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1. Los Ratones at Oasis Tea Zone
“It’s passion fruit green tea, 50% sugar, 50% ice, with boba. It’s good. Do you want to try it?” Rekkles pointed his drink towards Baus.
Caedrel, Baus, Velja, Nemesis, Crownie, and Rekkles, had ended up in Seattle for a weekend trip in between different international schedules. Their goal for the weekend was to have a chill time, no cameras, no publicity, and simply enjoy the city and each other’s company.
At this moment, the six of them were in a boba tea shop in Seattle’s International District. The cafe’s atmosphere was laid-back, with 90s pop playing over the sounds of pinball machines. The group had all just grabbed their drinks and snacks of various milk teas and popcorn chicken from the counter. Baus pointed at the bottom of Rekkles’s drink with fascination, “What is that?”
“You’ve never had tapioca pearls?” Rekkles tried to find the right words to introduce the drink to him, “They’re like a chewy, ah, what do you call it, starch? Starch… Starchy pearls? If you’ve never had it before, it might be a bit weird, but it’s quite good.”
“Oh hell nah,” Baus picked up the drink and peered at the underside, inspecting it in detail, “Why the hell would I want something chewy at the bottom of my drink.” He handed the drink back to Rekkles, ”Look at the size of that straw! That’s a choking hazard.”
Rekkles laughed in delight. He turned to the rest of the crew, “Baussi is so funny.” The other four guys, who were talking about solo queue, paused their conversation for one second, nodded in acknowledgement, and then carried on.
As the six of them started packing up, Baus held a lingering stare at Rekkles’s drink. It was delightfully colored, and the fluid part did look tasty and refreshing, regardless of the foreign toppings. Maybe next time, Baus would order a drink of his own. Strawberry slush, 100% sugar, 100% ice, no boba.
2. Crownie and Velja at the Retro Gaming Store
After boba, the crew decided to split up for a bit. Baus left the group to meet up with a long-time streamer friend in the city. Rekkles, Caedrel, and Nemesis went downtown to look at some of the landmarks near there.
Instead, Crownie had learned about a famous local retro gaming store that he really wanted to go to, and it was just down the street from where they already were. Velja thought that sounded interesting, and decided to join him.
“Oh man, this is gonna be so good,” Crownie anticipated as they walked into the store. One wall was dedicated to large plastic cartridges of old. One corner of racks was stuffed with Animal Crossing and Pokemon plushies. There was a large glass case that showcased retro consoles, joysticks, and CRTs.
“I,” Velja excitedly said, pointing at the Sega Genesis section, “don’t even know what half of these are.” Crownie rapidly combed through the merchandise, picking up and putting down the titles he had fondness for. “Oh man. Tell me you know what this is.” The two bantered about games and handhelds they had or hadn’t played before. Crownie got to recount the craziest facts about video game history he knew. Velja seriously considered taking notes with how much he was learning.
At one point, Crownie picked up a copy of the original Phoenix Wright for the Nintendo DS, “Did you play this series?”
“No, I have no idea what that is,” Velja said, but his lack of knowledge was mostly due to a difference of taste.
“Oh you gotta know!” Crownie exclaimed, yet again. He suddenly changed into a character voice, “OBJECTION!”
Velja laughed at the sudden switch up. Crownie changed to a feminine voice and jumped to an “opposing” position and yelled, “TAKE THAT!”
Then Crownie jumped back, this time taking on the posture of a villain named Von Karma. He put on the dorkiest and most dramatic deep anime chuckle and wagged his fingers “no.”
“You’re so fucking weird man,” Velja laughed.
Now Crownie was unlocked, and the game had a large cast of extremely unhinged characters. There was a whole slew of voice lines that Crownie needed to recreate, of different yells, grunts, iconic lines. “‘Almost Christmas’ means it wasn’t Christmas!” Crownie asserted in his Phoenix Wright voice, slamming a hand on an imaginary table.
Velja laughed at every single voice line rendition. Except for the ones that weren’t funny or amusing or good. That did not stop Crownie.
3. Nemesis, Caedrel, and Rekkles (try to) Go to the Art Museum
“I don’t really know if we should take the route that has both the trolley and the bus,” Nemesis had said one hour earlier, “I don’t trust the schedules here.”
And now at this moment, Caedrel said the tough thing, “I’m not sure we’re going to make it to the museum before it closes.”
It wasn’t a big deal, except it was a little bit of a big deal to Rekkles. He had been really looking forward to this art exhibit, not only because seeing Basquiat had been on his bucket list for a long time, but also, most importantly, Nemesis and Caedrel agreed to go. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get another chance to go to an art museum with the two of them, and he wanted to treasure it.
Nemesis had agreed to go because frankly the other options seemed loud and more annoying. He had been dragged to art museums in different family vacations and school trips in his childhood, so at least it would be a familiar way to spend the afternoon. At worst, he would be standing around art pieces he didn’t care about for an hour or two. Caedrel came along because he was always happy seeing Rekkles be happy.
Rekkles closed his eyes and took a deep breath in frustration and desperation, before staring back at his phone. The blue dot of where they were wasn’t moving fast enough.
The three of them got off the bus in front of the art museum, but now the reality was confirmed. They arrived fifteen minutes before the museum closed, and it would certainly not be worth it to go inside.
It was a little tense between them on the sidewalk, entirely because Rekkles’s disappointment was palpable. Caedrel, taking the opportunity to be an optimist, said, “You put the city library on the list, and it should be just down the street a block or two. We can go there to chill out and look at some books?”
Involuntarily, Rekkles exhaled another deep sigh. His brain was fixated on the plans of a good afternoon with his friends slipping away, especially since it was because of the route he had chosen and insisted on. They could have waited another ten minutes for a more direct bus route. Or he could have accounted for traffic at this time of day. Or a number of other possibilities that swirled in his mind.
On auto-pilot, the three of them walked two blocks to the library, although conversation never returned. As they stood at the entrance, Rekkles came to terms with his feelings and admitted, “No, you guys go in.” Caedrel tried to object, but Rekkles continued, “I mean I really don’t want to go in. I think… I think I’m just blue screening. I… I need to go back to the hotel and reset. I hope you guys understand, this is just how my brain works and what I’m feeling right now. I should be better tomorrow.”
Caedrel processed the situation for a moment, then put a hand on Rekkles’s shoulder and said, “Hey man, no problem. You did good telling us about the museum and bringing us to the library. Get back to the hotel safe, ya? Our hotel shouldn’t be too far from here, we’re already downtown.” Nemesis not saying anything was his way of fully accepting the situation happily.
After hearing only positive things, Rekkles took his busy mind and left. Caedrel yelled after him, “Text us when you’re back at the hotel, ya?” Rekkles waved back in confirmation.
Nemesis and Caedrel now stood alone in front of the library. “Uhhh…” Caedrel awkwardly motioned towards the doors.
Nemesis put his hands in his hoodie pockets. He didn’t really want to go look at books. Despite that, Nemesis said, “Let’s go. We can wait for Rekkles to text us that he's okay inside.”
4. Nemesis and Crownie go to the Board Game Bar
The Los Ratones team was splitting up in two groups for dinner. Baus, Velja, Rekkles, and Caedrel were following a recommendation for dinner. Nemesis and Crownie had looked at the pictures and reviews; their plan looked exciting, bright, light-hearted, and potentially way more overstimulating than desired.
In contrast, Nemesis and Crownie were in a pub-cafe that was dark and full of brown and black old-fashioned furniture. The two had picked a board game restaurant that was known for having actually good board games. Since the two didn’t drink alcohol, they wouldn’t take advantage of the taps, but they would absolutely tear up the pub food menu.
At their large table, the mid-adc duo placed their plates of tater tots, chicken wings, soft pretzels, and mac and cheese served around the edges. In the middle, there was an arrangement of about two dozen different cards. The two were playing a rather complicated deck-building game, with at least three different expansion packs stacked on top.
“No no no, but, but don’t you think if I use a Blockade here, you have to immediately pick up a Curse?” Crownie brought up.
“No I think how it works is the effect starts next turn,” Nemesis logic’d through, “It makes no sense if it’s immediate.”
The two filled their night with rules discussion, nit-picking about game design, and just generally learning how to play a new game together.
“Oh yeah, you’re right,” Crownie often agreed after hearing him out.
By the end of the dinner, the highest stack wasn’t a winner’s deck, but instead a stack of used napkins, crumpled inbetween every turn to make sure chicken wing sauce didn’t get on the cards.
5. Velja and Caedrel Drink a My Little Pony and a Witchy Titty
“So why are we here?” Velja asked, drinking a cocktail named Witchy Titty (made of blue curacao, blue raspberry vodka, sour, melon liqueur, and butterfly pea flower powder water). He picked it because it had a lot of Blue ingredients.
Velja and Caedrel found a booth to sit in after climbing down the stairs of an eclectic bar. It was apparently a popular bar in a nearby neighborhood called Unicorn that was known for being interesting and unique. The basement they sat in was filled with bright lights of strange chandeliers made of animal sculptures. There was a line of frankensteined arcade machines filled with unicorn plushies, cigarette packs, and dildos on the way to the bathrooms.
“Rekkles had this on the list of bars to check out, and Baus heard on fucking Instagram that it would be where the baddies are.” Caedrel sipped on his My Little Pony cocktail (made with apple and peach vodka, oj, sour, grenadine, and lemon lime soda). He picked it because he had zero clue about how to navigate alcohol, and it had the most sweetest, most drinkable ingredients listed. “ ‘Caedrel , check out the pictures , tell me there aren’t going to be baddies there’,” Caedrel winced while doing a Baus impression.
Velja smiled politely. He highly doubted that Baus would actually approach anybody anyway. “So, where are they?”
“God, they’re an hour late,” Caedrel groaned. “To be honest, I don’t know if Rekkles is coming out, he’s probably back at the hotel for the night. But let’s just wait for Baus, he really wanted to go here.”
It’s not that these two guys in oversized hoodies looked like they didn’t belong, but they did look uncomfortable. Caedrel leaned forward to Velja to quietly panic to him. “Velja, I don’t know what to do here. This place is cool . I don’t normally go to places like this. And I’m okay with that! But I’m not a Unicorn kind of guy, this is a Rekkles place. …”
The two did not autofill and say that this was a Baus place.
“I don’t know what to do either! I’m new to this kind of thing too! I’m, I’m, I’m just here for the ride!” Velja exclaimed.
Comfortable without eye contact, the two had sparse conversation while scrolling through their phones. After some time, Velja pointed his screen to Caedrel, “Hey Caedrel, could you look at this?” Caedrel leaned forward and then slammed a fist on the table, “THAT RAT!” It was an Instagram story posted on Baus’s account, a selfie of him in front of two laptops, showing off Baus’s victory over Nemesis in a 1v1. Baus was clearly back at the hotel.
At this point, somebody came up to the table. Alarmed, Caedrel immediately turned and waved with an NPC voice, “Ah, uh, hi!” The stranger gave a kind, confused look with a customer-service smile, then picked up the empty glasses from the table and took them back to the kitchen.
“Oh my god…” Caedrel put his face in his hands. “Let’s just go back to the hotel.”
“Agreed,” said Velja, quick to start putting on his jacket.
6. Caedrel and Baus Pick Up Takeout for the Boys
The top, jungle, mid, adc, and coach of Los Ratones had been chilling in Velja’s hotel room for the evening hours. There were a couple of laptops set up, and rounds of 1v1s had continued throughout the night. Hunger for a late night snack had come up, and while they had all mostly settled on getting pizza together, much of their conversation was about how to include Rekkles in dinner. Rekkles had been holed up in his room for the last half of the day, and the rest of the team were trying to reflect the energy of inclusion that the support often brought to them.
Should the team ask him what he wants? Should they bring him to the 1v1s? Do they ask on Discord or just walk over? Does Rekkles even eat pizza late at night?
“Guys I think we just need to pick something for Rekkles,” Nemesis eventually confidently commanded, “He’ll either eat it, or he won’t, but I don’t think it’ll be better to bother him about pizza right now.”
With that in place, some buttons were pressed, and food was ordered. Thank god for Nemesis’s shot calling sometimes.
After an hour, Caedrel started to put on his coat and shoes to fetch the food from down the street. “Caedrel not ordering delivery, that’s unheard of,” Baus sarcastically commented.
“Baus, shut up . …That’s it, you’re coming with me to pick it up,” Caedrel retorted, pulling the coach card.
When the Baus and Caedrel entered the pizza joint, they saw it was far busier than a pizza place had any right to be. There was an ambiguous and congested line of at least seven people in front of them to be seated at a table. Were they supposed to be in this line? Was there a separate pickup line? How long will this take? Caedrel wasn’t sure what the etiquette was here, and hovered at the door’s entrance stunlocked, hoping that clarity would come when a host arrived.
Despites Caedrel’s slight anxiety, the second a host arrived back at the front station, Baus boldly walked past the half-dozen parties in line and went directly up to the stand. “ Excuse me ,” Baus smiled, “We’ve been waiting for our pickup for, a very long time .”
“Baus it’s been under three minutes,” Caedrel cursed to himself.
“Alright,” the service worker arched an eyebrow, “what’s the name?”
“Riiiight, the naaame.” Baus looked over his shoulder and loudly hissed, “Caedrel! What’s the name we put the order under?!”
Caedrel’s hand was on his forehead in exasperation, and he spoke loudly enough to simply address the host directly, “Marc. It’s under Marc.”
Nonetheless, Baus turned back to relay the message and repeated, “It’s under Marc. Marc Lermonte.”
After a few minutes, the host handed some pizza boxes and paper bags to the duo. As the two prepared to carry them out of the restaurant and back to the team, the host called out to them, “Next time, pick up line is over there.” The host pointed a couple feet to the right, where a nice large sign that said “Take-Out” hung above another counter, line-free.
“I’m going to kill Baus,” Caedrel promised himself.
7. Baus Knocks on Rekkles’s Door
“Baus, you have to be the one to give it to him,” Caedrel insisted, pushing him with Rekkles’s dinner portion out into the hotel hallway.
At this point, it would be more effort to go back in and protest than just doing the thing, so Baus accepted his mission. He only knocked on one wrong door before getting to Rekkles’s room.
Rekkles slowly cracked open his door before recognizing Baus and poking his head out.
“I brought dinner for you?” Baus awkwardly smiled.
Rekkles gave a soft smile, not sure if he should push himself and his social battery to be more outwardly pleasant. The reality is that he was still running on empty.
Rekkles did his best to give Baus some direct eye contact and a strong, “Thank you.” He grabbed the paper bag from Baus’s hands and said, “I’m going to go now.” Rekkles quickly retreated to his room and closed the door.
Rekkles spent ten minutes wondering if he was too curt. Maybe he should run after Baus and tell him thank you again. Maybe he needed to push himself to go be social with the other guys for the night. Did Baus and the Los Ratones team members know that he deeply appreciated them? Rekkles eventually got too tired of thinking about it, and proceeded with his nighttime routine, grateful that he didn’t have to do it on an empty stomach.
In reality, Baus pretty immediately felt like he accomplished his job of handing Rekkles his food, then went back to the other teammates to eat and win more 1v1s.
There is no nice emotional ending to this story or witty one-liner. There’s no conclusion or resolution to be found here. The only thing at the end of this story that was left for the six of them, and would still be there the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, was the comfort that everything was normal and nothing was weird for Los Ratones standards.