The newly dressed up Saito and Yuuri walk into the mall’s arcade, preparing to meet with Y2K. The loud sounds of various types of games buzz through the air as they sit at a table near the ticket counter at the front. Yuuri is checking her phone and Saito is craning his neck looking for his favorite rhythm game machines.

“Wow, this place is kind of small for an arcade, isn’t it?” Yuuri says. “Y2K was telling me how big the arcade in Akiba was.”

“Well, it’s a mall arcade. You can’t expect anything big from them.” Saito lolls his head towards Yuuri. “And speaking of, where is Y2K? She’s not ghosting me, is she?”

“Let me text her and see where she is.” Yuuri pretends to hit various places on her phone before fake-typing. She stops, then waits for another phone notification to go off before looking back at the screen, “Oh, it looks like she got dragged by a friend to a gaming tournament somewhere else and she can’t make it here.”

“Oh? Where at?”

“Um, uh… Hokkaido?” Yuuri responds nervously.

“Weird, I haven’t heard of anything scheduled in Hokkaido for the next few weeks.”

Yuuri quickly stands up, pocketing her phone and dusting off her skirt. “Either way, we have a date to fake go on! Come on Saito, let’s go in and play a few games so we can lure out that ghost!”

“Fine, I was getting bored just sitting around anyway.” Saito gets up and cracks his knuckles, heading towards a CrazedDummer machine along the right wall. He has his coins out as they approach the machine, sliding a few in as soon as they reach it. He picks up the sticks and begins to choose a song, but pauses for a moment to look at Yuuri. “You gonna join in? You can pick the first song if you want.”

“No, no, I’m good. Besides, isn’t it normal for the girl to watch the guy play instead?” Yuuri waves her hand dismissively at his question.

“Well, it’s normal for friends to play together, but if it’s a date… I don’t know. I-” He’s cut off as the machine yells out the title of a random song, causing Saito to look back at the screen. “Aw damn, I ran out of time to pick a song. And it gave me one I don’t even like!”

Yuuri giggles and waves her arm in the air. “You can beat it anyway, right Saito? Or do you need me to cheer you on?”

“Let’s not do anything weird. Besides, I’m the master of these games, I can beat every song easily.” Taking a power stance in front of the machine, he starts to drum in time with notes as they display across the screen.

Despite his confidence, he begins to struggle, causing him to grunt in frustration while Yuuri hides her laughter. “You sure are making it look easy, game master!”

By the end, Saito has worked up a sweat and wears a frown. “Only a C-rank, huh? I don’t give full effort for bad songs.” Saito’s frown turns into a full-on grimace. “Nevermind, I don’t think this machine is calibrated right anyway. Let’s go play something else.”

“Sure. What did you have in mind?” She says before looking around at the different machines. “What about air hockey?”

“I’m already warmed up, so why not. Besides, air hockey is a date thing, I think.”

The two walk up and take their places. Saito slides the coins in and the machine whirrs to life. Saito grabs his paddle with a three-prong grip, while Yuuri simply holds it normally. The puck comes out on Saito’s side, where he quickly slaps it down and hits it straight, catching Yuuri off guard for the first point of the match.

“W-what? I wasn’t ready! That’s cheating!” Yuuri pouts as she picks the puck up and readies her serve back.

“I don’t see any referees around.” Saito says back smugly, ready to hit it back.

As he lines up his paddle, he notices the rest of the club out of the corner of his eye making their way further into the arcade. Katsuki seems upset, but he dismisses this as her just being like that.

“Fine, then I’ll just beat you with pure skill!” Yuuri drops the puck and bounces it off the side, starting the game in earnest.

The match stays relatively even, but Yuuri pulls ahead towards the end and wins it 21-17. “See? Cheaters never win, even if it’s all fair in love and air hockey!” Yuuri sticks her tounge out, rubbing it in even more.

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“Grr, today isn’t my day. Maybe you’re just bad luck!” He points his finger at Yuuri before chuckling.

“Your luck is only bad if you’re playing against me, I’m just too good!”

“What now, then?” Saito says as he scans the room this time, eyeing in on a Taken VII machine. ”How about that? Or is it too hard for you?”

“Of course not! I’m incredible with Panda!”

“Oh, so you’re a Panda main Y2K?” Saito smirks.

“Yep! I’m-” Yuuri stops as she realizes what he said, and tries to backtrack. “I-I just play it because I watch Y2K play her and I think it’s a cute character!”

Saito places his hand on Yuuri’s shoulder. “Yuuri, I knew this whole time. You don’t have to hide being a huge geek, least of all to me.”

A light blush appears on Yuuri’s face, causing her to hang her head slightly. “I’m used to hiding it from my parents, so I just… hid it from everyone else, too.”

“No need to feel bad about it, Yuuri. We all hide stuff from people. Plus all you did was put on a hat.”

Yuuri blushes and a moment passes between the two before she looks back up. “Do you mind if… if we pass on the rest of the games and just go to the photo booth? I want some pictures to remember this day by.”

“Sure, if it’ll cheer you up. Besides, gotta make this date look real, right?” Saito says with a smile. Yuuri stays silent as they walk to the photo booth. As they get in, she begins to touch the buttons on the booth. “I used to come to these with Katsuki all the time.” Smiling, she begins setting up the photo session. “I still remember how to work these things perfectly!”

“At least one of us does, I’ve never had a picture taken of me before.” Saito says as Yuuri finishes up and sits beside him.

She turns to him in surprise, “What? Never? I guess we gotta make this a memorable one, huh?” She smiles, internally celebrating her smooth moves.

“Sure, I’ll leave it to you then.” He responds with a shrug.

“Okay, so how this works, is that the screen here will tell us how to pose. Once it takes the picture, it’ll give us a new pose. We get four and then we get to decorate them before they’re printed out!”

“Sounds easy enough.” Saito says shortly before poses start showing up. First is a standard pose for two people, then one where each person gives a peace sign and after, one with a funny face. The fourth and final pose is of one person giving the other a kiss on the cheek.

“W-what!? I didn’t choose this!” Yuuri blushes heavily as Saito looks shocked. “I chose… wait. Maybe this is the ghost’s doing!” Yuuri suddenly perks up. “I-I guess we better do what the ghost says, Saito!”

Saito tries to say something, but before he can, he feels Yuuri’s lips on his cheek and locks up. He only barely notices the camera flash before Yuuri tugs at his shirt to get his attention. “C-come on, the pictures are done! Let’s get them printed!”

The two walk out together, Saito moving on almost auto pilot and stumbling a little on the exit. A loading screen appears on the side of the booth, and the pictures show up on the screen. He’s brought back to reality by Yuuri grasping onto his shirt again. Saito swivels his head to look at her, before looking at the screen for himself and realizing her problem.

“W-wait! Why the hell are you covered by a shadow in this!?” Yuuri freaks out while Saito looks closer, swiping between the pictures. “And this one! The shadow’s on me now!”

In each photo, a ghostly shadow with a pink emoji-type face can be seen covering one of the two. The final picture has the shadow over Saito, giving the appearance of Yuuri giving it a kiss, complete with cartoony blush marks on the shadow’s “cheeks”.

Yuuri and Saito share a disturbed glance. “I’m gonna text the others, they need to see this.”

“Good idea, Yuuri.”

Yuuri sends a snapshot of the altered photos to the Paranormal Club’s group chat. “Hey guys, those rumors weren’t rumors.” She looks back at Saito who is still staring off in the distance, then realizes what the last photo was. Before she can think about it more her phone vibrates and a message from Katsuki is on her screen.

“We would have seen something but no one else understands what a stake-out is.” Katsuki sends this message then turns to Akina and Cerys with an angry look. “You two were supposed to keep an eye on them while the rest of us played this game to make it seem like we weren’t stalking them!”

Yuudai taps her on the shoulder and puts his finger to his mouth. "Shhh, Kats. You know ghosts have super hearing, like dogs. They can hear anything you say even if it's quiet! You're gonna give away the plan!"

Katsuki looks at him, unamused. "Then shouldn't you be shutting up too?”

“If we are searching for a ghost what are we supposed to look for exactly?” Cerys says without looking up from her phone.

"We were meant to look for anything out of the ordinary happening around them. Like if anything was floating their way, or if a machine flickered as the two of them walked by. But now it’s too late since something already happened.”

“I don’t think this plan was very well thought out. Well if we can call this a plan.” Akina says while standing away from the others.

Katsuki stares daggers at the two. “Why the hell did you guys even join this club if you’re going to be so negative about everything we do?” She taps away at her phone, sending another group message. “Let’s all just meet in the food court because /some people/ are having issues right now.”

Katsuki picks up her stuff and heads out. “I am not doing this in a goddamn arcade.” She makes her way towards the exit of the arcade and passes by the in progress date. Katsuki glares at the rest of the club after seeing Yuuri staring intently at the printed out photos. “See, at least she cares about this.” Katsuki leaves in a huff and moves towards the food court, the others trailing behind her.