IDK WHAT TO NAME THIS SO HERE'S MLBB ONESHOT

:'𝘼𝙧𝙘𝙖𝙙𝙚' [𝙓𝙖𝙫𝙔𝙞𝙣]

Xavier walked down the road in silence, his head occupied by the soft music coming from his earphones. His eyes gazed through the road ahead, finding the sun setting far in the horizon, painting the sky a gorgeous hue of violet and orange.

He stopped, admiring the view, only to realize he had stopped in front of an old, yet active arcade.

He didn't remember when was the last time he had visited this arcade. Was it 10 years ago? 11 years ago? When he's still living with both his mother and father? He couldn't recollect the memory, having it blurred away since his father has to work abroad in order for him to have a future.

Xavier sighed as he looked at the bright entrance of its small building. Groaning, his hands went through his pocket in order to find his wallet. After pulling it out, he opened it to find not much money inside it, along with some coins.

This is his last monthly allowance, he won't be getting another from his father nor his side-job until like, one more week.

He sighed, giving in to the urge,

"A visit won't hurt."

---⊹---

After exchanging a quarter of his money for some tokens and thanking the kind cashier, he went through to look for any games that caught his eyes. There's the air hockey game, but he has no one to play with. There's the photo booth, just more ways to make him look pathetic for having no one to take pictures with him.

Xavier looked around, mesmerized by how this arcade is still so lively after so many years. Even he himself dulled after a decade, but this place keeps its youthful look.

There's some couple who went to compete on the basketball ring, trying hard to see who'd pay for their next dinner. Then there's the group of teens, all younger than him, who's screaming at every enemy that showed up on their shooting game screen. There's also the man who's keeping his name on the rhythm game leaderboard.

At that Xavier feels a little wave of nostalgia. Life used to be so gleeful.

He discovered deeper into the arcade, only to find the claw machine to be empty. How odd, he remembered this used to be crowded by people from various ages.

Inside the box, he finds hundreds of keychains with cute animal dolls attached to it.

Xavier's blue robs widen at the sight of the little bee keychain, it's way too adorable to be missed by his sensitive-to-cute-fluffy-things eyes.

Deciding to test his luck, he quickly walked toward the game box. So far he has six tokens. He needs two tokens to get one chance in the claw machine. And by seeing the position of that little bee, his excitement exploded at the big possibility of getting it in one try even when his face remained as stoic as a rock.

Finally Xavier inserted two pieces of the metal coin inside the slot, completely bringing the claw machine back to life. Various clicking sounds came as the music started ringing, while the claw moved to its place, ready for any given move that Xavier would make.

After several moves and him looking like a lunatic for being precise, he was done moving the claw to its designed place. He was sure he'd get it. The little bee will be his!

He didn't get it.

Oh, well, maybe that's just him getting struck by bad luck. There's no harm in going for a second try, right? And so he put another two coins, making it his fourth.

The claw moves back to its original place as Xavier immediately moves it forward, bringing it closer to the bee keychain. He looked to the side of the box, making sure that he got the right angle and all, heightening his chance of getting that cute small thing. Ugh.