came off as rude, Oliver sensed she didn't mean it that way and was only asking to keep herself informed.

Mia looked him in the eyes, nonverbally asking if he wanted to give her the answer. Oliver would've been more comfortable if Mia did so herself, but he knew she wanted him to make an effort to befriend the couch-obscured pseudo-fascist. "Something happened at work, and we got the day off because of it, so I asked Mia out on a date today."

Rebecca crawled further from her lair, looking slightly less nervous and wearing a placid smile that exposed her rabbitlike teeth. "Really?" She asked of Oliver, then of Mia. "A date as in man and lady business or a casual hangout session between friends?"

Oliver tried hard not to laugh at the way she described it. "Nah, our casual hangout session was last Friday. Today was the man and lady business part."

"I see," Rebecca nodded along in contemplation. "Congratulations, Mia. I'm happy for you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm almost done with the chapter I'm working through." Expecting this interaction to be over and done with, she began backing up into her comfy spot to resume reading.

"Hold on," Mia raised her palm and beckoned Rebecca closer. "Not done with you yet. We come bearing gifts. Ollie?"

Nervous about making a good impression, Oliver closed the doorway and stepped forward. Extending his arms, he removed the trading cards from his inventory. "Have you ever been to Prize Planet? I won an assload of tickets while we were there. Mia picked out this expensive drawing tablet for herself, but we still had enough left over for some other junk afterward. She told me you were a fan of Sorcery the Consumption, so..."

Rebecca's eyes went wide. She stood up and approached him, making a concentrated effort to keep up eye contact. Unable to hold back her excitement, a placid smile spread across her face. "That's the newest set," she explained. "Thirty packs of Magi of the Eternal, wow... they've been in really high demand since their release, so I haven't been able to procure all that many for myself yet...! Of course, it didn't help that my budgeting has been out of whack since I started to pad out one of my side armies, but... ah, what could be in store within those sealed plastic packages? One can only wonder..."

Oliver looked at Mia for guidance, finding her smiling back at him knowingly. Oliver smiled, too. There was no denying that Rebecca was weird, but weird wasn't automatically bad. Instead, he found her passion endearing. She liked what she liked, and unashamedly so. As someone who kept his biggest passion a secret to everyone who knew him, Oliver had to respect her for that.

"No need to wonder. These are yours," Oliver extended the box of booster packs and the decks sitting on top of it towards her. "We'll probably be seeing a lot of each other from now on, so I wanted to start things off on the right foot. It's nice to meet you, Rebecca."

Rebecca's expression shifted through several extremes. She was as awkward as she was happy. Her nervous hands reached towards the box until she finally took it from him. Now unable to look him in the eyes, she lowered her head until the visor of her hat covered most of her face.

"I... um... I'm really bad with people, so sorry if I'm weird in advance, but, um... this is very nice of you, thank you, um, Oliver... I think I see why Mia likes you so much..." Rebecca paused, grew considerably more confused, and then looked at Mia. "Was that weird? Should I have said that? Did I make things awkward?"

Mia left Oliver's side to comfort her friend, smiling as she placed a hand on Rebecca's shoulder. Mia wasn't very tall, so seeing her standing beside someone much shorter was almost surreal. Oliver reckoned that Rebecca was about four foot six without her hat compared to Mia's five foot even.

"Nah, not at all. Right, Ollie?" Mia shot him a glance that gave him his answer, just in case there was any room for doubt.

"I'm not in the habit of throwing stones in glass houses, so I'm going to have to go and say no, you're fine..." Oliver laughed, knowing he had no right to point out someone else's awkwardness.

Rebecca didn't understand the context, but she smiled wide regardless. "Okay. Just making sure. I don't always follow along too well, so..." she cocked her head. Her attention span had been so absorbed by the Magi of the Eternal packs that she'd not even registered the structure decks Oliver was handing over until now. Moving to the coffee table, she sat the box down and took the decks. "Wait. I don't need these, here..."

Now put on the spot, Oliver looked at her in confusion as she carried the decks towards him and handed them back. "Oh. Okay, but why not?"

"I've already bought these decks three times to get enough tournament-legal copies of their exclusive and otherwise rare cards. They'd simply serve no use to me."

Oliver wondered what he was supposed to do with these unopened decks. It wasn't like they were going to be worth that much. Rebecca said they had rare cards, but he knew what that meant. His childhood experience playing STC told him that these decks probably had a bunch of cards that started off hard to get, but that defined the meta-game so severely that the game makers were forced to make them more accessible. Otherwise, the delicate game balance between whales and poorer players would shift even more toward the whales than it already was.

"Why not keep them?" Mia wasted no time in suggesting. "Might be fun to mess around with some time, and I'm sure you wouldn't mind another person to practice with, right, Becca?"

"Ah, well, um..." Rebecca fidgeted in place. Such a forward suggestion was far beyond her, and she didn't know how to respond. "I... I don't know about that. I mean, if he wants to, then I wouldn't say no, but..."

Suddenly, Oliver got where Mia was coming from. She probably expected Rebecca to turn the decks down and predicted this situation. Mia's goal was to get them to be friends, and it sounded like playing card games with her would go a long way. He knew that agreeing would probably get him some easy points from his girlfriend, but even if that wasn't the case, he would've said yes regardless.

"Sure. I'll keep them. I actually used to play STC back in grade school, so I'll have to brush up on all the mechanics and junk they've added over the last decade or so, but I'm down." He reabsorbed the decks into his inventory, this time for keeps.

--- Item Received! Sorcery Structure Decks ---

Mia smiled, again pleased that Oliver had read the context clues and done what she wanted.

--- Mia Gained 1 Affection ---

That made her happy enough to make up for his dramatic fumble earlier, which perked him up something fierce. Rebecca was similarly perked up, albeit for different reasons.

"You haven't played in over ten years?" She gasped, her dull, maroon eyes sparkling as she stepped closer into Oliver's personal space. "There's so much you have to learn. So much. Where to even begin? Invasion of the Mindmelders came out right after that, and it kicked off an entirely new era of the game and its lore. Many essential cards were introduced in it that still see use in the unlimited format to this very day-"

"Becca."

"Forests of Akkandallah released only around three years ago, but it had a similar effect, though the retcons in the lore are still hotly debated. Do you remember the classic card Almiria, Great Witch of the Woods? A bunch of stuff was added to her previously established backstory via a contentious tie-in novel that did not go down well with many fans, myself included. It sunk a beloved ship so hard that the author had to apologize, and then it became the first Sorcery novel ever to be officially de-canonized. The cards were great, though, and pretty much everyone loved all of the new plant-based keywords-"

"Becca."

"But if you asked me what my favorite expansion of the last ten years was, then it'd have to be-"

"Becca," Mia raised her voice loud enough to finally pull her friend out of her own world. "Take it easy. You don't wanna overload him, do you?"

Rebecca blinked a couple of times before looking at Mia and then at Oliver. He kept a polite smile throughout her entire episode, still finding her passion for her interests charming more than anything else. However, Rebecca didn't know that, so she blushed and stepped away from him toward the coffee table where her new cards were waiting for her.

"Sorry," she hung her head and pulled the visor over her face again. "I, um... I don't have a filter when you get me talking about things I like, so, um, don't feel like you need to listen to me if I start getting annoying. You just have to get my attention, and I'll stop as soon as you tell me off..."

Rebecca's nervousness tugged at Oliver's easily swayed heartstrings, as did how used to saying such things she sounded. He was on the verge of thinking things someone with a girlfriend shouldn't be thinking. Nothing too extreme, obviously. Just simple things like how cute this awkward nerd girl was when apologizing for something she couldn't control or how much he enjoyed listening to her talk about things he didn't understand.

It was that damned addiction to dating sims of his again, Oliver convinced himself.

Befriending and learning more about new cute girls altered his brain chemistry, giving him pleasant injections of tingles and dopamine. That said, he was mature enough that his wandering thoughts never went overboard. Oliver could passively enjoy the company of his girlfriend's unconventionally adorable friend without jumping off the deep end. He was just thankful that whatever powers that be didn't register Rebecca as a potential heroine, as Oliver worried over what having a fourth girl added to his list whom he didn't actively dislike might tempt him into doing for the sake of LP.

Fuck you, Gollum... Oliver reminded himself, a single bead of sweat dripping down his brow and betraying his composure.

Mia arched an eyebrow outside his field of vision and smiled darkly.

"Hey, easy. Don't be so hard on yourself." Oliver smiled kindly. "You weren't being annoying, far from it. I'd love to hear more about what I've missed, but you're going a little too fast for me. That's all. Next time, slow it down a little. Sound good?"

Rebecca looked at him like he was speaking a different language. "...I wasn't being annoying?" She blinked rapidly a couple times. "Really? You actually mean that? Really?"

Dealing with Rebecca was like gazing into a reflection of Oliver's past self. He saw so much of the person he used to be in elementary school in her that it honestly scared him. It also gave him a pretty good idea of what was happening in her head and what she might want to hear. "Honest to God. I like card games and nerdy shit as much as the next guy, but I fell off the wagon pretty hard. It's interesting to hear you go on about it, and I think your passion is pretty contagious."

"Huh," Rebecca nodded her head a couple of times. "...Okay." She kept nodding until she no longer needed to, like her brain was overloaded, and nodding was the only way to rewire it back to normal.

By the time she was back, a thousand-yard stare appeared on her face. Rebecca briefly looked at Mia, only to discover that her friend was giving her a strange look. She wondered if Mia was getting the wrong idea. It was hard to tell for someone who struggled to read other people like Rebecca. The possibility made her feel a little guilty.

Rebecca took the box of booster packs and started retreating towards her comfy spot. She looked like she was suddenly trying to make herself small, and Oliver didn't understand why. "Something wrong?" He asked.

"No. Everything's fine. Social scenarios wear me out fast, and I need to go recharge, that's all." Rebecca got down on her knees, backing up into the hidden cove between the wall and the couch. "Thank you again for the cards, and, um, I'm really happy for you, Mia."

"Thanks," Mia took Oliver's hand and interlaced their fingers. "Pretty happy for myself, too. Ready to head back to my room, mi amor?"

"Uh, yeah," Oliver still had his mind on Rebecca and was still staring at where she disappeared. He looked at Mia, concerned, and whispered, "...Is she okay?"

"More than," Mia answered knowingly, dragging Oliver down the hall. "The door won't be locked, so let me know if you need anything, Becca."

"Kay... don't mind me, though. I'm gonna be leaving at five. My dad and I planned on playing a few games tonight, so, um... have fun in there...?"

Smiling, Mia pushed Oliver into her room and, before closing the door, said, "We will."

Oliver now was in his girlfriend's room.

He had to repeat that fact several times for it to really stick. This was Mia's room, and it certainly looked like it. Anime posters of hot guys and scantily clad ladies alike lined the walls. There was a small TV entertainment center where her Odyssey was docked, and a hybrid drawing and computer desk was pressed up against a window. She had shelves full of plushies, manga, and advanced art books, but he couldn't find any of her pins.

Mia must've cleaned up earlier because there wasn't anything compromising to be found. Not that Oliver was especially hoping for anything like that, but it wasn't a surprise he'd have turned down by any means.

Though the first thing on his mind should've been, 'holy shit, I'm in my girlfriend's room', Oliver was too distracted by whatever was going on with Rebecca to really appreciate his current location.

"Rebecca sounded a little upset just now. You sure we shouldn't make sure she's doing all right?"

"I've known her for seven years, Ollie," Mia stripped off her bag and hung it from a hook on her closet. "When she withdraws like that, it's best to give her some space." She stepped closer to him, a funny look on her face as her right hand traced down his shoulder. "While we're still on the topic, you did well with her. Even better than I thought you'd do."

"I just tried being friendly. It's no big deal..."

"Maybe not to you, but it is to her. I think she likes you."

"Maybe?" Oliver scratched the back of his head, unsure of what to think. "She didn't hide from me again, at least."

"I think you like her, too..." Mia's funny look turned more mischievous until she was almost grinning like an especially tired and lazy Cheshire cat. "Anything I need to be worried about?"

"Are you serious right now?" Oliver laughed uncomfortably. "No, of course you don't need to be worried. Why would you even ask that?"

"Just sensed some sparks, that's all. Girls pick up on these things."

"Well, if there were, they weren't coming from me... did you want me to keep my distance from Rebecca, or what?"

"Why would I?" Mia tilted her head. She had to know how obtuse she was, but she did a good job acting nonchalantly and disinterested.

"Well, you're implying Rebecca felt 'sparks' over me, which... how do I say this..." Oliver tried hard not to laugh. He couldn't exactly tell Mia that he would've known, but... he would've known. If Oliver had a chance with Rebecca, his powers would've told him so in no uncertain terms. "I'm pretty damn sure that's not the case."

"If it was?"

"Then I would remain loyal to my girlfriend, obviously?" Oliver gave what he thought was the correct answer, but Mia didn't provide him with anything to go off of. She remained marginally curious if anything. "If you're trying to get at anything here, you need to spell it out for me. I can't follow along with this 4D chess shit, Mia."

"It's not that complicated, mi amor," Mia finally smiled as she turned around and took her Odyssey from its dock. "You know how in some RPGs there'll be a little thingy at the top of the screen after you make a decision, and it says 'your party member will remember this' or something?"

"Uh..." Oliver was sweating from the spotlight. "Yeah, sure, I guess...?"

"Good," Mia sat on her bed, rooting around the prize tote until she found her game. "Now answer the following question. Do you think Becca is cute? Yes, or no."

"Okay, seriously, where are you going with this?"

"Mn. That didn't sound like a yes or a no," Mia clicked her tongue. "Once more, with feeling."

It didn't look like he'd escape this line of questioning, and Oliver couldn't figure out why she was so dead set on an answer for his life. He wanted to avoid upsetting her and losing affection points, which should have been easy. Most girls would've liked to hear no, but it felt as if Mia was hounding him for a very specific outcome...

"Cute... has a lot of definitions, and there's a lot of different types of cute, for that matter..." Oliver said, trying to stall.

"Still not a yes or no, but I'll make it easier for you," Mia stared into his eyes, her gaze suddenly piercing. "Do you think Becca is cute in the same way you think I am?"

She really wasn't going to let up with this, was she? Forget about where any of this was even coming from. Oliver just wanted to stop feeling like he had a gun to his head. He threw up his hands in defeat, owning up to it. "Kind of, yeah. Is that good enough?"

"No," Mia opened her copy of My Cute Hellagers and Me. "Elaborate." She commanded, popping the cartridge in.

Sighing, Oliver went off on a tangent. "I thought Rebecca was weird at first. Honestly, she still is, but... I don't know. Maybe I'm starting to think weird is really cute on her? I like how she gets wrapped up in her passions and can't stop talking about them. If we didn't already have plans, I would've kept listening to her, honestly."

Mia didn't indicate her thoughts or feelings and only asked for further clarification. "So you're saying she has a good personality?"

"Yeah, she certainly does," he sighed again, the sheer bizarreness of their current conversation having pushed him off the edge and into the territory where he might say things he'd regret. "But I wouldn't use the word 'cute' if I didn't feel physically attracted, either? I'm not going to go digging my grave any more than I already have, but all I'll say is my tastes are anything but narrow when it comes to girls."

"Hm..." Mia turned on her Odyssey, scarcely regarding Oliver and his admission.

"Are you happy now?" Oliver hunched his back as he approached, taking the liberty of sitting on her bed without getting permission. He turned his head to look at her and found his girlfriend smiling at him with a coquettish grin.

She didn't answer his question. All she said was, "Mia will remember that."

--- Mia Gained 1 Affection ---