Chapter 14 – At the Arcade

We drank and ate until the one-hour limit was up, then walked out of the restaurant feeling quite satisfied.

"Haah… I'm full."

"Same. I don't think I can stuff anything else in my stomach either."

In her case, not only did she eat the kushikatsu, she also devoured all the dessert she ordered. I wonder where all that food she ate had gone? Her belly looked as small as ever.

"Well, now that we've eaten, let's go somewhere else."

"Eh, somewhere else? I wanna go home now though."

It was still early in the evening, but my eyelids were feeling heavy after eating such a large dinner. If there was a bed next to me, I'm sure I could immediately fall asleep as soon as I lay my head on it.

"No. Since we've eaten so much, we should move our bodies a little, don't you think? Besides, don't you still have 500 yen left?"

Apparently, Asanagi was planning to use up my budget for the day.

The 2000 yen was my money for dinner, but it was also my allowance. If I spent it all, I couldn't buy the things that I wanted to buy.

"C'mon, let's go ~ you don't want to let a frail girl like me walk alone in this street right? Maehara, you're the worst ~"

"…This frail girl has a thick face."

It seemed like I had no choice but to follow Asanagi's lead.

So, after leaving the kushikatsu restaurant, Asanagi and I moved toward the amusement center inside the station area.

It was the weekend, the place was crowded with people even after dinner. Intense flickering light came out from the game screen, lighting the dimly lit area. There was also the loud echo of the bass, resounding through the floor.

And of course, the voices of the people enjoying their games were also there.

"Thanks for waiting, here are the tokens."

"Thank you."

Apparently, to play the games here, you had to buy some tokens first. Asanagi and I each bought 500 yen worth of medals, so in total, we had 1.000 yen worth.

It seems like 1000 yen got us quite a lot of tokens, going by how full the cup was.

We could easily mess around for an hour with this many.

"Is this your first time coming here, Maehara?"

"Whenever I came to go to the game store upstairs, I only glanced at this place, I found that this place is too noisy for my taste."

"So, it's your first time."

I'm not the type of person who would casually go to these places by myself. This place was filled mostly with people who brought their friends along, a loner like me wouldn't fit this atmosphere. Telling a loner like me something like 'go play there alone for two hours' feels more like a form of harassment than anything.

Asanagi probably had visited this place quite a few times along with Amami-san and the others… She seemed familiar with this place.

"Alright, let's put those tokens to good use."

"You sound like a pachinko addict. Are you okay?" (T/N: basically gambling machine, including but not limited to slots)

I had a bad feeling after hearing that line coming from her mouth. Is everything gonna be okay?

"Don't worry, don't worry. I'm good at these games, so you can hop on my boat and sail to victory with me."

"Victory my butt… Also, are you always acting up like this whenever you come here?"

"Of course not, if I act like this in front of Yuu and the others, it will conjure up a disaster."

"Then, please act normally while playing with me too."

Then again, I didn't know which game was fun to play, so I ended up following Asanagi.

The game that she picked was… A horse racing game. How this game worked was, you bet the finishing order of the race, and you'll get tokens based on the multiplier you hit. (T/N: Uma Musume but arcade kek)

"Hey, hey, Maehara ~ Which one should we pick ~? I think number 9 should be good, right?"

I don't get it. She was staring at the screen with an ecstatic face.

There seemed to be more than one way to place our bet, including single wins, triple wins, and wide. Asanagi and I decided to place our bet based on our predictions, the game multipliers, and various other factors. (T/N: single wins and such are the types of bets you can place on horse races, single means you pick a horse that will win the race, triple means you pick three horses for the first, second, and third position of the race, and wide, I don't know, I can't find anything about it)

We decided to go with the single wins. Our odds of winning were lower, but it seemed to be the most fun option, so all is good. Asanagi… put a lot of tokens in, will that be okay?

[Okay, all the horses in line! The one ahead is the number 8, Admiral Lind—!!]

"Alright! That's great, keep it up…!"

Asanagi whispered to herself while looking at the large screen.

Though everything was just a game, I still put my tokens in, so I also looked forward to seeing who would win this race. I wasn't as excited as Asanagi though.

"Huh? Maehara, won't we win at this rate? Yo, it's coming, it's coming!"

"Seriously…"

Both Asanagi and I placed the same bet for the winner, so if we hit it, we'll both get the jackpot.

The race was approaching the final lap as the horse we picked galloped past its other competitors and—

"Oh, here it comes!"

"Let's go baby ~! Three times profit, that's what I'm talking about!"

The horse that we had bet on came in first. Asanagi also bet on a couple of horses and her prediction on their finishing position came true, resulting in her winning a huge amount of tokens.

When we recounted our tokens, they easily doubled the original amount.

The tokens that I had to carry felt heavy in my hands.

"I thought it would be a flop, but I'm glad I bet on your beginner's luck. Thank you, Maehara!"

"You're welcome."

I was a little bit nervous thinking what would happen if we had lost, but we won, so all is good. With this many tokens, we could play as long as we want here.

"Alright, now that we have more tokens…"

I was about to move on to the next game with the pile of tokens in hand, but before I knew it, Asanagi, who had been standing next to me, was standing in front of the horse racing machine again.

"Asanagi, what are you doing?"

"Hah? What are you on about, Maehara? The previous win was just the beginning, the real game starts now."

I knew it.

Asanagi tried to push her luck even more here.

She even placed most of our tokens as her bet.

And so, the result of that was…

"…Hey, Maehara."

"What?"

"…I'm sorry."

"As long as you repent, it's fine."

We lost a lot of tokens and ended up with less than what we started with.

I secretly swore in my heart to never let Asanagi gamble again.