That night I saw Eric online so I decided to ask for advice for the mission to come.

His reply was: "Take it easy man. Don't worry too much about DDR. I'll bet they are not the very best in DDR, only like trick level."

So I'm by myself. A lone soldier who did not know when and how death approaches.

In physics class Howard told me that Emi and Rage would go to his house later because of class and he invited me and a guy called Bing for lunch. So, after school, we went to the Viennese restaurant opposite of our school.

After we ordered I asked Howard why he wanted to invite me.

"Simple, to see you dance." He said.

"Then why did you invite Emi and Rage?" I asked.

"To make you addict to DDR."

"How about me." Bing said.

"This is not really DDR-related, you know. Bing, you told me that you wanted to come and watch some VCDs, did you?"

"And make you addict to DDR also. Haha." I interrupted.

"No way for DDR part. I have absolutely no interest in it." Bing said.

Just as we stepped out of the restaurant we saw Rage's car approaching us in the parking lot. His car was a deep green jeep with a loud speaker because we could hear the music of Smile.dk's Boys clearly in a distance. Rage was in the driver's seat and Emi was sitting beside him.

"It is a nice, sunny day today so I drive this thing here." Rage said as he stopped his jeep beside us.

"Get on the car. I'll drive you to Howard's house. You just need to give me directions." Emi said, and noticed Bing. "And who is this guy?"

"My friend." Howard said. "But he does not play DDR."

"No problem. Let's go." Emi said.

".and let's begin the beat. Hehe." Rage said as he switched to another CD in his CD player.

At this time a patrol car stopped beside us.

"Hey, young men. Turn down your volume, and . Naoki's Brilliant2U?" A policeman shouted in his patrol car.

"You know this song?" Rage said and was very surprised. Brilliant2U is a song written specially for DDR and therefore the only reason for him to know this song is from DDR.

"Dance Dance Revolution, right? I sometimes play this game in Playdium when I'm off duty." The policeman said.

"So what do you think about it?" I asked.

"Well, this game is a cool one because it is a brand new gaming concept. This is something, at least, can be called as an alternative to first- person shooter. There are way too many Doom-like games there and I do not want to see another Columbine High School happening."

"I know. This is crazy, killing 15 students, two teachers and end up killing themselves." Emi said.

"That was about one year ago." Rage added.

"I hope this game will become popular enough that it can counter the effects of violent games." The policeman said.

"But when? There are no news about another version in North America or any porting to console systems like Playstation." I said.

"True. DDR became popular in Asia only after its Playstation version was released." Rage said.

"There are at least some people who know DDR. I had been called to Playdium once because of DDR." The policeman said. "There was a person collapsed after playing DDR in Playdium and had to call 911 for ambulance."

"Then what happened?" Howard asked.

"I was called to report there to take documentation, evidence, testimony, or whatever you call, the normal routines and also some crowd control. It was Sunday afternoon and there were a lot of people around the DDR machine."

"We are about to head out to his house for some dancing." Rage said.

"Have fun." The cop said and suddenly there was a beep. "Excuse me. My walkie-talkie

A student was found with a gun in 330 Central Parkway West, Father Michael Goetz Secondary School. Peel Police Unit 6B report there.

"Jesus! I said Columbine High School and it happened. A guy was found with a gun in your school!" He exclaimed.

"Oh shit! You better hurry! And let's go back to school to see what happened." I said.

As the cop car and the jeep entering our school's parking lot, there were a lot of students there and it looked like the situation was still under control. I asked a student what happened.

"Two students went into an argument and one lighted a pistol. It was lucky enough what one student grabbed the gun and called the police." She said.

"I hate to see that." Rage said.

"Yup. Let's get the hell outta here." Howard said.

Howard's house is not very far away from our school. His house does not have anything that caught my attention - it just looks the same with the others. The neighborhood was a middle class one and it was quiet when we arrived.

"Here we are. This is my house, my Playstation unit is in the basement." Howard said.

So we went down the basement except Bing, who said he wanted to see some VCD first.