The pair looked around the rather small store to see what might be of interest. While they weren’t standing next to each other, it was easy to stay within line of sight anyway.
“Wow, there are a lot of games I’ve never heard of here.” He commented, running his fingers through a shelf of the big collection in store.
“I don’t know any of these games at all.” She followed up with a statement which made him seriously wonder how she was even interested in video games in the first place. “These are some real obscure stuff, are you sure this is going to be fun at all?”
“Just because you’ve never heard of them doesn’t mean they’re bad.” He told her. Though Nishiki also knew there was no confirmation they’d be good either.
“If you’d like some more relevant stuff.” The clerk spoke to them, overhearing their conversation. “Over in that aisle is some last gen stuff. I’m sure you two would be more familiar with them.” They expressed their gratitude for his help and went to the direction he pointed them to.
It didn’t look much different from the rest of the store. Though he was correct in informing them the games here weren’t as old and much less obscure. In fact, even Nishiki was able to recognize one of the consoles set for sale here.
“Wow, I remember having one of these in college.” He said, peering into the display case. “It’s a Gamestation 3.”
“That’s really old, I wanted to buy the Gamestation 5. Clearly that one’s better because it’s the latest and greatest.”
“I’m not going to debate that.” He didn’t want to argue with her as it wasn’t as if he had a clue about the latest gaming consoles other than their power. Plus they were in public so he didn’t want to look bad in front of this clerk. They were the only ones in this store, so there wasn’t anywhere else for that many to look at. “It doesn’t matter anyway since I’m not getting you the most recent stuff.”
“Whatever.” She crossed her arms and brushed him off. “As long as you don’t get me something lame because you’re trying to cheap out.” He didn’t like her complaining about him being a cheapskate. It was his money and the only right she had to it was because of the contract they signed. Which sadly gave her a lot of rights to it.
“It’s not lame.” He refused to believe the years he spent enjoying the machine were only considered fun because of nostalgia reasons. “You know what, I’ll get you this.”
“Please don’t torture me because you got offended.” She pouted, disappointed he’d settle on something that had been gathering dust for who knew how long. “Please, I want to have fun, not suffer.”
“It is fun, you just need to keep an open mind.” He quickly skimmed the shelf and picked out a few games to go along with the console. “These are great, we got Unexplored, Wrench & Clunk, and Last Illusion XIII. These are some decent titles.”
“Sounds kind of lame.” She judged them soley based on the covers and didn’t want to give them a chance. Not that it stopped him from taking them anyway. “Ooh what about this?” Tenha looked through the games and made her own choice. “Hydra Adventure?”
“If you’re interested we can pick it up.” All the games here were really cheap. Even the console was going to cost him about 10,000 yen, which was a steal compared to the exuberant costs of modern consoles.
“Oh now you’re willing to spend some cash.” She handed it to him as they went up to the register.
“This looks like the two of you are in for some good fun.” The man running the store commented as he rung them up. He was a bit on the older side. Probably close to retiring, but that would mean closing the store if he called it quits. “Nice for a couple to find some fun in hobbies together.”
“Hmm?” Nishiki was shocked to hear him consider Tenha on his level. “You don’t think she looks a bit young?” While it didn’t seem like the man judged him. The idea of him dating someone who looked like her was a bit weird.
“She certainly doesn’t act her age.” He was able to listen in how they talked. The subject matter wasn’t important. It was the way he treated the girl and how she responded that told him all he needed to know. “Don’t worry young lady, not everyone grows up the same way.”
“At least someone here think I’m mature.” She gave Nishiki a smug smile as he simply pulled out his card to pay for the whole package. He did his best to ignore it, but it was hard to pretend there wasn’t an aura of smug right besides him.
“Thank you.” The old man gave them a good farewell once they paid and were out the door. It wasn’t easy to lug around the old console due to its weight and his desire to keep it from falling and breaking before they could use it. As Nishiki struggled to keep it in his arms, Tenha could only give him a dumb stare.
“You know I can carry it easily, right?” She had a good point. Despite the size difference, she bested him easily in terms of strength. However, it was the former point that kept him from wanting to give it to her. Not only as a means to keep people from looking at them strangely, but also as a matter of pride.
“I’ll be fine.” He said as he clearly wasn’t while they walked up the steps into his house. For context, the stairs to his front door was only two. After they got inside, Nishiki was able to finally put it down on the couch, breathing heavily to regain some energy.
“Great, let’s start playing this thing right now.” She didn’t want to wait any longer on being able to get some fun. So Tenha grabbed one of the controllers and began to pull out all the cables.
“They got video games up in the spirit world?” He didn’t know how a spiritual being would be interested in these kind of things. A bit late of a question to ask after they had already paid for the games, but at least he could still use them.
“No, I just know about them because sometimes I’d go into the human world and watch your people play on them.” As a spectator, she always saw them having so much fun that she wished she could join in. When she explained it, he realized that she might be someone who could’ve just been entertained if he showed her some online live streams of people doing the same thing with his laptop. “I’ve never actually used one before, just watched people play is all.” That would also explain to him why she was interested despite appearing to not know much about these things.
“You know how to set one up?” He asked, still trying to catch his breath.
“I’ve never done it before, but how hard can it be?” She then went and proved exactly how hard it was to do as the girl failed miserably on attempting to set up the console. “Oof!” Tenha quickly made a mess of things, getting all the cables tied up between each other and wrapping herself in them like someone kidnapped the girl.
“If you give me a second to catch my breath, I’ll handle that.” He shook his head at her ineptitude. Though considering he was only exhausted because of his desire to do something she could do with little effort. These two were not as different as they liked to pretend they were.
It took longer to get all the wires untangled from her than it took to get her into the mess in the first place. While it made him somewhat uncomfortable to get his hands so close to her body, it couldn’t be helped. “Man, if someone saw us right now, it’d look pretty bad, right?”
“You’re making it weirder when you say it out loud.” She didn’t like his words, but it wasn’t as if she could just leave. So it couldn’t be helped.
“So you’re telling me you haven’t found your sanity and taught that girl the lesson she deserves?” A woman’s voice spoke behind him. They hadn’t heard anything else to lead to this moment, so the pair both screamed at the top of their lungs in fear of the intruder. Of course, this so-called intruder was just Kinuko who was paying them her usual visit.
She had to wait a long while for the two to finally stop screaming for their lives. It was rather painful on the ears.
“How’d you get into my house!?” He yelled once he finally realized who it was. Nishiki took a quick glance at his front door and saw it wasn’t blasted down like what would normally happen with their fox girls. Instead, it was closed and locked just how he had left it.
“I just transformed into a fox and jumped through the open window you had in your bedroom.” She answered, walking past the two to sit down on the couch. Aside from his new fear that this woman could easily get to him when the man was sleeping. Nishiki still wasn’t looking forward to her arrival here. “So, what exactly are you two doing?”
