Work Text:
“Atem! It’s about to start! It’s about to start!!!”
“Ow! Mana! Stop pulling my arm! It feels like you’re about to rip it off!”
Despite his protests, Atem was truly happy to be spending the night with his childhood friend, and now girlfriend, Mana. Although it wasn’t different from what they usually did when a Nirvana Direct was announced, now with just fewer people, this felt special, sacred. Like the two of them were free to be themselves and free to just spend quality time with each other.
“Atem! It’s starting!!! It’s 6!!!”
Atem was pulled out of his thoughts by Mana once more when the familiar blue and white logo faded. “Ah, right.” Mana pouted at seeing him coming out of his dissociating stupor. “Jeez! You could stand to take this a little more seriously! They could announce news about the new Spray Shooters! Your fans really loved your let’s play of it!”
Atem nodded, that was one of his more popular let’s plays. However, just as he was about to respond, an orchestral tune started playing from the laptop in front of them both.
“No way… is it?”
“I think it is, Mana…”
“Reach for the sky, we’ll soar away~”
The familiar sight of long, black hair appeared with a focused stare, wielding her signature axe.
“IS THAT EL?!” Mana screeched, suddenly shooting up from the couch in excitement.
As more characters came into frame, particularly of the four main characters and various no name soldiers, Atem could not help but chuckle as Mana freaked out, and proceeded to lay a hand on her shoulder. “Calm down, Mana. I know that they haven’t announced a game for Ignited Shield in a while, but you’ll have plenty of opportunities to speculate and fangirl about it after the direct, I want to watch it as well.”
Mana pouted for the second time in the past few minutes, but begrudgingly sat down again. The trailer played on, with a few cries from Mana every once in a while about a dead character being back, squeals about new character designs, and the occasional speculation about new gameplay functions.
After the trailer concluded, and the Direct went onto the rapid fire slew of Indie and third party games, Mana looked to Atem with stars in her eyes. Atem sighed at seeing that look in her eyes, sometimes he wondered if he should never have gotten her into the tactical RPG. It would certainly save him from going deaf at age 30. However, seeing her happy made it all worth it. There was something special about seeing her eyes light up and her animated movement. Something that tugged at his heart strings, that made him feel like the luckiest man in the world.
The rest of the Direct went off without any major outbursts like in the first few minutes, news about the new Spray Shooters, a second entry for the Bashers spin off game, and information about the new Remembered Lands platformer.
As 40 minutes passed and the Direct ended, Atem looked to Mana with an arched eyebrow, as if signaling her that it was okay to scream for once.
This was going to be a long, trailer-breakdown filled night with his radiant girlfriend.