Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ A Day at the Arcade ❯ Uh, there's only one chapter ( One-Shot )

A Day at the Arcade

"Get a move on!" Sarrea shouted, irritated. "I told you we were leaving fifteen minutes ago!"

A sullen Wufei stalked out of the house and joined Trowa in the blue can they drove. Quatre, looking sheepish, came running out, followed by Heero.

"Sorry, sister, but I was trying to find my money. It seems to be missing." With the last statement, Quatre glared meaningfully back at the three stragglers, who were just now emerging from the house. Duo noticed Quatre's glare and tried to look offended, achieving a cross between a quivering half-frown and angry eyebrows, which continually shot upwards and had to be reminded to come back down and look menacing.

"What!?!" exclaimed Duo, hopping into the van. "I didn't do anything!"

Quatre let out an immense sigh and hopped into the back seat of the van. Sarrea stared at the remaining two girls suspiciously.

"Regine! Taara! If one of you doesn't give me the money, both of you are staying here!"

Regine attempted to look innocent as Taara, being herself, started laughing hysterically.

"We," giggle, "don't have," gasp, "it!" Taara managed.

Regine shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about! I brought my own money!"

With that, Sarrea jumped into the van, slammed the door, and told Trowa to start driving. The van started down the street.

Regine gave up looking innocent and ran after the can, followed by Taara, who tripped at regular intervals due to her laughter.

"Wait! Please! I'll tell you where it is!" shouted Regine.

Sarrea, feeling mischievous, told Trowa to slow, but not stop the van. Regine ran beside the van, trying to gasp out the location of Quatre's money between breaths. Duo, sitting next to Quatre in the back seat, had tears running down his face as he laughed. Predictably enough, Duo hadn't put on his seat belt, so he fell off the seat when Trowa suddenly stopped the car at Sarrea's command. Duo, still laughing, managed to get himself stuck halfway under one of the seats. Quatre looked on in amusement until Sarrea asked him to turn around. Heero watched the activities with interest, and started grinning when he saw the note on Quatre's back.

I'M AN INSANE MORON. IF YOU SEE ME, PLEASE RETURN ME TO THE ASYLUM.

-Local Authorities

Under the note was taped an envelope, which probably held the money. Heero took off the envelope but left the note, and glanced inside. Sure enough, it was Quatre's money.

Quatre, turning bright red, snatched the envelope away from Heero and sat down, kicking duo in the side as revenge.

Sarrea, who had also seen the note, tried hard not to laugh as she sat back down next to Trowa in the front seat.

"Duo, you're going to have to stay under the seat until we get there. You're much easier to handle when you're incapacitated, dear," she said.

Duo tried to make an insulting retort but couldn't manage to stop laughing. By that time, Regine and Taara had gotten in. Taara, who'd just stopped laughing herself, complained about her skinned knees and sat in the back with Quatre and Duo. When she noticed Duo's predicament, she cracked up all over again. Trowa gave a loud, exasperated sigh and glanced at Heero. Heero promptly retrieved a roll of duct tape from under the driver's seat and handed it to Quatre, who gladly taped the offending two's mouths shut. The tape was working rather well until Taara started turning purple from lack of air.

Twenty minutes of continued laughter later, the eight teens arrived at the local arcade, Gameworks. Sarrea gratefully jumped out of the car, loudly announcing how great it was to not hear laughter for a few seconds. The other boys followed her example, minus the announcing. Taara, Regine and Duo remained in the car, Taara trying to unfasten her seat belt, Regine mocking her, and Duo still stuck under the seat, emitting piteous cries for help.

With a sigh and a smile, Sarrea climbed back into the chaos to rescue her beloved and get the two circus freaks out of the car. A whining Regine was deprived of her entertainment as Sarrea shoved her outside, leaving Taara and Duo in the car. After viewing Taara's predicament with disbelief, Sarrea shook her head, reminded herself who she was dealing with, and began untangling Taara's long hair from the seat belt. That accomplished, she knelt on the floor and started tugging on Duo's arm.

"Owww! Stop that! Oww!" complained Duo.

"Oh shut up! You're the gundam pilot," retorted Sarrea. With a final yank, Duo came loose, sliding into Sarrea and throwing them both into a mass confusion of tangled limbs. Regine started laughing, but was abruptly cut off due to Quatre's hand slapping across her mouth. Sarrea emerged from the van, practically dragging Duo, (who was still complaining), and looking dangerously annoyed. Regine and Taara promptly shut up and made an attempt to be serious.

"Okay, I think we're ready now," said Quatre, trying to break the silence and cool Sarrea's temper. Sarrea muttered about "somebody's" who were wasting her time, but luckily didn't feel the need for a temper tantrum in the middle of a parking lot. The group headed inside. Little did Quatre know, he would be the one to cool Sarrea's temper after all. As the group paid for their play cards, Sarrea saw the sign that was still on Quatre's back and giggled. Quatre, who didn't know the sign was there, looked at her strangely but otherwise did nothing. He was just glad she wasn't angry anymore. Because when Sarrea got mad, bad things happened. (But that's a story for another time.)

The group entered the arcade itself and everyone headed off if different directions.

"Hey!" shouted Quatre. "Remember to meet at the restaurant at eight!"

No one listened, and Quatre let out a sigh and rolled his eyes in annoyance. He glanced around at the myriad games, hopelessly lost, and tried to figure out what to do. Luckily, Trowa materialized out of the crowd and guided Quatre to a team racing game. Quatre let out an unmanly shriek when his seat started to move, but otherwise did rather well at driving.

Meanwhile, Heero was trying out as many shooting games as possible, and losing. Sarrea and Duo watched as Heero missed time after time, and after about five minutes of each game, swore at the machine, threw down the plastic gun, and moved to another. They could barely contain their laughter. A manger approached Heero.

"Excuse me, sir. Is something wrong?"

Heero turned slowly around and gave the man his "look of death".

"Yes, there is something wrong. These games aren't working properly."

"Oh? What seems to be wrong?" asked the man, trying to be helpful.

"First of all, the aim is way off. I never miss. I can't miss. I'm Heero Yuy! I CAN'T MISS!" Heero's voice had risen to a shout by then.

"Um sir, maybe you should step outside and cool down a bit. Have you had any alcohol today?"

Heero started swearing in honest, and was promptly dragged out of the arcade by the manager.

Duo started laughing hysterically, and nearly choked on his gum. Sarrea slapped him on the back, struggling to stop laughing herself, as the other customers were starting to stare at the two of them strangely. She dragged Duo towards a photo booth, and the two slipped inside. Every time they tried to take a serious picture, one of them cracked up, ruining any chance at a good picture. And so it went for about twenty minutes.

Regine had spotted Quatre and was dragging him to various games. She found her crush to be inept at almost every game which had any form of violence in it. Quatre was, however, quite good at the "Milk the Cow" game on the upstairs ticket floor. He was hard at work trying to get enough tickets to buy Regine a teddy bear. Regine, not aware of his intentions, snatched up the tickets, jammed them into Quatre's picket, and dragged him away from the flashing plastic udder.

"But I'm on level three!" he whined.

"Let's go get our picture taken," Regine suggested. Quatre followed her, looking longingly over his shoulder at the cow game and thinking about the 800 more tickets he needed to buy the bear.

Wufei had challenged Taara to a martial arts tournament game in which the players performed moves in place. Their character on the screen would then do those moves on the other player's character. They had just started when Taara spotted Regine and Quatre coming down from the upstairs floor. Wufei was hard at work pulling off complicated martial arts moves, thinking about how easy the game was. Much to his chagrin, his character stood still, only occasionally doing a simple punch or kick. Taara was busy trying to get Regine's attention.

"Yoohoo! Regine! Look at me! Look! I'm playing this cool game! Regine!" Taara waved her arms, still trying to catch Regine's attention and forgetting about her game. Taara's character started punching Wufei's doing a flying kick and a body slam when Taara started jumping up and down in excitement. The computer proclaimed her character the winner.

"Ooooh! I won!" Taara shouted, finally realizing that she was supposed to be playing the game. Wufei was doing his best to let every other customer know what a cheap game it was, shouting and swearing at the top of his lungs. Taara told him not be a sore loser and skipped off to another game.

Wufei's face went purple with rage and he started after Taara, completely forgetting about the stop at the edge of the game platform.

"I'll show you sore loser, woman! Get back he--!" Wufei fell flat on his face. Everyone in line started laughing at him, and he ran off to hide in the bathroom, remembering that Sarrea would take his money and kick him out of the house if he hurt anyone. (After the arcade closed, some of the janitors spent a few hours straightening out the men's bathroom, which was complete with dented trash cans and ripped-off toilet seats.)

Regine and Quatre paused midway down the stairs to have a good laugh over Wufei. Wiping tears out of her eyes, Regine glanced at her watch. 7:30.

"We've got half an hour before dinner, Quatre. Let's go see if that photo-booth is empty." She grabbed his hand and pulled him down the stairs, heading for the photo booth. To her disappointment, it was occupied, and from the sound of it, by some couple who were making out. She started at a funny noise, and glanced down to see a sheet of pictures coming out. Oddly enough, there were about ten sheets of pictures that hadn't been claimed lying under the newest one. Regine glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and bent to pick the pictures up. The one's on the bottom were of Duo and Sarrea, and were rather cute because both of them were laughing. Quatre looked over her shoulder and grinned at the pictures. Regine flipped through the pictures, noticing that some of them were dark, as if the camera had been blocked.

Quatre pointed to one of them, a picture of the back of someone's head, and commented that it looked like Duo's head with the thick braid. Becoming increasingly suspicious, Regine looked at the next page of pictures. Her suspicions were confirmed. Duo and Sarrea were in the middle of a variety of kisses in most of them. Quatre's eyes widened.

"Jeez! His tongue must be halfway down her throat!" Quatre gaped. He failed to notice that Regine was becoming angry, and started to comment on another picture. She shoved the pictures into Quatre's hands, threw open the curtain, and dragged the protesting pair out of the booth, roughly depositing them on the floor. Quatre cheerfully handed them their pictures.

"Here you go! How are you two doing?" Quatre attempted to wink. "Have fun in th---?" He was abruptly cut off as Regine yanked him into the booth and told him to smile.

Duo shrugged, helped Sarrea up, and immediately went towards a fighting game.

Sarrea smiled and shook her head, tucking the pictures into her purse.

"Like a moth to a flame…" she muttered, hurrying after him.

Trowa was already at the game, and greeted Duo and Sarrea pleasantly.

"Hey. I haven't seen you guys for a while. What have you been up to?"

They glanced at each other, but Trowa didn't give them time to answer.

"Shit! I'm getting killed! Quick! Join the game!"

Sarrea came in as Player two and started pushing buttons as fast as she could, hoping they were doing something. Duo, on the other hand, had left his card back in the photo booth.

"Just use mine! HURRY!" shouted Trowa.

Sarrea stopped in mid-button push, staring at Trowa, who'd never risen his voice or become frantic to the best of her knowledge. Duo's happy-go-lucky button pushing brought her back to herself and she started up her routine of randomly pushing buttons again. After a while, Duo saw Heero sullenly walking by towards the restaurant and realized it was time for dinner.

"DINNER!" he shouted, turning to jog after Heero. Unfortunately, his long braid caught on the game's joystick and yanked him to a sudden halt.

"OWW! OWW! Help!" he cried.

Sarrea turned to unhook his braid, and Trowa exploded.

"What are you doing? We're LOSING!" he shouted.

Sarrea glared and told him it was dinner time, and beside that, he was losing an arcade game to a giant frog. Taking him by the arm, she dragged him away towards the restaurant, followed by Duo, who was rubbing his head and wincing.

Taara came running up, giggling excitedly, not noticing Trowa's sulky glare.

"Hi guys! Is it dinner time? I won some games! Did you? Oh my gosh! There's Regine and Quatre! I've still got twenty dollars and I think I'll spend it after dinner, maybe on some ticket games, but maybe not `cuz the other games are funner…" Taara continued rambling while the others nodded their heads and kept walking. At least Taara was distracting Trowa from his "defeat".

Ten minutes later, the group was seated at a large table, waiting for their orders to arrive. They chatted about what they'd been doing, although Wufei, Heero, and Trowa wouldn't say anything, and Duo and Sarrea would only mumble about playing a few games. That left Taara, who was babbling at the top of her lungs. After a while, Quatre, who was the only one listening to her, volunteered his favorite game.

"I played Milk the Cow!" he announced. A sudden silence swept across the table as everyone turned to give him strange looks. Heero started laughing and Quatre turned bright red. The other joined in, and Quatre burst into tears and ran off. Regine stood, gave everyone, especially Heero, dirty looks, and went to go find Quatre.

As the remaining group slowly stopped laughing, Duo decided to announce that he and Sarrea had been taking pictures. Taara wanted to see them, of course, and started up a high-pitched whine when Sarrea refused. Duo, who wasn't really paying attention, took the pictures out of Sarrea's purse and handed them out, wondering why his girlfriend kept slapping his arms and trying to get the pictures back.

Taara got the first few sheets where they were both smiling and laughing, and launched herself whole-heartedly into a high-pitched speech about how cute they were.

The other guys got the sheets of smooches. Sarrea put her head into her hands and moaned as she saw their reactions. Duo found it rather amusing to see the eyes normally stoic guys widen simultaneously, and started laughing as Trowa handed back his and Heero's sheets. Trowa cleared his throat.

"They're…uhh…cute…" he mumbled.

Wufei was hard at work studying the pictures, trying to figure out how Duo could possibly be romantic enough to get Sarrea to kiss him. Trowa snatched the pictures from Wufei and handed them to Sarrea, who quickly stuffed them into her purse and looked like she was trying to figure out how to shrink and/or disappear.

After a while, Regine managed to coax Quatre back to the table, which was silent except for Taara, who was still going on about how cute some couples were and sending coy glances in Trowa's direction. The group's food arrived, and Taara shut up to eat. Midway through dinner, Wufei, who was still resentful about his earlier defeat in the martial arts game, decided to get his revenge on Taara. Opening a pack of ketchup, he hurled it at her white shirt, which had amazingly stayed clean all day before the present incident. She shrieked, started crying, and went off to an empty table to sob by herself.

"That was terrible!" shouted Sarrea.

"How could you do that?" accused Regine.

Trowa stood up and gave Wufei a frighteningly menacing look. Wufei, who'd been grinning at his own craftiness, noticed the look and cowered. Trowa went over to Taara, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and offered her his jacket to hide the ketchup. Sarrea and Regine nearly died back at the table.

"Aww! That's so nice!" crooned Regine.

"I know!" Sarrea exclaimed. "I wish more guys could be as sweet as him!" With the last statement, she glanced meaningfully at Duo, trying to get a response.

Duo, however, didn't notice, as he was busy trying to see how many french fries he could stuff up his nose at one time. Heero was likewise occupied, goading Duo on with the promise of money. Quatre decided to challenge Duo, oblivious to the stares of both Sarrea and Regine.

After dinner, Sarrea and Regine left to go play some games, leaving Duo and Quatre in the bathroom with their bloody noses. They approached a cool-looking game with chairs that moved vertically. Much to their dissatisfaction, Wufei and Heero joined them. Sarrea rounded on Heero.

"It wasn't enough that you tormented my poor Duo, didn't give him the money you promised, and got Quatre involved, on no, now you have to follow Regine and I?!?!"

Heero gave her his best "look of death", but it was completely useless on her. Regine turned around.

"Heero, after spending last week jamming medicine down your throat, I'm afraid you can never intimidate us again," Regine said.

"Not to mention cleaning up your vomit, Sarrea added. The four sat in their chairs nonetheless, and the game started. It had four levels, and a player's chair moved up and down according to how many guys they shot. Regine and Sarrea were at level four after a few minutes, ferociously duking it out while Heero and Wufei stayed stuck at level one on the bottom. Wufei couldn't figure out how to shoot, and Heero still couldn't manage to hit anyone. Sarrea and Regine were tied when all of a sudden, Taara started shouting at them. Since she was on the upstairs level, and the other two's chairs were on level four of the game, they were at about the same height.

"Lookit all these tickets!" shouted Taara delightedly, waving a string of what could only be about twenty tickets. Nevertheless, Sarrea looked away from the game to grin good-naturedly at Taara, giving Regine the chance she'd been waiting for. Regine quickly took off her shoe and chucked it at Sarrea, laughing loudly as her shoe made contact with Sarrea's head.

"OWW!" cried Sarrea. The shoe bounced off her head and went over the back of the chair, its laces tangling into the vertical track. As Regine's chair sank back to the bottom at the completion of the game, Sarrea's chair made some strange noises and stayed stuck at the top.

"Just hold on, miss! We'll get you down!" shouted the man in charge of the game.

After about two minutes, Sarrea's patience wore out. She unhooked the harness which was keeping her in the chair, tsking about how easy it was for people other than the game operator to undo the harness.

"No miss! Please stay there!" the man shouted frantically.

"Hey! Could you get my shoe?" shouted Regine.

Sarrea considered, then stood on the chair and untangled Regine's shoe. She chucked it down towards her friend, then jumped off the chair, executing a neat roll and standing up at the bottom.

"After jumping outta a five-story building several times, that was nothing!"

The game's operator just stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

"Oh, you want me to fix it? Okay, hold on," said Sarrea cheerfully. She scrambled up the narrow track like a monkey, shouting to Regine, "You owe me big time!" She slid her nimble mechanic's fingers into the track behind the chair, then stood on the side of the chair and rode it to the bottom, taking a bow and shouting "Tadah!" at the crowd she'd drawn.

"Always knew your little piano fingers were good for something," commented Regine, grinning.

"Oh, you can't even imagine…" said Duo, who'd come up with Quatre to see what the fuss was all about. Quatre laughed, Regine glared, and Sarrea raised an eyebrow suggestively. She and Regine went off to play some other games while Quatre and Duo headed upstairs to the ticket games. Duo taught Quatre to play some of the "casino" games, and they happily wasted most of their money on attempts at winning.

Heero and Wufei came upstairs, and after watching Trowa and Taara play ski-ball, decided to give it a try. Heero ended up doing worse than the five-year-old kid next to him, and Wufei threw his last ball so hard that it bounced off the game and rolled over by Duo and Quatre. An embarrassed Wufei went to go retrieve the ball, overhearing a few snatches of Duo and Quatre's conversation.

"Oh really?" asked Quatre incredulously.

"Yeah! And if you really wanna make a girl happy, try kissing her like…"

Wufei retreated. Pretty soon, the arcade started closing. Duo and Quatre bought their girls the teddy bears they'd been planning, and Trowa used his tickets to buy Taara a small stuffed animal and a ring. The ring broke five minutes after Taara put it on, but she was too busy thanking Trowa for the cute animal to get upset about it.

Eight weary teens piled into the van, and Heero started driving them home.

Taara, who'd forgotten all about the ketchup stain and the broken ring, was leaning on Trowa's shoulder, telling no one in particular about what she'd done in the arcade. Regine was hugging Quatre and her teddy bear alternately, and Sarrea was nearly asleep with her head in Duo's lap, her arms wrapped around her teddy bear.

Taara reached up from the back seat and tapped Sarrea on the shoulder.

"So, when can we go again?"