Jitsui looked at each passing dorm for the combination of numbers that were saved on his phone, searching for the right room that he needed. Room 9082 was two lefts around the corner on the second floor and to the right of the hallway vending machine. Jitsui followed the directions exactly as he was given, finally seeing the snack machine against the wall and knocking on the door across from it.

Jitsui had his backpack hanging from his shoulder that carried his notebook and French textbook inside. Jitsui had unfortunately caught the flu that was going around campus last week and because of it, he had spent his Wednesday evening hunched over the toilet instead of showing up to class.

As soon as he recovered, Jitsui sent an emergency text message to his class group chat online begging for the notes he missed that were vital in passing the midterm that was just a few days away. The only one that managed to reply was a student named Hatano, who was willing to spare enough time for Jitsui to copy what he had written down last week, as long as he didn’t have to leave the comfort of his dorm room. Jitsui had agreed to the conditions, asking for his room number and a time to arrive.

When the door opened, Jitsui was greeted with the sight of someone that was obviously not Hatano. He had never seen him in his class, though he did look familiar from somewhere. Jitsui must have seen him walking around campus once, he decided. “Is Hatano here?”

The other looked him and then back into the room behind him, as if searching. After a few seconds, he turned back and nodded, moving away to let him inside.

Jitsui accepted the invitation and closed the door behind him, spotting Hatano at a desk to his left with a binder open in front of him. He walked over and tapped him on the shoulder, realizing then that Hatano had earbuds in.

The tap made Hatano stop what he was doing and look up, pulling an earbud out. His eyes widened a bit, probably because he hadn’t noticed him come in.

Jitsui had finally recognized who he was now that he knew his face. Hatano was one of the few that took constant notes in the class and he was always seated near the wall and a few rows in front of him. He hardly spoke and usually sat alone, not to mention one of the first students to leave when the class was over. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

Hatano pulled the other earbud out and set it on the desk. “No, I was just reviewing some stuff for class.” Hatano looked around before staring up at Jitsui from his chair again. “You can grab Miyoshi’s spare chair on his side and bring it over.”

“Thanks for asking.” Miyoshi said sarcastically from the other side of the room, the student seated on his bed with a laptop in front of him.

“You’re not using it,” Hatano retorted, but the expression on his face made it obvious that their bickering was normal.

Jitsui only did what Hatano told him to do and walked to the other desk by Miyoshi’s bed, dragging the wooden chair across the carpet and pulling it next to Hatano’s. He sat down and pulled off his backpack to dig out what he needed, watching as Hatano cleared the desk of his own things to make proper room. “I’m sorry I had to ask for your help. I figured you were busy enough with all of the exams coming up.”

Hatano shook his head with a lazy grin. “I can do all of this later, so it’s not a big deal. It’s always a pain when you miss a single class and it just happens to be a test review day of all days.”

“It was?”

“Well,” Hatano slid his binder closer to his side and started flipping through his papers to find the notes Jitsui needed, “it was mixed with a new lecture, we just spent the last half of class going over the review afterwards.”

It was difficult to decipher if Jitsui was feeling relieved or even more anxious by the news. It was good that he hadn’t unintentionally bothered Hatano over just a review lesson, but now he knew for certain that there was new material that he had to learn and memorize in such a short amount of time on top of the other information.

Hatano looked at him for a moment before giving him the notes from Wednesday that he had taken down. “It’s not much, just some more compound tenses that the professor added from the week before.”

Jitsui took the papers from him and laid them out on the desk, his own blank sheet on top so he could copy what he needed. Hatano’s handwriting was neat and easy to read, which was nice. Jitsui had a habit of scribbling some of his notes when he was writing too fast, trying to keep up with the pace of the teacher as the lesson went on.

Jitsui noticed that Hatano even took the time to write down the example sentences that the professor usually included to the board as they went through the chapters, but with the added reflexive verbs, Jitsui was finding it difficult to keep up with the material the more he copied.

He hovered over Hatano’s example sentences for a moment longer than he needed to, trying to comprehend what he was reading so he could understand it. It wasn’t the compound tenses themselves, but matching the correct sentence to the compound tense term that was throwing him off.

“When the reflexive pronoun is used as a direct object, the past participle agrees with the reflexive pronoun.”

Jitsui looked over to find Hatano staring, his eyes down at the paper as his head rested in his hand. Following his gaze back to the sentence he was studying, Jitsui finished writing it down on his own paper. “I know. It’s just harder for me now that we have even more verbs and tenses than before. I’m worried that I’m going to get them confused.”

Hatano looked at Jitsui for a moment and dropped his hand. “I can write a couple of easier practice sentences for you and we can build it up from there.”

Jitsui stopped writing. “I appreciate it, but I don’t think—”

“You can’t study notes if you can’t understand them.” Hatano flipped through his binder for a clean sheet of paper to start on, Jitsui eying some of the other notes he had taken from his other classes. High level mathematics and some chemistry class, judging from the equations he saw.

“You really don’t have to, Hatano. Just letting me copy from your notes is enough.” He didn’t want Hatano to set aside his own schedule just to assist him even more than he already was.

“I thought you were desperate for help?” Hatano’s voice was teasing and Jitsui felt exposed after being called out. “Acting polite won’t get you a passing grade on the midterm.”

Jitsui made a move to argue, or at least decline once more, but the look Hatano gave him made his throat dry. Like he was so confident that he was correct, as he was, and knew Jitsui couldn’t fight him on it. Instead, all he did was submit. “Okay.”

“Good.” Hatano began forming new sentences with the material listed, skipping lines to give Jitsui room to answer and ranging the practice notes down the entire length of the paper. “Find what verb the sentence is using, the tense, and then translate it.”

Jitsui took a look at the paper and noticed some familiar words that he had studied previously. He was only in French I and was just getting a grasp on the sentence structure, but it seemed that Hatano was already some kind of expert. Certainly gifted, at the very least.

So, Jitsui went to work. The sooner he could finish his makeshift assignment, the sooner he could get out of Hatano’s hair and relax back in his own dorm before his exams. He did stumble over a few sentences, trying his best to piece them together, but after he had hurdled over the simpler ones, Jitsui barely had any trouble translating the rest and identifying the verbs and verb tenses.

Before he could even get Hatano’s attention, the other student had snatched the paper from him and already began to look his work over. Jitsui studied the way his eyes lingered over his hand-writing, no doubt judging it, as he was proofreading. After about a minute, Hatano nodded, his half-lidded eyes widening enough to show his genuine amazement. “I think you’ll do fine on the exam this week.”

“Well, I still need to finish copying your notes and all.” Jitsui enjoyed the praise even if it was by someone not much older than him, but his skill level was enough to deem him more superior than Jitsui regardless of seniority.

“If you can nail the basics, you can catch up with the rest.” Hatano slid his notes back over to Jitsui so he could resume copying. “If you have any questions, just let me know. I’d rather spend all day here helping than have you leave not knowing a thing before the test.”

“I’d rather that not happen,” Miyoshi had piped up from the other side of the dorm, “because some of us need to study in silence.”

“And some of us need to sleep at six in the morning instead of hearing the blow dryer running in the bathroom for twenty minutes.” Hatano hadn’t even hesitated to shoot back before he pulled his wallet from his pocket and tossed it behind him for Miyoshi to catch. It landed perfectly on the student’s keyboard of his laptop. “And could you get us some snacks from the vending machine?”

Jitsui saw Miyoshi sigh and set his computer down so he could get up, snatching the wallet and taking it with him. “I’m buying myself the most expensive thing on there, just so you know.”

“Don’t forget to buy the chips I like.” Hatano added just before Miyoshi closed the door behind him, the sound of his footsteps muffled now that there was a distance between them. Hatano turned to Jitsui, almost like an afterthought. “I mean, you’re okay with potato chips, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jitsui wasn’t expecting him to ask, but it was nice of him to offer something to eat. “Thank you.”

Hatano shrugged. “I figured you might have wanted something, too.”

Jitsui continued to write, Hatano looking over his own notes as he did so. “I’m not bothering Miyoshi by being here, am I?”

“Nope. He just likes giving people a hard time when he can. Kind of like me.” Hatano grinned. “The secret is to complain right after he’s done complaining so he gets annoyed and stops talking.”

“That’s…” Jitsui couldn’t help but smile at the humor in it, “an interesting relationship you have with him. My roommate and I don’t fight, but we don’t talk much, either.”

Miyoshi walked back in with an armful of snacks a minute later before he threw them all at the back of Hatano’s head, most of them bags of chips while one was an energy bar.

The snacks scattered and landed around the two of them, Jitsui picking up the closest one to his chair and inspecting the chips. Salt and vinegar. Decent.

“Thanks.” Hatano rubbed the back of his head before he caught the wallet that was flung at him in mid-air, avoiding another hit.

“Could you grab the energy bar and give it back?”

Hatano complied and Miyoshi caught it from his bed, tearing the wrapper open and going back to his computer. Despite the supposed hostility between them and the throwing match, they seemed to be back on good terms again. Like the petty argument never even happened. If it was even an argument to begin with.

Jitsui set the bag he picked up on the desk and opened it, plucking a chip from the small pile and being careful not to get any crumbs on the floor as he ate. It must have been convenient to have a room next to a vending machine. Jitsui didn’t want to imagine having to walk across campus just to buy a snack for a study session in his own dorm.

Jitsui let his mind wander back to Hatano as he scribbled more of his notes down. A freshmen student like him had even bothered to help Jitsui out in his time of need, when Jitsui would usually ignore a stranger asking for his assistance. Well, he supposed the majority of his class operated the same way, but Hatano seemed really considerate for such a quiet and cheeky student.

He finished the notes Hatano had offered him and set his pencil down, eating the last chip in the bag. “Thanks for having me over and letting me copy these, I really appreciate it.” Jitsui gathered Hatano’s notes in a pile and handed them over, Hatano tucking them back inside his binder as he paused his textbook reading.

“Not a problem. At least now I know you can return the favor if I ever miss a class.”

The grin Hatano was wearing made Jitsui laugh, finally discovering his true motive. He was more than willing to have Hatano over if he ever needed his help, even if his own papers probably weren’t ever going to be as adequate as his. “You’re welcome to visit my dorm if it comes to that.”

“I’ll take you up on that offer some day.” Hatano stood up from his chair and stepped over the remaining bags of chips that he had never picked up from the floor. He didn’t say anything else as he walked Jitsui to the door.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you this,” Jitsui started, pulling his backpack straps over his shoulders, “but how are you so good in French?”

Hatano held the door open and leaned against the frame, Jitsui standing just outside the hall. “I studied abroad in France for a few years and I eventually picked up the language. It’s a lot easier learning it from natives than it is in a classroom.”

“Wow,” Jitsui couldn’t have imagined himself living in a foreign country for so long, “are you fluent?”

“I like to think I am.” Hatano gave another grin. “Maybe I can help you study it again some time? Whenever you’re free, of course.”

Jitsui gave him a smile of his own. “I’d really like that. Thank you, Hatano.”

Hatano nodded and waited until Jitsui was far enough down the hall so he could close the door.

“He’s kind of cute.” Hatano looked at Miyoshi who was still on his bed, no longer studying for his classes but browsing through social media. “He’s the one you’ve been crushing on?”

“Shut up.” Hatano muttered, staring at the door for another few seconds before he tucked his hands into his pockets and went back to his desk.

“You know, you can always come to me for relationship advice.”

“I’ll pass.”

Miyoshi closed his laptop and looked at Hatano from across the room, noticing the faint tinge of red on the tip of his ears. “Maybe speaking French will finally get you laid.”

Well...

again, there are no canon pairings in Joker Game so most is based on personal preference but if we want to watch at the Jitsui/Hatano interactions to discover which can be the basis for the JitsuHata (じつはた) or HataJitsu (はたじつ)...

We start with a preview.

They appear together in a manga cover (though there are other people with them)

They have a dialogue in an official card

They’re seated next to each other in an illustration

and are standing together (with Tazaki) in another

And well, they’re on the same page in the new calendar.

Interaction between them in the drama cd is small.

In the second drama cd Jitsui makes fun of Hatano twice and Hatano will comment Jitsui is good at controlling the movement of a ball.

In the 4th drama cd we see that Hatano is fearful of Jitsui (though that’s not so uncommon).

In the 5th drama cd it’ll turn out they’re both underlings of the demon king (along with Miyoshi and Fukumoto) but they won’t really interact much.

They’ve more interaction in the stage, where they discuss about the worshipping of the emperor and where they’ll be paired up for a mission in which Jitsui poses as honorary Aryan and is then imprisoned by the Germans and Hatano plays the role of a member of Hitler Youth and is forced to beat Jitsui... to later help him escape.

I think that’s all though, as usual, I might be missing something.