To the Arcade

So, I decided to take Komaeda somewhere safe. Please let it be safe. I'm begging you, celestial being. Please, no crashing meteors, no terrorists (besides the one I'm taking), no complete and utter bull crap.

Please.

Yesterday, Komaeda got his cast off. He says it feels fine, but I really doubt that. He doesn't move it around too much, but his hand works fine.

In honor of that, I'm taking him somewhere where he can finally put that hand to good use, and have some fun at the same time.

The arcade.

You know, Japan has amazing arcades. So many games of all sorts of genres, from all kinds of eras and styles.

So then why does each match play out the same way?

Komaeda and I are neck-and-neck.

Komaeda's luck pulls out some sort of trump card, so I'm about to lose.

I win by some odd miracle.

That happens.

Every time.

So after a while, we get bored of the same results and decide to leave, when we spot someone. Well, more like I spot Komaeda's contorted face of sheer disgust. It's not really a face you see on him too often.

It's Nanami and Hinata.

It makes sense. She is the Ultimate Gamer, after all. And Hinata is her friend, so it makes sense why he'd be around.

Now, here's a question. Approach or stay away?

I look at Komaeda. He's walking off into the other direction.

That means approach.

I grab Komaeda by his coat and drag him next to me.

"Hey, Nanami-san! Hinata-kun!"

They both look my way and wave. Hinata's eyes widen and then look at Nanami. She gives him an expression telling him, 'You better not run.', and he just grimaces in response.

"How are you today, Nanami-san?" Komaeda asks this, completely ignoring Hinata.

"We're fine, thank you.", Hinata responds.

"I don't think I asked yo—"

I elbow Komaeda in the chest. He reels over in pain, Nanami and Hinata looking at him as he crumbles to the floor.

I really don't like hitting him, I'd rather just tell him to stop. But, that'd just make him go on a rant, insulting Hinata even more.

This is a much better option.

He quickly gets back up again and laughs.

Nanami balls her hands into fists and pushes herself right up against me. Her head pops up, glowing with excitement.

"What games have you played? What games have you played?"

"A little bit of everything."

"Ooh! I heard that they just installed a new fighting game, so we came to check it out! Wanna' play? Wanna' play?"

"Sure! I'm sure Komaeda would love to, as well."

"Playing games with the Ultimate Gamer? I don't think even my luck would let me win against someone like that."

"You could play against Hinata-kun."

I grab Komaeda's wrist, preventing him from doing anything rash. He looks down at me, smiling a hateful smile.

"I'd rather not."

So we go over to the machine, and embroidered in large red and yellow letters is, "Street Fighter II".

"Um…This is new?", Hinata says with great suspicion.

"Yeah, they just put it in yesterday."

"This game is like 20 years old."

"25."

Hinata glares at Nanami, who looks back, straight-faced. She walks forwards, and puts some coins into the machine.

"Who wants to be player 2?"

Hinata walks up and starts pressing some buttons. He picks this martial artist dude, Nanami picking one of the only female characters, and the match starts. Upbeat music plays happily in the background and the characters fly across the screen.

Hinata gets some hits off of her character, but in the end, Nanami dominates.

He sighs, walking away in shame.

"Okay, who's next?"

I volunteer myself and take my place at her side.

I've never played the game before, so I pick a random character and use the best strategy ever.

Button mashing.

Hey, it works.

She wins by a landslide.

"You're next, Komaeda-kun."

"I don't think I should have the honor to play a game with someone as talented at them as you are, Nanami-san."

"Get over here."

"I don't th—"

I grab his hand and place it onto the controls.

"C'mon. You got this, Komaeda."

Hearing those words fill him with some kind of joy, and he becomes eager to lose against Nanami.

"I think you picked this one, right, Naegi-kun?"

He hovers over a character wearing green with absurdly flat yellow hair.

"I just picked one at random."

"Well, I'm sure whoever you picked will make Nanami's Hope shine."

Hinata looks disturbed. "Does he always do this?"

Nanami and I answer in unison. "You get used to it."

Komaeda presses a button, and the match starts.

Nanami's character does this spin-kick and some long combo, knocking Komaeda's heath in half.

"Hey! Move a little!"

On impulse, I go to push his controller a bit so that he's not a sitting duck. Not expecting that, he presses some of the buttons. The character ducks, then throws her character around…but doesn't. Nanami's character remains static, and I move the controller around some, our character being fine.

"Komaeda. What did we do?"

Komaeda keeps spamming the punch button, with no effect besides punching Nanami's character who is stuck in place.

"Hey! That's not fair! You guys used the Guile glitch…"

"What luck!"

Hinata is standing back, laughing at the whole situation.

"How do you get rid of it?"

The screen flicks off.

"Did we just break it?"

Nanami giggles.

"No. To fix a glitch, you have to turn it off, then turn it back on."

The screen flicks back on and the words, "Street Fighter II" are reilluminated.

"Let's play a different game."

Nanami pouts.

"What game are you worst at, Nanami-san?"

"Why?"

"So it's fair."

"I'm not telling you that."

"It's DDR." Hinata offers up the truth.

"What?"

"Dance Dance Revolution. Sometimes she gets too lazy and stops moving her feet. It was the first time I actually beat her at a game."

"Don't bring that up."

"Do they have one here?"

"Yeah, it's over there."

He points to a large and flashy DDR machine. It's two-player. I know this game. Komaru and I used to play on one all the time. She always beat me, though. We walk over there and begin discussing how we're going to go about doing it.

"Hinata-kun. You'll play against me, right?"

The way he says 'right', accentuating that 'i', always sends shivers down my spine. A little because I'm scared, mostly because whatever it is, it's not going to end well.

He looks at Hinata. I know what he's wants to prove to me that talent will beat 'insignificant people', as he puts it. Does he really have to go so far for something as arbitrary as that? This isn't what I meant when I told him to be nice.

Hinata looks at Nanami, for confirmation. She glares at him and he gets onto the machine. Hinata cracks his knuckles and preps himself for a wild ride. Komaeda pops in some coins and the lights flash on.

"I'll choose the song, okay?"

"That's fine."

Hinata scrolls to one of the hardest difficulties.

Wait a second. Komaeda's never even played this before. Is Hinata trying to sabotage him?

The pounding bass starts and the colored arrows fly across the screen.

No, I have a bigger issue here. Who do I want to win? I want Hinata to win so that I can prove Komaeda wrong, but still, I don't want Komaeda to lose. He's my friend. And this is a cheap tactic. Hinata doesn't want to lose, either. Komaeda has outright insulted him more than once, especially in a soft spot.

Hinata's feet become a blur as he succeeds at tapping the right buttons, while Komaeda does…surprisingly the same thing. He's actually keeping up. It took Komaru and I ages to get a song, even on easy mode. Maybe he's just pressing them at random.

Nanami cheers Hinata on. "Go! Hinata-kun!"

I can't lose, "You got this, Komaeda! Don't lose Hope!"

Somehow, this manages to encourage him, and I can tell he's putting in all the effort he can. Sweat drips down his neck and can hear his heavy pants for air. He shouldn't have kept his jacket on for this.

Wait a second. Maybe…Is he overexerting himself? He's never been the most athletic. Does he have some sort of heath issue? He's so skinny and pale.

I look around the room quickly.

I need some way to get him off that machine before something bad happens.

Booooooooooom!

Behind us, the Street Fighter II machine erupts into a mass of fiery red smoke and flame. The noise makes the entire building tremble with the sheer might of its explosion.

Everyone in the arcade is left speechless.

Then there's a scream.

Someone calls the fire department and ushers us out of the building.

"Did we do that?"

"I don't think so."

"Are you sure you didn't touch something, Nanami-san?"

"I just turned it off and on. I game. I'm not a mechanic."

"Hm…"

"It's like blowing in a cartridge. It just works."

…

"I'm sorry for causing all that."

I lean back onto my bed, burying myself in my covers, trying to sleep.

"It's not your fault. You can't make arcade machines explode."

"But you see, it was. I already explained my luck to you. The good luck of someone like you playing games with me, and cheering me on, had to equal out somehow."

"But it wasn't all that bad. Nobody was hurt. We don't even have to pay for it. You need to think optimistically. We had fun playing with Hinata-kun and Nanami-san."

"I'm honestly amazed someone like Hinata-kun has the audacity to hang around Ultimates like Nanami-san so nonchalantly. Why does he think that he has the right to hang around such amazingly hopeful people?"

"Komaeda. Talent shouldn't dictate who your friends are. If it did, then why did you keep eating lunch with me all that time?"

"You do have a talent. You're the Ultimate Hope."

"Yeah, but you didn't know that, back then."

"In my eyes, it shows something. Yeah, Hinata-kun doesn't have a talent. But that's a testament to him. Despite people like you, despite everything I'm sure he's gone through, he still is friends with her. Not with the Ultimate Gamer. Friends with Nanami Chiaki. Doesn't that show more Hope than anything else?"

The darkness of the room settled as Komaeda formed his response. Instead, there is silence as if I'm lying here all by myself.

"What if I killed Nanami-san? What would Hinata-kun do? Would he still be around the Ultimates? What would my classmates think of him? Would they feel pity? How would he take it?"

"What would you do if I died?"

"Hm?"

"What would you do? You couldn't live here. Your whole concept of Hope would be wrong. Everything you've ever lived for would be spit back into your face. How does it feel when someone asks you that? It hurts, doesn't it? It hurts not you admire my talent, it's because you're my friend."

There's a sniffle, then a cough. A quiet whimper.

"Are you okay?"

I hear a shuffle, then he stands up. It's rather dark in here, but the thin light through the curtain lets me see the silhouette of his cotton hair. He rubs his eyes with the back of his hand.

"You're brilliant, Naegi-kun. You deserve the title of Ultimate Hope. You truly do see the Hope in everyone. Even trash like me, even people like Hinata-kun. I have seen no one with that respect, with that consideration for the well being of everyone."

Did he…want that response out of me?

I smile and turn to the wall.

"Go to bed, Komaeda."

"The floor's a bit uncomfortable, do you mind if I—"

I make room for him.

"You do it every night anyways. I don't see how it makes a difference now."

He lies down right next to me. He's careful not to touch me. He laughs softly.

"I'm not surprised you noticed."

I turn around and look him in the eyes. He's surprisingly close. It's nice finally being at eye-level with him. I touch our noses together.

"Go to sleep, okay?"

"Okay."