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Erik shot Peter a look like he had just asked him to touch hot coal.
“Excuse me?”
“Come on,” Peter pleaded, “just one game. One game and I’ll never ask you to do it again.”
“Right,” Erik said skeptically, crossing his arms. “And why do I feel like this is quickly going to become more than ‘just one game’?”
“Don’t hate it ’til you try it!” Peter rushed Erik over to the arcade machine, who immediately cringed at the bright lights and 8-bit music no doubt assaulting his senses. Peter guided his hand to the joystick in the center of the machine and gave him a quick rundown of the controls—not that there were that many. Should be easy-peasy for a brain as ancient as Erik’s.
Erik nodded vacantly in acknowledgment, before starting up the game. His first question came as soon as Pac-Man started moving. “How do I stop it?”
“Stop what?”
“The thing.” He took his hand off the joystick and pointed at the screen. “The yellow thing. How do I make it stop moving?”
“Oh, Pac-Man? You can’t.”
Since Erik forfeited the controls, Pac-Man got stuck on a wall and was promptly killed by Blinky. Erik didn’t seem to take notice. “How am I supposed to control it if it doesn’t stop?”
“Think of it like me if I was a tiny yellow circle. I never stop moving either, right? You just gotta get used to it. Act fast. Think faster.”
“You seem to be forgetting that we don’t share the same mutation.”
“I’ve seen your reflexes, dude. There’s some kind of resemblance there.” Peter gestured for Erik to return his attention to the game at hand.
He actually managed to collect some of the dots before dying this time, a feat achieved by flicking the joystick in random directions until he eventually ran straight into one of the ghosts.
Erik blinked at the death animation. “What are those things?”
“The ghosts? They kill you. Don’t touch them.”
“I see that. How am I supposed to avoid them when they’re everywhere?”
Oh hell yeah, this was the part Peter had been looking forward to. “Okay, so they each have their own logic, right? The red one is named Blinky and he’s pretty basic because he just chases you. Now the pink one’s named Pinky and he jumps ahead to try to cut you off …”
Once he concluded his little educational ramble, he realized Erik had been staring at him like he was speaking gibberish throughout the whole thing.
“Uh,” Peter uttered, feeling stupid, “do you need me to start over?”
Immediately, “No, it’s fine—I’ve got it.”
Erik returned to the game, restarting it and watching the screen with a scary amount of focus. Yeah... he definitely hadn’t understood any of what Peter had told him. Or if he did, he was purposefully choosing to ignore it in favor of gunning it his way. Although he actually lived a bit longer this time, almost clearing half the map of dots before getting trapped by Clyde and Blinky in the lower-left corner.
“You have to be careful in that part of the map since that’s where Clyde…” Peter went quiet realizing Erik was too absorbed in the game to hear him.
On his next game, he figured out that he could eat the ghosts when they were in Frightened mode and quickly switched to trying to get them all instead of clearing the map of dots like he was meant to. Peter tried not to laugh at the frustration clear on Erik’s face when he realized they just respawned right back. He died twice more.
The machine rattled slightly at the “Game Over” screen. Was his dad seriously raging at Pac-Man? Dude.
“Hey, you beat your first record!” Peter commented, trying to lighten the mood.
Erik closed his eyes in defeat. “This game is hurting my mind.”
“Okay Professor X,” Peter joked.
“I don’t understand how you can do this for hours on end.”
“To be fair, I’m usually doing like two other things at the same time.”
Erik shook his head. “You kids…”
“Just you wait, man. Soon Pac-Man’s gonna be the new chess. What are you gonna do then? We gotta prepare you for the Pac-Man-ocalypse.”
“The what?”
“Actually, here”—Peter made a quick trip to Erik’s room to retrieve his chessboard—“Since you gave my game I shot, I owe you one.” He held it out in front of Erik.
“That, my brain can handle. But can you?”
“Oh, it’s definitely going to be torture. But it’s only fair since I made you suffer. Just one game though, okay? And try to be quick with your turns.”
Erik smiled. “Of course. Just one game.”