Sunday, 1 February 2002.
Inside one ordinary household somewhere in Japan, a newly married couple was currently facing what had somehow become a very serious domestic crisis.
Satou Miura was a salaryman working for an insurance company, while his wife, Chiyo Miura, worked from home selling cake and bread and had much more flexibility with her schedule. They had only been married recently, but gaming had already become one of the things they enjoyed most together. Their small living room reflected that immediately. A ZEPS 3 sat beneath the television beside a ZGBA charging cable, several game cases were stacked neatly inside a cabinet, and two controllers rested on the low table in front of the sofa.
For the last several months, they had been saving specifically for ZEPS 4.
Not merely one console.
Two.
Satou wanted one for the living room, while Chiyo had insisted that another should eventually sit inside their bedroom so they could play online games together without relying entirely on split-screen. More absurdly, they had also saved enough money to buy every ZEPS 4 launch game. It was irresponsible enough that Satou had briefly reconsidered the plan after seeing the final total, but Chiyo had reminded him that they had deliberately set money aside for this exact moment.
There was only one problem.
ZEPS 4 released tomorrow.
Monday.
And Satou's company was painfully strict about sudden leave.
Satou sat on the sofa with both hands covering his face while Chiyo stood in front of him with her arms crossed. After several seconds, he finally groaned. "Honey… it's not like I don't want to queue for ZEPS 4 with you. Of course I do. But my job is actually at stake here. My company rarely approves sudden leave, especially on a Monday, and I really need this job."
Chiyo immediately sighed. "Then just tell them you're sick for three days or something! You promised we were going to queue together! We saved enough to buy two consoles and all the launch games, and now suddenly you're saying you can't even come with me?"
Satou looked at her in disbelief. "How exactly am I supposed to fake being sick for three days? What do I even say? 'Hello, Boss, unfortunately I woke up with mysterious ZEPS fever and will recover exactly after launch day'?" Chiyo tried not to laugh, which only made Satou more frustrated. "And besides, you're basically praying for me to actually get sick!"
"I am not praying for you to get sick!"
"You literally told me to take sick leave!"
"Fake sick leave!"
"That somehow makes it better!?"
Chiyo puffed her cheeks before dropping onto the sofa beside him. "You don't understand. What if ZEPS 4 disappears from stock immediately? The first preorder allocation already sold out. People are going crazy over this thing. You really think we can casually walk into a store three days later and there will still be two consoles waiting for us?"
Satou hesitated.
Unfortunately, that argument was much harder to dismiss.
Ever since ZAGE revealed the ¥44,444 price, public demand had become ridiculous. Stores throughout Japan were already preparing crowd-control systems. Several retailers had announced midnight queue procedures despite the console technically releasing on Monday morning. Television programs had even begun discussing whether ZEPS 4 could become one of the largest entertainment-product launches in Japanese history.
Chiyo leaned closer. "And even if we can find one later, we're going to miss everything! Everybody will already be online. People will already be talking about Monster Hunter. Halo multiplayer will already be full of players. Someone will discover secrets in Astro Playroom before us. There will be ZABO-man screenshots everywhere. And I really wanted our first experience to be together…"
Her voice gradually became quieter.
Satou looked toward her.
Chiyo had been excited about the launch for weeks. She had watched nearly every ZAGE presentation beside him, yelled when the ZEPS 4 price appeared, spent far too much time deciding which game they should play first, and had even created an absurd handwritten launch schedule. Monster Hunter was supposed to be their first online game together. After that came ZAGE Sports, then ZAGE Kart, and sometime during the night she wanted to try Pokémon Colosseum while Satou experimented with Halo.
Now her shoulders dropped slightly. "It's just… I was really looking forward to it. We were going to queue together, bring food, complain about how cold it is, then come home carrying the consoles together." She tried to laugh, but her voice cracked slightly instead. "I know it sounds stupid. It's just a game console, but… I really wanted us to do it together."
Satou's heart immediately hurt.
Damn it.
His wife was beautiful, loved games almost as much as he did, and was currently close to tearing up because she had imagined something as simple as waiting in line for a console together after they had spent months preparing for it.
And here he was discussing company attendance policies.
What kind of husband am I?
Satou rubbed his face once, then suddenly straightened his back. "Okay."
Chiyo looked toward him. "Okay?"
"I'll do it."
Her eyes widened.
Satou exhaled heavily. "Tomorrow morning I'm calling the office. I'll ask properly first. Maybe I can use one day of emergency leave, maybe personal leave, whatever they'll accept. If they still refuse…" He paused, visibly fighting against every responsible instinct he possessed. "Fuck it. One day. I'm absent."
Chiyo stared at him.
Satou raised one finger quickly. "One day! Not three! I am not risking getting fired because you want seventy-two hours of fake influenza."
Her eyes immediately lit up. "Really!?"
"Yes."
"Really really!?"
"Yes, honey."
"YEAY!"
Before Satou could say anything else, Chiyo threw her arms around him and kissed him hard enough that he nearly fell sideways against the sofa. Satou laughed as he caught her around the waist. "Whoa! Calm down!"
"You're the best husband!"
"That opinion is going to change when my manager calls."
"I'll answer and cough for you."
"Absolutely not!"
Chiyo laughed and hugged him tighter. Satou could not help smiling. Maybe it was irresponsible. Maybe his boss would be furious. Maybe he would spend Tuesday getting lectured for an hour.
But right now, with Chiyo practically vibrating with excitement against him, Satou decided one missed Monday probably would not destroy his life.
Hopefully.
What neither of them realized was that similar conversations were happening in thousands upon thousands of households across Japan.
ZEPS 4 releasing on a Monday had created a problem ZAGE had apparently not fully appreciated until the final week before launch.
People had work.
People had school.
People had university classes.
Factories had shifts.
Banks had employees.
Government offices had employees.
Retail stores had employees who wanted to buy the damn console they were supposed to be selling.
And suddenly, across the country, an extremely suspicious wave of "personal emergencies" began forming.
Company supervisors started receiving requests that sounded increasingly ridiculous.
"My fever suddenly became very severe. I may need approximately three days."
"My dog died. I need a week to emotionally recover."
"My mother is getting married again and my divorced father asked me for emotional support."
"My grandmother is visiting."
"Your grandmother died last year."
"My other grandmother."
"I need to attend an important family event."
"What event?"
"Private."
One office worker apparently claimed he had developed sudden back pain severe enough that he could not possibly sit at a desk, only for one of his coworkers to point out that the exact same man had spent Friday telling everyone he planned to stand in the ZEPS 4 queue for eight hours.
Another employee requested Monday off because of "urgent household maintenance," while his manager immediately replied, "Is the household maintenance black, silver, and costs ¥44,444?"
The employee did not respond.
Schools were not spared either.
Teenagers began asking parents whether mild headaches counted as legitimate illness. University students suddenly discovered that attendance policies were apparently much more flexible than they had previously cared to investigate. Some parents refused completely. Others secretly wanted ZEPS 4 themselves and became suspiciously cooperative.
In one household, a father told his teenage son, "You are absolutely going to school tomorrow." Ten minutes later, the same father quietly asked his wife whether she thought his own company would accept "stomach problems" as an excuse.
Retail employees had perhaps the worst situation of everyone.
They could not fake illness.
They were needed specifically because everyone else was planning to fake illness.
Stores had already been warned that launch-day crowds might be extreme, and several major retailers began preparing overnight queue areas, numbered purchasing tickets, additional security, extra registers, and strict per-customer purchase limits. Employees who normally worked quiet Monday mornings suddenly found themselves preparing for what looked more like a festival than a hardware launch.
Even ZAGE employees were not immune to the absurdity.
The difference was that most of them did not need to queue.
Employee purchasing systems had already allocated limited internal units for staff who wanted them, and several people who had spent years developing the machine already had access to retail hardware. That did not stop friends and relatives from suddenly contacting them with extremely transparent requests.
"Hey, we haven't talked since high school!"
"Yeah?"
"So… you work at ZAGE, right?"
"Goodbye."
All of this chaos existed for one simple reason.
For the first time in ZAGE console history, the company had decided to launch its new flagship machine on a weekday instead of conveniently placing the release during a weekend.
Zaboru had chosen the date because he liked how it looked.
02.02.2002.
That was it.
A beautiful date.
A memorable date.
A date that looked perfect on advertisements.
Apparently nobody had considered that millions of gamers would look at the same date and immediately begin planning crimes against their workplace attendance policies.
By Sunday evening, lines were already beginning to form outside several major stores despite the release still being hours away. Some people arrived carrying folding chairs. Others brought blankets, portable radios, ZGBA systems, decks of cards, food, thermos bottles and spare batteries. Groups of friends treated the queue like a small camping trip. A few people even brought their ZEPS 3 controllers and spent the evening arguing about which launch title they would buy first.
Police officers assigned to crowd management looked at the growing queues and probably wondered why an entertainment company had managed to create this much logistical trouble on a Sunday night.
Inside the Miura household, Satou and Chiyo were preparing as though they were leaving for an expedition.
Chiyo had packed sandwiches, bottled drinks, two folding stools, hand warmers and their ZGBA systems. Satou looked at the bag and stared at her. "Honey, we're buying a console. We're not crossing Siberia." Chiyo zipped the bag shut. "You'll thank me when you're freezing at three in the morning." Satou sighed. "Why are we even leaving this early?" She stared at him as though the answer should have been obvious. "Because everyone else is thinking the same thing!"
Satou could not argue with that either.
He looked toward their ZEPS 3 sitting beneath the television and smiled faintly. That machine had given them countless hours together. They had played games during dates before marriage, continued after moving in together, and now they were preparing to bring its successor home.
Maybe that was why tomorrow felt more important than simply buying electronics.
It was another memory they were building together.
Outside, Japan was already preparing for one of the strangest Monday mornings it had ever seen.
Queues were growing.
Stores were preparing.
Managers were becoming suspicious.
Employees were practicing fake coughs.
Students were planning headaches.
Gamers were refreshing ZAGE Forum.
And inside distribution centers across the country, enormous numbers of black-and-silver boxes marked ZEPS 4 were already waiting to move.
Hours passed.
Midnight approached.
Then the calendar finally changed.
02.02.2002.
ZEPS 4 launch day had arrived.
To be continued.
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