Snowflakes (Narry, Nouis, Niam, Ziall//boyxboy)

Chapter 7 - Mates

After our small run in front of the bakery, Liam suggested that we go to an arcade. That sounded pretty fun, and to be honest, I didn’t even know those existed anymore. I mean, why do you need arcades anyway? There were PS3s, Xboxs, and handheld gaming systems. I mean, if you could stay in your underwear and play games in the comfort of your own home and not spend a single penny, wouldn’t ya do it? I know I would, but that wasn’t the case right now.

My mum had decided to go do her share of some more shopping and left me and Liam to hang out. She took her own cupcake and gave me the bag with my two, of which I gave one to Liam. I really wasn’t one to share my food, but I did it without much thought until half was eaten, and then I restrained myself from reaching over and stealing it from him.

“So, Liam, what else you got planned for today? I mean, you know this place way better then I do, so I’m sure you got some fun ideas.”

Liam smirked towards me and bumped my arm softly with his own; both of us choosing to have our hands stuffed in our pockets, so there wasn’t much pushing going on.

“What’s that, Ni? It sounds like you think we’re on some date or something.” I laughed initially, causing him to chuckle some. At least we both had the same idea for this. We were both just friends hanging out. Nothing too bad, yea? “Totally, Liam. I was totally asking you out on a date yesterday.” We continued to laugh a bit more as we continued our walk to the arcade. Sure, I had no idea where we were going, but Liam did and that was all that really mattered.

“Well, here it is. Not too lame, yea?” I looked around to see a bunch of blinking, flashing lights in the dark area. Call me lame, but I’ve never seen an arcade in real life. In old movies from the early nineties? Yes, but nothing like this.

“No way!” I laughed before spotting an air hockey table from across the room. “Woah! C’mon, Liam. I’m gonna kick your arse!”

“Air hockey? Ha. Not a chance Horan! Didn’t I beat you at FIFA yesterday?”

I rolled my eyes at his remark and just pursued the machine. Reaching it, I went into my pockets in search for some money to only hear him snicker at me.

“What?”

He continued to snicker.

“No, seriously.” I asked, both confused and frustrated at his laughter, but that was when he tilted his head towards a token machine. I rose my brows at it to only have him full on laughing at me.

“Wow. You really have never been to an arcade before.” He teased, making a bit of heat raise to my cheeks. What an utter arsehole.

I puffed out some air before following him over to the token machine. Watching him pull out a twenty and exchanging it for some tokens. Was he crazy? Twenty pounds was a lot of money! I mean, really.

“You really think we’ll need all that?” I asked, a bit baffled.

He chuckled. “Well, air hockey takes four tokens, as does many other games. It’ll all be gone before you know it if you think about it.” I decided to agree with him as we made our way back to the table, where he put in the tokens. I was about to serve up the first puck when I noticed him on his phone. I had two choices and that was either to take the moment and score or be a good sport and wait for him.

And without thinking there was a giant clinking sound and I found myself jumping in the air. “Ha! 1-0, Payne! Get cha head in the game!”

Liam looked up from his phone for a second before shaking his head. He pressed a button before returning the device back to his pocket. I’m thinking he was sending a text, but, c’mon. We were playing a game. Don’t ever drop your guard, yea?