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It was 11:45.

He'd arrived early, which was a feat in itself for him, but Alrik had decided to scout the arcade early in search of the best place to hang out looking broody and intimidating for when Waterfails the terribad Overwatch player showed up.

It was gonna be simple.

She'd show up, no doubt looking for someone to troll... only he was more than prepared because who would expect a handsome looker like himself to be the man on the other side of the screen? All the other nerds were neckbeards and mouthbreathers - he already had a one-up by being physically fit and appealing. Heck, she was probably some dumpy little nobody who was looking for a fight to pick in hopes of building up her poor excuse for self-esteem.

ANYWAYS.

Finding a nice little corner by the DDR pads and the old school Pac-Man games, Alrik pressed his weight against the wall, arms folding across his chest as he glanced at his watch.

Only a matter of time, now....

Waiting was not Alrik's forte.

Patience was his sister's thing, evidenced by the amount of time she spent in setting out traps for senshi and schmoozing them through all the rings to get what she wanted out of them. He preferred the grab and run method - he grabs a seed, grabs some energy, then he runs.

No patience required.

SO, even only having twenty minutes or so to wait felt like an eternityyyy, leaving the boy to fish out the few dollars he just so happened to have in his pockets to begin playing various games around the arcade. With the schools out for winter holiday, there were a fair number of other people in the arcade playing, but Alrik thankfully had no trouble finding various games to hop in on.

He was finally settled in on a particularly gruesome zombie shooting game when a hot little number waltzed into one of the arcade's side entrances. Maybe she was here for a kid brother or something - maybe she was here because her boyfriend worked here?

Either way - Alrik Rey had no problem in taking a chance as he called out to the pretty girl.

"Hey cutie - be my player two?"

Well dang - that had actually worked!

Alrik was pretty astonished at the reaction; most of the time he got a wave off or a dismissive no, but this pretty chickadee had decided to cater to his request and made her way over to his game.

As a result, he was more than happy to lean down and insert the four quarters into the machine to extend her time in advance as Pretty Stranger took hold of her weapon. Her comment caught his attention, however, and blonde hair bobbed up as he righted himself and offered her a curious look.

"Archnemesis?"

There wasn't additional time to pay her attention, not when the monsters started swarming the duo in-game. Turning back towards the screen, he raised his gun and positioned himself. "You talking like, IRL?"

He felt his body go rigid when she made the mention of Overwatch.

It... couldn't be possible, right? Yeah, sure, voices were a little distorted over computers and gaming systems so it made sense that she didn't sound like the whining little gaming v****a that he'd poked fun at but... but if she was here to meet up with some "punk" kind who'd bantered with her online...

Aw, crap.

Why'd she have to be cute????


"Uh, Alrik," he said quickly, definitely leaving off his last name, as it aligned a little too nicely with his gaming handle. "Ciaran's cute."

But not as cute as her shooting.

Lifting the gun, he offered her the beginnings of a new grin as he popped another monster in the head. Hey... if she didn't realize it was him then things could be cool... right?????? "You're not so bad yourself. I don't have the time to come out here much these days but they've got a few classics around here. You?"

"It's German. I'm from ther--well, my family was. Is. Uh, yeah, it's Germanic."

He felt himself getting flustered, mostly because his brain was still running at a mile a minute over the fact that this cutie was, in fact, the horrendous drama llama that he was supposed to meet and make fun of in person. Crap. What was he going to do?

Having her say his handle out loud almost made him wince - yep. There was no mistake now... she was talking to her archnemesis without even realizing it. It would have been more funny, if he wasn't so concerned with her finding out.

"O-Oh, you know, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, that kind of thing. I like games where the main character gets to be a badass - dorky, I know."

Eyes glanced around at the other games around them, Alrik trying to appear disinterested as he then asked, "So, when are you and that guy supposed to meet up?"

The fact she was asking about his cultural heritage had Alrik almost excited to respond, his gun misfiring and forcing him to reload before he could tackle the oncoming zombie. "I know some, not like - a lot."

Some was better than none though, right?

As her hand patted his back, he felt himself freeze up. Eyes darted back to the video game screen, forcing themselves to focus even if he was messing up royally at the game itself. One more blow and--- yep, dead.

Resting the gun back into the provided holster for the game, he laughed uncomfortably as he tried to think of a way to cheer up his disappointed new friend (or rather, arch-nemesis??).

"He's probably some ugly neckbeard anyways. Heh. Maybe he couldn't convince his mom to give him a ride out here, yeah?"

The comment about Overwatch had him balking, though. "I... yeah, I've heard of it, seems a little too... uhhh... chaotic, don't you think?"

Cue: time to start backwalking towards the exit!!

"I....."

Had he been part of the animal kingdom, Alrik Rey might have keeled over and promptly pretended to die in an attempt to avoid this pretty girl's line of questioning in hopes of her walking away and forgetting all about this pesky arch-nemesis and battletag nonsense.

As he was not part of the animal kingdom, clammy hand froze in hers as he stared at her dumbly. "Uh... I...I don't remember exactly what it was, I know there were several numbers in it but I can't remember off the top of my head?"

Okay - that sounded plausible.

Sort of.

Her phone flew up to her face and his hand was released, allowing him to add some additional space between the two of them. Okay, great, that'd be safer - phone numbers. He could text her and ghost her if he needed to, right??

"Su-Sure," he offered, pulling out his own iphone before offering the digits. After they exchanged them, however, he was quick to pocket it back and make a big gesture of staring down at the Zelda watch on his wrist.

"I should.. probably get going. It was nice to meet you, Ciaran! Auf Wiedersehen!!!"

And, just like that, Alrik Rey ran off like the little b***h he knew he was acting like.