The Simulacrum

~Chapter 154~ Part 4

"So lemme see if I've got this straight…"

Josh said that, but then there was motion on our left and he swung his pistol in the direction. His movements were sharp and precise, and it only took him a blink of an eye to line up the shot and pull the trigger, causing the zombie's head to explode into ludicrous gibs.

"Nice shot."

"Thanks. I need to reload, cover me." He let his gun down for a few seconds before raising it again and taking a couple of shots at some distant, shambling targets. It didn't stop him from continuing his previous train of thought. "So, Ms Yamako got engaged to Zihao's older brother. For real."

"Yeah, for real this time," I responded tersely while unloading on a big, fat zombie skipping towards us.

"Right, because before that, there was some kind of misunderstanding and they were only planning to get engaged for political reasons, and… Shit, horde on our right!" We both emptied our magazines into the group of shamblers. "I've only got two magazines left. We could really use a supply crate."

"I've still got five. Pace yourself and I'll try to cover your side too."

"Thanks. Where was I?" Two shots later, he clicked his tongue. "Right, so the reason for that weird scene at the party, before Bel showed up, was that this other woman thought there was some conspiracy going on, but then you dragged them over to sit them down, and now we're going to have a tournament and they are going to duel there, even though everything got cleared up."

"That's the gist of it," I confirmed, followed by a couple of shots towards Josh's side. "Also, there's going to be another party where they'll officially announce their engagement again."

"Are you gonna attend it?" Josh asked absently, followed by a whispered, "Oh, supplies."

"I kind of have to."

There was a short lull in the conversation, and since there were no living dead in sight, Josh used the opportunity to send a sideways glance my way.

"Dude, you're running something like three different organizations, on top of the coming exams and two girlfriends. How the hell do you have the energy to deal with others' relationship problems on top of all that?"

"Hey, give me a break. It's not like I wanted to deal with any of that. I just got entangled in that mess against my will."

"Yeah, you always say that," he grumbled, but then his eyes snapped forward and he looked down the sights of his pistol again. "Look out! It's a big guy!"

Following his urging, I also raised my gun, the orange plastic feeling strange but not uncomfortable in my hands as I aimed at the head of the incoming giant zombie… only to realize that it had no head.

"What's this one's weak point?"

"I dunno, I never got this far with Angie! Let's just unload all over it until something flashes red!"

"Gotcha!"

And with that, our epic battle against the third boss of 'The Manor of the Deceased 4' began in earnest. The sounds of the large cabinet were drowned out by the background noise of the rest of the arcade, and despite our valiant efforts, we couldn't find its weakness in time and our health bar steadily plummeted to zero.

"Man, this is bullcrap," my friend grumbled as the countdown animation played on the screen, asking us if we wanted to throw in another quarter to continue. Instead, he returned his light-gun into its socked and turned to me. "I had it with this game. I'm not wasting a single Jen more on this unfair mess."

I eyed him for a second, and then also slid my pistol into its receptacle.

"You say that, but you're just going to look up the boss's weak spot on the internet and then try again next time with Angie, right?"

"No," he responded a touch petulantly, but then after a while he averted his gaze and added an almost sulky, "Maybe."

"Hey, I'm not judging."

With that said, I stepped out of the enclosed cabinet, one of the biggest in the arcade, and let out a pent-up breath. It was a nice Saturday afternoon, and Josh and I had been spending it by trying out all the various new arcade machines the establishment acquired as of late. I admit I thought their business would suffer from the proliferation of more 'modern' technology I subconsciously reality-warped into the world, yet my expectations were not only wrong but completely the opposite of reality.

Put simply, while internet-age tech, like flat screens, smart phones, and dot-com businesses became a part of our world, it didn't mean they spread through all of society all at once. Most people I knew still had CRT televisions and monitors, and old-school keypad phones were still way more common than touch-screen ones among the kids at school.

Conversely, newer gaming systems were also a rarity, explaining why Angie was so hyped about Penny's 'next-gen' console in our living room. It wasn't cheap, not by a long shot, so the average consumer wasn't familiar with 3D graphics yet; especially not on home consoles and PCs. Because of this, arcade machines like the one we just played, with their comparatively high-end graphics and special effects, were absolutely flooring everyone who laid their eyes on them, as shown by just how crowded the arcade was at this hour.

Seeing that two guys were already taking out spots in front of the screen, I gestured for Josh to come along.

"Anything else you wanted to try out?" After some thinking, he pointed at the row of three identical claw crane machines in the back, prompting me to raise a brow at him. "Seriously?"

"Angie really wants the panda bear plushie from it, but I couldn't get it the last time." He paused meaningfully and shook his jacket. While it was hard to make it out over the noise floor of the arcade, I was pretty sure he was trying to showcase how he had like a hundred quarters in his pockets. "I came prepared this time."

"Huh. Now that you mention it, maybe I should get some souvenirs for the girls as well. My sisters too, while I'm at it."

"Be my guest, but…" He stopped and extended a fist towards me. "If you get the panda, we trade. Deal?"

I responded with a nonchalant "Deal," and bumped his fist. Josh nodded solemnly, as if we just made some great oath, and we walked over to the claw machines. Unlike the rest of the arcade, this spot was relatively deserted. Probably because everyone was crowding around the new cabinets, but either way, only two guys standing in front of the machines filled with colourful plushies was at least a little odd. If I wasn't fully confident in my masculinity, it might've even felt a bit awkward.

There were more important things to consider though, and in a way, this corner of the arcade being somewhat deserted was a good thing. The whole point of hanging out with Josh today, at least before we got side-tracked, was to probe and hopefully ease his insecurities a little before they would turn into a full-blown complex of some kind.

The only problem was that I had no idea how to get the conversation rolling. I mean, I couldn't just start with something like 'Hey, do you have any self-doubts?'. Or… technically I could. It wouldn't have been the first time I started a meaningful conversation with an abject non-sequitur that somehow still worked out. It's how I got Judy 'hired' as my assistant in the beginning, after all, but I wasn't sure it was a good idea to do that here.

While thinking about how to break the ice, I absentmindedly threw a couple of quarters into the machine and grabbed the joystick in front of me. These claw crane games were pretty simple ordeals; you just had to position the crane mechanism over the pile of prizes at the bottom (in this case, small plushies), and once you were satisfied, just press the big red button. I did just that, and the three-pronged claw descended from above and gently closed on the target. Of course, if one could get a prize every time, then it would hardly be profitable for the owner, so the machine was pretty flimsy, and there was a chance it wouldn't grab anything, or even lose its grip on the way to the dispenser.

Luckily, my very first attempt got a pretty good grasp on a plush animal, and after slowly lifting it out of the pile, it smoothly took it to the hole on the side before dropping it. My prize tumbled down the chute and then landed with a catchy jingle and some flashing lights, bringing a grin to my face.

"Look, Josh. First try."

My friend looked over and clicked his tongue.

"And you've got a panda too? Damn…" He let out a groan, just as his own crane just dropped the little penguin he grabbed. "Why is everything so easy for you?"

"It was just dumb luck."

"Yeah, sure," he grumbled and, seeing that his crane returned to the start position, threw another bunch of quarters into the machine. "You know you can't explain everything with luck, right?"

"But I swear, this time it really was luck. I wasn't even aiming at the panda, you know?"

My friend gave me a flat look and then returned to the game.

"And yet everything works out for you just fine. Must be because of that whole 'destiny' thing Angie and Ammy keep talking about, huh?"

"Maaaybe?" I responded just a bit evasively, and he let out a soft scoff without looking at me.

"Do you remember that time, way back when? When you told me you felt like you were made the captain of a ship without knowing what's going on?" Speaking of non-sequiturs, that was definitely one right out of my playbook, but I was sure he was going somewhere with it, so I grunted in the affirmative. "I didn't wanna admit it at the time, but that made me feel a bit… is vindicated the right word?" Meanwhile, Josh's claw landed on the same penguin plushie from before, and it lifted it into the air. "I felt like, 'Hey, I have it rough, but this guy also has it rough, so I'm not the only one,' or something like that. You know what I'm trying to say?"

"Yeah, kind of."

He hummed as the crane slowly inched towards the chute, but it dropped the plushie too early, and it bounced off the edge.

"Sunova…" Grumbling, he immediately loaded up the next round. I felt like I should do so as well, so I followed his example and continued to listen to him while aiming my crane. "The point I'm trying to make is that back then, I thought we were birds of a feather. Sure, I was overwhelmed with all that talk about prophecies and chosen ones and whatever, but everyone had their own problems. We were kinda on the same page, you know? I imagined that if someone like you could deal with his problems, then so could I."

"Hey! What do you mean by 'someone like you'?" I snapped at him, though not seriously.

"Oh, you know?" He shrugged and somehow managed to grab the same plushie for the third time. He was anything but inconsistent, I had to give him that. "A goofball. A sore loser. A bit of a Casanova-wannabe. Relatively normal."

"I take umbrage to that," I continued to huff in mock outrage. "I'm not 'relatively' normal. I'm normally normal."

"Yeah, buddy. You keep telling yourself that." There was a hint of a smile on his lips that turned into a full-blown grin when the plushie finally landed in the chute. "Boom! In your face, stupid crane."

"Neat. Do you want to trade now?" I offered, but he shook his head.

"Nah. Supply and demand. You have what I want, and you need multiple plushies, so it only makes sense that I trade that one for at least two."

"Suit yourself." I shrugged and pressed my red button, and magnificently missed my target in the pile, grabbing onto thin air. "You see? I told you it was luck."

"Yeah, and I would be inclined to believe you if that was an isolated incident," my friend replied dourly as he loaded the machine for the next round. "Let's be honest though; we're no longer on the same page. I'm not sure we ever were, now that I think about it." He let out a shallow sigh and triggered the grabbing mechanism before looking at me again. "Take what happened in Elysium for example. When I was kidnapped by those scumbags, it was a complete shit show and barely managed to get away while Angie had nearly blown up the whole floor. When you got kidnapped by the same scumbags, you wrapped the whole damn place around your pinkie finger and overthrew their entire government to install your own. Not exactly in the same ballpark."

"If you boil down the whole incident like that, then of course it isn't," I griped. "Things were a little more involved and hairier than that, you know?"

"Probably, but it still shows the difference," he argued back in a soft, almost serene voice. "When you get into a crazy situation like that, you turn everything on its head and make it work out for you, but when I do, I just end up flailing around until someone comes to the rescue." He followed that up with a sigh, and even though he managed to nab a koala plushie, there was nary a hint of a smile on his face this time. "Like back when you had to bail me out when Sahi caught us red-handed. Or when you had to bail me out when we were kidnapped by the Celestials. Or when you had to bail me out when I was shot and Deus went on a rampage in Angie's body. Or when you had to bail me out and reveal your trump card against Bel. Or when you…"

"Hey, quit it. You're sounding like a depressed mop."

"Maybe, but you can't deny any of what I said, can you?" He didn't even wait for me to respond, and after getting his second plushie, he automatically loaded in the quarters again, as if on autopilot. "You know, for a while I thought I've got it together. I mean, I won a tournament, and I was acknowledged by a bunch of people, and everything, so I thought 'Hey, maybe there's something to this whole dumb chosen one thing after all?'. But ever since then, I've been on a losing streak, and I've been wondering… Just what am I doing? What am I supposed to do?" He paused for a meaningful beat, visibly hesitating over whether to say his next line out loud. In the end, he looked at me again and spoke in a low, hollow voice. "I kinda tried to look at you for an example, but I just can't do it. I can't do things like you do, so… I'm feeling a bit lost."

"You see, that was your one mistake." The atmosphere was getting a bit heavy, so I fully turned his way and flashed a devil-may-care grin to shift the mood a bit. "You can't emulate me when even I don't know what the heck I'm doing. That's just plain impossible."

"Again, you keep saying that, but—"

"No, I'm actually serious. Most of the time, I'm just flying by the seat of my pants and hoping for the best. I'm the last guy you should try looking at when you need a role model."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"The same thing as always?" I shrugged and turned back to the machine. "You put yourself down, but you did win that tournament on your own, you did save Angie from a bullet, and you are the boyfriend and future consort of the ruler of an entire pocket dimension nation. And that's not even counting your comparatively smaller achievements. Most people would kill to have just a fraction of your resumé, and it's only going to get longer from now on."

"Maybe, but…"

"No buts. You're just in a bit of a rough spot right now, but it'll pass. It's the same thing Elly always tells me, and she's right."

Of course, there's the small issue that there would be another rough patch coming up right after that, inevitably, but that wasn't what he needed to hear right now.

"Fine, maybe you're right, but I'm still feeling useless right now. I mean, I just can't get used to these Celestial powers."

"Give it some time."

"But what if there's another emergency during that 'some time'? What if Bel attacks us, or Lily's ex-brother comes back, or some completely new threat emerges, like… Idunno… Mole people?"

Stifling a chuckle, I shook my head.

"Even if that happens, I'll have your back, and you'll have mine, and it'll work out somehow."

I said that with a smile, even while my inner pessimist was screaming at me for saying such sappy lines. I wasn't lying though.

"Have your back, huh?"

"Yep. That's what friends are for, right?"

"Right…"

Josh's eyes shone with a sense of determination, so I considered that mission accomplished. Now, there was only one more thing to take care of…

"Sooo… Are you going to keep pulling?" My friend's face slackened and he looked at me blankly, so I subtly gestured towards the tray next to his claw machine. "I think you've got enough for a fair trade."

That was an understatement, as even while we talked, he never stopped playing the crane game, and at this point, he had something like seven or eight plushies. In contrast, mine still only had that one single panda bear. Now granted, I stopped playing after the fourth failed attempt to grab something, but if anything, it just proved my initial argument about it being pure luck true.

"I think I do…" After muttering so, he scooped up all the toys and presented them to me. "Here. All of mine for all of yours."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You have lots of girls in your extended family, so you'll probably need the extras."

"You might be right." I exchanged my panda bear for his whole haul, and after stuffing them in my bag, I flashed a smile. "Thanks, pal."

"No. Thank you, bud."

And that was the curtain call of the day, punctuated with another fist-bump. Good times, good times.