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Up until a certain point recently, the best way you could describe your idea of Mikey is that he had always… just been there.
Not in the way that his presence wasn’t valuable to you as a person— more in the sense that your relationship with him just… never developed. Generally, nothing ever changed in your little group of friends; you all filled the spots that have been designated to you since you formed your circle, and you understood your relationship to everybody within quite well. The way things established themselves at the beginning was pretty much the way things were.
You’d known Illi the longest— naturally that made you and her the closest. She was kind of the only person in your middle school classes who shared a status of “oddball” alongside you, and a mutual inability to keep up with the social norms that made no real sense. You got along great.
Frank and Ray came along in freshman year, and you all just kind of… stuck to each other. Frank went out of his way to be the most irritating person alive at times, and Ray could be a little air-headed— but you’d never fit in better with anyone ever before. With you guys not exactly being popular amongst the student body by any means, hiding under the bleachers during P.E. and eating your lunches outside to avoid getting poked at by some of the most irritating people in that school really brought all of you together. It felt good, really good, to cultivate multiple friendships past the point of just forced proximity and into after school hangouts.
That being said; you never quite bonded with Mikey in the same way, even with him being there for all of it.
You’d known him basically as long as you’ve known Illi, of course. When you became friends in middle school, you’d walk with her to the gate they’d walk home from before parting ways to get picked up in your mother’s car. He’d always be there before you guys, waiting. With the flattest expression on his face. He always looked like he was two seconds away from falling asleep, honestly, but you’d come to learn that’s just his face. Illi introduced you both the very day you walked her that way, but you and him didn’t exchange more than a polite hello and a closed lip smile. When you think about it, it’s always been that way between you and Mikey; you just never had much to say to each other. Even with Illi being your best friend, your sister essentially, Mikey was always just… there. Nothing more or less.
You thought that it’s really just because he’s in a different plane in your mind— you met Illi, Frank, and Ray all on your own accord, but met Mikey through Illi. For some reason, him being a brother-of-a-friend put him in a weird friendship-grey-area that you struggled to breach. Like a secondhand friend, so to speak. Not that you didn’t like him, or find him interesting!
You found him very interesting, actually; he stuck out in your mind often. The way he stood, the way he spoke, the sound of his voice, his overall unassuming demeanor. You thought he was cool. Maybe not in the conventional sense of ‘coolness’; he just had an air about him, and you often wished you could know things about him the way Illi does. Or that you could be comfortable enough with each other one day that you could just talk about whatever.
But being around him always felt like observing him from behind a glass wall. Even though he was around 99% of the time you all hung out as a group, conversations between the both of you were few and far between.
…So it did strike you as a surprise when he offered up the idea of wandering the arcade you both were currently stuck at after school.
“Huh?” you blinked at him; you were unsure if you misheard the question against the clammer of Illi yelling at Frank while they jumped around like maniacs on Dance Dance Revolution. Mikey shrugged, and shoved one of his hands into the pockets of his uniform.
“They’re gonna be at this until they run out of money,” he added, gesturing with his other hand at the pair presently on the machine while Ray stood around waiting for his turn.
That was true. You seemed to find yourself parked in front of this game at least on half of the Thursday evenings out of the month, ever since your particular arcade got it. It’s not a game you could ever be bothered to play; the idea of bouncing around on a little box and failing to hit any of the arrows on time sounded like a humiliation ritual. Mikey was always pretty decent at it, you noticed, but he tired himself out a long time ago.
“…Uhh.” You mirrored his shrug, and your eyes darted around the building. It couldn’t hurt to look around. You rarely ever left this little corner anyway… and something about Mikey offering to look around with you made you the slightest bit more inclined. For some reason.
“Sure. Why not?”
He nodded, once, and you both didn’t bother to say anything to the others as you slipped away to go look around. They wouldn’t have heard you, anyway. That would be a problem for later.
You mostly just walked in silence next to him, stopping every now and then to get a closer look at certain games and their contents. Not that you were trying to not talk to him, or that you were super uncomfortable with being silent generally— you just didn’t know if he expected you to say anything. You never knew what you were supposed to do with yourself around Mikey.
You could feel him side eyeing you, though. Every thirty seconds or so. Internally, you were scrambling for something to break up the air between you, but all you found yourself drawing was blanks.
Thankfully, you ended up stopping in front of this claw machine that held your attention longer than anything you passed previously; inside the glass, your eyes locked onto this little plush black cat.
Was it smart to start dumping money into a machine that’s designed to hook you with no real promise of payout? Maybe. But it was cute enough, right? You thought so.
So, in went your hand in your bag, digging around for your coin purse while Mikey silently hovered next to you and didn’t bother asking what you were doing yet. You figured if he got bored, he’d just walk off again. Not like you cared if he thought you stopping for a stuffed animal was weird or boring— you didn’t care at all.
Two quarters went into the machine, and you carefully positioned the claw over the toy to get a decent grab on the body…
… only for it to drop immediately.
“Damn,” you muttered, and more quarters were dumped into your hand for a second try. Same outcome.
Then there was a third and fourth try, and by the fifth, your palms were starting to sweat; because not only did you really want this stupid cat, but Mikey was lingering over you in total silence, and your performance anxiety was making each try worse and worse.
You only had enough quarters for six tries total, and you stepped away from the machine feeling like the world’s biggest idiot. For some reason. Because everything felt ten times more embarrassing when you were doing it in front of Mikey.
“Stupid things are rigged anyway, freakin’ scam,” you huffed, playing it off like you didn’t want to… die on the spot, or something.
His eyebrows raised, just barely.
…and then he approached the machine, digging around in his pockets for loose change. And you were stumped, but you don’t exactly ask questions, because that would make you feel even stupider.
He scrounged up fifty cents and shoved the coins into the slot, then positioned himself right over the controls. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but promptly shut it, and just… went on to play the game.
You watched him drag the claw into position, but instead of landing it directly over the cat plush, he moved it back and forth a few times. The claw swung around and gained momentum, and when whatever perfect timing he was looking for came around, he lowered the claw.
The thing grabbed onto the stuffed animal, and the momentum previously built had flung it right into the prize chute.
Your jaw fell open.
He bent over to grab it, and when he was upright again, he held it out towards you without a second thought. Like no big deal.
…You took it from his hands, but only because you were barely processing what the heck was going on.
“Wha—“ you sputtered, looking down at the face of the cat, then back up at Mikey. “How did you do that??”
He shrugged. You could tell he was at least a little proud of himself, even with his face never saying much.
“I didn’t know it was gonna work. I saw this other guy doing it here a few weeks ago— he was, like, winning a bunch of stuff from these. All the ones that were close to the chute, he’d get them out in one or two tries. So.”
You felt hot all over. Really hot.
“Are you giving it to me?” you blurted, still lost when it finally registered that you were holding this incredibly adorable stuffed animal in your hands. His eyebrows twitched— like that was a weird question.
“Yeah?” he kind of laughed, and your stomach twisted. “You wanted it.”
“Well, yeah, but— but you won it. You paid for it, basically, I don’t need—“
“What am I going to do with that?” he cut in gently, obviously at least a little amused at your floundering. “You wanted it. It’s yours. I only tried for it for you.”
Oh.
Yeah, you felt hot. Like, really hot. Up to the tips of your ears and all the way down to your stomach, which was currently twisting itself in knots and swarmed with bees.
“Thank— … Thank you. That’s… really nice, thanks,” you mumbled; managing a sheepish smile. Like you weren’t convinced that you were going to die. Right there.
And he mirrored that smile, and it was dopey, showing off his canines in the way he always does. It was cute.
…
God, it was cute. Hello?
You snuffed the candle on that neuron pathway and tucked the plush cat to your chest, already busying yourself with continuing your wandering. Whatever realization that was blooming to life had been shoved into your mind’s junk drawer to be dealt with later, even if you were starting to get the feeling that you were screwed.
The rest of the walk was an anxious blur. By the time the both of you circle back around to the group, they’d exhausted both their coin supply and their limbs— obviously ready to go; so they were just standing by the game and… bickering, maybe? You didn’t get to pick up on what all that was about, because when they spotted you both, they shut up.
“Hey—“ Illi spoke up right away, and raised her eyebrows. “Where’d you guys go?”
“We took a walk,” Mikey explained, nonchalant as ever. Illi’s eyes narrowed.
The plush cat you were holding was then rudely yanked out of your hands by black painted fingernails. “What’s this?” Frank asked you, dangling the thing in front of his eyes while Ray curiously inspected it over his shoulder.
You scoffed, and tried to grab it back; Frank was quicker, though, and his arm held you back while you reached for your new winning.
“I got it from the claw, stop—“ you groaned, still fighting him with no real success. There was attempted intervention from Illi, but of course a ‘Hey, give it back to her!’ didn’t do much of anything.
Mikey promptly leaned over, reached between you and Frank, and plucked the toy out of his hands. Before you knew it, it was back in your own— and Mikey looked nonchalant as ever, in his silent defense of you.
…You didn’t catch the look on anyone else’s faces at that moment; you were too busy being slammed, once again, with that hot fuzziness. It’s not something you never felt around him before, but not ever at that intensity, not ever so strong that it started to clear up exactly what that feeling was coming from.
You were so screwed.
…
As soon as you got home, you dumped your stuff at the foot of your bed. The little black cat was assigned its own special place in the corner of your mattress by the wall.
Then you dropped your face into your pillow and screamed.