Isn't It Love?

"Hey Mimi, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, big bro, what do you want to ask?" said Mimi as she ate pudding with her left hand because her right hand was still holding a joystick. Her mouth was a little messy because when she scooped the pudding from the cup, her eyes were fixed on the TV screen, watching the visual novel game she was playing.

Ryan got up from Mimi’s bed to sit down. He looked at his little sister. As usual, she was trying out all the dialogue options just to satisfy her curiosity about what would happen if she picked choice A, B, C, and so on.

"What’s so fun about playing that kind of dating sim game?"

"Hmm... I don’t know. I really like games in this genre. I mean, I’ve played lots of visual novel games, even ones with trashy stories. But even though many games of this type have cliché or really crappy stories, isn’t that what makes them interesting? Hehehe. Besides, life in the real world is already crap for some people, so getting a little bit of bad stuff when playing these kinds of games is kind of ironic."

Ah. She’s doing quick load again.

"You know... you do quick load way too much. That’s cheating."

"Hfff?!"

Mimi turned her head toward Ryan with her lips biting down on the little pudding spoon. Her exaggerated shocked expression with the spoon in her mouth made her look just like a rabbit.

Letting go of the spoon, she rolled her eyes before pointing the spoon at her brother, Ryan.

"Quick load is a feature, you know. Of course I’m going to use it."

"You can turn it off, can’t you? QS and QL, I mean." 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Ryan got up from the bed and sat next to Mimi. He took the spoon from her hand to scoop some of Mimi’s pudding. Meanwhile, Mimi repositioned herself to lie down, using Ryan’s thigh as a pillow, and continued playing.

"You really like this character... what’s her name?"

"Risa Clove. She’s a lousy girl, but her older brother is handsome. Ah, I also wish I had an older brother like Risa’s brother?"

"Hey, am I not handsome?" said Ryan, his finger already ready to flick his little sister’s forehead. He flicked Mimi gently, which made Mimi laugh ticklishly hearing her own brother say that ’he’s handsome.’

Ryan then paid attention to the game Mimi was playing. The heroine’s older brother character? He didn’t really understand what his little sister was playing. But reading the dialogue spoken by the character Kai, he really cringed and it was way too wild. The dialogue felt like it was truly aimed at a female audience.

A really strange scene appeared after a few hours of playing. It seemed like Mimi wanted to see the bad ending.

⌈You know, Risa... it feels like you don’t need to walk anymore. Let your older brother guide you every day until you don’t exist.⌋

⌈Brother... I hate you... I don’t want to, I want to be with big brother Ren.⌋

⌈YOU ARE MINE... it seems like your brain needs a reset... don’t worry, Risa... your brother will swallow it too, let’s ’fly’ together...⌋

Ryan just stayed quiet watching the next scene. The character Kai used drugs and made his sister dizzy before he ’played’ with his own little sister’s body.

"Umm... aren’t they brother and sister?" Ryan asked Mimi, who was still pressing the X button on the joystick to keep advancing the dialogue.

"Yeah, so?"

"Why the hell are they having sex! That’s insane, whoever made this game. I thought you were just playing a regular dating sim game."

"Hey, didn’t I ever tell you this game is an eroge? Besides, forbidden love tropes aren’t really that shocking in eroge type games."

Ryan sighed, looking at the CG on the TV screen. He felt a little creeped out when the heroine’s older brother character cut the tendons at the back of Risa’s ankle.

Crazy person... locking up his own little sister in a wooden hut in a remote place.

Ryan kept following the dialogues, until the screen showed the text:

〈BAD END 7 ACHIEVED: Forever Bunny〉

"So what do you think?" asked Mimi, who wanted to hear her dear older brother’s opinion or criticism. "Wild, right? This is the peak of a girl’s wet dream!"

"Bad End? Why a bad end... isn’t the protagonist’s job to save the heroine from getting a bad ending?"

"Oh that... hehehe, that’s because I already chose Lily’s route, so I was locked into that route. I failed to get progress on the harem route in the middle... so I could only pick one girl."

"Bad End 7. So there are lots of bad endings that can happen to that one character."

Mimi nodded. After saving, she exited the game to the main menu and selected the collection menu. There, Ryan could see the collection of endings Mimi had managed to get throughout her playthrough.

Ryan could see the progress was at 100%, meaning Mimi had already finished this game, and yeah, it seemed like she really liked it and kept playing it over and over.

"Look, there’s a bad ending where Risa gets pregnant, then another where she dies romantically by her brother’s hands, another where only her head is left, and also—"

"Okay... okay, no need to explain all of them. Can’t believe you’d play a game like this."

Ryan then looked at the MC’s chart, Ren Macrolla, and told Mimi to open it.

"Hmm... you know, big bro, actually there’s nothing interesting about Ren, the character played by the player. You know, in this game’s community, even Ren’s score is only 5 out of 10. He’s the kind of protagonist that’s... how do I explain it... like ’suddenly there.’ Yeah, I know most protagonists in games like this are self-inserts, but for some reason a lot of people in the community agree that Ren is very mid. Even villain characters like Arthur in Lily’s route or Kai in Risa’s route have higher scores."

"Hmm... is that so. Who do you think has the lowest score?"

"In my opinion, just Chloe. Ugh... I don’t really like girls who talk too much and act cutesy almost every act."

Ryan sighed. Yeah, his earlier question was kind of irrelevant since that was a subjective opinion from Mimi.

"Ren... I kinda feel bad for him," Ryan said while looking at Ren’s illustration.

"Huh? Why feel bad for a self-insert character like that?"

"You know, if I were in his position and forced to choose the harem route because it’s the only way to save everyone... well, if he were me, screw saving everyone. I’d rather pick one heroine and not bother getting to know the others, problem solved."

Besides, you can’t please everyone.

"Well then, what’s the essence of the harem genre in this game’s story?" asked Mimi while holding the cover of the dating sim game case.

Seeing that, Ryan just laughed.

"You know. The game’s name is ’Isn’t It Love,’ but why does it have to be harem... besides, the concept of love is different for everyone."

Love depends on the person. But what actually is the concept of love for the main character in this story? If it’s just a player’s self-insert character, Ryan thinks... living as Ren would be really tiring because he only exists as the one who completes the meaning of love for other people.

So Sad.