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The bowling alley vibrated with the heavy, rhythmic thud of rolling spheres and the high-pitched clatter of falling pins. It smelled of scorched oil, floor wax, and the salty grease of crinkle-cut fries. Twelve-year-old Kei Tsukishima sat on the edge of a molded blue plastic bench, his knees practically knocking against his chin. He kept his eyes locked on the glowing screen of his Game Boy Advance, his thumb twitching over the D-pad in a deliberate effort to block out the shrieks coming from his cousin’s birthday party three lanes over.
He hated being here. His mother had practically cornered him at the front door, using that quiet, sharp tone that meant arguing would only result in a longer lecture about attitude and being part of the family. She wanted him to be normal, to blend in, to smile for photos with relatives he barely tolerated. Dragging him to this loud, sticky sensory nightmare was her idea of a compromise. So, he had compromised by bringing his console and vowing to give exactly zero effort.
His name flashed in pixelated green across the overhead CRT monitor.
Tsukishima let out a slow, deliberate breath through his nose. He snapped the Game Boy shut, shoved it into his pocket, and uncoiled his long legs.
He walked over to the ball return (a scratched metal beast shared with the rowdy group on Lane 14). His hand hovered over a plain, matte-black eight-pounder. He slotted his fingers into the holes and pulled upward, only for the heavy plastic to clamp down hard on his knuckles. The weight was practically non-existent, pinching his skin.
He didn’t even have time to drop it back into the metal rack before a shadow fell over his left shoulder.
“Uhm, excuse me? I think… I think you might have picked up my ball by mistake.”
Tsukishima turned around with agonizing slowness. He reached up, two fingers pushing the bridge of his glasses up his nose, and let his gaze drop. Standing there was a scrawny boy with a messy mop of hair and a face heavily dusted with freckles. He was wearing a plain, slightly oversized t-shirt and clutching an identical black bowling ball against his stomach like a shield.
Tsukishima didn’t drop the ball. He just held up his trapped hand, tilting it so the boy could see his knuckles turning white in the tiny grip.
“Are you blind? Look at my hand. My fingers are literally stuck.”
The words slipped out with a practiced, sharp edge. He was right (he was sarcastically, flawlessly right) and if his mother had been within earshot, he would have caught a sharp tug to his shoulder and a lecture on his attitude. But she wasn’t here.
The freckled boy blinked, his eyes widening as a dark, sudden flush crept up his neck and flooded his cheeks under the harsh neon lights. “Oh. Uh.”
“You’re holding mine,” Tsukishima said, his voice dropping into a flat, biting drawl. He gestured with his free chin toward the ball pinned against the boy’s chest. “Unless you normally bowl with a ball that weighs a lot more than you.”
“Ah! Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”
The boy’s voice cracked on the last syllable. In a flurry of sheer panic, he lunged forward to dump the heavy fourteen-pounder back into the return rack. His grip slipped. The heavy ball crashed violently against the metal dividers with a deafening clang, bouncing once and nearly taking off the tips of his sneakers before it finally settled into a groove.
Tsukishima didn’t flinch. He just shifted his weight to one hip, watching the display with a single raised eyebrow. “Smooth. Try not to break the machinery. Or your feet.”
“I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to!” the boy stammered, his hands shaking slightly as he hurried to swap the eight-pounder out of Tsukishima’s hand, replacing it with the correct one. “They just looked exactly the same, and I wasn’t paying attention because my friends were yelling, and… I’m Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi Tadashi.”
He offered a small, incredibly awkward smile, his hand flying to the back of his neck to rub at the heated skin there.
There were a lot of sorrys. It was exhausting just listening to him.
Tsukishima slid his fingers into his actual ball, testing the wide span of the grip with an easy, dismissive twist of his wrist. He let the silence stretch, leaving Yamaguchi’s smile to wither in the air.
“Tsukishima Kei. And next time, use your eyes. It’s not that hard to read a number.”
“Right. Yeah. Sorry, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi mumbled, his shoulders sinking into a slouch.
Tsukishima froze. The easy weight of the bowling ball suddenly felt heavy in his hand. His head snapped back around, his eyes narrowing to sharp slits behind his lenses. “What did you just call me?”
Yamaguchi winced, literally clapping both hands over his mouth. His ears were practically glowing red now. “Ah! I’m sorry! Your name on the screen says Tsukishima Kei, so my brain just… mixed it together? Tsukishima… Kei… Tsukki? It just came out! I didn’t mean to be rude!”
“… Don’t do it,” Tsukishima snapped, the bite in his tone sharper this time as he turned his back on the boy and stepped onto the oiled wood of the approach line. “We aren’t friends.”
“Right! Sorry, Tsukki! I mean—Tsukishima-kun!”
The panicked shout followed him right to the foul line. Tsukishima clicked his tongue, a sharp, irritated sound that was completely swallowed by the ambient noise of the alley. He ignored the intense, burning stare locked onto the back of his vest. He stared straight down the lane, focused on the arrows, and brought the ball back in a fluid, arc-like sweep.
He released it. The ball hit the wood with a crisp, clean slide, hooking perfectly at the final second to smash dead-center into the pocket. All ten pins exploded backward into the pit.
A loud, involuntary gasp came from Lane 14.
Tsukishima didn’t turn around to look at the next lane as he sauntered back to his bench. He didn’t look at the freckled boy who was currently glued to the spot, watching him with wide, completely starstruck eyes. But as Tsukishima reached for his Game Boy, a faint, sharp smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He slouched back onto the plastic seat, tapping a button to unpause his game, fully expecting the weird kid to finally go away.
Instead, a shadow fell over his screen again.
Tsukishima didn’t look up, his fingers deliberately button-mashing. “What?”
“That was…” Yamaguchi swallowed hard, his voice still a little breathless and entirely too loud over the rumble of the neighboring lanes. “That was so cool, Tsukki. I usually just hit the gutters.”
Tsukishima’s thumb twitched on the D-pad, causing his character to jump straight into an enemy. He let out a sharp, irritated breath, finally cutting his eyes upward. Yamaguchi was still there, shifting his weight from foot to foot, clutching his eight-pound ball like it was a security blanket. He looked entirely ridiculous, but his eyes were wide and completely devoid of the usual annoying mockery Tsukishima got from other kids his age.
“I told you not to call me that,” Tsukishima said, his tone flat, though the bite wasn’t quite as sharp as before.
“Ah! Right! Sorry!” Yamaguchi squeaked, taking a hasty step back. But instead of turning around to rejoin his friends, who were now waving at him from Lane 14, he gave another small, tentative smile. “Um. Good luck with the rest of your game, Tsukishima-kun.”
He fumbled a clumsy 180-degree turn, nearly tripping over his own oversized rental shoes as he scrambled back to his lane.
Tsukishima watched the back of the messy green hoodie for a second too long before looking down at his handheld console. The screen flashed a bright GAME OVER.
“Gopher,” Tsukishima muttered under his breath, adjusting his glasses. He clicked the power switch off and shoved the console into his pocket, deciding that watching the freckled disaster inevitably drop a bowling ball on his own foot was probably going to be much more entertaining anyway.