A Parting of Ways
Miracle leapt backwards dodging an uppercut from Endeavor, his flames whipping around his fist in a dazzling display of power. Miracle reached behind her and with a mighty shout telekinetically threw a boulder at Endeavor. Endeavor raised his arms, the boulder shattered against him like dust. Before the rubble cleared Endeavor roared a challenge and dashed forward flames licking at his heels, only to slam into an invisible wall.
Endeavor was flung back. He plummeted through the air with no way to right himself. Then with bone shattering force he found himself seized by an invisible hand. Miracle clenched her fist, eyes alight with the fire of victory. She pulled him towards. Endeavor flew helplessly towards his foe, towards his doom. Miracle spun and with pinpoint timing, landed a spinning back kick on Endeavor’s face, sending him flipping backwards.
Endeavor hit the ground, ticking off his last sliver of HP. The screen stuttered.
“Impossible!” Endeavor cried. He skipped backwards, once, twice, thrice, then lay still.
“Dammit!” Yui snarled at her screen.
‘You Lose!’ The cabinet helpfully declared.
“I almost had you!”
Christopher, sitting in the cabinet next to her, blinked. She’d gotten Miracle down to half health, Endeavor down to ¾ health and hadn’t touched Majestic. She was absurdly better than she was when she started… but that wasn’t a high bar.
“You did?”
Yui looked at him sourly.
“… was I playing a different game?” Christopher asked, stonefaced.
“… You’re an ass.” Yui said, a frown splitting her face.
“Me? Never.”
Christopher grinned in satisfaction as he leaned back in his stool. He glanced at the clock, a green digital display told him it was 1900, 7pm if he was back in America. Dad wouldn’t be home until midnight probably, but his curfew was at 1930.
“If I could just play as someone who’s not an asshole.” Yui muttered, staring at the character select screen, pro heroes all the way down.
“What was that?” Christopher asked leaning forward.
“Nothing.”
“All right.” Surely he’d misheard. “It’s about time to go anyway.” He stood, with a stretch. Home, then bath and-- Yui grabbed his shoulder.
Christopher froze. He hadn’t even noticed her stand! He felt the world spin for a moment, before he felt his thumb dig into his pointer finger and the world snapped back into clarity. He looked behind him. Yui, oblivious, pointed to a far corner of the arcade. Where the pinball machines were.
Christopher grinned, poor girl had no idea what she was getting herself into. “Hate to break it to you, but I’m good at that too.”
Yui, undeterred, thrust her thumb there again. Christopher shrugged. Curfew was at 1930, but they wouldn’t be kicked out of the arcade until 2100, dad wouldn’t be home until 2400 and Yui wouldn’t tell Rosethorn he missed curfew.
“All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Christopher said arrogantly.
Yui and Christopher exited the arcade and began walking down the street.
Yui had her hands folded behind her head, smiling broadly. Humming a jaunty tune from the pinball machine they’d just played.
Christopher seethed. Nearly grinding his teeth. He’d been beaten in games before. Hell Orochi had a winning record against him in fighting games. Playing pinball against Yui though… that was not a loss, that was a slaughter.
Humiliated Christopher moaned, “If they hadn’t kicked us out…”
“You’d have suddenly gotten 5 times better and caught my high score?” Yui asked, still smiling.
“YOUR LUCK IS INSANE!” Christopher yelled. At one point she was managing five fucking balls on the table. Christopher hadn’t even known you could get that many balls at once!
“Oh what’s that?” Yui held a hand to her ear like she’d heard a faint sound. “Is it the cry of the rare dumbass loser?”
“I’m never coming to the arcade with you again.”
“Oh, so you’re just gonna take the L and go home?”
Christopher glowered at Yui. Yui grinned, showing off her sharp teeth. There had been such a change over her when she beat the shit out of him in pinball. She relaxed and started returning jokes rather than being the butt of them. He hated it. He also hated that she seemed to have seen a side of him he’d tried to keep hidden. His competitive streak.
It was one thing if he lost a close contest. Christopher could reason he was close enough to have fun. Close losses didn’t eat at him like a piranha in his gut. But to be destroyed like this? Just absolutely massacred? He wasn’t going to let that stand. What’s worse is that somehow, without Christopher saying a word, Yui had figured that out about him. He wasn’t going to stop practicing pinball and she knew it.
He hated that she knew it.
“… you’re an ass you know that?”
“Me? Never.” Yui said, mockingly adopting Christopher’s tone from 2 hours before. Christopher glowered at her before he returned to staring at the ground in front of him. His mind running through every game of pinball they’d just played… well all the games he’d just played. Yui only played once and set a score so out of reach that Christopher hadn’t even managed to cut it in half.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, Christopher still seething and Yui still glowing. Then Yui seemed to have a thought. She grinned, if he got like this with pinball what would he be like with school? He deserved it after all that teasing he and Inigo had put her through with the bear. Payback time! “Oh! Kaylee said you and Hoge had are competing for the best score this Exam?”
“It’s not a competition Hoge’s just crazy.”
Yui frowned, that was a disappointing reaction. “...not gonna get heated at all?”
“You can’t get higher than a perfect score on tests. Like I said, no competition. Just an inevitable draw.”
Yui winced. “Fuck you’re arrogant.”
“I’m not.” Christopher said, still angrily going over how the Yui had salvaged that ball 9 minutes in. That should’ve gone into the pit. He was barely paying attention to the conversation. And when Christopher’s barely paying attention, he talks. “When I get questions wrong it’s on purpose.”
“The hell? Why?”
“I don’t want to be accused of cheating. Back in America one of my teachers got so obsessed with proving I’d cheated he insisted I take exams alone in the class’s closet.”
“… that’s pretty fucked up.”
“I guess he’d convinced himself his class was so hard no-one could honestly get 100s on every assignment. Eventually I just got one answer a test wrong and he shut up. Got to be a habit by the end of the year and I just never shook it.”
Christopher’s mind finally caught up to the conversation. He blinked. He was oversharing. He tended to do that when his mind got focused on a problem and there was someone right there… it’s why he USED TO limit people to one impersonal topic, back when he was younger and wiser.
Before Kaylee took his notebook hostage.
Before Inigo trapped him on the roof.
Before he met Yui at the arcade.
Christopher glanced at Yui, expecting her to look annoyed and bored. Instead, she looked contemplative. Like Christopher’s story had reminded her of something. Christopher knew she had problems with authorities in the past, he decided it was probably something related to that.
‘Should I ask about it?’ Christopher wondered. ‘I’ve been dominating the conversation so far, then again this isn’t a date and I’m the kid, shouldn’t I dominate the conversation? Well everyone likes talking about themselves so I should ask what she’s thinking right…? No, that’s a stupid question, I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking, ‘this smart ass thinks he has it rough I could make his head spin.’ But she won’t say that… maybe she would come to think of it. She’s pretty bad at holding stuff in.’
As Christopher resolved to ask the question, they past a Ramen stall. The curtains were pulled back due to the clear and slow night. The stall’s proprietor, an old man with a white bandanna, stared at the flickering TV kept on his shop’s ceiling, turned to the news.
“...When asked for comment, Majestic claimed he had no idea the girls were underaged. Here’s earlier today:
“Well first of all let me say they’re putting something in the water, I mean have you seen those girls? That was a joke, just a joke, don’t take everything so seriously. If you ask m--” The voice of their teacher faded as they walked away.
“Heroes.” Yui scoffed.
Christopher’s stomach turned at her tone. He remembered what she said at the Arcade. The thing he had been certain he hadn’t heard right. The Hell was she getting at? He managed to shrug. “Well, yeah Majestic’s a pig.”
Yui shook her head. “The other pros ain’t much better. They’re all like that teacher of your’s, telling people what to do. Herding them into their places like they’re our lords and masters. Hero License Exams, it’s all so they can keep their exclusive bully club.” Yui pontificated. “There are tons of better heroes out there than them, but because they never took a damn test they call ‘em vigilantes and lock them up.”
“Yui please stop.”
Yui couldn’t stop. “And everybody in the top 10? Worthless.”
Christopher stopped walking. She’d jumped on a landmine.
“They’re all just like Majestic, shit that rose to the--”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Christopher's boomed like a peel of thunder through the starry night.
Yui stopped in her tracks and turned. She was afraid. Afraid her mouth had just run her into a corner there was no way out of. Afraid her stupid opinions had actually destroyed a friendship; she saw his face, and realized it had.
Christopher’s face was crimson. His jaw trembling. His fists clenched and his eyes red.
“Chr—”
Christopher pushed passed her. He couldn’t look at her right now. What was she even here for if she thought of hero work like that? And how dare she insult his mom?!
That that last wasn’t a fair assessment, Yui having no idea, or even a way of knowing, that Christopher’s mom had just broken into the top 10 before she died, didn’t matter to Christopher.
That he was so angry for the sake of a woman he didn’t remember, didn’t matter to Christopher.
That the woman had been insulted so indirectly that the moon hanging in the sky had more right to offense, didn’t matter to Christopher.
What mattered was that his mom, the loss of whom was felt so much more keenly due to not even possessing the solace of her memory, had just been insulted.
Yui stood there for a moment. Gaping like a fish. ‘What’d I say--’ Christopher didn’t stop walking. He was almost to the corner, past which he could go any number of ways home. She needed to make a decision now. If she was going to finish her assignment, if she was going to walk him home she had to follow now.
Christopher disappeared around the corner, making that decision for her. Yui watched that corner for almost a full minute. Where’d she go wrong? They’d been talking and laughing just a few minutes ago hadn’t they? Was challenging Chris’s belief in the hero system really all it took to end their friendship?
Yui shook her head. If that was the case she wouldn’t cry over it. They weren’t real friends in the first place. She’d just been stupid to think of him like that.
She turned away from that corner. There were certainly no tears in her eyes.
“Asshole.” She muttered. Then walked home.
Christopher looked back after he rounded the corner. The hurt had subsided, now all he felt was humiliation. Humiliation at his outburst. Humiliation at just how much Yui’s words had hurt. She hadn’t even given a well thought out screed, why had he--
He never thought to go back around the corner and try to apologize to Yui. He didn’t think he’d need to. He was sure she’d come around the corner any minute, ready to berate him for being a moron.
Christopher waited 5 minutes. Yui never came. She must’ve gone home. He couldn’t blame her. Chris wiped away a tear.
“Asshole.” He muttered. Then walked home.