Chapter 11: The Gaming Date

A bedroom. No loose clothes or crumpled-up pieces of paper littering the floor. No bras hanging haphazardly from the bed’s headboard. No ridiculous costumes lining the wardrobe. No matter how one looked at it, this was definitely not Chou Usagi’s sleeping quarters.

 “Dammit,” Fumihito grunted, grabbing his pillow so hard that he drew feathers from the gash he had just made in the pillowcase, “nothing’s working!”

Although he kept a level head in public, the truth is that Fumihito was just as much of an emotional trainwreck as his rabbit coworker. Like Chou, whenever she wasn’t on a “date”, he was very good at hiding it, though. And why was the cavalier King Charles spaniel losing his cool this time? He was stressed over his inability to win Chou over for real. Fake-dating her just wasn’t enough for Fumihito! He had dreamed of being together with the bunny for as long as they had been friends! Fumihito’s frustrations were beginning to bleed into his writing.

Of-course, that was probably to be expected; he was in the middle of writing the fourth book in his My Precious Ko series. What only he knew was that he had based the entire series off how he fantasized a life with Chou would be.

“What’s the point?” the dog whined, “Hirohiko’s clearly got me beat when it comes to getting the girl of his dreams…” (Hirohiko was the male lead of My Precious Ko.)

Fumihito had considered telling his colleague just how much he wanted to seriously be her boyfriend, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d already confessed; pestering Chou further would be overkill and he didn’t want to guilt-trip her. He would just have to keep trying to win her over with increasingly romantic gestures. He was sure he was nearing a breakthrough, but he wanted their relationship to truly start on Chou’s terms.

He grabbed his smartphone from inside his nightstand’s drawer and unlocked it, opening the texting app and staring blankly at his message history with Chou. His hands hovered over the virtual qwerty keyboard as he wracked his brain for an activity he could suggest to his lagomorph coworker. They’d done dinner at a restaurant, they’d done the beach, they’d done the town plaza, they’d done dinner at Chou’s place, they’d even visited a video-game store! Fumihito was well and truly flummoxed. The cavalier King Charles spaniel looked to the pages of his current manuscript for inspiration. If Chou was using their dates as fuel for her novel, Fumihito didn’t see anything wrong with using his novel as fuel for their dates!

“What is my story lacking… What is my relationship with Chou lacking?”

He could’ve jumped straight to proposal, but was it too soon? And was it far too unlikely at this stage that Chou would accept the offer? Fumihito sighed and put his muzzle in his paws. Considering that all their dates ended in embarrassment for Chou, he knew it was unlikely at that stage that she’d go along with marriage. This wasn’t about what Fumihito wanted from the relationship! He’d have to find what Chou wanted if he was to prove his worth! …Which he couldn’t, because the rabbit girl was aromantic, but she hadn’t actually shared that detail with her pretend-boyfriend.

“Games…” Fumihito mumbled, biting the end of a pen like an amateur sleuth who was stumped by a cold-case, “Chou is one of those ‘epic gamer-girl’ types, right? I could invite her over to play video-games!” The canine sighed again as he realized he didn’t own any consoles, let alone any games. “Maybe she likes board games? Or… Or card games? Or, or, or…” A grin swept across the mutt’s face. “Maybe I could convince her to play strip poker?” He slapped himself across the face. “NO! Get a hold of yourself, Inugami! This is about what Chou wants, not what you want!” …Although he did have to admit to himself that the idea of Chou in lingerie or even simple underwear did turn him on… as the blood running from his nose could attest to. …Or maybe he’d just slapped his snout too hard?

After what seemed like hours of thinking and internal debate, Fumihito came to just one conclusion. “THE GAME CENTER! I CAN TAKE CHOU TO THE ARCADE!”

 

About ten minutes later, Fumihito was patiently waiting outside the Game Center arcade for his date to arrive. He twiddled his thumbs as he glanced all around the mall. No sign of…

“Hey, Fumihito.” Chou tapped the dog boy on his shoulder. Fumihito couldn’t believe his eyes! He’d never seen her wearing anything other than her jacket, skirt, stockings and tank-top before (well, apart from those times with the strapless one-piece and the succubus costume, but those felt like more “special” occasions than an arcade hangout). “Sorry I’m late, I was picking out an outfit!”

“Don’t worry about it!” the King Charles smiled. “So, why the new outfit this time?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to end up flashing you if we played the dancing game or something,” Chou said as she nonchalantly placed her hands behind her back, rocking on the balls of her heels. She had become wise to the tropes of fanservice rom-com, partly from reading things like Fumihito’s novels, and partly from her life experiences in the previous few weeks. Her white T-shirt and green dolphin shorts didn’t offer much in the way of opportunities for unfortunate pantyshots, something the spaniel found a little disappointing, but not something he minded. He was hardly going to ask Chou to stick to skirts so that he might glimpse a pair of cotton delicates. That would be an embarrassing thing to ask – and not just embarrassing for himself, either. As much as he REALLY enjoyed seeing Chou’s panties, he enjoyed seeing her happiness more!

“Shall we head inside and play some games?” Fumihito suggested, reaching into his pants pocket and withdrawing a plastic bag full of coins. “Do arcade machines still use coins?” he asked.

Chou shot him a confused glance before nodding and walking into the arcade.

 

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The arcade. It would be a lie to say that Fumihito had never been there before, but he was certainly a much less frequent patron than his lagomorph coworker. He had done most of his gaming in his youth during the 90s and early 2000s. Like many, he was drawn back in by the Funtendo Uss, but he ended-up giving that console away to a friend when he found the motion controls too difficult to use.

The canine shut his eyes before opening them into a squint; unalike Chou, he was not used-to the darkness of the arcade combined with the lights of the cabinets’ screens.

“What should we play first?” he asked.

“How about a fighting-game?” Chou asked, running up to the Game Center’s Super Beat Fighter II Turbo Ultra Extreme Renovated Remastered 3D Remake Championship Edition Tournament Deluxe DX! Arcade Version Director’s Cut 2000 machine and standing up on her tiptoes to reach the joystick and buttons. “I can kick anyone’s ass in Super Beat Fighter II Turbo Ultra Extreme Renovated Remastered 3D Remake Championship Edition Tournament Deluxe DX! Arcade Version Director’s Cut 2000!” The whole time it took Chou to say the arcade fighter’s ridiculously long title, she was playfully slapping her rear-end, a playground tactic for psyching-out one’s opponent.

“Oh, yeah, I think I’ve played that one before,” Fumihito said, his tail starting to wag. “Or, er, SOME version of it, anyways…”

 

After suffering many crushing defeats, Fumihito had to resign to the fact that he wasn’t able to overpower Chou. He looked to his bag of quarters; almost all of them had vanished into the Super Beat Fighter II Turbo Ultra Extreme Renovated Remastered 3D Remake Championship Edition Tournament Deluxe DX! Arcade Version Director’s Cut 2000 arcade cabinet’s coin-slot. The cavalier King Charles spaniel hadn’t won a single match. Battles in Super Beat Fighter II Turbo Ultra Extreme Renovated Remastered 3D Remake Championship Edition Tournament Deluxe DX! Arcade Version Director’s Cut 2000 were played in a best-of-three format, and Chou had conquered all of their games in just two rounds. Fumihito hadn’t so much as managed to claim a single one of her stocks. It didn’t matter which of the game’s ten playable characters he picked. It didn’t matter which of the game’s ten playable characters she picked either. The fact of the matter was that Chou was way more of a gamer than Fumihito could ever dream of being!

“What if she isn’t into beta noobs like me?” the dog boy thought. “Am I blowing my chances by doing this? The arcade seemed like such a good idea at the time…”

“C’mon, let’s go another round!” Chou cheered, hopping up and down. “I can totally pwn you twenty-to-nil!”

“Uh, how about we play a different game?” the canine replied, his eyes scanning the dimly-lit game-center for any possible game he could possibly have a shot in. And then he remembered what Chou had told him before they entered the arcade. The reason she was wearing dolphin shorts. She didn’t want to have her underwear exposed if they placed the dancing game. If there was one area where Fumihito had Chou outclassed, it was physical fitness! His gaze was drawn to the giant machine fitted with a platform containing a floor patterned with arrows in the four cardinal directions. Dance Pants Resolution. “Let’s do that one,” the pooch smugly said, pointing at the DPR machine.

 

Within minutes, the two colleagues were neck-deep in a fierce dance-off to the tune of some public domain piece like “Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém” or something. For the first time that night, the dog was actually winning! This was his chance to prove himself an alpha gamer! His chance to be a big-shot! His chance to woo Chou Usagi!

Executing a perfect splits, Fumihito looked up to his crush, her fur and clothes glistening with sweat. On any other date, both of them would have become incredibly embarrassed at Chou’s bra being visible under her drenched T-shirt, but they were far too focused on the game. With a hop to his feet, Fumihito placed his back paws expertly on the west and east arrows on his side of the podium. He had hit a “perfect” on every move. He’d… he’d won.

“Booyah!” he shrieked like a madman, throwing his suit jacket triumphantly to the ground. “I win!”

“Good game,” Chou congratulated, grabbing the bottom of her shirt and wiping her forehead with it. “Now…” she panted, “I’m beat. I think I’m gonna head home now. Later!”

“It’s still early, isn’t it?” Fumihito asked, reaching into his pants pocket and withdrawing his smartphone. Being inside Game Center had really warped his perception of time. The building didn’t have any windows, after-all. “Oh, I guess not. I’ll walk you home, then.”

 

After dropping Chou off at her place, Fumihito happily walked to his own abode with a spring in his step, a wag in his tail and a song in his heart. He was utterly convinced that his little plan had worked and that Chou had fallen deeper in-love with him! He couldn’t wait to return home and resume writing his next novel. They say opposites attract, but Fumihito and Chou were more similar than either realized… and the bunny was certainly less attracted to the dog than he realized.

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