An outing with Noelle.

I arrived at the venue at the agreed-upon time. It was 11:05 am, which meant I’d been waiting for five minutes. At the very least, there was no question that I was in the right place. Lots of people around, though less than I expected. Most were around my age or older.

The event was being held at a public indoor stadium, though I had yet to go in. I saw people carrying their arcade sticks or leverless controllers (I had mine in my backpack, just in case there were available consoles and TVs for everyone to play). I saw people wearing t-shirts with video game characters on them. I even saw some cosplayers, two of which were absolutely mind-blowingly good.

I stood close to yet away from the entrance to the stadium, watching my phone just in case I got a message. I was half-expecting Noelle to text me saying something had come up and she wouldn’t be able to make it. At first I thought that would be for the best, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d be really disappointed.

It was as I was considering texting her myself to ask where she was that she arrived. She came running and stopped in front of me, panting and red-faced.

“I’m so sorry!” Noelle said. “The bus was stuck in traffic and…!”

I smiled. “It’s only been ten minutes. It’s fine.”

“No, I should’ve texted you…” she insisted. “I hate when people are late, so to think I made you wait…”

I think seeing her so nervous helped ME relax. Funny how things work.

“My sister probably drives you nuts, then,” I joked.

Noelle started laughing. “Yes she does! Why is she always ten or fifteen minutes late? I don’t get it.”

“If it’s early in the morning, she has a hard time waking up even after she’s out of bed. If not, she’ll usually forget something after leaving the house and has to go back and get it.” Then I frowned. “Not that I’m making excuses for her.”

Noelle giggled. “Alice is always scolding her for it, but it doesn’t seem to stick.”

I rolled my eyes. “I wish her the best of luck.”

We laughed together at my sister’s expense. Considering none of this was false, I didn’t feel bad about it. She’d earned it, and I would always say it to her face, so it wasn’t like I was talking behind her back.

“Well, I’m sorry I’m late,” she said.

“Not a problem. I was looking around and there are even some cosplayers. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Oh! Really?” Excitedly, Noelle started looking around herself. I had to look away for a second.

When she smiled like that, it was impossible for me not to think she was incredibly cute. Not only that, but the way she was dressed… God, this is so embarrassing to admit, but it pushed some buttons. Tight blue jeans, a tight fitting black turtleneck sweater and a brown duffle coat.

I’ve said it before, but Noelle has an outstanding figure. I remember Thomas mentioning that her being as short as she was was a turnoff, but to me it was neat to be noticeably taller than someone my age, even if it was by a few centimeters.

I should NOT be thinking about this.

“Sh-Shall we go inside now?”

“Ah! Yes! The schedule said a band should be playing on stage soon.”

The inside of the stadium was not at all what I expected. Honestly, I didn’t have high expectations for this. It was a local tournament, so I thought it would be hastily put together with whatever they could find, but I was completely wrong. This was… of professional quality.

There was a large carpet over the court to protect it. There were lines of tables with several TVs and console setups, enough to have about 20 matches playing at once. There was a stage setup at one of the ends of the court, where the tech crew were getting everything ready for a band to play. Drums, amps, microphones…

There were more people here than outside, obviously, but not enough that it was too much trouble to walk. There was enough space.

“This is actually the second day,” Noelle explained to me. “Most people in the tournament lost yesterday, and the ones who come to watch will probably come in the afternoon for the finals.”

Made sense.

At the outer edges of the court were stands selling all sorts of merchandise, and that was where Noelle and I were first drawn to. Everything from video game-themed posters and keychains to T-shirts and candy imported from Japan. Noelle was particularly interested in the latter.

“But why?” I asked her. “Those are just potato chips, but with everything written in Japanese. Twice as expensive as normal chips, too.”

“But these are soy sauce and mayo flavored,” she explained, already buying a bag. “And look at that. Have you ever drank coffee from a can?”

“From a can? That’s…” Curiosity got the better of me, so I bought one of those, wincing at the price. I opened it, tried it… “It’s… coffee,” I said, surprised. “It’s cold, black, sugarless coffee.”

Noelle snickered. “And what were you expecting?”

“I… don’t know,” I answered, still a little stumped and eyeing the can. It had ‘BLACK’ written in all capitals along its length. “I was expecting black coffee, but it’s so… exactly that that it’s kind of anti-climactic?”

“Right!? I felt exactly the same!” Noelle said excitedly. “The mocha and cappuccino are waaay better.”

I eyed those in the stand. “I should’ve bought one of those.” I still drank the sugarless black coffee because I paid for it, dammit.

We walked around some more, looking at the figurines and t-shirts being sold. We recognized the characters in most of them, and we started to get an idea of what games the other enjoyed.

“You play MMOs?” I asked her.

“A couple, yeah,” she admitted shyly. “One’s an old-school grindfest, the other I play mainly for the story.”

“MMOs have a story?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

“XIV does. I like it a lot. You don’t play any?”

“...Not a fan of online games in general. I don’t like having to deal with people yelling in the chat or through a mic. Also, I don’t want to pay a monthly sub for a game. I mostly stick to RPGs and fighting games.”

“I can understand that. I think the games I love the most are the cozy farming games.”

“Oh, I like those, too!” Woah. Got a little excited there. Calm down. I cleared my throat before continuing. “They’re pretty relaxing.”

“Right?” Noelle giggled. “Which ones do you play?”

We sat near the upper gallery seats and continued talking like that for a long while without realizing it. Turns out we’d played a lot of the same games. I hadn’t shared an interest in games with someone since Isabelle and I were little kids, but now she’d moved away from games.

There was an announcement over the speakers that ‘Top 32’ of the tournament would be starting soon, so we went down to watch some matches happening. Crowds were forming behind the players, people cheered, winners shouted in excitement. The atmosphere was overwhelming, but in a good way.

We watched the band play. It all consisted of video game songs which I was surprised to see Noelle recognize. I suppose I shouldn’t have been, considering Isabelle said Noelle had lots of consoles.

Sadly, I didn’t enjoy the performance as much as I hoped. There were a couple of sound issues, and their drummer and bassist sounded slightly out of sync. If anything here wasn’t of professional quality, it was them, but I wasn’t going to criticize them more than that.

Playing an instrument on your own is one thing. Playing in a band is a different kind of beast. Huge props to those guys for standing on a stage and sounding as good as they did. I knew I couldn’t do it.

“Um… it’s about lunch time,” Noelle said. “Sh-Should we… find a place to eat?”

“Yes. I’m getting hungry. What should we eat?”

“How about… sushi?”

I blinked. “I’ve never tried sushi.”

Noelle’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Would you like to?”

“You know what? Sure.”

With that decided, we stepped out of the venue to find a good place to eat.