Chapter Text
In the winter streets of Tokyo, the street lights hang low, emitting across the distance and subtly enlivening the atmosphere.
As I walk forward with coordinated steps, a faint neon purple light glows at the near end of a sidewalk, the familiar sight paving the way for me as I head towards the right direction. I promptly follow through, the faint glow eventually giving way to a sign saying: Cosmic.
It’s 6:45am in the morning. I have estimated the minutes I get to finish my ranking in Blitz, a zombie apocalypse game, in which I’m currently hovering at rank 201. I just need approximately 300 more points to finally advance to rank 200. By then I can get the 500 tokens I’ve been grinding concerningly hard for, to the extent that it has probably affected my sleep and eyesight. But I’ll do anything to get that humongous seal plushie in the prize corner. Anything.
Putting my bag down, I grab the gun in front of me, my posture leaning slightly forward and my eyes squinting an inch, aiming at the zombies one by one. For each and every kill I get, satisfaction grows in my chest. The movements are so well-rehearsed that I headshot them with ease. That’s more like it. I just have to clear the final stage and then my ranking is up and I’m ready to go.
Through some miraculous luck, I’d managed to advance to the last round. The difficulty level has increased tenfold by then, and I’m nearly out of hp already, but I'm relying on that glimmer of hope that tells me that I can finally win and get this over with. Not like I'm any closer to getting that plushie, but I just need the tokens. I’ve probably already used my entire allowance for the week in this arcade, which is honestly fine by me because the school canteen gives free food anyway. I just haven’t told my parents yet.
I crack my knuckles, my eyes glued straight to the screen so intently I feel like I'm about to get sucked into the game. Desperation gnaws my chest. I just have to win this and the 500 tokens are in my hands. I pick up my gun and press start.
The zombies on the screen start reviving themselves at an alarming rate, and my anxiety grows in direct proportion to my panic.
“What the…”
I swiftly snipe at them but miss terribly, my aim becoming sloppier and erratic each second. More zombies crawl to me, their staggering movements making me miss my shots while my heartbeat reverberates like a drumbeat.
Three.
Two.
One.
GAME OVER.
The words strike me like an open hand, the sensation like a bee sting, visibly reflecting my unpolished skills. I groan in what seems to be frustration, quickly darting a glance at my phone. 7:00am. Should I do another game? But I don’t want to risk being late, and I can’t be late anyway. That’s the standardised rule for every student in the Student Prefectorial Board. The rules are stringent to the point where you’ll be stripped off your role if you’re late for a maximum of three times.
I heave a sigh so loud I can feel a brick stone collapsing on my shoulders. No… one more round, just one more round and then I can leave.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could feel the weight of a gaze in my peripheral vision. I pause. A slight prickle runs down my spine as I notice the black bag sitting beside the stranger’s feet. Someone’s here?
It’s 7:00am in the morning and I should be in school reading my storybook like any student, just like how our teachers envisioned us to be. Why would any sane individual be in an arcade at this time? I’m usually here alone. No, I'm always here alone. Except for the manager whose head is sprawled on the counter, dozing off idly. The silence penetrates the air for a moment. I hang onto the air of silence to hear the stranger’s breaths, but I don’t hear anything.
Should I look? But he’s staring at me. Am I imagining it? Or maybe the zombies in the game are actually coming to life and he’s about to jump on me the moment I look at him. I can’t believe I even considered that a possibility.
…I should stop playing these games.
“Hey. You’re doing it all wrong.”
My fists grip harder on the gun as I latch on to his words, my head averting to the sound of his voice. It’s a deep, slightly monotonous voice that’s devoid of any emotion.
I raise my neck to see him sitting right beside me, angled at the same position. His presence astounds me for a mere second as I tilt my head upwards to see ruffled white hair like a white blanket of snow, with a few strands falling over his forehead.
Adrenaline rushes through me as I fail to realise the moment. He’s draped in a white hoodie that covers his clothes, and the cutting of his pants feels familiar.
“Here. Watch how I do it.” He shifts himself and bends forward slightly, his posture angled at the perfect direction and his long fingers wrapping around the gun with ease. I’m enraptured by his stance that I don’t even realise that I’ve been holding the gun completely wrong, and that my posture was way off from the beginning.
He then snipes, his movements like a wind blade that cuts through so swift that my reaction time fails me. They’re calculated with precise motions, somewhat like an actual human being preparing for the start of a military coup d’état against their enemies. It takes him a mere ten seconds for him to clear the final stage as I gawk in amazement.
“Crazy…!” I mutter under my breath. This random stranger had just indirectly slammed a hard rock at my face without even needing to try. He unfurls his slender fingers around the gun as his tokens whir out of the machine, spilling over the floor in a soft and pliable motion as he crouches down to pick them up. Embarrassment crawls up my skin and consumes me in an instant.
“Now you try it,” he says, in a tone so blank that I’m hesitant to react. I’m even perplexed that he’s even real. I grip my gun slowly, just like how he did it, correcting my stance and stretching my legs farther. Before I knew it, I’m shooting more zombies than I did before, the pleasure seeping into me in such a pleasant way I could feel sunlight being injected into my veins. I finally cleared the final stage with 1 hp left with a trickle of sweat forming on my face. Whew. God is by my side today.
Speaking of God… “You!” I point at him. “You’re my saviour!” I say with much enthusiasm that his round eyes dilate as a response to my outburst, in contrast to his striking, condescending height.
“…Saviour?” He doesn’t seem amused. In fact, he seems confused. A question mark hovers above his head.
“What rank are you?” I glance at the screen to see the words: RANK ONE. GAME ID: BONOBONO.
I rub my eyes, blinking once and then twice, my mind refusing to fit the words into the puzzle of reality. I swallow my saliva, gulping it down my throat. “Rank one?” I say in a rhetorical manner.
It’s unbelievable to the point where I think my vision is playing tricks on me, and that I've lost track of time and forgot that school even exists in the first place. Because this dude staring at me is ranked one in Cosmic, with an astounding 10788 points, enough to buy almost anything on display at the prize corner. Gosh. He could even buy the Nintendo ps5 every kid has been intending to steal. Is he even real?
I swirl my head back at him before latching my eyes on to the hound’s-tooth check pattern on the collar beneath his hoodie, the exact same design as mine, except that the necktie seems to be undone.
“Are you also from Hakuho High?”
He nods.
I take a step back. I’ve been here for months and have not seen his presence at all. Is he a ghost lurking around in school? I gasp for what feels like the umpteenth time before I ask him again, “What class are you in?”
“2A.”
“You’re seventeen?”
“Yeah.”
Right now I’m debating whether or not I should consider this as luck or some sort of delusion. It’ll probably make sense if I saw an unemployed twenty-four year old with nothing else better to do than to wake up early and start their day inside an arcade and then go back and hit the sack. This stranger, whatsoever, is in Cosmic with me, from the same school, from the same level. And he’s ranked one here. What are the chances of me meeting the top player in this arcade? Probably not impossible but also impossible to be meeting him at seven. In the morning.
“Oh. I’m gonna be late,” he says to himself, eyes transfixed on his phone. He then props his bag on one of his shoulders, the movement so natural and effortless I thought he had put nothing inside it. But there were, with the light thud against his back, to more or less prove the existence of his textbooks.
I’m caught off guard that I don’t even realise he’s already leaving. I lift my bag up in a swift motion, catching up to him lest I’ll be late too. “Hey, wait up!”
I close the gap between us, my eyes marveling on his broad, stiff shoulders. How tall is he even… I say mentally.
He’s glued to the blue-light from the screen as he grasps on it horizontally, his sleeves rolled up and fingers prepared for a game match. As the door automatically opens, a gentle breeze brushes my skin and leaves me with goosebumps.
“Thanks for helping me earlier,” I say. He eyes me for a split second, the words lingering on his tongue for a while before he replies, “Oh. You’re welcome.”
I smile. He seems to not have much on his mind, I think in the corner of my mind as we walk. His shoes are big, I look below. As expected from his height. I guess the world that revolves around him is just games.
My foot presses down on the snow, producing a satisfying crunch with each step. I wrap my scarf tighter around my neck.
“So, how many tokens do you have?”
I do my best to make friendly conversation. Try as I might, he continues to stay silent, tapping on his phone as faint shooting gun shots wrap the eerie quietness in the atmosphere.
The silence stretches on for some time that I start regretting making a conversation in the first place.
Finally, after he dies in the game, he replies, “Dunno. Didn’t count them.”
I snap back to reality after immediately hearing his words. Once again, his words never cease to amaze me. “You don’t know how many tokens you have?”
“It’s a hassle to count them.”
I don’t even know what to say.
You probably have enough tokens to buy everything at the arcade. Maybe enough to make Cosmic close down due to the lack of prizes. I say, but in my mind, of course.
“Don’t you want to get something? Like, a Yor figurine from Spy x Family? Or maybe the Nintendo ps5 everybody has been raving about?” I insist.
“Oh yeah. I’ve got my eyes set on that one.”
“Which? The Yor figurin—“
“The Nintendo ps5,” he cuts in.
I let out a breath of relief. For a moment I’d thought he’d be one of those male otakus who sit down on their gaming chair and play Osu everyday. Probably have a whole collection of Hatsune Miku figurines too, which I’ve seen before. Once, I had a male classmate who was obsessed to the point I saw him on the streets the other day with a random anime girl printed on his shirt. I wince at the thought. It nearly gave me the shivers.
We finally reach the iron school gates fifteen minutes before assembly starts. A horde of students draped in their white blazers strut with confidence inside, the security guards waving their brightly coloured traffic batons to signal the vehicles to park at the left corner and the students to head to the opposite direction. Amongst those vehicles, a black limousine so grand drives by a corner, the tires screeching to a stop in front of us.
A woman with gray hair styled in a simple updo bun steps out first, her slightly sagging features with etched lines framing her face in a soft cobweb. A fitting purple coat hugs her torso as she bends over to beckon someone out of the vehicle. Reo Mikage.
Hair like lavender tied loosely into a ponytail, he steps out of the limousine with enough extravagance all the students that were heading to school recognise him in a flash and say their good mornings. The old woman, who seems to be his servant, takes his bag out for him while keeping her head hung low.
A faint smile stretches across his lips as he waves at everyone like some Hollywood celebrity you see on television. For some strange reason, I'd imagined his servant laying a red carpet just for him to walk inside the school so his shoes would stay unscathed.
His striking features glistened in the morning light, and the girls lingering at the side were ready to grab their phones and snap candid photos of him and post it on their fan page. Needless to say, he has a fan page owned and handled by five girls who post consecutive shots of him in different angles, with captions asking to ‘marry him’, or even to the extent of asking him to ‘step on them’. I’m surprised the Principal wasn’t informed about this. Or maybe Reo likes the attention, considering how he’s currently running a hand through his hair, ready for a fan edit to be made for him.
“Reo-kun! Congrats for your Presidential Election,” one of the girls says. Their giggles emanate around them, and it’s way too early to be fangirling at a guy who’d stepped out of a car and simply just stands, but I guess I could relate in some way or another. He’s the only person in this school with purple hair, and his chiseled face looks good at every angle. He’s really the star of the school.
The Presidential Election was a week ago. He had done his speech in the school’s auditorium, in which he perfectly mastered his one hour long TED talk diving into the world of politics. Apparently he was willing to satiate the hunger of the students by allowing them to cast their own opinions on areas the school was lacking in. For example, the boys wanted a change in the men’s toilet because they were complaining about how it doesn’t allow them to ‘urinate in peace’, and how the girls’ toilet had clogged with reddish-brown water leaking at every cubicle that everyone had thought someone had a terrible stomachache and abused the usage of the toilets at every level. Turns out it was just the colour of the detergent the cleaners used to wash the toilet every five hours, and somehow it led to water spilling everywhere. Reo decided to take matters into his own hands and contributed a large sum of money to have the cubicles reinstalled just for the comfort of everyone else. He even suggested a cotton-candy corner and promised to organise yearly fun-fairs in the school. Talk about being capitalist.
I’m about to pick up my pace and leave when Reo eyes in our direction, his eyes seemingly searching for someone. Just as he saw bonobono, a spark of a grin shines on his face. “Nagi! Nice seeing ya’ here in the morning.”
He puts his arm around this-so-called Nagi, in which I turn around to see him putting it around bonobono.
I jerk to a stop. The mechanical gears in my head have stopped working and my head’s probably unscrewed. My jaw hangs open so wide that a fly could enter my mouth.
“Oh. Morning, Reo,” Nagi says in his usual, slow drawl.
Reo grins. He then darts me a glance to see me with my mouth wide open and greets me, in which I return back with a somewhat forced smile. Reo knows him?
And this guy, Nagi? Knows Reo? They seem close, too. I inspect. A myriad of questions seemed to pop inside my mind. I’ve never seen Reo with him before. This is getting a little too weird.
I don’t even have time to react before Reo starts dragging Nagi away with their backs to me as I watch them go. More like, I’m watching the guy with hair like a snow-capped mountain go. His stature is much taller than Reo’s, and his hoodie fits loosely on his body. His shoelaces are untied too. I wonder if I should tell him that.
Just as he was about to leave with Reo, he came to an abrupt stop, shifting his head but not his body. His gaze then locks with mine. No ripple, no sign of emotion. I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“Nagi Seishiro. Ciao.” he says in a beat.
He then turns back and he’s off again, his footsteps imprinting on the snow blanketing the ground.
In a mere instant, I clear my throat, yelling back at him, my name resounding in the cold air. I wonder if he heard that. My breath feels chilly to the point where it feels like imminent frostbite, and the cacophony of the students’ voices drowns my voice out.
He halts again, as if he’d heard my name, but then gradually picks his pace up again, and this time he leaves.
There and then, I’m wondering whether or not I’ll see him at the arcade at 7am again.