The next night, Taiyo and Tomo met up after work at a hot pot restaurant. Taiyo was eager to tell Tomo what had happened the night before at the arcade, but waited until they were out of the office for obvious reasons.

“You must’ve been drunk.” says Tomo as he dips a slice of meat into the simmering broth.

“No, I swear she reached out of the screen and touched my chin.” Taiyo said firmly.

“Sure she did, and I magically travelled to the office today on a flying cloud.”

“Really? Did you find a good parking spot?” 

Taiyo and Tomo both laugh.

“Look, I’ll prove it to you.” Taiyo said while mid-bite

“Tonight?”

“Yes, let’s go to the arcade.”

After finishing up dinner, both men did indeed head to the arcade. The familiar DING-DONG-DANG rang again as they stepped through the doors.

“This is the last place I expected to be tonight, but if it stops you from continuing to push this crazy story on me…it’s worth it.” 

“Over there.” Taiyo says while pointing hurriedly

Tomo reads the banner, “DanceStar…you’re not going to actually dance like a goof are you?”

“I just need to get back to the results screen.”

“So yes.” 

Taiyo proceeded to dance to the music, although with less vigor and enthusiasm as the night before. All that mattered to him was to have Hoshi reach out to him again. 

“Here we go.” Taiyo said excitedly as the results screen came up.

“Thanks for playing, what’s your name?” Hoshi delivers as per usual.

Taiyo looks back at Tomo and says slyly, “She’s playing coy, she already knows my name.”

“Sure she does buddy, sure she does.”

“Taiyo.”

“Cool name! Keep on dancing!”

Taiyo’s name appeared on the screen as programmed, but there was no special interaction. Just the words ‘Game Over’ and a sombre return to the attract screen. Frozen once again but this time for a different reason, Taiyo struggles with what just happened. 

Tomo puts his hand on Taiyo’s shoulder,

“Can we go now?”

“But wait…it…I…”

“Let it be Loverboy, she’s just not that into you.” Tomo says while laughing and walking towards the exit.

“Bye-bye Taiyo-kun” Hoshi whispers from the attract screen. She then gives Taiyo a wink of acknowledgement. 

In shock Taiyo yells back to Tomo, “Hey! She just winked at me! Did you see?!”

“You’ve tricked me enough already today Tai.”

As he followed behind Tomo on their way out the arcade, a smile appeared on Taiyo’s face.

“It WAS real.” he thought to himself.