Worth it

Game Night

"So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?", Ronaldo casually asked as he plopped on the couch.

"Oh, nah, it was nothin'," Lars shrugged, "I forgot what I was even gonna tell you," he laughed softly as he grabbed the game controllers, tossing one to his friend.

"I understand. Those moments are frustrating," Ronaldo smiled a bit, and leaned over, "So which games, of your fine selection, would you like to play, my friend?"

Lars shifted his hand over the stack of games he'd set out, and lowered it to the middle of the stack, pulling out a fighting game, "This one suit ya?"

"Oh this will suit me fine," Ronaldo grinned, having played this game on several occasions, "Can you take off handicap?"

"Uh, of course," the other snickered, "I never play it with handicap to begin with. What do I look like to you, man?"

"Someone with way too many video games," Ronaldo laughed, glancing at his friend's impressive stack of games, "Can I pick my character first?"

"Sure," Lars shrugged, "So long as I can play the fox-huntress."

"Really? Her? She's not even the most scantily clad," Ronaldo teased softly.

The other snorted, "I like her move-set. And she's got red hair."

"You have a thing for red heads?", Lars' friend teased again, gently swatting his tuft of curly red hair.

"Who'd you pick?", Lars glanced at the screen, "The robo-dude? Oh come on, he's so OP..."

"They nuked him pretty badly in the dlc upgrade," Ronaldo admitted, swapping color palettes to his liking on the character, "...pretty lucky you haven't upgraded this game."

"Oh yes I will," Lars grinned wickedly, daring to log the game off so he could use the game console's 'live' mode to access the downloadable content.

"Noooo," Ronaldo whined, "Come on, don't weaken me this soon. I'm used to his old skill levels."

"Fine, how about five rounds, and then we set it straight?", Lars glanced up at him, kicking his shoes off.

"That's fair," Ronaldo sighed.

Once the match started, both friends were already mashing the buttons furiously, their characters on the screen walloping each other in gory high-def detail. When Lars' character speared Ronaldo's in a death blow midway through the match, the losing player gave a small giggle.

"Remember when we played the arcade version of this game at Funland? When it was just 16 bit effects and joysticks?"

"Yeah," Lars laughed, "Weren't we like seven or something? I think Mr. Smiley tried to kick us off of the game because he thought it would be too bloody for us."

"That's right," Ronaldo giggled, "We both were too small to even see over the console, so we had to stand on step stools. Then when he kicked us off of it, we went to the movie theater and snuck in to see that slasher movie your sister was talking about."

"I can't believe she was into that stuff when she was younger. She still is," Lars laughed, "I mean, it's so weird, she's this really bubbly girly 20 somethin' and she loves nothin' more than a bucket-of-blood movie."

"It is pretty funny," Ronaldo laughed, "We couldn't handle thirty minutes of that movie. We both cried, remember?"

"Oh yeah. Our dads were laughing so hard at how freaked out we were, they didn't even ground us for sneakin' in!", Lars cackled, "God what jerks!"

"I know!", Ronaldo cackled with equal mirth, and fist pumped the air as he won the second match.

The third match ended up being a draw, and a sudden death round was issued.