บท 4: My Choices

"But..." Monika began to speak but hesitated, unable to find a suitable response.

"Sorry, I thought..." Yuri looks down.

Natsuki huffed and looked away.

"Maki..."

I glanced at each of them, one by one, taking in their expressions. 'I was just kidding,' I smiled as I crossed my arms.

'Eh?' Monika's eyes widened.

'I'm just joking. To tell you the truth, I actually love reading, and sometimes I want to write my own book.'"

"D-Does that mean?"

"Yes, I'll join. So give me the papers I need to sign-" I said, but before I could finish, Sayori immediately hugged me. "Thank you, Maki!"

The three girls' eyes light up.

"S-So, it was just a joke all along, huh," Yuri says with a sigh of relief.

"If you just came for the cupcakes, I'll be really pissed," Natsuki says, crossing her arms and glaring at me.

"Then, that makes it official." Monika extends her hand toward me. "Welcome to the Literature Club, Maki."

I nod and shake her hand. "Thank you, Monika."

"Now then, I think we can officially end our meeting here. Please remember tonight's assignment: write a poem to bring to the next meeting, so we can all share!"

Monika looks over at me once more. "Maki, I look forward to seeing how you express yourself." She turns around with a giggle, packs her things, and leaves.

Meanwhile, Natsuki and Yuri clean up their food. "Hey, Maki since we're already here, do you want to walk home together?" Sayori said as she packs her things.

"Sure," I replied with a smile. "Walking home together sounds like a good idea."

Natsuki and Yuri looked at each other and nodded. "We'll see you all tomorrow," Natsuki said, and they left the room together.

With that, the two of us depart the clubroom.

I looked at Sayori, who was clearly wearing a happy expression. I shook my head and took her hand, surprising her. She looked at me with curiosity. "Maki?"

"Sayori, let's go somewhere."

"Eh? But I thought we were going—"

Before Sayori could finish her sentence, a system message popped up in front of me, displaying the error: "Error Dialogue"

Error Dialogue? Ahh, I see... The game was supposed to end today's act and proceed to the poem minigame. Now then what should I do? I can change and fix the error or break the error.

I let go of Sayori's hand and turned around to swipe the air, then typed "?command" in the command textbox that appeared. I turned back to face the error and then returned to the chatbox to type "Remove Error Dialogue."

"Are you sure you want to remove this error?" The system asked as I click "confirm."

The system responded with a confirmation message, indicating that the error dialogue would be removed. After a brief moment, the error message disappeared, saying "Successfully removed Error Dialogue" and the scene continued as it was supposed to.

"Sayori."

"Yes?"

"Shall we go somewhere?"

"Where to?"

"Hmmm, how about I treat you to some ice cream?"

"R-Really?! Let's go!" She smiles and tightly holds my hand as we make our way toward the ice cream shop. "But Maki, what's the sudden treatment?" She asked as she looks at me.

"Nothing... Just wanted to spend my time with my childhood friend."

"Aww, That's sweet. Thank you!~"

"No problem."

Let me explain what I'm doing.

First, every visual novel has CG backgrounds in it. If you choose their path and spend more time with the heroine, you can unlock CG backgrounds.

CG backgrounds are important as they serve as memories of the story.

Now, why did I break the system? The answer is that the system was limiting my choices. I want to have the freedom to spend my time with everyone or not.

Right now, what I'm doing is creating my own CG background.

Now that we're here in the ice cream shop...

"Hey, Sayori."

"Hm? What is it?" Sayori turned around, and I immediately pinched her cheeks in a light way.

"Don't order too much, okay?~"

"Okay~!" She smiled at me.

Now then, this should be perfect.

Using my mind, I accessed the system and entered the "?Quick command: "Screenshot."

My eyes then captured a screenshot of Sayori smiling with my hands pinching her cheeks.

The screenshot was successfully taken.

"Good, I should put this screenshot somewhere in the folder," I muttered to myself.

Satisfied with the screenshot, I sighed in relief as we proceeded to order our ice cream.

A few minutes later, our ice cream was ready. I had chosen the chocolate mint flavor, while Sayori chose strawberry.

With our ice creams in hand, we left the ice cream shop and began walking along the side of the road.

As we strolled, I noticed Sayori staring at my ice cream with curiosity.

"What? Don't tell me you want more?"

"U-Uhm, no... I'm just curious about what your ice cream tastes like..."

"Hmm, here you go then." I extended my ice cream toward her.

"Eh? Really?! Yaaayy~" She exclaimed with joy as she took a small bite of my ice cream. "Mmmm~ I didn't know about this!"

"It's because you always keep choosing the strawberry flavor."

"Ehh~ But I don't know what to choose." She pouted.

"Well, I can't blame you, but it's not my fault."

"Right? They should add an ice cream where you can taste each flavor in one cone."

I nodded in agreement, but then an idea snapped into my mind. "How about this? I'll make you a special ice cream."

"Eh? You can make ice cream?!"

"Of course, it's easy!"

Well, with the help of the system commands, I can just use the ?give command and get anything I want.

"Then, how about I tell everyone that you'll make an ice cream?"

"Eh?! Not now!"

"Why, though? I thought it would be fun with the others."

"Well, I know, but for now... how about becoming my taste tester?"

"Oh, does that mean..."

I nodded. "You'll get to taste it first and tell me if it's good."

"Ehehehe~ Deal."

As we continued our conversation, I didn't realize that we had already arrived in front of my house.

"Oh, looks like you're already here. I'll be on my way now," Sayori said, starting to walk away. But before she could go any further, I grabbed her arm, causing her to startle and look at me. "M-Maki?"

"Wait," I said, holding her back.

"W-What's wrong?" Sayori blushed slightly as she looked at me.

I gazed into her eyes and lightly flicked her forehead. "Ow~" Sayori exclaimed as she held her forehead.

"Don't forget the poem and get some sleep early."

"Oh, I forgot about that."

"Well, I knew you would forget until the morning, so I wanted to remind you now."

"Ehehehe~ Thank you, Maki~"

"No problem. I'll pick you up in front of your house."

"Eh?! Really?"

"Yes, now good night." I opened my gate and closed it behind me as I entered my house. Meanwhile, Sayori walked to her home with a smile on her face.

As I entered my bedroom, I changed into my regular clothes. Then, I used a swipe gesture in the air to access the screenshots I had taken.

"Hm? Yikes, I guess I took too many screenshots..." I murmured to myself.

I created a folder and set up a password. Then, I returned to the screenshots and began renaming them one by one, organizing them neatly within the folder. Finally, I renamed the folder itself as "Memories."

"I'm tired... I should get some sleep, but first," I played the poem minigame for a few seconds. "There, That should do it." After that, I closed the lights in my room and hopped onto my bed, ready to rest and recharge for the next day.