The second I left campus, everything changed.

The noise that never stopped back there faded. Bells, shouting, and footsteps bounced off the walls, then slipped behind me. Out here, it was quiet in a way that made me notice my own breathing. Only a couple of people wandered past. Good. I was not in the mood to explain the disaster currently unraveling my existence.

I was limping. Not in a cool, action hero way. More like, I fought my zipper and lost.

Yeah. Total groin assault, all thanks to my tragic speed zipping attempt in the hallway. Ten out of ten would not recommend.

Honestly, I thought every guy had a close call down there, but mine deserved a slow motion replay with sad violin music.

We were not talking about a minor oops here. This was a full on hall of fame screw up.

And I knew the news had already spread. High schools had faster gossip networks than Twitter.

Rei had probably heard about it by now. I could already picture her expression, caught between sympathy and something sharper.

Let’s be real, you would probably ghost me too. Nobody wanted to risk catching splash damage from a walking embarrassment.

I gave a low groan, forcing a few curse words out and hoping they might patch the hole in my pride. Once the sharpest edge of the pain dulled into something tolerable, I picked up the pace. Every step landed hard. I punished the sidewalk for existing.

Now and then, I checked behind me. I doubted anyone was following, but if a group of students had jumped out with their phones to film, I would not have even blinked. That was today’s vibe. Constant vigilance in case life decided to pile on again.

Only two people knew where I was heading. Mai, who got it. And Taiga, who did not, but at least he knew when to keep his mouth shut.

After ten minutes, I crossed into the older part of town. Everything there carried memories in its frame. The buildings leaned close together, whispering secrets through their shadows. Paint peeled at the seams. Dust clung to glass that had not been wiped in years. The sidewalk felt uneven underfoot and threatened to trip anyone careless enough to trust it.

But somehow, it all worked. There was a worn down charm to the place, and it showed no interest in anyone’s judgment.

The wind rushed past, quick and cold, and somewhere beyond the rooftops traffic murmured on. It made the whole street feel far away, like the stretch of road was watching me from behind an unseen barrier.

Then a black BMW glided up and stopped beside me. It was polished, clean enough to mirror the sky. The windows were so dark they refused to give anything back, and the panels carried a finish that swallowed the daylight whole.

My stomach dropped like an elevator with its cables cut. It was not reason tapping me on the shoulder. The feeling came from somewhere lower and meaner. Every thriller I had ever seen started flashing through my head at once.

I slowed down. Part of me braced for something ridiculous. The door flying open. A few guys in matching suits stepping out.

But nothing moved. Just the scrape of my own steps, too loud in the quiet.

I kept going, though my eyes stayed locked on the BMW until I was past it.

Then I saw the place.

Huddled between a bakery and an old bookstore sat Komei’s Games.

The sign sagged above the door, letters dim and tired, the glow long gone but still refusing to quit.

The front window held a clutter of retro posters and faded consoles, stacked and leaning in every direction. It did not feel arranged by design, more by memory. The golden age of gaming had stopped there once and never quite started again.

Mario still grinned, Cloud looked permanently tired, and the Street Fighter crew stared down the sidewalk as guardians of some unseen concern.

Walking in felt like a stride into an earlier era, yet nothing about it felt curated. It gave the sense of an opened toy chest, releasing memories along with the faint buzz of static from aging electronics. A shrine to decades of game addiction, arranged with absolutely no logic except the rule that anything found a place wherever space remained.

The air smelled of solder and old cardboard. Maybe a little sweat. Definitely some plastic that had not been manufactured in twenty years. There was an edge of sadness to it too. Not tragic, exactly. More the quiet sorrow that settled over forgotten things once the world pressed forward without them.

Behind the counter sat the legend himself.

Komei-san.

He had a quiet personality that made him feel like he drifted out of the background of a Studio Ghibli scene. Compact build, beard flecked with gray, glasses balanced so precariously on his nose it seemed they waited for gravity to claim them.

He looked up from his newspaper and noticed the limp right away.

Still, I straightened up and pretended nothing was wrong. Pride was weird, and it let you fake it even when you were actively falling apart.

“Yo, Komei-san.” I threw him a brief nod. It probably looked more like I had pulled something in my neck, but whatever.

“Hey there, Kira-chan.” His voice was low and relaxed. He folded the paper slowly, and the motion took on the weight of a small ceremony. “Class done?”

“Yeah.” I pointed over my shoulder. “Heading to the back.”

He nodded.

I was already turning when he called after me.

“So, Kira-chan. You think this is going to be your year?”

I stopped moving.

I tried to come up with something clever or confident or even halfway neutral, but all I got was a voice echoing through my head.

“ZIPPER-KUN! ZIPPER-KUN! ZIPPER-KUN!”

Rei’s voice held a sweetness sharpened into pure shame.

My brain shut down. Soul gone.

I slapped both hands over my ears in a useless bid for escape, then made a break for it, dragging what was left of my ego behind me while my spirit trailed in tatters.

The back of the shop was dim. Somewhat neglected. Shelves had not been touched in years, and the lights flickered, tired and uncertain. The air felt thick with dust and the weight of old memories. I had come here since junior high. No other place ever felt more mine.

In the far corner, right where it always waited, stood Time Crisis II.

Beat up. Unbothered. Still there with something left to prove.

The cabinet was scuffed around the edges, and the light guns rested in their holsters, silent before the next battle. This part of the shop mattered. The rest of the place could crash in flame and I would still be here, playing through the chaos.

Here, explosions drowned out the mental noise. Enemies screamed in programmed agony. It was simple. Fast and loud enough to shove everything else aside.

Taiga and my other classmates chose their hundred hour RPGs, with tragic betrayals and gods with feathers and cutscenes longer than some movies. I did not need all that. Just give me a plastic gun and something to shoot. Let me fix my head one headshot at a time.

Maybe it tied back to the keisatsukan dream I had carried since I was ten. Aside from the fantasy of chasing and frisking derijō in Nakasu’s red light district, the thought of protecting civilians with a handgun hit differently.

Having a weapon you were trusted with. Chasing bad guys in narrow alleys, catching your breath under neon lights. A clean shot and the right reason to take it.

Komei-san must have seen me storm off, because I heard him mumble something behind me, and it sounded like, “What is this kid’s deal?”

To be honest. Fair question.

But I was already gripping the light gun. Already picking Keith Martin, my usual choice for my avatar. The guy moved with confidence. Shot straight. He had his life, and his pants, together.

Can’t say the same over here.

Ready. Set. Forget.

I usually finished this game with my right hand. But today, the challenge was beating it left handed. It did not sound daunting until the attempt began. It was brutal. Every movement felt off, and each shot carried the risk of failure. My fingers ached, and the motions felt forced, the way an unwilling mind fought a new language.

The machine whirred to life, and its screen glowed with a strange familiarity. I eased into it. Enemies appeared, and I took them down without thinking. Reloads hit right when they were supposed to. Levels cleared one by one, each one shaving off a bit more of the humiliation still echoing in my skull.

Sometimes a rhythm settled over me, a moment hovering at the edge of awareness. I stopped thinking. Yep, my mind drifted into a peaceful place without warning. My breathing synced with the tempo of the game and the noise in my head. All those comments, the voices, the replay of earlier faded out. I was not the guy who limped in while hiding from the world. I was not the idiot who lost a battle with his own pants.

Right then, I was someone else. Keith Martin. Agent. Sharp aim. Steady hands. No past, no pain. Just the mission. And, you know, shooting pretend terrorists for points.

Almost two hours in, the moment landed. Final stage. Clear. The machine belted out the victory jingle, and I froze for half a second. Then my arms shot up, and something halfway between a cheer and a laugh burst out of me.

I pumped a fist in the air and, yeah, okay, did a half-dance that should probably die with me and the cabinet.

Left hand. Full run. Game complete.

I was not sure what that said about me, and honestly, I did not care. I felt like I had leveled up into a jittery version of myself. Mildly deranged, debatably heroic, and now officially ambidextrous.

Still buzzing, I turned toward the front of the store and called out, “See you next week, Komei-san.”

He barely glanced up from whatever he was fixing behind the counter. He gave me a long, tired look, and the expression carried the responsibility of someone pondering the entire species.

“Okay. Take care, Kira-chan.”

The door swung open, and the outside air hit me clean across the face. It was cool, and the moment felt equal to a step into another day entirely. Somehow, everything felt looser. Easier. I walked out with the sense that the worst parts of today stayed behind, lost somewhere between stage four and the final boss.

Earlier, I was Zipper-kun. Tragic. Public. A walking punchline.

But now, I was back where I belonged. Top of the scoreboard. My scoreboard.

The sun slipped down, brushing everything in a mellow, burnt orange light. The roads were not empty, but they had quieted. A few cars hummed past. Conversations drifted from open windows and doorways, soft enough that I could not make out words, only the feeling. The atmosphere made me feel like I had wandered through the frame of someone else’s slice of life anime. I was not the protagonist, just a passerby in their episode.

I almost forgot I was moving. The world softened around the shadows, and the moment carried me forward in a slow drift.

Then I hit the corner, and the world started moving again.

A mom and her kid were already halfway through the crosswalk. The light was green. Everything about the scene said safe. No reason to question it.

But then came the sound.

Tires screamed against the asphalt.

It was a BMW. The same one from earlier, creeping along the curb and tearing down the road as if something had broken loose inside.

For a second, I just stared.

Then everything hit at once. Time flattened. The noise blurred. My chest locked up. I could not hear anything but the thud of my own pulse.

The car was not slowing down.

They were in its path.

I moved. I did not think. No hesitation, no options, only motion. I ran hard. Legs burning, shoes slapping pavement. My voice cracked open on instinct. “Move!”

The lady and her kid froze. Eyes wide and still.

I threw myself into them. Shoulder first. Arms out. I have no idea how it happened, but I felt the impact shift and felt them stumble out of the path just in time.

They looked back at me with the stunned awe of someone witnessing the impossible.

And for a second, yeah, it gave me the sense that I finally did something right.

Mark the calendar. Seriously. This might have been my one heroic act.

But then the car hit me. Hard. All those thoughts that wanted to lift me up were erased from my head.

The sound inside my body was sharper than the one outside. Bone maybe. Or cartilage. It did not matter. Everything folded inward. I was off the ground. My limbs went loose. Pain ripped through me in too many directions to track. But strangely, I was not scared.

I was somewhere else.

Floating, maybe. Disconnected. I watched my own fall from another angle.

Time slowed. The sky stretched wide above me, colors still smeared across it from sunset. Too big. Nothing moved but me.

And then something strange took place.

The air twisted. Color bent. Shapes sprouted into view, soft, glowing, unreal. Giant petals spun out of nowhere, blooming midair with a casual grace. Pale pink and coral orange, almost translucent. They caught the light and shifted with it. Each flower’s stigma bore an uncanny resemblance to—

Peaches?

Of course, they looked like peaches.

I know what you’re thinking. Peaches? Really? Yeah, I didn’t get it either.

A part of me wanted to laugh. The rest just watched.

I lifted a hand. My fingers grazed the edge of one of the petals. It felt cool. My whole body ached, but there was something peaceful here that made me want to stay and not ask why.

Then I was down.

Not crashing. Not even falling. Just down.

Cross legged on a smooth, glowing floor that bore no resemblance to anything I had ever stood on. No shadows. No seams. The air was bright, but I could not find a source. There were no doors or windows. It did not feel like a dream. It did not feel like anything I had words for.

I waited, but nothing happened. Just silence.

Brain. Fully at loading screen. Spinning wheel of confusion. Zero progress bar.

I glanced around and hoped the place might offer a clue if I searched carefully enough.

Then I said the only thing that made any sense right then.

“Where the hell did the peaches even go?”