Written by Anna Michaela Balagot
The ground crunches under Mike's feet as he stares down at Ray who sits on the ground.
"Come on, it's right there just a few more steps?" Mike says as he gestures to the corner of the mall dark yet bright with the lights of the multiple arcade games that are operating in the room.
"A few more? I ain't as tall as you Mike. Your ‘few’ is my many." Ray mutters as he stands up and stares at the taller boy, his face screaming annoyed exhaustion. Ray then starts walking to the direction and Mike walks to his side. Together they enter the arcade and they look through the sea of sweaty gamers and bunched up together machines, looking for the booth where they buy their tokens and whatever price they want with the amount of tickets they might win from each game.
Mike and Ray both find the ticket booth and stand in line as they count the money they have. "You know there are lots of new games in here?" Mike starts while taking out his wallet and counting his money. Ray looks up from rummaging the pockets of his cargo pants in interest, "Really and from which little birdie did you hear that from?" he says as the line moves making them a person away from the counter.
"Uhm, you know around? People talk really loud and those at the back look pretty new," Mike says shrugging his shoulders and looking at the direction where a crowd seems to have gathered. Upon a closer look the newer machines looked cleaner than the rest and it blasted loud music over whatever noise the crowd at the back was making.
"Hello, how may I help you?" the bored clerk on the other side of the glass wall says through the hole cut out from it. "Yeah, we'd like all the tokens we can get from uh, this amount?" Mike says as he slides the money through the little hole at the bottom of the glass wall. The clerk gives them their tokens and change and the two walk off to the entrance to breath in the better not sweat-smelled air.
"So, here is your half and this is mine. Meet at 20?" Ray says while pocketing his tokens. Mike agrees and the two separate in the arcade.
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*pew**pew**pewpew*
It was Ray's 5th game since they split. He cycled through Mario race cars games, gambling games till he ended up at zombie shooting games with questionable graphics but great ticket payout. 'YOU DIED, GAME OVER' flashes on his screen as he takes out the accumulated tickets and mushes it in his bag with the rest. He checks his pockets and counts 7 tokens. Hmm, what next? Ray looks to the back, the new machine much clearer since the crowd thinned. It was a dance step game good enough for two people. He then looks through the crowd and spots a familiar shade of brown on the tall figure of his friend.
Mike had been watching the figures dance on the steps for quite some time now. Looking at the complicated footwork and listening to the weird pop music playing through the two big speakers. He had initially thought it looked easy enough, stepping on the corresponding arrows when its counterparts hit the molds on the screen. However, as the gameplay progressed he found the dances and combinations getting harder and the thought of being able to hit those combos got his heart thumping.
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“Yo,” Mike looks to his right and finds Ray at his side also eyeing the machine in interest, you wanna play it?" Ray asks while holding up his 7 leftover tokens. The dance machine accepted 10 tokens for either 1 or 2 players, luckily Mike had 5 tokens leftover from his game spree and agreed.
It took 3 more songs before the pair walked up to the machine after seeing no one else in cue. They input their tokens and listened to the machine's upbeat music. Mike and Ray cycled through many of the new songs in normal mode, their competitiveness going up after each song starts and finishes. Mike had the upper hand as he was more physically active than Ray, however, Ray was better at remembering patterns and had adapted faster to the game than Mike did. Between those two strengths, they ended up at a tie and they came out of the arcade sweaty and laughing. They both sat on a conveniently placed bench right outside the arcade, relaxing under the cool mall air and resting from what they would call a hard workout.
“You wanna play this next week?”
“Yeah, yeah. You better start exercising if you wanna beat me in stamina~”
“Hah, you kid you screw up when I don't so don't get your hopes up either”
After a few minutes of sitting at that bench, Mike and Ray calmed down. As they stand up to leave, Ray notices a bunched up piece of paper sticking to Mike's back. “Hey, stay still for a bit,” Ray says while moving to get the piece of paper. He turns it around and reads the flyer advertising a Dance Mania Contest featuring the dance machine they played minutes ago.
“Mike, it says that there’s a contest happening next month.”
“Well no duh, I read from your side, Ray,” Mike says cheekily while ruffling Ray’s hair. “Hey don’t be mean,” says Ray as he bats away the offending limbs and fixes his hair, “anyway, wanna go see it. It’ll be fun to join but I’d rather not show off our ‘mediocre’ moves.”
“Yeah sure, I'll mark up my calendar when I get home,” Mike says and their conversation changes topic as they make their way out of the mall and towards their respective homes.
-fin-
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