[H2]Izayoi City - [color=f7941d]Ram Jam[/color][/H2]

TIME: 11:00 AM
DATE: August 21st
SEASON: Summer - Holidays in effect

Sweating bullets like mad, Ramika Jamison leaned in close to the glowing monitor. 50m. She was almost there.

"Stay on target..." she heard a voice in her ear remind her.

"She's too close, she's got to loosen up!"

"Stay on target!"

Ramika grit her teeth. She needed to focus. Slowly, she lowered her ironsights, her distant target momentarily going dark.

"Ram, you've switched off your targeting reticule, what's wrong?"

[color=f7941d]"Nothing!"[/color] she almost yelled. [color=f7941d]"I'm alright!"[/color]

The target came back into focus. Without the targeting reticule, her aim was shaking everywhere, she wasn't sure if she could hit. No, she [i]couldn't[/i] hit. Not like this. But she needed to.

"I've got you now!" her opponent said, mocking her.

Carefully waiting for the right moment, Ramika held her breath until her aim swung unpredictably to the left, right over her target. This was her nanosecond once-in-a-lifetime chance. She pulled the trigger. A burst of red-hot gunfire escaped from the barrel of her weapon and hit her target dead-on with superhuman accuracy. Its health destroyed, her pixelated enemy exploded on-screen.

[color=f7941d]"Yes, I did it!"[/color] she yelled. All the other girls that had been crowded around her cheered and nearly tackled her trying to congratulate her. 

"Oh my god that was so amazing!"

"Going on Youtube, for sure!"

"You're the queen of Gunslinger Stratos!"

"Did you use the Force or something?"

Ramika laughed. [color=f7941d]"Come on, it wasn't that big a deal."[/color]

Yes, these were her friends. The averages, the nobodies, the otaku. Nobody would think it if it wasn't for her eccentric Southern-Bell way of dressing, but she was one of them. The blonde, half-foreign beauty was an otaku, of guns and old Western movies specifically. And without a clique or a gang or any club that she cared to belong to, this is how she spent her time with her friends when she was on vacation. Like many a Japanese teenager, they went to the arcade.

"Come on, Ram, one more game!"

[color=f7941d]"Come on guys, I mean, I really shouldn't,"[/color] she said sheepishly. [color=f7941d]"My monthly allowance is almost gone, and I feel bad hogging the machhine-"[/color]

"Excuses excuses!" Megumi yelled. "Come on, fight me young Skywalker!"

Ramika sighed, smiling. [color=f7941d]"Alright..."[/color]

Yes, these were her friends. She was an ordinary Japanese schoolgirl, a beauty, and an otaku to boot. But then... why did she never feel like she was any of these things? She was a foreigner. An outsider, both figuratively and literally. She didn't look like Megumi or Yuriko, and she didn't act like the other beauties at her school. So then... where did she fit in? 

Ramika pushed the coin into the slot. Was this all just an illusion? She didn't want it to be. She had ditched the preppy chicks because they wanted her to be something she wasn't, but was this really any different? She'd seen the adoring, borderline crazed way some of her friends looked at her. A beautiful, smart girl who also liked action movies, Westerns and first person shooters, and she was half-foreigner to boot. She was like an anomaly in their world. Something to be worshipped in front of an altar. She was grateful for their praise, but she couldn't help but feel such a friendship was just as hollow in its own ways. 

She walked home by herself after finishing that final game with Megumi, looking up at the sky. Would there ever be someone she could be with and feel like she belonged? People she could truly call friends, or comrades?