"Get away from my car, you jerk! If you keep this up, you're asking for trouble!"
Eriri unleashed a torrent of abuse at Masao, her voice sharp with fury.
All the while, her foot slammed repeatedly on the accelerator. But it was useless; Masao had her car perfectly pinned.
Instead of breaking free, the violent collisions only made her vehicle buck and shudder more intensely. Any thought of retaliation was futile—she was completely at his mercy.
The commotion drew startled glances from others around the arcade. If they hadn't seen the racing game screens for themselves, the intense jostling and frustrated shouts might have suggested a very different kind of altercation.
A few minutes later, the "exhilarating" race finally came to an end. Eriri slumped back in the game chair, releasing a long, shaky sigh of relief.
Her cheeks burned a bright, blotchy red—a mixture of anger and helpless frustration. The last few minutes had been a special kind of torture.
After a moment to collect herself, she vaulted out of the seat and marched over to confront the source of her misery.
She stormed up to Masao, shoved herself onto her tiptoes to meet his gaze, and grabbed a fistful of his collar.
"You think you're real tough, don't you?" she snarled, her voice low and dangerous. "So, have you picked out how you want to die?"
Faced with her fury, Masao's response was infuriatingly calm. He simply threw her own words right back at her.
"A little love tap! It's called aggressive racing! Maybe if you weren't crawling along and blocking the racing line, it wouldn't have happened!"
"A little bumping is normal. Besides, if you didn't want to get hit, you shouldn't have been driving so slow and blocking the road."
It was a perfect, petty case of turning her own logic against her.
"You—!" Eriri sputtered, speechless. He was right—they were her words. On a technical level, he had a point.
But since when did Eriri bother with technicalities?
"Urusai! Just die already, you idiot!"
Her signature twin-tail attack was out of the question thanks to her baseball cap, so she resorted to pummeling his stomach with her fists.
The blows were soft, thudding harmlessly against his considerable padding. They had all the impact of raindrops.
Watching her, eyes screwed shut in concentration as she wailed on him, Masao felt a wave of mischief.
He sucked in his gut and, the instant her next punch landed, flexed his abdomen outward with a powerful push.
He even accompanied it with a childish taunt.
"Rebound!"
The unexpected force threw Eriri backward, sending her stumbling several steps.
She stared, wide-eyed, at his round stomach. A rapid-fire sequence of emotions flashed across her face: confusion, shock, and finally, rage.
All of it condensed into one decisive action. She swung her hand back and delivered a stinging slap straight to his belly.
"Drop dead!"
SMACK!
The sound was crisp and sharp.
A jolt of pain bloomed across Masao's stomach—Newton's third law in action.
Eriri was already crouched on the floor, cradling her reddened hand. The sharp sting brought tears to her eyes, and she had to bite her lip hard to keep them from falling.
After a long moment, she glared up at him through narrowed eyes.
"What are you," she hissed, "some kind of RPG damage tank?"
Masao tilted his head, feigning curiosity.
"Oh? If I'm the tank, what does that make you, Eriri? You can't even scratch me. Some kind of low-level trash mob?"
"A mob? You're the mob! Trash mob! Trash mob!" The insult lit a fresh fuse of fury, but a shred of self-preservation held her back from another physical assault.
However, an insult this grave could not go unanswered.
Her eyes narrowed into slits as they scanned his portly frame, and a new, devilish plan quickly took shape.
She tossed her head, emitting a haughty sniff.
"Hmph! I'm far too magnanimous to sink to your level. Let's go. We're playing something else."
"No," Masao refused flatly.
"What did you say?!" Eriri's jaw nearly hit the floor. "You're actually refusing me?"
Masao spread his hands in a gesture of helpless reason.
"Well, you look like you're planning something malicious. Isn't refusing the logical response?"
"Who would ever waste malice on you?" she shot back.
Without another word, she grabbed his arm and started hauling him through the arcade.
"You don't get a vote. Stop talking and move."
—
Masao allowed himself to be dragged. If he had truly planted his feet, someone of Eriri's size wouldn't have budged him an inch. But a part of him was curious to see what she had in mind.
She led him directly to the music game section, shoving him unceremoniously onto one of the large dance mats.
She took up position on the mat beside it, quickly fed coins into the machine, and hit start.
"Stop dawdling! It's starting!" she barked.
Masao looked down at the eight directional arrows and the central jump button at his feet.
'So this is her grand scheme for revenge?' he wondered.
Before he could ponder further, the game began.
Arrows began scrolling up the screen, and he moved his feet to match the pattern. At first, it was simple. But as the music's tempo increased, the arrows came faster, demanding constant, rapid jumps and steps.
The difficulty spiked when multiple arrows appeared at once.
Eriri, already beginning to breathe heavily from her own exertions, shot him a look of astonishment.
"Not... not bad... for a guy your size," she panted. "You're... kinda agile."
As a self-professed indoor enthusiast or as most would call it "a neet", her own stamina was far from impressive.
Her entire plan had hinged on Masao's bulk making him clumsy and slow, a sitting duck for humiliation. She'd envisioned him tripping over his own feet while she danced circles around him.
Reality, it seemed, had other ideas.
The Tanaka Masao of a week ago would have indeed been a hopeless mess. But the recent week of... extracurricular activities had lent his body a surprising degree of flexibility.
Between jumps, he managed to gasp a taunt of his own.
"What's... the matter, Eriri? Sounding... a little winded... already?"
"Ha~! This... this is nothing!" she fired back. "Worry... about yourself!"
Soon, the music accelerated into a blistering finale, stripping them both of the breath needed for banter.
Every ounce of their concentration was locked on the flashing screen, their bodies moving on autopilot.
"Damn it... so fast!"
Eriri grunted, pushing her legs to their limit. She could feel her muscles threatening to cramp up at any second.
Masao had fallen silent too, his face slick with sweat, every bounce and jump sending ripples across his body.
"Four arrows?!" they yelled in unison as four directional indicators lit up the screen simultaneously.
Acting on instinct, Masao dropped into a clumsy but effective crouch, slapping his hands and feet down onto the four required panels.
Not to be outdone, Eriri arched into a dramatic, backbend, limbs splaying out to strike all her targets at once.
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