ISSUES [discontinued]

9 ➞ eye spy

nine eye spy

I NODDED and smoothed out my hair. "Indeed, I am." Robby smiled and stepped down, gesturing for me to move. "Then cmon, there's no time to waste. We gotta go." He followed me out onto the sidewalk. I looked up at the sky. The moon was shining bright and the sky was littered with stars.

"So, you know where he lives?" Robby nods in response. "Okay...isn't this kinda creepy though? Now that I think about it."

He shrugs. "Maybe, but it's not like we're total strangers." He glances at me. "You gotta do what you gotta do." I nod slowly, still unsure but I continue to follow Robby down the block. We stay silent for a few minutes, absorbed in our own thoughts. I was plainly just nervous. What if we accidentally start a fight? It's not like Kenny can take us both, but still.

Robby stops at a house, and points. "This is it." He wastes no time walking up the steps, but stops when he sees the door. I clamber up the steps behind him, and he turns around to face me. "There's a note on the door, I can't read it though. It's too dark."

"I've got an idea," I replied and pulled out my phone. I turned on its flashlight which illuminated the area surrounding us. I held it up to the door. On the paper scrawled in messy handwriting I read, "NOT HOME. OUT WITH COBRA KAI AT ARCADE."

Robby chuckled and leaned onto the railing. "Who would say where they are? What if it's a complete stranger?" I gave him a smug smile.

"Robby, he's fresh out of middle school. Of course he's stupid."

He smiled back and started to walk down the steps. I followed him while turning off my phone's flashlight. "So, we gonna go down there?" He shrugged and looked out onto the street across. "We need to get him alone, so we can just pull him away from Cobra Kai." I just stared. "How?"

He looked as if he was about to say something but then paused. "I don't know. Let's just go and try to talk to him."

𐬻☯︎︎𐬻

"This is it." Robby pointed at the arcade. I heard music coming from inside and it was bursting with color. I looked at him. "Let's go, maybe we can play some arcade games as to not be suspicious."

We walked inside and there were people left and right. I looked at him. "I've got some money on me, so let's go ham!"

He grinned widely and we jogged over to the selection of games. They were probably the most popular ones: Tetris, Pacman, Space Invaders, Defender...

"I'm gonna play Pacman." Robby walked over to the arcade machine and put the coin he had into the slot. I decided to make myself busy and go play some other games. Maybe I could collect some prizes!

I decided to play Tetris, since that was the one I had most experience in. I fit my coin into the slot and fiddled with the joystick. I put my complete focus into it, making sure the blocks were in the right places.

I don't know how much time passed but eventually Robby came running up to me. I turned to look at him. He was smiling proudly and was holding a string of tickets. "Look at all this!" he exclaimed. "I guess being a good gamer pays off."

"That's great, Robby, but I'm not done," I said, returning my focus back to the illuminated screen. I had already beaten my previous highscore. He didn't move, and I saw out of the corner of my eye he was mesmerized by the screen. "You're pretty damn good at this."

I chuckled and groaned when I received a game over. There was a lot of tickets, though.

I turned back around to face him again. "I almost forgot about Kenny, and Cobra Kai. Let's go get prizes, and then we can look for them."

He nodded and we walked side by side, talking and laughing. Actually hanging out. Actually having fun. Enjoying and spending time with each other. I didn't realize until then how much I had missed Robby's company, and I didn't realize how long it had been either.

"Hey, Eudoria?" he asked as we approached the prize booth. "Hm?"

"Thanks for helping me out with this. It means a lot." I just smiled. To be honest, I didn't really care much for Kenny. I mean, I hardly knew him! But Robby I did care for, and if it would make him happy, then that's great. He hasn't been the happiest lately, anyways.

But, I have to admit, it's mostly for my sake. So I can become closer with Robby again. It sounds selfish, I know. But it's the truth.

We finally went up to the prize booth. It was filled with different plushies and trinkets. And the person in charge was Chris!

If y'all don't know who Chris is, he's a member of Miyagi-Do karate. You can search him up on your own time!

"Hi, Chris," I said, flashing a smile.

"Hey," Chris said. He glanced at Robby and gave him a smile too, but didn't say anything.

"So," Chris rubbed his hands together, "what do y'all want?" I looked at the assortment of items. Robby was the first to speak up. "I'll get the nerf gun, and that cat plush."

Chris turned around and took both of the shelf. "The nerf gun comes with bullets. That will be thirty tickets." Robby handed him all of his tickets, with one left over. "I'll get a glowstick too, to get rid of this." He nodded and turned around to take one off the shelf.

Chris took the last ticket and glanced at me. "And for you?"

I pondered all of the options for a moment. "I'll get a nerf gun too. Oh, and, a glowstick and glow bracelet." He handed me all of my items and we left. "See you, Chris!" I said over my shoulder.

We walked together, happily. "You know," Robby began, "we were meant to confront Kenny, but this is a lot better." I nodded in agreement, and I couldn't help the smile on my face.

"Well, you wanna go to the laser tag arena or something? Shoot each other with our nerf guns?" PI laughed and replied, "The last time I was there it didn't end well." Robby raised one eyebrow in confusion.

"There was a fight, Cobra Kai versus Miyagi-Do. You wouldn't know, since you were...well, yeah. That was where Hawk broke Demetri's arm." A sudden realization seem to came over him. "Ahh, I know now!"

We walked for a couple more moments in silence.

"This is for you," Robby suddenly said, handing me the plush he had purchased. "I know you like cats, so I decided it would be a nice gesture." He smiled. I suddenly couldn't move, in shock.

"I- thank you," I replied, my smile growing bigger. I felt my cheeks getting red, but luckily he wouldn't be able to see because of the lighting. I took the cat plush from him. Suddenly, this meant more to me than anything I'd ever owned.

"No problem. Think of it as a gift, for our friendship."

We continued to walk, but the hot feeling would not leave my body. What the hell is happening? Get a hold of yourself, Eudoria.

"I suppose we completely went off task, with Kenny and all, but there's—" He paused when he spotted someone off the side. "Speak of the devil," he said, gesturing towards a group of people. Cobra Kai.

One of them spotted us and smirked. He pointed and yelled, "Look, guys! What do we have here?"

They all turned to look at us. Well shit.