Lin brought the arcade machine back just as Elysia finished her stream. She turned around to see Lin carrying a machine almost wider than the door, looking calm as he began tinkering with some repair tools he had bought.
"You went to the second-hand market and scrounged an arcade machine?"
"..."
Lin didn't answer her. His mechanical knowledge definitely wasn't as good as Vil-V's, but repairing a machine as simple as an arcade cabinet was no problem for him.
After about half an hour of work, Lin replaced all the damaged parts with new ones and reconnected the broken wires. Incredibly, the data inside was unharmed, making it the most perfectly preserved part of the machine.
Why did Yama specifically give this to him? Even if it had indeed fallen into the Sea of Quanta with him, it served no practical purpose. She didn't seem like the type to do things just for fun either.
...This act added a hint of strangeness to Lin heart. After fixing the machine, he plugged it in and watched the screen light up with Elysia.
"Whoa, it's this game! Wasn't this called a 'crap game'? A game made purely to torture the player."
Elysia was a gaming streamer, after all; she recognized the notorious game at a glance.
"..."
"Lin? Are you still angry?" Seeing Lin silent, Elysia playfully peeked over his shoulder to look at his expression.
"No." Lin found it hard to describe his mood. He was never used to—nor liked—describing his inner feelings. Most of the time, he just felt a complex mass of things piling up in his heart. "I just don't feel like talking much."
"Isn't that just being angry?" Elysia waved a hand in front of Lin face, grinning mischievously. "Don't be angry, don't be angry~ If you really have to be angry, just say some harsh words to me. Don't keep it bottled up inside."
"..."
Lin remained silent. He watched the game interface appear and subconsciously went to check the rankings, but the moment his finger was about to press down, he hesitated.
Why... this sense of unease?
What did he not want to see?
Lin steadied his hand and pressed the button. The fluorescent glow of the changing screen hit his face.
Like a predetermined prophecy where the ending is known before it even begins, Lin already knew who would be in the first place before he saw the name.
"The score of this person called 'Delta' is way too high, isn't it? The second-place score from 'Zero' is already crazy enough, but she's that much higher?" Elysia leaned in to look, exclaiming at the exaggerated numbers.
"Could there be an error?"
"There's no error."
Lin stared at the screen, not knowing who he was answering.
...
"Lin, in the past... did you go through a lot of things?"
Elysia sat down beside Lin with a cup of coffee. He was leaning against the window—his favorite spot, where he could see the moonlight outside—and coffee was his favorite drink.
This person would often have a look as if he were missing someone, only for it to be quickly crushed by a coldness he generated himself.
As if he were forcing himself never to look back.
Lin took the coffee and took a shallow sip.
Actually, he couldn't taste anything. The effect of the potion Vil-V had injected had completely vanished. He drank coffee often just to hide the anomaly of not needing much sleep.
Elysia asked gossipingly, "Could it be a romantic history that normal people can't imagine?"
"...No." Lin blew on the steam of the coffee, pretending to be afraid of the heat. With lowered eyelids, he corrected himself, "Perhaps there was. It's just... not suitable."
"A very complicated relationship?"
"A very simple relationship."
"Then why say it's not suitable?"
"I'm not talking about a person."
"Family factors? Environmental factors? Career factors?"
"..."
Lin didn't want to answer, nor did he know how to. He thought of a different question.
"If someone kept urging another person to get married, why do you think that is?"
"That depends on the relationship between them. Are they lovers?"
"No. Same gender, and it's a senior and junior relationship."
Elysia twirled a lock of her hair with a finger, thinking. "Senior and junior, huh? The one urging is the senior, right? Let me guess—is this senior already married?"
"Yes."
"Then it's simple." Elysia blew on her fingernails. "Because in the eyes of the senior, the junior is someone who needs to be looked after. You might not know, but it's very common for parents to urge their children to marry. In their eyes, their children are always accompanied by loneliness, as fragile as a stalk of wheat that would fall over in the wind."
"A family is a person's harbor. No matter how badly you're hurt outside, you can be healed when you get home. Oh wait, I might be making it sound too complicated... Actually, they just hope the child has someone waiting for them to return, so they have someone to care about—and thus, a reason to want to go home."
Elysia stopped here. She stole a glance at Lin, who was listening to her.
"Lin, are you thinking about that good friend of yours?"
"..."
"You might not have noticed it yourself, but the way you look at me sometimes feels like you're looking at someone else."
Lin snapped out of his thoughts at those words. He looked at Elysia and spoke instinctively: "No, I—"
"Haha, it's okay." Elysia laughed it off. "It doesn't matter either way. Even if you use me as a substitute for someone, we're still friends, aren't we?"
"I haven't been using you as a substitute..."
"Then what was the reason you helped me back then? For these past two months, besides strategizing for me, you've also been in charge of my food and daily life. You don't want any wages, and you fulfill all my selfish requests." The girl's smile was filled with a hazy sense of fragility. "We look very alike, don't we? I really want to meet her more and more."
"..."
Lin was speechless.
"By the way, I want steak tomorrow morning~"
After saying this with a smile, Elysia went back to her bedroom.
Leaving Lin alone under the moonlight, he gently placed his hand over his heart, feeling the vibration within.
A long, long time later, he sat at the arcade machine, plugged it in, and started the game.
The flashing lights flickered in his eyes. He silently manipulated the reticle, shooting down all the targets.
If you think too much while playing games, it's easy to lose. So, if you don't want to think too much, play games.
"GAME OVER."
The text on the screen and the mocking voice from the speakers brought Lin dilated pupils back to focus.
An incredibly terrible score. In the past, he couldn't have gotten a score this low even if he played with his eyes closed.
Lin turned off the machine, planning to sleep for a bit for the first time in a long while.