After eating lunch, we went back to the leisure room. In addition to bowling, there were also arrangements for futsal and basketball outdoors along with a karaoke and a game center indoors, so it was just like an amusement park where you could do just about anything.
“Oh, could that be… !?”
As we were walking along, chatting about where and what to play, Nikaido suddenly started running towards the UFO catcher. We all followed her, wondering what was going on, and saw the prince sticking to the glass with her eyes sparkling like a child who had found the toy she wanted.
“A stuffed otter, exclusive to the arcade! I couldn’t find it anywhere, and yet here it is!”
Nikaido found a stuffed otter that was very popular on social media. The prince of Meiwadai loved this character so much that she used it as a pen case and phone cover. Very few people in the school knew about it yet, but if word got out, it was not hard to imagine that the number of fans would only increase due to moe and the like.
[TN: Moe – Japanese word that refers to feelings of strong affection mainly towards characters in anime.]
“Okay, I’m gonna catch it. I’m going to catch it and take this baby home with me.”
Blazing with fighting spirit, she took out a 500 yen coin from her wallet and chucked it in without hesitation.
“Nikaido-senpai,all the best!”
As Yui-chan cheered her on, Nikaido operated the lever with a serious look on her face. The position of the lever could be fine-tuned as many times as you wanted within the time limit, so it seemed relatively easy to win?
“Okay, here!”
Nikaido confidently pressed the button with a bang. Slowly, the arm descended and firmly grasped the otter’s torso.
“Oh!”
Nikaido and Yui-chan let out a small cheer. They thought they would be able to lift it up and get it, but that was not to be. The stuffed animal mercilessly fell down.
“Aah… ! We were so close! Come on, Arm! You can do it, can’t you!?”
Nikaido cheered enthusiastically for the machine like some Matsuoka-san. After that, she was able to grab it five times in a row, but it kept falling down, and her challenge ended in failure.
“Why do you… why do you give up! Never!”
Nikaido, who had scolded me by sticking to the glass, took her purse out of her bag, pulled out a few bills from it, and walked to the money changer. I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Wait, calm down. You need to calm down a little, Nikaido.”
“Because I have a mission to welcome her, so please don’t stop me.”
“I get it. Just calm down for a second. At this rate, no matter how many times you try, the result will be the same, okay?”
It was said that the key to success in crane games was to understand the arm’s range of motion and grabbing power. Also, in the case of stuffed animals like this otter, it was often very difficult to lift it if you proceeded in a normal manner.
“Nikaido-senpai… I’m sorry to say this, but I’ve heard that the UFO catchers in these stores are set to be very hard. So, you know… I think it’s better to give up gracefully or buy it through mail order.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, if you buy something by mail order, it means it was in someone else’s hands. That’s not good enough. It has to be my own little otter!”
As I listened to the second-year ace of the basketball team speak passionately about the achievement to the promising new freshman with her back facing me, Kaede, who had just come next to me, called out to me.
“I don’t really have an image of you playing this kind of game Yuya-kun, but are you perhaps good at this kind of game?”
“I do not know if I can only say it, but I did a lot of research to catch the things I wanted after a few efforts.”
At any rate, the Yoshizumi family’s finances were on fire 365 days a year, so our pocket money was a pittance. If my father’s business miraculously succeeded, we got more money, but we couldn’t waste it.
That was why when I saw the prizes I wanted lined up, I thought desperately about how I could catch them without spending a lot of money.
“In the case of this kind of stuffed animal, even if you try to lift it properly, you won’t have enough strength, so even if you can grab it, it will definitely fall off in the process.”
“Then we’ll never catch it! What are you going to do?”
“In this case, it seems that the power is set to become stronger if you put in a certain amount of money, so you could wait for that, but that would leave your wallet empty.”
It was a way of forcing people to use their wealth to win, but doing so was the same as falling into a trap set by the arcade. It was a fatal wound for students, not to mention the millionaires who had no itch or pain to spend money.
“That’s why we’re going after… I found it. If we can hook it right there, we might catch it.”
Now I just need to figure out how to get the arm to the right spot. But I know my habits because Nikaido showed me how to do it six times just now. Well, I guess I just had to try it. I threw in 100 yen.
“Eh, Yoshizumi? What are you doing?”
“Just watch.”
I manipulated the lever to move the arm. My target was the product tag on the back of the unit. If I could hook it into the loop there, it would probably be able to—
“Ah! There’s an arm in the loop! eh, could it be this way?”
Kaede let out a surprised voice. Nikaido and Yui-chan gazed at the arm as if praying with bated breath. And their prayers were answered successfully. With a thud, the stuffed otter fell safely to the end beneath us.
“You got it!? And in one shot!? Yo, Yoshizumi… are you some kind of genius!?”
“I think I saw an unexpected talent of Yoshizumi-senpai”
Nikaido was so surprised that her tension went into a strange state, and Yui-chan was in a daze. I took out the stuffed animal and handed it to Nikaido with a wry smile.
“Oh, thank you, Yoshizumi”
The prince smiled as she hugged the otter tightly. If a fan had seen this expression, he would have had a stroke. It had a different kind of destructive power than Kaede’s smile.
“Yoshizumi-senpai! I have a figure I want too, so can you catch it for me!? Rather, please take it, please!”
“Yuya-kun, please take something for me!”
I was pulled in by Yui-chan and Kaede, who took both my hands. I don’t know about Yui-chan, but Kaede didn’t really want anything, did she? You already have a big stuffed bear.
“And that’s not the same thing as this. I want a memory of today!”
“I know what you’re thinking, but even if I catch it, I don’t know where to put it—aah, yes. I understand. Then we’ll see what we can find together.”
I couldn’t say no to Kaede when she puffed up her cheeks and looked up at me. And as Kaede said, it was not a bad idea to take something home with you as a reminder that we all came here today.
“There’s so much here, let’s take our time looking around together!”
“Yoshizumi-senpai! Me too! Please don’t forget about me too!?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll catch the figure you want, Yui-chan. What about Nikaido? Do you want to come with me?”
“I think I’ll pass. I’ll wait on a bench around the corner after I get a bag to put her in. There’s a lot of temptation in this area.”
Nikaido then walked off by herself to look for the shopkeeper. Then we shall get going, too. I’m not sure about Yui-chan going first?
By the way, while we were playing UFO Catcher, Shinji and Otsuki-san were playing a racing game where they threw shells. They were so lovey-dovey.
After eating lunch, we went back to the leisure room. In addition to bowling, there were also arrangements for futsal and basketball outdoors along with a karaoke and a game center indoors, so it was just like an amusement park where you could do just about anything.
“Oh, could that be… !?”
As we were walking along, chatting about where and what to play, Nikaido suddenly started running towards the UFO catcher. We all followed her, wondering what was going on, and saw the prince sticking to the glass with her eyes sparkling like a child who had found the toy she wanted.
“A stuffed otter, exclusive to the arcade! I couldn’t find it anywhere, and yet here it is!”
Nikaido found a stuffed otter that was very popular on social media. The prince of Meiwadai loved this character so much that she used it as a pen case and phone cover. Very few people in the school knew about it yet, but if word got out, it was not hard to imagine that the number of fans would only increase due to moe and the like.
[TN: Moe – Japanese word that refers to feelings of strong affection mainly towards characters in anime.]
“Okay, I’m gonna catch it. I’m going to catch it and take this baby home with me.”
Blazing with fighting spirit, she took out a 500 yen coin from her wallet and chucked it in without hesitation.
“Nikaido-senpai,all the best!”
As Yui-chan cheered her on, Nikaido operated the lever with a serious look on her face. The position of the lever could be fine-tuned as many times as you wanted within the time limit, so it seemed relatively easy to win?
“Okay, here!”
Nikaido confidently pressed the button with a bang. Slowly, the arm descended and firmly grasped the otter’s torso.
“Oh!”
Nikaido and Yui-chan let out a small cheer. They thought they would be able to lift it up and get it, but that was not to be. The stuffed animal mercilessly fell down.
“Aah… ! We were so close! Come on, Arm! You can do it, can’t you!?”
Nikaido cheered enthusiastically for the machine like some Matsuoka-san. After that, she was able to grab it five times in a row, but it kept falling down, and her challenge ended in failure.
“Why do you… why do you give up! Never!”
Nikaido, who had scolded me by sticking to the glass, took her purse out of her bag, pulled out a few bills from it, and walked to the money changer. I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Wait, calm down. You need to calm down a little, Nikaido.”
“Because I have a mission to welcome her, so please don’t stop me.”
“I get it. Just calm down for a second. At this rate, no matter how many times you try, the result will be the same, okay?”
It was said that the key to success in crane games was to understand the arm’s range of motion and grabbing power. Also, in the case of stuffed animals like this otter, it was often very difficult to lift it if you proceeded in a normal manner.
“Nikaido-senpai… I’m sorry to say this, but I’ve heard that the UFO catchers in these stores are set to be very hard. So, you know… I think it’s better to give up gracefully or buy it through mail order.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, if you buy something by mail order, it means it was in someone else’s hands. That’s not good enough. It has to be my own little otter!”
As I listened to the second-year ace of the basketball team speak passionately about the achievement to the promising new freshman with her back facing me, Kaede, who had just come next to me, called out to me.
“I don’t really have an image of you playing this kind of game Yuya-kun, but are you perhaps good at this kind of game?”
“I do not know if I can only say it, but I did a lot of research to catch the things I wanted after a few efforts.”
At any rate, the Yoshizumi family’s finances were on fire 365 days a year, so our pocket money was a pittance. If my father’s business miraculously succeeded, we got more money, but we couldn’t waste it.
That was why when I saw the prizes I wanted lined up, I thought desperately about how I could catch them without spending a lot of money.
“In the case of this kind of stuffed animal, even if you try to lift it properly, you won’t have enough strength, so even if you can grab it, it will definitely fall off in the process.”
“Then we’ll never catch it! What are you going to do?”
“In this case, it seems that the power is set to become stronger if you put in a certain amount of money, so you could wait for that, but that would leave your wallet empty.”
It was a way of forcing people to use their wealth to win, but doing so was the same as falling into a trap set by the arcade. It was a fatal wound for students, not to mention the millionaires who had no itch or pain to spend money.
“That’s why we’re going after… I found it. If we can hook it right there, we might catch it.”
Now I just need to figure out how to get the arm to the right spot. But I know my habits because Nikaido showed me how to do it six times just now. Well, I guess I just had to try it. I threw in 100 yen.
“Eh, Yoshizumi? What are you doing?”
“Just watch.”
I manipulated the lever to move the arm. My target was the product tag on the back of the unit. If I could hook it into the loop there, it would probably be able to—
“Ah! There’s an arm in the loop! eh, could it be this way?”
Kaede let out a surprised voice. Nikaido and Yui-chan gazed at the arm as if praying with bated breath. And their prayers were answered successfully. With a thud, the stuffed otter fell safely to the end beneath us.
“You got it!? And in one shot!? Yo, Yoshizumi… are you some kind of genius!?”
“I think I saw an unexpected talent of Yoshizumi-senpai”
Nikaido was so surprised that her tension went into a strange state, and Yui-chan was in a daze. I took out the stuffed animal and handed it to Nikaido with a wry smile.
“Oh, thank you, Yoshizumi”
The prince smiled as she hugged the otter tightly. If a fan had seen this expression, he would have had a stroke. It had a different kind of destructive power than Kaede’s smile.
“Yoshizumi-senpai! I have a figure I want too, so can you catch it for me!? Rather, please take it, please!”
“Yuya-kun, please take something for me!”
I was pulled in by Yui-chan and Kaede, who took both my hands. I don’t know about Yui-chan, but Kaede didn’t really want anything, did she? You already have a big stuffed bear.
“And that’s not the same thing as this. I want a memory of today!”
“I know what you’re thinking, but even if I catch it, I don’t know where to put it—aah, yes. I understand. Then we’ll see what we can find together.”
I couldn’t say no to Kaede when she puffed up her cheeks and looked up at me. And as Kaede said, it was not a bad idea to take something home with you as a reminder that we all came here today.
“There’s so much here, let’s take our time looking around together!”
“Yoshizumi-senpai! Me too! Please don’t forget about me too!?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll catch the figure you want, Yui-chan. What about Nikaido? Do you want to come with me?”
“I think I’ll pass. I’ll wait on a bench around the corner after I get a bag to put her in. There’s a lot of temptation in this area.”
Nikaido then walked off by herself to look for the shopkeeper. Then we shall get going, too. I’m not sure about Yui-chan going first?
By the way, while we were playing UFO Catcher, Shinji and Otsuki-san were playing a racing game where they threw shells. They were so lovey-dovey.
