Yutaro checked his watch as he left Mochavine and saw that he still had plenty of time left before work. It was a chilly December afternoon, so it wasn't the best time of year to relax outside, and he didn't really have any shopping to do. As he walked down the street, he took out his phone and absent-mindedly swiped through the screens, before he finally decided to save Rosanna's number before he forgot it. [i]I hope I'm not burning up my luck too quickly,[/i] he thought, grinning at the prospect of getting one lovely lady's number while simultaneously making friends with another; certainly not something that happened every day. He hoped he would have the chance to get to know at least one of them a little better. But, that would have to wait. For now, he needed to find some other way to kill time.

He found himself, as he often did, at Lancom Arcade. It was usually a lively place filled with people who were playing all kinds of games. Yutaro had played every game in this establishment at least once, and had the layout of the building more or less memorized. If things hadn't worked out for him at the casino, this was his second choice. He loved the atmosphere of both places. The lights, the bells, the booming voices of the arcade machines challenging all those who walked by (did that machine actually have a motion detector on it? Sweet), all swirled together to create a mood of exciting tranquility, if that was even possible. 

He grabbed a few tokens and, as he walked around contemplating which machine he'd feed his hard-earned money, he saw quite a few interesting people. One lucky guy was getting a kiss from a cute girl by the House of the Dead machine. Another girl seemed to be having a good time at the slot machines. He wished her luck, but generally avoided slot machines at the arcade because they had lower payouts. Casinos liked to put several "loose" machines in plain sight so that patrons could see people winning and get drawn into the games. Arcades, however, used flashy dance games and other video games to draw people in; their slot machines were there to inhale as much money as the law allowed. The gamer in him was tempted to reveal the "bad rules" to her, but he decided it would probably be in bad taste to do so, so he just let the girl enjoy her game and silently wished her the best of luck.

Finally, he came to what was certainly a rather odd sight. A girl was standing in front of a fighting game machine, but instead of fighting, she was bowing her head in defeat over the controls. That was strange; typically, when people put money into a machine, it was because they wanted to play it, but she was just literally sandbagging while the pitiful level 1 AI tried to kill her before the time ran out. Yutaro was somewhat familiar with this game, and noticed that she had picked the absolute worst character in the game, one that was the butt of many online jokes since his debut. Then it clicked; she must be a newcomer to gaming and was caught like a deer in the headlights. He then resolved that it was his civic duty to give her a proper welcome into the gaming community before some trolls scared her away.

"I know the controls can be complicated at first, but you should at least give it a try," Yutaro said as he approached Tomoko, standing at the player-two slot, but not laying down a challenge just yet. "It's actually a fun game once you get the hang of it." The AI won the first round thanks to a time-up, but the situation was still salvageable. "You see, when he jumps in like that, you can hold down and push punch and you'll do an uppercut, knock him right out of the air. Go ahead and try, you can probably beat this guy with that alone." He gave her a friendly smile, oblivious to the fact that Tomoko was the last person in the world who needed advice in gaming.

[@JustYui]