Michael's POV

Connor and I have been living together for about two weeks now. Well, it's more 16 days but still. We haven't really hung out outside of our shared dorm, only watching movies and trashing them. So, I figured we should go hang out together to get to know each other more. I mean, only trashing movies doesn't really do much to develop a friendship, even if I feel like we're friends already. Well, if anything, it could make us closer friends, I guess. The question was, where would we go and what exactly would we talk about? I suppose I could ask him to hang out at the arcade with me. That's an idea.

I was sitting on the couch as I had a free day from classes. I was kind of relieved, I'd had a busy week as Connor could probably tell. Oh, speaking of Connor. He continued to deny that he even liked Pokémon, even though I continued completely seeing through it. I had started teasing him about it, yet he still refused to admit it. I'd catch him glancing at me when playing something Pokémon related. Anyways. I was on my Switch, it was a birthday present from my moms from a few years ago. Junior year of high school actually.

Junior year.... that's a year I try to forget. Nothing hurts more than your best friend of twelve years just kinda... leaving you in the dust. I mean, we're on better terms now, obviously, that was years ago but.. it hurt.

"Micheal?" I hardly registered Connor's concerned voice. When I looked at him I saw that his expression was concerned too. I blinked out of my state and smiled at him.

"I'm good, there's nothing to worry about." I didn't feel that we were close enough for me to reveal that yet. I shifted my position so I was looking at him and smiled. Connor smiled, as if in relief and then happy to see me smiling. "Hey! I wanted to ask you something!" Connor blinked and then nodded.

"Okay. What do you want to ask?" He asked, curiously. Wait, was there a hint of nervousness in his tone? Huh, odd. But I'm sure it's nothing that would really concern me so I'll just pretend that wasn't there. I put the Switch down on the coffee table, and stood up.

"I was wondering if you'd like to come hang out with me at the arcade?" I asked. "It's just... we haven't really hung out outside of here." I gestured around the room and then fixed my glasses on my nose, as I usually did when I was nervous. I didn't really know why I was slightly apprehensive, though. Connor blinked and looked at me. Then, I could've sworn his cheeks turned slightly red.

"I mean, sure!" He said, with a tone I'd only ever heard rarely from him. A sort of happy, overexcited tone. The overexcited part was the one that was rare. It was honestly cute to hear him speak like that. I looked at him with a smile.

"Okay cool," I grinned. "I have a car so, I can be the one who drives us." Connor laughed a bit.

"That's good, as I don't have a car. I mean, I used to have one, but shit happened and I no longer have a car." I gazed at him but decided not to ask him what exactly happened to the car. I walked into my room and searched for my car keys, I'd used them recently so they couldn't be too far away, right? I saw them on the other side of the red duvet, changed from the beige duvet, on the side table. I picked up the PT Cruiser keys and walked out of my room.

"Well, let's go," I stated, laughing slightly. Connor and I left the room and he turned around to lock the door. We descended the stairs and walked out of the building. We soon found ourselves in the parking lot and started the mission to find my bright red PT Cruiser.

Obviously, it didn't take very much time at all. My Cruiser is blood red, most of the cars surrounding it are more muted tones. My car would fail a stealth check immediately. It's bright red in between cars of muted colours! It sticks out like a sore thumb! I walked over to the car and Connor followed me. "So, this is the car?" Connor asked and I nodded. "Pac-Man, eh?" He teased and I let out an awkward giggle. Connor then smiled at me.

"Yeah, I like Pac-Man, if that wasn't obvious." I then remembered something. I was wearing a hoodie that I wore so often it probably smelt awful, and it had various pins on it and some sewn patches. I turned to face Connor. "But it probably was obvious, I mean, look at me," I joked, gesturing to my hoodie. Connor's gaze travelled over the hoodie.

"Yeah, that's pretty obvious. Wow, you have so many patches on here. What's this...?" Connor went quiet and he was gazing at the patch of the pride flag sewn on the left arm of my hoodie. I looked at him, curious as to why he'd gone silent.

"Oh, I'm gay. That's why I have the pride flag sewn on there," I stated, trying to see if it would get Connor to speak again. He looked at me.

"Oh um, that's cool." Connor looked around as if his next information was top secret and he didn't want people to overhear, though we were the only ones in the parking lot for a long while. He walked close to me and bent down so he could whisper in my ear, Connor was a few inches taller than me. "I'm uh, bi, so yeah." He stepped back. I looked at him for a while and then got into the car, Connor getting into the passenger seat. I had decided not to comment on what he'd just told me.

We arrived at the arcade about 15 minutes later. I sighed in familiarity, Hello my old friend. I turned towards Connor and gestured toward the entrance. "Connor, may I please introduce you to: ze arcade~!" Connor chuckled at my joke, though it was kind of cringey. He walked over toward the entrance and I followed. Together, we entered. The claw machines meant for younger kids were the first things that caught Connor's attention.

"Oh, wow. Those claw machines have the Pac-Man ghosts in them," he commented and I looked. There appeared to be a lot of Blinkys within the claw as with a quick glance, the toys at the bottom were just a sea of red. Well, a sea of red with a few splashes of pink, orange and blue. Connor turned back to me. "Let me guess, Blinky is your favourite?" He teased. I rolled my eyes.

"Just because I wear red a lot, that does not mean Blinky is my favourite," I stated. Connor looked at me.

"Is he your favourite?" He asked, seeming curious. I was silent for a while.

"...yeah," I replied quietly and a little bit embarrassed to which Connor just smiled, probably amused. "I'm actually surprised you know the red ghost's name is Blinky," I said. "You know, for someone who no longer plays video games," I added with a teasing tone.

"The ghosts are well-known video game characters," Connor stated matter-of-factly. "Someone who has never even set eyes on Pac-Man could probably tell you that the enemies of Pac-Man are named Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde." He shrugged.

"The ghosts are well-known, yes, but people don't necessarily know their names," I stated with a matter-of-fact tone of my own. "I'm actually impressed." I then looked around the arcade. "Now, I'm sure this place has Pac-Man somewhere. I wanna beat my high score!" I walked around, looking for the game and Connor was following me.

When my eyes made contact with it, I felt myself get filled with determination. "Aha! We meet again, old friend." A bit overdramatic, I know but. I dug into my pocket to pull out quarter and I heard Connor giggling. He must've found my theatrics amusing. I looked back at him and he was smiling and still giggling a bit. I looked back at the game and started playing it. It was your usual Pac-Man session. I went through the first few levels easily.

"I just had a really weird thought pop into my head," Connor said suddenly. "What if they made a movie of this? It would probably suck." I continued playing until Blinky had caused Pac-Man to lose his last life.

"Tell me about it. Video game movies always suck! It's like they never take the actual plot of the game into account, they always force a romantic subplot between two characters who never had a romantic interest in each other at all! You just sit there thinking: What the fuck producers?! What even is this movie?!?" Connor blinked.

"Wow. Just wow. You really hate video game movies huh? I do agree with you though. They're just bad movies. Some of them I can't even sit through they're so fucking boring." Connor leaned on the arcade machine.

"I mean, some of them are better than others, but I don't really like them."

"Half of the time, I don't know what the fuck is going on. I never played those games so I'm fucking clueless. But, I'm assuming from your rant you just had, it's not very different for people who actually know what's meant to be going on." I nodded.

"Yeah, it's true." I stood up, as I'd been leaning on the machine. "Do you want to try those claw things?" I asked. Connor just looked at me.

"Aren't... those meant for like, middle schoolers?"

"Usually, but it's not like they force us not to use them. C'mon." I led us over to the the claw  with the sea of Blinkys. Connor looked at the multiple red ghosts.

"I think this claw might've gotten too much of the Blinkys." We both glanced at the second claw that had the Pac-Man ghosts and saw loads of orange, blue and pink, but not whole load of red. "And some of the Blinkys belong in there." I nodded with agreement.

"Well, what colour do you want?" I asked. Connor blinked and whipped his head around.

"What colour I want?" He sounded confused. I looked at him.

"Well... I have every colour of ghost so..." For some reason, the explanation made me blush. "I just thought... as like, a souvenir or something. That'd you want to take something back to our room with you... I don't know.." Connor blushed a bit himself. Great, made things awkward with my roommate. Eventually, Connor answered.

"I don't mind. I don't mind what colour," he smiled. I turned back to the claw, deciding to go with the 'excess Blinky' one. I moved the claw around above the sea of red, Connor was just gazing at the ceiling. Once I felt I was in a good enough position, I pressed the button for the claw to go down. I didn't expect to hook anything on the first try so when I looked back and saw Clyde's orange shape resting comfortably within the jaws of the claw and slowly moving towards the collection hole, I was surprised. I was also kind of surprised it wasn't a Blinky from the sea of red. Clyde dropped into the collection hole and I took him out.

"Connor."

"Hm?" I passed him Clyde and he looked at him and turned him over in his hands before bringing Clyde to his chest and hugging the plush with one arm. "Thank you," he said.

"No problem, Con."