80's Arcade was just like it sounded like. The arcade was filled with 80 style arcade games, like Joust and Pac-Man. However, the place rakes in more money from the newly established two-floor laser tag and newer games such as Shimmy Dance Revolution. Today, the place wasn't packed too full, but to the point of where it seems to be a comfortable environment.

Connor went over to the ticket coin thingy, inserted however much money he did, and went back with a handful of coins. "Here's yours."

"Woah woah woah." I said, taking the coins. "I feel like this is a lot. Just for me." I shoved the coins, or as much as I could, into my pockets before Connor came back with his share.

"Well, we're suppose to have fun. How else are we going to achieve the worlds greatest prize ever."

"And that would be?" I asked.

"You'll have to find out." Said Connor as he was shoving his coins also in his pockets. When he glanced back up at me, he shot a wink and went into the arcade, me following close behind.

As we approached the first game, Joust, I grabbed a stick, put in my coins, and turned to Connor. "What's with you and that phrase?"

I could hear his smirk as the game started. "You'll just have to find out."

In the arcade, we were pretty competitive. Our games consisted of somewhat borderline cussing while the winning and loss streak came to a tie. We were down to our last eight coins before Connor made a suggestion.

"Hey." Connor and I were outside, taking in the fresh air before heading inside again. I turned to look at his eyes. "What would you say to a laser tag game? One-on-one."

I lit up to the idea, even though being that competitive wasn't an ideal personality I could keep up with. "Sure," I said standing. I took Connor's hand and shook it. "I'm so gonna beat your ass."

"I'd like to see you try."

We headed inside and I went to pay for the laser tag tickets. The next available game, to our advantage, would be in ten minutes. I approached the girl behind the laser tag counter to pay.

"Hi, I would like two next game tickets please." I asked politely.

"Sure." She said, putting a smile on her face. "That will be $15."

I handed her a $20 and she gave me $5 back. "How many passes?" The girl asked, pointing behind her. I have a hunch that I gave her a "what in the world are you talking about" look because she started to giggle softly. "How many people?"

Oh. "Two." I said, holding up my fingers. I looked over my shoulder to Connor as the girl grabbed the passes.

"Would you like to add more to your party?" She asked, turning my attention back to her. I would imagine, if she was a guy, she'd have a monotone voice. Hilarious. "There's a group of twelve that has a red pass for later if you want more people."

"No thank you." I said, itching to leave. Connor started to rock on the heels and the balls of his feet.

"Are you sure? The laser tag has two floors."

"I'm sure." I said, the tone of annoyance slipping in my voice.

The girl must have noticed. She backed off and complied. "Okay. I'll give you guys both floors, but do you want the actual standard time of twenty minutes," she paused. "In your case."

As much as that deemed excessive, I agreed and took our blue passes.

"Hey look," Connor said as I gave him his. "Ours is blue."

Sure enough, it was. "Is there a significant reason why blue matters?" I hinted a little flirting in my voice.

"Just 'cuz it's my favorite color." Connor said sweetly. I nodded as he continues. "Why did you pay beforehand as something simple instead of hourly?"

I gave him a weird side-glance as I twiddled the pass between my fingers. "I've never been here before. I've lived here for six years and I've never even heard of this." I motioned to the arcade with my free hand.

"Six years?" Connor asked, tilting his head adorably while looking in my direction. "I've had a feeling that you've been here longer than six years. Like, your whole life."

I shrugged. There wasn't much to say. Honestly, I couldn't blame him, since I can blend into any environment like it's my own. I just own it. Literally. But I was still curious."What makes you think that?"

"I don't know." He said, staring at the laser tag scoreboard. Our game was up in three minutes. "Maybe it's the way you talk. Maybe it's even the way you move. Just something is telling me 'Hey, that dude is cool and knows a lot about this place'." Connor said, mimicking a Irish accent while doing so.

I chuckled and looked at the cameras positioned next to the leaderboard. There were only three cameras. One shooting the entrance, the other shooting the exit, and the last one seeing only one side of the first floor.

"Hey Connor," I said pointing to the cameras. "They only have three cameras."

"Huh." That was his reply. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less.

I was a little annoyed by his response. Maybe because it was different than I had anticipated. Our game was almost up so we went to the entrance. It wasn't too hard to find, maybe because of the big sign "Entrance" located right on top of the damn door.

"Blue passes, get ready. Your game is up next." I heard a different person say. This time it was a boy using a monotone voice. I could picture the deadbeat expression behind the counter.

Connor nudged me with his elbow and smiled. "You ready?"

I could feel the light-electricity in the air as I smiled back. Competitive atmosphere? "You bet your ass I am."

As people poured out from the exit, a instructor stood ready at the entrance. Passes in our hands, we approached the instructor.

"Blue passes?" She asked as we flashed our passes. She smiled and continued. "Great. I'll take those and you can meet me in the chamber, where we'll explain the rules." Connor and I gave her our passes and stepped inside.

Inside it was dark. Really dark. Glow-in-the-dark stars plastered the ceiling, as well as a blacklight. The blacklight only affected my shorts and shoes, or the white parts of them, while Connor's socks almost glistened. We stood up against a wall, directly across from the Main Rules Board. Basically a board with the most important rules, like "Don't Run, Jump, Or Climb" or "No Physical Human Contact". The last one was a bit weird, in my opinion, but nevertheless it was there. I didn't own this place.

The lady instructor soon stepped in and the door closed. Pitch black. Except for the glowing shit and the blacklight. Then she started. "Hello." She said, giving a pause to be greeted. When there was only silence, she cleared her throat and tried to continue.

"Uh oh," Connor whispered, moving closer to me. "We got on her bad side."

I snickered as I felt more electricity and the eyes of the lady on us. "As I was about to say, we need to go over the rules, protocol and all of that." She moved so she was in front of the board. or that's what it looked liked to me. For all I know, she might be behind us. "Rule one, 'Do not run, jump, or climb'. Rule two, 'Laser equipment must be safely secured'. Rule three, 'Be aware of other players'. The last one, 'No physical human contact'." She paused, trying to empathize the importance. "At all."

I felt that was supposed to mean something to us, and maybe it did. I could feel even more electricity, like an electricity overload.

"Do you pledge to follow these rules you two?" She asked.

"Yes," I said, crossing my fingers behind my back.

"Yes ma'am." Connor said. I felt his arm brush up against mine as he spoke.

"Good. Then let's put on the vests." The lady instructor led us through a door filled with different colored vests. I picked a red one, seeing that you can make your own name. I typed in "UR_ASS" and clicked "Ok". It took a minute to realize what I typed in. Internally, I was freaking out.

"Okay. Now, this is how you shoot the laser gun." The instructor said, picking up a random vest. "You hold the barrel with your palm, while you put your finger on the trigger." She demonstrated, not even buckling in the vest. "You hit these sensors To earn points. The smaller they are, the more points you can get. As you already know, you can insert a name of your choice or choose at random."

I buckled in and tightened my vest, grabbing my laser gun correctly and getting ready to play. I looked over at Connor, on the other side of the room. He had a blue vest on, obviously, and was inserting his name.

After he was done, the lady took us into the arena and led Connor into the maze of flashing lights and mirrors. I was in a base, or near it, and apparently I was supposed to protect it. I wasn't going to. I took in the view I had from the first floor, which was colored in a red hue. The second floor was green, spiral staircases leading up to it.

"Are you ready?" A loud automated voice boomed. I jumped at it, but the jump was delayed and nearly made me trip.

"Get set." I steadied myself and got ready to run.

"Go!"

We broke Rule One before the five-minute mark. I ran up the spiral staircase and jumped onto the platform, getting a better view to where Connor was. Unfortunately for me, Connor was behind me and shot my shoulder. 20 points. I was stunned and my laser gun showed who shot me. UR_BABY. I was going to die from embarrassment.

I turned and ran towards where Connor last was, trying to catch him. I turned corners and ran into through halls on the second floor, but couldn't find him. By the eight minutes we've been in there, I was climbing on the railing of the second floor looking for Connor.

"Yuri!" Connor yelled, underneath me. Gotcha. I aimed the gun with my two hands towards Connor, trying to steady my footing.

I've slipped. I know this is a fact. I saw, as I looked down, my foot was too far ahead. In a split second, I panicked.

"Connor!" I yelled. I was falling to him. Him. Connor was the only thing that I was thinking about. I was praying for him to catch me. The second floor wasn't high enough to kill you, but land wrong and there would be permanent injuries.

I felt a thud. More like I was the thud. I had closed my eyes tightly enough during the fall that I was afraid to open them now.

"Hey," Connor whispered in my ear, sending a shudder throughout my body. "Open your eyes." I hesitantly opened them and saw Connor's face. "You're okay. I caught you, but damn you're heavy."

I caught my breath and noticed Connor did catch me, bridal style. I could feel an abundant of heat crawl on my cheeks. I'm sure Connor noticed, his cheeks flushed with color. "I'm normal, thank you very much." I said with a little laugh.

Connor smiled and let me down gently. I stood on my feet, arms still wrapped around Connor's neck. We stood like that for a while, and I could see the electricity, hear my heart, and see what I could have mistaken for lust in Connor's eyes, After a minute of doing nothing else. I unwrapped my arms from Connor and grabbed my laser gun, shooting him in the chest. 10 points.

"Yuri!" Connor yelled as I sped away. "We had a moment!! Come on."

I raced to the second floor, again, and shot Connor instantly. 20 points.

The lights dimmed down and the big announcer was back. "That's it folks! Go through the exit to get your prizes. Make sure to put back your vests and collect your scores." The lights became brighter and I walked down the spiral staircase and went with Connor towards the exit. We had to put away or vests and go through the other door, where the exit is located. As we stepped out of the arena, we were met with the same lady instructor. She was angry.

"You pledged to not run, jump, or climb, and do not have any physical contact." She said, with scrunched up eyebrows, forming a crease on her forehead. "Yet you have managed to break these two important rules in less than ten minutes. We cut your game off five minutes early for a reason."

Before I could reply, Connor stepped in with a playful tone. "Have you ever heard of crossing your fingers behind your back?" He did it too.

The lady was furious. She went on a huge tangent about the safety of others before the manager came to the scene.

"Dana, that's enough." He said, putting one of his hands on her shoulder. "I'll take care of them."'

The lady, Dana, stepped back and let the manager take charge.

"Sons, I'll be honest with you." The manager said. We were starting to earn a little crowd now. "You did break some rules. Two big ones, actually. But from what I've seen on the cameras, we can put it all behind us."

I was shocked. "Really? But we ran, I jumped and I climbed. Connor caught me, meaning we had physical contact even after he put me down."

"So why?" Connor jumped in.

"Well, we would have insurance companies on us if it weren't for you." He said as he pointed to Connor. "Connor, right?"

"Yes sir."

"I congratulate you on saving your boyfriend's life. And for that, we would like to give you one of our VIP passes to laser tag and arcade games." The manager said. I blushed at the mere mention of boyfriend, especially since Connor and I being "boyfriends".

"Thank you sir, but Yuri and I aren't boyfriends." Connor said. I looked out of the corner of my eye to see Connor slightly blushing as well.

"I see," the manager said. "Such a shame, you two would be great together." The manager said with a smile. He straightened up before giving one last word. "I hope to see you guys again, Yuri and Connor."

The manager walked off, leaving Connor, the dissipating crowd, and I standing there.