Feeling tired
Jurina opened her arms and felt right at home, as though she were being embraced by the game centre. Back when she was still in high school (she had just graduated this year), she often skipped class and came here. She didn’t have many friends, but these games were her friends. They would never betray her or bully her because of her height or hair colour. The game centre always accepted Takahashi Miyuki for who she was, and now it was going to accept Matsui Jurina the second as well.
Jurina followed Sonata over to the stall, and glanced at the giant, stuffed cat. It was, as expected, the most expensive thing up there in terms of coupons - but something like that was a piece of cake for a arcade regular. Jurina grinned, flexed her fingers, and gestured to Sonata to follow her to one of the games.
“Let Jurina onee-chan show you how this is done.”
The game she had chosen was one that was a test of skill - clearly the most popular game in the arcade, Dance Dance Revolution. Even after all these years, the game was still massive. And it had also been part of Jurina’s dancing practice prior to joining 0048…Although she never admitted that.
Perhaps recognising her, the crowd of people gathered around the machine moved aside…Though she thought that it was more obvious if they recognised Sonata. She was, after all, a member of that legendary kenkyuusei group.
But this was Jurina’s time to shine.
Choosing a 0048 song - obviously - she started it up on the most difficult mode. The crowd had hushed by now, and were watching as the machine threw out “Perfect!” over and over again. Finally finishing without breaking a sweat, Jurina stepped off and handed the mountain of coupons that had came with a perfect game over to Sonata.
“That should be about…Half of it…” She glanced back at the machine, and grinned. “Hey Sonata-chan, why don’t you give it a try? You’ve been in 0048 much longer than me, I bet that would be easy for you too.”
Sonata listened to the crowd behind her whispering things like, “Was that a challenge?” and “Sonati and Jurina-chan? Who do you think is going to win?”
Sonata tried to keep her cool, but she was practically buzzing with excitement. She stepped up the the machine and picked another 0048 song. The crowd went quiet again as the song started up. They watched as Sonata built up a combo that got bigger and longer as the song went on. She wasn’t getting ‘perfect’ moves like Jurina was getting but she was still going strong. The last step appeared on screen, a long one that you had to hold, and Sonata went to hit it but she was a split second to late and missed.
“Nooo!” Sonata cried, completely shocked she had missed that. She turned to see the crowd who were waiting for the score to appear on screen.
“No way!” Someone called from in the crowd. “They tied?”
“What!?” Sonata turned to see for herself. “Woah! We tied! How?” She turned to Jurina to see her reaction.
Jurina stared at the screen, genuinely impressed. The song she had chosen was one of the slightly-above average level dances, and it was one she had mastered and could get a perfect score on with her eyes closed. On the other hand, Sonata had played this for what was seemingly the first time, had chosen a harder song, and had gotten the same score as her. She grinned.
‘So this is the power of the 'legendary’ generation of kenkyuusei. No wonder they’re so amazing…It’s like they’re on an entirely different level. It all comes to naturally to them.’
She patted Sonata on the back, smiling widely, completely oblivious to the 'competitive’ surroundings and the whispers from the crowd. After all, despite the fact that Sonata was technically her sempai, she couldn’t help seeing her as a little sister. And older siblings would always be proud of their younger siblings succeeding.
“Wow, well done!” she exclaimed, pulling out the large roll of tokens that had come out of the machine. It was slightly smaller than the stash Jurina had previously won due to the song not having been 'perfect’ despite the same scores, but it was enough for Sonata to get the teddy bear she wanted.
But she wasn’t done yet.
“Hey, let’s check out some other games!” She looked around the arcade, easily over the heads of the gathering crowd who were swarming around the idols like bees. “What do you want to play next, Sonati?”
(Source: jurinathesecond)
