How Could a Dating Game Have a Bad Ending?

On her eighteenth birthday, Yun Queyou received a gift from her older brother: Heartbeat Memory Club.

Ever since its release, Heartbeat Memory Club had been known for its high degree of freedom and exceptionally difficult romance system.

Players on the forums were constantly complaining. How could a game have no way to reach a happy ending?

Her brother said, "Every man other than your big brother is no good. This game will teach you that."

Yun Queyou only half understood, but she started playing.

[Chapter One: The Cursed Spirit Manipulator]

[The filthy cursed energy crawls stickily across the entire floor like a web. Her lover's sideways glance, foxlike, shifts in an instant from chilling to intensely affectionate.]

["A disobedient stalker... Heh."]

[Option A: Close your eyes and let him do as he pleases

Option B: Close your eyes and stay where you are

Option C: Close your eyes and move closer to him]

On the walkthrough forum, this was the part where every choice led to a bad ending, because you had discovered your lover's secret: he could control cursed spirits.

And yet...

[Stat check: Affection level requirement met

??? level requirement met. Entering ending branch...]

[The man's warm hand covers her eyes as he whispers softly beside the girl's ear.]

["Little You is scared of cursed spirits, right? Don't worry. As long as you're by my side, there won't be any cursed spirits~"]

[Happy Ending (?) Achieved: A Dreamcatcher Woven from Lies]

Her first route had gone smoothly, and it hadn't been quite like her brother said. Yun Queyou immediately started a second game, then a third...

[Happy Ending (?) Achieved: A Ring Cage in the Name of Love]

[Happy Ending (?) Achieved: Bound by Bandages Like a Spider's Web]

[Happy Ending (?) Achieved: Falling Backward Under Gravity]

Yun Queyou played through several happy endings in a daze. Looking back, she realized things seemed a little different from what her brother had said.

Did this game... not have any bad endings?

*

After countless players had tried their hand at it, they finally figured out the biggest obstacle to beating Heartbeat Memory Club:

[The romance target's corruption level]

This was a hidden stat that couldn't be checked. But according to reliable sources...

Intense love was just like the stickiest curse.

* OOC warning

* The premise takes inspiration from Doki Doki Literature Club. Beware of paper characters breaking through the fourth wall (?)

* But the heroine will always fight for happy endings.

// The cover character design was made with Neka Neka and is used with permission.

Theme: Love requires keeping your feet on the ground