They Know The End

Matt

12:17 pm

I knew he'd freak over the arcade. We spent what felt like hours playing games over and over. Luckily, I still had my game card after those guys stole my wallet.

And the arcade was noisy. So, Russell screamed so much.

We tried shooting some shots on the basketball game, but we failed equally. I did decently at the racing game, and for some reason, Russell found himself home at claw games.

I watched him operate the claw machine as if he wasn't new to it at all. He was pretty focused on getting the prize stuff toy.

Out of the four attempts he did, he succeeded in two.

"You can have this one," he told me as he gave me a cute mouse plushie.

I gave it a little squeeze. He clamped his cute cat plushie in his armpit as he played the ticket raffle game. I watched as he slid my game card into the slot and pressed the button that spun the wheel.

I bit my lip as the wheel slowed to a stop. The raffle game screamed that we won as its mouth dispensed the biggest group of tickets.

He looked at me with twinkling eyes. "We won! Do you. . .want to have them?"

"Nah," I answered. "Maybe the family that came before us would want them."

He looked at his left, where I was looking. The dad and their little son were playing a combat game on the console. Their mom was standing up, watching them.

We tapped her shoulder and gave the tickets to her. "Hi! Inyoha na ni," I said. These are yours now.

"Thank you!" she exclaimed. She turned to her son. "Mark, say 'thank you' to these kind people."

He beamed. "Thank youh."

She turned to us. "Are you sure you don't need this?"

"Don't worry," Russell replied before I did. "We're dy--"

"Deckers," I interjected, thinking of little Mark. "We're Deckers."

She made a solemn face. "I see. Well, thank you and. . .good luck."

I managed a smile. "You too."

As we walked away from them, we both exchanged looks and decided that it was time to leave.

-

"Are you usually this kind?" Russell asked me as we continued riding our e-bike. He was sitting on my lap, so he couldn't look at me while we talked.

I shrugged, even if he couldn't see it. "No. . .not really. We just don't have the time to, y'know. . ."

"I get it," he replied.

We were both silent for a while. Even now I still couldn't wrap my head around the idea that I was going to die. And yet, instead of doing nothing, I was doing. . .something. Time was moving and so was I.

Why?

"I'm hungry," he announced, interrupting my thoughts.

"There's a food court up ahead," I said. "How much do you have?"

"About two hundred pesos."

I breathed through my teeth. "The dress sure did cost a lot."

"We should've asked the parents for money," he said.

"I'm sure our status as Deckers will be enough to beg off other people."

"Tch." I imagined him making a face. "Fair enough. To the food court then, driver."