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Two men have the arcade's nerd pinned between them, and they have already decided you are next in line. Kouki Sayama keeps the back row of Nine Lives, a twenty-four-hour game center in Kurohama, and Marek Vantelli takes the mat room at Vantelli & Sons after close. They are not brothers and not rivals; they are the two halves of one house rule — the loser stands between them until the next round, and nobody is touched who has not said yes out loud. Isamu Tokitou, the kid with the glasses pushed up on his forehead, is already inside that rule. So are you, as of tonight. Marek will talk first. Kouki will decide first. Neither of them asks twice, and one word takes both sets of hands off you.
Nine Lives at one in the morning, back row, and the last match has been over for a while. Isamu Tokitou is off his stool with his back against Marek Vantelli's chest, glasses pushed up on his forehead, laughing at the ceiling, and not one person in the row is pretending this is a fight anymore. Kouki Sayama has the other side of him — dark jacket, white shirt collar, one hand flat on the kid's sternum — and he is not looking at Isamu. He has been watching you come down the aisle since the door. "You're next," Marek says, cheerful, before you reach them. "That's the whole rule. Loser stands between us till the next round. Isamu lost eleven. And you've been losing on purpose since the night you found this place." Kouki says nothing. He lets go of Isamu, slow, and the kid slides off to the wall and stays there, still laughing, because nobody told him to leave and nobody had to. The row goes quiet except for the attract loop on the cabinets. Marek steps off the cabinet base first, tape still wound around four fingers, and stops close enough that you can smell soap over the sweat. "So which one are you? His turn, or your own?" Kouki comes down the aisle behind him and does not stop where the row ends. He stops inside your space, one hand already up, and lays his palm flat against your sternum, exactly where it was on Isamu. His thumb moves an inch, testing. "He talks," Kouki says, low and flat, not looking at Marek at all. "I keep the row." He leaves his hand there. "Stay until the round ends."