Soma stretched out his legs to rest on the coffee table in front of him and checked his phone for the tenth time in as many minutes. Mina's last text, "I'll be there in five!" remained the last word in their conversation. For the tenth time, Soma clicked away and checked the news (boring), his other text conversations (no updates), a game (boring and pointless), his required reading for the day (it was too damn early for homework), and finally let his phone drop to his lap with a deep sigh.

The lounge was sparsely populated with students and a few professors going about their daily tasks. A couple of people Soma thought were in the anime club were hunched over in the corner, deep in a discussion that involved a lot of flying pencils. Next to them was some girl working on a robot model, and another guy trying to take a nap in his textbook. It didn't feel worth it trying to talk to any of them when the couch was so comfy and Mina should be along any minute.

Someone dropped onto the couch next to him and Soma turned, glad to have a person to talk to. He paused when he saw what they were doing.

Two people, a guy and a girl, were untangling an massive rat's nest of cables from a portable screen and some sort of black rectangle. Soma sort of recognized them - he was pretty sure the girl was in his math class, at least, and he'd seen her with the guy a couple times - but didn't know their names or what the hell they were doing.

Eventually they less got the cables untangled so much as found the right ends and left the rest and turned the screen on. The rectangle - old game console? - made a loud whirring noise that seemed somehow pained. The girl patted it comfortingly. A logo popped up on the screen, with a monochrome, animated background.

Soma tried to look while not looking like he was looking. He failed.

The guy looked over at him, eyebrows raised. "Hey. We're not bothering you, are we?"

"What? No! Just...curious." Deciding that permission had been granted, Soma shifted over to get a better look at the screen. "What're you doing?"

"Setting up the PS2," the girl said, then clarified, "It's an old game console. Do you like video games?" She said it the same way a missionary would say "Do you believe in God?"

"Uh...a bit," Soma hedged. "I mean I play them, but I'm not like, a super fan."

"This game came out before any of us were born and it's still one of the greatest stealth-action survival games ever game," the guy said with finality. "It revolutionized the genre. We're lucky to still be able to play it on the original console today."

"The one time all my dad's old junk is useful," the girl agreed. "We had to chain three A/V adapters and replace the power cord, and that was after opening it up to adjust the laser. I hope the input lag's not too bad."

"Yeah, uh, me too," Soma said. Geez. After leaving the castle he thought he was done with weirdos. At least wanting to play old video games was pretty harmless.

"MGS3 -" she said it like that, cramming the syllables together "- set a standard for realistic outdoor environments that wasn't equaled even on the PS4. There are so many animals to find and every single one of them has a unique conversation associated with them."

The guy chimed in "You can kick a crab to death. It's great. Powerful kicks. Powerful crabs."

"And the story! It's amazing what they did in making you really care about the main character just to drop the final plot twist-"

"Don't spoil it!"

"I won't! But it's amazing, take my word for it."

Soma resisted the urge to tell them that he had never heard of the game before and did not care about spoilers. He also had the incredible urge to emphasize that he had a girlfriend. (Or kind of did...he had a nice, normal girl he hung out with a lot, that was close!)

On screen, a naked guy with a bleeding eyesocket talked to a guard about his family before the guard ran off to shit his guts out.

Soma tried to decide if the pair had been serious about what they had literally just said. No one could take this seriously, right? Not with the old graphics and stilted voice acting and a main character who grunted all the time.

Both the guy and girl were watching the screen, rapt.

Soma quietly checked his phone. Mina remained out of contact.

"Here, let me explain," the girl started, and Soma couldn't figure out a way to stop her. The upshot seemed to be something about the US and the Cold War, and a betrayal, and a gun nut caveman who ate anything he could stuff into his mouth was sent in to fix everything and this was charming?

The guy waited around for the girl to finish explaining, then went off on his own. "Here, check this out. This was only available on the original Playstation 2 release, not on any of the ports or anything. It's an entirely different engine they couldn't get to work in the newer versions, so-"

"Hey, look, I'm sure that's cool and all-" Soma started, only to be cut off with a "No, no, this'll only take a minute! Look!"

Onscreen, the primitive 3d models were replaced by a plain background and some numbers. The caveman onscreen grunted about his mouth hurting and wanting a story, and a woman started talking something about a renfield and wind and masters and Soma really couldn't pretend anymore.

"Oh, look at the time! I'm sorry, I gotta go. Your game is cool, though!" Soma stood up in haste and backed away. He'd wait for Mina outside or something. Better than having to keep feigning interest in another gun nut, especially one who didn't even have the decency to pay him.

"But- We're almost to the cool bit!" the girl called out after him.

Soma gave them one last awkward smile and ran away, inwardly vowing to never have anything to do with solid metal gears ever again.

GET IT

If you don't go play some Metal Gear Solid 3.

Happy birthday, Soma!