Death Note Fan Fiction / Death Note Fan Fiction ❯ Life's a Game ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Ow. . .
“Rora?”
At the sound of her brother’s voice, Aurora’s eyelids slowly fluttered open, and she looked at Evangelos’ slightly blurry face. After a few moments of rubbing her eyes, her vision cleared, and she was able to see the obviously worried look on her little brothers face. “Hey, kiddo.” She grinned, hoping to make him feel better. “How long have I been out?”
Evangelos shrugged a bit, his eyes still showing his distress. “Well. . .It’s morning now . . .”
Aurora’s eyes widened. Morning already?
“When you didn’t come back, I came out here to see if you were alright. . . “ He trailed off. “Dad caught me out of our room and knocked me out too.”
Aurora winced and shook her head, anger flashing across her face. “Ev . . . I want you to leave the house with me today. We’ll meet up later and come home together. . . I hate the thought of leaving you alone here with them.”
He nodded slightly in agreement. “Okay, sounds good.”
“Let me cleaned up a bit, then we’ll go.”
“Alright,” Evangelos nodded again and glanced after his sister, who was now walking down the hallway and into the bathroom.
Well now, Aurora thought as she looked in the mirror, isn’t that a lovely shiner? She pulled out her favorite pair of sunglasses and put them on, covering up her largely bruised eye. She quickly put on some blush, lip gloss, a baseball cap, and walked back out to her brother.
“Wow. . . That was quick.” Evangelos was always proud of how good his sister always managed to look, despite their trashy environment. More often than not, he thought about how much better their lives could be (especially Aurora’s) if their parents actually gave two shits about them. (Sure, they could’ve gone to an orphanage, but neither of them wanted to risk being separated from the other.) He acknowledged the fact that his sister was pretty, (Not movie-star-beautiful . . . Just pretty. She definitely had the potential to be that beautiful, but that would never happen. . . Not with this living situation.) and if she’d had a better upbringing, she probably would’ve applied herself more in school. Anyway, he knew she wasn’t dumb. She’d shared her theories about the Kira case with him, and most of them made a lot of sense, or brought up an interesting point. . .
He sighed inaudibly. Too bad she’ll never make a difference . . . Not like this. . .
“Well,” Aurora started, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had settled between them, “we should head out before they regain consciousness.” She rolled her eyes at her parents, who were passed out in random spots in the living room.
They arrived at the arcade almost an hour later. (Yeah, walking everywhere sucked.) “Shit. If I had a car, we’d never be home.”
Evangelos grinned. “Yeah, wishful thinking. . . Well, I think I’m gonna go take a walk around the city, maybe find a book shop or something. Something interesting.”
Aurora looked appalled. “Games are interesting! You just don’t want to stay here and get your ass kicked at a video game by a girl.”
His grin turned into a smirk. “Wouldn’t wanna cramp your style.”
She laughed quietly and handed her brother some money. “Alright, fine.”
“What’s that for?”
“Lunch. . . And whatever else you find.”
“Thanks!” Evangelos smiled. “I’ll be back before seven.” He turned and proceeded down the street, wondering how his sister always had money.
“Be careful!” She called after him. Good thing my parents get disability money. . . And as long as I leave them enough for booze and pot, they don’t even know anything’s missing. Aurora walked over to the change machine and put in a ten dollar bill, (Anonymous meeting, anyone? God, this is worse than gambling.) letting all of the quarters fall into the change purse she carried exactly for that purpose. A few people gave her strange looks, but she’d stopped caring what people thought of her, anyway. Yeah, that’s right. I’m a female gamer. What of it? Some (most) people were just plain stupid.
The first game she walked over to was, of course, Soul Blade. She popped in one of her many quarters, selected her favorite character, Sophitia, and commenced the ownage. Playing as Sophitia, Aurora easily defeated all of the computerized opponents. When the high score screen came up, she was quite pleased with herself. . . Until she saw a name where hers should’ve been – In the first-place spot.
What the. . . Matt?! Sure enough: the name “Rora” was flashing right below “Matt.” The guy from yesterday. . . ? She studied the screen again. No way.
“Sorry, was that you?” Aurora jumped at the sound of the male voice from behind. She whirled around and saw none other than Matt standing there, grinning like a little mischievious kid.
Oh, God. . . I hope he doesn’t ask about the name. . . . She hadn’t really expected to introduce herself to anyone when she entered it a few days ago.
“Hey, you’re the girl I met yesterday. . . Sapphira, right?”
Aurora nodded slightly, and let out a small sigh of relief.
As soon as he noticed Aurora’s irked expression, he piped up again, still grinning. “I’m not stalking you or anything, I promise.”
Aurora couldn’t help but smile at his boyish charm. “Oh. . . I just assumed it was an animal in my bushes last night.” Matt chuckled lightly and pulled a quarter out of his pocket, ready to slip it into the Mario game he liked so much.
“Wait.” Aurora seized his wrist. What am I doing?
Matt looked at her expectantly. What is she-
Before he could finish his thought, Aurora spoke up again. “Why don’t we find out who’s better?” Am I. . . “Right here, right now.” Am I flirting?! She quickly let go of his wrist.
Matt grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you, cutie.”
She rolled her eyes, then realized he wouldn’t be able to see the gesture behind her sunglasses. Oh, duh. “Alright, let’s do it.” Fuck!! – I- I mean, shit! Did I seriously just say that?!
Matt slipped his quarter in the coin slot and took his position at the second player joystick. Aurora copied his actions, and they picked their characters. (Aurora, of course, picked Sophie, while Matt chose Hwang.)
After hours of ring outs, knock outs, “time’s up”s, quarters quickly disappearing, and cursing at one another, the victor was decided.