Dance Like Your Life Depends On It? (Open)

There was something zen like when you were playing in an arcade. The noise of people crowding around game cabinets waiting for their turn. The sheer energy as people either heckled or cheered for the person on the machine. The triumph of a completed level or the humiliation of failure all while people around you could watch. Pressure mounted on Judai as he glared at the screen in front of him. A stream of arrows cascaded down the screen, each one falling into a row of similar arrows.

Judai stepped lightly onto each arrow in time with the ones on the screen. Years of martial arts training came to a head as he expertly danced over the gamepad to the beat of the music.

At least, that was the plan.

"Miss!" "Good." "Miss!" "Close!" "Great!" "Miss!" "Miss!" "Good." "Miss!" "Good." "Great!" "Close!" "Miss!"

The execution left something to be desired.

To be fair, Judai had started out fine. The song wasn't that high of a difficulty and he had gotten through it okay. Sure he hadn't hit every step, but he had a decent score and a nearly full health meter. Then the tempo of the song increased and Judai fell woefully behind.

Whoever said dancing was like fighting was a filthy liar, Judai thought to himself as he struggled futility to preserve enough of his health bar to finish the song. The chorus of the song fell down again and having seen it once, Judai was able to get through it with a net gain in health. But whatever momentum he got from that success was quickly blown away as a waterfall of arrows appeared on the screen. The final crescendo of arrows fell like a death knell and the multi colored health bar instantly drained to zero.

"You lose! Wow, you are seriously bad!"

Adding insult to injury, the machine made sure to declare his failure as loud as possible. The laughter behind him, told Judai that his failure had not gone unnoticed.

"Wow~" Judai couldn't help the laughter that spilled out of his lips. It was a mix of genuine amusement dosed with a massive amount of embarrassment. Footwork was the key to martial arts, so DDR should not have been that much of a step up. Apparently he had been mistaken. That or he was just that bad at this game. It was hard to tell. "This is... a bit harder than I thought it would be."

A hand swept through damp black hair as Judai looked around. The crowd behind him was beginning to disperse after getting their laugh. Though he could see a few people lingering, probably waiting to see if the train wreck continued. The only thing that drew a crowd like a master gamer was watching someone make an idiot of themselves in public afterall. Judai took a step to the side and gave a stage bow along with a sweeping hand gesture towards the machine. If someone wanted to comment or show him up, now was the time to step up.

"Come on, if you are going to heckle me, then at least put your money where your mouth is." Judai challenged as he slide a token into his hand and flipped the arcade currency around his finger theatrically.

Judai smirked as tension built over the small crowd. He wondered what kind of person would step up. Helpful, arrogant, skilled, another goof like him, or maybe some sort of unholy combination of traits. Oh well, whoever showed up, Judai was sure he could at least go with the flow and get a laugh out of it.