Challenging love

New friends

The next day Dad insisted on giving me a haircut before Yukari brought me to meet her friends.

"You always want to look good for a girl." Is what he told me.

I was skeptical of anyone being there since there was no practice today, but Yukari insisted that people would be there. She was bouncing with every step as she led me to the tank garage.

When we arrived at the garage the first thing I noticed was a picture of some tanks that are very visible. One was bright pink, another looked like a gold bar. Yukari laughed and said that they were painted back to original colors. I walked into the garage to see some muscular girls working on a Tiger (P).

One of the girls with tan skin looked up and notices us. "Hey Yukari! Who's the friend?"

Yukari responds - "Hey Hoshino! This is my brother."

Hoshino - "Well we're busy trying to make the engine more reliable. They were notorious for breaking down."

Yukari - "They lost more tanks to break downs than actual combat."

Hoshino - "The Shark team is out back removing their flags from the Mark IV Male"

"It's about time!" One of the girls shouts to the other's amusement.

"Well, we'll go and see them and leave you to it then." Yukari says

Yukari takes my hand and leads me to the back where I see three girls tossing shells around while talking about a computer game. They looked like geeks until I saw their muscles, those are girls who you wouldn't want to get into a fight with.

Yukari quickly introduces me to them before I get lost into conversation about computer games. I mention how the corner shop is selling the arcade game and Yukari no longer tries stopping me.

"He's selling the game? But it was our favorite." Yukari asks sadly.

"Perhaps we could buy it and put it in Dad's barbershop."

Yukari gets excited. "Well let's go see the shark team first because they are usually working the inside of the ship, so you won't get many chances to meet them."

We walk towards the old metal box as they take down a flag pole. How they mounted it I have no clue but a girl with pink hair wasn't happy about it.

A girl with tan skin, long hair and a trench coat introduces herself as Ogin. She introduces the other girls to me as if she knew exactly why I was here.

The girl who was introduced as "Rum" continues complaining with a non-alcoholic beverage in her hand. "Why must we get rid of the flag? It's our symbol."

Ogin - "Rum, stop complaining and get back to work. You know very well that the flag is a giant symbol not just who we are but where we are."

"Perhaps you could hang the flag on the side or lay it on the roof."

Rum - "Hey! That's a great idea!"

Ogin - "I think it'll work. Good thinking lad."

The girl who was introduced as "Flint" speaks up. "So are you related to Yukari in any way?"

Yukari - "Yes, he is my brother."

Flint - "Interesting. Maybe you and me could go do some karaoke together."

Yukari shouts out protectively - "Stop hitting on my brother!"

Ogin laughs before resuming work with the others. "See you around."

After meeting some of Yukari's friends, we head back home and immediately begin measuring the floor to see if we could fit the machine. Luckily there was a space that only ever got used to store random stuff we never used.

After some weird looks from Dad he agreed to let us put the machine there so long as we pay for it. We would also be allowed to keep the quarters the machine makes after it's finished.

We excitedly run inside and gather our money to buy our childhood arcade machine.