Redo of a Romanceless Author's Life Devoid of Love; Another Chance at Youth

“You’re stopping as soon as the match begins?”

“There’s no need to fight. Look.”

I pointed at the guy's hands. The stick moved about wildly as he mashed buttons stringing together combo after combo.

“Oh. You’re right. Is this what you mentioned before?”

“Yeah. Try hards are always a pain in the ass for casuals to deal with.”

Within a few seconds, his hands stopped moving. My character was dead on the ground. It was a crushing defeat. Well of course it was. Even if I’d kept my hands on the controls and tried to do something, he’d have juggled me to death. As soon as I landed on the ground, he’d already be right on my ass to start the next string of combos. It’d be rinse and repeat until I was dead. 

It was these sorts of people who had no consideration for others that just wanted to have some casual fun at an arcade lose all interest and never come back. People would say things like ‘get good,’ but how is someone supposed to get good when they have somebody mercilessly crushing them without being given a chance to fight back?

You have to pay every time you lose and want to play again after all. It made more sense to go and buy the console version where you could play as much as you want. Once you had that, why would you ever come back to an arcade to play again?

This was one of the major reasons why arcades typically died out, at least, this was the case in the future I recalled. It was because there were sweaty people like this, who took things far too seriously in a casual setting. They may be loyal customers to the arcade, but they ended up hurting the business in the long run. After all, people didn’t come to an arcade for tournament-level competition, they came for the social aspect of it, and to have fun. If the fun was killed, then why come back?

When you completely stomped on someone new to something, they’d be left with a terrible impression of it. Such an experience made your average player pass on arcade games.

There were of course exceptions, such as people who took up the challenge, accepted the tough competition, and tirelessly grinded away at it for hours on end to get good enough to defeat the person who crushed them. However, those cases were few and far between. Most people would see the overwhelming difference in skill and be discouraged from playing again.

This, in general, was a terrible thing for a business.

There are people who just don’t understand the term restraint. They wanted to display their prowess and gain some sort of pathetic feeling of accomplishment by stomping on everybody else underfoot. It was a very child-like mentality.

“Tch. Pathetic. Giving up right away. Is it so embarrassing to lose in front of your girlfriend that you want to save face by avoiding having to show her how shit you actually are at the game?” A warped and twisted smile formed on his face as he turned his head and looked at me scornfully.

I calmly responded, “Not really. You’re quite skilled at fighting games. It’s not even a competition at this point. It’s just a one-sided massacre. I don’t compete in things I’m certain to lose. I’d rather cut my losses short is all. I’m not so dumb that I’d waste money senselessly out of a desire to beat an immature child lacking any restraint with only winning on his mind.”

“Typical loser excuses. Why don’t you just get good instead of running your mouth?”

“To get good would mean to waste a good amount of money I don’t have enough of on a skill I have no intention to seriously use.”

For me, I’d equate it to going to university and studying in a field I find fun, but knowing I don’t want to actually take it up in a professional sense. ‘A filthy casual,’ that would be the best term to describe me.

Things only became more toxic and less fun the higher up the ladder you climbed. The longer and more you do something, the less enjoyable it becomes. This is why doing things in moderation and knowing when and how to hold back is necessary. 

“Whatever, loser. The words of the loser mean nothing to the winner. Only the strong who come out victorious have any right to speak. Your girlfriend should just dump you and get with a real winner.”

Oh? Did he come over here to pull this because he was eying Rosa?

“Why don’t you just go shove a stick up your ass and learn a bit more about what the real world is really like? Hmph!” She said as she shot the boy beside us a derisive look before she grumbled out, “Who’d seriously want to date this dumbass who’s trying so hard to look cool? You need actual muscles for those clothes to work.”

Even I felt pain in my heart when she pointed it out. He was clearly trying to imitate the character he fought as. I’d done my best not to say it and be considerate for once, but Rosa was heartless and did so without any hesitation or mercy. I felt embarrassed on his behalf. I’m sincerely sorry! My girlfriend doesn’t understand the desire when you’re still just a stupid kid and want to imitate your favorite characters you think are cool.

The boy was currently trembling in rage. At a glance, he looked to be about fourteen years old.

He suddenly spat out, “Ugly bitch,” through gritted teeth.

Please don’t pick a fight with my girlfriend. You won’t win. You might be good at fighting in a video game, but she’s much better at fighting in real life. When I thought about what I’d seen from her before, I was pretty sure of that.

Rosa shot him an intense glare.

“Would you like to say that again?”

“I said you’re an ugly bitch.”

“So you’d like to di- mmmmhmm?” When her gaze transformed into one that looked ready to kill, I stepped between the two and sealed her lips with a kiss, cutting her off mid-sentence.

Her eyes were surprised having been kissed out of the blue in public like this, but the look in her eyes had instantly changed from one of rage to one of joy with her eyebrows raised into crescents.

If she really wanted to kill him, I couldn’t take such a matter lightly. Be thankful kid, your life may have just been saved by a kiss.

“W-What the hell do you think you’re doing! Get a room!” He stuttered out from behind my back and kicked me.

Pushed forward by his kick, I used the momentum to spin around Rosa and look at him. I’d intended to stop kissing her right then, but she quickly wrapped her arms around my neck and assertively leaned her body up against my own.

When he saw that he was incensed. He spat out a single word, “gross,” before he left, hands in pockets, and back hunched forward with his neck stuck out. I don’t know if he thought it was cool, but it looked more creepy than anything.

When he was gone, Rosa leaned back and pouted her lips together.

“What? Do you have something you want to say?”

“Why can’t you do that more often?” She’d already completely forgotten about the boy who she wanted to murder only seconds ago.

“Haaaah. A girl’s mood is like the weather. One second she’s fuming, and the next she’s asking why you don’t kiss her more often. I’m obviously not going to let some brat ruin my girlfriend’s mood on our first date together.”

“Well, you did a good job saving that brat. I’d have definitely murdered him.”

“Please don’t say that, it doesn’t sound like a joke when you say it.”

“Who’s joking?” She asked me seriously.

“At least say you’re joking. It would be troubling if you were to go around randomly killing people off. Especially on our first date.”

“Fine, I get it. As long as it’s not the first date, anything goes, I understand.”

“I really don’t think you understand though.” Somehow we were casually talking about murder like we were figuring out whether to have sex on the first date or second date. 

“We were talking about sex, right?” She asked innocently.

“Don’t mess with me. How did we both end up thinking of the same comparison?”

“Great minds think alike I guess.”

“Let’s just move to the next game already.”

“Sure, what’s next?”

“How about that?” I pointed to a pod-like enclosure.

“What’s that?”

“Star Wars Battle Pod, or so it says.”

“Sure, why not?”