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The floor had always been one of Kris’s favorite parts of the arcade.
Numbly they tread across the carpeted ground, the tips of their sneakers languidly tracing the neon shapes and colorful streams of pink, green, blue, glowing with the bright light emitted from the machines populating the area, gaze never straying from their next step. They were surrounded by noise and light, an incessant haze of songs and squeals and conversation and motion. The effect was always indescribable, something that left them energized yet terrified, vision blurring, ears ringing, mind sloppily pirouetting itself into a staggering dance.
So instead, they opted to stare at the ground, intently following the twists and twirls of color below, shielded from the surrounding clamor by a mishmash of piano pieces, rock, and video game music comfortably blaring from the pair of headphones that adorned their skull.
The hour was almost up.
~
At first, they thought it would be fun. After all, how could going to an arcade not be fun?
It was the final night of the class’s three day trip to Ebott, and Alphys had taken them to an arcade, timidly informing the class that they would have one hour there before returning to the hotel. After receiving a pouch of ten dollars worth in quarters, Kris began by challenging Noelle to a lighthearted game of air hockey, the game closely watched by Berdly. At the game’s end was the beginning of the hour Kris would rather not remember. After the game, they had enthusiastically suggested playing the zombie first person shooter they had always played at arcades with Noelle when they were kids.
“Actually, Kris,” Berdly had interjected in his nasally tone, “In case your brain is too small to comprehend this without an explicit statement, that game is only able to accommodate two people.” He paused. It almost seemed like he was remorseful about what he said next. “And Noelle here agreed to partner up with me.
Kris turned their stare to Noelle, making one last plea. She looked uncomfortable for a second, nervously biting her lip and brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear, avoiding their eyes. “Um, y-yeah. Sorry Kris, but I did agree to partner with Berdly.” She glanced back at them, guilt painted on her face, and quickly added, “Maybe later, though!”
Kris didn’t know where to look. “Alright.” They turned around and began walking somewhere, anywhere that wasn't there, but they didn’t turn fast enough to miss Noelle and Berdly going towards the very game they had wanted to play.
~
Kris tightened their hand around the dense blue ball, running their thumb over the grooves and scratches that scarred it. They stepped into position, throwing the ball into an underhand roll up the slightly-slanted ramp. With a hesitant flip upwards, the ball made its way into the second largest circle, awarding them 1,000 points on the screen.
Skee-Ball had been one of Kris’s favorite games when they were a child. They loved watching the ball cycle up the ramp, the sound it made when settling into a circle, the rush of adrenaline they felt when watching the points they had gained increase. They had even been quite good at the game, boasting a high score of 56,000.
Of course, they remembered, as the next ball they rolled settled into the no-points-circle, those days were over.
In a futile attempt to get 10,000 points, they used their next turn to aim at the top left corner, but this only resulted in the ball landing on the rim of the small circle before deciding on falling to the right, slowly spinning into the bottom most hole. “Shit,” they muttered. How had they been so good at this game?
They resigned themself to only aiming for the center circles for their next five turns, never scoring more than 1,000. By their final turn, they had accrued a grand total of… 5,000 points.
They weren’t sure how many tickets that amounted to, but it probably wasn’t much.
With a sigh, Kris positioned themself to aim for the center once again. If they were lucky, they could hit the 5,000 and end up with a score that wasn’t completely pitiful.
But the irresistible gleam of the 10,000-ring on the left caught their eye. Fuck it. What did it matter, anyway?
With an impulsive flick of their wrist, the ball rolled up, cleanly launching itself into the ring. Their score increased, green numbers morphing into shifting rectangles morphing into an excitedly luminous 15,000, the zeroes flickering gold then red then white, a few tickets even belched from the dispenser.
Reflexively, they turned around, eyes shining. But there was no Asriel to warmly congratulate them, no Noelle to clutch their shoulders and marvel at their inconceivable feat, no Dess to ruffle their hair and affectionately remind them of how shitty their play was before the final throw.
Instead, they were merely met with the buzz of a crowd that couldn’t care less.
~
Aimlessly, they trudged through the sounds of others having fun. Kris had never realized how many games took two people to play. Not one, not three, but two. Not knowing how they had gotten there, they suddenly found themself in the corner near the bathrooms, and collapsed on the outer side of an unused game, exhausted. They could have played it if they wanted to, but they found themself in no mood to even try to have fun.
They fumbled for their phone in their pocket, connecting their headphones to it, but they started upon hearing two familiar voices.
Peeping from behind the machine, their eyes settled on the DDR machine, occupied by a very engrossed pair: Catti and Jockington. They seemed pretty evenly matched, even though Jockington had no legs.
Mesmerized, Kris watched, only realizing they were watching after the music ended and the two stood still, waiting for the recapitulation of their scores. They were almost too slow to jump out of the sharp turn of Catti’s line of sight, their heart pumping and the sheen of her sclerae dotting their vision for a few moments after. After blinking the image away, they couldn’t help but hear Jockington ask Catti what she was looking at.
“Thought I saw someone,” she replied.
Kris took this as their cue to leave. They hopped upwards, scrambling to get away from them. No one could see that they were alone.
As if the world wanted to spite them, three machines over stood MK and Snowy, mashing their faces into the controls due to their lack of arms. In any other circumstance, they may have even chuckled to themself about the amusing sight at hand, but now, they wanted nothing more than to run at full speed, maybe to a bathroom or somewhere where they could just be alone and away from anyone watching. They knew what those two would say if they saw them here, alone with nothing to listen to save for the boisterous beeping and music drowning out their thoughts. They would talk about Kris in mock pity, about how anyone in their place would feel sad and angry and lonely, with a single covert message; I’m glad it’s not me in their place.
So run Kris did. They ran, past the games, the people, the fun. They ran faster, taking a moment to glance at Noelle and Berdly playing some Soonic the Porcupine game together.
When they reached a clearing near the doors to the outside world and were sure no one was watching, they took a deep breath, and another, and another, to slow their quickly beating heart. They were all too aware of themself, of the sweat on their palms and the back of their neck, of the tears in their eyes when they thought about this situation too much despite how much they so desperately wanted to keep it all inside in a space with so many people watching.
Their head spun and their eyes glazed over, unable to focus on any one thing. This didn’t feel real. It felt too lucid to be a dream yet too unreal to be real. Perhaps they would wake up from this soon, able to talk to someone else immediately after, someone they could call a friend. After another deep breath, they recovered enough to fix their gaze on the air hockey tables. They wish they didn’t.
They saw Temmie accompanied by her hard-boiled egg, playing a heated match. The score was three to two in the egg’s favor, soon to be four to two after Temmie forcefully hit the puck, causing it to ricochet off the edges of the court and slip itself into her own goal.
Kris giggled. Giggles turned into chuckles, chuckles turned into wheezing laughter.
Nothing was funny about this, yet everything was hilarious at the same time.
Why was it that an egg could have fun at an arcade, yet they couldn’t? They wanted to walk over, tell Temmie the egg was hard-boiled and would never hatch, and violently throw the egg onto the floor for good measure. A pang of guilt immediately bounced through their skull. They were a mess, really. How could they think of doing something so absurd and feel guilty? How could they think of doing something as mean-spirited as that and laugh? This wasn’t Temmie’s fault, but it couldn’t have been their fault either, right?
Objectively, what even were the chances of them being the odd one out? There were eight people in the class, nine including the egg. Any one of them could have been Kris’s arcade buddy. Well, maybe not the egg. Still, even with there being seven other people? Kris couldn’t help but laugh at all this.
Subjectively, it was different. They had always been quiet, and now distant as of late. Coupled with the fact they were the only human in not only a class, but a town of monsters, was it not inevitable that something like this would happen? Of course it was their fault, because if it was no one else’s, it could only be theirs.
Still, it didn’t feel real, they thought to themself as they slipped their headphones over their ears, ready to fall into the reprieve of music. Still, they guiltily wished every single one of them would know what they were feeling firsthand, one day.
~
The one good thing about Noelle and Berdly entertaining themselves with the Soonic game was that the zombie game was now unoccupied. Kris sat down in the black leather seat, popped two quarters into the game, and positioned their right hand on the trigger and their left hand to support the gun, ignoring the lack of someone to their right. They could play this game without Noelle, without Asriel, without anyone, and still have fun. At least, they fervently hoped they could.
They didn’t know how long it took for them to lose focus, to begin mindlessly aiming the gun at the pixels on the screen and shooting, rhythmically bouncing their leg to the beat of the music that muffled the sounds of gunshots and the zombies’ guttural growls and the explosions. They didn’t know how long they continued like that for. It was only when their health bar dropped from red to zero that they let their hands fall to their side, apathetically watching the respawn countdown. Their finger ached from pulling the trigger, and their ears protestingly echoed from the newfound lack of background noise. They could have easily fed the machine another two quarters, allowing them another round. But they didn’t.
This was no fun.
It wasn’t fun without someone next to them, cracking jokes or being far too invested in a meaningless first person shooter at an arcade they would probably forget the name of in a week. Kris would have been fine with either, bending their perception of the game whichever way to match the person sitting next to them.
Unfortunately, neither of those was an option for them. No one sat next to them. They couldn’t remember what happened in the low-effort plot of the game one minute ago, or even what they were thinking about one minute ago.
They couldn’t remember ever feeling so empty.
Silently, they slid out of the booth, footsteps following the floor to wherever it ended up taking them.
The hour was almost up.
~
It was when the hour was almost up that Noelle approached them, accompanied by a reluctant Berdly.
“Hey, Kris,” Noelle said sweetly yet casually, acting like she hadn’t just ruined this for them. No, she hadn’t. It wasn’t her fault. This is just how it was. Why were they mad at her? They regarded her with the blank stare they had grown into, their mouth a tense yet relaxed line.
With a hesitant glance at Berdly, she continued. “W-we were wondering if you wanted to play Ravenous Ravenous Rhinos with us?”
Kris wanted to say no. It was easy, really. It was just opening their mouth once, uttering one syllable, technically easier than saying yes. Noelle had probably barely convinced Berdly, anyway. He didn’t want them there. The two of them just needed a third player. That game was no fun with only two people.
“Sure,” they replied. How could they say no?
Noelle smiled. “Great! We don’t have that much time left, so we should go now.”
Listlessly, Kris followed the two to the machine, popping in a quarter in the spot of the yellow rhino. They would have picked blue, but Berdly had already settled into that spot, back slightly arched and tightly gripping the trigger with his feathers.
“Ready, you two?” Noelle asked.
Kris nodded.
Berdly responded, “Ready as I’ll ever be, my dearest Noelle!”
The machine powered up, lights blinking in shades of red, blue, yellow, and green. Kris had never actually played this game. Curiously, they pulled down the lever, and then again, watching the plastic balls 'consumed’ by the rhino fall into a clear container below it.
“Kris, you’re stealing my rhino’s food!” Berdly squawked from next to them.
Kris exhaled with a grin. “I’m sure your plastic rhino is getting enough to eat.”
Noelle giggled, and Kris smiled. Kris laughed. This was fun.
But it shouldn’t have been fun. Why were they smiling? They’d had a terrible time. They could only imagine how pathetic they’d looked, shuffling along by themself like a zombie in a place so full of life. Of course Noelle had been the one to save them from that. She’d probably felt sorry for them, as had everyone else that laid eyes on them. As their former best friend and the nice girl next door, of course she could get away with this. It all ended the same. Kind, sympathetic Noelle saves detached, lonely Kris from being by themself, looking perfect all through the process.
But, upon looking up for a moment, Kris caught the look of pure joy on her face. How could they ever blame someone so genuine? For a moment, they wanted her to feel as lonely as they had felt, and they hated themself for it. She didn’t deserve that. Someone who tried so hard to be so nice to everyone should never experience that. It’s not like she would be able to be alone, anyway. With a personality like that there would always be people teeming for the chance to be her friend. Kris was just Kris, boring, forgettable Kris.
The timer for the game beeped a three, then a two, then a one, highlighting the red rhino in flashing lights. “Looks like I won,” Noelle said excitedly. “We have a couple of minutes left. Wanna play again?”
“Sure,” They replied. They hated themself for saying that.
~
Kris walked along the sidewalk, trailing behind the rest of the class. Arcade buddies had turned into sidewalk buddies, and everyone walked with another beside them.
Except for Kris, of course.
Once they had been close with everyone. They were able to talk to them, no strings attached. When had that all changed? Were they the one whose only arcade partner ever would be their older brother? But even he would find someone else, wouldn’t he?
They wanted to cry. They craned their neck towards the sky, wishing they could scream their sorrows into the stars. But not a single star was to be found. A dusty, yellow glow permeated the Ebott night sky, enveloping the stars in its encompassing embrace. It made them feel nauseous.
All they could see was the waning crescent moon and wisps of grayish cloud replacing the pinpricks of light that should have been there.