A/N

sup dudes

Just letting you all know that final tests are coming up because school is almost over for me. I'm gonna be really busy these next couple weeks but I'll try to post chapters between studying/whenever I can! Thank you guys so much for all your support and patience ;w;

To say sorry for taking forever between updates, this chapter is twice as long as a normal chapter. Enjoy!

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Blaze's P.O.V

You know, I'd be a lot more excited about this actually happening if Dottie wasn't taking forever to get ready.

She's still in the bathroom. It's been ten minutes since the time we planned to head to the arcade, 10:00 in the morning. Not to mention how she's been getting ready for an hour or so.

Geez. I just changed and I was done.

To be fair to Dottie, not a lot of couples on their first date have to get ready in the same house, tracking each other's progress. Maybe if the couple has been dating for a while and they're living in the same house, that's believable, but this is an odd situation.

If we didn't live in the resort house together, I probably wouldn't be thinking she's taking forever since I wouldn't be waiting for her to get ready.

I scroll on Twitter downstairs as I sigh, waiting for Dottie to finish up. I perk up and put my phone in my pocket as I hear footsteps climbing down the stairs.

And... wow.

Dottie doesn't pay too much attention to me, she just puts on some black sandals, but it's like sometimes I forget how cute she is.

Half of her hair is up in space buns, and the other half is flowing loosely down. She's wearing a sky blue leather jacket over a white shirt with some jeans, and even though she's not looking at me, she has a small smile.

I gulp as I collect my thoughts. "Hey, Dottie."

She finishes messing with her sandal strap until it's properly put on before looking up at me, her small smile transforming into a huge grin. "Heya, Blaze~"

"You ready to go?" I ask.

Dottie nods. "Of course. I hope I didn't make you wait too long."

I wave my hand dismissively. "Nahh, no, you didn't."

It doesn't hurt to be a little nice to her.

Dottie makes her way to the door and pushes it open. I follow and we walk out together. I close the door behind us, fidgeting with the lock, my eyes on the doorknob.

I feel something soft intertwine with my hand. I shut the door quickly and look over at my hand before looking at Dottie's face.

We're holding hands. Irene, her hands are soft. I have to command my heart not to burst at that very moment.

Hand-in-hand, I start to lead her to the arcade.

"I hope you know where you're going, Spiderman." Dottie teases, her head playfully tilted to the side.

"Do I ever know where I'm going?" I ask, giving her hand a little squeeze.

"You don't." Dottie jokes, her voice low and warm. "We never do."

We make our way to the front of the arcade, seeing the lights of games flashing through the window and practically feeling the bass of the music on the inside booming.

I look at Dottie. Her eyes sparkle as she looks over the arcade. I chuckle.

I still can't believe this is really happening. I'm going on a date with Dottie.

We enter the arcade. Parents are there with kids, and it looks like we aren't the only couple here on a date. There are all sorts of games— from classics like Pac-Man and racing games and shooters and anything else anyone could think of.

Because it's a bit crowded near the entrance, I have to let go of her hand. Once I let go, I immediately miss her touch.

We walk up to the front desk and Dottie looks at the signs above it detailing the coin prices, one hand placed thoughtfully on her chin. In this arcade, it costs coins to play a game. Some simple games only cost about one to five coins, but more popular or complex games cost about ten or even fifteen. I let Dottie's eyes wander over the prices, wondering how much coins she's going to pick.

Suddenly, she turns to me with her answer. "Five hundred. I want five hundred coins."

I chuckle. Despite how big such a number may seem, it's not that big a deal. The price for it isn't that expensive, and with our all-access passes, we should get a discount on the coin price. Besides, like I said before, it's not like every game costs one coin.

"Alright, Dottie." I say as we move forward a bit in the line as a couple in the front orders their coins. They're two girls who look a couple years younger than us, and they walk away blushing and giggling, one kissing the other on the cheek as they hold hands.

I look away. They're obviously really close... it must be a serious relationship.

Will Dottie and I ever be like that?

I take out my wallet, getting my debit card ready when Dottie smacks the card out of my hand. My eyes widen as I pick it up. "What was that for?"

"We're splitting the cost between us." Dottie says, her arms crossed.

"Yeah, Dottie, I know that, I was just gonna pay for half of it." I tell her, my eyebrows scrunched. Dottie's expression stiffens.

"Oh." She says.

There's a pause before we burst out laughing.

In the blink of an eye, we're at the front of the line, ordering five-hundred coins.

"We're going to get so many tickets." I brag, walking out of line with Dottie with a bag of coins in my hand.

"Yeah!" She says, doing an air fist pump, and it's adorable.

We start out just playing whatever random games catch out attention, getting an impressive amount of tickets in the process.

Next up is a game called Piano Frenzy~Rush. There are two sets of four huge piano key-shaped buttons, each glowing rainbow light. There's a screen above the buttons and the point of the game is to press the button when a square slides above it. If you miss a square or press the wrong button, you lose.

I lightly tap Dottie on the shoulder and point to the game. "Hey, do you wanna play that one?" I ask.

"Oooh, yeah, yeah, that sounds fun!" Dottie replies, her eyes bright.

We sit on a long rectangular shaped stool in front of the game. Dottie takes the right four buttons and I take the left before I insert enough coins for us to start playing.

"Since there's two players, there's team and competition mode. Which one do you wanna play?" I ask.

Dottie looks at me with a smirk. "Competition! I'm going to win, of course."

I chuckle, my competitive juices flowing. "Whatever you wanna tell yourself."

In competition mode, Dottie and I will be playing the same song, but we're going to see who can play without losing for the longest. In settings, Dottie changes her piano keys' color to a warm, dark blue, and I change mine to a fiery red. Our signature colors glow on the keys of the piano.

"Are you ready? Just kidding— I know you're not. You don't have a chance." I tease. Dottie sticks her tongue out at me while I press start.

Right off the bat, I'm pressing keys with a passion, trying to keep in touch with the tune of the game. I want to look over at Dottie and see how she's playing, but I know that in the time it takes for me to glance over at her, I'll miss a square and face defeat.

Both of us are still in the game two minutes later, even as the game gets progressively harder. I'm stumbling with the keys at this point, but I haven't failed yet, and I don't plan to.

Suddenly, I hear a buzzer sound and I see red lights out of the corner of my eye. I look over to see Dottie groan and slam her head on the fake piano keys. There's a big red X on the screen in front of her, which is the light I saw before. "I missed a square." She groans, her face still on the keys.

I snicker. "Victory is mine!" I chant teasingly, talking down to her head.

She's still face-down on the keys, and in one stupid impulsive moment, I put my hand on the top of her head, lightly giving the area between her space buns a stroke.

Her head tilts until I can see her and my face flushes.

Oh Irene, what did I just do?

I catch her blush, illuminated by the blue light of her piano keys. I know I'm blushing too and I jerk my hand away.

Her back rises and falls with something... it's not her breathing...

Laughter?

Dottie sits back up. "Let's go to the vending machine."

I'm glad that there's a change of topic. That was so embarrassing! How could I let myself do that? Something so affectionate so casually... like she's my girlfriend or something?

Dottie pays for a soda can and I get myself a water. She pops open the can, but because she's Dottie, she accidentally shakes it a bit before opening it and some of the soda bubbles fall onto the carpeted patterns of the arcade floor. She looks at me with her eyebrows raised and a smile.

"Let's just pretend we didn't see that." She jokes.

I point to a camera nearby. "That saw that." I say, knowing full well that nobody's gonna care if she spilled soda on the floor. This is an arcade, after all, this happens all the time.

"Oh well. Let me be a wanted criminal." Dottie replies, taking a mischievous sip of her soda.

We play some other games before walking around when Dottie randomly grabs my arm and gasps. "Borkbork!" She exclaims.

I look over to see what she's talking about. "I didn't know they made an arcade version of Borkbork." I add.

"Well, app games get turned into app games all the time." Dottie replies. I nod in agreement. "We have to play it! Borkbork is how it all began. Remember? At the airport?"

"Dottie, I don't know if I'd say Borkbork was how it all began." I laugh. "I mean, it's not like Borkbork is the reason we were in the airport in the first place.

"Still!" Dottie pouts. "Pleeeeeeeaaaaase?"

"You don't need to ask like that. We still have loads of coins." I raise an eyebrow and we head to the game together.

This time, it's an even tie between us. Since it's a fairly popular game, we don't play too many rounds. We want to let younger kids play the game.

We play some more games as I watch our coin count drop.

We've been here for about two hours, but we both know the final game we both want to game, the one that's perfect for us.

Dance Dance Revolution.

The second we lock eyes with it, we know.

I punch in some coins and select some cheesy 2014 pop song I know Dottie will love.

We dance to the beat of the song, jumping as our feet hit the arrows on the bottom of the floor. Dottie tries to sing along, but the game is tiring by itself, so she ends up only stumbling along to her favorite lines.

In the end, we get an insanely high score, enough to put us on the leaderboard. We have to put three characters to get our name on the leaderboard, so I put in D&B.

Dottie and Blaze.

Dottie and Blaze, on their first date.

Before I press enter, leaving our mark on the leaderboard of this cheesy pop song forever, I turn to Dottie, as if to ask if it's okay.

She rolls her eyes playfully and leans over, pressing enter herself.

We don't feel like redeeming our tickets for a prize right now. We've agreed that we're going save up for a bigger prize, so we walk out of the arcade arm-in-arm.

Together.

Soda lover and Spiderman.

D&B.