We're standing in front of an arcade, Inara fishes through her tote bag and takes out her wallet. She doesn't say a word when she walks into the building, I quickly follow behind. Watching her feed the token dispensing machine her whole wallet. As the tokens started to spit out of the dispenser, she caught them in a pouch.
"What are we doing here?" I ask in a curious tone as she places the pouch full of tokens onto my palm. "To have fun, get a prize for Yara so that she'll hopefully brighten up and befriend me," she grabs my sleeve and starts dragging me towards one of the claw machines first. This made me wonder, are they not friends? That's unexpected.
Inara snatches the pouch from my grip and fishes out a token. She studies the stuffed toys that are inside the claw machine, there are fat octopuses, cute bunnies, and weird-looking deer. "Do you think Yara will like the deer one?" she looks at me and I think I gave her a funny look. "What? Is she not a deer?" she raises a brow at me before feeding the machine a token. Yara's a deer? I thought she was a reindeer, is she not? Because she has antlers. Female deer don't have antlers.
I watch Inara grip the joystick and control the claw, aiming for one of the deer stuffed toys. Pressing the button, it misses. "I have a question, Inara," I ask as she feeds the machine another token. "What is it?" she grabs the joystick again and stares intensely at her target, not even blinking. I still think the deer stuffed toy is a bit ugly. Seriously though, who would want that? But I guess I'll trust Inara's decisions.
She misses her target again and a laugh slips past my lips. But she doesn't find it funny. God, please give this woman some humor. "Just you wait, Ezekiel. I bet I can win this next try," she's put all of our friendship aside for a stuffed toy. I haven't heard anyone call me by my last name in awhile. I just know we'll have a good time.
After a few more failed tries, Inara looks heated. I keep my distance in case she decides to turn me into a tree to let out her anger. I hear a frustrated groan, followed by the sound of her fists smashing into the claw machine. "Hey, let's calm down," I attempt to soothe her anger before making my way towards her. I have to get her off that thing. Before I can pull her away, vines start to come out of the ground around the machine, strangling it. I don't want to look like a scaredy-cat, but I still move away from her.
"Sorry about that," Inara approaches me with the stuffed toy in her arms. She looks calm now as she sits down beside me on the bench. "I got the plushie. We still have a load of tokens, you wanna play?" she asks and I grin, accepting her offer as I stand up. She hands me the pouch of tokens and drags me by the sleeve towards a game I've noticed she's been eyeing when we first entered. 'Dance Dance Revolution' was the name of the game. Shoot, all I know is that I suck at this game, let alone dance.
"I want to play this and I'm not taking no for an answer," the corners of her lips curved up into a smile, pulling me onto the platform. She gestures for me to put in the tokens. I feed the machine some tokens and the game starts up. I glance over at Inara and she's smiling, so wide as if she's excited. She looks determined to beat me. Well, I want to tell her that she doesn't need to be that determined because I suck at dancing.
Inara ends up winning against me. Not a surprise but I could've done better. "You're as stiff as a board," she mocks and I can't help but admit that I live up to that idiom. Maybe I really am a board, heh.
After we play multiple games, I'm exhausted. Inara has a lot of energy to keep up this long. "Aw man, we're out of tokens," she frowns, but I think that's the sign we've played enough. "I'm hungry, let's go eat," I say and she nods. We walk out of the building and agree to buy some food at the street vendors near the academy.
YOU ARE READING
Lunaria ☆ | DISCONTINUED
Fantasy,, ─ 𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀? Every child is born with a certain power which is called an evol. They are also born as a certain species depending on their genetics. May it be hybrids to elves, you name it. Zephyr Academy is a school run by an organization that...
