Male-shy becomes suave (no control)

Hello. my name is sam pennington. i'm an American transfer student in Tokyo. Its really interesting here, but expensive. Not that i'm complaining, of course! my family can easily afford my living here, it was just a surprise to see it, thats all. Anyway, i studied Japanese culture and the language, so getting around is pretty easy. Until i deal with people, that is. You see, i'm kind of...short. 5' even, to be exact, which, at 18, is pretty laughable, i guess. People have always laughed at me for it. i thought that in Japan it would be different since on average they aren't as tall as the people back in America, but they still laugh at me. A lot of my classmates call me 'sam-chan' or 'chibi-sam'.

The girls are no nicer, for the most part. They think i'm weak because they can look down on me and they like to bully me. Except one. Konsetsu Ai-sama. Shes been my only friend since i got here, and she happens to be the most beautiful girl in school. It really amazed me to find out she didn't have a boyfriend, but that was nothing compared to hearing she'd never had one. Sometimes i ask her why she hasn't dated or what shes looking for, but she only smiles and says 'thats a secret'. If she would only tell me, maybe it could be...nevermind.

Still, i love it here. Not only am i away from my mean sister Jenna, they also have the coolest games in Japan. Games i had heard about and wanted to play but couldn't. Now i play them everyday. The arcades are no comparison to American ones. The last American arcade i went to was mostly Whack-A-Mole and Skee-Ball. But the one here, the one not two blocks from my dorm, has a virtual reality machine in it. A real VR! They call it Gacha Gacha, and it just got installed last night. Theres only one pod, which i guess is where the player sits, so they're taking volunteers from the audience. Needless to say, such a short guy doesn't stand a chance of being chosen, but they're going to show what the lucky person does on a monitor, so thats something at least. The woman presenting it, the creator, is stunning...she reminds me of Ai-sama, though a lot of things do that.

"So many hopefuls! Mmmm....how about...hm?" The creator stops. 'Why is there a hole in the middle of the crowd?' "You!"

In turn, everybody around me asks if she meant him or her, but she says no. Then she says she wants the one in the hole. i groan until i realize she's chosen me. The crowd parts and i nervously approach the pod.