“I still can’t believe you never went to an arcade before,” I said with a sigh.

  Ash scowled, seemingly embarrassed.

  “Well, Soriel was supposed to teach me how to py games today so I could see why she’s so obsessed with them, but instead I got stuck here with you,” She grumbled.

  I taught Ash how to actually get the car moving, and that’s when she told me about her gaming inexperience.

  ‘Damn it, Soriel, you and this girl are really pissing me off.”

  I rolled my eyes in annoyance.

  “Whatever, I’ll just teach you how to py them instead.”

  Ash gave me a doubtful look.

  Seeing this, I frowned.

  “What? You don’t believe me?” I asked in exasperation.

  “I mean you’re a snotty kid from Soriel’s fancy school. Do you really expect me to believe you know anything about games?” She answered bluntly.

  My eyebrow twitched.

  “You shouldn't be talking. You literally just said you don’t know anything about games. Gosh, you’re such a moron…” I retorted.

  “Are you going to teach me the games or not?”

  “Yeah yeah whatever. What game do you want to learn?”

  Ash made a thoughtful expression again and gnced around the room.

  “That one!” She said, pointing to a musical game.

  This game in particur was called Guitar hero.

  “No, pick another one.”

  “Why?

  “Pick another one.”

  Ash made a confused expression for a moment before letting a smirk slip onto her face.

  “Oh no…it couldn’t be that…you’re actually trash at that game?”

  A bead of sweat dripped down my face.

  You see, ever since I was young, I was fairly versatile in my ability to py games.

  I wasn’t unnaturally good or anything, but I could understand and py at an acceptable level for most of them.

  Except the game guitar hero.

  Perhaps it was due to my poor hand coordination or my idiotic tendencies.

  For whatever reason, I couldn’t py those types of games.

  ‘Crap, if I py I’ll embarrass myself…’

  I desperately resisted the urge to grit my teeth.

  “Cmon, buddy, I wanna see just how bad you are…”

  “Shut it. We’re pying a different game

  Ash frowned.

  “You’re no fun. Fine. Let’s py that one then,” Ash said, pointing towards another game.

  “That’s better,” I mumbled.

  This time, the game was about shooting which was much easier for me.

  So we went over to the game, and I expined the basics.

  It took a few moments but since the idea of the game was retively simple Ash got the hang of it quickly.

  But when we started pying together she still did…meh.

  “Two kills! Are you kidding me? This is the fourth round! I thought I’d get the hang of it by now!” Ash yelled.

  “It’s like teaching my little brother…” I mumbled with a sigh.

  Ash turned to me with a surprised expression.

  “You have a little brother?” Ash asked.

  “Yeah, do you?” I replied.

  “Yeah I do…” Ash answered.

  We stayed silent for a few moments.

  “Damn, it must suck to be him.”

  Ash’s eyebrow twitched.

  “What the hell?!” she excimed

  **

  “You’re getting pretty good at this,” I said as I swiped my card for one of the games.

  “Hm? Really?!” Ash said, doing the same thing I did.

  About an hour and 30 minutes had passed and we had moved on from shooting games to retro games.

  Ash seemed to be much better at these types of games. At least, that’s what I thought.

  “Bro! Help! I forgot how to jump!”

  I sighed in disbelief.

  “I genuinely think you have a PhD in stupidity,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Can you just help me?” Ash urged, clearly annoyed.

  After I rolled my eyes, I showed her the button that made her character jump.

  We began to py smoothly from that point forward, not as chaotically as before.

  And for a few moments, we pyed in silence.

  But Ash interrupted that silence.

  “Elliot…what’s your school like?” She asked softly, her voice no longer as lively.

  I paused for a moment, thinking of how to respond.

  ‘My school? This is the first time she’s mentioned my school without it being followed up with an insult. It’s kinda creeping me out…’

  A part of me wanted to let out a snarky remark about how she spoke about my school before since past attitude really pissed me off.

  But I held myself back.

  Instead I just pondered for a few moments more before I finally responded.

  “Well it’s pretty well maintained. The food’s better than average and there’s a lot of clubs. But the school work is hard and they drown us in homework every day,” I responded casually.

  Ash seemingly listened to me intently before asking another question.

  “Are the people there nice?” Ash asked, in the same tone as before.

  When she asked that question, I hesitated slightly before answering.

  However, I did not hesitate for long.

  “Nice, yeah most of them are. But nice is different than kind. Like any other pce, there will always be a few people who aren’t genuinely kind. That’s life,” I answered.

  Ash said nothing in response to my words as we continued to py.

  **

  “Man, I’m hungry!” Ash bellowed as we exited the arcade.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty hungry too,” I replied.

  We had spent a little over 2 hours in the arcade together, making our bellies crave some much needed lunch.

  “Why don’t we eat at that food truck over there?” I suggested, pointing to a green truck.

  “Sure,” Ash agreed.

  We walked over to the truck and each of us ordered our own food.

  Once we got our orders, we sat down at a nearby bench to eat.

  I got some nachos and cheese while Ash got a chopped cheese sandwich.

  I was about to put the first chip into my mouth, enjoying the multitude of fvors entering my mouth.

  However, Ash’s next words prevented me from doing so.

  “Uh, Elliot…I’ve never been good with this sort of thing but I just wanted to say…” She began to say sort of awkwardly.

  “…I’m sorry.”