"How long are you going to give me the silent treatment? This goes against the whole 'let's have fun' spirit you were talking about."
"…"
"I already apologized for teasing you. What more do you want? If you don't tell me, I won't know what you're thinking, Mika."
"A few measly words of apology won't bring back my lost dignity…"
In the hand not currently holding Hina's, I was carrying a single paper bag. The contents were a souvenir we received for clearing the escape room without using any hints… but.
"Haaah, Mika. A person doesn't lose their dignity just because they… ahem, like a Momofriends character. Being overly dramatic isn't a good look."
"Don't you get it?! The fact that you, of all people, are the one saying that makes it even worse!"
Here's the full story of the incident. Among the souvenirs was, by chance, some collaboration merch between the escape room and Momofriends, and I found myself at a critical crossroads.
A Wave Cat keychain wearing a detective's hat, or a Peroro cushion peering into a magnifying glass.
For me, it was an impossible, truly merciless choice. How could the world be so cruel as to throw me into such an inhuman swamp of indecision? It was a deplorable state of affairs.
If you were to ask me why, I'd have no real answer. It's just what happens when you hang around Hifumi.
That's not to say I've started to like Peroro or anything. No matter what, that character has a seriously high barrier to entry unless you have tastes as peculiar as Hifumi's.
In the first place, my preference is for Wave Cat. To be honest, Wave Cat is ridiculously cute.
So why was I deliberating between the two? The reason, of course, was Hifumi. Since I'm not as crazy about Momofriends merch as she is, I was debating whether it would be better to get the Peroro cushion and give it to her as a gift.
For me, the Wave Cat keychain is a nice-to-have, but I can live without it. But just think about how much value this cushion, which looks like it would be hard to find, would have for Hifumi. I couldn't help but consider it.
In any case, Hina just had to be there right next to me.
She just had to witness me seriously agonizing over those two items.
And because of that, Hina came to the grave misunderstanding that I was a genuine fan of Peroro. That was the beginning of this whole incident.
"Still, you got both of them in the end, didn't you?"
"…I'm grateful for that, but you didn't have to tease me so much!"
Hina must be feeling quite comfortable around me now, because she actually hit me with the, 'You like… that kind of thing?' Of course, as a person with perfectly normal tastes, I couldn't help but have an outburst.
Seeing that, Hina teased me again, and as a result, my psyche took a critical hit…
In the end, Hina used her own souvenir pick to choose the Wave Cat keychain and give it to me, so if you only look at the result, things turned out well. That's why, even while I was grumbling, I never let go of her hand.
"By the way, to have a friend so devoted that receiving that hideous cushion as a gift would keep them in a good mood for weeks… you've made quite the friend, in many ways. Though I'm not surprised."
"…Eh? Hina-chan, what in the world do you mean by that?!"
"It just means your ability to make friends is extraordinary. There was no hidden meaning."
"Ahaha, it really looked like there was."
"Hey, Mika. Are you doubting me right now? Me, who even gave up my own souvenir for you…?"
I'm sorry! It was my fault, Hina-sama! So please, just stop mentioning it!!!
For lunch, we simply stopped at a soba shop. Hina had the warm noodles, and I had the cold buckwheat noodles.
The weather wasn't that hot yet, but after eating the cold soba, my body felt much lighter.
That meant it was time to ride the momentum into our next activity.
To be honest, up until that point, I had been underestimating Hina in many ways.
I was trapped by the preconception that she was the type who wouldn't be very interested in shopping, and I had even calculated that it would be over in an hour at most.
Three hours passed. My precious time was deleted by shopping with Hina.
The scariest part, really, is that my hands aren't even that heavy. I don't mean that the bags feel weightless; I mean that we didn't buy that much.
We wandered through various shops for three hours, but we rarely actually purchased anything. And this was despite the fact that I possess a card that would allow me to say, 'I'll take everything from here to here.'
She'd complain that it was a hassle, but her eyes would light up when she saw clothes she liked. And when I'd hand her an outfit and tell her to try it on, she'd say things like, 'Will something like this really suit me…?' but would diligently go and change every time.
Usually, when I go shopping with Hifumi, I'm the one who has to spend all day going in and out of the fitting room. Being on the other side of that felt pretty good in its own way. I'm not sure how Hina, the lazybones who had to constantly go in and out of the fitting room, felt, but she didn't seem to be not enjoying herself, so I guess it was fine?
Anyway, even after spending three hours looking at clothes and cosmetics, what we bought barely filled one shopping bag each. Half of the things in Hina's bag were things I paid for. She looked so unaccustomed to spending money on herself that I couldn't stand to watch and just bought them for her with my own money. After I did that a few times, she started swiping her own card just fine.
"Mika. I never thought I'd say this, but I quite enjoyed my time with you today. It wasn't a bad feeling. It was fun enough that I'd want to hang out like this again."
Wow, for Hina to say something like that. This is a little surprising. It seems she really liked the time we spent together today.
"But I don't have the luxury of enjoying time like this on a daily basis. I know you're just as busy as I am, but Gehenna and Trinity are fundamentally different. Gehenna is a place where if I take one day off, the number of problems triples the next day."
…It's that bad? No wonder Hina never gets a break. At this point, it seems the greatest happiness Hina could find would be to escape Gehenna or retire.
"…Still, would it be okay to make time to hang out like this every once in a while?"
"Ahaha! Of course, it is. And hey, if our plans work out, you'll have a bit more free time, Hina-chan. I hope you'll use that newfound free time for yourself☆"
"I'll think about it. It does sound a little troublesome…"
Ah, she really is the type who can only have fun if someone drags her along. She's the type of friend who has the most fun once you get her out, but whose default response is to try and back out. The key to handling them is to not give them a choice in the first place.
"Ahaha, it might be nice to bring that Senior Administrator of yours along next time we meet. Also…"
When exactly did you start thinking our day together was about to end, Hina?
"It's not over?"
"Of course not. We haven't had our match yet, have we?"
"…You were serious. Fine, I'll accept your challenge anytime."
"Hmm? No, no, I don't mean a real fight. If we did that on a day we're dressed up like this, we'd just ruin our clothes! Hina-chan, what I meant was that over there."
"That's… an arcade?"
"Ahaha! To be honest, I do have the desire to have a real match with you, Hina-chan, but let's postpone that for later and settle things in there."
Well, I have no intention of shamelessly dominating her in something like a fighting game. Hina's a quick learner, so she'd probably get good fast, but it's a fact that it would be unfair right now.
I led Hina into the arcade, and the first thing I did was withdraw a generous amount of cash, exchange it for coins, and share them with her. After all, the best part of an arcade is the feeling of putting the coins into the machine.
The first thing that caught Hina's eye was a game similar to Time Crisis. It was a game that used a pistol-shaped controller, the kind you're bound to find in any arcade.
"Ah, so this is why you said a coin is a term for a life. It's a fitting word."
Hina, who seemed to be holding on surprisingly well, finally ran out of lives at the first boss. Since I'd given her plenty of coins, she immediately used one to continue. Amazingly, she survived all the way to the third boss, where she used one more coin and then cleared the rest of the game without getting hit a single time.
…What is this? Pure talent?
"Mika, let's do this again. I'm confident I won't get hit at all this time."
"Ahaha, I'm sure you wouldn't, Hina-chan. But there are still a mountain of other games to play. So we have to try the others, right?"
When you talk about arcades, there's something you can't leave out: air hockey. But there's no way a winner could be decided between Hina and me with just one puck.
Fortunately, it seems Kivotos had anticipated such a scenario, and a bizarre version existed that used three pucks simultaneously on a wider table.
A nail-biting match unfolded. I couldn't go all out because I had to control my strength, and as time went on, Hina got used to the game and her skills improved, causing our scores to run parallel from a certain point.
Clack! Clack-clack! Clack!
Just as the three pucks were chaotically flying across the table and a crowd had gathered to watch the exciting situation of two girls tied, the unthinkable happened.
The trajectories of all three pucks miraculously overlapped, causing them to collide. In the process, two of the deflected pucks simultaneously broke through my and Hina's defenses and scored. The third puck came to a stop in the center of the table, as if declaring the match over.
"…Looks like I won."
"Yup, you did. A shame, but it can't be helped!"
However, it seemed the table hadn't been programmed for such a situation, and only Hina's score had gone up. I decided not to argue about it being a draw or anything. As long as we had fun, that's all that matters, right?
"Then can I consider this match my victory?"
"…Huh? Absolutely not. It's best two out of three. Let's face off on that next☆"
Arcade staple number two: the arcade basketball hoop.
This machine ran for up to four quarters of 50 seconds each, with each basket worth 3 points. You had to score 50, 150, and 300 points respectively to advance to the next quarter, and there were four balls in rotation.
I'd played it quite a bit, so I decided to give Hina a practice game to get the feel of it first. With my current physical abilities, I figured I could probably sink shots flawlessly while holding a ball in each hand, but that didn't seem very fair, so I decided to just throw them one at a time like a normal person.
After failing to make a basket a few times at first, Hina paused to think, then began carefully throwing the ball to get a feel for sinking it through the hoop. After that, she seemed to get the hang of it, as every shot she threw went in, and her speed began to pick up.
291 points.
Seeing a score that would have easily cleared the fourth quarter if not for her fumbling at the start, I had a feeling this match wouldn't be so easy either.
"I've got a feel for it. Mika, you don't need to practice?"
"Nope, thanks for the concern, but I don't need it. Let's get started!"
Ever since becoming Mika, I've been particularly careful about controlling my strength, but this is a game where that doesn't matter much. It's a game where you rack up a high score by memorizing the trajectory of the ball and repeatedly sinking it without mistakes. If you're good at basketball, you'll obviously be good at this, but it's not a game you can't score in just because you're bad at basketball.
Clunk—
The balls started rolling down. My first shot unfortunately hit the rim and bounced out. I talked a big game, but maybe I should have done a practice round to get a feel for it?
Fortunately, from the next ball onward, every shot I threw started swishing through the net without fail. Hina took the lead because of my initial mistake, but by the end of the first quarter, the score was 144 to 141, with me actually 3 points ahead.
From there, our pace became completely synchronized, with both of us sinking about 50 baskets per quarter. But when two people are at the same pace, the score gap doesn't close unless one of them makes a mistake.
"Yup, that makes it 1-to-1☆"
"…I was too slow at the start. If we played again, I could win."
"Ahaha! I made a mistake on my first shot too, so if you count that, I'd still win, you know? And I didn't even use any cheap tricks."
Honestly, throwing with a ball in each hand just doesn't look cool. The score would be insane, but you can't help that the form looks a bit pathetic.
"What game are you thinking of for the final match?"
At Hina's question, I fell into thought, wondering what game would be best to settle the score.
Fighting games were out of the question. Racing games? That's a bit ambiguous.
The truth is, most of the arcade games I know, besides fighting games, are based on cooperation. Shooting games like 194X, or Bubble Bobble, or Metal Slug.
To be honest, unlike Hina, who wants to win out of pure competitive spirit, I, for one, cannot afford to lose. Even when the air hockey machine gave her the win, I didn't show it, but I was a little ticked off.
If I lose to a demon, of all people, the Michael inside of me might just start wailing…
"Hina-chan, let's postpone our final match."
"Hmm?"
"I don't think we need to decide a winner and loser on a nice day like today. The next game will probably be our last one time-wise, and there's a game I'd like to play together, but it's a co-op game☆"
"…It feels a little unsatisfying, but fine. I don't really mind."
"Ahaha, besides, the match you're really interested in is the other kind, right? Let's settle that one when we meet again!"
"Alright, I'll be sure to remember you said that."
…I feel like I just dug my own grave. Is it just my imagination?
Ah, whatever. At least I'm glad Hina didn't hit me with a "You scared?" right there. If she had, I would have immediately dragged her over to the fighting games out of spite.
Anyway, welcome, Sorasaki Hina. To my Bubble Bobble…!