Aaron's POV

Bang

Bang

Bang

"Sorry, buddy. Better luck next time." said the booth instructor. Calvin had payed 5 bucks for three shots at some moving cardboard clowns. Out of his own wallet, of course.

He missed all three shots.

Calvin tilted his head down and walked away. I followed.

"Are you that upset, dude? Its just a game." "I'm not upset." Even though I couldn't see his face, it was obvious that Calvin was pouting.

"How 'bout this," I say, catching up to him and putting an arm around his shoulder, "let's play a different kind of game." "What other types of games are there?" "One's that you're actually good at." "Which would be...?"

With that, I steer Calvin to the left, making a few more turns until I find the source of game music... "Arcade games. You know, one that don't require actual athletic skills." I teased him. Calvin looked at the arcade, then back at me. "So, what are we waiting for, jerk. Let's go in." He ran in front of me to get inside the arcade. But not before I saw him slightly smile.

I quickly follow Calvin before I lost him in the maze of lights and  machines. He was standing in front of a Street Fighter arcade machine. It had obviously been used a lot. The paint of the characters on the sides was slightly faded, the knobs were worn down from the palms of all its players', and you can see the buttons had been pushed a lot since some of them didn't seem to work. Other than that, it looked like a totally playable machine. I walked right next to Calvin and placed a coin into the indicated Player 2 slot. Calvin did the same, placing a coin into the Player 1 slot. We each chose our character's. I picked Juri, one of the only character's I ever played as. Calvin picked Akuma, because it was one of the only character's he ever played as. The map was randomized, and suddenly both my pixelated  purple-dressed Juri was standing across from Calvin's red haired and buffed Akuma on a pixelated grey wall again a dark-sky background. As soon as the Fight text disappeared from screen, we ran towards each other.

(A/N sorry if the gameplay is inaccurate, its been a while since I played Street Fighter.) I jumped over him, quickly turning around and kicking him in the back. Calvin turned around and grabbed me, slamming me to the floor. He tried kicking me as I was down but I blocked him. In return, I kicked his ankle, making him fall back. As he got up, I quickly pressed a few buttons, activating one of Juri's special attacks. In seconds, Akuma was in the air, assaulted by a fury of aerial attacks from Juri, who was slashing at him a few times before he fell to the ground. The K.O. message flashed across the screen indicating that I won that round. The next round, Calvin won. The round after that, which was the final round, determined the winner. We fought, me jumping around like crazy and Calvin continuously misses his punches. Eventually, I started getting impatient and just went directly at him. Grabbing him by the shoulders, I threw him behind me and punching him a few times as he was on the ground. Least to say, I won that round, meaning I won the game.

We laughed it off. "You've gotten better, you could never beat me in even one round and you finally did." "Soon I'll be able to beat you in two rounds." "As if." We chuckled. "I need to use the bathroom. I'll call you if I can't find you when I get out." And with that, Calvin left. I, on the other hand, went to find more games.

After playing games that were way to easy, I spotted a girl playing an alien type game. I walked up to her and glanced at her screen. She seemed to be doing pretty well. I went to the game next to her's and leaned against it, taking out my phone and glancing at her screen every once in a while. She finished the level she was at and turned to me. In a light voice she said "What do you want?" "I was waiting for you to finish playing." I responded, still looking at my phone. "Why?" "Because I wanted to play after you." "Well you could have gone to the next isle over, there's another game like this over there." I looked up and behind me to the next isle. Sure enough, there was another machine like this one over there. My face heated up slightly, even though I don't know why and I didn't do anything wrong. "Oh." I said, like the dumbass I am. I looked back down at her and realized something. This girl's pretty cute. She had brown hair and grey eyes. Her freckles made her look even cuter against her white skin. Her eyes changed to show a sort of confused look, evident more by the tilt of her head. She quickly seemed to forget why she was confused and turned around, walking away from me.

For what reason, I don't know, but I quickly grabbed her wrist before she got further. Surprised, the girl looked back at me. "Um, excuse me, why did you grab my wrist?" I was speechless. I didn't know what I was doing, never mind why I was doing it. "Ummm" was all I could say. Good job Aaron, way to make a fool of yourself. She turned around and waved her hand in front of my face a few times before lightly tapping on my forehead with her knuckle. "Hellooo? Anyone thereee?" she said in a higher pitched voice. I blinked a few times before looking down in embarrassment. I noticed that the girl was on her toes in order to tap me on the head and that she was using my hand that was wrapped around her wrist for balance. Adorable. Fucking adorable. That was all I could think as I looked at the girl in front of me.

(I know this update is really late but I was having trouble determining how to make my protagonists meet. And to all of you who put up with my laziness, thank you😛)