Yuuri and Saito walk up to the front of the arcade, emblazoned with a neon sign marking it as Grand Stage Heaven. The warm glow of the lights are both welcoming and intimidating them at the entrance.

Yuuri speaks up, her voice taking on a nervous affectation, “A-are you sure this is the arcade we should be going to?”

Saito brushes his hair aside. “Of course, this is the only one in Akiba with the machines I had in mind.”

The two walk in and Yuuri is somewhat struck by the number of machines while Saito keeps his cool and continues moving.

“Wow… there’s so many games! All in one place! This is am-” She stops herself, keen as to not reveal her inner nerd. “I mean, w-we gotta keep our mind focused, Saito! We’re not here to goof off, we’re here to investigate!”

Saito waves his hand as he scans the arcade floor for the dance machine area. “Yeah, yeah, we can do that later, the ghosts aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.” He perks up. “Oh, there’s the Hi-Hat Pandemonium machines, what I want should be close to that.”

“Oh, Hi-P? You mean the drumming game?”

“Yeah, that one. You play it a lot?” Saito looks at Yuuri, slightly surprised.

“O-o-of course not! I watch, uh, my brother play!” Yuuri defends herself shakily.

“You have a brother?”

“I… uh… I mean….” Yuuri stammers for a moment, grabbing her phone out of her pocket and fiddling with it.

“Hey, it looks like Katsuki needs help with the investigation, I’ll be right back!” She turns and quickly leaves before Saito can make a sound.

“Maybe there is something spooky in here, Yuuri’s acting weird… Maybe I can beat a ghost in Funky Sumo.” He chuckles to himself as he heads to the dance machines.

“Ah, Noise Volta, how I’ve missed you. Let’s see how I can step today.” Saito climbs on the machine’s dance pad, slides some coins in, and begins to dance. Song after song, he dances, keeping a fairly high score throughout.

Time melts away. After a particularly hard song, the screen flashes. “A new challenger is Stepping Up!” Saito looks to his side. “Ah, you’re that girl, aren't you? Yuuri’s friend.” He gets into position for the next song. “2KY, right?”

The girl in the decorated ball cap covered in a hoodie looks him in the eye with a grin. “Y2K, and yeah, I’ve come back from your past to take you up on that challenge. Now, let’s dance!” The song begins, and they violently slam their feet into the dance pad.

After a few songs, both are somewhat worn out. “Heh, we split the wins.” Y2K says, smiling. “You… you havin’ fun?”

Saito looks back with a grin of his own. “Well, I could be having more fun, but sometimes you gotta practice hard if you wanna get better.” He steps off the machine, wiping his brow. “I guess it’s the only kind of effort I like to give.” He looks over at her. “Man, I’m glad the others aren’t here. They’d be wanting me to put in effort lookin’ for crazy stuff instead of letting me have fun like this.”

Y2K starts to look concerned. “E-eh? Y-you mean, your friends… that I met at that game tournament before?! D-do you not like spending time with them?” She looks, trying her best not to get sad and blow her cover.

“Eh… they’re not bad people. Just on a different wavelength from me.” Saito smiles.

“Well, then… do you wanna keep playing? W-we’re still split, you know.” Y2K smiles a bit, her face betraying her mock confidence.

“Yeah, sure. You choose the game this time, though, since I chose last. Gotta keep it fair, y’know?” Saito stretches a bit more, then lets Y2K lead the way.

Looking through machines, the couple soon come across two large linked driving game cabinets. “Ah, here we go. Something simple, yet devious! Let’s compete in Shobun Karts!”

Saito shrugs, then goes to the other side and gets in the opposite facing machine. “Haven’t played this in a while, hope I’m not too rusty.”

A light cackle comes from the hoodied girl. “Hey, don’t be giving excuses before the match even starts!” The two slide their coins into the machine. As she is choosing the stage, a thought pops into her head. Wait, wait. Yuuri, you shouldn’t be going along with the flow so easily! We’re on a mission, darn it! We should be- The thought is cut off by the loud countdown to start the race. She comes to her senses and quickly gets into driving mode just in time for the game to start.

After the race, Saito smacks his hands against the steering wheel. “Awww, dammit! Just a second more and I would’ve won!”

While Saito is grumbling about the game, Y2K takes the chance to take her phone out to send Saito a message. “Just remember, we have to meet up with Katsuki and the others in about 2 hours!”

She barely has time to put her phone away before Saito stomps over to her. “Man, what a letdown; I had you beat and then the game felt sorry for you!”

Y2K’s face shows mock anger as she returns the sentiment. “Yeah, you were going down, but then you really went down… Then took me with you!” She looks at him with a mean glare.

“Man, that killed my competitive spirit.” Saito scruffles his hair, looking around, before spotting another machine. “How about we call it a draw for today and play something co-op? Just to relax before I have to return to my friends for this thing.”

“Eh… sure! It’ll be a nice way to get over being cheated out of winning.” Y2K smirks. “You sure you got time?”

“Well, the text I just got said two hours, so… it should be enough. And if not, well, they can wait a few more minutes. “ Saito says with a hint of gloom about him before pointing out a machine to her. “How about we run through ‘RunOut: Terror from the Trunk’?” That should be less than 2 hours.

“Oh, we’re speedrunners now?” she says tauntingly.

“Nah, nothing so official. I just know my way through the game like the back of my hand. Long as you let me drive we’ll clear it quick enough to not be a problem.” Saito replies, avoiding the barb.

With a smile, Y2K hops off the racing machine. “Okay! I like the shooting better anyway!”

Saito smirks from behind her. “Don’t worry, the dinosaurs aren’t as scary as the zombies from the last shooting game you played!” He calls out before they head towards the game.

“Why, you…. I’m sure nothing in these games is scarier than you behind the wheel of a car!” She tries to get him back, but he brushes it off as he climbs in the machine.

“We better clear it quickly, because I don’t have a lot of money left. I’m going to so broke tonight…”

“Well, if you wanna play more later I can spot you some coin.”

Saito shakes his head. “I don’t like being indebted to people, even with small amounts.”

Y2K shrugs as she grabs the gun and sits next to Saito in the car-shaped cabinet. They both hit the player start buttons at the same time, causing a loud roar from the machine. As the game starts, a dinosaur jumps onto the screen.

“Waaaahhh!” Y2K screams as she fires at the machine, holding her control well enough to kill the reptile and allowing Saito to hit the gas and begin the ride.

“Heh, you ready for this game? It’s got a lot of jump outs like that.” Saito mocks.

“I-I know, it just caught me off guard!” she pouts, holding her gun close while waiting for the next dino to jump out.

This continues with Saito driving very well and Y2K having trouble at points but more often holding her own. As they play, little jabs of banter are traded with every mistake. It takes a few continues, but eventually they complete the game.

“Yay! We did it!” she exits the machine and does a victory dance.

“Yeah, but we needed to continue so much that I ran out of money.” Saito hangs his head a bit, but is still smiling.

“Aww, don’t tell me it wasn’t worth it!”

Saito raises his head to look at her, still smiling. “Of course it was, I wouldn’t waste my money on something that wasn’t.”

A slight blush spreads across the girl’s face, but she shakes it off. “W-well, do you have time to do anything else? L-like, look around at some of the shops?”

Saito shakes his head. “It’s about time for me to head to the meeting point, I don’t want to be overly late.” He stretches, then continues “I’m not much of a window shopper, anyway.”

She notices Saito beginning to walk away. “Hey, you sure? We didn’t get to decide a winner between us!”

“Hey, like I said, I’m out of money. When I get another pocketful of coin, let’s meet up so I can finally show you how great I am.” Saito says with a backwards hand wave.

A notification tone brings Y2K’s attention back to her phone. She says to herself, “Hey, there’s still a bit more than an hour left before the meeting! I guess Saito really did want to just get away…” She keeps staring at her phone, then gets an idea. “Hey, if I text him as Yuuri, maybe he’ll be okay with spending a bit of time doing something before the meeting!”

She rushes to the restroom, changing back into her normal street clothes, then sends out a text to Saito. “Hey, are you free? If you are, do you want to check out the Ultra Tomato store with me while we’re here?” She hits send, then moves to the outside of the arcade. Yuuri reaches a bench on the street and takes a seat, only waiting a few minutes before getting a reply.

“yeah mite as well no mony tho that ok?” Saito texts back.

“Okay, I’ll meet you there!” Yuuri sends back before pocketing her phone and quickly heading to the building that hosts the retro game store. It’s only a few minutes later that Yuuri spots Saito in the crowd. She rushes to his side and calls to him. “Hey, Saito, there you are! What took you so long?”

Saito laughs. “Sorry, just a lot of foot traffic around here. Made it tough to get around.”

Yuuri smiles, "It's not that big of an issue. It took me a bit of an effort to get here too. They messed my clothes up a bit." She pats her clothes down to straighten them out.

“At least nothing happened,” Saito says, before changing his expression into a slight smirk. “So, why did you wanna come to a game store?” he asks with a teasing voice.

Yuuri had already come up with a cover story this time, so she calmly replies, “Oh, my father loves these old games, so I wanted to get him one he didn’t have as a gift!” She smiles, feeling clever on the inside.

“I see. Let’s go ahead and find something good for your dad, then.” Saito grabs Yuuri’s hand and guides her into the store, mostly so they don’t lose each other in the crowd.

Yuuri blushes in surprise at the hand grab, but lets him guide her into the store. When they get through the door, the crowd is much more manageable, letting them take the view in. There’s several shelves stock full of games of every kind from every era. Even Saito needs a minute to take it all in. Yuuri says in an excitedly hushed tone, “I… I can’t believe I’m actually here! It looks like they have everything here!”

Saito gives a low whistle. ”Yeah, this is a pretty impressive place.” He follows Yuuri somewhat closely as she dreamily wanders around the area, trying to take it all in more than actively searching for a specific title.

“Look, Saito! They have an unopened Welcome Catty Sleepcast!” Yuuri points out a white console adorned with a cat character sitting behind a glass case. She then spins around, and her eyes get even wider. “Look, Saito! They even have a signed copy of Father 2!” She spins around again. “Oh, oh, look Saito! They even have a Virtua Girl! I thought those all were destroyed because nobody wanted them!”

Saito simply waits out Yuuri’s geek-out, giving non-committal “Oh yeah, you’re right” responses to each shout out. He looks at a copy of one of the first Mobani games ported to console, then quickly looks away when he sees the price tag. “Man, the prices on these just make my head spin.” Yuuri stops to look at him, her rambling being cut off mid-sentence. “Man, you and your old man must really be into this stuff. I kinda wanted to collect games like these, but there's just too much and it's so expensive.”

Yuuri tilts her head in curiosity. “Oh, uh, you only really play arcade stuff, huh? It’s way more affordable, but… you don’t get the same kind of experience as playing at home!”

Saito rubs the back of his head. “The kind of things I like to play mostly are better in arcades, anyway. Plus, I like collecting other stuff more. I have a pretty cool bunch of arcade soundtracks.”

Yuuri looks at Saito and smiles. “You have good taste! I heard those songs a lot as a kid.” She goes to continue her browsing, but then catches herself “W-Watching my dad play them, I mean!” Yuuri then goes back to looking at the shelves with a nervous blush.

He chuckles, continuing the conversation while Yuuri searches. “It was all I could afford though, it's like old games, some of them have ridiculous prices. I just like hearing the songs any time I want instead of having to wait to get home or get to the arcade to play the game, I guess.” He puts the CDs back in his backpack. “But, it’s like your dad. Most people download these old things, but I love having the physical thing.”

“Yeah, you should see my c-my dad’s collection!” Yuuri clumsily boasts. “It’s not even close to complete, but it’s got someone for everyone, I-I’d imagine!”

The two keep looking, Yuuri going through shelf after shelf somewhat meticulously, while Saito takes his time to look at some of the more displayed items. Yuuri continues to point out anything rare or unusual to Saito, who finds himself amused each time. Yuuri has a few games in her hands when her phone starts buzzing, as does Saito’s.

“Hey, we found something interesting, come meet up with us at the restaurant.” the text reads on each phone.

“Oh, shoot!” Yuuri says, looking at the games she had set down in front of her. “Now I have to decide which ones to get, and in a hurry! I can’t believe we lost track of time like this!” She frantically looks between the carts, then quickly grabs three at almost random. “I-I guess these ones will have to do! Let me go pay for them and we’ll be on our way. Would you tell Katsuki that we’re okay and we’ll be there soon?” Yuuri asks, already on her way to the sales counter.

“Yep, already did. Don’t get too worked up, it’ll be fine.” Saito says cooly as he pockets his phone, heading towards the door. Yuuri soon joins him with her games in a bag around her wrist.

She smiles and says as he opens the door. “You know, Saito… this was real fun!” She looks down at him with a smile. “Thanks for coming here with me.”

“Yeah, I gotta agree on that. Glad I came here with you too.” Saito smiles as he extends his hand. “Well, time to fight the crowds again. Don’t want you getting lost, right?”

“Right!” Yuuri exclaims as she takes his hand, the two beginning the walk to their next destination.