It was obvious who was better.
Anyone could tell as much by watching the movements of my ninja, Found, and Nakamura’s fox character, Foxy. Okay, I guess he wasn’t terrible for a normie. Word was he’d been winning tons of bets with Atafami—the game we were playing—but now his real level was clear to see. I knew I’d win as soon as the game started.
Still, I’m not one to cut corners when it comes to Atafami. It didn’t matter that Nakamura only had one stock left. My plan was to throw him off by pretending to charge straight at him like a madman, and then “wavedash.” I figured that at his level, he probably didn’t even know what wavedashing was—an advanced technique accomplished by short hopping and then immediately performing a directional air dodge diagonally into the ground to slide a short distance. With proper execution, the full technique happens in less than a second.
Nakamura fell for my feint and tried to hit me. I dodged by wavedashing backward and then seized the opportunity to approach. In this game, throws are the foundation of combos. It’s all about how many combos you can pile on after starting with a throw. My character Found is really good at this.
Found grabbed Nakamura’s character. After that, the game was mine. One after another I hit him with combos that looked easy but actually required delicate maneuvering. It’s not that there was no way to break out—he just didn’t know how. Naturally, it was over.
✦ ✦ ✦
Nakamura was out of stocks.
✦ ✦ ✦
“All righty, then.”
Welp, I won. Not that there was any chance I would lose to an amateur in Atafami, but I was surprised by how easy it had been. What came next was the part I was worried about.
Each player starts with four stocks. You face off on a flat stage, no gimmicks, with someone you’ve never played before.
Those were the rules. They were fair, and now Nakamura had zero stocks left. Me? I had four. So yeah, I demolished him.
When I looked over at him, I could tell he wanted to say something. He kept glancing back and forth from my face to the controller in my hand, and I could make out the tiniest shade of an inferiority complex in his eyes. Kinda surprising, actually. During a normal day at school, Nakamura would never look at me with that weakness in his eyes. I hadn’t expected this.
He was handsome, with dyed brown hair. You could tell at a glance he was one of those people who’s good at real life—top of the class, a strong athlete, girls all over him, even good at video games. A smooth operator, head and shoulders above everyone around him.
You have the ever-confident Nakamura, normie extraordinaire, looking at me like a kicked puppy. At me—an extreme, in-your-face geek.
“…chose the wrong…” Nakamura was saying something.
“Huh?”
“I just chose the wrong character.”
“…What?”
“I had a bad character. That’s why I lost.”
“Um, n-no, these two characters are in the same tier…”
“It’s not that—it’s about the matchup. It was just a bad match for yours,” he tried to tell me matter-of-factly.
I was dumbfounded. That was just an excuse no matter how you slice it.
Then I realized what was going on. His stubborn refusal to accept defeat gracefully was a sign of just how much he looked down on me. Losing to me was so humiliating that this show was the only way he could hold onto his pride. He didn’t even bother to make his excuse a good one. My inferiority was a given for him. This kind of injustice is commonplace when you’re on the bottom-tier of life.
Except for moments like this.
For those moments when I was sitting in front of Atafami, things were different.
“A-actually, Foxy drops fast, so I’d have to say it’s actually easier to do combos with him.”
“I guess. It’s all about the matchups with this game.”
I took a breath and looked Nakamura straight in the eyes. I was scared. But…
“…That’s just an excuse.” I’m so used to people looking down on me, it doesn’t even bother me that much.
“Look, I’m totally right, but you’re all happy ’cause you won this shitty game. It’s so dumb.”
This, on the other hand, I’ll never get used to. I can’t stand it when someone gets stomped and then pretends they weren’t even trying.
“Yeah, I am happy, and you only think it’s dumb ’cause you lost. You’ve never experienced what it’s like to win, so I wouldn’t expect you to understand. I’d get it if you won and then said it was dumb, but you lost, and now you sound like a sore loser.”
As far as I was concerned, we were on the battlefield of Atafami, and words were my ammo.
“Huh? It’s all about which characters are better against others. God, this game sucks. Win or lose, it’s shit.”
“The matchup can’t explain how much better I was. You lost because you’re a weak player. I’d win even if we traded characters.”
“…Fine. Let’s switch characters. I can promise I’m not gonna lose to you again.”
His eyes lit up with fighting spirit. Only people in the top tier of life have that kind of baseless confidence. The courage—or should I say the stupidity—to insist they’ll never lose even in this situation. Bottom-tier characters like me don’t have that privilege. We don’t have the strength to act like we’re right when we’re wrong—the confidence to think, Of course it’ll work out. I’m me. We lack that animalistic power.
In fact, it’s the opposite—even though I had just crushed him, I still felt slightly uneasy for some reason.
But for that one moment, I wasn’t bottom-tier.
“…Actually, this is gonna be annoying,” I said.
“Come on. If you’re that sure of yourself, play me again.”
“It’s not that. I just don’t want to have to listen to your dumb excuses again after I beat you.”
“Huh?”
When I’m playing Atafami, I’m a beast. “Fine. But we have to trade controllers, too. I don’t want to listen to you tell me the buttons didn’t work. Oh, and we should probably trade seats, ’cause you’d probably say something about the glare on the screen. Let’s start with eight stocks, too. Long battles are where your strength really shows, right? What else? How about we ban combos your opponent can’t get out of unless they know how? ’Cause that’s really about knowledge more than skill, right? That should make it a pure competition of skill, reflexes, and decision-making ability. Did I forget anything? …Oh, should we trade clothes?”
Ha-ha-ha. Welp, I sure told him. Man, was I ever going to regret this later.
“…Uh, no, we shouldn’t. Don’t be a dick, dude. Seriously.”
That was a mean look he was giving me. When someone glares at me like that, I can’t help reacting like prey meeting an animal higher on the food chain, and pretty soon I’m feeling so inferior I want to start apologizing. Even though in this case, there was no question I was in the right. Those are the rules of life.
Nakamura and I traded places, traded controllers, traded characters, each got eight lives, did not trade clothes, and then we were a start-button press away from the battle.
“If I win, you have to say it, Nakamura.”
“I know that.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“…No, I do. I’ll say you’re better.”
“No, I mean—of course that, but there’s something else you have to acknowledge.”
“What?”
He just didn’t get it.
“Earlier you said Atafami was a shitty game, right?”
“Huh?”
I was actually more pissed about that than about the fact that he wouldn’t admit he lost.