Round 1: Showdown!

“Oh yeah. That’s the one.”

Minny pointed at a large high-quality anime figure that was on display. She was showing Kaneko the local Round Two bowling alley/arcade. She had spent a lot of time there over the years, using her allowance to rack up tons of tickets.

The arcade seemed like as good a place as any to waste her time, plus there was something she was working towards. If you got enough tickets, there was a prize booth in the back corner of the building that held the usual crappy prizes like eraser heads and sticker books that you’d find at Chuck E. Cheese’s or something similar. But unlike those places, the large prizes were actually cool! There were no board games that you could buy at any Walmart for $20, nor equally cheap branded merchandise that was exclusive to that arcade. This place had really expensive prizes like game consoles, and the thing that Minny liked, anime figures. Specifically, Minny had been eyeing the same Hatsune Miku figure that they’d had since the first time she went there a few years ago.

Minny had made it her mission to eventually earn enough tickets playing whatever arcade games there were to get this magnificent piece of art. It was a 1:6 scale figure of Miku in a witches outfit for Halloween. The detail and paintwork that this figure had inspired her whenever she saw it. Every time she came, she took a few minutes to stare at its absolute majesty. Even if the display model was dusty as heck. Minny thought it added character.

This was the first time that Minny had ever brought someone else with her to gaze upon her prize. And this was going to be special. If Minny played her cards right and wisely spent her allowance on the right machines, she should be able to finally get the figure! The only reason she brought Kaneko along was so she could share in her victory. Plus, Kaneko kinda had a habit of following her everywhere.

“I didn’t even know these places existed outside of Japan. Pretty cool that I happen to end up in the one place with a Round Two in the U.S.” Kaneko commented.

“Yeah, I think I’ve heard that. It’s pretty neat actually.”

"And this is the figure you wanted? Couldn't you have just bought it online?"

"Sure, but where's the fun in that? Do you know how many games you play to get 100,000 tickets? A lot!”

"Fair enough, I guess. Let's go have some fun."

Minny took a few more seconds to bask, before walking away with Kaneko. As they retreated into the forest of different arcade machines, a boy in a blue baseball cap passed them and walked over to the display. He had his eyes glued to the same figure that Minny had worshiped for the last while and a half.

"Soon my precious." Although the boy spoke under his breath, the stale air in the arcade carried the noise straight to the pair’s ears.

Turning around, Minny saw him. He was pretty unassuming. He was wearing a white t-shirt tucked into some khaki pants. His baseball cap covered most of his short brown hair, with just a bit peeking out through his sideburns. His muscles were toned, but he didn't really have a muscular frame. He was kinda tall too, probably close to a full head taller than Minny. He should have been easy to recognize, but his face was too boring to stand out.

A few seconds later, his delayed reaction came. "Wait, Minny?” The guy turned around with an annoyingly animated movement.

“Huh?”

“I guess my secret is out.” The guy took up a pose, looking down and using his hand to mask most of his face. It was something that you’d see the bad guy in a middle school play do. “Heh. I, Ace Acetia, star of the drama department, captain of our Varsity Baseball team, and generally all-around well liked individual, am in fact a Weeaboo.”

Minny really could not place this guy’s face. “Uh, who?”

“Y’know! Ace? We go to the same school? I’ve been in the same class as you, like 10 times!? I sat next to you last year in French!” Every time he brought up another point, Minny’s unchanging confusion would weaken his posture in exaggerated sadness.

Minny might not remember him, but she was pretty sure he wasn’t lying about being a theater kid. And a weeb.

“Sorry?”

“Ah. It doesn’t matter.” He said in mock depression. As he continued to speak, he quickly lost the disappointment in his voice. “So, you want the Miku figure? How about we race for it?”

“What do you mean by a race?” Kaneko, who had been keeping silent, probably thinking Minny knew the boy, finally spoke up.

“A race to see can get the tickets faster. I assume you two don’t actually have enough yet?”

Minny responded, “Uh, no. I have like 97,000, I think.”

“And I have 85. Are you sure you wanna go against me?”

“Come on! That’s not even close, you’re just gonna lose.” Kaneko said.

“Consider it a head start. It's not like you’re gonna win anyways.”

“You’re full of crap, man.”

“Whatever you say.” He stuck out his hand to shake, and wore a goofy sense of arrogance on his face. “Say, who are you?”

Kaneko crossed her arms as she responded. “It’s Kaneko.”

“Ace.” He stood with arm out stupidly for a few seconds before turning to face Minny “Well, do we have a deal? Whoever gets the tickets first, wins.”

“Yeah. Why would we–!” Kaneko started, but Minny was already moving around her to take his hand.

This guy might be really forgettable, but he was just too much of a character for Minny to refuse. Plus she didn't know what kind of drama he would make if she won without competing.

Minny shook his weirdly delicate hand, considering he apparently played baseball. “It’s a race.”

〰

After their encounter, Ace quietly left Kaneko and Minny to decide what to do.

“What’s the plan?” Kaneko asked, genuinely confused.

“Well, I think the best ticket-getting games would have to be the skill based ones. There are only a few though.” Minny started counting on her fingers. “Clock the Lock, Light Magic, I guess there's that one coin-pusher... Oh and there's a DDR machine that gives tickets.”

“Really?” Kaneko’s eyes slightly perked up.

“Yeah, but I’m really not that good. Apparently you need to be able to play on the hardest difficulty for it to actually be worth playing for tickets. It can still be fun though. Anyway, I think we should probably go for Clock the Lock. I think I’m good enough to score tickets there.”

“What if we just followed Ace? He was acting like he had some crazy, uh, ace up his sleeve.”

Minny started giggling emphatically.

“I’m sorry.” Kaneko seemed disappointed with herself.

“Pffft– No, don't be! I just wasn’t expecting a pun from you.”

“It’s not like it was on purpose! Come on, we gotta find him.” Kaneko stormed off in a huff.

Minny had to take a minute to compose herself, before she chased after her cousin. “Wait! Wait for meee!”

〰

It didn’t take long for the two girls to find what they were after. Ace was standing on the DDR machine, starting his session. The arcade was still pretty empty, which was an intentional tactic from Minny, so she could play all the machines she wanted to without having to wait. That meant that the other side of the machine was left empty as Ace stepped on the different pads to sort through the menus. He also didn’t have any kind of crowd to contend with in terms of playtime.

“How much do you wanna bet that he’s all talk?” Kaneko said over her shoulder.

The two were far enough away that he probably couldn’t hear them, but Minny couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t aware of their general presence.

“I think we should probably wait and see… Right?”

There was a short pause in the conversation until Ace started to pick out his songs.

“At least the machine looks decent. All the songs suck though. Hmm...” Kaneko said as Ace continued to scroll down to the harder songs. “Oh, that’s good. Mmhm. Okay, there are a few good ones here.” She had a very thoughtful expression on her face.

“Look at this, that’s one of the hardest songs there. He really is full of himself.”

Minny didn’t really have anything to say in response, so she waited for the song to actually start.

As it began, a few arrows started to float up from the bottom of the screen. He didn’t seem to have too much trouble jumping from pad to pad to hit them, but Minny was pretty sure that was an easy part. Her assumption was confirmed when a torrent of arrows began to spew from the bottom of the screen.

“Alright, let’s see if he’s all he says.” Minny thought, although she probably wouldn’t ever say something like that.

Ace launched into a blur. His legs were shooting across the pads so quickly that Minny couldn’t track them with her eyes.

“Holy crap!”

“Holy crap!” At the same time she thought it, Kaneko said the same thing. It made her mentally double take, questioning whether or not she and Kaneko had a psychic connection.

Kaneko continued, “He’s– He’s a Dance Dance Revolutionary!” The moment she said it, her entire face turned red, even reaching the tips of her ears. “Why do I keep making stupid comments?!”

Minny started cackling. When she realized that she was in a public place though, she tried to quiet herself down, which honestly made her laugh even harder.

“Come on, you’re not gonna last if he keeps that up. Where’s that Locking Clocker thing?”

Kaneko grabbed Minny by the collar, trying to drag her away, although she was laughing so hard that she was little more than dead weight at that point.

After what felt like 10 minutes, Minny was able to think straight again. “She is right… He’s gonna catch up to me in no time with those skills. I gotta hurry and win!”

And just like that, she was running for everything she held dear. Well, she was running for a non-articulated, non-scale PVC & ABS Halloween Hatsune Miku figure, but it might as well have been everything she held dear!

〰

Clock the Lock was an arcade game that Minny had played many times over the last few years as she went to the arcade. It consisted of pressing a button when the marker on the lock-shaped screen passed over an indicated point. It was all about timing and finding a rhythm as the marker tik-ed and tock-ed around the screen. And Minny had gotten pretty good at it.

She had sunk about $20 into the machine already that day, and had won the 300 ticket jackpot a handful of times. Minny tried to stop the pressure from the race affecting her, but she was still doing just slightly worse than she usually would have if she had come alone. Having Kaneko there was nice, but she was standing next to the screen looking as tense as Minny felt. Which made her feel even more pressure. It was a vicious downward spiral.

But just as she thought that the build up was going to boil over and ruin her run, a chime played from the Machine’s crappy dual speakers. You’ve Clocked the Lock! Collect your reward!

Minny let out a sigh as she grabbed her ticket card from Kaneko and quickly swiped it through the machine’s card reader. As it always did, the card reader gave her a quick status of what she had stored on the card. Apparently she was nearing her goal. Minny only needed about 1500 tickets left. Hopefully she would only need to play this game 5 more times!

Then the small display showed how much money was left in her account.

“15 cents?! Come on!”

“That little?”

“Yeah, I gotta put the rest of my cash in the account. Come on.”

Minny dashed across the mostly empty arcade and came to a bright red painted box with the Round 2 Logo plastered all across the top. She was pretty ragged and out of breath when she arrived, but she fished her wallet out of baggy jeans nonetheless. Scrambling to load her loose bills into the reloader, she didn’t realize who had strolled up next to her.

“Hey Minny, how's it going?”

It was Ace. He was confidently leaning on the machine, idly filling his time by cracking his fingers. Minny wasn’t in the right mindset to face him just yet, her mind was running at a mile a minute and she couldn’t think of any words to say.

She ended up opening her mouth anyway. “Ohimgoodjustgreathowareyou?”

“Ah…” Ace looked confused. For supposedly being a great actor, and Minny could admit he had quite the persona, he sure did seem to break character a lot. He quickly returned though, “Well, I trust you’ve been making good progress since we last spoke.”

“Ohyeah,I’mnearlythere–” Minny had finally realized how fast she was talking and let out a long breath that she had apparently been holding for some time now. “I only have 1500 tickets left to go.” Minny was fairly confident in her answer. He might have been playing Dance Dance Revolution this whole time, but there was no way that he could be even close to beating her at this point.

“Oh really? Me too!”
What.

“I mean, DDR is kinda expensive, but there’s no way that he’s getting that many points out of it, right? Who runs an arcade with such a crappy ticket economy?! Seriously, what the heck!” Minny thought.

And just like that, Minny was back in panic mode. Thankfully, she had someone who could tag her out of the conversation.

“What’s up?” Kaneko asks with a tone of accusation

“I only need one more round to win. I’m just taking a victory lap over here at the cash muncher.”

Wait. Waitwaitwait. One more?!?! I– You– Hold– WHAT? One more round? If Minny could spare the extra processing power, she would surely be questioning how this place managed to stay in business with the DDR machine being capable of dulling out so many tickets. Seriously, how is that economical?

“You’re full of crap.” Kaneko rebutted.

“No, I’m serious! The DDR machine is totally unbalanced. I’m pretty sure the franchise owner’s nephew really likes the machine or something.”
“So, you knew about this from the start?” Kaneko was getting protective.

“Well, yeah.” Ace broke character once again and started retreating slowly. “I mean, I was planning on taking a break so the race would be more fair.”

Kaneko grimaced and Ace fell backwards away from her. “I swear, I’m telling the truth!”

With a mighty “harumph”, Kaneko took a step away and crossed her arms.

“You were playing a race that was rigged in your favor! And now, you’re gonna get a taste of your own medicine.”

Ace was cowering on the floor at this point. Minny could almost see tears forming in his eyes “Wha– What are you gonna do to me?”

“One round. 3 songs. Whoever wins gets the statue.”

“Hold on, Kaneko! I’m really not that good at DDR! Also it’s a figure, not a statue."

Turning to Minny, Kaneko responded. "I didn't say anything about you playing, Minny. This guy," she turned back to face him, unfolding her arms in some attempt to look even more intimidating. "Is gonna have to face me."

Apparently it worked, Ace started scrambling backwards until he hit a nearby low wall that separated the arcade section of the building from the bowling one. "What do you mean?" He pleaded.

"You. Me. Dance Dance Revolution.”

Ace’s face swirled in a torrent of confusion and fear as he started to crawl up the half wall. “I– Okay! Just don’t hurt me.”

“Who said anything about hurting you?” Kaneko asked, genuinely confused.

“Wha–? You just wanna play DDR?”

“Of course! I’m not a bully. I’m not gonna beat you up because you almost cheated in a race for some anime statue!”

“It’s a Hatsune Miku Figure!” Minny and Ace shouted in perfect unison.

“Geez. You people are weird.” Kaneko shook her head

Then the three of them walked awkwardly to the game machine. Ace was still clearly fearful of Kaneko. He constantly fidgeted and adjusted his t-shirt collar whenever she so much as glanced in his direction. It was kinda pathetic, she wasn’t even acting angry, which was kinda saying something.

Once they arrived, Ace shot for the left dance pad, letting out a sigh of relief once he got there as if he was a little kid who had just gotten under the covers in the dark. Safe from the monsters. Or Kaneko in this case.

Kaneko cracked her neck and fingers before she joined him, stepping up onto the platform to his right. It took only a moment for her to realize her mistake. “Uh, Minny, I need your card…”

“Oh! I need to finish reloading it!”

“Ah, geez,” Kaneko sighed.