Game Gyaru

Chapter 9: Memories

"That was a lot of fun." Shiuka was still living off the high she got after their team up at the arcade. Even after a full day had past and the pair were now at home after school. Personally, Hakuta tried to move on from it. All he was focused on was starting up his Toystation to go check out some possible titles to download.

While he was not one to rely heavily on digital copies for his favorite games. His current situation meant building up a physical library was impossible. Aside from space issues, at least with downloads there were also free-to-play games. So he could not worry about costs. "We should do that again." She suggested.

"No, we shouldn't." He reminded her that it was best they try and avoid having their friends be friends with each other. As weird as that may sound. Not to mention that he also didn't want to continue to get closer to her either. "Stop acting like we're buddies because we're not."

"Come on, why not?" She pouted at him, arms placed onto her hips. "I know I was a bit cold to you at first, but you're not that bad."

"Well, that's nice and all, but I don't care about what you think of me." He responded.

"What's your problem?" She asked him in a tone of annoyance. "I'm trying to make this work and you're being fussy."

"Because I didn't want any of this in the first place." He countered her point. All Hakuta was focused on was trying to get through his teen life as peacefully as possible. "Sure, you're having fun with this, but this is my life we're talking about. So he aired his frustrations out to her with a long winding monologue not worth listening. In essence, it was easy to tell how he was feeling. "Even if my old life sucked, I still liked it better." At least back then there was more variety to the games he could play.

So back to his gaming time. Hakuta decided to download a free game called 'Trip Gals' where matches were done with dozens of people tried to advance through obstacle courses before a certain number of others did so.

"I've heard of this game." She sat down besides him and tried to pull away the controller. "Can I play?"

"Don't just yank that away from me." He scolded her as he ripped the controller back under his control. "I haven't even tried it yet, and we don't have any other controllers either." Not that he'd want to play with her. Not only was this Shiuka he was talking about, but split screen didn't seem like a fun idea with a game like this.

"Fine." She got up and stormed out. Not to her room, but instead straight out of the house. While that was an odd reaction to him, the boy didn't care about that. As soon as this game was done downloading, he'd be enjoying what he did most. After some time of waiting, all that was left was to matchmake into a lobby.

It was absolute chaos as he attempted to navigate the level while competing against the 50 or so other people. Not the world's biggest challenge, except for how floaty the controls were. How was this something enjoyed playing so much when the developers couldn't get that tightened.

Still, he was able to pass through the first level in the top ten. So despite not having played this before, the boy was capable of doing well in it. Not a surprise given his years of experience had trained him to be able to learn quickly on the concepts of different games.

"I'm ba~ck!" While he was going through the next level, Shiuka had made her return. She seemed to be quite cheerful, so he wasn't certain why she left in the first place. "And I got this." In her hand, there was a plastic bag where she produced another game controller for the Toystation. "So now we can play together."

"What?" In his shock, Hakuta made a mistake and his character ended up getting killed. So he was eliminated from the match. "Darn it." The boy quipped as he was loaded back into the main menu.