[R] One Round (Zia/Sydney)

[Syusaki]

It was a rare sight to find Sydney Martin by herself, but then again sometimes it wasn’t. Usually one could easily spot in her in groups that ranged from pairs to trios to perhaps even larger. Rarely was it difficult to identify her from the crowds of students that swarmed Meadowview; her tall, lanky build and bright red hair made it easy to pick her out from the sea. Even on the weekends and outside of school the situation was the same, her freckled face peeking above the filled streets of the city. It wasn’t that bad, she reasoned. She was more likely to spot oncoming disasters she might not have seen otherwise (although she wouldn’t be able to easily spot an escaping . . . wiener dog, for example).

Sydney could also easily investigate whether she was closer to purchasing her bowling time or not. Rather than going through the impatient motion of standing on the tips of her feet and stretching her neck above the bobbing heads of those ahead of her, she simply had to slightly crane herself above the rest to check her line status. Not that difficult, right? Her height was nice. Sometimes irksome when she stayed over at a house with low ceilings and even lower doorways, but nothing to groan about.

However, her constantly wandering mind finally came to an obvious observation: she was alone. She certainly didn’t mind that fact. As long as the bowling alley suddenly didn’t turn into a mini ghost town, Sydney was fine with this. The actual problem was that it was quite dull to be bowling with yourself. Curiously, Sydney looked around for anyone also by themselves. Unlike most people, Sydney had no qualms about asking utter strangers to accompany her for the time being. None at all! Delighted to discover that the person right behind seemed to also be by their lonesome, she amiably smiled at the smaller girl.

“Hi! Wanna play a round with me? Since, you know, you’re by yourself and I’m by myself too.”  

[SpaceSalt]

Contrary to popular belief among anyone who'd ever had the unfortunate blessing of working on a school assignment with Zee, she did do something other than obsess about perfecting her GPA, and usually one of those things was bowling. She was alone as usual, both hands gripping her oversized shoulder bag as she rocked back and forth on her heels until a redhead approached, making her promptly cease her rocking and stand flat on her feet for a moment.

"Oh! Sure!" She answered with the same enthusiasm as if she'd bumped into an old friend, instantly throwing her open palm into Sydney's personal space to shake hands with no obvious regard to how strong she was coming on.

"Hi!" The greeting was lacking the introduction meant to be there, leaving a conspicuous hole in her speech immediately following she was hoping the other girl would fill in with her own name. She wasn't the biggest fan when it came to her first name, so Zee tended to leave it out until the last minute, even though that left her 'Hi' as stand alone and awkward.

 

[Syusaki]

Most people were unsure of how to respond to Sydney’s forwardness. Not many people had the guts to walk up to a complete stranger on the street and introduce themselves, but she did. Although she didn’t mind their awkward replies it was nice to meet someone who had as much enthusiasm about meeting others. Stoked at Zia’s reply, she found herself immediately straightening her back and her eyes growing wider with excitement.

“Hi! I’m Sydney. Let’s have a fun game together, ‘kay?” she chirped in an incredibly pleased tone. Whenever she performed an endeavor similar to this, the other person would often lead the conversation into awkward silence and the meeting would quickly fizzle out. Rather disheartening.

Once the duo reached the front of the line the employee stoically asked the number of players and their shoe size. “Two! Eight and a half,” Sydney answered, quickly fishing out a couple crumpled bills from the pockets of her baggy jeans. “Do you bowl often? I sometimes do, but not very much. I like to think I have some natural skill though!”  

[SpaceSalt]

Zee gave a grin at Sydney's introduction and turned her attention to the counter, crinkling her nose a bit at the rental shoes and gripping the strap on her purse with both hands. She had her own pair of shoes, but since she hadn't been home all day she had found herself here, trying to suck it up and stick her feet into used shoes.

"U-um, eight please," She told the man behind the counter and tried to put it out of her mind.

"Oh! Yeah!" She said, turning her focus back to Sydney, "I bowl all the time, but no one I know is really into it..." She let herself trail off as she thumbed through the pockets of her large, shopper style purse to retrieve a few bills from her wallet.

"By the way, you can call me Zee," She slipped in, trying to thread back to introductions, feeling like the score needed to be evened out now that she knew Sydney's name, even though she was half expecting a look at the out of place nature of her own. "It's... just my mom's attempt to be trendy," She added and was hoping it would stay at that with a grimace and a sideways glance and a new subject would surface. She was already past it when she was handed her pair of shoes and she picked them up by the laces with a repressed 'blech'.

 

[Syusaki]

After carelessly flinging the green bills at the cashier—as long as it wasn’t in his face he wouldn’t mind, right?—she swiped up the worn pair of shoes while wriggling off her own converses. “Really? Well,” Sydney started, dropping the bowling shoes to the floor and roughly squeezing into them. Once they were firmly on she neatly placed her shoes onto the counter for the worker to routinely retrieve. “Bowling’s alright,” she continued, “I don’t do it on a regular basis, but often enough I suppose.”

She began to amble towards one of the unoccupied lanes, bobbing her head. “Zee, okay!” Stepping around to walk backwards, Sydney beamed and cocked her head to the side. “I think it sounds fine, your name. Any name is fine with me, actually.”

As the pair neared the bowling lanes, Sydney noticed how the bumper lanes glowed with side lights while loud radio music played in the background. Grinning eagerly, she scuttled over to the screen to begin the game. “Do you want any special settings? Like using bumpers? I usually don’t though, I have a hard time changing that setting,” she asked, chuckling. Her fingers quickly moved across the touch screen, hastily typing in both of their names. “Z-E-E, right?”  

[SpaceSalt]

"Maybe I'm just touchy about it," Zia said with a dismissive wave of her hand she let free from tightening the laces on her shoes and sliding the far more expensive and pristine leather shoes she'd shed over for safe keeping.
After that she produced a miniature bottle of purell from her purse and coated her hands with a healthy does of it for touching the laces on the rented shoes.

Touchy was an understatement. She thought it was stupid and the fact it came from her mother made her automatically prejudiced against it, though she had toned down her complaints to just that one statement following most every introduction.

"Ha, no, I don't need bumpers," Zia said, trotting up to watch Sydney mess with the screen to start their game. She gave a nod in regards to the spelling of her name as she picked out a ball and then put it down to play with her hair like a stereotypical ditz because a ringlet was out of place. It was serious business to her, though, since it was easier to concentrate on rolling the ball down the lane just right without her hair going wild. Much as she instantly liked Sydney, her competitive streak was aiming to make sure she was the undisputed winner of this casual game.

After her primping, she looked up to make sure it was her turn and picked up her ball again, and after spending a bit of time staring at the lane and making a few fake swings, she sent the marbled pink bowling ball down with precise force and watched the pins tumble, gnawing on her lower lip as the final one wobbled. Finally, she let out a disappointed groan when it decided to stay up and deny her a strike. "Damn it, I was sure that was perfect."

Now with a stubborn frown, she grabbed her ball again and went back to her touchy aiming to pick up the spare. "So, Sydney," She said, deciding to make conversation on top of trying to keep the fact she took this way too seriously in check, "Do you go to Sovereign Heights?" She asked as she sent the ball down to end her turn with a spare-that-totally-should've-been-a-strike. Sydney was so much taller than her she assumed the redhead was around her age, not a high school student.

 

[Syusaki]

Sydney shrugged. “Sometimes parents don’t come up with the best names. I’ve had a couple classmates with names like ‘Coca Cola’ and other outrageous things,” she said, mulling it over, “Now that I’m older, I think it’s both cool and embarrassing, if you know what I mean.”

“Awesome. Awesome. And awesome,” she mumbled as she continuously tapped the screen. Although the redhead did not bowl often, Sydney had enough confidence that she would also not require the assistance of bumpers. Besides, she reasoned, getting gutter balls were always a nice thing to laugh over. She could say this from personal experience during the times she was much younger. Sydney didn’t mind losing or not winning, so the occasional gutter ball was just fine with her. Bowling wasn’t going to be her professional career anyways.

Finished with the preparations, the lights on the lane flickered on, flashing colorful neon lights through the dim darkness. Beaming, she stepped back and gestured for Zia to step up for her turn. “Sovereign Heights?” Sydney curiously repeated with the c**k of her head. Oh, it was that college prep school thing, right? Her school councilor had told her to consider applying there if money was ever a problem. Or something like that. “No, I go to Meadowview,” she answered, “I still have another year or so to finish before I’m done with it.”

Another casual shrug as she slowly drifted back to plop into the curved couch, pleased with its cool plastic touch. Sydney drooped in her seat so that her legs jutted out even more. Arms crossed due to her lack of a jacket, she intently watched the other girl take her shot at the pins.