An Arcade Lesson
It was late afternoon in Kyoto. The yellow light of the sun was beginning long transmutation to gold as it began its ponderous decent into the horizon. At Shiketsu’s gates three students parted company. One, to study and maintain her academic lead over a perceived rival. The second, pining for the first. The third, was the girl’s perceived rival.
This third student had professed a need to study, just like the first student. When he’d said that, he hadn’t noticeably averted his eyes. His voice had kept even. Neither of his friends, or acquaintances as he would insist they still were, had any idea that he wasn’t going straight home and studying for tomorrow’s math test. The student’s name was Christopher and he hadn’t bothered to study for a class in a month. A 98 on the test was more than adequate for his ambitions. He was just getting much better at lying.
Christopher walked straight past his house, lost in thought. The soft click of his outdoor shoes were the only company as he turned down a lonesome side street. He was in a sour mood.
Christopher yawned and rubbed his eyes. There were at least 3 hours worth of work ahead of him, recording what had happened today. Inigo had dragged him by the shirt again to meet another half dozen girls he really didn’t have an interest in. The idiot had tried to take him to Hailey. Christopher had had to put his foot down on that one.
Christopher sighed as he finally lowered his hand. Inigo had decided they had enough time left during break to try some of the second years today. Christopher nearly shat bricks when he found out THEY were on the block. Thankfully, the damn cat went for teasing Inigo immediately. Inigo, for his part, forgot about Christopher long enough for him to get away. Which Inigo hadn’t taken as anything more than Christopher expressing disinterest and the bastard had enjoyed the damned cat’s attention too much to notice hi--
Christopher shook his head violently. It wasn’t fair to think like that. Inigo had no idea what Christopher felt and Christopher had no intention of letting anyone know. Not Maru, not Inigo, not Kaylee and especially not the damn cat.
Thinking about that damn cat reminded Christopher of just how much he had to record today. It was a truly ludicrous amount. He sighed bitterly. Making fri-- close acquaintances was a mistake. His workload had increased exponentially ever since he had met Inigo on the roof. Bastard somehow thought seeing Christopher cry made them friends and somehow Maru was noticeable now and talked like Christopher had always been her rival. Now they were talking so often and about things that actually mattered and--
‘Why don’t I just tell them to fuck off?’ Christopher asked himself.
The question hung in the air as he continued to walk. It was a question he didn’t answer. He could answer it, but he didn’t want to acknowledge the truth. The answer was the same reason Christopher hadn’t copied Maru’s quirk in a week. It was the same reason he had dreaded forgetting Inigo’s after that night doing some not-so-legal hero work. Those two weren’t acquaintances anymore.
Finally Christopher came to his destination. The arcade brimmed with student violating their schools’ code of conduct by wearing their uniforms in an arcade. None of the students cared, nor did the owner. Christopher certainly didn’t.
Christopher walked through the front of the arcade, where a boy sacrificed his fortune for a 300¥ stuffed animal, while his girlfriend watched in breathless anticipation.
Another couple was loitering at the edge of the arcade. The girl’s arms were around the boy’s neck, his hands on her hips. She was smiling as she began to say something. The boy gave an admirable attempt to listen but his eyes said he wasn’t focused on the conversation.
A third couple walked past him, hand-in-hand just after Chrisotpher entered… that was Hifumi and Hailey. Hifumi was chattering happily about nothing in particular and Hailey was actually listening to what he said. Christopher stepped to the side to let the pair pass. The two didn’t notice him. Christopher’s eyes followed them as they exited. Hailey giggled as Hifumi said something inane. Christopher briefly considered interrupting their moment for the fuck of it, but… they probably wouldn’t notice a meteor strike right now.
Christopher lowered his cap over his eyes and turned away from the door. He’d lived his entire life without noticing romance and now it was Valentine’s Day every day. Christopher walked towards the fighting game cabinets.
The cabinets were crowded as always. A couple of the regulars nodded at Christopher as he approached. He wasn’t quite a regular, but he was here often enough to be a stranger. Christopher looked around quickly. No horns. Orochi wasn’t here today, good. He wasn’t looking for a close match, he was looking to let off some steam.
Christopher sat down at the Heroes Clash Unlimited Cabinet and put in a coin. He couldn’t spare more than an hour, but that was more than enough time to take his mind off things. He pressed the start button, the world blared in triumph as the screen resolved into the character select.
Without thinking Christopher set his cabinet to vs. mode and selected his favorite team.
Endeavor, his lead, was a classic rushdown with some ranged options, kindof low IQ to be totally honest, but he was Tier 1 for a reason. Endeavor’s overhead had no windup, he could build bar like no-one else and his ground game was immaculate. On top of all that, he wasn’t lost in the air. “I will burn the underworld!” The Endeavor sprite declared in that triumphant vaguely menacing voice everyone in Japan learned to live with.
Majestic, his middle, was a zoner through and through, kindof squishy, but his supers were fast and cheap. He also had a safe tag-in if you used his circle-back low kick. “Where the bitches at?!” Christopher’s teacher queried in that usual bombastic fashion.
Miracle, mom, was Tier 4 trash on her own, but she provided the best combo extending assist in the game. She could get Majestic a 70% combo almost automatically. 100% if his opponent guessed wrong on wake up. Running her as anchor instead of mid was a bit stupid, but Christopher found he played harder when he was trying to keep his mom standing.
“I’ll save the day with a smile!” Miracle shouted as her sprite flashed a sparkling smile. Christopher cringed. Supposedly cheesy one-liners had been a large part of her appeal, not that he remembered.
From the reports Christopher had read, Miracle was a very unintentionally funny person. She had a habit of saying the most outlandish, dorkiest shit you could imagine with an infectious sincerity. Like she’d walked out of a PSA. Christopher believed those reports.
Mirror Maker, his quirk, might have made Miracle a void in Christopher’s memory, but he still remembered all the times he laughed. There were so many times he’d laughed in a room he remembered as empty. There were even more memories of sitting at the table with dad, eating dinner, then they’d both start busting a gut randomly, no-one having said a word. Christopher had laughed a lot before she died.
Christopher’s attention was drawn back to reality when his cabinet declared that a new challenger was approaching. He readied himself. He wasn’t here to think about mom.
The stage select screen popped up for all of one second before Christopher scrolled to random. His opponent was taking longer, his selector waffling between the Shiketsu Gates stage and Tokyo Tower. Christopher rested his chin in his palm as he watched his opponent struggle to make the simple decision. The timer ran out and his opponent was still waffling. Christopher rolled his eyes. ‘Just pick random it doesn’t matter.’ He thought.
Then the vs screen popped up as they loaded into the UA roof stage and Christopher almost laughed.
Christopher’s opponent was running a team of Rosethorn, Impakt and Endeavor. Nothing wrong with Rosethorn, solid Tier 2 lead and a very noob friendly rushdown. Impakt was an okay rushdown character with an interesting assist that made him an excellent mid to a zoner anchor. Endeavor was of course the best lead character in the game put at the anchor slot and… also a rushdown character.
“Do you think he’s gonna play defensive?” Christopher asked, trying to keep the smile off his face.
They loaded into the stage. Endeavor opposite Rosethorn, their sprites bobbing up and down to the game’s soft music. “3, 2” The game began, Christopher held back on the stick, he expected his opponent to come out of the gates swinging. “1, FIGHT!”
Rosethorn leapt out of her starting position with her dashing overhead. It was an all-in opener, you needed to follow it with an assist to make it safe. Christopher blocked, then crouched to dodge Endeavor’s assist…. There was no assist, instead Rosethorn launched another overhead. Hitting Christopher’s Endeavor on the head.
Christopher blinked, was that a feint? Rosethorn launched another overhead. Christopher had Endeavor stand block. Overhead, overhead, overhead.
Christopher sighed as Endeavor’s block meter turned red. He took his hands off the stick. Leaning back on his stool he let Endeavor get KO’d, his opponent never used a super. Then Majestic came onto the stage. Christopher didn’t touch the stick. He watched Rosethorn spam the same move over and over again doing 3% on his health with every blow. When Majestic finally fell backwards in dramatic fashion crying to the heavens about his opponent landing a cheap shot, Miracle entered the stage. Miracle flashed an immaculate smile and holding a thumb’s up to her player.
“Don’t give up!” The sprite exclaimed.
That line was a bit of a joke in the game’s fandom as people did often give up if Miracle was all they had left. Christopher never had and this match certainly wouldn’t break that streak.
Rosethorn went in for another overhead, but Christopher landed Miracle’s counter. Rosethorn stopped in mid air and was thrown to the other side of the ring with Miracle’s TK. Rosethorn woke up swinging. Then Rosethorn spasmed as her player began to mash buttons in a blind panic as their winning strategy had suddenly stopped working. Christopher felt almost felt guilty for what he was about to do. He assumed his opponent was a grade-schooler just learning the game. However, he HAD come here to let off some steam.
...
“KO!” The announcer declared in a staccato electronic voice as Endeavor flew back in slow motion. “This cannot be!” Endeavor mourned as he hit the ground, once, twice, then three times and stirred no more.
Miracle punched the air once. Then she telekinetically pulled up a boulder, climbed on top of it. She began to stand, briefly waved her arms in a circle to maintain her balance, stood, then turned. She held her fist out towards her player in triumph. “For the world’s happiness!” She cried. “You Win!” The announcer exclaimed.
Christopher sighed at the sprite’s antics. Then began to scroll over to the new opponent button. “Rematch!” The cabinet declared. Christopher blinked as the 10 second timer to accept the rematch began to tick down. He hadn’t expected that. Christopher considered for a moment, he didn’t actually want to crush someone’s confidence, but he had to admit, that match was fantastic for letting off steam. He selected yes.
21 seconds later. “KO!” Endeavor turned his back to the camera, flame armor dissipating with a huff. “As expected.” The sprite declared. “You Win!” There was barely a delay this time. “Rematch!”
30 seconds later. “KO!” Majestic held out his arms and a dozen bikini-clad women flocked to him. Majestic chuckled pompously. “Was there ever a doubt?” “You Win!” “Rematch!”
19 seconds later. “You Win!” “Rematch!”
50 seconds later. “You Win!”
“Agghh!” Christopher heard a familiar voice cry. “How do I keep losing?!” Christopher froze as Yui stood up a few cabinets down. Everyone around her shrunk into their cabinets as she began to look around in a fury. It was at this moment, Christopher regretted not going straight home. Then Yui’s eyes found Christopher, he eyes lit up in recognition and she stalked over to him. Murder in her eyes.
‘So this is how I die.’ Christopher decided.
“Chris.” Yui snarled menacingly as she reached Christopher.
“Yui, how are you?”
“Are you cheating?”
“Huh?”
“How are you beating me every time?! No-one’s that lucky!”
“I just know what I’m doing.” Christopher blurted. Stopped. He looked at Yui’s eyes. They were turning red. Being born with a mouth was a mistake.
“You saying I don’t?” Yui asked, her posture dripping with hostility but… there was something there. It was the same thing Chris noticed in her posture every time she saw him explain some stupid concept to Inigo in the classroom. Something that didn’t fit with hostility. Maybe her frown was too forced. Maybe her eyes weren’t the right shade of red. Whatever it was, Christopher had a feeling she wasn’t actually pissed, that she wanted something from him. Like she wanted to learn.
“Do you? I mean I’ve never seen you here before, have I been missing you?” Christopher ventured. It was a gamble. If she was just pissed off, she may well throw a punch here. If it came to a fight, she’d win. Christopher didn’t have any quirks mirrored at the moment and she was two years older than him. He was worried she’d start swinging, but he wasn’t scared. He’d been hurt before.
Yui’s eyes narrowed, her mouth evolved into a sneer. “I don’t have time to learn how to play a nerd game like you do.”
‘Well that was uncalled for.’ Christopher thought. It also sounded fake as Hell.
Yui started to turn away in a hurry.
“Want to learn?” Christopher asked on impulse.
Yui stopped dead in her tracks.
“I got an hour to kill.” Christopher continued.
Without a word Yui turned and sat in the stool next to Christopher’s cabinet. He didn’t taunt her, didn’t ask why she wanted to learn. He didn’t actually care. He was just glad he had something stupid to do while he tried to forget the amount of work that was waiting for him at home and that damn cat. Christopher slid in another coin and began to explain the game.
Yui zoned out when he started talking about frame data. She just watched the screen as Christopher performed some complicated mumbo jumbo with Rosethorn on some poor grade-school kid while chattering away like it was the simplest thing in the world.
Yui kept silent. She didn’t trust herself to speak right now. She’d just insult him, maybe piss him off enough that he’d leave. She really did want to learn this bull shit, if only so she could kick Orochi’s ass, at least once.
Christopher seemed to notice he had lost her. “You getting any of this?”
“How could I?” Yui blurted. ‘Fuck! Why am I li--’
“Yeah I don’t know how to teach this.” Chris, leaned back, “why don’t we just zone in on your characters.” He won his current match like it was the easiest thing in the world and went back to the character select screen.
“Rosethorn’s a good lead, so we can keep her.”
“Everyone else’s using Endeavor.”
“Only a few of them should.” Christopher pointed out. “Most of them should be playing Rosethorn, but the pros play Endeavor, so they try to copy them, even if it’s at the expense of their game. Endeavor’s not a forgiving character, you fuck up at all and you drop your combo. For your mid… Majestic’s not hard and he’s probably the best middle in the game.”
“I don’t want to play that pervert.”
“Just think of it as ‘if I win using him I’ve won a game, if I lose using him, I get to watch him lose a fight.’”
Yui found herself grinning at that thought. “Yeah, okay.”
“Then there’s your anchor. We could go for Atsushi.”
“Yamata’s in here?!”
“Not Atsushi our classmate, her dad. People love using him as an anchor.”
Yui saw the long slender and well muscled torso and the way his pants hung to emphasize the presence of a bulge. She guessed people used him not just because he was good. “Perverts.”
“Now that you say it… yeah.”
“What about the chick you use? Miracle? She was kicking my ass.”
Christopher shook his head. “Think of her as a ‘Chris Special.’ No-one uses her as an anchor except me.”
“Why?”
“She’s not very good.”
“Why do you use a shit character?”
Christopher avoided the subject. “You know, some people do use Impakt as an anchor when Majestic’s on their team. His assist is defensive but it can save Majestic’s ass.”
Yui’s eyes narrowed, she wanted to press the subject on why he didn’t want her using Miracle. Maybe he just wanted to be unique? Did he have a crush on the hero and not want to share her? She wanted to know, but, surprising even herself, Yui kept quiet.
“Do I want to save Majestic’s ass?”
Christopher actually laughed. “Point! Then how about we go with Seiryu? He’s not that well known of a hero, so he doesn’t see much casual use, but his buttons are great and his level 3 is probably the best in the game.”
Yui leaned forward, studying the hero. At least this one wasn’t fetish bait. “Show me.”
Christopher looked at the clock on the wall, then hissed. “Another day, okay? I gotta go.”
Yui glanced upwards towards the green digital clock. It had been an hour since she’d sat down next to Christopher. Half of it was spent zoned out when he started talking about stupid shit she hadn’t had a prayer of understanding, but some parts of it were… fun.
‘Thank him dumbass!’ Yui hissed to herself. As she opened her mouth, Christopher interrupted her. “Thanks for this by the way.”
Yui clamped her mouth shut and looked up at Christopher bewildered. “I really needed to take my mind off of stuff and this… helped.”
“Like what?” Yui asked before she could stop herself. He wouldn’t trust her enough to say anyway.
“Girls, friends, nothing big.”
“Wait, you have friends?” ‘WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!’ Yui screamed internally.
“Shocks me too,” Christopher agreed. No hurt, no hesitation. He just nodded like the fact genuinely had surprised him.
“Thought it would be better if--” Christopher shook his head. “Never mind, that’s stupid.”
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Yui thought. Instead she said, “fine. I don’t wanna hear stupid shit anyway.”
Christopher smiled as he began to walk out of the arcade. “And I don’t want to talk about stupid shit, so we’re even. You here tomorrow?”
‘Yeah.’ “If I feel like it.”
“Cool, see you then.”
‘See you then.’ “Who said I was gonna--”
“Yui-chan~!”
Cold terror gripped Yui’s heart. Christopher quickened his pace.
Yui’s terror overwhelmed her faults as she reached towards Christopher. “Chris hel--”
Soft, fluffy arms wrapped around Yui’s shoulders. Nene-senpai rubbed Yui’s cheek with her own. “How’s my favorite kouhai?!”
Christopher left the arcade. Yui, despaired as Nene began to hug her even more tightly, hands hovering dangerously close to her chest. No-one was going to save her now.
Christopher walked towards home deep in thought. He envied Yui. Not just because that damned cat was probably still all over her right now. No, he envied her tenacity.
Yui really sucked at that game. It was amazing how putrid she was. If you put a chimpanzee in front of the other cabinet you’d probably have a harder match. Yet… Yui hadn’t stopped trying. She really had tried to pay attention through Christopher’s explanations. To try and get better at a game she really had no talent for.
Christopher couldn’t relate to that. Maybe it was because of his mind, or just his upbringing but if he’d sucked at something, like sports, he never tried to get better. He would instead focus on what he was good at immediately. Thankfully, since God and his parents had given him so much talent he hadn’t turned out to be a failure. But that approach had left him… academically accomplished? Yes. Knowledgeable? Definitely. But he was not a rounded person. One of the fields he fell abominably short in was athletics. Kindof a necessity if he wanted to eventually become a Battle hero like mom. He’d have to get in shape eventually.
Christopher stopped where he was. He could start now.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled out his phone. He opened up his Line. It was filled with conversations about chess openings and puzzles.
“Thought of what I want in return for the chess lessons.”
He pressed send. Moved to put his phone away, Kaylee was only on Line some of the time, almost like she had to use the computer lab instead of a phone.
His phone dinged with a response immediately. Christopher opened it up and read, “I thought not putting your notebook on the roof was the payment.”
Christopher rolled his eyes. “No, that’s blackmail.”
“Tomato, tomato.”
“That doesn’t work on text.”
“Whatever, you gonna spit out what you want?”
“Can you help me get into shape?”
Christopher expected her to think about it but instead he just got an immediate, “sure, I’ll send you times later.”
Christopher sighed. He was gonna hate this. He was going to be sore at least 3 days out of 7 for the rest of the year. However, if he wanted to be a hero, he needed to do this eventually. And if Yui had taught him anything today it was, “just because you suck at something, doesn’t mean you have to quit.”