Chapter Text
It turns out that trying not to run into someone while looking at the ground is a harder than it seems.
As the businessman whose shoes she had stepped on cursed and shouted at her, Fuuka quickened her pace, dispersing deeper into Paulownia mall's afternoon crowd, all the while being keenly aware of the confused gazes she drew towards her odd outfit and demeanor as she passed by; she distracted herself by looking at her feet like they were the most interesting thing in the world.
Underneath her off-brand long sleeved hoodie she was by now drenched in sweat, her hood was tightly drawn over her head to hide her hair and the late summer heat wasn't doing her any favors, but it was a sacrifice she was willing to make as long as no one saw her, or worse, what she was about to do. Her hands itched in the pockets of her sweatpants and the pit in her stomach grew larger by the minute, but still, she pressed on, her feet guiding her almost on their own towards her destination.
She reached said destination faster than she expected, and, gaze still pinned on her shoes, she tried (and failed) to steady her irregular breathing and calm her beating heart. How bad can it be? Just one visit won't hurt you the rational side of her mind reasoned. Her embarrassment and shame almost made her turn tail and run back to the dorm but she forced her feet to stay planted where they were and obey her commands.
How bad can it be? Just one visit won't hurt you. Fuuka thought as she swallowed her sense of self-loathing.
How bad can it be? Just one visit won't hurt you. Fuuka thought as she walked through the doors of Game Parade Arcade.
The arcade, huh... So this is what it looks like on the inside... As the loud sounds and garish lights invaded her senses, almost begging her to take a look around, she kept her gaze fixed on the brightly colored carpets that littered the floor, only occasionally sneaking a glance forward in order to find what she was looking for. Navigating the labyrinth of arcade machines and games, she made sure to avoid the crowds of teenagers looking to pass the time with their friends on one of the last days of summer break, she couldn't afford to be recognized by any of them at all costs; if word of her being there spread around she would never see the end of it at school, she didn’t want to take any chances.
She passed the fighting games, the DDR pads, the on-rails shooters and puzzle games, deeper and deeper into the arcade she ventured, it really almost felt like venturing into a Tartarus of her own creation. Eventually she reached the back wall of the arcade, where the storage locker and old, unpopular, games were stored. Since not many people hung around in there, Fuuka felt it was safe enough to raise her head; the girl craned her aching neck around, spying for the game she was looking for, her only reason for having come here in the first place. It must be here somewhere, I heard those boys talking about it at school and-
There it was! It was a bit hard to spot, what with the dim lights of the backroom and the cabinet itself being completely devoid of any art on the sides and front, really she might have missed it had the title not been currently on displayed on the screen.
Darius 外伝 (Gaiden)
©1994 Taito
Fuuka's gaze was enraptured by the cabinet's screen, her feelings of embarrassment and shame were suddenly drowned out for a moment as she stood before one of the games that had defined her childhood; the automated preview had by now started to play, showing off the player’s spaceship navigating around game's first level, Zone A. For a brief moment she felt... younger, almost reliving the trepidation of booting that same game up on her childhood PlayStation for the first time all those years ago and thinking that the old shooter was the best looking game she'd ever laid her eyes upon.
Fumbling in her pocket she pulled out her coin purse and, in no time at all, she had a 100 yen coin ready to be inserted into the machine. Before starting up the game, Fuuka tried out the controls to see how they felt in her hands: the joystick was a little on the big size for her hands and a lot more awkward to use than an analog stick but she could work with it, the buttons were large and felt amazing to press even though the red paint was beginning to chip off and flake, a small piece of it got stuck beneath her fingernail, she didn’t even notice.
It really does look better on here that on the PlayStation, doesn't it? The coin slipped effortlessly into the arcade cabinet. She slipped another one in, then another one for good measure, 3 credits total, good enough.
Fuuka trained her finger over the start button, mumbled something under her breath and pressed.
The first level, Zone A, opened with a vast pixelated cityscape that loomed behind as her spaceship gracefully glided into view, when she made to move it around and test out the weapons and bombs Fuuka was struck by just how awkward her spaceship felt to control, whether it was because of her rustiness or her unfamiliarity with arcade controls, it didn’t bother her much, in fact she though it almost refreshing, and kind of exciting in a way, like seeing an old friend from long ago, changed yes, but deep down the same person.
When the first waves of enemies came on screen however Fuuka’s mind was suddenly struck by an errant memory; the game’s enemies were based around various fishes and sea creatures, all turned into fearsome looking mechanical spaceships for the player to gun down, however, a ten year old Fuuka had, upon her first play-through, thought that she didn’t quite want to hurt those fishes, I like fishes, they're cute! She’d almost burst into tears when she killed the first level’s miniboss, even though it had until the prior moment been shooting flames at her.
Fuuka’s train of thought lingered on the memory: it’d been something five or six years ago that a grinning little Fuuka had rushed though the front door of her house excited beyond all belief that her dad had finally bought her a real videos game! As she still childishly called them even at the age of ten.
Back then, her parents had signed her up to gods know how many cram schools, afternoon clubs and private tutoring lessons so she could bring home the absolute highest grades possible. It had been a brutal ordeal for her, there was no other way of putting it, it had been brutal and she’d hated it so much. And so, to get her to study without fussing and crying so much about it, her parents, in one of the few instances in which they did some good to her, had promised her a reward if she was able to score in the top percentile of her fourth year elementary school class, a video game console.
She very quickly became enamored with her console, the simple fact that she could wind down in the few hours of the day when she wasn’t studying like hell had finally given her something she’d been lacking for a long time: a reason to wake up in the morning and wade through the mundane hell that was her life, a means to escape. At school she had no one to hang out or chat with, the only times she wasn’t totally ignored was when someone was picking on her and pulling awful pranks or when they wanted her notes. Fuuka would give them to anyone anytime they asked, she hoped it’d make them care about her, or notice her, really.
Much later Fuuka learned that her dad had bought the console and the games it came with on the cheap, getting them from a yard sale. The owners of a house in the neighborhood had died a few years before in an accident of some kind and the relative that had taken over the property had decided to sell off both the house and the personal effects of the old owners, among them a PlayStation console with two controllers and a handful of games, or so her dad had told her.
She always had few games for her system, though that was all the more reason to replay them to hell and back ‘till she knew every nook and cranny: she beat both Metal Gear Solid and Crash Bandicoot with little trouble and when she bought herself a used copy of Final Fantasy VII, the only game she bought in addition with what came with the console, she was also able to beat it in less than a month. There was only one game of her collection she was never able to beat:
Darius Gaiden, the game she was currently playing.
As a kid she tried relentlessly to reach any of the final levels, getting better little by little, day by day; the task of completing the game just spoke to Fuuka on a deeper level, the need to sharpen her reflexes to evade danger, the tenacity needed to persevere through failure after failure and the need to plan out which route of the many possible she could take stimulated her much more than the monotonous memorization they expected of her at school.
The first level’s boss went down and Fuuka had by now burned through an entire credit’s worth of lives, shoot I’ve gotten so rusty these past three years, it was no problem though, she still had two of the credits she’d inserted. The game prompted her to choose the next stage she wanted to traverse: Zone B, the top path, or Zone C, on the bottom path, each of them leading to different zones and different final bosses later down the line.
She flicked the joystick down and, with one press of the fire button, she was on her way to Zone C, her preferred route from when she was a kid.
A long time ago, the first time she had died with a score high enough to make it to the leaderboard screen at the end of the game, Fuuka was shocked to see that it was populated with dozens of scores that dwarfed the run she had just concluded, the top score had been something like 500,000 points while Fuuka’s had been a meager 20,000. Something else had also caught her eye: all the scores on the leaderboard had been signed with the same name: “M.Y”.
This M.Y. had always taken the same bottom route through the game, always the same stages in run after run, but they’d never made it past the second to last level, Zone U, just one skip before the finish line in Zone V’.
Just who could this M.Y. be? Fuuka was beyond sure they must have been the previous owner of the console, but still, What happened to them? Where were they now? Were they a boy or a girl? Would they be happy she took their PlayStation? Could she one day find them? If she did... could they be friends?
Fuuka was fascinated by the intrigue that surrounded this mysterious individual in her mind, to the point that she had made it her life’s mission to complete what they had started and someday finally beat the final zone and finish the game. She never did.
She’d gotten so invested in the game and her mission to beat it for M.Y.’s sake that her previously perfect record at school began to falter: first she began arriving late at cram school, strike one.
Then one day she faked an illness to skip school and played all morning while her parents were at work, strike two.
Until one day she did the unthinkable and on her sixth grade finals test she scored an abysmal 89 out of 100. Anything less than a 95 was outrageous by her parents’ standards, strike three.
The memory of her father’s rage at her bloomed sharply in her mind for a moment, she felt an involuntary shudder course through her spine. Her mother took away her PlayStation and all her games after that, hiding them away as punishment for having dared to have rebelled against them. They wouldn’t know real rebellion if it hit them in the face.
From that day onward Fuuka’s life lost that little luster it had previously had, with nothing to balance out the bullying at school and the suffering she felt at home…
Fuuka was taken out of her musings when a torpedo destroyed her ship and exhausted her final credit. The torpedo had been fired by the second level’s boss, a shining blue battleship based on some long-extinct fossil fish that Fuuka hadn’t even noticed she was fighting, and Fuuka had to be quick in putting another credit in: if she didn’t do so in 10 seconds, it’d be game over.
Thinking quickly, Fuuka dug out her coin purse once more from the pockets of her sweat pants, she shook away the pieces of lint that had gotten stuck to it and fumbled to try to get it open in time. once she did she dove her hand inside hoping to grasp a coin or two, but she found only air. I’d brought like six or seven coins with me! Have I really been playing so badly? And I didn’t even notice?? Oh gods, the timer was at 7 seconds she needed something or her entire run would be over for good.
Only then did she see it, a hand emerging from behind her right side dropping a pile of 100 yen coins onto the cabinet’s control panel. Fuuka’s blood turned ice cold when she saw it.
Oh gods Oh gods Oh gods someone’s watching me someone’s been watching me for all this time they want me to continue who are they? Is this some sick joke at my expense? Will they taunt me over it at school and say I play stupid old boy games while they throw my books in the trash? Where is Makoto? Why isn’t he here? He’d get whoever’s behind me to back off like he did that time in July Oh gods someone Help me.
Fuuka turned her gaze toward the coins and the retreating hand that had delivered them to her, the person behind her just stood there, silent and ominous; every fiber of her being was screaming at her to turn around and make a run for it, but her body betrayed her, fear paralyzed her and kept her feet glued on the ground. Her ears were ringing, her forehead was by now covered in sweat, she had 3 seconds to decide what to do.
She popped the coins in the machine and got back to playing, ever mindful of the presence behind her.
And so Fuuka continued to play, though doing so while being fully aware that someone was watching her from right behind her meant that she paid little thought to the game itself. She felt trapped, like a deer cornered by a pack of hungry wolves, after all, who said it was only one person that was watching her right now?
Why would anyone voluntarily offer their coins to someone like her of their own volition? It couldn’t be possible, there had to be some ulterior motive behind all this, Fuuka could think of a dozen different reasons right off the top of her head and was plotting at least as many escape plans, but despite the utter dread she felt she just couldn’t move.
How silly had she been, expecting that things had truly changed since June. Natsuki and her troupe may have stopped bothering her, but it was only natural that someone else would pick up the slack and remind a waste of space like Fuuka of her place. Fuuka just hoped they weren’t filming her, it’d be a small mercy. But what predator has mercy on its prey? Eat or be eaten, that’s just how it works in this world.
Fuuka couldn’t find it in herself to hate whoever was standing behind her, after all it was only natural that the strong would lord over the weak.
She’d been so caught up in her dread that she been completely unable to concentrate on the game. She’d dropped the ball to such a degree that even after four credits worth of lives she hadn’t been able to beat that same fucking boss she’d been at earlier, only now she was once again out of credits, credits that weren’t even her own.
What was her observer going to do to her now that she’d thrown away their precious credits? Her mind became awash with ever increasingly gruesome scenarios of what they could do to her, and Fuuka knew deep down how it would play out: she would endure whatever kind of bullying her observer would dish out like the useless rat she was and all they while she would meekly stand there and take it, sobbing and begging like every single time this had happened before. Fuuka almost ground her teeth together she was so anxious and scared, her legs shaking almost to the point of giving out beneath her.
“Here, you can have some more of mine, it’s not like I’m going to run out of them or something.” The voice behind her said in a monotone matter-of-fact mumble that very much resembled that of someone she… knew? Wait is that Makoto?
There was no doubt about it, it must be him! He was the only one she knew whose voice could be so mumbly and at the same time clear, aloof yet firm, granted she didn’t know that many people, especially boys, but still. Alongside the realisation that it was Makoto that had offered her his coins so she could play some stupid old arcade game, came the equally, if not more, embarrassing realisation that she had freaked out almost to the point of a panic attack because he had just tried to be kind to her.
Someone being kind to her… the thought it still felt foreign to Fuuka.
Wait does he even know it’s me who’s playing?
How could he possibly tell it was her though? Her hair was hidden beneath her hood, she’d made sure to go out in as nondescript an outfit as possible, avoiding any school related garment or any of her usual outfits, and she hadn’t spoken a single word! From his point of view she must surely look like some random middle school kid in the back of an arcade, she even had the height to pass off as one.
In a flash Makoto was already on his way to deposit another pile of hundred yen coins onto the cabinet.
“D-don’t worry, I umm… have to get… going?” She replied in a trembling voice. It’d taken all her willpower to force herself to say as polite a refusal as possible, though her by now flaring embarrassment and shame had quickly betrayed her, hopefully he didn’t notice. Makoto’s outstretched hand pulled back, the coins mutely reflecting the vibrant lights of the arcade behind them.
Fuuka let the on-screen timer run to zero, leading to a game over. When the game prompted her to input her name she almost succumbed to her engrained habit of signing her scores as “FUU”, but as her cursor hovered over the F she realised that she would blow her whole cover off if she did that: Makoto absolutely couldn’t find out about her. Thinking quickly, Fuuka put in the first thing that came to mind: “…”, absolutely not suspicious in any way.
She couldn’t tell if behind her Makoto was getting impatient with her or was in any way miffed that she had expended his coins. He’d always been the quiet sort, the kind of person that just didn’t make an effort to stand out or make his presence know in a social setting, Fuuka would hate to admit that she had always wondered why he‘d become like that, it probably had to do with what happened to his parents, but he never opened himself up to anyone, neither Fuuka nor her teammates quite knew what lay beneath the surface when it came to Makoto.
Whatever lay beneath the mask had however sacrificed his chance to play the game in a heartbeat, despite the fact that he, hopefully at least, thought the person playing a complete stranger; that was something else that set him apart from other people, his selflessness, his willingness to bend over backwards for the sake of others while neglecting his own well-being. Fuuka, however, knew first hand that such selflessness was a double edged sword: after all, anyone, even the lowliest of scum, can feel like someone worth helping when you think yourself lower than dirt.
Oh, there she goes rambling in her mind again, Could you just move aside and be done with it? The treacherous voice within her mind sneered and Fuuka obeyed. Cheeks by now thoroughly reddened and head bent as low as it could go, Fuuka took her leave, awkwardly shuffling to her right like a crab, making sure not an inch of her face was visible to Makoto. She could feel his inquisitive gaze on her back as she bumped into the far wall of the arcade Ouchie. she spun around herself a bit and tuned right again, back still firmly turned towards Makoto as she once more crab-walked her way out of his sight.
By the time she made it to the other side of the arcade she felt far enough, and safe enough, to hazard a gaze in the Darius Gaiden cabinet’s general direction. Hiding behind an out of service cabinet, she found Makoto slightly bent down, clearly inserting the credits into the machine. Fuuka knew she had to leave this place lest she be recognised by someone, but there was something that kept her pinned in place, it wasn’t fear, as it had been before, rather it was something else entirely, curiosity.
Makoto had never seemed the type to play games, at least from a superficial point of view he didn’t, but really she knew the leader of SEES far too little to ascertain his interests and hobbies beyond his obvious interest in music, though Fuuka had always felt that there was something more sinister hiding behind it. Still, what was Yuki Makoto, student council member, rising star of the track team, poster child of the art club and second most sought after boy in school doing here, playing some obscure old arcade shooter game on such a lovely August afternoon?
As he got up and gripped the controls to begin his game there was no sign that he’d noticed her spying on him from behind. His back was turned towards her, neck ever so slightly leaning forward, silhouette highlighted by the bright light of the arcade screen, she could see the cable of his headphones dangling in the air in front of him. He looked to be completely taken by the game, and this simple fact piqued Fuuka’s curiosity; if he was so taken by the game, maybe it meant that this wasn’t his first time playing, that he actually had more experience with videogames than he let on.
Why did she care so much about whether or not Makoto liked to play videogames? It wasn’t like she’d finally have a chance to-
Wait a minute. Fuuka had barely had enough time to snap herself out of her third internal monologue of the day that she noticed something odd about Makoto.
He was playing like a pro.
He guided his ship like he knew the level layout by memory, knowing exactly where all the enemies would appear and the best ways to destroy them, reacting to all incoming bullets with the kind of reflexes one could only develop on a battlefield. Soon enough, without having died once he’d cleared the first boss in record time, he’d purposefully positioned himself right in front of the robot fish’s mouth, its weak point, and somehow he’d managed to simultaneously avoid all attacks while remaining close to it, and hey how was he even able to press the fire button so quickly?
Fuuka felt like a fish out of water: not only did Makoto of all people know about one of her favourite childhood games, not only did he still play it to this day, but he was even better than Fuuka had ever been in her prime; her cheeks once more flushed a rosy red, though this time there was something else alongside the shame.
As she kept looking, safely concealed from him by her vantage point, Makoto just kept going: level after level, boss after boss. After Zone A, he blasted through Zones C, F, J and O, before making it to Zone U. It was there, right before the final level, that she saw Makoto struggle; the Zone boss was clearly giving him trouble, despite his form remaining as composed and focused as always she could just about see his ship getting hit by multiple attacks at once, decimating his shield and ending his run. As the game over countdown began however, Makoto, instead of using up another credit to continue the game, instead chose to let the timer expire, leading to a game over. It was now time for Makoto to sign his score with a name, Fuuka could just about peek the name he was choosing: he’d put an “M” and a dot followed by a “Y”…
Hold up, M.Y…
M.Y?
No it couldn’t be possible! There was no way in hell that he had been the previous owner of her old console, that mysterious M.Y she’d spent so long wondering about; it just couldn’t.
Fuuka must have made some noise without noticing, maybe a gasp of surprise or something like that, because she saw Makoto turn around behind him and look back at her, his eyes locking with hers.
She just looked back at him for a while, mind blank, breath still and heart so quiet it’d almost given out. It took her a solid few seconds to realise that Makoto was looking at her. At her.
Fuuka ran out of the arcade as fast as she could. In her haste to escape, she failed to notice Makoto’s gaze following her.