Nicotine at Nine (danisnotonfire)

Chapter 3

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"Where are we going?" Dan asked as I strided along the sidewalk, keeping my eyes forward.

"I'm not sure, where do you want to go?" I decided that it would be better just to stay as nice as possible towards him, forgetting the fact that he was a complete stranger. I looked at him through the corner of my eye, to see he had shrugged.

"We could go into some more shops," He suggested, and I nodded. He began walking faster, going ahead of me, and I assumed he was leading the way, so I just followed him silently. We walked for awhile, Dan always a step or two ahead of me. My arms were folded tightly across my chest, trying desperately to generate any forms of thermal energy onto my bare arms. I looked up at the back of Dan's head, to see he was appropriately wearing a thick coat, sweatpants, and a scarf.

He stopped abruptly, causing me to almost crash into him. He turned slightly to his left, pointing at a shop. "There it is!" He exclaimed brightly, He walked in, and I sighed, following behind. We entered and I was quickly greeted with a small store, grayish blue painted walls and colorful T-Shirts and other knick knacks lining the shelves. I looked closer and almost all of them were things I recognized; video games. Final Fantasy, Crash Bandicoot, Legend of Zelda, Skyrim, Mario and Luigi, you name it. It was a store dedicated to video games. My eyes lit up, but I tried to hide my excitement. I looked around to see Dan has already left me, he had run off to some other part of the store.

I sighed, expecting this would happen. Instead, I decided to aimlessly wander around the aisles, looking at everything and stopping occasionally to marvel at a certain shirt or figure or game, just to look at the price and remember that I wasn't able to afford anything right now, and even if I could, I hadn't brought any money. I was busy looking intently at a Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker shirt, when someone tapped my shoulder, I jumped slightly, but turned around to see Dan standing there.

"Where'd you go?" He asked,as I turned back to look at the shirt once more, "I thought you ran away or something!" I shrugged.

"The question is, Where did you go? I walked in here after you and you were gone," I stated matter-of-factly. He laughed slightly, before motioning to the shirt I was still looking at. "You like Legend of Zelda?" I nodded, letting go of the shirt and continuing to walk through the aisles. "Cool," He trailed off, and we fell into silence.

We continued walking through the rows of Legend of Zelda merchandise, before it faded into Pokemon merchandise. Dan stopped to look at a shirt, and I sighed.

"Why did you even want to come with me?" I asked, running a hand through my hair. Dan shrugged.

"I don't know. I was bored and you seem cool,"

"I could be a murderer for all you know," I said, seriously.

"I don't think a murderer would say that they're a murderer," He chuckled, and I found myself cracking a small smile.

I looked at him again and saw he carried two shirts, one with the Hyrule Crest on it and one with a one-up mushroom. I nodded curtly at his choice of shirts, saying, "Nice choices,"

He nodded and began walking to the register. "What do you play?" He asked, and I shrugged.

"Lots of different games. You name it, I guess. But I haven't really been playing a lot of video games lately,"

"Why not?" He frowned. He had just paid for his things, and the cashier was placing them in bags.

"Well, new consoles are made, and new games are made, and I can't afford either of those things right now," We began walking out of the store and he nodded, before we fell into an awkward silence. I wasn't surprised, bringing up the topic of money was always a subject that would end awkwardly, no matter what. Once outside, I quickly pointed to the right with my thumb, the direction we came from.

"I'm going home now, I'm tired," I raised my hand up slightly, as if to say goodbye, and went to turn around, but Dan grabbed my arm quickly.

"Wait!" He exclaimed, and I sighed. I don't really have a choice, considering your fucking arm is cutting off the circulation to my own. "You were fun to hang out with, I want to do it again,"

I raised my arms up, shaking my head. "No phone, my friend,"

He looked at me, in an expression I could only assume was shock. "How could you not have a phone?!" I shrugged again.

"I've never had anyone I wanted to stay in touch with, so I never needed a phone,"

"Then how can I say in touch with you?" He asked. I honestly didn't really want to, but his guy was really acceptant to the fact that I wanted to be best friends. He snapped his fingers then, making me jump again.

"Okay, I got it. Meet me at Halter's tomorrow at noon."

"Halter's?" I asked. What the hell was Halter's, and more importantly, why did I have to meet him there?

"Yeah, you know, the bookstore, where we were earlier?" He trailed off, looking at me with his eyebrows slightly raised.

"Oh yeah... Fine, whatever," I muttered, turning away.

"Bye Dan!" I called out quickly, before walking back in the cold, my arms feeling numb from the gusts of snow constantly hitting them.

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Wow. All these ideas came from nowhere. I literally thought about it and wrote it down and that was it (Then again, that's how I write all my chapters). But I really like Clara. She's kinda bad ass.

NEXT UPDATE: Monday