No mercy

You shake your head and focus. It doesn’t feel good, but don’t know what else to do. If you start throwing and she realizes it, you’re afraid that Colby might completely lose her cool.

You play it out. She starts to recover, but your practical character choice and boring, but dependable gameplay keep you competitive. Things get rough, but in the end, she’s too nervous and does too much blocking. You have enough health to risk a dash and throw, and you can’t give up your pressure. As KO goes up on the screen, you lean back and let out an explosive breath as the CCL girls cheer.

“Wow,” you say. That got intense at the end. It wasn’t a blowout by any means. If she hadn’t folded in those first few rounds, that would’ve gone so differently. Could it be that she let you win?

You look over to your left and reach out to shake, but Colby’s already gone. You’re holding out your hand to an empty seat as the CCL girls go nuts. Oh, man. She must be pissed. You want to go find her, but you can’t. The tourney’s only halfway over. You barely notice the girls all over you as you step down from the stream setup to wait for your next match.

“That girl was pretty cute,” Nancy’s saying.

“What?” you ask, coming to your senses.

“The one you just beat.”

“Oh,” you say, embarrassed. Yeah.

“But man was she salty,” Yuki adds, and you wince. Right. Man. You will have to make this up to Colby somehow.

You’re up again, and what you expected finally arrives: a patient, unflappable guy in glasses beats you easily with a meticulously precise Ryu that throws about a gajillion fireballs. You can’t reach him and you can’t jump in on him. You aren’t a good enough player to think of anything else to try with Cammy, so he sweeps you.

The girls are stoked you stayed alive for as long as you did, and even you are a bit impressed with yourself to have made it to top 16, even at a weekly.

“Still gonna do things to me?” you ask Yuki as you step away from the tournament.

The question seems to startle her. She looks you up and down, just making you feel more embarrassed. “What did you have in mind?” she asks back, but now you’re distracted: Nancy is drifting toward the forbidden zone.

“Oh, god. Stop her,” you say to Athena.

“What?”

It’s too late. Nancy’s found her way into the hentai corner tucked away at the rear of the store.

“We have to get her out there,” you say, hurrying after her… but she’s already nose-deep in some hentai manga.

“This is not like the song at all,” she says, blushing as she thumbs through a big collected edition of Take On Me. You grab for it, but she holds it out of your reach and keeps reading. Nothing good will come of CCL girls getting into hentai, but Athena and Yuki have both picked things up for themselves.

“I didn’t know Sailor Moon had it in her,” Yuki says, turning pages.

“Oh, my. That is very rapey,” Athena says, cringing as she returns a volume to the shelf, then picks up another one. “Do they have anything without guys?”

You point at the YURI sign, and she eagerly moves past you to check those out. You can’t stop them.

You step back and look around, your gaze falling on the rack of used DVDs. This takes you back. It was old, old hentai OVAs that you found on the internet that first got you into all this. You recognize some of these DVDs, and they bring back memories.

You pick one up and look it over fondly.

“What you got there?”

Suddenly all three CCL girls are on top of you, peering at the DVD in your hands.

“Is that cartoon porn?” Yuki demands, snatching it from you.

“It’s so good,” you say. “There’s this girl who can’t cum. Her like, older roommate catches her masturbating and tries to help her. There’s like a strap-on scene and the art is really good. It’s just so good,” you repeat, taking it back from Yuki.

The girls look impressed.

“We should buy it,” Nancy says. “I want to see this now.”

You laugh. “We don’t have to buy it. We have the internet.”

Athena takes the DVD and looks at the back appraisingly, then hands it back to you. “Maybe you can show us back at the hotel.”

Then they dive back into the manga. It’s not horniness, it’s fascination. To relative newcomers, all the tentacles and futa and stuff probably seems pretty wild. Of course they think it’s funny.

You see a shadow at the end of the aisle and head down.

“Aha,” you say, finding Colby there.

She scowls at you. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“I didn’t know you would!” you reply. “I’m sorry if I messed up your Street Fighter.”

“I just needed something to do,” she grumbles, shrugging. She looks down at the DVD in your hands. “F3, huh? I didn’t know you were a woman of culture.”

“Of course I am,” you say, just a little embarrassed. You and Colby are pretty open with each other, but you don’t really talk about… porn and sex and stuff. “Oh, you like this?”

She blushes and starts to turn around, but you grab the DVD out of her hands.

“Hey!”

“What do you have? Lesson of Darkness,” you say, impressed. “I remember this one. There’s a scene in here, I think a little more than halfway. The girl has short hair and she’s with this guy that’s maybe her teacher? I don’t remember, but that scene is… mmwha.” You do a chef’s kiss. “Ten out of ten scene. So.” You hand the DVD back. She is lobster red. “You too are a woman of culture.”

“You gonna buy that?” she looks at the F3 DVD.

“I think I will. I don’t even have a DVD player,” you say with a laugh. “But it’s just such a memory. Have you seen it?”

She hesitates, then nods.

Sudden, loud laughter from Nancy breaks you out of your moment with Colby.

“Oh, look at her,” Yuki says. “I’m gonna go talk to her. Watch me score.”

Oh, god. Yuki’s trying to pick up a girl. You really don’t want to watch that.

But… it does give you an idea. The CCL girls don’t know Colby. You’ve already impressed them, but you’ll impress them even more if they think you were able to pick up a cute girl here. Especially if Yuki strikes out, which she will.

Try to rope Colby into a scheme?

Or just make plans to meet up with her tomorrow at the con?