Burned

1.05: The Bonding

WITH THE FLAMES IN HER EYES, SHE BURNED.

'It's past midnight, shouldn't you be sleeping?'

I walked into the living room in what I believed, was an old dress of Ms Potts's, as I was definitely taller than Morgan. It was already past midnight. And with the time difference between New York and Malibu, it was already close to being morning instead of night. Morgan, however, sat on the couch in a hoodie and sweatpants, her hair in a messy bun, a cup of tea in her hands. By the bags under her eyes I could tell she was tired. She just tried to hide it.

'It's not like you're not wandering around the house,' Morgan called me out with a tired voice.

'Valid point,' I agreed, walking more into her direction. 'But my argument is that I'm currently worrying about murderous Witches and thinking of ways of beating them. I don't think it's a concern of yours, now is it?'

Morgan took a sip from her damping tea. 'You sound like a know-it-all.'

'Maybe it's because I am one,' I told the girl with a kind smile.

'See?' Morgan continued, putting her cup of tea on the table. 'Know-it-all.'

I shrugged, not really minding the insult. 'So, what are you up for this late?'

My gaze shifted to the white remote in Morgan's hands. The screen on the television was paused, but not the usual pause menu that would appear when you were watching a film or just the telly itself. Two black balks on the upper and downside of the screen with extra options such as "home" and "settings." Now that I looked back at the remote, it wasn't the usual remote I was used to. It was more of a controller.

'Can't sleep. Mind playing Mario Kart with me?' Morgan proposed, nodding to the screen.

I had a confused look on my face while I sat down on the other side of the couch. 'Mario Kart?'

Morgan's eyes widened. 'You never played Mario Kart?' she asked to which I nodded. 'Grab a Wii controller, the white one on the cabinets.'

I stood up again, grabbed a remote that looked just like Morgan's and I went to sit back down again. At the same moment Morgan changed the screen. She installed the other remote. She explained me the goal of the game: you're racing against computers, you have extra power-ups sometimes and you just have to win. The button with the 2 was gas, 1 was backwards, B was for the power-ups and the one with the blue house was to get to the home screen.

'So, who are you going to be?' Morgan asked me while she selected a character named Yoshi.

I looked through the characters for a moment. 'Baby Mario? Baby Peach? I'm sorry, babies are allowed to drive now?'

Morgan chuckled, my heart jumped. 'Just choose one.'

So, I selected a guy with an enormous mushroom on his head with the name Toad. I honestly thought the creators of this game had had a few mushrooms themselves. There were more characters, like a yellow and green turtle called Koopa Troopa. The most odd one was the punk turtle with spikes. His name was Bowser. Then suddenly Morgan started the game with a big countdown existing out of three seconds in the middle of the screen.

'Hey! Why can you start eleventh and do I have to be twelfth?' I exclaimed, already into the game.

'I'm just better than you are,' Morgan joked, but proved her point when she was already sixth in the race and I couldn't get my car to start, so I was now twelfth.

I looked confused at my controller. 'I'm pressing forward, why doesn't it work?'

'You have to press 2,' Morgan laughed happily.

'Wait,' I chuckled, too. 'How do you steer this thing?'

'Like a real wheel,' Morgan explained me, not stopping her laughter.

Then I finally got forward. I drove my car with my character Toad of a bridge a few times, almost went the wrong way and when I drew in the sand it took me ages to finally get on the road again. Meanwhile, Morgan, who was in first place, had already caught up, causing her to laugh even more. I was still struggling how to drive in a straight line. Then suddenly, as I thought I was bumping into something for the millionth time, it appeared to be a rainbow-y glass block.

'Ooh, you got a rocket!' Morgan exclaimed, pointing a the corner of my screen. Someone now overtook the first position, but Morgan didn't really seem to notice.

'I got what now?' I asked after which I looked at the corner of my screen, too. 'Oh, how do I activate it?'

'Use B,' Morgan told me with a smile while she slowly got into the ninth position and lower.

'Where's B?' I asked, genuinely not knowing where the button was.

Morgan moved over to me, showing the B button on the other side of the controller. Our hands touched for a moment. I wanted to be closer to her, but she was already gone. She decided to sit closer to me, though, only two inches away from me. I smiled without being aware of it. Morgan chuckled when she saw she was in eleventh place now. I shook my head, unable to process how lovely she acted.

The next three rounds existed out of just teasing each other. I put my hand in front of Morgan's eyes at first. Then Morgan got her revenge by telling me I would go faster using the 1 button. I actually believed it, but it turned out to be the reverse mode. I then, by accident, threw a banana peel in the game right in front of her car, making her slip. She then moved her hands to make my arms move the opposite direction I actually wanted to go, making me drive into the abyss instead of on the big mushrooms.

'Ah, damnit,' Morgan swore when her controller stopped working because of the empty battery.

'It's 3 AM, Morgan,' I chuckled at her behaviour. 'Maybe we should actually go to sleep.'

Morgan shrugged. 'I'm not tired.'

Lie, the yawns and dark circles under your eyes tell me different.

'Then maybe we should do something that requires less energy,' I suggested with a kind smile on my face, knowing Morgan would sit here alone for a longer while if I went to bed now.

'Such as?' Morgan asked me, standing up to put her mug in the kitchen.

'Well,' I smiled, having an idea. 'We've done something you like to do as a daily activity. We might as well do something I like a lot.'