We move to a different place, I think the right term is “hole”, and we look at them play. He isn’t saying anything, which is good, but now the situation is starting to feel awkward, which is bad, especially when he’s very evidently trying to restrain himself. I know I will regret this, but I’d rather try to talk than keep having to bear this weird silence. 
“So, Chris… how old are you?”
He looks so happy that I finally asked something. “I turned 21 last week!”
“Ah, h-happy birthday?”
Why did I even say this when it’s already been a week? No, wait, he’s euphoric. “THANK YOU SIR!”
I take a deep breath, this isn’t confrontation, but it sure feels like it. “Please don’t call me sir, I’m not that much older than you… I’m barely 25.”
He’s all giggly. “Can I call you Laszlo then?!”
“Well… sure.”
His face is beaming. “I really love your art and the characters you create! I’m still deciding what career to pick, and the videogame industry is not out of the question. Your characters all have a strong aura, they’re unforgettable, even the NPCs! I’ve been thinking that I want to make something like this too!”
I don’t know how to react, I get compliments often due to the forced exposure to people that my boss is making me go through, but this is real and honest praise from someone who doesn’t have anything to gain from me. “Thank you, I really appreciate your kind words…”
He keeps smiling at me like a puppy waiting for something. Neither he nor his father have wolf ears, but he’s giving off strong Golden Retriever vibes. Sigh. “Fiiine, ask me everything you want, just… don’t overwhelm me…”
I can see his metaphorical tail wag like crazy. “THANK YOU! Alright alright, so so so, uhmmm… ah, so many things I want to know…!”

I’m so exhausted I might as well have kept playing. I replied to everything he asked, spanning my whole career, from the start to this day, and had to answer questions about Twilight Flow while trying to remember how not to say too much. He also wanted to know about all the things that I like. To say that I’m drained would be an understatement.
He seems finally done speaking, but I don’t recognize my surroundings, I could only focus on talking to notice how often we moved with the golf cart. Garret and my boss are walking in our direction. I’ll ask them.
Garret looks happy. “Are you two done talking? That went on for long!”
My boss agrees, “we’re done with all the nine holes, hahaha!”
That’s a relief. “So we’re done here?”
He nods, “we worked up an appetite, hahaha! The restaurant here is great!”
I sigh internally, to avoid leaving a bad impression. “Is it time to talk about business then?”
Garret speaks to his son. “What do you think of the game?”
He gives him the thumbs up, “it’s gonna be a success.”
Then he asks my boss, “you agree, right?”.
He gives him the thumbs up, “absolutely, hahaha!”
Then he looks at me, “that’s all I needed, I trust my son about this one thing, and Hilly about everything. Feel free to add anything else, but don’t stress over it, my original plan was to just play with Hilly!”
At this point I can’t help but glare at my boss. “Is there even a point why you brought me with you?”
“Hahaha! Let’s move, I could eat a cow!”
Ahhh, once again victim of the whims of my boss.

Alright, I will admit that the lunch alone was worth the struggle. We’re done eating, and after talking for a while we went on our way to the office, with Garret and Chris following us to the office to meet other people.
I’m still pouting, for the lack of transparency more than anything else. “You didn’t have to bring me with you without telling me anything. If all you wanted was to let me know your friend and to eat at that restaurant you just had to ask…”
He laughs loudly, and in the small enclosed space of the car it hurts my ears. “Hahaha! Don’t get the wrong idea, Las! You playing, even if just once, and talking with Chris, it was all worth it and part of the plan!”
I sigh, “what even is the plan?”
“We’ll talk about it soon enough, hahaha!”

We walk into the office and take the elevator, but rather than pressing the button for our floor, my boss presses the one for the last floor. “Do we have a meeting?”
“We’re not going to the meeting rooms, hahaha!”
The corridor is empty and so are the rooms, it’s somewhat unsettling since I’m used to seeing groups of people walk around and talk whenever I come here. Past them there’s a stairway that leads to a door, my boss opens it with a key. It’s… the roof?
Right in the middle there’s a picnic table, one of those with benches, and some lanterns firmly attached to the railings, worn by the weather. They all seem quite old.
I’m quite surprised. “I’ve been working here for many years and I didn’t know about this place.”
He has a large grin on his smile. “Welcome to the office of Masahiro Muranaka!”
We both sit down at the table, one facing the other. Muranaka, the legendary creator of Twisting Worlds?! “What do you mean? This isn’t an office at all. I doubt that Mr. Muranaka ever worked here.”
He starts laughing hard. “Hahaha! That was the reaction I was expecting!”
Sigh, he’s always like this. Is it even funny? It didn’t sound like a joke at all.
He takes his jacket off. “So, Laszlo, did you have fun playing golf?”
I touch my arms, “I’m still kinda sore, but, well… it was fun.” - I look into the distance, the view is clean enough that I can catch a glimpse of the golf fields from here, they’re not that far - “It was a good day.”
“I didn’t expect you to score like me, although I did make a mistake, hahaha!”
I look at him and his huge grin, and chuckle a bit too. “Neither did I, Mr. Holden was also impressed!”
His face gets a bit softer, “it was great to talk with a fan, right? Someone who honestly admires your talent.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him make an expression like that before. “It was exhausting, but… yeah, I was so happy. Investors are cold, most of the time I wonder if they really mean it when they say good things about me and the game. Mr. Holden was way more honest about this, and Chris, well, he finally made me realize that the things I make are touching the hearts of people, just like Twisting Worlds touched mine.”
He nods repeatedly, “that’s exactly what I wanted you to see, the whole reason why I let you come with me! Well… I cheated a bit since I’ve known Chris since the first days of his life and I knew he was a hardcore fan, but all over the world there are many people who love your work like Chris does, maybe even more, hahaha!”
I’m so lucky to have a boss like him, he’s almost like a parental figure in the way he takes care of me, and maybe he was even worrying about me. I think I’d keep doing what I’m doing even if I didn’t have any fans, with this game I’m just indulging myself and my creativity, but now I’m starting to feel more confident and I really want this game to be a success. “Thank you, Hilly.”
“You finally said my name, hahaha!” - he looks genuinely happy about it. “Say, Laszlo, wanna know the truth about Masahiro Muranaka, the legendary team that gave life to Twisting Worlds?”
“Huh? Team?”

2003, Lilyware was chosen by a large console manufacturer to make a game for their new yet-to-announced next-gen platform, and they had just announced the results of an internal selection to launch a new game for the console. A team of four passionate people got together to show their concept: Twisting Worlds. Jumping between parallel worlds, meeting different versions of the same people, different circumstances, different powers, converging in the same story.
The team was heterogeneous but quite close-knit. Nantz was the shy and nerdy writer of the story, he had an incredible imagination and came up with the whole concept of the game and the characters; Rabuck was the talented and laid-back artist that breathed life into most characters in the game with her designs, from the protagonists to NPCs with no dialogues; Mundorf instead was the energetic artist that gave life to the monsters and bosses, and also had his hands on the creation of many of the environments; last but not least, Kadlec, the composer that glued the pieces of the game together just like she kept the group together. However, they were often seen as a group of five, as there was one more member of the team: the manager Holden, who spent a lot of time with the group and helped them take important decisions, always on that roof that they called their office.

The development of the game went swiftly and without any major issues, the new platform took time for the programmers to get used to, but it was already accounted for in the schedule. The team was enthusiastic about the results of their efforts, it was going better than they even dared to imagine, and the rest of the staff was quite happy too.
One day, late into the development, the time for something they were not ready for had arrived: it was the time to start advertising the game. Nantz was the one who came up with the concept, so he was the first pick to be the face of the game by everyone on the team and by the higher-ups too, but he refused with all his might: maybe it was his shyness, or maybe his insecurity, and he also kept saying that the others deserved as much recognition as possible for helping him transform his concept into a real game. So after days of internal discussions inside the group, Holden came up with a name to represent them all: Masahiro Muranaka.
And so under their new name they kept developing the game, with Holden taking care of the interviews and presentations in place of the group: after all, he was Masahiro Muranaka too.

The game was a huge commercial success and became an instant classic, with hardcore fans from all around the world, and becoming the first videogame ever developed in the country of Sogna to reach big mainstream success.
That, however, was the beginning of the fall for Masahiro Muranaka. The surprise merger between Lilyware and Arcsoft brought a huge reorganization in the company, and it turned out that the other people who took part in the internal selection won by the team held quite a grudge against them. The members still had their names in their roles across the credits: Rabuck was the art director and main character designer, Mundorf directed the environmental design team, Kadlec was the main composer, and Holden was one of the managers. Nantz, however, took no recognition whatsoever for his writing by hiding behind the Masahiro Muranaka moniker even in internal documents, and the new direction didn’t give him any, especially when only the team vouched for him, the new executives were too busy to hear the voice of just a small group of five people. He was aware: his own bashfulness brought this on himself. So he clung to the only thing that was left to him, his role as a successful producer of the game, giving his farewell to his career as a videogame writer.
After this, Holden left the company and moved to different kinds of business, and the rest of the team kept developing two games of the Twisting Worlds series, with some minor input by Nantz, who however appeared in every game as easter eggs, before the lost all the interest and letting the company do whatever they wanted with the name of the series: they didn’t feel proud about their work at all.

I need a moment to let all of this sink in. I had no idea that all of this happened to the masterpiece that influenced my whole creative vision. I’m speechless.
Hilly breaks the silence. “The first game was great, right?”
I nod, “it’s one of the best games I ever played.”
“And the two sequels?”
“They’re good, but…” - I caress the very table that hosted the birth of the entire series - “something is missing, they’re different. Now I get it, Nantz didn’t write them.”
He nods too. We both let out a sigh. Then he starts looking at me with a serious look on his face. “This is why I’m pushing you so hard. Take pride in your work, claim what’s yours, leave a sign, expand your network. Let everyone know your name. Don’t make the same mistakes the young Nantz made.”
I see it now, why he’s so pushy, so close to me, so caring. I’m a lot like Nantz… wait. “Excuse me, boss. What was your last name again? To me your just ‘boss’, or Hilly I guess.”
He has a shocked look on his face. “Wait, you seriously didn’t figure it out?!”
“Uh, figure out what?”
He facepalms with a desperate look on his face. What did I do…?
He places his briefcase on the table and gives me paper and a pen. “Write.”
“Y-yes!”
“Masahiro Muranaka.”
Masahiro Muranaka.
“Sally Rabuck.”
Sally Rabuck… “with a K at the end, right?”
“Yes. Mara Kadlec.”
“With a K?”
“Without.”
Alright, Mara Kadlec.
“Roman Mundorf.”
Roman Mundorf.
“Nantz.”
Nantz.
“Split the syllables of Muranaka.”
Mu-Ra-Na-Ka. Oh! “They’re the initials of their last names!”
He nods. “What about Masahiro?”
“Ma is Mara. Sa is Sally. Ro is Roman, but I don’t know Nantz’s name. Hi… no, wait.”
Nantz. Hi Nantz. Hilly Nantz.
“Boss… you’re… you’re Nantz?!”
He starts laughing as he always does. “Took your time, hahaha!”
The puzzle is complete now. “And Holden too, he’s Garret Holden. But… no offense, but that Nantz is the polar opposite of you!”
He laughs at first, but then he sighs. “Well, time changes people. I had to change, I lost what I loved the most.”
That’s right, I didn’t think about it, but I remember a Rabuck and a Mundorf on the board of directors. “Whoa. That’s… that’s a lot to take in.”
“That’s the past of Hilly Nantz and Twisting Worlds.” - then he places a key on the table. “Masahiro Muranaka did their job, they won’t need this office anymore. Laszlo, you’re the future. Be brave so you won’t have to lose yourself, and make good use of this sacred place.”
He got up and walked through the door, leaving uncertainty and hope behind. I don’t know if I can be brave, I’m as timid and socially awkward as the young Nantz was. But I will make my name known and keep the legacy of Masahiro Muranaka alive through my story and my art, hoping that he’ll keep watching my back and supporting me while I try to become stronger for the sake of both of us. Maybe I’ll change a bit too, hopefully not as drastically as him, but in any case, this is just the beginning.

Licensed under Yozakura BY-NC-SA-NoAI 1.0