Some people are popular because they're pretty. Some people are popular because they're smart. Some people are popular because they're athletic, others because they're funny or rich or just because they know exactly how best to emphasise their positive qualities while minimising their negatives. Then there are the people who are nice.
Of course, we've all heard the saying. Nice guys finish last. No less true if you flip the gender. What a sad commentary that is on human nature and the world in which we live.
It was another morning, and oh what a beautiful one it was! A pretty young girl stepped out of her apartment. In the looks department she was pretty average. Not the type of face that stood out in a crowd. You know the sort. You see her in the street and then forget all about her. A perfectly attractive girl that didn't really stand out on her own, who moved as though she was trying desperately not to inconvenience anyone.
She strode out onto the street and gave a big cheery hello to a random dreary salaryman passing her by. Then she saw a cat walking atop a nearby wall, and simply had to stop to stroke it and pet it and tell it how pretty it was because you're such a pretty kitty, aren't you? Yes, you are!
"Pardon me, miss!" she said to a woman walking by. "I just have to compliment you on your selection of shoes. They really go perfectly with your hair!"
"...Thank you?" the confused woman reluctantly said before continuing on her way.
"Ah, excuse me, sir! Did you want a hand with that?"
"No, thank you. I've got this!"
"Really, I wouldn't mind helping out. It looks so heavy- Ow!"
"...This is why you're always barely on time for work," said the voice of a man tweaking her ear. "Namika Natsume, that nice attitude of yours is gonna get you in trouble one of these days. I swear."
"Hmph!" Namika cutely harrumphed, straightening out her dress and looking over her workmate. "You're way too serious, you know that? Come on, Sukeyasu Ebina! Crack us a smile!"
"The last time I smiled," the too-serious boy said, carefully adjusting his glasses, "within the next ten minutes a volcano erupted, a hurricane descended upon Kyoto, there was an earthquake in Osaka and all of the dogs in Niigata were mysteriously found wearing sombreros in the middle of a cornfield."
"Oh, you tell such funny stories!"
"The dogs had arranged themselves into the katakana for 'smile', and were cowering in obvious fear for their lives. I'm surprised you missed all the news attention it received. But then again, it's you through and through. Anyway. We have to go to work."
"Righto! Just as soon as I feed that hungry-looking bird and tie that little boy's shoelaces for him-"
Sukeyasu simply stared at Namika for a few seconds, and you could just about see the ellipses above his head. Naturally after knowing Namika for about a year now, he'd had quite enough of this particular attitude and seized her by the arm to march her off towards work.
"You really are hopeless. You know that, don't you?" Sukeyasu asked. But Namika wasn't listening. "You can't help the whole world. That kind of thing takes a really special kind of person, and that kind of person you simply ain't."
"Y-Yeah," Namika said, swallowing quite obviously and nervously. A few naughty little thoughts flitted through her head while Sukeyasu dragged her off towards work. "I guess I really am not that special."
And so the two of them arrived at work. What was work, you may well ask? Ask that question and you'd be given a hearty, loud and cheerful "Hello! Welcome to GameFunStation! A four-floor game store with an arcade/cafe in the basement, modern games on the ground floor, retro games on the upper floor and a function room on the top floor for tournaments and parties! We at GameFunStation really are all about - Oh, it's just you two. Hihi! Welcome to work!"
"Hello, Chino Etsuko!" Namika said, giving the overly enthusiastic owner of the store a friendly bow. "I look forward to working with you again today!"
"Hrm? Oh, I get it!" Chino said, snapping her fingers in revelation. "We're doing that thing where we introduce our characters to the audience, right?"
"Oof!" Namika gasped. "Please, Miss Chino, don't hurt the innocent fourth wall!"
"... I think that comment might have hurt it even worse," Sukeyasu observed. "Yes, definitely broken. You might as well go with it at this point."
"Alright!" Chino yelled into an inexplicable microphone. "In that case it's time for a roll call! By now you know that my name is Chino Etsuko! I am the sexy, intelligent manager of GameFunStation! My passion is games, and is only outstripped by the experience of sharing that joy with others! I will not rest until I have singlehandedly shared this joy with the whole wide world! My turn ons are -"
"Um... Sorry to interrupt, but getting a little too personal there, I think?" Namika noted quietly.
"No, no, let her finish!" said a new character appearing to the side, with a notepad resting in one hand and a pen resting in his other. "This sounds like invaluable information!"
"This hornball is Senichi Hori!" Chino declared, pointing a finger directly at the boy. "His turn ons include anything without a dick!"
"And a few things that do," Senichi added jokingly. "But seriously, don't make it sound like that is my only character trait. I'm actually more popular with women than you make it sound."
"This is true," Sukeyasu sighed. "Another depressing mystery in this world that might never be solved."
"I don't know," Namika said. "He makes me laugh! I guess some girls like that."
"Of course, you've already met Sukeyasu Ebina," Chino continued, brooking no interruptions now that she was on a roll. "He's hot. He's mysterious. He's the kind of guy you just want to cheer up that absolutely refuses to crack a smile for absurd reasons yet has no sense of humour detectable by science!"
"... I hate to have to repeat something Senichi has just said, but please don't put it in a way that makes me sound so unlikable."
"Finally, of course, there is Namika Natsume! Our adorable protagonist that wants nothing more than to strap Sukeyasu to a bed and -"
"Ehhhhhhh! Noooo! I'm not like that! Please don't say things like that about me!"
"Though Sukeyasu is the kind of guy that's totally oblivious and even though I just said that right in front of him, he was absolutely not paying any attention!"
"... Did someone say my name?"
Yep. This was the store, alright. Each of these four was effectively the manager for one floor. Namika was in charge of the retro games, Sukeyasu was in charge of the arcade, Senichi was in charge of the modern games and Chino was technically in charge of the function room but most of her time was actually taken up running the store. Of course there was more staff than this, but as Chino might put it, none of them had names and so none of them really mattered in the long run.
However... What did matter was a little conversation that was going to be had in about an hour's time in the stockroom, where Namika found herself restlessly pondering the first and only crush she'd ever had.
"How do I get his attention?" she wondered. "What should I be doing...?"
"Maybe you should just go for it!" Chino exclaimed, and once Namika had finished jumping out of her skin Chino continued. "In this day and age, boys really like it when the girls give chase. Come on, do you think he just shows up to help you get to work each day because you annoy him? Go ahead, ask him out already! You'd make such a cuuuute couple!"
It occurred to Namika that perhaps her boss should not be condoning or encouraging fraternisation in the workplace. Trouble was she was too nice to really say anything about it. All she could say was a shy little "I'll think about it," and then off with her day, not actually thinking about it.
What was there to think about? It was the curse of niceness upon her head, you see. That sort of thing seemed a little too forward for her. What if it made him feel awkward? What if he only said yes because it made him feel guilty? You see, this is what excessive "niceness" can do to a person. They stop thinking about their own happiness and only ever think of how to avoid making others even slightly uncomfortable. Basic human empathy is a good thing, but like all good things it must have an end to it. Otherwise it becomes, by definition, too much of a good thing.
So lunchtime came, and she still didn't have a plan beyond waiting for him to make the first move. Let him show some interest, that way it wouldn't have to be awkward at all! Yep! It was the perfect plan. Because if he was remotely interested, then the first thing he would say was -
"I like you," an unfamiliar girl's voice said. "Go out with me."
"Alright," Sukeyasu replied in his usual deadpan tone.
... And all of a sudden Namika didn't really feel like having lunch at the cafe today. She felt awfully light headed. Needed some fresh air. She stumbled out onto the street almost hyperventilating, and gosh but the strong wind really wasn't helping matters! She must have misheard that. Right? No way would Sukeyasu agree to a date just like that. Not without some sort of funny story about how the last time he went on a date there was an electrical storm plunging the building into darkness, leaving them with nothing to do but hold onto each other's bodies in the dark which inevitably led to - to -
Which is when she was hit in the face by a big, pointy, black hat. "Ow!" she cried, to which the hat responded by continuing to drift off in the wind. "Huh?" She shook her head. There was a very young girl rushing down the street wearing a big black jacket and carrying a broom. Namika immediately reached out and grabbed the hat for the young girl, putting her own thoughts on the back burner for the time being while trying to help out another person. Again.
"Is this yours?" she asked. The young girl looked up at her with big, doe eyes and nodded her head. "Here you go!" Namika said, giggling slightly and putting the hat right on top of her head. The hat was just a little too big. "Gosh, that's a cute witch cosplay!" Namika said. Maybe her mind was too eager to focus on something else. Maybe the girl was just <i>too cute</i>. Who knows what it was, but she continued the thought through to a huge, huge mistake. "Will you be performing magic tricks for your friends?"
"... Not tricks," the girl quietly said. "Real magic."
"Oh, that's so cute!" Namika said, patting the girl on the shoulder. It would be the head, but the hat was rather in the way. "Of course it's real magic, sweetie. A cute little witch like you will knock them dead with your 'real' magic! If you'd like to practise, I'll be an audience member for you right now! Go on, show us some real magic."
"Magic is not a toy," the witch harrumphed in a most adorable manner. "Can't just show it off to some nobody just like that, just because I feel like it. There are rules..."
"Of course!" Namika nodded. "Don't perform the same trick the same way in front of the same audience twice. Right? The magician's code, or something like -"
"I'M A WITCH! NOT A MAGICIAN! MAGICIANS SUUUUUCK!"
"Oh, wow! Your outdoor voice projects really well! Your audience won't have any problems hearing you at all!"
The witch stared up at her in seriously intense concentration that left Namika completely confused. Had she said something wrong? Maybe the girl was a little more "into character" than she'd originally thought. Maybe that was all it was.
"You're annoying," the witch said. "I'm leaving."
"Bye bye!" Namika waved. "Maybe you should get a strap for your hat, something shaped like that probably catches the wind a lot. Right?"
The girl didn't respond. Well. That was a nice little diversion. It sort of gave her the time to subconsciously adjust to that little shock she had just now, when she really should be happy for him! His new girlfriend was probably wonderful and that witch was about to be hit on the top of her head by a ball dropped from a higher floor.
"Look out!" Namika yelled, moving immediately to push the girl out of the way. Sure, it probably wouldn't have hurt that much, but it would have crushed the pointy hat and that would've been a terrible thing. Might even drive the poor thing to tears! Namika couldn't bear that. Not even a little bit of it. "Sorry about that!" she said. "Are you alright my goodness you got big all of a sudden."
"I noticed," the witch replied in a much more confident, adult tone of voice. If Namika were the kind of person to get jealous about another person's looks, this witch would have gotten all of her supply for the entire year. All envy must go, that figure is perfect to the point it can't possibly exist outside of model shots involving carefully selected lighting, posture and a dollop of Photoshop.
Then the witch held up two halves of a broken broomstick and stared at them with naked irritation. "Wonderful!" she spat, then tossed them aside and glared at Namika. "So you wanted to see some magic that badly, did you?"
"N-Not really!" Namika stammered, backing away quite slowly. "Um... So sorry about your broomstick. I'll buy you a new one!"
"Well, today's your lucky day!" the witch said, producing a small stick with a little star on the end of it from seemingly thin air. "What's that phrase you humans love so much? I always wondered what it did... Oh yes!
"Abracadabra!"
- Namika finds herself speaking her mind a bit more often.
- Namika physically transforms in some way.
- Namika gains a weird ability.
- Something else
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