MEMINISSE TE
Chapter 6- Adventum
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What's in the eye
That I cannot catch?
Is me I want to know
Why it's so hard to let go
Don't go too fast, my friend
Or you'll lose control
"What's in the Eye" by Grey Daze
That I cannot catch?
Is me I want to know
Why it's so hard to let go
Don't go too fast, my friend
Or you'll lose control
"What's in the Eye" by Grey Daze
Lightning. Gross. Cold. Breaking. Darkness... Silence.
The dream faded from his memory the moment he woke up, but he still felt off because of it. Despite a full night's rest (and a full morning's too), he woke up groggy and a bit unsettled. His skin crawled with this freaky, grimy sensation. For once, he really wanted to take a shower--- not that it would help shake this feeling. His stomach was tight and knotted--- as if he'd done something he'd seriously regretted in the last moment. Yet all he'd done was fall asleep.
Musta been a crazy nightmare, he thought, clutching his stomach in an attempt to ease the nausea. He groaned. For a guy who always woke up hungry, this total loss of appetite was disconcerting.
But it did mean he'd let himself linger in bed longer. For that, he was not about to complain! Skeet let his eyes slip shut, tucked his arms behind his head, and sank deep into his pillow with a sigh. He might feel like crap, but a few extra minutes to snooze wasn't a bad trade-off. Besides, now that he'd been awake for a few minutes, he was feeling a little bit better. The nausea, at least, was fading.
Skeet's phone buzzed at him. His eyes snapped open. He rolled to his side and fumbled about the messy side table for his phone, wondering who could be texting him. The frustration disappeared into pleasant surprise when he saw her nickname on the screen.
Meerkat
Hey sleepyhead! :) Want to go hang out somewhere tonight?
So soon? Weird for Mira. Then again, she was being way weirder than normal lately--- all because of that weird game she kept mentioning. The one he kept forgetting the name of. The one that he (apparently) owed a former death and a current life to... Man, that gave him a headache. But, like the extra time in bed, Skeet wasn't about to complain about any of that. More time to hang with Mira was always welcome. He typed his reply, smiling.
Me
what you have in mind?
Meerkat
Oh look, you're finally awake! :)
Remember V-Arcadia?
Oh yeah. That name rang so many bells it wasn't even funny. Scratch that--- it was funny. He'd lost his first tooth there... but not in a fight like he'd told all the kids at school. He'd just bumped his face really hard on a kiddie ride and cried. Not his greatest moment. To that day only Mira knew what had really happened and it was embarrassing enough that he knew she'd seen that. Even though she probably didn't remember it--- six years old was pretty young to remember.
They'd spent about half their meetings since then at V-Arcadia, rocking the classic arcade games, eating the salty, overpriced food, and spending hours playing VR titles and racing each other on virtual motorbikes. The greasy, grungy smell of the place was forever burned into his memory--- the smell of his childhood joy.
But neither of them had set foot in the place since fourth grade. There was no guarantee it'd be the same. But if Mira was gonna be there...
Me
i remember. sure, lets go for it (thumbs up)
Meerkat
Awesome! 5:00?
Me
sure
Meerkat
That'll give us plenty of time
I'll pick you up!
Me
or you could go there and i'll come on foot
Meerkat
Please (eyeroll), I know you've been desperate to go for a ride on my bike ever since I got my license.
Me
um, super speed is cooler???
Meerkat
You know you want to. (eyes)
OK, he kinda sorta did. But he wasn't desperate or nothin'.
Me
candy apple red? no way, too girly
Mira sent a long string of eyes. Skeet narrowed his. What was she up to? He chuckled. Silly Meerkat.
Me
fine, whatever, pick me up on your girly bike
To be honest, though, her "girly bike" was pretty cool. Even cooler was Mira pulling up in front of Skeet's house and skidding to such a perfect stop. Yet another reminder (that he didn't need) of why he loved this girl so much. She planted her foot in the grass and raised her helmet's eye shield to give Skeet a teasing smirk.
"All aboard the Girly Express."
Skeet zipped to her side and took a good look at the red motorbike, one hand in his pocket. "Your bike's not half bad," he admitted. He smiled something cheeky. "But it'd be loads cooler if it had a skull." He crawled onto the back of the bike, the smirk still lingering on his face.
"Well then it wouldn't be the Girly Express anymore," said Mira with a snicker. She handed Skeet a black helmet. "Really, Skeet. Calling my bike girly. How childish." She punched his shoulder, then turned back around. Skeet put on his helmet just as Mira revved the engine."You might wanna hold on!"
Hold on? "To what?" Skeet didn't have any time to think about it--- Mira squeezed the gas and sped forward. Before he knew it, Skeet's arms were around Mira's waist as the bike continued to build up speed. He guffawed. "Wooooo-hooooo!"
He could practically hear Mira's smirking grin. "Fast enough for ya, Skeet?"
"It's never fast enough!" said Skeet. "But this is close!" He let out another joyous howl.
Nobody would have suspected that the coolest place on earth stood tucked away inside a humble, half-abandoned shopping strip between a salon and a small thrift store. The same places were still open, and nothing around V-Arcadia had changed. But when he and Mira entered the place, Skeet was met with an even better surprise. "Whoah-ho..." His eyes and mouth fell open. "It's exactly like I remember it!"
Mira didn't seem surprised at all. "Of course it is," she said. "This digital world is based entirely on our memories. Ooh!" She scurried over to the front section, where the kiddie rides stood. She singled out the one that looked like a little red race car. "Look! It's the one where you fell out and lost your tooth!"
"Ah... ha ha." Skeet rubbed the back of his neck--- all the embarrassment came flooding back. "So... you remember that?"
"Of course I do," said Mira. "My parents bought us ice cream on the way back to celebrate, remember?"
Skeet thought about it. The only part about getting ice cream he could recall was nursing his sore jaw while also trying to enjoy a soft-serve cone around a new, still-bleeding gap in his teeth. The ice cream hadn't washed out the taste of blood, and it certainly hadn't washed out the bitter taste of wounded pride. "Yeah. But what were we supposed to be celebratin'?"
"Um... losing your first tooth?" said Mira with a teasing lift of her eyebrow. "Kind of a big deal." She took his arm and pulled him forward. "Come on!" Her smile was teasing, but affectionate--- and her eyes were alight with that same affectionate glow. Skeet smiled back.
And suddenly, they were kids again, running across the colorful, grease-stained carpet and searching out their favorite games. Mira still had her full-access pass for unlimited games and rides, and it looked like they had the place mostly to themselves. Skeet had a grin plastered on his face as they settled down in the VR zone to race virtual motorcycles.
This is gonna be a great night!
And it was. For the next two hours, they raced increasingly ridiculous-looking motorcycles down increasingly absurd race tracks, their avatars decked out in increasingly bizarre costumes. Skeet, as "Speed Demon", rocked a sick skull-shaped helmet with horns, and a black-and-green armored costume with giant skulls as shoulderpads--- and his bike had twice the edge. He pretended to be upset when Mira's avatar "Lady Catalyst", in her cutesy black kitty-cat helmet and pawprint-speckled blue bike, outmaneuvered his glorious ride at almost every turn.
But she did that. She always did that. Of course a smaller bike would give her an advantage. Skeet knew she knew this, and Skeet himself knew this, but Speed Demon was so cool he couldn't resist. So he wasn't exactly lying when he'd tell her he let her win. But then, Mira was very, very good at video games, and even if he'd picked a smaller character and bike, she'd probably still beat him nine out of ten times. And even then, it still wouldn't bother him.
One thing that did bother him, though? His stomach growling in the middle of their umpteenth race. Sure, they'd been at it for two hours, and Skeet kept losing, but he was having fun. With his best friend. His oldest friend. The friend he still had a hopeless crush on all these years down the road. He'd forego dinner to make the night of fun last longer if he needed to.
But by the end of the race, it seemed Mira was hungry as well. She took off her headset. "All right, I think we've played this long enough. Let's take a break and get something to eat."
Skeet removed his headset and readjusted his beanie. "I hear that." He jumped out of the game booth and stretched, then ambled around the back to rejoin Mira. "Snack bar's callin' my name. If you wanna do that. I mean, the food's not the best, and there's a pizza place further down the strip if you wanna..."
Mira nudged his shoulder. "Nah. I was feeling nostalgic for the snack bar myself." She smiled, gave him a cute let's go sort of look, and sauntered down that way. Skeet followed, only half-aware of the goofy smile on his face.
The oily, unmistakable scent of fried food cooking grew stronger as they neared the infamous V-Arcadia snack bar. Infamous, because the quality of the food and the amount of money paid for said food didn't exactly match. Most of it wasn't bad food--- it just wasn't worth the price, in Skeet's opinion.
Especially not the pizza, which actually was bad food. It tasted like rubber. Three dollars a slice was absurd for a piece of rubber. But Skeet had fond memories of everything else on the menu, and if all of this was based on their memories, whatever he got was going to taste exactly as he remembered it.
"What should we get?" Skeet wondered aloud.
"Well, I know what I'm not getting," said Mira. "Half the menu." She pointed out some very sloppy, very meaty items on the menu which Skeet would have gone for if his head weren't still spinning from racing on so many twisty, winding virtual tracks. Or maybe that was the headache from contemplating the whole "sim within a sim" thing. Either way, he was a bit disoriented.
"I don't remember if they have vegetarian stuff," he said, rubbing his neck. He narrowed his eyes at the menu, as if squinting hard enough would make vegetarian menu items appear.
"Aside from snack food," Mira added. "I didn't decide to eat vegetarian until seventh grade."
"Ooh, hey! You're in luck," Skeet burst, noticing one. He pointed to it, flashing Mira a quizzical smile. "They've got veggie dogs!" he sang.
Mira sighed, relieved. "Glad one of us subconsciously remembered that was on the menu," she said. "Veggie dog sounds good. Ooh, hey!" There was a shade of mischief (was that mischief? Or something else?) in her smile. "We could share an order of fries, if that's OK with you."
Her whole face screamed for him to say yes--- as if Skeet was going to refuse. He beamed. "Ha ha. Don't need to convince me." He readjusted his beanie. "Think I'll get a veggie dog too; I've never had one before."
"Glad I could encourage you to try one," said Mira with a smirk. At least, her mouth formed a smirk. That affectionate glow in her eyes from before was still there--- stronger, even. Less teasing and more... more... loving?
Skeet tore his eyes away, his heart thumping. The longer she looked at him like that, the more inclined he was to believe the impossible--- that she was somehow giving him that look, and doing all this stuff with him, because she had feelings for him. He knew full well why she was spending so much time with him--- she missed her friend. He was the only Skeet she had now. Getting someone back from the dead was gonna be weird; he figured that was her reason to gawk at him like that. Give her a week and it would be back to the status quo.
There was no way she liked him. She was too good for him. Out of his league. Skeet was used to that. Heck, he was even cool with that. These new, extra-affectionate looks she was giving him? He wasn't quite sure how to process those yet. He liked those looks; he just didn't know what they meant.
"Maybe one day I'll convince you to go full vegetarian," Mira teased.
Skeet chuckled as he stepped up to the counter. "Not today." He ordered two veggie dogs, one regular hot dog, one large order of fries, and two drinks--- a lemonade for Mira, and a Mountain Dew for himself--- his choice vice. He had just taken out his billfold to pay when Mira butted in beside him.
"I'll pay," she said, taking out her own wallet.
Skeet gently nudged her wallet away. "No, no, no. I'm payin'. It's cool."
"Skeet." And there she went, giving him that "I insist" face. Mira pushed his wallet aside and held it back. "Tonight was my idea. Dinner's on me."
Skeet's brow furrowed. "OK." Watching as Mira paid the entire amount in cash, he couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. If he were with anyone else he would have weaseled his way out of paying for it without a care. But Mira? He didn't mind paying when he was with Mira. In fact, she'd usually insist that he pay, since his orders always cost more than hers. He'd come to expect it--- like a tradition. If he'd known Mira wanted to pay, he wouldn't have ordered the extra hot dog--- the other food was expensive enough by itself.
Confused frustration clenched Skeet's stomach. Why would she do that all of a sudden? "But... why?"
Mira leaned back on the hand railing, shrugging. "Why would you run through a rainstorm to come see a friend you hadn't seen in ages?" she asked, tone casual.
Skeet's brow furrowed. That question again? That question made his head hurt even more than all that digital clone stuff and sim-within-a-sim stuff combined. He knew the basic answer--- at the time, he had just really wanted to go see her. But it had felt deeper than that--- like a compulsion. He couldn't explain it. "I told you," he answered curtly, "I just wanted to."
Mira smiled with soft smugness. "Exactly. I wanted to. You always pay when we eat out, and..." Her gaze shot down to her feet. The smug veneer fell, replaced with dead seriousness. "In the twelve years we've been friends I don't think I've ever treated you to dinner before. It was about time I did." She took the food from the cashier, then headed toward one of the nearby tables.
Skeet followed. The clenchy feeling in his stomach deepened--- and so did his confused frown. "Hey... I know you missed me and all, but..." He scratched behind his neck. "Why the special treatment all of a sudden? I'm not goin' anywhere."
Mira set the food down on the table and made eye contact, hesitant. "I've... just been thinking. About us, and..." Her eyes shifted from side to side in thought. "Our friendship."
Skeet's heart jumped into his throat. He swallowed it back down. She isn't talking about liking you, you idiot, he scolded himself.
"It's just that... you're always happy to see me no matter how long it's been since we've talked, and I..." Mira sighed. She looked deep into Skeet's eyes, her own full of sadness and regret. "I suppose all of this made me realize I've been... kind of a bad friend." She shifted awkwardly, and her eye contact faltered, then fell. She sat down.
She... "What?" Skeet's voice cracked. He plunked down into the seat across from her. "Are you serious?"
Mira nodded.
"What are you talking about, Meer? You're a great friend!"
Mira smiled gratefully, though it was clear she was unconvinced. "I mean it. You mean a lot to me." Skeet didn't want to press the issue, so he smiled and left it at that. He collected his food from the tray and picked a fry.
Mira raised an eyebrow. "How much?" She munched a fry, watching Skeet intently.
The whole world, Skeet wanted to say. Should he say that? "A lot," he said instead, picking up his veggie dog. "We grew up together... and we still hang out. Maybe not as much as we could, but... that's got nothin' to do with it." He pointed the veggie dog at her to emphasize his final statement. "Don't ever try to tell me you're a bad friend again."
Something sparked in Mira's eyes--- there and gone so fast that Skeet didn't have time to read it. Her smile grew brighter, though, so he must've said something right.
The dream faded from his memory the moment he woke up, but he still felt off because of it. Despite a full night's rest (and a full morning's too), he woke up groggy and a bit unsettled. His skin crawled with this freaky, grimy sensation. For once, he really wanted to take a shower--- not that it would help shake this feeling. His stomach was tight and knotted--- as if he'd done something he'd seriously regretted in the last moment. Yet all he'd done was fall asleep.
Musta been a crazy nightmare, he thought, clutching his stomach in an attempt to ease the nausea. He groaned. For a guy who always woke up hungry, this total loss of appetite was disconcerting.
But it did mean he'd let himself linger in bed longer. For that, he was not about to complain! Skeet let his eyes slip shut, tucked his arms behind his head, and sank deep into his pillow with a sigh. He might feel like crap, but a few extra minutes to snooze wasn't a bad trade-off. Besides, now that he'd been awake for a few minutes, he was feeling a little bit better. The nausea, at least, was fading.
Skeet's phone buzzed at him. His eyes snapped open. He rolled to his side and fumbled about the messy side table for his phone, wondering who could be texting him. The frustration disappeared into pleasant surprise when he saw her nickname on the screen.
Meerkat
Hey sleepyhead! :) Want to go hang out somewhere tonight?
So soon? Weird for Mira. Then again, she was being way weirder than normal lately--- all because of that weird game she kept mentioning. The one he kept forgetting the name of. The one that he (apparently) owed a former death and a current life to... Man, that gave him a headache. But, like the extra time in bed, Skeet wasn't about to complain about any of that. More time to hang with Mira was always welcome. He typed his reply, smiling.
Me
what you have in mind?
Meerkat
Oh look, you're finally awake! :)
Remember V-Arcadia?
Oh yeah. That name rang so many bells it wasn't even funny. Scratch that--- it was funny. He'd lost his first tooth there... but not in a fight like he'd told all the kids at school. He'd just bumped his face really hard on a kiddie ride and cried. Not his greatest moment. To that day only Mira knew what had really happened and it was embarrassing enough that he knew she'd seen that. Even though she probably didn't remember it--- six years old was pretty young to remember.
They'd spent about half their meetings since then at V-Arcadia, rocking the classic arcade games, eating the salty, overpriced food, and spending hours playing VR titles and racing each other on virtual motorbikes. The greasy, grungy smell of the place was forever burned into his memory--- the smell of his childhood joy.
But neither of them had set foot in the place since fourth grade. There was no guarantee it'd be the same. But if Mira was gonna be there...
Me
i remember. sure, lets go for it (thumbs up)
Meerkat
Awesome! 5:00?
Me
sure
Meerkat
That'll give us plenty of time
I'll pick you up!
Me
or you could go there and i'll come on foot
Meerkat
Please (eyeroll), I know you've been desperate to go for a ride on my bike ever since I got my license.
Me
um, super speed is cooler???
Meerkat
You know you want to. (eyes)
OK, he kinda sorta did. But he wasn't desperate or nothin'.
Me
candy apple red? no way, too girly
Mira sent a long string of eyes. Skeet narrowed his. What was she up to? He chuckled. Silly Meerkat.
Me
fine, whatever, pick me up on your girly bike
To be honest, though, her "girly bike" was pretty cool. Even cooler was Mira pulling up in front of Skeet's house and skidding to such a perfect stop. Yet another reminder (that he didn't need) of why he loved this girl so much. She planted her foot in the grass and raised her helmet's eye shield to give Skeet a teasing smirk.
"All aboard the Girly Express."
Skeet zipped to her side and took a good look at the red motorbike, one hand in his pocket. "Your bike's not half bad," he admitted. He smiled something cheeky. "But it'd be loads cooler if it had a skull." He crawled onto the back of the bike, the smirk still lingering on his face.
"Well then it wouldn't be the Girly Express anymore," said Mira with a snicker. She handed Skeet a black helmet. "Really, Skeet. Calling my bike girly. How childish." She punched his shoulder, then turned back around. Skeet put on his helmet just as Mira revved the engine."You might wanna hold on!"
Hold on? "To what?" Skeet didn't have any time to think about it--- Mira squeezed the gas and sped forward. Before he knew it, Skeet's arms were around Mira's waist as the bike continued to build up speed. He guffawed. "Wooooo-hooooo!"
He could practically hear Mira's smirking grin. "Fast enough for ya, Skeet?"
"It's never fast enough!" said Skeet. "But this is close!" He let out another joyous howl.
Nobody would have suspected that the coolest place on earth stood tucked away inside a humble, half-abandoned shopping strip between a salon and a small thrift store. The same places were still open, and nothing around V-Arcadia had changed. But when he and Mira entered the place, Skeet was met with an even better surprise. "Whoah-ho..." His eyes and mouth fell open. "It's exactly like I remember it!"
Mira didn't seem surprised at all. "Of course it is," she said. "This digital world is based entirely on our memories. Ooh!" She scurried over to the front section, where the kiddie rides stood. She singled out the one that looked like a little red race car. "Look! It's the one where you fell out and lost your tooth!"
"Ah... ha ha." Skeet rubbed the back of his neck--- all the embarrassment came flooding back. "So... you remember that?"
"Of course I do," said Mira. "My parents bought us ice cream on the way back to celebrate, remember?"
Skeet thought about it. The only part about getting ice cream he could recall was nursing his sore jaw while also trying to enjoy a soft-serve cone around a new, still-bleeding gap in his teeth. The ice cream hadn't washed out the taste of blood, and it certainly hadn't washed out the bitter taste of wounded pride. "Yeah. But what were we supposed to be celebratin'?"
"Um... losing your first tooth?" said Mira with a teasing lift of her eyebrow. "Kind of a big deal." She took his arm and pulled him forward. "Come on!" Her smile was teasing, but affectionate--- and her eyes were alight with that same affectionate glow. Skeet smiled back.
And suddenly, they were kids again, running across the colorful, grease-stained carpet and searching out their favorite games. Mira still had her full-access pass for unlimited games and rides, and it looked like they had the place mostly to themselves. Skeet had a grin plastered on his face as they settled down in the VR zone to race virtual motorcycles.
This is gonna be a great night!
And it was. For the next two hours, they raced increasingly ridiculous-looking motorcycles down increasingly absurd race tracks, their avatars decked out in increasingly bizarre costumes. Skeet, as "Speed Demon", rocked a sick skull-shaped helmet with horns, and a black-and-green armored costume with giant skulls as shoulderpads--- and his bike had twice the edge. He pretended to be upset when Mira's avatar "Lady Catalyst", in her cutesy black kitty-cat helmet and pawprint-speckled blue bike, outmaneuvered his glorious ride at almost every turn.
But she did that. She always did that. Of course a smaller bike would give her an advantage. Skeet knew she knew this, and Skeet himself knew this, but Speed Demon was so cool he couldn't resist. So he wasn't exactly lying when he'd tell her he let her win. But then, Mira was very, very good at video games, and even if he'd picked a smaller character and bike, she'd probably still beat him nine out of ten times. And even then, it still wouldn't bother him.
One thing that did bother him, though? His stomach growling in the middle of their umpteenth race. Sure, they'd been at it for two hours, and Skeet kept losing, but he was having fun. With his best friend. His oldest friend. The friend he still had a hopeless crush on all these years down the road. He'd forego dinner to make the night of fun last longer if he needed to.
But by the end of the race, it seemed Mira was hungry as well. She took off her headset. "All right, I think we've played this long enough. Let's take a break and get something to eat."
Skeet removed his headset and readjusted his beanie. "I hear that." He jumped out of the game booth and stretched, then ambled around the back to rejoin Mira. "Snack bar's callin' my name. If you wanna do that. I mean, the food's not the best, and there's a pizza place further down the strip if you wanna..."
Mira nudged his shoulder. "Nah. I was feeling nostalgic for the snack bar myself." She smiled, gave him a cute let's go sort of look, and sauntered down that way. Skeet followed, only half-aware of the goofy smile on his face.
The oily, unmistakable scent of fried food cooking grew stronger as they neared the infamous V-Arcadia snack bar. Infamous, because the quality of the food and the amount of money paid for said food didn't exactly match. Most of it wasn't bad food--- it just wasn't worth the price, in Skeet's opinion.
Especially not the pizza, which actually was bad food. It tasted like rubber. Three dollars a slice was absurd for a piece of rubber. But Skeet had fond memories of everything else on the menu, and if all of this was based on their memories, whatever he got was going to taste exactly as he remembered it.
"What should we get?" Skeet wondered aloud.
"Well, I know what I'm not getting," said Mira. "Half the menu." She pointed out some very sloppy, very meaty items on the menu which Skeet would have gone for if his head weren't still spinning from racing on so many twisty, winding virtual tracks. Or maybe that was the headache from contemplating the whole "sim within a sim" thing. Either way, he was a bit disoriented.
"I don't remember if they have vegetarian stuff," he said, rubbing his neck. He narrowed his eyes at the menu, as if squinting hard enough would make vegetarian menu items appear.
"Aside from snack food," Mira added. "I didn't decide to eat vegetarian until seventh grade."
"Ooh, hey! You're in luck," Skeet burst, noticing one. He pointed to it, flashing Mira a quizzical smile. "They've got veggie dogs!" he sang.
Mira sighed, relieved. "Glad one of us subconsciously remembered that was on the menu," she said. "Veggie dog sounds good. Ooh, hey!" There was a shade of mischief (was that mischief? Or something else?) in her smile. "We could share an order of fries, if that's OK with you."
Her whole face screamed for him to say yes--- as if Skeet was going to refuse. He beamed. "Ha ha. Don't need to convince me." He readjusted his beanie. "Think I'll get a veggie dog too; I've never had one before."
"Glad I could encourage you to try one," said Mira with a smirk. At least, her mouth formed a smirk. That affectionate glow in her eyes from before was still there--- stronger, even. Less teasing and more... more... loving?
Skeet tore his eyes away, his heart thumping. The longer she looked at him like that, the more inclined he was to believe the impossible--- that she was somehow giving him that look, and doing all this stuff with him, because she had feelings for him. He knew full well why she was spending so much time with him--- she missed her friend. He was the only Skeet she had now. Getting someone back from the dead was gonna be weird; he figured that was her reason to gawk at him like that. Give her a week and it would be back to the status quo.
There was no way she liked him. She was too good for him. Out of his league. Skeet was used to that. Heck, he was even cool with that. These new, extra-affectionate looks she was giving him? He wasn't quite sure how to process those yet. He liked those looks; he just didn't know what they meant.
"Maybe one day I'll convince you to go full vegetarian," Mira teased.
Skeet chuckled as he stepped up to the counter. "Not today." He ordered two veggie dogs, one regular hot dog, one large order of fries, and two drinks--- a lemonade for Mira, and a Mountain Dew for himself--- his choice vice. He had just taken out his billfold to pay when Mira butted in beside him.
"I'll pay," she said, taking out her own wallet.
Skeet gently nudged her wallet away. "No, no, no. I'm payin'. It's cool."
"Skeet." And there she went, giving him that "I insist" face. Mira pushed his wallet aside and held it back. "Tonight was my idea. Dinner's on me."
Skeet's brow furrowed. "OK." Watching as Mira paid the entire amount in cash, he couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. If he were with anyone else he would have weaseled his way out of paying for it without a care. But Mira? He didn't mind paying when he was with Mira. In fact, she'd usually insist that he pay, since his orders always cost more than hers. He'd come to expect it--- like a tradition. If he'd known Mira wanted to pay, he wouldn't have ordered the extra hot dog--- the other food was expensive enough by itself.
Confused frustration clenched Skeet's stomach. Why would she do that all of a sudden? "But... why?"
Mira leaned back on the hand railing, shrugging. "Why would you run through a rainstorm to come see a friend you hadn't seen in ages?" she asked, tone casual.
Skeet's brow furrowed. That question again? That question made his head hurt even more than all that digital clone stuff and sim-within-a-sim stuff combined. He knew the basic answer--- at the time, he had just really wanted to go see her. But it had felt deeper than that--- like a compulsion. He couldn't explain it. "I told you," he answered curtly, "I just wanted to."
Mira smiled with soft smugness. "Exactly. I wanted to. You always pay when we eat out, and..." Her gaze shot down to her feet. The smug veneer fell, replaced with dead seriousness. "In the twelve years we've been friends I don't think I've ever treated you to dinner before. It was about time I did." She took the food from the cashier, then headed toward one of the nearby tables.
Skeet followed. The clenchy feeling in his stomach deepened--- and so did his confused frown. "Hey... I know you missed me and all, but..." He scratched behind his neck. "Why the special treatment all of a sudden? I'm not goin' anywhere."
Mira set the food down on the table and made eye contact, hesitant. "I've... just been thinking. About us, and..." Her eyes shifted from side to side in thought. "Our friendship."
Skeet's heart jumped into his throat. He swallowed it back down. She isn't talking about liking you, you idiot, he scolded himself.
"It's just that... you're always happy to see me no matter how long it's been since we've talked, and I..." Mira sighed. She looked deep into Skeet's eyes, her own full of sadness and regret. "I suppose all of this made me realize I've been... kind of a bad friend." She shifted awkwardly, and her eye contact faltered, then fell. She sat down.
She... "What?" Skeet's voice cracked. He plunked down into the seat across from her. "Are you serious?"
Mira nodded.
"What are you talking about, Meer? You're a great friend!"
Mira smiled gratefully, though it was clear she was unconvinced. "I mean it. You mean a lot to me." Skeet didn't want to press the issue, so he smiled and left it at that. He collected his food from the tray and picked a fry.
Mira raised an eyebrow. "How much?" She munched a fry, watching Skeet intently.
The whole world, Skeet wanted to say. Should he say that? "A lot," he said instead, picking up his veggie dog. "We grew up together... and we still hang out. Maybe not as much as we could, but... that's got nothin' to do with it." He pointed the veggie dog at her to emphasize his final statement. "Don't ever try to tell me you're a bad friend again."
Something sparked in Mira's eyes--- there and gone so fast that Skeet didn't have time to read it. Her smile grew brighter, though, so he must've said something right.