My Half-Life Began with Romance App Games

A Half-Life of Doing Whatever I Want — Episode 1: Voltage Edition

It started with a TV commercial.

Back then, that commercial was on all the time.
“Did you get married, to someone other than me?”
—That line stuck in my head for some strange reason.
“You came here to kill me, didn't you? I wouldn't mind being killed by you,” or
reuniting with five classmates in Kichijoji,
there were all sorts of patterns,
and all of them were a bit overly dramatic,
but they caught my attention.

I decided to install the app for the time being.

At first, I could read it for free.
I was reading without spending money, but
I eventually wanted to know what happened next so badly that I paid for it.
I think it was about 300 yen per time.
I thought, 'It's fine, considering the cost of buying a single manga volume,'
and before I knew it, I was paying for one after another.

There were no bad endings in Voltage games.
There were only about two choices, and no matter which one you picked,
you could properly have a romance with the character.
I would read them thinking,
“To think they care about me this much.”
That was, somehow, incredibly happy.

A friend once told me, “You’re dating five people at once.”

Voltage games usually had about five characters,
and there was a system where you could choose who to pick.
So, the logic was that I was dating five people at once.
But that wasn't it.
When you choose one person, the story with that person begins.
If you choose a different character, it becomes a completely different story.
In other words, since I only have a romance with the person I chose at that time,
I wasn't cheating—or so
I remember trying my best to make excuses.

Besides, even the characters I didn't choose wished for my happiness.
Every single character who acted as my romantic partner
only had eyes for me.
A being who would love only me forever.
That alone was happiness.

Humans betray you.
They aren't always the people I imagine them to be.
Struggling with human relationships, things not going well,
it's truly exhausting.
It was around the time I thought I was done with romance.
So, I can really understand why someone would only fall in love with 2D characters.
I know now that there is a word called “fictosexual,” but
back then, without even knowing such a word,
I was just completely immersed in the comfort of this world.

While doing that, I suddenly thought.

—I want to draw handsome men.

Until then, I was convinced that drawing was too difficult and impossible for me.
But I learned that there was such a thing as digital illustration.
If I studied that, I might be able to become someone who draws.
I thought that was great.
Before I knew it, I had signed up for an illustration class.

A vocational school for illustration and character design.
The tuition was 700,000 yen.

I didn't hesitate back then.
Because I wanted to draw.
I wanted to draw pictures like those handsome men from Voltage
with my own hands.
Pushed by that line, “to someone other than me,”
I bought a pen tablet and started attending school.

Voltage led me there.

Next time: The world of otome games I encountered at illustration school, and then on to Touken Ranbu—