Took You Long Enough

Two

After lunch, Reo carried Nagi to his next class, and after school, they met near Nagi's locker and Reo carried him down to the soccer field to practice. They trained with the rest of the soccer team, and then once they'd all left and gone home, the two of them continued to run drills and scrimmage until Nagi became even more easily distracted and his complaints became difficult to ignore.

As usual, Reo didn't want their time to come to an end.

"What are you doing tonight, Nagi?" Reo asked, trying to make it sound casual, like he was just making conversation. The two of them were packing up their things and changing out of their cleats, preparing to make their way to the car.

"I think I'll go to the arcade," Nagi said. It was quick, and he hadn't had to think about it, which surprised Reo. He so seldom put thought into anything, or planned ahead.

"Really?" Reo asked. "With who?"

"Myself," Nagi answered. "Our TV is broken, and I'm not in the mood to play phone games all night."

"Oh," Reo answered. Excitement swelled in him, and he realized all he had to offer into making Nagi's life better, easier in yet another way. He started rambling before he even really thought about it. "Why don't you come over instead? We have a massive big screen TV in the media room. It'll be way better than the arcade."

"Oh," Nagi said. "Okay. What kinds of games do you have?"

"None." Reo shrugged. "But if you tell me what you like to play, I'll just get Ba-Ya to run out and buy whatever we need."

"Oh," Nagi said again. "Okay."

He'd long since stopped worrying if he was being a bother. Reo was a little cluelessly rich, and the few times he'd suggested not wanting to have him spend the money, Reo just laughed and insisted he had more money than he knew what to do with, so what better to spend it on than lunch for him, new cleats for them both, training clothes, etcetera? So Nagi told Reo about the games he liked, and the ones he wanted to try. He was excited to see the media room, after all. it sounded awesome.

Reo typed it all into a text to Ba-Ya, trying to keep up with Nagi even though he could have benefitted from some repeating, or some spelling specifications. He really was pretty hopeless when it came to video games, but he excelled in making sure his friend was happy and comfortable.

At Reo's house, they went right down to the media room. It was just as awesome as Nagi imagined it. The screen took up most of the wall, like a movie theater, and it had an entire row a seats, better than a movie theater. They were soft leather and had massage and warning settings. He basically launched himself into one. It was the fastest Reo had ever seen him move off the field.

"This place is so awesome," Nagi said.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool," Reo said, reaching for the controls on the screen. He motioned towards the far side of the room, where cupboards sat. "There's blankets and pillows and that kind of stuff in there, if you want."

"Woah," Nagi said, heading over.

Reo didn't notice. He was frowning to himself, looking between the screen and the set of instructions he'd gotten from Ba-Ya. He'd naively thought the knowledge he'd had about his childhood video games would translate. A little box that you put a cartridge into, a wire that hooked that box up to the tv, a start button and a controller with a couple of buttons. He was kind of intimidated by the online set up and everything it entailed.

But he'd wanted to do it himself. It was important to him.

It took a little over an hour. Nagi, who'd made good use out of the provided pillows and blankets, encasing himself in them, didn't seem to mind. What he did mind was how horrible Reo was at every game they'd tried. Whether they were on the same team, and Reo was getting them killed or put into last place, or against each other, where it was barely even a fight, Nagi was losing interest. He was almost ruining games for him.