SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"So, what are we doing?" Kyle asked. "Mind giving us a hint?"

I perked my ears, listening, since I was wondering the same thing.

"Playing games," Tiffany playfully explained. "We'll be doing the team method like last time!"

"Ah, one-armed gaming," Leo drawled from behind me, still carrying the bags. "Good idea."

I didn't know what the fuck they were talking about, so I focused my attention on the game room in front of us. It wasn't just arcades filling the room, there was an ancient skee-ball machine and a similarly old basketball game, a Wheel of Fortune from the early 2000's, gambling machines that dolled out tickets instead of money, ring toss, whack-a-mole, and trivia games. 

Hell, they even had an air hockey table.

There were so many different games and stations that I realized very quickly I could be there for an entire night and not actually have the chance to play everything. It was huge. I kept close to to the group as we made our way around throngs of other werewolves. 

Every person I passed had the same reflective amber eyes, varying in shade and brightness. Some wore sunglasses, others had them dangling from their shirt collars, more had them hanging off back pockets, but everyone had a pair of sunglasses visibly on their bodies. There were people all around who's ages seemed to range from mid-teens to late sixties.

All of them seemed to be enjoying themselves.

They didn't look like werewolves, they looked like normal people... I wouldn't have guessed. I hung back, watching as Kyle, Tiffany, and Leo played this game and that, all three of them seeming to forget I was there, building up tickets as they played together, but to be honest, there was one arcade game I spotted that was calling my name, and I made my way over to it.

Soulcalibur IV.

I looked at it with a pleasant and nostalgic warmth slipping across my half-drunken haze as I touched the gaming joystick, brushing my hands against the ancient, scratched surface depicting Ivy, Cassandra, Sophitia, Mitsurugi, Taki, and Nightmare with their weapons.

I smiled before I could stop myself.

This game had been the first I'd ever bought with my own money.

Back in 2011, two years after we'd struck it on our own, my little sister and I had splurged our saved funds on our first mutual Christmas present and had bought ourselves a PlayStation 3, complete with two controllers and Soulcalibur four. It had been our first real means of entertainment, but it had also been the beginning of my obsession with video games as a whole.

"Want to play?" Kyle asked, making me jump; in a moment I'd somehow missed, he'd appeared at my side and was looking at me expectantly. "You've been standing here for ten minutes."

"I loved Soulcalibur when I was a kid," I mumbled, staring at it longingly. "I want to play it."

Kyle stepped up next to me. "Well, how about you control the buttons, and I'll do the joystick?"

I tilted my head back and forth, anger momentarily forgotten.

"Okay," I said fuzzily. "Let's do it."

"Oooooh!" Tiffany exclaimed as she and Leo joined us. "Soulcalibur?!"

"Obviously," Kyle said, glancing at her. "It's one of the best games here."

"I smell a team fight coming on," Tiffany happily crooned. "We accept your challenge!"

"Uh... we didn't challenge you."