Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

”My name’s Mondo. I’m—uh, I used to be a bad guy.”

Damn, he didn’t realize this was how it was gonna go. He’d never gone to these meetings before, but his buddies would tell him they helped with ‘feelings’ and ‘understanding yourself’. Buncha liars.  

“Dunno why I’m here, really. This is for villains with games, right? I should go—“

All of the sudden it’s like everybody in the room’s yelling in his ear. No, no! Tell us your story, Mister Owada! It’s not like everybody in the damn arcade already knows! Gah, he hates this shit. Hate, hate, hates it. 

But whatever. 

“Fine, fine! If it’ll get ya to leave me alone,” he mutters, fixing his gaze on the floor. “I was—we were the bad guys, you know, responsible for driving the player off the track. Sometimes we’d get to shoot at ‘em.”

Mondo doesn’t want to be here, talking about this, and he’s going to make sure Leon knows he’s never doing it again. 

He liked shooting at the player, though. Those were fun times. Before… 

“…and then the damn game got unplugged. Buncha bullshit, but what’re you gonna do? It’s not like we could go up to Kamakura and tell him not to axe us.” 

He lifts his gaze from the floor. “There. Happy now? I told you the story. Somebody else go.” 

The room is silent for a moment. Mondo looks around the room, gauging his ‘fellow’ bad guys’ reactions. He almost feels bad—they haven’t seen him in one of these meetings for years, then he comes in just to shit on their parade. He doesn’t actually feel bad, but almost is good enough. 

“…wow, Mondo, that’s more than you’ve told anybody in years.” 

He looks across the circle to the right. Oh, yeah, this asshole. The fuckin’ orange ghost guy. Can never remember his name—and I won’t start trying—or anything aside from the fact that he orchestrated these meetings and therefore was a massive loser. 

“Yeah? What about it? I don’t see anybody from Q*Bert lining up to tell their sob stories,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You’d think getting unplugged would buy you some sympathy, but all you assholes want is for me to talk about my feelings in front of a crowd.”

”That’s not what we’re trying to do here,” Orange Ghost Guy says. “Bad-Anon was created so people programmed to do bad feel less alone—“

”What does that have to do with me? I never came to these things when I was employed, now I’m not. If you expect me to be a regular here, I have a goddamn bridge to sell you.” 

Orange Ghost Guy frowns. It’s hard to take him seriously when he’s shuffling left-to-right like that. “Why are you here, then? If you came to complain—“

”I came here because of the dumbass whose game I live in,” Mondo says. “Said if I don’t go, he’ll have to kick me out. Wanted to punch him through the cabinet screen, but then I’d actually have to find a new place to stay.”

Orange Ghost Guy gasps (it’s a pretty fake gasp, if you ask him). “You’re talking about Leon, correct? He really said he’d kick you out? That’s awfully cruel for a good guy to say, don’t you think?” The others sitting around the circle voice their agreement.

Ahh, no. That’s not—well, it kinda—no, it… “No—I mean, yeah, I’m talking about Kuwata. But he didn’t say it like that, more like a…” I think he just wanted me out of the game while it’s operating. I mean, I don’t blame him, but… 

“You’ve been living in another person’s game for a while,” some other guy says. Damn, he really doesn’t know any of these people. “How does that make you feel?”

Oh, fuck off. “I don’t have to spill my heart out in front of you. It doesn’t make me feel anything. It’s better than living in Game Central, that’s it.” The guys over at Q*Bert spent their days and nights in Game Central Station—whenever he walked by, he couldn’t help but feel bad for them. The guilt that washed over him when he did nothing sucked—but he’d sooner die than admit it. Especially in front of them.

“I would think living in a game you weren’t programmed for is something that would weigh heavily on you,” Orange Ghost Guy says. “After all, it’s not so different from if you’d gone and game-jumped.”

…eh?

“What the fuck did you just say?” His vision narrows, zeroing in on the orange bastard. “You’re saying I went Junko?”

The room erupts again. Of course he didn’t! Don’t take it that way! No, no, you’re misinterpreting him! Mondo ignores all of it. 

“My game was unplugged. In what universe does that mean I went Junko?” His heart is beating fast, blood rushing in his ears. “What, do you think I intentionally got unplugged so I’d have to beg Kuwata to let me live in his game? Is that what you think?” His muscles tense, ready to leap out of his seat and strangle somebody. It wouldn’t do any good to bash the ghost’s head in—he’d just regenerate. But it would feel nice.

“I was saying it’s like—I’m not insinuating you did this to game jump. I’m saying the outcome—“

“Fuck you,” he says, standing up so fast his metal chair tips over. “I’m leaving.”

And he does, against the outcry of everybody else attending the meeting. Not like he cares about their outcries. 

Once he’s out of the room, and the noise of the heated discussion inside fades away, he makes his way to the station, grumbling every time he runs into a dead end. Whichever sicko thought it would be funny to have meetings take place in the middle of Pac-Man’s maze would have to answer to his fist. Left, right, U-turn, make a left again, and then, finally, he’s there.

The trip to Game Central is short. Adjusting his jacket, he makes his way out, eyes narrowing as the harsh light of the station comes closer. The one thing he hates the most about going to and from games is the transition from plug to no-man’s-land. They couldn’t spring for some better lighting, those cheap—

Bzzt. “I’m sorry, but this is a routine security check! Please tell me your name!”

Oh, goddamnit. 

“You know who I am,” Mondo grumbles, turning his head so the annoying fucker is in view. Yep, there he is, in all his translucent blue glory. Mondo really hates his life, but he hates this guy more. 

“I’m sorry, it’s protocol! Name?” Game Central Station’s surge protector is a pain in the fucking ass, that’s for sure. Mondo’s never seen anybody else get stopped coming out of their games—for some reason, it’s always him. With his giant eyebrows and big eyes and pristine uniform, the man is almost everything that makes Mondo’s life hell.

A clipboard materializes into his hands. He clicks the pen. Mondo’s eye twitches. 

“Hatsune Miku,” Mondo says through gritted teeth.

“Your name, please! Again, this is protocol,” he says. He grins, and even though Mondo knows he doesn’t mean harm (probably), it pisses him off anyway. 

He sighs, long and deep. “Mondo Owada.” I hope your code breaks and you crash into a million little pieces.  

The surge protector nods and scribbles something down on his clipboard. “Which game did you come from?”

Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Mondo scoffs in disbelief. “Did you not see me walk out of Pac-Man?” He really hopes his disdain is obvious. 

”I’m sorry!” The fucker has the audacity to say he’s sorry, again, for wasting Mondo’s damn time. It’s the same act every single time, and though it was annoying the first couple of times, it’s basically torture now that he’s got it memorized. “I have to fill out this form with one-hundred percent accuracy! This will only take a second, so—“

”Alright, Mister Surge Protector, I think I’m gonna go now,” Mondo says, pushing straight through his holographic form. It shocks him a bit, seeing as the guy’s literally made of electricity, but whatever. As he makes his way into the heart of Game Central Station, smoothing out his hair, he hears the guy shout out:

“As I’ve said multiple times, you may call me Taka!”

Mondo gives him a nice middle finger before stalking off. 

///

Mondo spends a good amount of time sitting on a bench and watching people pass by. They all talk and laugh, blissfully ignoring the former bad guy. When he actually was a villain, they’d try to ignore him too—though that was more of a ‘not wanting to be smashed to pieces’ thing than a ‘you’re insignificant to me’ thing. He’s not sure which he likes better, or hates more. 

Slowly, everybody makes their way back to their games. The noise of the station dims until it’s just him. 

As the last light turns off, Mondo sighs. He stands, stretching and shooting a glare to the ceiling. Home Runners isn’t too far from here. He’ll take a walk around the station—read: stall—before stuffing his pride deep down and heading back. 

Mondo’s a few terminals away from Home Runners when he passes by the guys from Q*Bert. His step falters, and he stops completely a second later. He doesn’t understand what any of them say—they’d been programmed with their own language—but he does know how it feels to be unplugged. 

“Hey, ya—“ he stops, trying to figure out the best way to say what he has in mind. “I’ll try to figure something out for you guys, okay?” 

They don’t respond. Mondo tries not to look at the cardboard sign they’d hastily scribbled up. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

One of them nods. They say something, and even though Mondo has no idea the exact translation, he gets the message. Mondo reaches inside his jacket and feels the engraving on the medal hanging around his neck. Tracing over the image, he turns and walks away. 

///

“The fuck is this?”

All Mondo wanted was to go to bed and not sort out his feelings. What he absolutely didn’t expect to see when he arrived was a fucking party. What day is it again? New Year’s? No, it can’t be—the arcade is closed then. 

The entire stadium is decorated with tacky streamers and littered with confetti. Everybody in the game is on the field and spread out through the stands—the team, standing at twenty-six players, would stand out because of their uniforms if not for the fans wearing the exact same thing. That white shirt and red undershirt (Mondo’s never going to call it maroon, no matter how many times he’s corrected—it’s red, damn it) with the players’ numbers plastered on the back. Mondo would have lost it if the outfit he was programmed with was that fucking thing instead of the badass jacket he actually has. 

The small train goes directly into the stadium from the outlet, but the platform is partly hidden by a fence. That fence is the only thing separating Mondo from the hell that is at least a hundred sweaty people mushed against each other. His feet stay firmly planted on the platform. He stares at the party, which has surely raged for hours now, almost entirely oblivious to the loud footsteps coming his way. 

“Mondo! You’re back!”

Ah, shit. “I am,” he says, pushing his sigh deep into his throat. “The hell is this, Coach?”

Coach Nekomaru slaps a hand on Mondo’s back, hard enough to force him to release his breath, and laughs—that deep kind of laugh that makes Mondo’s head rattle. “Nobody told you? It’s our thirtieth anniversary!” He laughs again.

Mondo attempts to laugh with him, but all he can manage is a weak, plastic chuckle. Thirtieth anniversary, huh? By all accounts, it’s a joyous occasion, but all it does is make Mondo feel even more like shit. He’s not going to tell Nekomaru that, obviously, because all though he was programmed to be a bad guy, he wasn’t programmed to be an asshole. 

“Come with us! There’s plenty of room!” Nekomaru grabs Mondo’s forearm and begins dragging him off the platform, toward the field. 

Mondo digs his heels into the ground. “It’s not really my party to go to,” he says. “I think I’m gonna—“

”Nonsense!” Nekomaru shouts the word so loud Mondo flinches back. “You’re as much a part of this game as the fans are! How many times have you sat in the stands and cheered?”

Mondo sucks at his teeth. “I did it one time, and the players couldn’t see me,” he mutters. That had been intentional—though Nekomaru had wanted him to participate so he wouldn’t feel ‘left out’, he was also keenly aware that Mondo’s graphics did not mesh with the game’s code. He was twenty-five years younger than everything else, after all. No shit he’d stick out, or just not appear at all. So Mondo was relegated to a section of the stadium that faced away from the player. He’d never felt more useless in his life. 

“But you still did it!” Nekomaru shouts, once again making Mondo wonder if he’d been programmed without an inside voice. 

“Yeah yeah, could you let me go?” Mondo grabs onto Nekomaru’s hand, trying to untangle himself from the coach’s grip. “I’m gonna—“

”You’re going to have fun tonight!” Nekomaru grins and wrangles Mondo onto his shoulder. 

It takes him a second to realize what’s happened. “The fuck?!” His face goes red, more so in anger than embarrassment. “Let me down!”

Nekomaru apparently doesn’t know how to stop laughing. Maybe it’s a glitch in his code. ”Don’t be such a downer!” 

“This isn’t really my style,” Mondo says, even though he’d gone to plenty of celebrations like this before. But before doesn’t exist anymore, and the Mondo Owada currently slung over Coach Nekomaru’s shoulder is a buzzkill. 

“You never know ‘till you try!” Nekomaru hauls him off the platform, past the fence, and directly into the center of the crowd. He plops Mondo down and wanders away. 

So this is how I’m spending my night. Great. It was bad enough spending a second at that meeting, but Mondo might actually kill somebody if he spends the rest of his night here. 

Somebody immediately elbows him, then a hand smacks him in the back of the head. A second after that, two different people step on his feet. It’s a conga line of fucking idiots, all acting drunk, as if the drinks from the concessions stand actually contained any alcohol. Mondo tried them when he first moved in here—they tasted like dead pixels. Not his exactly his idea of a nice drink. Though, to be fair, his own favorite drink was programmed into his game, and it’s not like he’ll ever get to taste that again. 

He tries to spend five minutes at the party. Five minutes. But it’s too goddamn much, and he’s really goddamn tired. 

I’ll just sneak off. Just have to make sure Coach Nekomaru doesn’t see me… Mondo spots the big guy standing a ways away, chatting with one of the players. He’s definitely drunk off his ass—maybe they’d gotten stuff from some other game.

He pushes his way through the crowd, shifting his attention to the numbers on the back of peoples’ shirts. Plenty of 11s and 3s and 7s, but no 18s. Where the hell is..?

Nevermind. Mondo shakes his head, then turns and walks in the opposite direction, pushing through more people and heading toward the stadium exit. There isn’t much beyond the stadium walls—why would there be?—but there is a hotel just beyond the parking lot. Go any farther, and you’d end up at the stadium entrance again. Mondo’s pretty sure there’s some kind of special cutscene that takes place in the hotel that gets unlocked if players reach the highest level, but he’s never seen it for himself. (Probably because the players are so shit.)

The only use the hotel has on days there isn’t a cutscene (again: basically every day) is to house the team and fans. The first time Mondo saw the building, he couldn’t believe how big it was—enough that it’s visible to the players, beyond the stadium in the upper left corner—but when Nekomaru told him it was for the nearly 1,000 programmed characters, it made sense. He was honestly surprised there was room left for him. He definitely wouldn’t have taken the offer if he knew some poor guy got evicted to make space.

Mondo sighs. Just go to bed and get this day over with. That’s been his mantra every day for the past two years.

He takes a step outside the stadium, immediately feeling the chilly air hit his face. Somehow, the stadium never feels cold. It’s always nice and warm. And sweaty. Eugh. Now he needs to take a shower. 

Mondo walks across the road separating the parking lot from the hotel, eyeing the mess of cups and confetti piled outside the front doors before pushing them open and making his way inside. The chilly air immediately reverts to the same kind of warm feeling inside the stadium, though this atmosphere is a lot less chaotic and putrid. It’s blissfully quiet inside, something he’s infinitely grateful for during days he doesn’t feel like getting out of bed. Soundproofing against the obnoxiously loud fans in the stadium is a plus in his book. The only thing that gets through the walls is the sound of the quarter alert. 

Mondo’s room is up on the fifth floor. He makes his way down the hall to the elevator, punching the button for floor five. The doors slide shut, and the elevator begins its ascent. 

I don’t belong here, he thinks—a sudden thought, popping up out of the blue.

Oh, damn it. I’m fuckin’ thinking again. Stop that. Mondo shakes his head, as if shaking enough can get the thoughts to fall out his ears. No luck. 

The elevator stops, and the doors slide open. Mondo stares at the empty hallway ahead of him for a second.

His arm lifts, almost against his will—but not really, because you don’t wan’t to go to bed and start dreaming again just yet—and his finger presses the button for the top floor. The door shuts, and he begins to rise again. 

If I think up there for a while, I can get myself to shut up. Just let it all out. 

The doors open once more, and this time Mondo exits the elevator, quickly making his way down the hall and into the stairwell on the other end. His footsteps echo against the concrete and metal as he ascends one final floor. The big red door at the top of the stairwell, marked ROOF ACCESS, is always unlocked—probably because there’s no reason for it to be closed. Mondo pushes it open and steps back out into the cold air. God, my body’s gonna hate me for all the temperature changes I’m making it go through…

The roof is a small, gray, featureless expanse surrounded by a guardrail. Mondo comes here often, mostly during the day, to sit and stew in his own self-pity (or whatever people call it). He steps away from the door, letting it slam shut behind him. 

On top of the hotel, he’s close enough to the sky that he can see the stars—on the ground, the lights of the stadium and surrounding roads blur out everything in the sky. Now, they’re well defined, blocky spots of light hanging above. 

The stars back home were a lot… more. It’s probably because this game was released over two decades before his own, to be fair, but Mondo’s still filled with a strange sense of pride. When he’d look at the sky, smog-filled as it was, they’d be so real it felt like he could reach out and touch them, grab them. The hell is he supposed to do with these things? Stack them?

Goddamn it. Now he’s homesick. 

He huffs, regretting his decision to come up here. He should’ve just gone to bed—

The sound of the door opening reaches his ears. 

“Oh, you’re back?” 

Wh—how the hell did you... fuck. Mondo tries not to make his annoyance too obvious as he turns to face his friend (more like acquaintance, really), the main character himself. 

“You look like shit,” Mondo says. 

And he’s right—his default uniform is in desperate need of a wash and confetti sticks out of his glitchy red hair—but Leon doesn’t take too kindly to being called ugly. He frowns, eyes narrowing. “Hey, is that any way to talk to a guy on his birthday?”

“It’s not your birthday. It’s the game’s anniversary.”

Leon scoffs. “Uh, yeah, but seeing as I’m the guy on the side of the cabinet, it’s basically my birthday too.” 

Mondo is way too tired for this. “Fine. Happy fiftieth birthday.”

Leon gasps, taking a step back. “I’m not fifty!”

Raising an eyebrow, Mondo replies. “You were programmed as a twenty-year old. The game is thirty. You’re fifty years old.” It’s basic math. 

Mondo’s lived here for three years, and it’s still easy to get under his glorified landlord’s skin. “You take that back! I’m not old! Do you even see me?”

At that, Leon starts frantically pointing to different parts of his face. Mondo tunes him out then—not much you can do to stop an egotistical baseball star when he’s on a tangent. 

Was he programmed like that? Mondo’s not the philosophical type—though, god, maybe he wasn’t programmed to be—but he’d listened in on a few conversations here and there. Stupid shit like being obsessed with your appearance wasn’t something he thought any person would code into an eighties sports game. 

“…and my hair is not gray!”

”Oh, you’re done?” Mondo sighs. “I thought the arcade would shut down before you shut up.”

Leon huffs. He shuts his eyes, sighs deeply, and as if he’s just undergone a factory reset, all the frustration he’d just exhibited exits his body. Creepy. “Why are you trying to escape the party? Coach told me you left, and he said you’d probably be here. That’s pretty lame if you ask me.”

”Of course he did,” Mondo groans. How did he know I’d be here..? Does he have cameras or something? “Look, it’s just not my thing.”

”You could’ve said hi,” Leon says. “I would’ve thought you went missing or something.”

”No you wouldn’t. You would’ve been too busy getting drunk off your ass.”

Leon crosses his arms. “You act like we’re not even friends, man.” 

“My friend wouldn’t tell me to go to that dumbass meeting,” Mondo says. “Especially not under threat of eviction.”

Leon quirks an eyebrow. “Huh? Oh, that Bad-Guys-Anonymous… whatever? I just heard about it from Sakura,” he says, reminding Mondo that unlike the washed-up former antagonist, he’s actually pretty popular among the others in the arcade. Perks of being the hero of one of the oldest games, but man, it still stings to know this guy is talking to people from Street Fighter like he’s known them all his life. 

“I mean, she doesn’t go to them, because she isn’t—nevermind,” Leon continues, ignoring Mondo’s lack of input. “But she said it might help you to, like, talk. Or something. And I never threatened to kick you out! It was a joke! A pretty bad joke, I mean, but…”

Mondo clenches a hand into a fist—it’s in his nature, to punch first and talk later, but he’s thankfully managed not to start any fistfights as of late. This might break the streak. “Wait, you told her about me?” He grits his teeth. 

Leon steps back. “Woah woah, I didn’t tell her anything private, as if you even tell me that stuff. I just mentioned knowing a guy who didn’t know how to talk things out, and she gave me the name.”

“Well, thanks for calling me an idiot who can’t let out my poor feelings,” Mondo says, not particularly caring if he’s mischaracterizing the other man’s words. 

“Geez, I just wanted to help,” Leon says, crossing his arms. “Are you gonna come back or do I have to tell Coach you abandoned us?”

”You’re gonna have to tell Coach I abandoned you,” Mondo says bluntly.

Leon groans. “But whyyyyy.” He kicks at the ground like a child who didn’t get the toy they wanted, his cleats making a very unpleasant sound as they scrape against the floor. “You know he’s gonna yell at me because I couldn’t get you back.”

”Seriously, what’s the deal with you guys and wanting me to come to your party? It’s yours. Not mine.” 

Leon throws his hands in the air, a look of resignation taking over his face. “Hell if I know! But Coach really wants you there. He says he doesn’t like it when you’re left out.” 

Just like my stint as a cheerleader. “Look, I appreciate the… weird caring thing you guys are doing. I do. But it’s just not gonna work.” Mondo shrugs. “I’m not from here.”

Neither of them say anything after that—after a minute of silence, Mondo sighs. Today’s sucked, but at least tomorrow won’t be nearly as bad. That’s how rock bottom works, after all. He squares his shoulders, opens his mouth to say goodbye—

”I never come up here anymore,” Leon says suddenly. “Last time was… five years ago, I think.”

…damn it. ”Why’d you stop?” Mondo doesn’t have a particular interest in knowing why, but if he’s going to be stuck here for a useless conversation, he might as well contribute. Seriously, it’s really damn hard to not be an asshole. 

“Dunno,” Leon says. “Guess I just got tired of staring at the same scenery night after night after night.” He steps up to the edge of the roof, leaning against the railing. “See, the same trees, the same roads…”

”’ts not so bad,” Mondo says. “Looks nice, actually.” And it is: the trees with their weird purple flowers are in full bloom—they always are, even though, from what he’s heard, it doesn’t make sense timeline-wise—there’s a literal picturesque lake off by the side. It’s not the best scenery he’s ever seen, but it’s absolutely not bad.

”Not when you have it memorized,” Leon sighs. “Look over there.” He points in the opposite direction of the stadium, toward the far end of the game. “If you squint, you can see something bright over there, right?”

Mondo can’t see shit, but this clearly matters to Leon—who looks like a sad puppy right now—so he leans over the railing, straining his eyes.

“…huh, yeah. You’re right.” Sure enough, there’s a faint bright light in the distance, slightly contrasted with the inky darkness. “The hell is that?”

”The stadium,” Leon says. “You know how the world loops, right, but it’s so… freaky, I guess.”

”It’s not like the game could’ve gone forever,” Mondo says. “Eventually the thing had to loop.”

Again, he’s not a philosophical guy. He isn’t prepared for whatever poignant bullshit Leon’s about to throw at him. 

“I tried to see if there was anything else,” Leon says, staring up into the sky. “A long time ago—fuck, like, when we first got plugged in? Coach didn’t stop me, so whenever there wasn’t a player in sight I’d try to get past the end.” 

“That’s stupid,” Mondo says. Leon shoots him a glare. It’s still true. 

“It’s really bleak when you realize this is all you have,” Leon says. “And even more than that, it’s boring as hell. Like, what do you mean I have to do this forever?” He swings his arms like he’s hitting a baseball. 

“Sounds good to me,” Mondo says. “Having the same gig for thirty years? You’re living the dream…”

Leon scoffs. “You don’t—whatever. Doesn’t matter.”

”I think it matters if you’re gonna be all sappy about it,” Mondo says, rolling his eyes. “You hate it here, don’t ya?”

Leon doesn’t respond. Instead, he steps toward the other edge of the roof, resting his elbows on the railing. His gaze turns toward the stadium, its lights shining bright. 

“I’m taking that as a yes,” Mondo says. He walks over to Leon’s side. “For the record, I fuckin’ hated that meeting—but the motto they had plastered on a little banner stuck with me.”

”And what’s that?” 

“One game at a time,” Mondo replies. “Listen. You’ve got a game. A lot of guys in the arcade don’t. Don’tcha think you’re being kinda…” I don’t want to say it—you have to. Don’t make me even more of the bad guy here.

”…ungrateful?” Leon sounds wary, like he doesn’t want to say anything to set Mondo off. …whatever. Just get on with it. 

“To be pretty damn honest, yeah,” Mondo says. “I get you don’t like the boredom, but you’ve got something to be bored of. That’s…” More than I have. “…it’s something you gotta appreciate, alright?” He waits for Leon to respond, loosens his grip on the railing. “I’m not good at this shit, but you gotta talk back, you know. If you don’t wanna, I’ll just go. I wanted to be alone, anyway.”

He turns, letting go of the cold metal. He takes a single step before he hears Leon say: “Aw, come on, don’t make me feel guilty.”

Mondo turns back around. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty.” He pauses. No, that’s actually what he was trying to do, wasn’t he? “Okay, I was trying to make you feel guilty, but so what? You’re acting fucking weird.”

“I don’t think it’s weird to get a little bored of doing the same thing for thirty years,” Leon says quietly. 

Mondo doesn’t reply easily to that one. He’s really, really not the kind of guy to talk about this stuff. Seriously—he’d stormed out of a group therapy meeting just a few hours ago. Why is he still talking? Why? Just shut your mouth, man, and let it go. 

Before Mondo can close off the conversation, Leon speaks again. “Do you think the player would notice if I was gone?”

Mondo scoffs. ”The hell? What kinda question is that?”

Leon shrugs, leaning back from the railing. ”I mean, I don’t actually face the players, at least not until the game over screen or the win ceremony. Do you think they’d realize it if I wasn’t there?”

”You said before you’re the guy on the side of the cabinet. You’ve been the guy they play as for a long ass time. They’d probably…” he trails off. Probably what? Mondo doesn’t know shit about the players—absolutely not enough to get in their heads and see what they see. And he’s definitely not spent enough time in this game to know how it works. But he does know one thing: he’s really tired right now.

Leon huffs, apparently frustrated at Mondo’s incomplete response. “What? What were you gonna say?”

Yeah, I’m cold, I’m tired, and I wanna go to bed. Mondo crosses his arms. “You know what? Aside from the number, you probably don’t stand out too much from the other players. If you swapped places, they probably wouldn’t bat an eye.” 

That should be enough to satisfy him and free Mondo from the shackles of this conversation. He studies the other man’s expression, trying to gauge what he thinks. Leon’s previous look of nearly blank frustration morphs into one of… what is that, curiosity? Anger? I’d be a shit analyst. 

Leon settles on a raised eyebrow and mouth halfway between a straight line and frown. ”Seriously?”

…now what’s that supposed to mean? ”Why are you acting all offended? You’re the one that asked!”

Leon blinks, like he’s surprised Mondo could even take it that way. ”I’m not offended, I just—it’s, ah, whatever. Thanks. For your… input.” He looks away, opting to stare at the ground twenty floors below them. 

Mondo takes a step back toward the edge of the roof. There’s something weird about this. Absentmindedly, he reaches for the medal inside his jacket. 

”…Leon.”

Leon doesn’t look up. ”Yeah?”

Mondo heaves a sigh. ”You’re not gonna go Junko, are you?” The word feels dirty on his tongue—a no-no word, if you will. 

This time the baseball player looks up. It’s pretty funny how wide his eyes are. ”W—what are you even saying?! Of course I’m not going Junko! I’m not crazy!” 

“Yeah, sure,” Mondo says. “Why are you acting all sad over your game and asking if you’d be missed if you’re not going Junko?”

”I’m just asking!” Leon shouts. “Can’t a guy ask questions without being accused of going Junko?” 

“Not if those questions are very obviously telling me you’re gonna do some stupid shit!” Mondo doesn’t know if Leon’s being purposefully annoying, or if he really is just a jackass who doesn’t know how things work. “You’ve been in this arcade a lot longer than I have, and ya still don’t get how lucky you are. Only a moron would go Junko with a life like yours.”

Leon narrows his eyes, brows furrowing. The glitch near the back of his head—where his red locks fade into strange, pixelly brown—acts up, blue and white backlighting casting his face in temporary shadow. “I don’t think I wanna talk to you anymore,” he says.

Mondo laughs. “Same here, friend.” He pats Leon on the shoulder—real hard, so the shorter man has to shift his weight not to fall over—and finally turns back around. He makes his way to the door, not bothering to look back before heading down. 

His life really does suck.