Yeah, it’s cliché, and I know I shouldn’t write it this way, but before I get into the game I need to talk about something from the past. You only really feel the game’s content deeply when you connect it to your own life, after all. Let’s start with a look. A gaze. The gaze of a certain girl from my elementary school days is one I’ve never been able to forget. Back then I was a top student. The especially top kind. Honestly, I don’t know why I was a top student. I just figured that the stuff they taught in class was something you were supposed to learn, that long-distance running in PE was something you were supposed to be fast at, that speaking and giving presentations was just something you did that way. I couldn’t understand — couldn’t even begin to grasp — how hard it was for everyone else to do the things that came so “naturally” to me. I never saw anyone as an enemy, but there are always people who want to see you as a challenge. After one final exam, a girl jumped out and said to me with a resolute look in her eyes: “Just you wait. Next exam, I’m taking first place. I’ll beat you.” And with that, she turned and ran off. Sure enough, at the next final exam, she took first place, and I took second because I got one math problem wrong. I didn’t really care, though, because soon after, I took first again, and that girl was still looking at me with that same resolute — almost resentful — gaze. “Why does she look at me like I’m her enemy?” I couldn’t understand it. By the time I did understand, years had passed, and that empathy has only grown deeper and more obvious with age…