"No, he's much more outgoing. If you stay for dinner you'll see."

"Oh, uh – may I?" he asks, half of Takuma and half of Kaede.

"Naturally."

"Okay then!" he smiles. (Heck, does Kaede's dad have to be charming.) "Do you mind if we, um –" Gesture. "Get back to games?"

"I do—without me. I said I was gonna show you what real gaming's like, so I am!" He gets up and makes his way to the console.

Oops. "Right!"

Anthony follows, glancing at Kaede.

Kaede seems mostly resigned to the fact that his father is going to charm the pants out of his boyfriend.

Not really the vibe Anthony wants to give off, at least not to Kaede, but he doesn't know how to get that across.

"Racing game, or something else?" he asks.

"Something else," he says, looking around until—" Aha. This one." It's a kombat game.

Anthony has some passing experience with games like this but has not played them a ton!

"Oh," he says. "I'm not sure I'll be very good at it."

He starts it up. "No one is until they try."

He pulls a face, briefly, but shrugs. "Sure."

"Come on, try this little tutorial thing to get the basics of the controls," Takuma says, offering Anthony the controller.

Anthony takes it.

Little tutorial thing, here he comes! … With slight trepidation!

It is very intuitive! Mostly! There are some button combinations.

He tries to memorize them and get a feel for how all the things combine!

After he beats his enemy Takuma instructs him to do a series of controller button presses in quick sequence.

Uhhh okay he can try that.

Takuma laughs as Anthony's character proceeds to very gruesomely tear their opponent in half, with gore and blood to spare.

Yay! (He thinks!)

Does it work if he does it again and can he just keep using it to win?

No it only works after he's defeated his opponent.

"I think you're ready to play for real."

"Mmmaybe?"

(Ugh, annoying.)

So they can play!

Anthony is not amazing! Hopefully Takuma is taking it easy on him.

Not too easy. But eventually he does leave the boys be.