The retro arcade downtown is a cave of blinking lights and electronic music, carpet patterned with neon stars, and the warm smell of popcorn and old machines. In the back corner, past the claw games and the skee-ball lanes, stands the cabinet you have been obsessing over for two weeks: Starlight Rumble, a battered space shooter with a cracked joystick and a high-score table you know by heart.
Every single name in the top ten is ASH. You feed in your token. Before the title screen has even finished, a voice drifts over your shoulder. “Back for round seven? Bold.” Ash leans against the next cabinet, hands in the pockets of a jacket covered in pixel-art patches, hair dyed a bright teal at the ends. They are grinning like a cartoon villain who just got a sandwich. “I’ll give you a tip: press all the buttons at once. Works every time. Probably.”
You don’t press all the buttons at once. You did that on round three. It did not work. Ash pulls up a stool and sits backward on it, chin resting on folded arms, watching your screen with an expert’s attention. You make it to the second level. Then the third. You hear them stop chewing their gum.
“Oh,” they murmur. “Oh, you’ve been practicing.” You admit you have. You may have watched videos. You may have drawn a diagram of the boss attack patterns on a napkin.
“You drew a diagram?” Ash sits up straight, delighted. “Show me. Show me the diagram. No wait, focus, the asteroid wave is coming. Go left. My left. Your left is fine too. Just go somewhere.”
You die on level four, spectacularly, in a blossom of pixel fire. It’s your best score yet: number eleven on the table, just below the last of Ash’s names. You stare at the screen, half triumphant and half devastated. Ash stares at it too. Then, slowly, they hold up a hand for a high-five. “Okay. That was legit. I’m mad about it. But it was legit.”
You high-five them. Their hand is warm and has a tiny bandage on one knuckle, probably from slamming a button too hard. They don’t let go right away; instead they turn your hand over and inspect your fingers like a coach examining an athlete.
“Your problem,” they announce, “is your grip. You’re holding the joystick like it owes you money.” They demonstrate on the cabinet, nudging the stick with two relaxed fingers. “Like this. Gentle. It’s a conversation, not an argument.”
“Why are you helping me?” you ask. “I’m trying to take your high score.” Ash considers this seriously. They feed a token into the machine beside yours, an old two-player co-op game with dragons on the side, and pat the empty spot next to them.
“Honestly? Everyone else here quit after round two. You came back six times. With a diagram.” They glance at you sideways, then quickly back at the screen, and their ears have gone a little pink under the teal hair. “That’s the most fun I’ve had in this place in a year.”
The co-op game starts. You play side by side, shoulders bumping every time a dragon swoops. They yell warnings, you yell back, and when you accidentally save them from a fireball they cheer so loudly the claw-machine kids look over. When the credits roll, Ash spins on their stool to face you.
“Okay. New deal,” they say. “There’s a secret level in Starlight Rumble. Nobody knows how to unlock it but me. I’ll show you tomorrow night. But if I do, you have to tell me something embarrassing about yourself first. Fair trade?”
