>Volume 6 starts with a monologue from Karen about why she became a gamer, namely that she's always been more naturally talented than everyone else in every way and couldn't derive any sense of accomplishment from her successes. This is why she gets super competitive with games where there's an equal playing field with at least some of the population. This is also partially why she fell for Keita, since she thinks he was one of the first people not to worship her (not true, he was just too spaghetti to show it).
>Cut to Karen + Tasuku + gaming club dealing with the fallout of last volume's misunderstanding(tm). At this point it's been 2 days and Keita/Aguri have already made their case for why things turned out the way they did. Karen gets into an argument with Misumi (white haired guy in gaming club) about whether anyone was at fault. Misumi starts acting like Keita's defense lawyer, and the gaming club senpais become the judges. Misumi calls Tasuku as a witness, then Keita (via cell). Everyone ends up concluding that Keita/Aguri wasn't at fault, and in fact, because they got the courage to try to kiss who they thought was their SO from Karen/Tasuku's planning and encouragement, that Karen/Tasuku are in fact almost more to blame. Karen ends the chapter with the resolve to actually try to move forward her relationship, she "doesn't want to stay the way they were before".
>Chapter 2, around the same time as last chapter, we see Keita, being the absolute genius he is, 2 days after a situation where he looked like he was cheating on his girlfriend with another girl, at a family restaurant secretly meeting said girl alone. They frantically and awkwardly reconfirm that their lips didn't touch, and are interrupted by Chiaki suddenly appearing. Aguri decides to call Chiaki "Hoshinon" from now on and Chiaki decides on "Agu-nee" for Aguri. Once again Chiaki is questioned on why she was so bothered by the misunderstanding, since she's not in love with either Aguri or Keita, right? Chiaki bullshits this away as usual. The girls ask Keita what he's going to do about his relationship, because they feel since Keita/Karen just started dating that it's a much bigger blow to their relationship compared to Aguri/Tasuku who have trust built up already. Keita responds that if Karen still feels doubt/suspicion about him after he apologizes and explains again, then he's prepared to break up with her so he doesn't hurt her more.
>The three person group walks to the bus stop, and find Karen/Tasuku and also Konoha who ran into them talking at the bus stop. Awkward atmosphere all around until Keita decides to just go for it. He asks Karen whether she can still accept being in the same relationship as before. Karen responds that she "doesn't want to stay the way they were" (see last post). Keita interprets this negatively. He starts yelling that he loves Karen and about the things he loves about Karen, then says he wants to break up. Everyone else is confused. Keita says he doesn't want to break up while not even having had a proper confession, and that he would feel guilty just stumbling into a relationship with the most popular girl in school while doing nothing himself. Karen now gets to yell that she didn't ask to break up and that's not what she meant, getting embarrassed as she tells Keita that she wants to go further in their relationship.
>Chapter 3, Keita is playing fighting games with Karen in her room while both shouting innuendos that could be misinterpreted without context. Keita loses 20 in a row. Karen tries to get Keita to call her by her first name, he does so immediately, then both of the realize it's too embarrassing. Karen complains that she wants Keita to beat her for once, but she also refuses to go easy since that's not the point. Karen's mom overhears them saying things that could be misinterpreted and freaks out. Karen says that it would be nice if Keita could somehow beat her at a game for her birthday present in a week. She expects nothing.
>Keita runs to Tasuku and Nina-senpai for help. They tell him that it's obviously impossible to improve that much in a week. They come up with some special tactics instead. On Karen's birthday, even Karen herself is surprised that Keita insists on playing fighting games with her. They go to character select for unspecified street fighter game and Keita very obviously goads her (almost begging) into picking E. Honda, even after she already picked someone else. Keita picks Guile and spams sonic booms and anti airs when she tries to jump in. (please don't crucify me if this isn't actually a good strategy, I don't know shit about fighting games and this is what the author wrote) Keita says he grinded specifically on how to counter E. Honda in this specific matchup based on Nina-senpai and Tasuku's advice.
>Karen: "This...is not exactly what I meant. I just wanted to see a little bit of your manly side."
>Of course, Keita also realizes the same thing, and that he's a dumbass, but he already practiced for a whole week. As Keita gets up to leave, Karen sees the blisters on Keita's hands, grabs Keita's hand and doesn't let go.
>Karen: "Let me see Keita's manliest place."
>Karen's mom overhears and overreacts again, Keita desperately trying to explain.
>Keita: "We were only talking about games, right, Tendou-san?"
>Karen: "No comment."
>Chapter 4, Tasuku is talking with one of his normalfag friends who's trying to get him to meet this slut named Ayatsuji Nemu. He struck up an agreement with her that in exchange for introducing Tasuku to her he would be introduced to her easy friends. Tasuku's pissed, and mentions that first of all, he has plans after school already, and that he has a girlfriend. His friend says that he hasn't been doing well with Aguri anyway and that his plan is probably just some everyday thing like walking home together. Normalfag asks whether it's really more important than meeting a cute slut. Tasuku admits that his plan is mundane, but says it's more important to him. Nonetheless, he can't deal with the guilt of just standing someone up, so he goes just to reject her immediately. (Tasuku's friend told him he doesn't have an obligation to say yes to anything anyway)
>Tasuku meets Nemu. Says he has a girlfriend. Nemu says that she can be his girlfriend instead. Tasuku refuses, she says that's fine too and offers to be a mistress instead. Tasuku refuses and says he has somewhere more important to be. Nemu insists on following just to see what the big deal is, promising to not be seen.
>Tasuku goes to his meeting.
>Tasuku: "Hey sorry I'm late"
>"That's ok, did you have some stuff that's more important?" Says Keita.
>Tasuku: "No not really."
>Keita: "Are you sure? I'm just gonna go look at second hand games."
>Tasuku: "Yeah, this is much more important to me than that other stuff."
>And the last chapter, where all the plot happens: Chiaki is on her way to school and playing her mobage. She gets a message from Tsucchi asking her to play the game's location based augmented reality feature (muh pokemon go, muh ingress) with him. She's so happy to get to spend time alone with Keita, so she accepts.
>Tsucchi's reply message: "That's great! Let's arrange a time that's good for both of us then. I look forward to it, KONOHA-SAN."
>It was at this moment that Chiaki realized, she fucked up. She goes to Tasuku for help, who suggests just getting Konoha to go for her. Chiaki refuses on the grounds that she wants to spend time with Keita too. Tasuku suggests having Konoha bring her along, but Chiaki refuses on grounds of feeling like a third wheel. Tasuku asks why she can't just say she has no time, but Chiaki explains that she already agreed, and Keita is free all the time so she can't just lie about which days she's not available for. Tasuku is fed up with this but agrees to go probe Keita discreetly. In the end, they decide to invite everyone else to make it less awkward for Chiaki.
>Day of the mobage: everyone's meeting up. Aguri has a new nickname for Konoha: Konokono. Surprisingly, Keita brings a seventh person. It's his taller, more handsome, smarter otouto, Amano Kousei. They walk around playing the game for a while, then Chiaki suggests they rest for lunch at a burger place. The place doesn't have big enough tables, so they split into groups of:
>Keita, Aguri, Chiaki at one table
>Karen, Tasuku, Konoha, and Kousei at another
>The tables are out of earshot of each other, so Konoha tries to make conversation, asking Kousei about what kind of girls he thinks Keita likes.
>Kousei: "At the very least, not a crude bitch like you."
>Everyone at the 4 man table does a double take. Kousei continues to hurl insults at the other 3, calling them trash and "friend/lover shaped pieces of garbage", not worthy to be in Keita's presence. When questioned on his thoughts on the other table, Kousei responds that those are Keita's true friends. Everyone is confused. Kousei says they actually noticed Keita's headache (which is why Chiaki asked to stop for lunch). Kousei himself only came to make sure Keita would be ok. Karen and Tasuku, Keita's girlfriend and best friend respectively, are shut up by this, since they didn't notice. The rest of the day continues, with Keita wondering why Konoha seems to not know anything about the game when he talks to her, then suddenly after conversing with Chiaki comes back and acts as he expects. Karen feels guilty and goes to ask Keita if he still has a headache. Keita says he's alright now and compliments her for noticing. Before they know it it's the end of the day and they ended up near the top of a mountain. Everyone prepares to go home on separate buses.
>As they're preparing to leave, Keita notices a rare item nearby (at the top of the mountain, a popular stargazing spot) that grants another chance to fight a raid boss. It happens to be for the first raid boss he took down with Mono. Keita excitedly tells Konoha, but she doesn't seem to understand and seems uninterested. Disappointed, Keita gets on the bus and is ready to go home, but then changes his mind and goes alone to get his nostalgic rare item.
>Chiaki's perspective, she's decided to go alone to the stargazing spot as well, partially for the item, partially to symbolically end her crush on Keita. She's look up at the stars when somone suddenly calls her from behind. It's Keita, of course. They sit down on a bench and lean back to stargaze together while chatting. Keita starts telling her about how he's here for his nostalgia, and about how even if Konoha forgot about it, the memories he had with Mono are still precious to him. He puts down some self deprecating jokes about how he's pathetic for getting so emotional over a mobage that he would walk up here alone, then thanks Chiaki for noticing that he had a headache earlier. Keita then starts talking about how he's changed recently, how he couldn't have confessed to Karen like that if it weren't for meeting Chiaki first and that giving him the confidence to open himself up to other people.
>Keita: "Um, thanks, Chiaki...for being my friend."
>It's the first time either of them have outright called the other their friend. They get ready to leave when Chiaki realizes she hasn't gotten the rare item yet. Fumbling with her phone, she drops it, and Keita reads the name on the screen: "Mono". Chiaki begins to desperately explain that Konoha had something to do so she asked her to pick up the rare item for her, then stops herself.
>Chiaki: "...This isn't Konoha's smartphone." Chiaki continues to yell out detail after detail of her history with Tsucchi, and while she's at it admits she's Nobe too. She's surprised that Keita isn't angry at her for lying. In fact, Keita is kind of relieved since he's finally gotten rid of that cognitive dissonance from the difference between Mono/Nobe and Konoha.
>Chiaki: "I have one more thing to tell you."
>Keita: "What is it? At this point I wouldn't even be surprised if you told me you were an alien."
>Chiaki: "Keita...I love you."
