Chapter 4 - The Trick to the Crane Game is to Pull it in Close (3/?)

By the time they reached the third floor, the atmosphere had lightened up quite a bit.

The first floor's stores were primarily for food, cafés, and general living items. The second floor's stores were all related to fashion. They planned to visit those places once Micha got back, so they made their way to the third floor. That floor was for entertainment shops.

The stores were all entertainment related: books, music, snacks, movies, etc. Mutsuki had chosen it because it had plenty of stores that sold things Ange would probably like to see, such as kid's accessories and amusement products.

But as soon as they arrived, Ange's interest latched onto one spot in particular.

"What's this place? It sure is loud. Game Master City?"

"It's an arcade. They have games there."

"The whole place is for games?"

"Yup."

"You're kidding."

Her mouth hung open as she looked around.

Her reaction was hardly surprising. Game Master City took up a full third of SeeDWalK's third floor and it was one of the town's leading amusement parks. More than just video games, it had ping pong, pool tables, a bowling alley, karaoke, and a manga café. It even had an indoor tennis and futsal court for rent until seven at night.

Sakae would often drag Mutsuki to arcades, including this one, so it was actually the perfect spot for him to show Ange around. He followed her as she rushed inside.

"Hmmm… You humans really are geniuses when it comes to the most pointless things."

Despite the backhanded compliment, she smiled happily and ran around the arcade.

"What's this?"

"The crane game. After putting in some money, you move this around to grab the prize."

"What's this?"

"Horse racing. You buy a token from those machines and bet on this. All the games in this area need tokens to-…"

"What's this?"

"At least hear me out. This is a photo booth. It takes your picture."

As she dragged him around, Mutsuki checked on the contents of his wallet. He was not about to use the card for games. His investigation turned up a total of about 7000 yen. That seemed like it would be enough.

"I want to try them! Tell me how to do it!"

In an unsurprising turn of events, she called him over as soon as she pulled out a 1000 yen bill. He smiled bitterly and broke it down into 100 yen coins.

"Which one do you want to try?"

"This one. Everyone's smiling, so it looks fun."

She pointed at a nearby booth and tugged on his sleeve.

"Um, but…"

He was a little troubled, but before he could say anything more, he was dragged into the booth covered in pictures of "everyone smiling".

He was unsure what to say since this technically was not a game, but he could not refuse Ange when she looked so excited. He inserted a coin and decided showing her would be faster than explaining.

"Well? Well? What do I do?"

"Um, first, you choose a frame. Which size do you want? There are five options."

"Size? I don't know what you're talking about, but the bigger the better."

"Then I'll go with the biggest one. I'll set the brightness to automatic and add no decorations. …Okay, here it goes."

He doubted she knew what was going to happen, but she looked charming enough with the excited sparkle in her eyes.

He was embarrassed standing next to her, so he left a space between them and smiled awkwardly.

"C'mon, what kind of game is it?"

She was still grabbing onto the elbow of his sleeve and she pulled him in close.

At that exact moment, the booth took the picture.

"??"

She turned around in surprise at the sudden light, but her long and skinny eyebrows twisted when the booth did nothing more.

Mutsuki was somewhat troubled as he checked the photo on the screen, but he guessed she would be mad if he retook it. He touched the "confirm" button on the panel and it took around a dozen seconds to print the photos.

"What is this?"

"Like I was saying, this machine isn't actually a game."

Anger visibly grew on Ange's face when he handed her the printed photos.

He began to wonder if he should have retaken it after all. Depending on how one looked at it, it almost looked like they were smiling together with their arms linked.

"What is this!? So it just takes pictures? That isn't a game at all!"

"Well, you're actually supposed to draw on the pictures you take."

"Where's the fun in that!? How stupid!"

He had started this because he had thought she would find something "stupid" to be fun, but she had gotten mad instead. She seemed to especially dislike how friendly they looked in the photo. She blushed and stomped out of the booth.

Mutsuki scratched at his head and followed her.

But he did secretly pocket his first one-on-one photo with a girl since it had come out so well.

Ange seemed more cautious after that first failure, so she avoided any kind of machine with a screen as she started searching for something that looked fun.

Even in such a large place, there was only so much they could do, so they naturally ended up at a certain device.

"You called this the crane game?"

"Yes. You grab the prizes with that crane."

"Hmm."

Still looking sullen, she stopped in front of the prize area that contained over one hundred machines.

The prizes were exposed behind a single layer of glass and one could snag one for as little as one hundred yen. The genre had an attraction for people like her who knew little of normal games and it drew her attention quite well.

"Want to try it? Although it's not easy, so I doubt you can get anything."

There were plenty of varieties: orthodox cranes, shovels that scooped up treats and glass beads, extending arms, baskets the prizes were shaken into, and hooks to snag the prizes. For a beginner like her, he guessed the roulette that relied entirely on luck would give her the best odds of success, but…

"I can teach you the trick to it if you want. So which one do you-… Uh, oh."

"…"

When he noticed what her slanted blue eyes were focused on, he grimaced.

She apparently wanted a Lazy Bear cushion, based on a mascot character that had gotten popular recently. It was a large prize and there was only one per machine. And of course, each play in those machines cost two hundred yen.

"I can get this too?"

"Um… W-well, yes. If you can grab it. But…"

"I'll do it. Just tell me how."

Her unconcerned tone of voice would not take no for an answer, so Mutsuki had no choice but to operate the machine in question and...

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Thats a long chapter so see you around