Dude, Why Are You a Girl?
One slice of pizza, offered up as tribute so she would stop crushing my foot.
Jo Jeong watched in silence, then accepted the slice set in front of her. She shot me a sharp glare, as if to say she would let it slide just this once.
She reached out to grab the pizza with her hand, only to freeze when the fork and knife beside the plate caught her eye. Fork in her left hand, knife in her right. She awkwardly stabbed the center of the slice, then sawed at it with clumsy strokes of the knife. You could tell at a glance she wasn't used to this; she looked like she was locked in a fight with the pizza.
Once she had managed, with some effort, to cut a piece free, she lifted whatever was speared on the fork. At the sight of the cheese pulling into a long strand she let out a small, "Oh..." Then she popped the cut piece into her mouth in one bite and started to chew.
"...Mhm."
A wide, dopey grin bloomed across her face. Whoever had been angry a moment ago was gone. She made a sound like a contented cat and savored the pizza.
Watching her, I found myself thinking that the world really did have people who could eat this happily. Whether I was admiring the sight or not, Jo Jeong was soon spearing another piece and carefully slicing away with the knife. She still wasn't used to it, though, and with an awkward scrape the fillings under the cheese kept squishing out to the side. It was hard to just sit and watch, so I spoke up.
"If you're not used to it, why not just eat it with your hands?"
At my meddling she gave a small flinch and asked,
"...Is that allowed? Even like that?"
"Why wouldn't it be? Only people who don't want to get their hands dirty eat it that way."
"I thought you always had to do it like this when you were out."
Sometimes, I swear, this kid is on another planet.
I let a small laugh slip out at her excuse that wasn't quite an excuse. She must have heard it, because she shot me another sharp glare... but the moment she grabbed the pizza in her hand and took a big bite, her attention snapped right back to the food.
"Mmm, mm-hmm."
"Good?"
She nodded. Jo Jeong bit through the stretching strand of cheese and bobbed her head, and the munch, munch you only ever see in manga popped into mine.
I hadn't even made it. And yet the reactions kept bursting out of her, the kind that pull a smile out of you for no reason at all. Watching her like that stirred my appetite too, so I started in on the pizza. Maybe because she had been eating so happily right in front of me, it tasted even better.
Good thing we had come. If we had just grabbed something at the PC bang, I never would have seen this.
Quietly satisfied, I went on with the meal.
Jo Jeong and I made short work of the pizza and spaghetti. The plates came back clean, so the claim that we wouldn't have to worry about leftovers hadn't been empty talk.
What I had eaten came to thirty percent at most. She had a healthy appetite, and she had eaten most of it. Even so, I wasn't particularly unsatisfied. The person across from me simply ate that well, and even thirty percent was a lot of food, given how much there had been.
At any rate, once we were finished we paid and walked the streets. On the off chance, I checked the PC bang again, but sure enough every seat was taken.
Maybe she felt guilty about that. Walking beside me, Jo Jeong kept sneaking glances at my face. I glanced back at her and said,
"I told you it's fine. We even got something good to eat, for once."
"...I didn't say anything."
"It's written all over your face."
She flinched. Jo Jeong tried to talk her way around it, but I had already read that too, and all she could manage was,
"Nngh..."
"We're not getting it all in one go anyway, so what's there to feel so sorry about? Come back tomorrow or the day after and make up for it."
"Still."
"If it really bothers you, buy me a meal next time. Drinks work too."
"...Okay."
Jo Jeong nodded, reluctant. That was agreement. I let out a small puff of a laugh.
We walked, and walked, and walked some more, until we ended up in front of an arcade.
We hadn't been aiming for it. We had met up, and parting the second the meal was over felt wrong, but there wasn't anything in particular to do either, so we had simply gone wherever our feet took us and happened to arrive. Jo Jeong was standing blankly beside me, and from the look of her she didn't dislike arcades. I pointed inside.
"Want to go in?"
"Nothing else to do. Yeah."
She agreed readily, so I opened the door and we went in.
The first thing that registered was the loud music peculiar to rhythm games. Next came the impact sounds of characters from the fighting-game cabinets lined up beside them. Beyond those were shooters, racing games, and the rest—the whole spread of cabinets you picture the moment someone says arcade.
Most arcades don't carry this many kinds of games. The interior was spacious, too. The place had to be fairly large.
"Been a while, an arcade."
Jo Jeong, still standing blankly beside me, let the words slip out to herself. The rhythm cabinets were so loud it was hard to catch, but I could make it out well enough. I raised my voice.
"Same here. You'd have to actually have a reason to come."
"These days you can do everything on a computer. So there's no reason to go to an arcade anymore. I figure that's just how it is."
"The way you say that, you've been a lot?"
"A little, a long time ago. A friend really liked that game."
"Aha."
She pointed with her index finger. It was the second entry in a famous 2D fighting-game series.
I had played it too. Famous enough to be called the birth of fighting games—if you liked games at all, it would be stranger never to have tried it. I started slowly toward the cabinet she had indicated and asked,
"Want to play a round, then?"
If we were going to play, it ought to be something we both knew. That was all I had meant by it.
But maybe, to her, it sounded like I had thrown down a challenge. Jo Jeong answered,
"You're probably going to lose."
"You are?"
"No. You are."
She said it while letting out a laugh that made me sound ridiculous.
...This brat?
Heat flared for a second. I had asked half as a way to kill time, and what came back was mockery. That mockery poked my will to win.
I fired back with the exact same laugh. My pride had taken a solid scratch, so I strode up to the cabinet and dropped into the seat. Then I called to Jo Jeong, still standing blankly behind me.
"What are you doing? You coming or not? You were all you're gonna lose, you're gonna lose, and now that we're actually doing it, you scared?"
That one was a clear challenge. No. A provocation.
Jo Jeong stared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing. She cackled for a good long while, and around the time it died down she came and sat beside me. She even pulled out a coin and fed it in with practiced ease. She was accepting the provocation.
Yeah. That's more like it. Even if I lost, I wasn't going down easy. I played this game pretty well myself—well enough to brag, if it came up, that I had put some time in.
Thinking that, I picked my character. Jo Jeong picked hers too, the smile still lingering on her face.
Our match began.
And not much time passed at all.
Jo Jeong's character knocked mine down in an instant, carried the offense straight into a combo, and turned my health bar into a rag in seconds. Then she drove me to the wall, toyed with my character, teabagged me a few times for good measure, and finished clean with a grab.
The thought that came to me, watching that, was simple. I should not have talked shit.
A stretch of time cruel enough that I could barely keep my eyes open had passed. A stretch in which Jo Jeong's character squatted with great enthusiasm and thoroughly made a fool of my character—no, of me, here in real life.
By rights, fighting-game etiquette calls for a best of three. But I had no desire to sit through this wretched, obvious outcome a second time, so the moment the match ended I tucked my tail.
"I lost..."
"Bow your head a little lower. Idiot. Loser."
Loser. Jo Jeong tacked the word on and cut me down with it. I had no rebuttal. In the world of fighting games, the one who loses is supposed to shut up and take it.
I bowed my head a little deeper and focused on swallowing my anger.
Actually, there was no need to swallow it. Think about it. This hadn't even been a remotely even match. I had been beaten by someone on a completely different level. The game had never been viable to begin with.
Once you recognize that, a person paradoxically grows calm, the way you don't get angry at being caught in a natural disaster. And all I was doing was feeling that calm through my whole body.
While I was occupied with thoughts that pathetic, Jo Jeong tapped my shoulder.
"That's enough. Head up. It was fun, playing after so long."
I looked up at her face at once. The corner of her mouth was slightly lifted, and the cheeks that still held her smile were faintly flushed. Beating me must have been that enjoyable.
Right. As long as you're happy, then that's all—
"And don't take it too hard. Losing to someone who's good isn't anything to be ashamed of."
"What?"
Heat shot up the instant her line cut in on what I had been thinking. Hadn't the mood, just a second ago, been the kind that was going to pass over all warm and gentle?
And this kid's face was genuinely smug. More irritating than the teabagging she had wrecked me with mid-match.
"...Hey."
"Yeah. I'm listening."
"Get up. I'm playing my main."
The memory of losing without landing a single move vanished. I pulled a coin from my wallet and jammed it into the cabinet.
This kid. I was taking one round no matter what I had to pull. Just wait. The second I won, I was going to dump every humiliating line in existence on her.
"Heh. Sure. Not that it'll be any different."
Jo Jeong snorted and took the stick.
Fine. Let's see who ends up crying at the end.
And so the rematch began...
"Damn it, damn it, fuck...!"
"I told you it wouldn't be any different."
"Gyaaaah...!!"
In a flash I had racked up four and a half losses—one round won, and even that only because she had let me have it. Seized by stubbornness, I kept challenging her until I nearly missed the last train home, and with that shameful little episode added to the record, the night came to an end.
"I'll head out, then?"
"Yeah. Get home safe."
"Yeah. You get home safe too. That was fun."
A light wave. He gave a small wave, tapped his card at the gate, and passed through.
He was Han Siyun. The gaming friend I had played with for four years. His handle was Sword Saint Han Siyun, a name you could tell at a glance had been lifted straight from his real one. The peculiar part was that his class, of all things, was a mage.
Anyway, I waved back just the same and saw him off. Something about the sight must have amused him; he let out a short laugh and turned his back.
I stared blankly past the gate, and only turned around once he had vanished completely from view.
I stretched, long and easy. The stiffness from sitting nearly all day eased, and a pleasant looseness spread through me.
A lot had happened today. Well, calling it a lot was a stretch. Eating out and stopping by an arcade were the only things different from usual. Maybe I was just worked up from doing something that counted as going outside for the first time in a while.
"Heh..."
One step, then another. My steps toward home were light. Steps that would normally have been nothing but heavy felt incredibly light.
No... maybe they felt a little heavier, too. Having tasted this kind of fun and joy, going home had started to feel like a shame.
I turned the day over in my head with thoughts like that, and before I knew it I had arrived. The front door was there to meet me. With familiar hands I worked the lock and stepped inside.
"...Haa."
And I swallowed the sigh that slipped out on its own. Broken plates. A family photo lying on the floor. I hadn't cleaned any of the mess, and this was the scene it left me.
I had put it off, telling myself I would take care of it when I got back. Of all times to come home late, when I didn't even have the energy. More than anything, I really didn't want to do it right now...
...Right. Tomorrow. I want to hold on to this lifted mood a little longer.
I took off my shoes and went in, glancing carefully around.
Dad... yeah. He isn't here. Yesterday had only been a brief stop, so it was about time for him to turn up again. Probably soon. Only, thankfully, that soon wasn't today.
Whatever the case, I was glad. At least for today, I could keep this good mood until I fell asleep.
I washed up and flopped onto the bed. Fatigue from walking all over for the first time in a while pressed down on my whole body. I felt like I had become one with the mattress. It wasn't an entirely bad sensation, and my eyes closed on their own.
Then—oh, right. A thought struck me, and I turned on my phone. I swiped through a few screens, tapped, and started a message to Siyun.
My place was close, so I had gotten back quickly, but he seemed to live pretty far. If he still hadn't made it home, I figured I ought to at least keep him company on the way.
One ordinary text, sent like that. Now to wait for a reply.
......
......
"Why isn't there a reply."
I must have waited about ten minutes. No—he hadn't even read it.
Had something happened? With a thread of worry, I sent a message he couldn't possibly ignore if he happened to see it.
But.
"...He's not reading."
At this point I was genuinely starting to worry. What if he had been kidnapped somewhere. Or what if, when we met today, he hadn't liked how I acted and blocked me...?!
"No way."
I spun out one delusion after another, then quickly let out an empty laugh and folded the worry away. What I had imagined was so absurd that it snapped me back to my senses.
He was probably just tired and had fallen asleep a while ago.
Once I had reasoned it out, I felt much more at ease. And with the worry gone, another thought moved in to take its place—thoughts of him, someone I had met for the first time today and yet had known for a long time.
I had never expected to meet my gaming friend in real life. At least, not him. Somehow the circumstances had piled up, and this had happened.
Come to think of it, he had been pretty good-looking. Honestly, I had never imagined he would look like that. All I had been hoping was that he wouldn't turn out to be some unpleasant-looking older guy.
Oh, right. In-game he seemed normal enough in his own way, but meeting him, he was actually pretty strange. Not strange so much as fun, maybe. Usually it's the other way around. How does a person end up like this?
I had been thinking things like that for a while when, before I knew it, I had gone completely slack. I couldn't put any more strength into lifting my eyelids. A pleasant drowsiness I hadn't felt in a long time.
I gave myself over to it and began to sink into sleep. And in one corner of my fading consciousness, a small wish surfaced.
...If I can, I want to do this again tomorrow, too.