Bomin rushes to the car race machine immediately after we got some tokens for the four of us (courtesy of Joochan, we were surprised he actually agreed) , inserting two tokens, rubbing his hands together before holding the steering wheel. "Who's going to fight against me?"
"Nope, I'm going to that game where you hit popping objects with the mallet or something," Jaehyun leaves us three, wanting to waste his few tokens on a lame game.
Bomin looks to his cousin who is standing with his arms crossed. "You?"
"I'm just going to watch." He pulls out a notebook from his bag and proceeds on studying. I thought he was going to watch. If he was just going to be like that then I might as well steal his tokens and waste it.
Bomin looks at me expectantly. "Noona, play with me."
I sigh. "Fine, but just one game." I sit down beside Bomin and choose my race car, and after that choose the race track we're going to race in.
"Oh, I'm ready to beat Noona," Bomin says giddily, his gums showing. He glances to the side to look at me.
"You don't know who you're going against with."
Just as I predicted, I won, Bomin sulked over it. He pleaded to have a rematch, but I told him that we would run out of tokens if we did.
Looking at the two tokens left on my hand, I proceed to another arcade game, leaving the two to themselves.
Indiana Jones.
"Good lord, please make this turn worth it," I whisper to myself, rubbing my hands together as if that would help. I then insert a token into the machine and the metal balls drop down, forming a line.
Each time I pull, a soft curse word leaves my mouth as the balls don't go to where I want them to.
As soon as I see the blinking numbers on the screen alternately after playing my last ball, I grunt, covering my face with my hands. "Fuck this game."
I stare at the last token in my hands, thinking how I should spend my last.
Without me knowing, Joochan nears me, leaning on some machine to just stare at what I was doing.
I sigh. Last chance, if I still fuck up, I'll leave. With a determined look on my face, I insert my last token into the game and focus.
"Let's get it," I whisper and pull, the first ball going into slot 6.
I whisper incoherent words as the balls went in different slots, a pattern forming on the screen.
Once I finished, I jump up and down. "YES! 100 tokens bitch! Jackpot!"
I draw Jaehyun's and Bomin's attention, and they quickly go to where we are standing.
I rejoice in the sound of a hundred tokens falling, celebrating my win.
Joochan's eyes bulge out. "You did what?"
"I won!"
The kid beside me playing the same game widens his eyes at the tokens. He glares at the game he's playing and punches it. Suddenly, instead of tokens, the balls inside the game fell. I snort at him being frantic and I call a worker immediately to tend to it.
I get the tokens from below, my eyes practically sparkling due to the many tokens on my hands.
"Want some?" I ask Joochan and he gladly takes a handful.
"Woah, MM, did you just get a hundred tokens?" Jaehyun drops his jaw in awe while looking at my palms filled with tokens.
"Noona, you're so lucky!" Bomin nears me, also staring at the tokens.
"I guess I am," I sneer. "We have more than enough tokens now, let's play more!"
I drag Joochan's hand since he was the nearest and go to the crane, spotting a cute purple whale stuff toy in the middle. The others follow us, eyeing my hand. "Let's get that!" I point, getting one token and inserting it into the machine.
I play with the joystick, trying to find the right angle so the crane could pick up the stuff toy. I didn't even know that I used up all my time until the crane suddenly goes down, trying to pick whatever was under.
And it was definitely not the one I wanted.
I watch the crane grab air, pulling itself up and moving to the corner again.
I tried once more. The attempt was futile, the crane only touched its tail.
I grunt at my third attempt, almost getting the whale but it barely touched it.
"Let me try." I scoot to the side when Jaehyun takes over, inserting a token and starts to move the joystick.
But like me, he failed. A lot.
"Me next," Bomin eagerly claps and hits his chest before he tries the game. He was almost there, the crane grabbed the stuff toy but it fell mid-air.
Jaehyun turns to Joochan and asks, "Are you gonna try?"
He doesn't give an answer. He goes in front and inserts a coin, focused. But he couldn't. He tried and tried, but the whale was still stuck inside the machine.
I sigh, defeated. It really looks cute. But I guess I can't have everything I want. "Let's just play another game or something, we still have a lot of tokens."
Bomin spots someone playing basketball and he points at it. Jaehyun sees what he pointed at and smiles. "Let's play there noona! I want to play with you again."
He grabs my shoulders, forcing me to go there but I try my best not to be carried away. I turn to Joochan who seems to have no plans on moving away from the crane. "Joochan, you're not coming with us?"
"....I'll catch up later."
I give in to Bomin's push, finally moving. I didn't miss him sticking out his tongue to his cousin who seems unbothered by it, solely focused on the game.
"Minhee noona," Bomin calls and I turn to him. "Let's have a match." He smiles arrogantly, knowing how well he is at basketball.
I frown at the junior. "That's unfair, you're good at the sport."
He grins at the compliment.
I give him a look. "You wanted to hear me say that you're great, huh?"
Bomin smiles cheekily.
I roll my eyes at him. "If it's a match then I'll gladly accept it."
"You sure?" Jaehyun asks. "You're going to lose."
I pretend to be angry and shocked. "Why, do I hear you underestimating me?"
My classmate crosses his arms, raising his head a bit and straightening his posture. "Prove it, then."
I raise my eyebrow. "Is that a challenge?"
Jaehyun just smirks.
Bomin pops in between me and Jaehyun. "I thought it was noona and I who's going to play?"
"Let's include 바봉," I conclude, positioning myself in the middle of the two. There were only three basketball shooting games in the arcade, perfect for us three to have a match.
We all start to insert our tokens into the machine.
"바봉?" Bomin crosses his eyebrows at the foreign term.
"I made it for him," I point to Jaehyun who's about to rage in a moment.
"You little bit--" Jaehyun gets cut off when the machines make sounds, the basketballs falling to us and we all start to throw it at the target.
For the first three minutes, we were shouting incoherent words and profanity, attracting attention from the people inside the arcade.
I sulk when I didn't get through the first level. Bomin and Jaehyun rejoices, high-fiving each other.
"Where did all the confidence go, MM? Were you all talk?" Jaehyun snickers, happy at me losing.
I tsk at him, rolling my eyes as I fold my arms.
They have another round, barely passing level 2. Now they're on to level 3. I was their only audience, but I enjoyed it. Why wouldn't I if I was seeing a close-up version of two impressive basketball players of our university's varsity? Not to mention, their striking physique and their focused state in the game (they're actually taking it seriously as if it was a real game) made it all the more satisfying to watch.
How lucky was I that I befriended two rather handsome athletes?
I was got out of my thoughts when I hear the two boys making a fuss.
"I beat hyung!" Bomin jumps up ad down, ecstatic at the numbers flashing on the scoreboard of their own basketball shooting machines. I squint my eyes and see that Bomin's score after losing in level 3 is 14 points higher than Jaehyun's.
"Enjoy it while it lasts, you know you'll never actually beat me in a real game," Jaehyun smirks which instantly puts Bomin in a sour note.
Joochan nears us with a hint of a smile on his face. "What game?"
"Why were you so late, hyung?" Bomin whines, immediately clinging to his cousin. "You missed how awesome I beat Jaehyun hyung."
"Speaking of the game..." Jaehyun comes up to Joochan, arms crossed, a smirk already forming. I tilt my head to the side, not knowing what's about to happen. "Play with us. You, against me, against Bomin."
"That's not fair! Joocha---"
Joochan nods, shrugging. "Okay. it's just a match."
My mouth hangs open. "Do you even know the slightest bit about basketball?"
"You just basically throw it at the ring. How hard can it be?" Joochan smiles and I nearly died on the spot. He ruffles my hair and I get goosebumps, reminiscing the times he used to do that to me when we were kids. "And besides, we're just going to play."
I stand back as Joochan takes his place in the middle. They start to insert the tokens and the balls rush to them and they start to aim at the ring.
Joochan was struggling.
I knew how lame he was at sports, and I think that even know it can be seen how uncoordinated he was. I chuckle as he panics, getting the nearest ball and throwing it upwards, but it always missed its target.
I didn't notice how Bomin and Jaehyun were trying their best as they get perfect shots every time, my eyes only focus on one person who still got 0 points when the others were already at 40.
"Stop throwing it like that," I finally had the courage to walk up to him. I get a ball and show him how to properly hold it with two hands. "You need to use two hands, not one."
"Ah.." He mutters, cheeks turning red in embarrassment.
There is still time left so I help him, trying to shoot too beside him. "If you continue that you're going to fail."
He chuckles and that was all it took for my stomach to erupt with butterflies.
We play together, both with smiles on our faces.
The balls get stuck in the middle, signalling the game was over. We might not have finished the first level, but at least I made Joochan smile.
That, enough, was a win for me.