(And so, the good stuff starts to happen. These chapters range from like two to five pages on Word so yeah... enjoy)
In your classroom, you sat down next to a girl with blue hair. She wore a soft looking white hat and a blue skirt that resembled one for a cheerleader uniform. She noticed you immediately and greeted you.
"Hi there," she said sweetly with an Asian accent. Her childish voice sounded odd coming from someone her age (she couldn't have been more than 18, you thought), but it was cheerful and kind. "Are you new here, too?"
You told her how you came from Japan and you had transferred here for a year.
Her strange English shifted into Japanese. "Ah, you're from Japan?" she said fluently in what was apparently her native tongue. "So am I! I'm Emi Toshiba." She nodded to you and you nodded back.
You introduced yourself, again, as Souji Seta.
"It's nice to meet you, Souji," she said, returning to English. "Well... I hope you can help me in this class. I'm good at building robots, but all these theories and things hurt my head sometimes."
A minute of small talk later, the professor walked into the classroom. The students' chatter was silenced soon after and the teacher introduced himself to the class.
"Hello class," he said in a firm voice, "my name is Paul Reddout, and I'll be your instructor for this semester. If you look at the syllabus..."
He proceeded to talk about his plans for your work. You listened to the schedule; there would be periodic homework and about two tests, the true subject matter wouldn't start until next week where you would start talking about-
"Hey, Souji," Emi whispered, interrupting your thoughts. You shifted your vision in her direction and waited for her to continue.
"Do you wanna hang out with us today?" Emi asked. "Me and my friends know this cool arcade and it's good for getting away from all this technical junk. I'd love for you to meet my friends. And if you're new, maybe you don't know a lotta people, so you're more than welcome to come along if you don't have plans yet."
You pondered how going to the arcade would affect your future studies, but you had no reason to object for the time being. You nodded.
"Great!" she exclaimed, in a rather loud whisper. She glanced to the front to see if the teacher noticed, but he didn't. She smiled and looked back at you. "So, where will you be after class? Or maybe it'd be better if we just waited until Friday, cause everybody's already going then. Do you need me to show you where the arcade is? I could just meet you there..."
She suddenly began to ramble about the arcade. You sensed it was a place of significant importance to her. The two of you planned to meet at the university on Friday, and then she would show you how to get to the arcade...
–
"Here it is!" Emi exclaimed as you two stood by the front doors of the unfamiliar building. "The Extreme arcade, home to lots of DDR and Bemani. It's a lot like our arcade back home in Japan." She always referred to arcades as hers; rather, that it belonged to her group of friends. Was it like a second home? You would probably find yourself there frequently, so you made it important to remember this place.
"Well, let's go play DDR!" she said, dragging you in the arcade by your wrist. She pushed through the doors and skipped her way to a corner that was blaring J-pop music from about three different machines. She abandoned you around the machine with a logo that said "Dance Dance Revolution X." She never did explain what DDR stood for, but you assumed this was it. You had yet to learn what Bemani was, but the logo was subtly pasted onto most of the music games.
Emi ran up to a muscular man wearing a sleeveless hoodie and a blue vest. He opened his arms to welcome her and she jumped into them, giving him an energetic hug. Emi pulled this man over to you.
"Souji, meet my boyfriend Rage," Emi said happily. "Rage is part of our DDR group and Souji's in my class at college."
"Is he?" Rage commented. "You guys and your education."
Emi hit him playfully. "Rage has his own takoyaki business. He makes really great food."
"That's right," Rage bragged, "so if you ever need any catering, talk to me. And... give me the money up front."
"He forgets to ask people to pay," Emi whispered to you.
"So, have you met anybody else, Souji?" Rage asked.
Before you replied, Emi shook her head. "Nope, we're getting to that. I'll talk to you later!" Rage gave you about half of a wave before Emi pulled you off again.
After walking past a small number of strangers, you were shown to a pigtailed blonde girl wearing a pink top and a black skirt. Her black and white stockings were mismatched.
She noticed you and Emi right away. "Oh hey Emi," she greeted cooly. "Who's this guy?"
"Souji. He's a college student from Japan."
"Oh," she said, interested. "What's he doing here?"
"He's new and he said he wanted to come to the arcade in town."
Technically, you were only here to be nice to Emi, but you didn't say anything.
"Well, you'll like it here, Souji," the girl said with pride. "This arcade's probably the second best one I've been to. The best ones are in Japan, though."
"Oh, where's Akira?" Emi asked her.
"He's at the vending machine getting me some soda."
"You're welcome," a man standing behind her said. The blonde jumped from the voice. He was incredibly tall and wore a black and white outfit with a tie.
"You're lazy," Emi joked to her.
"Shut up," she replied and picked a purple bottle of soda from the stranger's hand.
"Souji, this is Yuni and Akira," Emi said. "Yuni's an actress and Akira's her bodyguard."
"Nice to meet you," Akira said formally. He was rather young to be a bodyguard, but he was definitely physically fit to be one. Slightly intimidated, you told him the same thing.
You looked to your right and a dark blue haired girl... materialized next to you. You both jumped in surprise.
"I-I'm sorry for startling you," she said quickly.
You told her it was all right.
"That's Alice," Emi said. "She's a great pop singer and dancer, but when she's not on stage, she's really shy. Still, she's one of the nicest people we know."
"Y-you don't need to say all that," she muttered, embarrassed.
Emi once again introduced you, and your new group of friends talked about random things: everything from life in Japan to the different towns you lived in. You mentioned your friends in Inaba, but you left out the parts about Personas and Shadows.
"Your friends sound really cool," Emi said. "When was the last time you saw them?"
It was a while ago... a year now? Your bonds with them were too strong to be broken by time; you made it a habit to visit Inaba every year when on vacation, though you were never able to attend the same school again.
"You must move around a lot," Yuni commented, "but it's good you get to see them sometimes. Hey, maybe we can all take a trip there one of these days. I'd wanna check out that inn you were talking about. I could probably get them some good publicity." She smiled proudly.
"Don't get too hasty, we just met him today," Akira advised.
"Ah, I almost forgot, Souji you need to play DDR with us!" Emi said with more excitement than you'd heard all day. So excited, in fact, she forgot to drag you by your arm that time. She bolted off to the DDR X machine and you reluctantly followed her.
You had never played this game before, yet everyone else was experienced. You watched as two players were stomping on the arrows. The basic concept of the game wasn't difficult; you felt you would understand it if you just paid attention. An arrow rose to the top, and then someone would hit it. Except the arrows were going so fast, it was hard for you to follow...
"Do you get how to play, Souji?" Emi asked. "It's okay if you don't get it at first, nobody does. A bunch of people here are better than other people, but we all just play together for fun. Now, when you get good, you wanna stay away from the middle 'cause you won't have time to go back and it gets confusing. The trick is to use both of your feet separately..." she rambled again. As the speed of her speech increased, her volume seemed to lower beneath the sound of the music by comparison.
Halfway through one of her sentences, an audience cheered from the game. The dancer on the right (he had a mohawk and glasses... or goggles, you couldn't tell) rejoiced for his score of an AA. He jumped off the machine and traded places with Emi. As this happened, the dancer on the left stood in place and closely observed the score (apparently the game told you how many "Marvelous," "Perfect," and other arrows you got). Emi motioned to you to get on the machine, so you awkwardly walked to the left to get the player's attention.
Upon noticing you, the silver haired player blankly stared at you with incredibly dark eyes covered by makeup, wearing a coat with furry pink sleeves. By the shape of the dancer's face hidden partially behind short hair, you assumed he was male. He said nothing as he walked off the machine.
You pulled change out of your pocket but noticed there was a card slot on the machine. You panicked but Emi had already pushed start on both sides. "It's okay, I'll pay this time," Emi said. "You gotta see if you like the game first."
You nodded. You stood there uneasily as Emi chose all the options for you. You were on Beginner mode (thank goodness) and she was on Difficult. The title of the song (Inspiration) was displayed on the screen before the music began to play. The speed was safe, but it took you most of the song to get the hang of timing your feet to the arrows. While you saw many Almosts and Misses, Emi was hitting far more arrows than you and received probably over twice as many Greats and Perfects.
As the song ended, you remembered the previous dancers. They had even more arrows and had near-perfect rhythm. But Emi was moving more than her feet; she showed joy through the way she swung her arms and moved her hips. She didn't play this game for scores, she played for fun. You were relieved that she wasn't going to make this a competition, because you would've definitely failed.
Truthfully, you still sort of felt like a failure... but at least she wouldn't hold it over you.
After the other songs ended, the two of you stepped off the machine. You followed Emi to a slightly quieter corner, though there was no place that was necessarily quiet in that arcade.
"So? Did you have fun?" she asked hopefully.
You had to admit, it was fun to be on a stage, even one that wasn't real. You briefly expressed to her how fun it was.
"Yay, I'm glad we have another person to dance with!" she exclaimed. "So we'll see you next week, too, right?"
You nodded. You're a man of few words... and Emi doesn't give you a lot of opportunity to get words in, anyway.
"Ooh, if you want to practice, I could definitely lend you one of my games. Do you want a mat? I have an extra one, too, 'cause they always seem to sell these games in bundles..."
She continued to ramble about her console version. Something about hard mats and soft mats and how easy it is to break both of them. She would give you her copy of DDR Max next week.
You walked home to get some sleep. The clouds above were ominous; you felt like it was going to rain that night.
You noticed there was a television in your room. You remembered the message from Igor... and out of curiosity, you stared into the screen. It was midnight, and rain was trickling outside.
But nothing appeared.
Perhaps there was nothing to worry about yet... you had no choice but to sleep...
(I don't know what Emi would study in college but I know she builds robots. I'm revising these chapters rather quickly, so please let me know if I wrote something stupid so I can fix it.)