The Fate of the Stars

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"Oh, great! Anyway, about the favor. You see, being the ditz I am, I accidentally left a jacket there yesterday. I left it on one of the stalls in the women's bathroom; you don't suppose you could go and check if it's still there? And if not, do you have any idea where it might be?"
 
"A jacket?..." Fuyumi recalled the events of the previous day. A clumsy girl, staggering on the ice like a deer, freezing almost half to death. Then, the chivalrous boy, lending her his balance, and his... "Very well, I shall see if I can find it. Just hold on a minute, I'll call you back." Fuyumi hung up. Her coach signaled that it was time for her to get back on the ice. "I'm just going to powder my nose, I'll be right back." She walked with her ice skates on, as if they were regular shoes, on the rubbery surface of the floor. Entering the bathroom, she scanned all the stalls, before reaching the final one. Hanging over it was the very jacket that boy had given Hikari yesterday. Picking up her phone, Fuyumi called Hikari back. "I found the jacket. When would you like me to return it?"
 
Tapping her foot on the floor, Hikari somewhat anxiously awaited Fuyumi to call her back. She made up scenarios in her mind where someone had found the jacketalready and stolen it, or thrown it away thinking it was trash. The lump in her stomach was far more tangible right now. As soon as her ring signal sounded, Hikari pressed the button to take the call. When Fuyumi said she had found it, Hikari was instantly relieved. "That's great! Well, if you're free this afternoon... Oh, I know! Have you heard about the new arcade? I think it's called Crown Game Center or something. We could meet up there, if you'd like."
 
"A game center?..." Fuyumi felt like Hikari had some secret intents behind meeting in such a place, but she didn't dwell on it. "Sure, I know where it is. I saw a flier about it in the shopping district. And, I just so happen to have an open slot this afternoon. Alright, I'll meet you there at four. I don't have any more time to chat right now though, I gotta go. Ciao." She hung up, and went back to training.
 
"Alright, I'm looking forward to it! We--" She was interrupted by Fuyumi abruptly hanging up. But, it didn't matter, since all the important matters had been taken care of. Fuyumi accepting to meet up at the Game Center also meant they would have a perfect opportunity to do some teambuilding. "I wonder how things are going for Emiya-kun?" Turning around, Hikari went back to the nurse's office in order to check in on her friend. She knocked on the door, and then peeked her head in "Is everything OK?"
 
While Hikari had been busy calling her new friend, Emiya had been occupying himself by twiddling his thumbs and swinging his legs. The nurse had inspected it thoroughly enough, and her only conclusion was that he should try and put as little stress on it as possible. Which, given that he was going to be with Hikari, was going to be an enormously difficult task. Despite feeling that it would be best to avoid her for the time being, however, Emiya went against his better judgement and stood up.
"Yeah, everything's fine. I'm ready to go, if you are."
 
"Alright, great!"

Hikari helped her friend back to the classroom, and they made it without too many unfortunate accidents on the way. She went through the rest of the day excitedly waiting for it to be over, and when the last class had finally ended, she quickly made her way to the Crown Game Center.

The arcade was pretty close by, so it didn't take long to get there. Hikari ended up having to wait for Fuyumi to arrive, and all the while she looked longingly through the window at all the people playing games inside. Suddenly, someone tapped her on the shoulder. "I think you wanted this?" Said a familiar voice. Hikari turned around, slightly surprised. Fuyumi held the jacket out to Hikari, urging her to take it. Hikari did so, and gave the other girl a bright smile. "Yay, thank you so much! I was so worried this was going to be lost..." "It was nothing. I'd hate to see a perfectly usable jacket get thrown away because of some clumsy girl's mistake." Hikari's bright smile turned awkward, and she rubbed the back of her head. The clumsy girl who had made the mistake was her, after all.

Fuyumi looked through the window behind Hikari. There were a lot of people there, perhaps more than she was comfortable with. "So, the guy who lent you that jacket... Is he your boyfriend?" Hikari's expression once again changed forms, this time into embarrassment. "Huh? Emiya-kun, my boyfriend? No! He's just a friend! He helped me out, and in the end, he seemed to have been hurt by it, so... I really couldn't live with myself if I had lost his jacket." Fuyumi nodded, sensing the sincerity in Hikari. "So, anyway, about this place. I'm sure you dragged me out here because you want us to go in, correct?" Hikari's smile came back on as swiftly as someone changing channels with a remote controller. "Correct indeed! I thought this would be the perfect place for us to do some teambuilding, in fact. That, and there's this one game I've really wanted to play for a long time but none of the other arcades in the area have had it so I couldn't, but then I saw that this place had it, so..." She said the last part quickly, and with an almost inaudibly low volume. Fuyumi chuckled a bit, and shook her head. "Fine. Let's go in."

As soon as Fuyumi gave the OK, Hikari dragged her inside by her arm. The arcade was even bigger than it looked like from the outside, and there were flashing lights and screens everywhere. There was a mixture of hardcore gamers, betrayed by their serious expressions, and people who were there just to have some leisurely fun in the afternoon. "So, where's that game you wanted to play?" "He he, so you heard that... It's over there!" Hikari dragged them over to a setup close to the wall. There were several small stage-like platforms, and in front of each of them was an instrument or a microphone. The game was based on five people forming a sort of mock rock-band, and the purpose was to collectively try to hit the right notes and get as high of a score as possible. The group who had been playing was just finished, and stepped off the stages. Hikari quickly ran up to the one with the guitar, and other people started taking the other set-ups. Hikari urged Fuyumi to take one of the remaining spots, but she refused, shaking her head and waving her hand. "Sorry, but I'm not exactly pitch perfect." Hikari was disappointed, but her attention was quickly brought back to the game. When all the spots had been taken, Hikari looked excitedly at each of her band members, and the game commenced.

Fuyumi watched their performance with a growing smile on her face. Seeing them all try their best, and the fun they were having while doing so, made it hard not to get caught up in the same mood. When the song was over, their respective scores was displayed on their screens, and was then tallied up. They finished ranking third out of all the performances of that day. Excited, and slightly sweaty, Hikari jumped off the stage. "Woohoo, that was fun!" Fuyumi giggled. "I could see that. You were really good, too. You had the highest score out of all the players. With a better team, you would've probably ranked number one." Hikari laughed and shook her head. "Maybe, but I don't care about winning. All I care about is having a good time, and me and my team rocked that!" Fuyumi nodded. "I suppose." She looked around. Her eyes were caught on a game in the very back of the arcade. It resembled the setup with the stages slightly, but it dazzled much more, and the people there seemed to be moving a lot more. "Eeh, something caught your fancy?" Hikari said with a smirk., looking in the same direction as Fuyumi. "It's a dancing game! Come on, let's go!" She shoved Fuyumi along before she could object, and they ended up standing behind two people locked in intense dance battle.
 
Reiko glanced out of the corner of her eye at her challenger’s screen, and felt a little disappointed. The girl was trailing behind by a good thousand points, in the beginning she had been great competition, but as they neared the completion of the song the challenger’s reaction time had slowed. She would hazard a guess this sudden lag was due to exhaustion. She had put up a good fight though, so Reiko could respect her for that. To be honest, Reiko had to respect her for a lot more then that. Honestly, to come to the arcade a challenge her of all people? It was bold. Anyone who was anyone (at least in Reiko’s mind) knew that Reiko was here every other week, perfecting this game. It took guts to challenge an expert.

As the arrows slowed, building up to the next bass drop, Reiko turned her head from the screen and flashed a large toothy grin to the other girl, “Tired?”

The girl cast her a glance, mouth set in a scowl. Reiko was sure she couldn’t have managed a dirtier look if she tried. It made a flash of annoyance tickle at the back of her mind. Fine, if the girl wanted to be a poor sport-

“No? Try to keep up then!”

-then Reiko would give her something to be a poor sport about. Before the girl could say or do anything else the beat dropped. A little laugh ripped out of Reiko as she suddenly started throwing turns and tricks into her execution of the routine. She even went so far suddenly bend at the knees reaching behind her to hit the pad.

Once the song had ended the poor sport had the good sense to look embarrassed and scuttle off into the tiny (tiny being maybe a dozen and half) crowd of roaring DDR fans. Reiko threw up her hands and grinned enthusiastically at the crowd. Raising her voice just loud enough to be heard in the little crowd around the machines, she called, “Who’s next? Who dares challenge the swift Nakamura next?”
 
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"Whooa!" Hikari felt fired up after watching the heated duel between the two dancers. She flashed a grin at Fuyumi, wanting to prove her mettle once more.

Stepping up on the opposite pad from Reiko, Hikari gave her a confident and triumphant glare. "I, the dazzling star Hoshino, will take you on!" She said, putting her hands to her hips. "I'll even let you choose the song." She said with a smirk, performing some stretches.

Meanwhile, Fuyumi was standing back behind the podiums with an awkward smile on her face. "Does she even know what she's getting herself into?..." She asked herself quietly.
 
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