Yamai Shinji

**Yamai Shinji** is one of the 3rd year students of Hidaka Koharu of the year 2007 and one of the Main Characters of High Score Dash

## Profile

### Appearance

Yamai is a young boy with black hair. He is a guy who doesn't stand out to others as he is described as normal looking, he usually just wears his high school uniform.

### Personality

He is the quiet kid, he doesn't stand out and seems perfectly fine with being left alone by his peers, despite not showing any emotions he is hurt by the things they say to make fun of him, due to the fact he has no parents and doesn't get the love he wants, although he has a habit of bottling up his emotions until someone ''really'' pisses him off.

Years of being bullied probably turned him into stone, both physically and mentally, as Habu-kun broke his wrist trying to punch him and he can brush off Miwa's physical abuse pretty well.

## Abilities

### Spirit medium

Like his grandmother, he is able to see the ghost that is haunting his home. It's unknown if he can talk or see other ghost but it's a neat ability he doesn't really care for.

## Story

### Before Dash

At a very young age his parents' had died in an accident, this cause him to be under his granny's care for most of his life, but due to her old age, he didn't get the attention and care he wanted due to her granny not remembering even how old he was. He lives like this for most of his life becoming the "quiet kid" and seeming perfectly fine with being left alone by his peers although, during his years in elementary, he met Katagiri Miwa who even at a young age always looked down on him giving him a cold stare due to him being an outcast, his made him have a sort of inferiority complex towards her, always hating that look she gives him. This lead up all the way to his uneventful first years of highschool until his 3rd year.

### Dash Spin-off

He first appears after the day of the school opening ceremony sitting quietly when the other students were barring Hidaka with personal questions to were she notes the he is not the type to stand out. Later that day, he is on cleaning duty he is called out by Habu-Kun to clean his gangs part and just wanting to harass him to were he just respond with a black stare were they question about his emotions went. To were Habu-Kun decides to punch him and finally see him cry, but like the big pushover he is, hurt his wrist trying to hurt him. Before he can do anything else to him Katagirl Miwa goes up to them threating them to leave him alone before he can say anything she tells him that he was labeled lame ages ago to were he goes on with it, she ends it by saying that he had wired vibes and calls him useless.

The next day he is once again approached by Habu-Kun to were he blames him for his arm, saying that if he punched him harder his bones would have snapped, this causes the class to praise Yamai for being and beating Habu in a fight and it doesn't help that Yamai tells him sorry, his finally snaps and grads him by the collier. Mirai Hoshina comes in and tries to break up the fight to were she unintentionally beats him. With his pride being destroyed he charges at at her, but an irritated Miwa clobber's him and he starts bleeding. Hidaka pulls them to try and understand what happens, Yamai tries to take the blame to were the others push them aside like usual.

Later that Night, he is woken up at 2 a.m. by his grandmother who had mad tea for them to drink, as she forgot it was what time it was, they have a little talk were she tells him sorry for not being to give him the care he needs to were he tries to assure her that is all okay and she needs to sleep, she mentions that a ghost was scaring her and that she thinks that her end is coming. He decides to grab a drink to were he remembers the insults, specially from Miwa, to were the Ghost appears in front of him.

The Next Moring, Ootani-Kun thanks him for making the class less annoying, he ignores him, they ask him to meet them after school, Yami asked why but still doesn't say why. After school they take him to go meet their senpai Arisu-San, thinking that it would piss her off, they are surprised that she took a liking to him. She hands him 5,000 (around 50 dollars) saying that it is gift and wants to see him spend all of it. She takes them to an arcade saying that he is different and want's to show him the world of gaming.

A week has passed and he is asked by Ootani-Kun if he is coming again as he is surprised that he hasn't chicken out and questions why they even invited him, he responds saying that he finds arcades pretty fun. He tells him to not get so comfortable Arisu-San as they could stab him in the back and not to drop out as she would give them trouble to were he says that he's not a coward. They question if he has nerves of steel or is just a moron but until Habu-Kun comes back they have no choice and head to see her.

Later that day we come back and see him playing a match of street fighter were he just won with Ryu's shoryuken, to were the crowd praise him for saying that he doesn't look like the newbie. Ariu stands next to him congratulating him on easily using the special inputs that gave him trouble, he comments on her saying that he should maybe start with Street Fighter 1 to get good at the game to were she says that no one brothers to do that as basically the characters are all the same. She wraps her arms around him telling him that She is so happy to have met him saying that he saw potential in him wanting to show him other fighting games like the Virtua Fighter series and Guilty Gear, he shrugs her off saying that he has other challenger approaching him.

A little later he is confronted Hidaka asking him that it isn't like him going against the rules by the school to were he says that that Ariu gave him money to spend and that it would be rude just to leave her like that. Ariu-san get's near Yamai saying that she won't part with him so easily to were he decides to go to save Hidaka and leave. Ariu-San still refuses to let him go to were he questions that she doesn't care about others feelings and yet she was so fixated on him, she ignores her and tells him that if he would intend on leaving that he needs to go through the proper channel rules and challenge's him to a fighting match with the wager being that if he were to win he would be free but if she were to win that he would be in a world of pain and in the end would take his virginity, putting these stakes knowing well he just started playing games. With nothing he could do, as he accepted Arisu-san's favors, telling Hidaka that he would comply with her demands and prove he is a man but before he could accept the match Hidaka steps in to take his place. He having to rely on her makes him feel frustrated that he was this pathetic but still curious to see if she could actually play and much like everyone one else, he is amazed of the combo's she could pull off and how she annihilated Ariu, he was so shocked that he didn't even thank her for what she did for him.

The next day, He can't look her straight in the face as he still processing of the side of her she saw yesterday, later Ootani-Kun and Okamura-kun ask him if anything happened the other day as Ariu-San since to have a lost of heart, Yamai lies saying that he didn't know and you can't go to the arcades anymore.

The next day, after over a week, Habu finally came back for the second time, to were the school starts making fun of him as Miwa walloped him and the embarrassment being the reason why he been skipping school. He decides to to confront Yamai, trying to intimidate him in order to try and get some pride back after the whole thing, and yet again, before Yamai could say anything Mizuki and Sawada come and defends him telling Habu to not bully the weakling to were the whole class joins this whole joins this chant against Habu. Miwa looks up at the two and Habu get intimidated telling her want she wanted with her replying “Always being bailed out by woman huh..” Habu is confused on what she meant but the words of her weren’t meant for him, those words begin ringing into Yamai’s ears, begin remembering the times Hoshina, Miwa and Hidaka saved him and it doesn’t help that the class is calling him a weakling with the last straw being the words the always ring in his head “Branded you you as a lame guy ages ago..” He rushes towards Habu, and with no hesitation or words, punches him square in the face, much to the others' shock.

Later, after school, he meets up with Arisu-San, after she had a little tantrum over a coin machine game, He approached her, noting that she has tantrums like that as well, she questions why he has returned as they should have broken off and had no business with each other. He comes clean to her, Saying that he wants a chance to change himself, waiting to do so for so long and deep down he wanted to meet someone like her to help him break free from his current self.

Later that night, he decides to go out for dinner, where his granny is shocked as this was out of the blue. He leaves her saying that she should eat dinner by herself. On his way to the arcade to where he meets some cosplaying delinquents that he pisses off just by looking at them. They gang up on them but before he can get seriously injured, Arisu-San sweeps in, and despite it being a 4v1 she easily sweeps them clean. She picks him up as they walk to the arcade to where she answer his question from much earlier, That the people around her only really see her and don’t really care about arcades or video games, that she has to force them to along with her hoodies, but the reason why she is so fixated on Yamai is that he is different, that he genuinely loves the world of gaming and that she wants to show and experience it with him. The two decide on the game “DarkStalkers 3”, a bit later an adult comes in after a shitty day of work and decides to mirror Yamai’s character “Gallon” to bully him as he wants to take out his stress. He ends up combing Yamai and pressuring him way too much and beats him 4 times in a row. But little did he know Yamai was holding back and uses what he learned from this and uses the same Moment Slice combo that he used on him and beat him 5 times in a row in under an hour. Out of anger the Adult charges as him to try and get back at them but Arisu-San swops in and takes care of him. The two get tired of the arcade, they two walking were Yami is Self-doubting his skills as he still needs to learn his guard cancels and still needs to learn the basics of each character. Arisu cuts him off asking him why he came to her as there was Hidaka that was so much better than her, He states that he has no interest in Hidaka and that she silt him more. Arisu pushes her luck trying to see if it was a confession of love to were Yami Shrugs it off and asked were their going. Arisu goes on a long explanation on Night Gaming and talks about how a legend of the old days had arcades at her place were the two can face to face with not only Nikotama Felicia.

She gladly accepts him into her place were Yami tries to go against the Verterons were, of course, they dunked on him. They are a bit underwhelmed as he was the recommendation of Arisu questioning what they saw in him and are a bit mad that he doesn’t seem respect Nikotama, unknown to them he was choosing to loss to learn from them, a Girl walks up to him explains that the reason why they can’t waste time with him is that their training for this summer as there is a national fighting game tournament called “Gekisensai” saying that they could reconser training him after the summer. Yami then states he wants to join in order to see how he would stack up, before the Veterans could rip into him Nikotama comes into the room to check up on them were the mood changes drastically and everyone calls her “Mama Tamaki-san”, She then explains on how she was the Goddess of this pace and if they found out what they were really doing, training for the tournament , that they could possibly close their doors. Yamai can't stop, of course she doesn’t care for his opinion. Yami then asked if he were to be on their level then nobody would have a problem with him anymore. She agan looks down on him and states that she has been practicing for years and there is no way he could match their level. He leaves the Night Arcade and and looks back on how they make fun of him while looking down on him, even as a child that face of Miwa always pissed him off, all he wants is to leave that old self and become someone new, not willing to call it a day yet, he goes to a local arcade, were it’s the only place where he can win and learn, he caught rumors of a girl using Pyro with a massive win streak, curious as he didn’t know there was a girl this good, he goes to check it out, but not even he was prepared to see who it was with the 43-win streak: Katagiri Miwa.

Yami stands there in shock, from everything he knew about her, he didn’t think she would be the kind of person to have such an interest in a game center, let alone have a 42-win streak. She notices him there and gives him the gold stare he is so used to seeing, but this time he could tell it was the look of wanting to kill me. He understood that she's in a bad mood but he realizes that he could use this to learn more, knowing it was a bad idea he goes for it. Throughout there battle he could sense that she was letting out her anger through towards him with the character Pyro by using combos and even going as far as using the Smasher Hell just to push him t his limit, He loses the match but when he looks behind to were the crowd gives him the thumbs up to keep going, he goes on a 4 game losing streak were he finally got the hang of her strategy. He switches his character to Rikuo, much to her confusion, he decides to play cheap and fight fire with fire. Using Combos to trap her and make her unable to move, trying to time her out. However this was the last straw, without him knowing, she got up, out of anger, and like how it happened years before, she punches im across the face, starting unlikely relationship due to their love of video games.

## Gaming

At first he wasn't really instread in gaming, that was until he realizing that he can actually be taken seriously as a person with some effort, Shinji ends up *really* enjoying video games upon continued exposure to them. He's willing to improve his skills and has a gift similar to Hidaka, when she was younger, his adaptability, but does it in a very unique way of doing it. He chooses to lose against his opponents in order to learn and pick up and learn strategy's from letting himself be a punching bag and and is skilled enough to pull off the 5-shot howl just by seeing it and using it to win 5- times in a row in less then an hour, though he is not to the point of being able to match experienced players as he still has things to learn.

## Relationships

### Katagiri Miwa

He seems to have a inferiority complex towards her as he is always looked down upon by her, being ladled as a lame guy by her, and hates the cold glare always hating that look she gives him. Due to this complex, it pushes him to try and become a new person, as seen with him finally standing up to Habu-Kun, to try and change his view towards other people, not just her. Although it's until he finds out her love for video games that he see's her in a different light, having the courage to face her to become better despite her being in a bad mood and fighting back after she landed 4 punch's on him, ironically, this start's a unlikely relationship between them due to their love of video games. As it stands, the two are still not in good terms, nor do they know each other well just yet, but the two seem that they will bond closer as the story continues.

## Etymology

His family name Yamai (山井) means "in agreement," possbily due to how he just goes with the flow. The name Shinji (シンジ) means "True ruler."

## Triva

In Volume 2 Shinji ends up frustrating Miwa into ragequitting, getting puched in face and all, mirroring the first chapter of the original *Hi Score Girl*.

* Yamai, along with Miwa, have some severe anger issues. unlike Miwa has a shorter fuse and will pick a fight at the drop of a hat, Shinji prefers to bottle up his emotions until someone ''really'' pisses him off.