Main character is a young man who loves gaming. He's kind of awkward and shy in real life, but he's more comfortable online. He's just started a new game a few weeks ago, and enjoys his time with friends, especially this one particular guy. They started around the same time and became friends in no time, now just about always playing as a party.

One day, his friend asks him something he'd been hoping to never hear:
"Hey, you got any gamer girl friends?"
He hesitates and tells him "No. I did once, but not anymore".
"...Touchy subject?"
With some pressure, he gets the MC to open up and tell his story. He used to play a different game, managed to get high in the rankings. Along the way he got to know a girl. They played together all the time, chatted in game and on Discord, grew really close. After a while he even thought he was starting to fall for her, when she mentioned going to a convention that was coming up. He realized it was close to where he lived, so they agreed to meet there. He figured the best way to go about it would be to give her a brief description of the clothes he'd wear (not exactly bright) and vice-versa. He got to the convention and started looking for her, and found one girl who matched the description perfectly... chatting with another boy who bore a fair resemblance to him. He was already shy and uneasy about meeting her, but seeing her with someone else and seeming to be having such a great time, he simply couldn't work up the courage. That night he got a message talking about how much fun she had, how great it was seeing him, how she wanted to see him again some time, this time just the two of them. It wasn't difficult for him to see that she was interested in something more than a platonic meeting. However, he had no clue how to deal with this. Was she interested in a date with him, the boy she'd known so long in the game, or with that boy she met at the gaming convention? She clearly thought they were the same boy. All his feelings of shyness welled up, and he couldn't come up with any way to answer. Time passed, and it got even more awkward to respond. Finally, embarrassed and dejected, he quit the game and switched to a new Discord account to try and avoid her. Since then he hasn't really had any girl friends. The awkwardness always comes back when he tries.
"..."
"..."
"...Man, that's rough"
His friend seems a little uncertain how to respond, and ultimately just leaves it at that. Time goes by, and shortly before shutting down the friend makes a suggestion. He'd been talking about a new movie coming out, and if it wasn't too far away they could meet IRL at a certain theater to watch it. The theater was plenty close, so he agreed. At his friend's suggestion, they made sure to communicate online through their phones. He finds a spot to wait, then texts his friend his exact location and a couple details to help him find him. A little time passed, then he got a simple message: "Turn around". He turns, and finds himself face to face with the girl from the convention, holding her phone and staring at him with a chaotic mess of emotions in her eyes.


Honestly, this is as far as I've gotten. I'm still uncertain where this could go, but I feel like there's a lot of possibility. There'd certainly be a lot of conflicting feelings on the girl's part. Perhaps she fell for the guy at the convention, but still wanted to know the boy she was so close to online. Perhaps she'd long ago fallen for the boy online and maybe even felt a little offended that he thought she'd place a one-time meeting above all the time they'd talked before. Maybe a mixture of the two, with the feelings inside her built on a mix between the time spent face to face and the things they'd talked about online, and now that she knows the two are separate she's very confused. Heck, could even create a triangle later on by having the convention boy show up again. Thing is so far I don't know where to go, but the premise interests me.

Ai (just randomly selected the name) approaches her long-time friend Tsuyoshi (also randomly selected) one day. They'd known each other since they were little, with her always dragging him, not too unwilling, into various competitions and "matches". She loves to compete and tries to make a match out of everything. She excuses herself with the logic that trying to beat someone else will get both her and her opponent closer to the goal regardless of who "wins". This time, however, she's not looking to compete. She asks Tsuyoshi if there is a girl he likes, and before he can stutter a reply, continues asking him to help her get together with a boy from a higher grade in exchange for her helping him with his own love. He adamantly refuses, maybe says something about her being the last person he'd ask for help about this. She angrily falls back to old habits and says fine, then it'll be a race. Tells him she'll win her Senpai's heart on her own and he'll do his best to win his crush, and they'll see who succeeds first. He's not really down for this one, but he never was good at refusing her, so he accepts. Over time, while she works at her end, she has a lot more interactions with Tsuyoshi. Sometimes she gets mad that he doesn't seem to be spending any time with any girls at all, making her think he's not serious about winning over his crush. Others she suspects him of trying to interfere with her, never giving her a chance to be alone. When Ai does catch Tsuyoshi chatting with a girl, she's happy for him, but feels something else that confuses her, but she dismisses it as just concern about being overtaken by her "rival". Over time things shift more and more, when one day she overhears something that reveals to her something she'd never thought of: Ai herself is Tsuyoshi's crush. Since Ai has always excused her love of competition with thoughts that the loser would still get closer to success, realizing that she'd created a match where her winning meant Tsuyoshi would never succeed and vice versa is unacceptable to her. On top of that, she's also starting to question just how she herself feels. This leads to a confrontation where it becomes clear that Ai knows but at the same time it at least looks to Tsuyoshi like she's offering to throw in the towel and date him out of pity or something, which infuriates him. The end result is that she's forced to continue this competition, with her still crushing on and trying to get closer to the older boy while Tsuyoshi now openly pursues her, and her fervently encouraging him to do so despite its contradiction with her own goal.

Honestly, this whole thing came almost entirely from one single line at the end of Hatsukoi Limited, where a girl who'd been crushing on a senpai who just moved away learns that one of her classmates she's been close with has a crush on her. She expresses that she can't give up on her senpai yet, but still suggests that they both do their best. I couldn't help but wonder what that would be like, a girl doing her best to cherish and pursue her own love while knowing and supporting another boy in his pursuit of her. At some point, the framework of competition kind of developed, but I think it fits fairly well.