Kanako dragged over to a claw machine and pointed at one of the toys.
"Get that for ."
"Huh, why , though."
"Just do it!"
I scanned my card, and the machine lit up.
I wasn't exactly a professional at claw machines, so I doubted that I'd be able to get the toy she wanted. The machines were usually rigged anyways. It would likely take a few attempts before the machine would even properly grab the toy. However, she seed to be eagerly watching the claw as I controlled it around.
Well, I guess I'll try.
I positioned the claw as well as I could and pressed the button to drop it. It made its descent down to the pile of goodies before seemingly closing its jaws and picking up one of the toys. However, as soon as it lifted the toy up, there was a bit of a jolt, and it dropped it back into the pile.
She appeared to be disappointed.
"I'm not good at these," I said.
Suddenly, she scanned her card, and the machine lit up once again.
"Watch and learn," she exclaid.
I watched as she positioned the claw slightly off-centre from the toy.
"The secret is to hook the tag," she explained.
After moving it around for a little bit, she pressed the button, and the claw dived into the toy pile. A mont later, it closed its mouth and picked up one of the toys by the tag. Unexpectedly, it didn't fall off as the claw moved toward the hole. The claw opened and dropped the toy down the chute, giving it to us.
"That was impressive."
"I know, right? I'm pretty good, aren't I?"
She seed to have gotten a toy that looked like a big plushy turtle. She hugged it into her chest and smiled.
"Alright, let's go to the basketball ga next!"
The two of us made our way over to the row of basketball arcade machines.
"Are you good at basketball?" She asked.
"Not really."
"Oh, co on~ you look pretty athletic."
"Do I?"
I scanned my card, and then the machine fed several basketballs to .
I've watched basketball a few tis, although I never really got to play it properly. From mory, I tried to replicate the form as well as I could. I tossed the ball in a nice parabola, swishing it straight into the basket.
"That wasn't half bad," comnted Kanako.
"Thanks."
She then grabbed a ball and tossed it. It hit the rim of the basket and bounced to the side.
"I'm not ward up yet," she quickly stated.
Again, she grabbed another ball. This ti, the ball swished into the basket. Following her shot, she continued her montum, scoring several more baskets. There was a tir and a score on the ga, so she played until the ti ran out. In the end, she was just a few points off of the daily high score.
"Ah, I would've beaten the high score if we didn't waste the first few seconds."
She then scanned her card and started the ga back up. Swiftly, she picked up the basketballs one by one and tossed them into the ring. Her movents were fluid, throwing one ball after another. They all swished into the basket, not even touching the edge of the ring. A minute later, the tir ran out, and she looked up at her score.
The machine suddenly began flashing and changing colours.
New Daily High Score!
"See?"
"Good job," I replied.
The machine beeped as it registered points onto Kanako's card.
As she looked around, sothing caught her eye.
"Mizuhara!"
"What is it?"
She pointed at an arcade machine.
"It's chess!"
"It sure is."
She grabbed onto my sleeve and began pulling over. As the two of us made our way toward the chess machine, she looked back at . She seed to have gotten flustered and quickly let go of my sleeve.
The chess ga was made for a single player. It had different settings for the difficulty of the computer and gave different amounts of points relative to the difficulty you selected.
Easy. (x1 points)
Interdiate. (x5 points)
Hard. (x20 points)
Impossible. (x100 points)
Apparently, the ga gave you points for each piece you took, and if you managed to get a checkmate, you gained the number of points for every piece on the board.
As expected, she picked Impossible difficulty and began playing.
I watched as she played against the computer, she was playing black, and the computer was playing white.
The computer started with Pawn to E4.
She responded with Pawn to E5.
The two of them then brought out their knights, and the computer played Bishop to B5, starting the Ruy Lopez.
A few moves later, the computer was already in a losing position.
"It's not very good~" Kanako teased.
"I think you're just too good."
"Hehe," she giggled at my statent.
Less than five minutes later, Kanako already managed to checkmate the computer. The machine lit up as it celebrated Kanako's win. A few monts later, it started frantically adding points to her card.
"Ah, I think we should go ho for the day," she suggested.
"How co? You've still got plenty of money on your card."
"Well, um..." she seed to be stuttering for so reason, "I think we should co back another... day..."
"I guess that's fine as well."
"Um, do you want to co back to my place?" She asked.
"Sure, I guess. It's pretty close to my dorm anyways."
*
As we walked into the large reception area of the apartnt again, she didn't seem to look back at a single ti. We took the elevator silently as it slowly travelled up to her floor.
The two of us walked over to her door as she scanned her keycard.
For so reason, she wasn't talking at all.
She led over to her couch, and I took a seat. As soon as I sat down, she sat down right next to and shuffled closer.
"What's the matter, Kanako?" I asked
She still didn't respond.
The room went silent.
All of a sudden, she started to speak.
"...Mizuhara, you're my tutor, right?"
"At the mont, I guess."
For so reason, the atmosphere felt lancholic.
"Is my father going to continue to make you my tutor now that I've passed my exams?"
"Probably not."
Her expression went cold.
"Mizuhara, I don't go to your school, we don't share any friends, and we never do anything together that isn't related to tutoring..."
"I suppose."
"We won't have any reason to see each other after you're relieved from your job. Once you stop being my tutor, we won't see each other again."
She got up from the couch.
"Mizuhara, once we're no longer tutor and student, what are we to each other?"
***
[The volu still has one more chapter, it'll be from the perspective of Kanako's father.]
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