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Whoever had the idea to rebrand golf and sell it to children is deserving of the death penalty. This was Kite’s thought as he stood holding Hart’s small hand, waiting for his father to finish paying for their game cards. Three other kids, the Arclights, stood next to them. Kite had met the oldest, Christopher, before at another one of these ‘Co-workers meetup outside of work’ things and became decent friends with him. His brothers, Thomas and Michael if he remembered correctly, he had seen only a couple of times on brief occasions.
Thomas was currently blabbing loudly about how he would rather be playing in the arcade than golf, with Michael beside him trying to convince him it wasn’t that bad and could actually be really fun. This commotion stopped when their fathers came over and ushered them outside and handed each a game card. Kite took Hart’s since he was so young and handed him a smaller club. Thomas yelled dibs on the yellow ball as Christopher scolded him for being loud and picked up a darker blue.
With clubs and assorted colored balls in hand, they set out to the first hole. It was decided that youngest should go first, so Kite held onto Hart’s hands and showed him how to swing. The blue-haired kid nodded and got a par. Michael was up next, with Christopher asking,”Do you need a refresher?”
“No thank you, I think I remember.” Michael answered, hitting his red ball and getting a hole in one. Clapping followed along with compliments from the fathers.
“Tsk, this hole is easy, step aside and watch a pro.” Thomas stated whacking his ball. He ended up getting a hole in three.
“No worries, we are all warming up.” Christopher said, trying to comfort his brother as he stomped over next to Michael and Hart. It was Kite’s turn next. He set his ball down and swung, the ball hitting the hole and swirling around it. He let out a grunt of annoyance and got it in the second try. Thomas snickered.
Christopher’s swing was as elegant as everything else he ever did, but sadly his ball fell short and went in on the second try.
“You kids could go ahead to the next hole if you would like.” Byron stated setting his ball down. They all walked over to the next hole, exactly like the last one but with a couple of small hills in the way. Hart got it in two tries again, Michael one, to Thomas’ scoffing again, and the rest in a couple of tries.
Six holes later with Michael in the lead if they were keeping score, they came across one with 5 holes, one seemingly leading to victory and 4 others to failure.
“Basing it on luck seems pretty unfair.” Michael commented as Hart hit his ball. He tried the far left hole and the ball came out of the bad pipe. “Awww, well it isn’t that one.” He made a hole in three. Micheal tried the middle right hole and ended up where Hart was. He got a hole in two. Thomas was up next and confidently set his ball down.
“Hmmm, I think it's…” he scanned the holes with his finger and stopped on the middle,”That one!” He hit his ball, which rolled down the hole and out a pipe leading straight to the goal.
”Hole in one! I was right!” He fistbumped Michael as the rest clapped. Kite used the middle hole as well and got a hole in one.
“Hey no fair, I was the one who found the right hole!”
“Well,” Kite responded picking his ball out of the goal,”Should’ve offered to go last.” Thomas scowled and crossed his arms. Christopher, not wanting to cause more commotion, took the farthest right hole, which also led straight to the goal.
“See you could’ve taken that one you cheater!” Thomas yelled at Kite.
“Will you two drop it, it’s mini golf no need to get worked up.” Christopher scolded ushering them along.
Their scores stayed the same, at one point Kite had a mini winning streak and passed Michael, but was soon passed again.
“Dang little brother, how are you so good at this?” Thomas questioned as Michael got his 4th par in a row. Michael smiled sweetly and shrugged his shoulders,”I don’t know, I guess I'm just lucky.”
“No fair you get all the luck, stop hoarding it all.” Thomas said, ruffling his brother’s hair. Michael giggled,”Stop it you’re gonna mess it up.”
After a hole in three from Chris they went to the last hole. This one had three hills and a little windmill between them and the hole. Hart hit the ball and made it over the first two. He hit again and made it over the hill, but bumped into the windmill. After two more hits he made it in. Michael made it in three and once again got cheers and praise.
Thomas set his ball down and did a practice swing, he then proceeded to hit the ball ridiculously hard, launching it off the first hill, skipping the other two, making it through the windmill at the right time and making a hole in one. The group grew silent and the middle child’s jaw dropped open for a moment before forming into a confident grin.
“And that is how a pro plays minigolf!” he yelled while running over and giving Michael a high five.
“Very good job Thomas.” Christopher praised while Kite began to set his ball up. Kite didn’t do as well and got a hole in five, with Chris getting a hole in four.
They all began to walk back to put their clubs up while Thomas kept bragging about his last hole.
“Honestly if we were keeping score i should get some extra points for such an outstanding move.”
“If we were keeping score that would be bad, since the one with the least amount wins.” Michael puffed his cheeks at his brother’s arrogance.
“Shush pip squeak, that's obviously what I meant…”
Kite rolled his eyes and set his and Hart’s clubs on the rack. Behind them all came their fathers.
“Did you all have fun?” Byron asked while putting his club beside the others. All the kids nodded and smiled.
“You should’ve seen it dad I made a hole in one on the very last hole.” Thomas excitedly proclaimed.
“The windmill? How did you manage that?” Byron smiled down at his son who was now bragging about his amazing strategy as they entered back into the main building.
“Although I must admit luck was on my side, it was still mostly because of my perfect timing.”
“Yes yes very good job I see you’ve all had fun.” Byron interrupted while ruffling Thomas’ hair.
“You all have about eight dollars left on your cards, so feel free to spend it all on the arcade.” Faker stated. Five children cheering followed and they all ran off into the arcade area. It was filled with machines with blinding screens begging kids to spend their money on them. Hart immediately ran over to a batman themed game located in the corner, with Kite trying to keep up with him.
Michael found a whack-a-mole machine and went to play it with Chris following, while Thomas walked around looking at all the machines. Nothing really caught his interest. He was about to give up and just play a racing game when across the way he spotted a shooter. It had two red guns hooked up to it and a huge screen showing the pointer shooting a hoard of pixelated aliens coming down the screen.
He walked over and took a seat, swiping his card and pressing start. It was similar to Galaga except there were bases at the bottom to protect, and the cursor could point anywhere on the screen. He shot down a group of the aliens as more descended, it got increasingly difficult. He continued to jot around the screen, shooting all he could until his last base was shot down.
He groaned in frustraition, it had barely been a minute, stupid rigged garbage. He was about to take his money elsewhere when the screen started flashing and the words “High score” were shown. He looked down and his tickets racked up to five hundred.
His jaw dropped and he quickly rushed off to find Christopher.
“Chris! Chris! I won five hundred tickets!”
Chris turned around and looked at him with wide eyes,”Wh-what? Five hundred? How did you manage to do that?”
“Uhhh apparently I beat some high score on this one game…”
“That’s not fair I only got 14 so far.” Michael puffed up his cheeks and followed his two brothers to the game in question. It had reset to the title screen and the automatic gameplay.
“A shooter?” Michael asked,”That can’t be too hard.”
“Phht please try playing it it gets difficult real quick.”
Michael nodded and jumped into the seat. Thomas sat beside him to be player two and both swiped their game card. The start button was smashed down and they began the round. Again it got increasing difficult too fast, but they were able to beat Thomas’ time as a team. Sadly, they were not able to top the multiplayer leaderboard, but their score was in second place.
“Aww, we were close.” Michael pouted and got up. They each received 14 tickets each.
“Yeah you did pretty good.” Michael smiled and ran over to Christopher.
“Can we go play a racing game?” Chris nodded and took him away deeper into the arcade.
Thomas being left alone again decided to have another shot at it and swiped his card again. This time he was able to play a little better, and ended up beating his last highscore.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. Another five hundred tickets were put onto his card. He yelled in victory and decided to try to beat that record, could it be done?
After 5 more tries and the money on his card dwindling apparently not. He let out a small curse under his breath as the scanner told him his card had insufficient funds.
“Christopher would hate to hear you say that.” A voice came from behind him. He turned around in his seat to see that annoying onion haired Kite.
“Oh shut up, I just wasted all my money on this game.” Kite raised an eyebrow.
“Did you win anything.”
“Mmm yeah, I beat the highscore twice and it gave me a thousand tickets.”
“A-a thousand? Holy shi- crap.” Kite looked down at Hart who began giggling into his hands.
“Yup, I’m pretty good at video games.” A confident smirk filled the boys face and Kite rolled his eyes.
“Good for you, I think your brothers are up front waiting, apparently the cards come with free popcorn.” At this Thomas immediately jumped out of his seat.
“Popcorn! Should’ve told me sooner!” He began running to the front with Kite and Hart walking behind him.
Everyone else was seated at a table, drinks and bags of popcorn in their hands. Thomas ran up and plopped down in a seat with Chris handing him his popcorn and a coke.
“Thanks.” He said beginning to dig in. Kite and Hart joined them and also began to eat. The kids all talked about how exciting the day was and how many tickets they got.
When they finished they all rushed over to the prize counter to redeem their tickets. Thomas having way more than the others was able to afford a big Nerf gun he was definitely going to use later. Chris gave his tickets to Michael, and Kite gave his to Hart. Michael decided to get a set of action figures, and Hart got a little race car.
The group ran up front chatting about how exciting the day was and about how fun the games were.
“You all better watch out because i’m definitely using this when we get home.” Thomas stated while holding his gun, making Michael shuffle a little closer to Christopher and Chris to sigh knowing he would be yelling at his brother in the near future.
“It was nice hanging out with you two, hopefully we can do it again sometime.” Chris stated shaking Kite’s hand.
“Yeah I hope we will soon.”
Hart hugged Michael and waved to the other two brothers as they went off to their car following their father. The Arclights also went to their vehicle and piled into the back giggling and buckling up their seatbelts.