The Ordinary Haunting II

17. The Accidental Win

I pulled my tie loose as the escalator took me down into the darkened arcade level. Overlapping lights of all colours and sizes flashed off the spotless, mirrored walls and floor, creating an eerie impression of descending into infinite space. Or a disco ball. I stepped off the stairs and quickly located the entrance to the arcade, rather than look too long at my drained appearance. Usually book launches were my favourite events on the calendar, but this one had thrown just too much at me. I wasn't above admitting that most of it was my own fault. My ears perked at the computerised beeping and buzzing of game machines, and the sounds made my feet carry me even more hastily into the large room, away from the dizzying mirror maze of the foyer (and any unhelpful thoughts).

Because it was a part of an upper-middle tier hotel, I had to buy tokens at the front desk. The bourgeoisie didn't carry coins, apparently. As it was, I wasn't carrying any that night either due to my precisely bourgeois suit. The whole place was automated, a vending machine taking my card details and spitting out a handful of tin circles about the size of two fingertips each. I played around laying them in lines over my palms while I tried to choose which game to challenge first. The air inside the arcade was a bit plain in my nose, in its best patches smelling like old lollipops and in its worst smelling like sweaty armpits, so I used that to help me narrow down my options to a spot that trended more towards the lollipops end of the spectrum.

My eyes landed on a rhythm game where I'd be able to bash out the beats to pop songs. The prize would be more tokens – if I did well enough, I wanted to collect the exact amount required for a charmander plushie I'd seen in the prize exchange vending machine also at the front desk. I dropped my jacket onto the support bar of a nearby dance machine and rolled up my shirt sleeves.

"Can you even see what you're doing?"

I was certainly already losing, but that didn't stop me from blaming the final lava-induced death of my animated character on New. I spun my arms when the Tune of the Losers (as Muk called it) jingled happily out, and shot him a bullet-sharp glare behind me.

"Of course I can. I only have trouble with long distance, you know that," I grumbled. I pushed back the hair that had fallen thickly into my eyes and he raised his nose at the movement.

"I meant that," he replied. I accepted that I was too tired to attempt any half-frozen banter after our evening of wordless competition throughout the launch event – not to mention the two weeks of awkwardness post-birthday and post-double date that were irrefutably his doing and his doing alone – and turned away to choose another game. I was allowing myself a break from being New Thitipoom's quirky sidekick for at least this night. Pan had done a serviceable job, so far as I could see, and Joss had done just as passably as mine.

I slotted a small fortune of tokens into a basketball shooting game and smashed the button to release the balls and start the timer. I felt New hover at my shoulder while I tossed for the clunkily moving hoop, and then I abruptly, awfully remembered that I sucked at basketball.

"Is this long distance for you?" he asked. He was doing very well keeping his voice flat for someone who was clearly dying of laughter inside at my expense. I threw the basketballs harder and they bounced off the backboard crazier.

"Shut up, look, I got to the second round." The timer flashed and then started counting again. I began flinging with a speed to match my increased force. Basketballs pinged off each other like, well, ping pong balls. When one managed to escape the cage and – poetically – took itself full in New's direction, he snapped it out of the air and shouldered me aside.

"You're going to hurt someone," he scoffed, sending the ball easily into the metal net. "This is in the interests of public safety." He continued my game with smooth ease. The score quickly began to rise.