A date with Alice

By the end of school, John still wasn’t sure whether or not his course of action was the correct one, but he was looking forward to the date with Alice nonetheless. During the few minutes between the end of school and his inevitable meeting with Alice, he had reached a decision in regards to his course of action, however. He had decided to forget about the danger he was still in at least for as long as it wouldn’t help him to be obsessed with it. That period of time was deemed to be the length of the date with Alice. It was deemed to be that by John for two main reasons: The first being his selfish desire to enjoy a date with Alice specifically and in general, for the first date of his life. While the second was somewhat more pragmatic in comparison: to comply with his attempt to hide that he was preparing for whatever was coming and continue his charade of normality.

With that decision sitting in the back of his mind, John quickly walked out of the school building through the already open wooden double doors. His destination was the main courtyard, where he believed he would be able to find Alice. Luckily, his belief was correct, and he was able to find her only a few moments after he had entered the courtyard. Before he walked over to her, however, John understood something that he deeply regretted having to do in the future, but also something he had already done. He would have to lie to Alice at least until he knew he could safely tell her about the Abyss, although he struggled to think of how to do so even in an optimal circumstance.

Determined that he needed to do so whether or not he felt comfortable doing it, John walked towards Alice and attempted to strike up a conversation, but was cut off by her before he could speak even a single word.

“I was waiting for you,” She began, and although she had attempted to hide her fairly apparent emotions of anger at John for hiding whatever it was from her, she still did not manage to succeed when faced with the newly competent John. Attempting to ignore those emotions that were completely apparent to him, since he did not want to exacerbate the situation and had no answers for Alice yet, John answered her politely but somewhat coldly.

“Sorry for making you wait. Now that we are officially on a date, where do you want to go to?” He responded, his tone conveying both uncertainty and distance.

“Do you really have to ask?” Alice responded, the idea of the date taking place seemingly cheering her up enough for her voice to no longer have an angry tone, and began taking John by the hand out of the school and into the streets of Springfield.

John now knew exactly where they were going, and that caused him to chuckle inside his mind. He had not been to that place for a very long time. It was an old arcade, one of the only ones still running in the city. It was one of the few places they would always find themselves going to every time school had ended until three years ago. To John, it represented something much more specific than any random arcade ever could again. That’s why the last time he had visited it was three years ago. It had become too painful to do so since.

Like all those times years ago, the couple went to that arcade. They walked, occasionally in complete silence and occasionally in short bursts of conversation, for what was probably thirty minutes but felt like a much longer time for the both of them. The couple kept walking hand in hand for that entire time as if they were in a world all their own. All the while all John could think was the image of the two of them when they were younger; walking through those same streets almost every single day. It somehow reminded him both how similar this was to back then, and at the same time how different it was as well. He suddenly understood that he could forget everything just for a little while. Because he saw the smile on Alice’s face, and heard the slight giggle she had every time she saw him fall behind a bit before she returned to silence, and felt how her hand pressed harder onto his when she was waiting for a light to change, and when she had become annoyed with his slower pace. None of this annoyed him, however, as he believed anyone else doing it would, it just filled him with a weirdly happy and fluffy feeling, making him feel as if he were floating in the air. Eventually, the feeling ended, as they had gotten to the old arcade. Strangely, John did not mind the feeling ending, although it may have been because he knew something else, perhaps better, was to come.

The Arcade was an even older and more run down place than John remembered it being, but somehow it still carried the same magic. The first thing one would notice about it, however, was not the faded nature of the posters stuck on the door, or that the glass itself was so dirty that you could barely notice the light coming from inside the arcade, but the giant neon sign signifying its identity.

“The Arcade” It seemed to scream out into the world, almost as if its decrepit and unmaintained interior was trying to hide behind that flashy neon sign. John noticed this for only a moment, however, as he had already seen the sign many times before. His strange feeling of anticipation only bolstered by the familiar sight, he entered the arcade. He took Alice with him into the arcade in a reversal of the previous arrangement.

“Well, it seems you got your enthusiasm back,” She said, chuckling all throughout. “I wanted to ask you about what really happened earlier, but I’ll keep that for later. I wouldn’t want to ruin our chance to have an actual date. So how about we have some real fun today, just like old times?” Her face conveying just as much genuine happiness as John was feeling at the moment, especially after he heard from Alice herself that he could stop worrying about the bigger picture, at least for now.

“Yeah. Just like old times,” John said, half responding to Alice and half saying it to himself. That was when they had finally entered the arcade, unsurprisingly, it was almost empty, they noticed only a few people running around in the fairly large space of the arcade, and only one worker who was walking around the arcade. John noticed that the Arcade, while still being as old and decrepit as three years ago, had not changed muchhad since then. Strangely, John saw not only the beloved classics that they had always used to play but also some new games which he did not recognize.

’That’s weird, people are still making arcade games?’ He thought to himself, although the answer was right in front of him.

A moment later, both John and Alice decided to play one of those beloved classics together, a really old game called “Final Fight”. While both of them were quite rusty at the game, they were eventually able to beat it using their superb coordination, which they had built up in the years where they had played together so many times, and their skill at the game. Throughout the entire game, they both sent each other looks without the other noticing, seemingly more distracted by the fact they were doing this again than busy playing the game. At one point one of their glances intersected with each other, which led to a bout of awkward chuckling and them holding hands for a minute or so afterwards, pausing to do so. Once they had beaten the game, they saw the classic ending that they remembered; the ending was one where they reunited the daughter of one of the main characters with him, the daughter also being the girlfriend of one of the other main characters. The next game they played was a Gundam themed game in the vain of a more advanced version of Galaga, which they were able to beat quite handily. After playing some other classic games and laughing a bit about how fun it is to do this again, the couple went on to play two more games. First, they played some Golden Axe before abandoning it as it was too long. Second, they played a weird Dance Dance Revolution clone based around the two of them being ninjas that fight other ninjas. Unsurprisingly, their coordination and experience made them quite formidable when playing the game. After they had beaten a few levels at that game, however, it had already become late enough that the Arcade was going to close for the day, so they decided to stop for the day and began walking home.

While the date had not been particularly traditional, and most of it was spent playing various arcade video games, they had both extremely enjoyed the experience. They had enjoyed it so much because not only were they together for another few hours talking to each other and just hanging out, but they had done so at a place where they had very happy memories, especially of each other. The date had not really ended, however, as they spent another half an hour walking through the now almost empty streets just talking to each other and exchanging more looks. To them, it felt like no time had passed when they eventually reached Alice’s house, and they both wanted to spend more time together. Sadly, both of them were too nervous to tell the other they wanted the date to continue. Before the date could end, however, while both of them were standing in front of Alice’s house, which was only a block over from John’s, John leaned towards Alice and drew her into a kiss. While the kiss continued, they both began melting into each other more and more, and they continuously became more passionate in the act. This passion almost seemed to call both of them to do something more. At first, John wanted to oblige that calling, but then he became unsure of whether they were both ready for such a thing. Thus, fearful that it was too quick for that and following his mounting insecurity, he broke the kiss. A few moments later, after exchanging some awkward glances and words of goodbye, Alice went up the small flight of stairs separating them from the house and entered it. John began walking towards his a few seconds later.