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Near the end of their shopping trip at the mall, Klavier Gavin caught sight of the blinking arcade sign. The electronic beeps, flashing lights, and childish energy were inciting enough to bring him into a trance as he waited on the bench outside the store. He hadn’t noticed the arcade before—he and Apollo were too busy in the pursuit of certain store that stocked a very specific haircare product Apollo wanted to buy.
He feigned a yawn and stretched his legs out in front of him. Anything to give him an excuse to stare without seeming too conspicuous. The more he looked at the arcade, the more he fantasized about visiting the arcade with Apollo.
Before he knew it, he felt the heavy weight of coins burning a hole in his pocket. Then his fingers brushed against the thick leather of his wallet. Surely he’d have enough quarters. Or was it tokens these days? He couldn’t remember. It had been too long since he’d thrown caution to the wind and deposited coins into a machine, solely for the sake of repeatedly pressing a few buttons while staring at a pixelated screen.
Klavier yawned again, however, this time it was a genuine yawn. Apollo had told him it would take five minutes for him to buy his hair product. And by now he was going on thirty minutes. Still, there was no need to rush. Klavier waved away a third yawn before deciding he needed to move around a bit. He didn’t want to walk too far away from the store in case Apollo came back looking for him, so he opted to stay put and do some light stretches. He was in the middle of stretching his shoulders as Apollo exited the store with a crinkled plastic bag in his hand.
“Sorry it took so long,” Apollo said. “The line was longer than I expected and...Klavier? Are you...tired or something?”
“Ah, nein!” he said, suddenly aware that his shirt had exposed his stomach during his mindless stretching. He then lowered his arms in the suave way that only a rockstar could pull off. “In fact, quite the opposite. Energized, actually.”
“Uh, okay,” Apollo said. He crossed his arms in front of him and put his finger to his forehead, suddenly deep in thought. “I have everything I need. And I feel kind of bad for dragging you through the mall over some hair gel.”
“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “I enjoyed your company. Honestly.”
“Ha, thanks. If there’s anything you want to do—”
“The arcade!” Klavier said, jumping up from his bench. It was an automatic response, one that slipped from his lips without any hint of the Europop persona he’d adopted since he started his band. Realizing he’d crashed and burned with his normally cool attitude, he blushed. “Do you still want to go, Apollo? To the arcade, I mean.”
“Well, I can’t say no to that reaction,” Apollo said, looking towards the blinking lights. He looked back at Klavier and smiled. “Besides, I haven’t been to the arcade in years. Yeah, let’s go.”
Klavier discovered that they did not have to buy tokens, but he did overestimate how many quarters were in his possession. After losing several games of Pac-Man and three failed attempts at winning a Blue Badger at the claw crane, he was already out of coins. Realizing it would be too much trouble to have one of the staff break a one hundred-dollar bill, Apollo tapped Klavier on the shoulder and gave him a handful of quarters.
“It’s my treat,” Apollo said. Klavier grinned, fully aware that this was the first time Apollo was paying for the both of them while they were out like this. Even though Apollo played it off as nothing, the gesture could only be described as monumental.
“Ah, of course,” Klavier said, pocketing the change. “And I’m grateful for the quarters, Apollo. You’re truly a life saver.”
He huffed. “Well, making change for a one hundred-dollar bill in quarters seemed like a nightmare for the people who work here.”
“Valiant as ever, Apollo.”
“Seriously,” he continued, pinching the bridge of his nose. It seemed that he couldn’t let the topic go as they navigated through a crowd of pre-teens. “Why did you only bring money in one hundred-dollar bill denominations?”
“It’s simply the only way of holding all my money. My wallet would be too big, of course.”
Apollo sighed in what Klavier perceived to be defeat. However, Klavier wouldn’t let him stay in a bad mood for long. It wasn’t his intention to annoy Apollo with his method of carrying money, even if it was justified.
“Achtung! Let’s find a game we can play together. At least that would make things more interesting, ja?” He scanned the area quickly before spotting two plastic motorcycles in front of a large, boxy machine. The flashing sign above it read: RED SPEED—SUPER BIKE, which suggested it could potentially be some sort of knock-off of a more successful game. He pointed it out to Apollo while grinning ear to ear. “Apollo, let’s race.”
“On that thing?” Apollo pointed at it as well. It seemed as if he did that to make sure they were talking about the same game. “Are you serious?”
Predictable as always. Klavier knew Apollo would object to the game, which was the main reason why he pointed it out in the first place. All he had to do now was bait him into playing it. Accomplishing that task would be easy enough.
“Ach!” Klavier said, running a careless hand through his hair. “If I had known you were afraid of a little competition, I wouldn’t have suggested it.” As an added measure, he shrugged. “Oh, well.”
Before Klavier could walk away, Apollo grabbed his lapels. Apollo made an attempt to appear threatening, but there was something about standing one’s tiptoes that lost the effect. Combined with Apollo’s adorably stern gaze, Klavier couldn’t help but not take him seriously.
“I get to use the red motorcycle,” he said, releasing the fabric from his tight grip and marched towards the arcade machine. He tossed his head back to say, “You’re on, Gavin.”
At first, Apollo had trouble getting onto his motorcycle. Klavier couldn’t figure out if it was the defense attorney’s short stature or his overeagerness to win. Or a combination of the two. Speaking of which, his obvious inexperience with motorcycles could’ve explained it, too. Either way, Apollo wouldn’t stifle his pride long enough to ask for help. After sliding around the red plastic seat for a while, he managed to swing his leg over and sit on the motorcycle unassisted.
Klavier picked up the shopping bag and moved it away from their feet. Then he deposited several coins into the machine. Once Klavier was on his own motorcycle, he watched Apollo tense up from the corner of his eye.
Klavier smirked and flicked his hair over his shoulder. The rings on his hand flashed underneath the blinking light of the screen in front of them. Suddenly, he slipped back to their days in the courtroom. “Afraid you’re going to lose, Herr Forehead?”
The corners of Apollo’s lips turned upwards. His dark eyes were focused and they never wavered from what was in front of him. He’d barely given Klavier a second glance before responding. “I’d worry about yourself, Gavin.”
Klavier laughed. How cute. Apollo couldn’t even taunt properly and he made a mental note to teach him about it later. “Oh, no. You don’t have to worry about me. Make sure you don’t fall off that plastic red toy midway through the game, ja?”
Apollo’s grip on the handlebars tightened to the point where his knuckles were alarmingly white. Instead of answering or even acknowledging Klavier, he licked his upper lip in anticipation. Klavier realized he was being ignored.
“Hey,” he said, leaning over his blue plastic motorcycle waving his hand, “are you even—?”
“Go!” Apollo shouted.
Whether it was from Apollo’s Chords of Steel or the realization he was an idiot was unclear. Klavier jerked back to reality and gripped the handlebars of his own motorbike, realizing a beat too late that he had no idea what he was doing. Meanwhile, Apollo breezed through the course, leaving Klavier an embarrassing distance behind him.
“Damn, damn!” Klavier said. His hand slipped a few times, but he managed to figure out the controls without the assistances of the tutorial Apollo had clearly been paying attention to during his taunts.
“I can’t believe you weren’t paying attention,” Apollo laughed, turning to Klavier once he knew his victory was inevitable. Meanwhile, Klavier sputtered along in a hopeless attempt to gain lost ground.
Klavier looked up at the screen in front of them. Virtual spectators booed at him from the stands. Some of them even began to throw garbage onto the race track. What kind of arcade game was this, anyway? The garbage was just mean and unnecessary.
As Apollo crossed the finish line, Klavier decided to graciously accept his defeat. However, he didn’t even get the chance to finish the race. YOU LOSE flashed across his side of the screen while confetti rained down on Apollo’s. Klavier dipped his head in shame. He’d been too cocky. Goddamn his competitive spirit. He slammed his fist down on the handlebar for good measure. He couldn’t believe it.
“Rematch?” Apollo offered. When that didn’t catch Klavier’s attention, he added, “We can pretend that race didn’t count. I’ll admit that it wasn’t fair.”
Klavier raised his head to meet Apollo’s eyes and smiled despite his humiliating defeat. Winning didn’t matter. He had quarters in a dark tiny room with blinking lights. More importantly, Apollo had just offered to race with him again.
“Ja, let’s race again!” he said, sliding off his plastic motorcycle to deposit more coins into the machine. “You can keep your win. I need to redeem myself and you need all the help you can get.”