We came out of the glass corridor and walked half a lap around the deck.
The wind had picked up. It tugged at our skirts and loosened a few strands of my hair.
At the stairwell, Dianzi stopped. She pointed at the neon sign above.
"Sister, let's go over there and have a look."
Mirage Arcade was on the fourteenth deck.
The entrance was covered with signs made of neon tubes – purple, green, blue. Their light buzzed softly, a sound you felt more than heard.
The shattered colours scattered across the dark red carpet like broken glass.
Inside, it was packed.
The air was thick with the smell of sweat and cheap perfume. Someone had spilled a drink near the entrance. A staff member in a red vest was mopping it up, moving very slowly.
The arcade was divided into three zones.
To the left, the VR deep‑sea exploration area. A long queue snaked behind velvet ropes. Most people looked at their phones. A few craned their necks to watch the demo screen, where a digital whale swam through a fake ocean.
In the middle, the dance machine area. A few young people in fluorescent T‑shirts moved fast, their feet pounding the pads. The screen flashed combo numbers in bright yellow. The music was loud, bass-heavy, vibrating through the floor.
To the right, the claw machine area. Quieter here. The lights were dimmer. The carpet was worn thin in front of the machines, from years of people standing and hoping.
Only two or three people queued in front of each machine.
Dianzi pulled me straight towards the claw machines.
"This young lady wants that one," she said.
She pointed at a plush toy in the machine in the corner.
A fluffy squirrel doll. Light brown, holding an acorn. Its tail curled up. Its expression was blank and earnest.
Its glass eyes reflected the neon lights. It looked like it had been waiting there for a very long time.
"Why that one?" I asked.
"Because it looks like you when you're thinking."
I glanced at her. She was adjusting something on the fine chain around her neck, pretending she hadn't heard.
[chat] This outfit looks so ethereal today
[chat] Black lolita in an arcade, perfect
[chat] That little gear on the chest is so cute
[chat] Lolita and neon lights match so well
I looked down. The hem of my jet‑black lolita dress refracted tiny fragments of light under the neon tubes. The wine‑red ribbons in my hair fluttered slightly in the air conditioning.
"My treasures, what do you want to see first?" Dianzi leaned towards the lens. "VR deep sea, dance machine, or claw machine?"
[chat] Claw machine!
[chat] Dance machine
[chat] Claw machine +1
[chat] Everything
"Claw machine it is." Dianzi turned to me. "Sister, coins."
I took a handful of plastic tokens from my bag.
They were light, almost weightless. The edges were smooth from use. The arcade logo was stamped on one side – a wave breaking into pixels.
I inserted one and moved the joystick.
The claw jerked to the left, hovered for a second, then dropped.
It closed on empty air.
The claw rose, opened, and swung back to its starting position.
Empty.
Another token. This time I aimed better.
The claw grabbed the squirrel's tail, lifted it an inch, shook once, and dropped it.
The squirrel bounced off the pile of other toys and landed on its side. Its acorn rolled out from under its arm and settled between two plush octopuses.
[chat] Your claw technique is terrible 😂
[chat] Mum can't watch this
[chat] Hahahahaha
[chat] Come on, daughter, you can do it
Dianzi bit her lower lip. She watched the squirrel lying on its side, its blank face still facing us through the glass.
She pushed the joystick towards me.
"Sister, you try."
I inserted a token.
I moved the joystick slowly. Left. Forward. A tiny adjustment to the right.
The claw hovered directly above the squirrel's body.
I pressed the button.
The claw dropped. The metal prongs spread open, then closed around the squirrel's middle – not the tail, not the head. The body.
The prongs held tight.
The claw lifted. The squirrel dangled in the air, its legs hanging loose, its acorn still on the pile below.
The claw carried it across the machine, swaying slightly.
It stopped above the opening.
The prongs released.
The squirrel fell in, rolled over once, and lay face up in the retrieval compartment.
Its acorn was still inside the machine, alone among the octopuses.
[chat] One try?
[chat] What kind of luck is this
[chat] Sister is too strong
Dianzi crouched down, reached into the compartment, and fished it out.
She held it up to the lens. She turned it over in her hands. The fur was soft, a little dusty from the machine. One of its ears was bent.
She straightened the ear with her finger.
"My treasures, look. Its name is Lychee."
"Why Lychee?" I asked.
"Because it was holding an acorn, and the acorn is round, like a lychee." She paused. "And this young lady likes to eat lychees."
She turned the squirrel over to check its seams, then tucked it into her small bag. Only its fluffy head and half its tail were visible.
"We'll come back for the acorn another time," she said to the bag.
The squirrel's glass eyes stared out at nothing.
We walked around the arcade.
The queue for VR deep sea hadn't moved. The man at the front was still there, still staring at the entrance. His hands were in his pockets. His shoulders were tight.
Behind him, a woman in a green jacket kept checking her watch. She looked at the queue, then at the door, then at the queue again.
She sighed. No one heard her.
The dance machine area had changed occupants. A young man in a plaid shirt danced very earnestly, but his rhythm was completely off.
His feet hit the pads too late. His arms swung in the wrong direction. The screen flashed "MISS" in red letters.
The onlookers laughed. He didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he did, and he didn't care.
I held up the interface and let the lens sweep across these scenes.
Not deliberately. It was just that there was a queue in front of every machine, and every face in those queues carried a certain similar expression.
——The waiting expression. Not waiting for the game to start. Waiting for something else. Something that wasn't here.
When we reached the other end of the claw machine area, I stopped.
A little boy stood in front of a machine, clutching his last token.
He was small. Maybe five years old. His T‑shirt had a cartoon dinosaur on it – a green T‑rex with a friendly smile.
He had already tried three times. All empty.
His mother stood two steps away, looking down at her phone. The screen light lit up her face. She was scrolling through something – a social feed, maybe, or a work chat.
Her thumb moved up, down, up, down.
She wasn't watching him.
He inserted the token. He had to stretch to reach the slot.
He moved the joystick with both hands, his small fingers gripping the plastic knob.
The claw jerked left, right, left again.
He pressed the button.
The claw dropped. It caught a plush dolphin – purple, with a stitched smile and glass eyes.
The claw lifted. The dolphin dangled.
It carried it over the chute.
It released.
The dolphin fell in.
He bent down to retrieve it. A huge smile broke across his face. His whole body glowed.
He held up the dolphin and turned to call out.
"Mum! Mum, look!"
His mother didn't look up.
Her thumb kept scrolling.
"Mum!" He called again, louder. His voice had a note of urgency now, a crack at the edge.
The woman raised her head and glanced at him.
"Mm, okay, okay."
Then she looked back down at her phone.
The smile on the boy's face froze.
It began to recede from the edges, bit by bit.
First the corners of his mouth dropped. Then the light in his eyes dimmed. Then his shoulders fell.
He looked down at the dolphin in his hand. He hugged it tighter.
He said nothing.
He stood there for a few seconds, holding the dolphin, looking at the back of his mother's head.
Then he followed behind her as she walked away.
As he walked, he twisted his body to look back at the claw machine.
There were still many dolphins inside – purple, pink, yellow. All motionless under the lights.
The machine's internal music played on. A cheerful jingle that no one listened to.
The dolphins kept rotating on their little platform, round and round, waiting for someone else's token.
[chat] Hug the little brother 😔
[chat] Can't Mum just look at him?
[chat] That smile is so heartbreaking
I turned off the interface and put my phone into my cross‑body bag.
"Let's go," I said.
"Sister, that little boy..." Dianzi started.
"I saw. He smiled, and she didn't look up."
Dianzi took the squirrel out of her bag and held it in her arms.
She looked at its blank face, its stitched mouth, its glass eyes that reflected the arcade lights.
"Lychee, you'll be this young lady's child in the future. This young lady will look at you."
The squirrel hugged its acorn – the one we had left behind. But in her arms, it held nothing.
"It says okay," Dianzi said.
We walked out of the arcade.
The neon lights were left behind us. The humming of the tubes faded into the background noise of the corridor.
The fluorescent lights in the hallway were cold and white. They made everything look flat.
The little boy was gone.
His mother was gone.
The claw machine was still lit. The dolphins still turned on their little rotating platform, round and round, waiting for the next person to insert a token.
No one came.