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(Back to Shin's PoV)
—
After leaving the warm, cinnamon-scented sanctuary of the traditional bakery, our casual footsteps naturally drifted away from the modern commercial high street.
We moved downward, to a historically dense sector of the city that I hadn't voluntarily visited in several years.
'I guess that she will be really surprised now,'
The pristine, glass-fronted buildings and manicured storefronts of the upper district slowly gave way to weathered concrete complexes, narrow alleys, and vintage structures marked by fading hand-painted signs and blinking neon fixtures, all bleached by decades of changing seasons.
The midday rush of pedestrians thinned out until the sidewalks were practically deserted, the low hum of distant traffic fading into a heavy silence.
We kept walking for at least 20 minutes.
But as we advanced deeper into the narrow district, the quiet was gradually replaced by a subterranean, rhythmic rumble—the distinct, muffled acoustics of classic electronic synth melodies and sharp, distant shouts of excitement echoing from a low-ceilinged building down the block.
Then, Akane brought her heavy leather combat boots to a sudden halt directly in front of a wide, two-story structure painted entirely in deep shades of industrial black and dark violet.
Mounted across the weathered brick facade was a brilliant, flickering neon sign shaped like a coiled beast, casting a violet glow over the concrete. The letters buzzed sharply in the afternoon air, reading "Neon Dragon Arcade," the name sending me a wave of nostalgia.
"Ohhh? Don't tell me that you remember this specific coordinate, ghost boy," she spoke softly. Her raspy voice had suddenly lost every ounce of its defensive edge, dropping into a low, smooth, and almost dreamy register.
I turned my head to look down at her profile. Her golden eyes were completely fixed on the glass double doors of the entrance, a tiny, genuine smile playing beautifully at the corners of her dark lips.
"Yeah," I answered, my eyes tracing the vintage posters of fighting games plastering the tinted windows. "Of course I do. I used to practically live inside this building when I was a scrawny middle-schooler trying to hide from the rest of the world with the company of someone named Ren. But it's been years since I last set foot inside."
"Heh... Me too," Akane murmured, her thumb lightly tracing the back of my hand where our fingers were locked together. "I haven't crossed this threshold since... since the final afternoon I spent walking through these streets as Ren. And to be honest, being here with you feels so much different now." She said, squeezing my hand.
The tone of her voice altered slightly whenever she pronounced that name. It was a subtle, structural shift—as if the identity of the hooded boy who had stood by my side during my loneliest years was still an intimate secret.
"So... Should we enter the establishment, then? Or are we gonna stand there like two idiots?" I asked, a playful smirk tugging at my lips.
Instead of speaking, Akane smirked and applied a firm, white-knuckled squeeze to my hand, violently hauling me forward, dragging my side flush against hers as she pushed through the heavy glass doors.
As soon as we stepped inside, we stood still for a few moments and admired everything around us.
The interior of the Neon Dragon Arcade was an absolute, blinding explosion of shifting colors, synthetic frequencies, and nostalgic mechanical noise.
Dense currents of deep violet and electric blue neon light cut through the dim, windowless space, illuminating long, neat rows of vintage arcade cabinets, mechanical shooting galleries, and towering prize claw machines packed to the glass with colorful plush mascots.
Moreover, the air inside didn't smell like the sterile school corridors; it was a heavy, comforting mixture of warm plastic, heated vacuum tubes, fresh popcorn, and the faint, sweet trace of spun sugar from the concession counter near the back. Beautiful, nostalgic, and different all at once.
Akane's golden eyes kept scanning the flashing screens and the joysticks with a calm, almost reverential intensity.
"Well, it looks like they updated some of the hardware," she murmured, her voice barely carrying over the synthesized roar of an old racing simulator nearby. "But the baseline layout hasn't changed at all. It still feels almost exactly the same."
"Do you actually remember the exact coordinates where we used to play?" I asked, looking down at the wild jungle of her black hair.
She offered a single, decisive nod and immediately maneuvered us through the maze of flashing machines, her leather boots padding firmly over the dark carpet until we reached an isolated row of retroilluminated cabinets featuring slightly pixelated cathode-ray screens and heavy plastic joysticks that were thoroughly smoothed and consumed by years of teenage friction.
"Right here," she announced, pointing a slender, calloused finger at a weathered cabinet displaying a classic bitmapped graphic of two armored medieval knights wielding massive broadswords. "We used to waste entire Saturday afternoons burning through this stupid game while the strawberry angel was wasting time staring at her own reflection. And if my memory serves me correctly, I was structurally, vastly superior to you at this title."
"That is a completely false historical narrative," I protested instantly, a loud laugh escaping my chest as I stepped up to the control panel beside her. "I was explicitly the one who walked away with the highest win streak on this cabinet. You were constantly dropping your tokens just to stay in the match. You're a fraud, Takanashi."
"What kind of victory are you hallucinating, Ishikawa?" she countered, a sharp, genuine smirk splitting her face as she turned her head to look at me, her amber eyes flashing with a brilliant, competitive fire. "You were the one who consistently lost three matches in a row before launching into a silent pout, dumbhead." She added, clearly challenging me.
And then, something just snapped, something inside of me.
"Okay, then. Let's execute a proper match right now," I proposed, pulling a handful of shiny 100-yen coins from my jeans pocket and clicking them against the metal coin slot. "Let's see whose muscle memory actually retained the inputs better."
"Prepare to have your fragile masculine pride entirely dismantled, ghost boy," she purred, her fingers wrapping firmly around the red plastic joystick.
I dropped the coins into the narrow mechanical slot, the heavy clink-clink echoing inside the machine before the pixelated display flashed with a brilliant, neon-green text:
PLAYER 1 VS PLAYER 2 - FIGHT!
For the next ten minutes, the rest of the world dissolved completely into the flashing light of the screen.
Our digital knights clashed in a violent, rapid succession of pixelated sword strikes, blocks, and special moves, the heavy plastic buttons clattering frantically under our fingertips.
Akane was entirely in her element, shouting in an incredibly colorful, aggressive vocabulary every single time I managed to land a clean low sweep or bypass her defense.
I couldn't stop laughing, my chest shaking with a raw amusement every time her expression turned into a dark, frustrated scowl as her health bar dropped into the red.
She was playing with fierce physical intensity, her shoulder constantly bumping hard against mine as she jerked the joystick to execute a combo.
But during the final, decisive round, her knight missed a crucial parry, and in that moment I smashed the heavy blue button, executing a flawless counter-attack that drained the last fraction of her health.
Then, the screen flashed a massive, brilliant text across our faces: PLAYER 1 WINS - TOTAL VICTORY.
"Victory!" I exclaimed loudly, ripping my hands away from the panel and raising both of my arms high into the air in a gesture of absolute, unadulterated triumph. "The historical record has officially been corrected, Takanashi!"
"That's cheating! Absolute administrative fraud!" Akane growled, immediately pulling her hands away from the joystick and crossing her arms tightly over my oversized black hoodie.
She then turned her torso to face me, with her lips pulled into a fierce, territorial pout that was dangerously adorable. "You clearly cheated, Ishikawa. You used a glitch in the frame data. There is no logical way that sweep should have connected."
"You cannot physically cheat on a hardware-locked arcade cabinet from the nineties, Akane," I pointed out, my eyes crinkling with a massive, delighted smile.
"You can cheat in life, you can cheat in software. It is exactly the same structural concept," she shot back without batting an eye, her golden stars burning with a stubborn defiance.
I laughed, the sound loud and unconstrained in the dim row, and reached out to grab her wrist, pulling her away from the cabinet before she could demand a rematach. "Come on, sore loser. Let's explore the rest of the facility."
"Tczh— Okay. After that, I'm completely sure. No sex for the next two weeks," Akane said, clearly teasing me.
"Okay. It's okay as long as I am with you," I said, grabbing her hand to go to another machine.
—
Then, we moved seamlessly from one flashing machine to the next, completely losing ourselves in the arcade's retro atmosphere.
First, we ran through a high-speed racing simulator where she aggressively drove my digital car off the track three times.
"Akane, THAT is cheating," I said, feeling the bitterness of my loss.
"Heh. Payback, DumbKawa," Akane said, sticking her tongue out, clearly mocking me.
Then we moved to a light-gun shooting game where we stood side by side, blasting pixelated monsters on a massive theater screen, and even passed a glowing dance-simulation pad. The moment my eyes landed on the flashing arrows, Akane stopped rigidly, her face flattening into a sub-zero wall of refusal.
"Nuh-uh. Do not even think about it, Shin," she warned, her voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register as she pointed a finger at the pad. "You know my baseline parameters. I do not dance. I fight. If you force me onto that flashing plastic, I will physically throw you through the glass double doors."
"Fine..." I sighed before patting her head.
"H-Hey...!" She blushed a little, but didn't move from my touch. "You know that I can't resist your touch, dumbhead..." She smiled.
—
Ultimately, our wanderings brought us to a halt before a wide, low-slung wooden counter near the facility's eastern wall.
Mounted along the edge of the display was a neat row of vintage, compressed-air rifles secured to the counter by thin steel cords. A traditional shooting gallery. The back wall was a moving grid of small mechanical targets—spinning ducks, turning clay pipes, and tiny targets that clicked rhythmically as they cycled across the dark backdrop.
"This one," Akane announced suddenly, her golden eyes lighting up with a sudden, near-childish brilliance that completely stripped away her remaining defenses. She stepped up to the center rifle, her long fingers reaching out to wrap around the polished wooden stock. "I explicitly want to play this one right now."
I raised an eyebrow, looking down at the secure, professional method she was using to brace the weapon against her shoulder. "I didn't have a single line of data suggesting you enjoyed traditional shooting galleries, Akane."
"I don't enjoy the activity itself," she replied flatly, her right eye narrowing as she aligned her sight with the moving targets with an eerie, clinical stability. "I am simply remarkably, flawlessly good at executing accuracy and shooting targets. Moreover, do you know that I have a passion for weapons and knives?"
"Well, I didn't, and I must admit... that this is crazy and hot at the same time," I said.
"You'll learn to love every side of me, Ishikawa, even the worst ones," Akane teased.
And then, I smiled, pulling a few remaining coins from my wallet and handing them to the elderly attendant behind the counter.
The machine let out a sharp hiss of compressed air, the digital timer on the screen beginning to count down from sixty seconds.
The moment the targets started their rapid cycle, Akane pulled the trigger.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
The performance was absolutely, structurally incredible to witness.
She didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second between cycles; her posture remained completely immovable, her shoulder absorbing the tiny recoil of the compressed air with an effortless discipline.
Every single mechanical target she targeted fell instantly with a sharp, metallic snap—each shot a perfect, forensic bullseye that left the elderly attendant staring in absolute awe.
By the time the digital timer hit zero, the scoreboard flashed violently, a brilliant red text illuminating her pale face: NEW HIGH SCORE - 990 POINTS.
"Oh wow," I murmured, a genuine look of shock crossing my features as she casually set the rifle back down onto the wooden counter. "You're a literal lethal weapon, Takanashi. I will try my best not to make you angry, I promise."
"Natural talent," she responded smoothly, a proud, immensely satisfied smile returning to curve her dark lips as she tilted her head. "I have excellent spatial awareness. Now, let's see if the ghost boy can even manage to hit the frame of the back wall."
"Watch and learn, mistress," I said, stepping up to the control and lifting the second rifle.
In that moment, I braced the stock against my shoulder, focused my sight on the moving ducks, and began firing.
I wasn't an elite marksman like her—my rhythm was slightly slower, my alignment forcing me to adjust after every three shots—but I managed to maintain a respectably solid score, knocking down the targets with a steady cadence.
But when the machine finally clicked off, the screen displayed a definitive verdict: my total was a full two hundred points below her peak.
"Victory!" Akane exclaimed happily, executing a tiny, spontaneous jump on the carpet beside me, her arms throwing themselves into the air in a rare display of unbridled joy.
"That data is heavily skewed," I argued playfully, setting the rifle down and crossing my arms. "You were the one who had the rifle with the calibrated sight. Mine was clearly misaligned."
"The sight was perfectly balanced, Ishikawa. The problem lies entirely within your lack of mechanical discipline," she countered, her voice rich with a bright, beautiful laughter that completely filled my chest with a sudden, overwhelming warmth.
I looked at her wide, radiant smile, and I couldn't help but smile back with an absolute intensity. She looked so entirely, breathtakingly beautiful when she allowed herself to just be happy, completely disconnected from the heavy shadows of her past.
"So... I guess that you won a prize from those behind me. Is there anything in particular you want?" The attendant spoke, his voice soft.
I could tell that Akane was so focused on the shooting that she didn't notice the Lilibat plushie in the background, so I silently pointed it out to the attendant while Akane was too busy explaining to me how to fix my posture.
Then, the elderly attendant behind the counter let out a quiet chuckle, reaching beneath the display shelf to retrieve a prize corresponding to Akane's historic high score.
He stepped forward, extending his hands to present a medium-sized plush toy.
That was it. A perfectly round, violet-and-black plush version of Lilibat, featuring its signature oversized bat wings, a cynical smirk embroidered into the fabric, and two tiny, white fabric fangs protruding from its mouth.
It was a flawless, identical match to the enamel keychain currently swinging from her leather bag.
"Here is your official reward, young lady," the attendant said, offering her a polite bow. "An excellent performance."
In that moment, Akane snapped back to reality and stared at Lilibat with wide eyes for a few moments that looked like an eternity.
Then, with trembling hands, she reached out to take the plush mascot from his grip.
The moment her fingers touched the soft fabric, she pulled the purple bat straight against the center of her chest, clutching it tightly against my oversized black hoodie as if it were an invaluable, sacred treasure.
"It's absolutely... perfect," she sussurró quietly, her golden eyes shimmering with a deep, soft brilliance as she stared down at the embroidered fangs.
I stood beside her, a profound sense of peace settling into my chest as I watched her embrace the toy.
But as my gaze casually drifted away from her face, scanning the wide, neon-lit corridor of the main arcade floor, the peaceful sanctuary we had built over the last hour was violently shattered.
A group of three senior girls dressed with the uniform of our school stood near a basketball shooting machine less than 10 yards away.
They weren't playing. They were huddled tightly together, with their eyes fixed squarely on my face—on our faces.
I noticed that they were pointing their fingers at our joined hands, with their mouths moving rapidly as they exchanged a series of sharp, muffled whispers before breaking into a collective, mischievous giggle.
They were actively analyzing us, their eyes filled with that familiar, predatory curiosity that had dominated the school hallways since Valentine's Day.
I wondered what they were talking about.
Luckily, Akane didn't see them, her head still bowed over the violet plush, her fingers lightly tracing the soft wings, completely insulated within her own happiness.
But I saw them with an absolute, freezing clarity. The sudden reminder of the outside world, the rumors, and the social execution hit my stomach like a block of ice.
One of the girls—probably the most audacious of the group, a girl with dyed blonde hair and a modified uniform skirt—noticed me looking.
Instead of turning away in embarrassment, she lifted her right hand and made a slow, deliberate wave with her fingers, a provocative smile appearing on her lips.
In that moment, I immediately snapped my head back around, my face burning with a sudden, sharp embarrassment as my jaw locked tight.
I didn't want Akane to see the scene.
"Shin?" Akane's raspy voice pulled me back from the spiral. She lifted her head from the plush, her golden eyes instantly narrowing as she noticed the sudden rigidity in my shoulders. "Something's wrong?"
"Nothing," I lied smoothly, the word coming out a bit too fast to sound entirely natural as I reached out to grab her shoulder. "It's nothing. I think... I think it's probably better if we move toward the exit."
Akane didn't answer right away. Instead, her golden eyes systematically tracked the direction of my previous gaze, sliding across the dark carpet until they landed directly on the trio of senior girls who were still gawking at us.
In that moment, the brilliant, radiant smile on her lips evaporated completely and instantly.
"Ah," she executed, her voice dropping into a sudden, flat, and chillingly controlled monotone that sounded entirely devoid of life. "I see."
"Akane... let's just go," I whispered, reaching down to locate her fingers.
"It's okay, Shin, don't worry," she said, but her tone was a solid wall of ice, and I watched her knuckles turn completely white as her grip around the purple plush mascot became fiercely, violently tight, nearly crushing the fabric wings against her ribs. "Let's go. I don't want people staring too much."
And then, we walked towards the exit.
—
Author's note: I'm thinking about opening a Discord Server where everyone of us can speak and share their opinions regarding the story. What do you think about it?