Rebellion of the Soul

Chapter 5: By My Own Side

A faint echo resounded from two disembodied voices in the corners of the arcade. Chanting and giggling from a silvery and gradually more bubbly voice reverberated along the walls of one side, while sympathetic hums that hid a sense of calmness could be heard close behind.

As the source of these voices came into view, an unknown girl, whose outline was fuzzy and intangible, was operating one side of the arcade machine with rapid efficiency. An all too familiar girl stood with a sharpened but less noticeable visibility to the left of her.

The unknown girl had brunette dyed hair, with the ghostly shadow of the natural blackness cast underneath, as if it were haunting the new colour. Her face was minimalistic and fair, so much so that it seemed to radiate its own light and pass it onto others. However, this had little effect on the girl standing beside her, despite her dwindling attempts to hide her inherently dejected disposition.

Vaguely distorted to the ears, the brunette girl's voice slowly became comprehensible.

"Phew, you really should pick it up. It's first to three wins and I'm already on two. If you were half as good at this as you are at singing then it would be a different story."

The girl she was addressing struggled to form a reply, tilting her head down to focus. Instead, the brunette continued.

"No wonder everyone thinks I'm the lead vocalist."

"That's only because I can't get much of a word in with your constant wittering, Ritsuko"

"No excuses! This is our downtime now, so your head should be as clear as a freshly filtered fish tank."

The recognisable girl sighed softly, a distant hint of contentedness in the wake. She nodded with an intended sense of confidence and pretended to move the joystick and press the buttons with more vigour.

"No, No, what are you doing?" The brunette girl chuckled, struggling to say these words with a straight face. "You have to play better, not just smash the buttons and hope for the best. Here, let me show you."

She lifted her hands from her side of the cabinet, shifted them with little patience through the small gap between them and placed them gently on top of the hands of the other girl, their skin pressing ever so slightly together. The recognisable girl shivered with uncertainty and tried to pull her hands from underneath, but the temperament of the brunette girl stalled her movements. She couldn't quite understand why the other girl wanted to help her in this way.

She relaxed as her movements were guided with swift but precise action, her eyes phasing out and focusing only on the fluidity of the movements. Suddenly she snapped back as the brunette girl lifted her hands away and chuckled, clamping her fist in victory.

"See? As long as I'm here with you, you'll never lose"

The familiar girl nodded carefully and gave a shy grin, rubbing her clothed hand over the back of her neck in pittance but also in secret admiration. 

The clothes of the cheery brunette gradually became visible, the fuzzy outline petering away. A pair of tight but comfortable black chinos, possibly even men's chinos, and a delicately worn auburn cloth t-shirt with a pink trim and a neon green star printed at the chest. It gave a sense of personal style but no care for high fashion. Tied around her waist was a dainty pouch, matching the base colour of t-shirt, which contained a collection of guitar picks and numerous other handy guitar equipment, still partially clouded to the vision. She stepped lightly on her faded red sneakers to avoid tripping on her frayed and charred shoelaces, and playfully prodded the other girl on her shoulder.

She whined with the same amiable demeanour. "C'mon, we're going to be late for practice, remember how grouchy Sakurai can get?"

The other girl nodded and suddenly her face was awash with a prepared expression. She shuffled her hand about in the right pocket of her skirt and presented a set of keys to the brunette girl, garnering a knowing smile from her.