The weekend crowd filled the arcade with a cacophony of beeps, chimes, and excited shouts.
Tanaka Masao and Eriri Spencer Sawamura navigated the bustling aisles, each clutching a box brimming with game tokens as they searched for their first target.
Eriri's head swiveled from side to side, her eyes wide with indecision. Every flashy game seemed to call out to her.
Masao, however, had a clear objective.
"What do you say to a fighting game?" he proposed, nodding toward the lively fighting game section.
Eriri followed his gaze, and a confident, competitive grin spread across her face.
"Alright, then. Prepare to witness my true power!"
If her hands hadn't been full, she would have definitely planted them on her hips striking a pose.
Despite the crowd gathered around the fighting games, most were spectators content to just watch the games.
Masao and Eriri easily found an empty game cabinet tucked away in a corner—the kind where two players shared one large screen, sitting side-by-side.
The bench was reasonably spacious, but Masao's broad, portly frame made their seating arrangement a tight squeeze.
Eriri shuffled away an inch, her shoulder bumping his.
"You're taking up all the room," she complained, though her tone held more playful irritation than genuine anger. "How am I supposed to play like this?"
"Can't be helped," Masao said with a shrug, deftly steering the conversation forward. "Let's just pick our characters."
He grabbed the joystick and, with practiced ease, selected a hulking sumo wrestler—a character whose impressive girth mirrored his own.
Eriri shot a glance at his choice and snorted.
"Really? Picking a character in your own image? How original."
Her own fingers danced across the controls, landing on a sleek, powerful-looking British blonde who, in her mind, shared a striking resemblance to herself.
Masao wisely kept his observations about the character's… voluptuous… proportions to himself.
The screen flashed: FIGHT!
"Take this!" Eriri yelled, her character lunging forward with a sharp jab.
Masao was ready. His sumo wrestler answered with a swift, long-range kick that connected first, staggering her character.
Before she could recover, he followed up with a low sweep, sending her avatar tumbling across the pixelated arena.
"Tch." Eriri scowled as her character climbed back to its feet. She put some virtual distance between them, a new wariness in her movements.
"Hmph. Not bad, I suppose."
A triumphant grin spread across Masao's face.
"See? That's just a taste of my skill! Now, have at you!"
Emboldened, he launched his character into a dramatic jumping kick.
This time, Eriri was waiting. A quick tap of the light kick button was all it took. Her character's leg snapped upward, intercepting Masao's mid-air and sending him crashing down.
Her eyes lit up with savage delight.
"My turn!" she crowed, her fingers becoming a blur over the buttons.
She unleashed a frantic, unorthodox flurry of punches and kicks that, through sheer chaotic luck, comboed together perfectly.
Masao's health bar chunked down significantly.
"See? This is true prowess!" she declared, pleased with herself.
"That was a fluke! I was just being careless!" Masao shot back, his pride wounded. "It won't happen again!"
The final round began, the score tied 1-1.
Both players were now overly cautious, their characters dancing around each other in a series of feints and whiffed attacks.
The match had devolved into a tense, clumsy standoff. Yet, in their shared incompetence, they were perfectly matched, and their laughter and shouts showed they were having the time of their lives.
Their noisy, enthusiastic battle began to draw a small audience around them.
"Their techniques are... pretty bad," one spectator murmured under his breath.
"Yeah, takes me back to when I first started," another replied nostalgically. "Just mashing buttons and hoping for the best."
"Somehow, it's more entertaining than the high-level matches. They look like they're actually having fun."
This wistful, communal moment was shattered by a single, quiet observation from the back of the crowd.
"Are they a couple?"
Suddenly, silence fell over the group of onlookers. The air grew thick with collective resentment.
"Tch. Another pair of show-offs," someone muttered, the words dripping with disdain.
"This lovey-dovey sparring is disgusting. I can't stand it."
"Explode, you filthy normies!"
The word "couple" had struck a nerve, summoning a wave of bitter envy from the single men in the audience.
Their hearts cried out in unison: 'Why can't I have a girlfriend to play games with?!'
Oblivious to the simmering resentment around them, Masao and Eriri were locked in their digital deathmatch. Both characters were down to a sliver of health.
Seeing Masao advance, Eriri saw an opening and went for a high kick.
Masao's eyes widened.
"You fell for it, Eriri!"
His character dropped into a swift crouch, the kick sailing harmlessly over his head, and retaliated with a punishing low sweep that landed squarely.
"Ah! You snake!" Eriri cried out, frantically wobbling the joystick and mashing every button on the panel. "Get up! Get up, you useless pixel!"
"It's over! Ora ora ora!" Masao yelled, leaning forward as if he could physically will his character to victory.
But just as his final blow was about to connect, a flash erupted on the screen. A special portrait framed Eriri's character. Time seemed to freeze for Masao's avatar.
"Super Move!" they shouted in unison.
Eriri's voice sounded surprised;
Masao's voice was of disbelief.
A spectacular cinematic attack unfolded, finishing Masao's character in a blaze of glory.
"Yatta~! I won!" Eriri exploded from her seat, arms thrust triumphantly into the air.
Her face was alight with a brilliant smile, a single canine tooth making her glee seem even more feral and genuine.
Masao, meanwhile, slumped back in his chair as if all the energy had been sucked out of him.
He could only stare, dumbfounded, at the "K.O." flashing over his defeated sumo wrestler.
"H-how…?" he stammered, the world crumbling around him. "How did this happen?"
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