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Heejin didn’t prepare him for this.
The arcade is teeming with people and children, and one small girl is currently trying to fool Renjun into giving her the prizes she wants despite not having enough tickets. Her mother just awkwardly smiled at him as she convinced her child to earn more tickets when they return next time.
And holy shit she wants to take that Eevee plushie home.
Renjun jams his shoe under the counter to hopefully release some irritation. He had a long day. Chenle resigned to focus on the semester and Hyuck is stocking up on loot, so he’s stuck manning the booth. How many years will he be in prison for child abuse? The girl bawled until the whole arcade literally paused to watch her scream at her mother. Okay maybe not the whole arcade. A group of guys his age are too engrossed in whatever they were playing, and the particularly tall guy is getting his ass crushed by his friend.
The girl continued to cry as her mother tried to carry her out the building, but her gorilla grip on Eevee is unmatched. Seriously this kid is like six. The mother looked at him with pleading eyes and Renjun just stared at her in silence and disbelief, because this is not his responsibility. Parents are supposed to tame their child, not some college student who doesn’t know shit about children and their hierarchy of needs. He is totally not having children in the future. He texted his boss ‘SOS some kid is disrupting the peace’ so he’ll arrive just in time before Renjun chucks this kid out the window. Damn he should have taken goodie duty. Most of the people continued what they’re doing and moved on. Renjun busied himself with trading tokens for money and taking tickets in exchange for prizes.
Thankfully Taeyong arrived with five spare tokens, convinced the mother to staying for a few minutes, calmed down the kid, and lead her to the Quik drop machine with her tiny hand wrapped around his finger. Three minutes later Taeyong and the kid returned to the counter with long strips of tickets draping down her shoulders. Renjun took the tickets and gave her the Eevee plush and a yoyo she chose to trade in the leftover tickets for with a smile that seemed more like a wince.
“Bye oppas!” she waved at the two of them as she skipped out the arcade with her mother.
“Bye,” Taeyong waved in return.
Renjun slumped down his seat after giving tokens to a pair of high school students. “Mad respect to Heejin and you hyung, I could never.”
“You did well Injunnie,” Taeyong replied.
“I did nothing.”
“And I’m proud of you for not doing anything like sucker punching a brat.”
“Kids really,” he sighs not bothering to finish his sentence.
“You love your younger cousins anyway.”
“Why did I talk to you about my family again?”
“Because you love me as well,” Taeyong giggled. “Oh man the booth for a while, I got to make sure Hyuckie is doing okay in the storage.”
“Yes sir.”
The air condition is okay but because of the density of the customers, the booth is fairly hot. Renjun wiped his forehead with his handkerchief then stuffed it in his pocket. He wishes for dinner time to come soon and finally end his shift. A shower sounds splendid right now. He began to think of ways to avoid children and their superhuman strength grabbing on to the prizes. Maybe he could convince Taeyong on investing on glass cases instead of letting the plushies hang for children to harvest like oranges. It would be tidier too, unlike the booth which looks like a jungle filled with stuffed monkeys.
“Excuse me,” the two boys from earlier approached the counter. The loud tall guy probably wants a rematch against his friend. They look like foreigners. The taller is wearing jeans and a plain white v-neck shirt. He has red hair and his biceps could probably break Renjun’s back in half.
The other has silver hair down to his eyes and is clad in black clothing. The guy has a similar build with him, maybe a few centimeters taller than Renjun. The most notable feature of all is his hoodie that screams e – boy. It has orange flames, skulls, crosses, and the words ‘darkness’ and ‘super bad’ printed at the front. Silver hair, a sexy jawline, and looks more intimidating than him, he is exactly Renjun’s type.
“Yes sir, what do you need?” he managed to say clearly.
“Twenty tokens please,” the tall one answers as he slides money across the counter.
“Rematch?” Renjun hands him tokens and counts the money.
“Yeah,” he points to his sexy friend, “this guy is a beast!”
“I can see that.”
“Thanks,” the red head smiled widely and nudged the other towards the machines. He met his gaze and politely nodded at Renjun then headed back to their friends waiting for them by Street Fighter.
Maybe they are regulars during weekend afternoons, because Renjun had never seen them before during his weekday night shifts last semester. He does miss the idle night shifts at the arcade when it’s more peaceful and there are less children present, but college demanded more time from him so he exchanged schedules with Heejin. So he found himself exhausted and worked up because of families, teenagers, and children, but at least Hyuck is here to suffer the rush of people coming in and out with him.
And the ‘super bad’ hoodie guy too. Renjun’s interest was piqued.
---
Weeks passed and Renjun thinks he’s getting the hang of the weekend afternoon rush. The racks and grids were replaced with glass cases because another incident involving a child happened. And damn that grip would impress Spider – man. So instead of children tugging on the toys, they got handprints staining the glass that Hyuck had to wipe clean multiple times today.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. The chamois squeaked against the glass.
“No,” Renjun grunted against the plastic on his face as he carried two huge stuffed bears then dropped them on the counter, “this is ridiculous.”
“How the heck will we fit both Pan Pan and Grizz in the crane?”
“No we are going to attach a super special ticket on another plushie, and if someone manages to get it they will earn the bear.”
“Super special ticket,” Donghyuck says as he unravels the bubble and plastic wrap on the two bears.
“In Taeyong hyung’s words,” he retrieved two neon green tickets that have ‘YOU GAIN OWNERSHIP OF THE BIG BEAR!!!’ printed on them from a drawer. Renjun attached the tickets on ribbons then tied them into purple stuffed rabbits.
“Nice,” Hyuck inspected the bow Renjun tied on the plushies. “They get the small bunny too?”
“I guess.”
“That’s a steal,” he places the bears on the huge shelf behind the counter along with other super - sized loot, “place it in a difficult spot.”
“Bet,” Renjun answers.
He went to the backroom to get a bag of stuffed rabbits that Yerim organized during the weekdays. They are grey in color compared to the super special purple ones that hold the super special tickets. He carried the bag like Santa on Christmas day to a claw machine that holds a single ball inside. Renjun dug in his pocket to get the key then unlocked the machine to fill with toys and confetti. The quality of their toys is good, as expected of Taeyong hyung’s suppliers. He poured confetti and the grey ones then placed the purple rabbits in difficult places, one in a corner and the other sits beside the exit chute. Renjun closed the glass and locked it. He folded the big plastic bag into a triangle.
As an arcade employee, he’s deft with his hands. He inserted a spare token into the coin insert then nudged the joystick to the right upper corner, positioning the claw above the purple bunny. He then slammed his fist on the release button. The claw opened and descended to the pile, however it knocked the purple bunny off resulting in nothing coming out of the prize box.
It’s definitely going to take weeks before someone wins this bear.
Renjun returns to the ticket and prize booth. He finds Hyuck crouching down and stuffing the discarded tickets in a paper bag for Jiwoo to recycle. It’s almost time for him to go home. People have subsided and went out to eat. No one approached the booth in a while and only a few people are in the arcade so he took his phone out.
“Hyuck wanna eat out?” Renjun scrolled through Twitter.
“Sure,” he answered, dragging out the word. “Dude, I think he’s staring at you.”
“Who?” Renjun looked up from his phone.
“House of the Dead top scorer,” Donghyuck dug his fingers on his ribs, “your man.”
“My what?” he whipped his head around to find him staring.
He who wore sexy shoes, skinny jeans that emphasises his nice knees, and a hoodie with a person resembling Eren’s titan form printed on it. His hair is purple now, like the carpeted floor of this arcade.
Through the weeks, he knew from Hyuck that his group of friends are indeed regulars. They have this bet going on and the loser does some stupid shit, and for some reason the pale guy with princely hair always loses. And apparently ‘super bad’ boy is the House of the Dead top scorer and undefeated in Street Fighter. Their group comes on Fridays and Saturdays frequently to wreak havoc in the basketball machines. Renjun hasn’t spoken one word to him. He had already talked to three of his friends. He lets Lucas, the tall guy with the red hair or Mark, the basketball record holder buy tickets for him when Renjun’s manning the booth. However, Hyuck told him that he buys tokens from him, which is weird. “Do I make him uncomfortable?” he thought, but Lucas recently mentioned that his friend is not good with strangers.
And that his name is Yangyang, which is fucking adorable in contrast to his intimidating aura.
He speaks Renjun’s native language, so that’s a bonus. He groans in frustration sometimes and he’s hot when he curses in both English and Mandarin. But with this middle ground, Renjun still can’t bring himself to approach him. Hyuck pesters him into making the first move. He can’t.
When Yangyang noticed Renjun looking he waved shyly at him, then ran to follow his friends out the door.
Renjun waved seconds late.
“Aww,” Hyuck cooed then leaned his chin on his hands with his elbow on the table. “That’s cute.”
“Yeah, you saw the way he ran?”
“The little steps? Please he’s so small but with an ‘o’.”
“I know right?”
“He’s definitely looking at you, Junnie.”
“I’ll put you inside the glass case.”
---
The next day he finds Yangyang at the arcade alone. Hyuck said their friend group don’t come during Sundays, yet here he is in broad daylight with numerous paper bags in hand. He’s wearing navy instead of black today, which is a shocker.
Also he’s wearing shorts.
And those are nice calves.
And Renjun has to remember the basic rules of customer service.
Hyuck isn’t around neither are Yangyang’s friends, and it’s the arcade’s down hours. Renjun forced himself to speak.
“Hi?” God that sounded more like a question. “You’re alone.”
“Yeah no shit,” he mutters then his eyes widened in realization. “No I didn’t mean that in a bad way- I’m sorry I-“ he slipped into Mandarin and started rambling even more.
“It’s a stupid statement on my part and I’m Chinese so we can talk like this.” Renjun interrupted him.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Yangyang rubbed his nape with his free hand and said “I’m alone and passed by from the mall.”
Renjun couldn’t pass on the opportunity to say “Yeah no shit.”
He wasn’t expecting Yangyang to smile at that. It’s small, shy, and soft.
“So why are you here alone with your ankles out for the public to see?”
“I want that,” Yangyang’s mirth morphed into determination. He pointed at him, but Renjun knew that it wasn’t the case so he looked behind him.
The Thunderhawk Accustrike Mega Nerf gun is on the shelf, two feet long. Red and orange like a famous fast food restaurant. Packs of foam bullets surround it and all of its glory, but Renjun doesn’t think the extra packs of bullets are included as additional prizes. Yangyang needs to win the Barber Cut Lite to get this as a prize.
“This?”
“Not that,” Yangyang shook his head, “one shelf down.”
There standing in its huge ass two and a half feet glory, taking up the most of the shelf space is the second member of the famous bear crew, the We Bear Bears, Panda AKA Pan Pan or P - Man.
“You want that?” Renjun pointed with his thumb.
“Did I stutter?”
“No sir,” Renjun replied.
“Ten tokens please,” Yangyang slides money over the counter.
“Here,” he slides ten tokens back.
“So I just have to grab the purple bunny with a crane?”
“Yes sir.”
He merely nodded and went to the claw machine and Renjun had to watch his attempts fail ten times. It’s both funny and sad. As much as Yangyang is an ace on video games, he is terrible at handling the claw. Like really terrible. He pouts in disappointment and begins to pick up the paper bags on the floor next to him. Yangyang walks towards the exit.
“I’ll be back for that bear,” he tell Renjun with full of stubborn determination before heading out the building.
---
“Yerim told me he’s been coming back on weekdays too.”
“What?”
“He’s been spending a lot of tokens on the crane.”
“They spend a lot of tokens weekly anyway.”
“No,” Hyuck shook his head. “He spent 485 tokens on the crane machine alone.” He pointed at the whiteboard hanging on the wall, the name ‘Liu Yangyang’ written in capital letters at the very top with the numbers 985 next to it.
“This is getting out of hand,” Renjun replied.
A father and his 4 year old son won Grizz two weeks after they displayed the two bears on the shelves. Renjun could never forget the pride and joy of the boy, yelling ‘My dad really is the best!’ after getting the purple bunny after doing three attempts. Yangyang however, still isn’t victorious after hundreds of tokens spent. No matter how he’s an ace on classic arcade games, he is impossibly bad at chance games. His friends tried to help him get the purple bunny, in the end they won seven grey bunnies because Jeno is good with the claw. Maybe it was a huge mistake to tell Yangyang that other people are playing for the giant panda too, now he’s spending a lot of tokens on a children’s fair game. He isn’t smiling much anymore, but his unwavering spirit is still there. He could have bought the same bear online and for less money but here we are.
At least they’re talking to each other now, so that’s improvement.
Yangyang frowned as he took a grey bunny from the prize box and stuffed it in his backpack. He then cupped his pockets for his wallet and approached the booth.
“He’s coming this way! I think Taeyong hyung is calling me to the back,” Hyuck said as he dashed to the storage room.
Now Renjun’s left alone.
Great.
“A hundred and fifty tokens please,” Yangyang said with several bills in hand.
“Are you sure?” he asked before bringing out a plastic zip lock bag out from the drawers.
“Positive.”
“You know I could just win it for you,” Renjun offers for the ninth time. He could get it with five tokens. It’s still better than Yangyang’s 400 failed attempts. Honestly he’s just wasting money on a stupid bear. Renjun doesn’t even want to think about the amount of money Yangyang spends in the arcade weekly.
Yangyang shook his head.
“You could buy the exact bear for less at the mall.” As much as Renjun and the other arcade staff received a bonus, and the arcade is practically swimming in money just from Yangyang, it is a waste of time, effort, and money.
“I know, but I want to work hard for this one.”
“Let me play for you.”
“That’s cheating.”
“I do it for kids all the time.”
“I’m not a kid,” Yangyang replies. “Trust me on this today,” he points at himself, “I searched up for hacks online.”
“You literally have a hundred and fifty tokens in hand.”
“If I win today, I have enough tokens to finally beat Mark’s ass in basketball.”
“If you lose I’m limiting your daily token count to thirty,” Renjun said. Hyuck probably won’t agree with that.
“Bet,” he smirks.
Yangyang is now limited to buying fifty tokens maximum, but Hyuck and the weekday staff are probably letting him slide. He has a way of getting people to do what he wants.
“I swear he has strong puppy eyes,” Hyuck said as a lame excuse.
“No, you are an agent of capitalism.”
“He is literally 7 Rings by Ariana Grande personified!”
---
Two weeks later, the day Renjun had been yearning for came.
He just came back from his break inside Taeyong’s office after basking on the excellent internet there. He catches Yangyang beating the shit out of the claw machine. He kicked the metal body of the machine and shook the glass. The smiling flowers printed on the glass teased him to annoyance. He headbutts it one last time before his legs gave out. He leaned on the machine as he cradled a grey bunny in his hands.
Yangyang noticed the crying child near him and gave the bunny plush to the kid. “Here,” he hands it to her, “I have the same one at home. You can have this one.”
“Really? Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.”
Renjun did what he had to do. He texted Taeyong and seconds later he replied. He took the bear off the shelf and approached Yangyang.
He is still sitting on the floor with his phone in his hands, watching a video on how to claw a toy successfully.
“Here,” Renjun placed the toy on his lap.
“But-“ he gets interrupted by Renjun.
“The amount of money you spent on tokens is worth more than the plushie.”
“Isn’t this cheating?” he pushes the bare towards Renjun.
“You make Hendery climb up the basketball machine to step on the ball stopper.”
“Okay fair,” he chuckled, “but I can’t just take it like that and I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“I asked my boss for permission and he said okay, but he still doesn’t forgive you for beating his high score in Pac-Man.” Renjun pushed the bear towards him. “You’ll get me in more trouble if you destroy the machine.”
Yangyang laughed at that. “But still, this is too much,” he stood up and brushed his jeans, still refusing to accept the plushie.
“You spent too much on tokens. Just take it home and keep it safe.”
Yangyang broke into a grin. It’s bright, toothy, and everything Renjun thought it would be like. If Yangyang smiles when you give him plushies like this, then Renjun wouldn’t mind giving him every fucking stuffed animal in this arcade.
“Thank you so much,” Yangyang tries to hug Renjun while Panda is in between them.
They ended up sandwiching the huge ass bear like a marshmallow between two graham crackers. Yangyang’s hands are on his waist, while Renjun holds on to the sleeves of his hoodie as a poor attempt to hug back. At least Yangyang didn’t get to feel Renjun’s heart hammering in his chest. He lets go first and let’s Yangyang beam at him for a while.
“I owe you one.”
“No you don’t.”
“I do.” And Renjun doesn’t like the look in his eyes. Yangyang’s up to something, he could feel it. “I’m totally winning you a plush toy.”
“No,” he insisted, “please sir, I am just a mere arcade employee.”
“A mere arcade employee who happened to take pity on me, come on Renjun you basically saved my life.” Yangyang hits him with the huge ass panda bear.
Renjun scans the arcade for a game with a full proof shot at winning. He then points at a toy vending machine. Yangyang shook his head in disagreement, so Renjun dragged him to a claw machine that is the easiest to handle.
“I’ll win you one,” his eyes fixed at the small fox toys in the glass case.
“You suck at this and you don’t have any tokens left.”
“Please let me buy a few.”
“Come back tomorrow.”
“Watch me Huang Renjun, I’ll totally win you one,” he smirked.
“You sound too cocky for someone who had a one - sided wrestling match with a claw machine.”
---
“He’s into you,” Hyuck remarks, “look at him getting frustrated over a silly little toy that a silly little boy asked him to win.”
Renjun playfully pushed him and he lost count of the tickets he was counting, “I didn’t ask him, he offered.”
They watched Yangyang as he knocks his head on the glass while his friends play Dance Dance Revolution across him. He spent fifty tokens today due to his limitations. It’s funny how his friend Mark won a fox plushie in two attempts and to everyone’s surprise, he gave it to Donghyuck then asked him out. Yangyang pushed his last token in the coin insert and tilted the joystick towards a lone fox. He smashed the release button with his palm and the claw opened wide. It held and lifted the stuffed animal before dropping it near the chute.
“Fuck it!” he yelled, but it was drowned out by Lucas yelling because he won the round against Mark. He nudged Hendery’s side and begged for spare tokens. Jeno took pity on him and gave him all of his. In the end he collected 32 tokens from his friends and Donghyuck.
But it all went down the drain.
How many months has he been doing this? Definitely long enough for Renjun to set out a stool for Yangyang to sit on during hours of trying to fish for stuffed animals. Jeno even won enough plushies for his boyfriend to swim on through the months
“The effort and money he puts in everything,” Hyuck sighs dreamily. “Please just ask him out, because months passed and you still have this weird mating ritual going on.”
Renjun rolled his eyes in reply. He went under and out the counter to the machine’s direction. He leaned on the machine and earned a look of disapproval from Donghyuck. They are not supposed to lean on glass.
He grabbed a pack of gum from his pocket and offered it to the defeated boy beside him. “Here,” he said and Yangyang took two strips.
“Thanks,” he unpeeled the strips, stuffed the foil balls in his pocket, and chewed on them. “What time will you close?”
“7:15 today,” Renjun replies. “Why?”
Yangyang stands up and wears his backpack like an excited kid gearing up for his first day of school, “I’ll be back, wait for me.”
“Okay?”
“Bye,” he winks then runs out of the building.
“Where is he going?” Lucas asks.
“I don’t know, but he said he’ll be back.”
“Maybe he’s going to take a shit.”
The sound of cheering resonated through the room.
“Junnie help me someone won big at the Tower of Tickets!”
“Coming!”
Two teenagers won thousands together and it was a pain to manage the prizes because they don’t want the prizes worth thousands. They held up the line and had trouble deciding, so Hyuck and Renjun asked them to sit at the side and think of what they want. Since supper is right around the corner, people crowded at the booth to redeem their loot. Thankfully Taeyong helped so there are three of them. The Whack a Zombie game broke so Renjun had to call for their mechanic, also a kid inserted two coins at the same time in the gum ball machine so that sucks. Seven o’clock in the evening came with people coming out of the arcade. The only ones left are Lucas and the others and the pair of teenagers who still can’t decide on prizes for shit. In the end, they went home with nothing.
“Wild.”
“They stayed for hours and for what?”
“Come on don’t say that,” Taeyong scolds the two of them. “If I give you a million won would you instantly know what to spend it on?”
“Will you give us a million won?”
“I will resign and focus on my education, and new art supplies would be nice.”
Taeyong sighed, “You’re done for today, I will close up.” He pushed them out the back room after auditing today’s earnings. “Renjun remind Hyunjin about maintenance.”
“Yes sir!”
“Oh and you have someone waiting for you.” Hyuck pointed at the entrance.
There stood Yangyang in a white hoodie and black skinny jeans, holding a paper bag in hand, panting because he ran from where he came from. It definitely looks like a scene from a Netflix’s attempt on a coming of age, LGBTQIA+ centered movie, and Renjun is having his main character moment.
“I thought I won’t make it,” he said with a grin. “Here,” he hands Renjun the paper bag, “I’m sorry for giving up.”
“I’m actually glad you gave up,” he opens the bag. It a fox plushie exactly like the ones in the claw machine but bigger. “You didn’t have to.”
“But I promised you,” he pouted, “it’s only fair.”
“No it isn’t,” Renjun hits him with the paper bag and decides that this is the perfect opportunity to ask. “Look, are you free? Let me treat you out to dinner.”
“Like on a date?” Red rushed to Yangyang’s ears.
“I mean if you want it to be.” Renjun fiddled with the hem of his shirt.
“I’d like too,” Yangyang beamed at him.
“I’ll get changed first and- You know what?” He slips the handle of the paper bag on Yangyang’s wrist and takes tokens from his pocket. He approaches the nearest claw machine. Renjun inserts a token in the coin insert and nudges the claw over a toy lamb, but fails so he tries again. He inserts another coin and tilts the joystick to the left so that the claw will loom over the prize and casts the claw down. The claw drops and gently lifts the lamb up to the direction of the chute the drops it. The lamb falls into and out of the prize box. He crouches to retrieve it and hands it to Yangyang.
“What the fuck?” Yangyang stares in disbelief, the little lamb safe in his hands. “That easy?”
“What the heck is your jaw dropping for? I work at a fucking arcade.”
“I suck.”
“Yeah you do!”
“Let me do it again.” Renjun hands him a token and he eagerly pushes it in the machine. He did it exactly the way Renjun did earlier, but the claw dropped the lamb midway. He had to stop Yangyang from shaking the machine. “You are totally buying me Chicken Alfredo.”