Haru Mito learned about the system on a Wednesday, between fourth and fifth period, in the stairwell between the second and third floors that smelled permanently of someone's lunch from approximately six weeks ago.
He learned about it because Rei told him, which in itself was notable — Rei did not volunteer information. Rei answered questions with precision and offered observations when the observations were relevant and otherwise existed in a state of communicative efficiency that most people found either restful or unnerving depending on their tolerance for silence.
He told Haru because Haru was the only person he trusted, and because keeping it entirely internal had generated a level of cognitive background noise that was beginning to affect his focus, and because Haru would, Rei calculated with approximately ninety-one percent confidence, react in a way that was useful to witness before Rei decided how to feel about the whole situation himself.
He was right about the reaction.
He was not entirely prepared for the scale of it.
"A system," Haru said.
"Yes."
"A gacha system."
"Yes."
"For basketball."
"That's correct."
Haru stared at him. Haru was the same height as Rei, slightly broader in the shoulders, with the particular energy of someone who had consumed enough caffeine across enough years to have permanently elevated his baseline alertness. He had dark circles under his eyes that had nothing to do with sleep deprivation and everything to do with the three gacha games he ran simultaneously on a rotation system he had once explained to Rei in enough detail that Rei had come away impressed against his will. He had, in the past three years of their friendship, pulled exactly one SSR — from a standard banner, off-rate, for a character he didn't use. He kept it anyway for motivational purposes.
He stared at Rei for six full seconds.
Then he said, with a precise and devastating quietness: "Why you."
Not a question. A verdict.
"I don't know," Rei said. "I was hit in the head."
"I've been hit in the head."
"With a basketball, specifically."
"I played dodgeball last semester—"
"Deliberately thrown by a basketball during PE class in a gym where basketball is actively being played, which I suspect is a necessary contextual element."
Haru was quiet for a moment. He appeared to be processing. Rei had seen this before — it was a particular quality of Haru's silence, different from comfortable silence, different from thoughtful silence. This was the silence of someone running a complete inventory of every decision they had ever made and evaluating where it had gone wrong.
"Show me," Haru said.
"It's not visible to other people."
"I don't care. Show me anyway."
Rei opened the system interface. He turned his head slightly so the direction of his attention was obvious. "It's in my lower right field of vision. I'm looking at it now. The main menu. Standard banner, always open, current pity counter at four."
"What does it look like."
"Like a gacha menu. Dark background. Gold text. Clean UI, minimal animations."
"Pull rate."
"Five percent SSR, same as most standard banners. No listed pity for SSR. A-rank guaranteed at fifty, S-rank at one hundred."
Haru absorbed this. "What have you pulled."
"Two cards. The daily free token and one earned pull."
"Rarity."
Rei paused for precisely one second, which was long enough for Haru to understand before he answered. "C. Both C-rank."
Haru closed his eyes.
"Of course," he said, with the exhaustion of a man who had expected nothing and still been let down. "Of course you get a divinely installed basketball gacha system and pull C-rank twice."
"The God said everyone starts at zero."
"The God," Haru repeated. "There is a god."
"A basketball god. He communicated through the system and also through a vision when I was unconscious."
"What did he look like."
"A shadow. Very still. Held a basketball."
"Did he say anything useful."
"He said I'd been pulling on the wrong banner and that the court doesn't care what I was, only what I do next."
Haru opened his eyes. He looked at Rei with an expression that Rei had catalogued over three years of friendship as Haru processing something that he is going to have complicated feelings about for longer than he will admit. It was a specific look. Slightly narrowed eyes. Slightly tilted head. The faintest line between his brows.
"And the C-ranks," Haru said. "What do they do."
"The first one is Textbook Layup. Installs correct fundamental form. I tested it during lunch."
"And?"
"It works. Every attempt went in."
"Every attempt."
"Twelve consecutive, alternating sides, variable approach angles."
Haru sat down on the stairwell steps.
He sat there for a moment looking at the floor. Then he looked at Rei. Then he looked at the floor again.
"I want you to understand something," he said, finally. "I want you to understand that I have been playing gacha games for three years. Three years. I have spent money I should not have spent and time I definitely should not have spent and I have thought about pull rates and pity counters and banner rotations more carefully than I have thought about any single academic subject, and in three years my best pull is a single off-rate SSR for a unit I will never use."
"I know," Rei said. "I was there."
"And you," Haru said, "who also has terrible pull rates, who I have sat next to through some of the most devastating multi-pulls in the history of this friendship, you — you — get a basketball god."
"I didn't choose it."
"I know you didn't choose it. That's the part that's killing me."
Rei sat down next to him on the steps. This was not something he did habitually. It was a calculated gesture — Haru needed adjacent presence more than he needed a response, and the steps were structurally adequate.
They sat.
"You're my best friend," Haru said, after a while.
"I know."
"I'm happy for you."
"No you're not."
"I'm working on it." Haru picked at a thread on his uniform sleeve. "I want to watch every pull."
"I assumed you would."
"In real time. I want a live commentary position."
"You'll have to take my word for what the interface looks like."
"I know. I still want to be there." He glanced sideways at Rei. "What are you going to do with it."
Rei had been expecting this question. He had been constructing the answer since Tuesday, with the same methodical attention he brought to banner analysis and class seating selection and the weekly probability of the vending machine dispensing the correct temperature of tea.
"Join the basketball team," he said.
Haru stared at him.
"You've never played basketball."
"I have now. Technically."
"Twelve layups in an empty gym during lunch does not constitute—"
"The system provides skills. Skills require application. Application requires a team context. Therefore: the basketball team."
"That's," Haru started.
"Logical."
"I was going to say something else but sure." Haru was quiet for a second. "Is there another reason."
Rei looked at the wall opposite the stairwell. There was a poster about the cultural festival that was three months away. Someone had drawn a small cartoon on the corner of it in ballpoint pen. He catalogued this without particular interest.
"We'll discuss that in the next conversation," he said.
Haru looked at him with the specific expression that meant I already know and I'm giving you the option to say it yourself. It was another catalogued look. Rei found it occasionally inconvenient.
"Okay," Haru said, which meant: I'll wait.
The bell rang. They stood. Rei filed Haru's reaction under response: as predicted, scale: larger than predicted, conclusion: useful. He had learned from it. He felt slightly better about the C-ranks, which was a data point he hadn't anticipated.
"The next pull," Haru said, as they walked. "I'm watching."
"You'll be watching me look at a corner of my vision and reacting to something you can't see."
"Yes."
"That will look strange to anyone nearby."
"Rei," Haru said, with genuine feeling. "I've watched you stare at a loading screen for eight minutes waiting for the animation to resolve without skipping it because you said it 'respected the pull.' I can handle this."
Rei considered this. "Fair point."