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It wasn’t often that Pat and Pran could go on dates in public. But Pran’s parents were out of town visiting a friend and Pat’s had a party to go to, leaving Pat and Pran to go out together (although in a different part of the city, just to be safe).
They were both a little nervous as they reached the entrance of the festival, and Praan stopped and looked at Phat.
“Ink and Pa are here as backup in case anyone sees us, right?”
Phat sighed. “Yeah, they’re already here, it’ll be fine.” Suddenly his eyes brightened. “Hey, I bet they have bumper cars! Whoever hits the other less buys dinner?” He raised his eyebrows at Bpraan.
Praan snorted exasperatedly, but his eyes brightened nonetheless. “I hope you’ve got your wallet ready.”
__________
Ink held up a sleeveless shirt she’d found and showed it to Pa. “What about this?”
“P’Ing!” Pa whined. “We’re trying to get P’Phat to dress better, not encourage him to wear more shirts with… what does that even say on it?”
Ink looked at the shirt in her hands. “I’m not even sure.” She laughed. “Well, what kind of thing are you even looking for?”
“I’m not really sure.” Phaa shrugged. “Oh well, if we can’t find anything today it’s not a big deal, there’s still plenty of time before his birthday.”
“Well,” Ink said, taking Phaa’s hand in her own, “let’s keep wandering around and see what kind of fun we can have.”
__________
Korn and Wai’s other friends had bailed on them and so they’d ended up at the festival alone. Since Patr and Praan had started dating their second year of university they had become friends, but it had never been just them without anyone else before and it was a little awkward.
Gorn looked ahead and suddenly saw something that caught his interest. “Look, there’s a haunted house, c’mon let’s do it!”
Wai looked at it skeptically. “I don’t know…”
Before he could even finish his sentence, Korn cut him off. “What, are you scared?”
Vye’s eyes narrowed. “No. I was going to say it looks lame.”
Korn’s eyes took in a mischievous glint and he cocked his head challengingly. “I think you’re just scared.”
Wai, raised his eyebrows. “I’m not.” He started walking toward the haunted house. “C’mon, let's do it.”
Gor followed him grinning.
They paid the entrance fee and entered the haunted house. Inside was dark and there were dark lotus hung from the ceiling making a pathway. As they followed the pathway people occasionally jumped out at them from behind the cloths.
As they exited the haunted house Vai turned to Gorn. “See, I told you. Lame.”
Korn held up his hands “Okay, okay, I yield, you weren’t scared.” They started walking away. “I’m kind of disappointed though, I was really excited about a haunted house.”
Wai turned his head to look at him. “I’ll go to one with you another time.”
Korn perked up. “Really? Omg awesome, I’d go with Pat but he always mopes about how much he wants to go with Bpran and Chang and Mo are scaredy cats and won’t go with me.”
Wai nodded. “Sure, let me know when you find one and… wait, is that Phat and Praan?” He nudged Korn to look in the direction of a noodle stand to the left of the path.
Kor turned to look. “Omg it is.”
Wye frowned. “They shouldn’t be out in public together. What are they doing? What if their parents catch them together again?”
“We‘ll warn them tomorrow, for now let’s let them enjoy their date. And besides, you and I both know how Phat will be acting right now. Do you really want to deal with their flirting at its worst?”
“Ugh, true.”
__________
Phat ended up paying for their meal, having lost the bumbler car bet. They left the noodle shop and continued wandering around the festival. They ended up walking in the direction of the games.
As soon as Phatr spotted the games he smirked, turning to face Praan. “Let’s pick a game and whoever wins gets to choose what we do tonight.”
Praan shook his head fondly, but he was also grinning. “You lost last time, do you really think you can win this time? Are you that confident?”
Phat puffed out his best dramatically. “Of course. I’ll even let you pick the game.”
Pran looked around trying to find a game that would leave them evenly matched. It wouldn’t be fun to make it too easy to determine who the winner would be before they even started.
“That one” He gestured to a game where the goal was to hit balloons with darts. It was a game neither had seen the other try before and therefore fair game. “You can go first.”
Phat stepped up to the counter, and got 5 darts. The first 3 missed wildly, the fourth came very close, and finally the. Fifth one popped a balloon.
“Let’s see if you can do better.” He stepped back from the counter allowing Praan to take his turn. Praan grinned wickedly at him.
Bpraan’s first three also missed but they were much closer than Pats’ had been. Both Bpraan’s fourth and fifth dart stuck home however and he turned toward Pat triumphantly.
“I guess tonight’s up to me then.”
Phat pouted, but before he could start demanding a rematch they heard a familiar voice approach the booth.
“P’Ink look, this is so cute!”
They turned to see Pa approaching the booth excitedly, Ink trailing behind her, carrying a large bag that looked like it was full of plushies and looking at the younger girl fondly.
“Hi Praan, Phat” Ing said, nodding at them. She looked at where Phaa was “You mean the dolphin?”
“Oh!” Paa’s eyes widened startled and she took a step back. “I’m sorry I didn’t even see you. Hi, Hiia! Hi P’Praan. Yeah the dolphin” She directed these last words towards Ink.
Ink looked at the vendor. “What do I have to do to get the dolphin?”
“You have to pop balloons with all five darts.”
As Aink gathered her darts and started throwing them, Bpran asked Phaa what was in the bag she had taken from Aink so that Aink’s hands were free to throw the darts.
“Oh! P’Ink’s been winning prizes for me. We even had to buy this bag because we couldn't hold them all!”
“Here you go Phaa!” Ink handed Phaa the dolphin.
“You got it!” Pha hugged her girlfriend and took the plushie.
Phatr and Praan were both surprised. “That was fast!”
“Oh, well Phat, I popped all five balloons on the first try.”
Phat’s eyes got very big as he stared at her incredulously.
She laughed at him. “Well, we’ll see you guys later, Paa wants to ride the Ferris Wheel.
After saying goodbye to Aing and Phaa, Pran noticed the determined look in Phat’s eyes. “Oh no,” he said as he started pushing Phat away from the booth. “You absolutely are not going to try that until you can get all five. We’ll be here all night and you’ll spend way too much money.” He smirked at Phat who was still struggling.
“Plus, I don’t need a dolphin prize. I won our competition, remember. I’ll get my prize when we get home.” Praan’s face split into a devilish smirk and Patr froze. “Do you want to explore the festival more or do you want to find out what I choose as my prize?”
Phat grabbed his hand and started walking hurriedly toward the exit.
__________
Pha was having a great time at the festival. P’Ink had won her all sorts of prizes for her at the game booths and strawberries were in season so they’d gotten strawberries and waffles and fried bananas. It had been a wonderful night, but there was still something she wanted to do.
“P’Ink,” she called out. “The Ferris wheel’s over that way, can we go?” She pointed at it and looked at her girlfriend pleadingly.
“Of course, let’s go!”
As they got onto the Ferris wheel Phaa couldn’t stop thinking about how perfect the night had been. It was rare that both of them had such a large amount of free time with no big assignments or tests so most of their dates recently had been short.
The Ferris wheel went around a few times and the two looked out at the lights of the fairground in silence, holding hands and cuddling up against each other. As the Ferris wheel started to go around a third time Pa looked up at Ing.
“Thanks for taking me here tonight, I’ve had such a wonderful time.”
Ink stared back into Phaa’s eyes. “Of course! I had a great time too.” She put a hand on Phaa’s head. “I would’ve been just as happy staying at home though. Or going anywhere. As long as it was with you.” She leaned in closer to Phaa.
And just as they reached the top, their lips met.