The Moon and Polaris

Chapter 18: Blast From the Past II: Electric Boogaloo

A heavy downpour rained over Osaka one spring afternoon. Raindrops plopped onto the concrete; puddles splashed underneath Kiki's feet. The young girl held her school bag over her head, trying her best to shield herself from the storm. The weatherman's a liar! He said no rain today! Kiki thought to herself. Up ahead, a large building with an awning over its entrance came into view. The girl exhaled a sigh of relief and picked up her pace. Once she could no longer feel the pouring rain above her, Kiki leaned against the outside of the building and caught her breath.

Without hesitation, Kiki let herself into the building and took off her soaking wet blazer. She took a look at her surroundings: large machines with joysticks and colorful buttons stood in rows. Electronic beeps, boops, and jingles played from each of them as different games played on their screens. "Huh, the arcade?" Kiki hung her head as she thought aloud, "I'm not even close to home yet." Digging through her bag, she found a handful of coins buried underneath pages of homework and textbooks. "Maybe I'll play a game while I wait for the rain to go away."

She walked over to one of the Pac-Man machines near the entrance, making sure to also get a good view outside. Before taking her seat, she glanced at the front window one more time; no signs of the rain letting up. With a sigh, Kiki draped her blazer over the back of the chair, sat down, and inserted a coin into the slot.

The screen loaded up with the maze, pellets, ghosts, and the titular Pac-Man himself. After the opening jingle played, Kiki immediately jerked the joystick to the left, grabbing pellets along that corridor. She cleaned out the entire bottom-left corner of the board, save for a Power Pellet, and moved onto the right side. Making sure no ghosts surrounded her, Kiki leaned over to check up on the weather outside. Still raining. She continued to play, occasionally checking the front window for updates on the storm.

Before grabbing the last few pellets on the board, someone burst through the arcade doors. Making sure she was in a safe corner of the maze, Kiki peeked at the entrance again and witnessed a boy drenched from the storm. Judging from his small stature, his white button-up shirt, black shorts, suspenders, and school bag, he must have been a student from one of the local elementary schools. As much as Kiki wanted to greet the boy, the maze loaded up with pellets for the second board. She quickly moved the joystick to the left and began her routine maze clearing again.

The bottom-left corner of the maze was completely cleared up when a voice suddenly shouted beside Kiki, "Wow, you're super good!"

She jumped and lost focus for a split second. A ghost headed straight for her, but a quick pull of the joystick made her avoid it in the nick of time. Letting out a sigh of relief, she glanced next to her. The boy from earlier smiled widely at her, unaware of what his distraction almost did. Putting on a polite smile, Kiki replied, "Uh, thanks." and put her focus back on the game. "You startled me there, though," she remarked. "Try to stay quiet, okay?"

"Hehe, okay," the boy whispered.

Though Kiki was back in her groove, she could still feel the boy's eyes on her and the game. It was distracting, to say the least. Despite this, she managed to clear the maze and move on to the next board.

"Nice one!" the boy cried.

Kiki looked at the boy again, and sure enough, that large grin was still plastered on his face. "Thanks," she said.

"Can I try?" he asked.

Kiki glanced at the screen. She still had all her lives intact, and she was only doing this to kill time anyway. She shrugged and rose from her seat, "All yours."

"Yes!" The boy hopped in the seat and leaned in close to the screen. Kiki stood next to him and observed. The boy moved around in random parts of the maze, including places where there were no pellets left. Random patches of pellets were scattered across the board, and he had nabbed all Power Pellets even though no ghosts were even close to his tail at any point. Kiki face-palmed when three ghosts drove the boy into a corner and caught him.

"Aw man..." the boy groaned.

"Alright, alright," Kiki gestured with a swatting motion. "Step aside. Lemme show you how an expert does it."

The boy slid off the chair and Kiki took his place. Once Pac-Man respawned on the maze, Kiki went to work. She immediately headed to the bottom-left, clearing away all the pellets the boy missed during his run. "It helps if you clear the maze section by section," she explained. "I usually start from the bottom-left then go around from there."

"Oh...!" The boy stared wide-eyed at the screen as Kiki started to clear the rest of the bottom portion of the maze. As Kiki headed up to the top half, a ghost zoomed straight for her. "Watch out!"

Kiki smirked and quickly turned to the tunnel on the right, sending her to the other side of the maze.

The boy's jaw dropped, "Woah, I didn't know you could do that!"

With a nod, Kiki explained as she grabbed more pellets, "Yeah, those tunnels are useful. If a ghost's chasing me, I try to get there as fast as possible." She continued to nab pellets and avoid ghosts, and before she knew it, the maze was cleared.

"That was awesome!" the boy cheered.

"See?" Kiki held up a peace sign and proclaimed, "Expert." She took a peek outside and the rain had finally stopped. "Well, time to go home," she said as she got off the chair and grabbed her blazer.

"Hey, wait!" The boy caught her by the sleeve of her shirt. "Can we play together tomorrow too? I wanna be as good as you!"

"You sure?" Kiki smirked at him, "You're gonna be learning from an expert. I'm not gonna go easy on you."

The boy nodded over and over, "Yeah! I'm ready!"

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Kiki held out her hand, "I'm Kiki. What's your name?"

The boy took her hand in his, "I'm Kyo!"

"Well, Kyo-kun. From this day forward, I'm your teacher, and you're my student."

*****

"Man, you and that kid were the same person this entire time," Kiki laughed to herself. "Dude, you were so bad at Pac-Man! Honestly, that day when we met, I wanted to bully you 'til you cried."

"Oh, really?" Kyo pinched her cheek. "I'd like to see you try now."

"Ow ow ow!" Kiki cried. Kyo snickered and let her go. She stuck out her tongue at him in retaliation. "It's still hard to believe it's you," she sighed. "With what you said and gave to me before I moved to America, I never would've guessed--" she glanced at Yuki for a second and caught herself, "--uh, anyway, I'm off!" Kiki began to depart, waving at the couple, "Kani Doraku's calling my name! Until next time, Kyo-kun~"

"D-Don't call me that!" A slight blush tinged Kyo's cheeks, "It's embarrassing!"

Yuki giggled and waved back, "Bye! It was nice meeting you!"

*****

Kiki sat in silence as she munched on slices of crab sashimi and ruminated on memories of Kyo. Popping another bite of crab meat in her mouth, Kiki lifted the thin chain of the necklace she kept underneath her shirt and held it up to the fluorescent lights in the restaurant. She examined the gold-painted plastic ring attached to it and frowned.

"You said you'd wait. Idiot."