A couple of weeks passed in a blink of the eye since meeting at the game store. We spent most of our time playing Starlight Online together running dungeons until the day would come for us to meet again. Before I knew it, it was the end of the month and I was waiting at the bus stop that was only a few minutes away from my apartment complex, I had an over-the-shoulder bag that included my laptop and some food and drinks. I was already a bit nervous, it was one of the first times I'd be hanging out with a friend, and her being a girl and all didn't help ease that tension.
"Hey! Look at this jackass standing all alone at the bus stop."
I turned my head in the direction the voice came from, as I saw her smugly walking towards me. It seemed she dressed for the occasion: A black skirt, with an equally as dark blouse and boots. The first time was not a fluke, she was an emo nerd. As she approached me, Claire punched me right on my bicep. The punch stung for a few seconds. With an annoyed expression on my face, I lightly punched her back on the bicep as she winced a tiny bit.
"Good to know you aren't a kid who takes shit from anybody, even a girl."
She gave a sly smile as she nudged me lightly with my shoulder. I tried to hide my smile away from her.
"That's a big claim to make Claire. All I did was tapped you back."
Giving a wave, Claire dismissed that statement quickly.
"Nah, most dudes wouldn't even have the balls to even lay their hands on another girl like that Faust, I just hope you aren't a woman beater. Actually, no you definitely aren't, you are too much of a nerd to do such a thing."
I gave a dismissive shrug.
"I don't know, you seem to be able to handle yourself, who's to say you aren't equal to me in physical aspects."
She gave a finger wag.
"Glad to know you are an advocator of gender equality, and also a man of culture at that matter."
She attempted to hide her laugh under a snicker, guess she knew I watched one of the anime she suggested based on that sentence I just gave.
A couple of seconds later we saw the bus arrive at our left. As it stopped, I let Claire go first as she gave a sarcastic curtsy to me, I hopped on and paid for our fare as the bus driver tilted his hat towards me and gave me a wink. The old man must've guessed I was on a date, although I don't blame him though, I suppose any form of kindness I showed could mislead towards those hints.
On the bus, Claire took out her tablet as she began playing a movie, it was some sort of thriller movie that I have not seen before at all. She explained to me how it was a European indie film, I didn't pay too much attention to the story, but the camerawork was really good. By the time the movie was over we had arrived in the city as she took a deep breath of the city air, with its smoggy sky.
"Ahh, Manhattan, how I've missed you so much."
Cracking a laugh, Claire glared at me and gave a slight pout.
"Don't think Manhattan air is all that great to take in, but it's nice scenery here. Anyways what do you want to do until the servers come up at 8?"
A scheming look came across her face as she quickly took my hand and led me closer to Central Park. By the time we arrived, it was a little bit past 3. She began showing me all her favorite parts of the park with glee.
"Maybe you didn't pick this up Faust, but I'm a city girl. I only moved into town at the beginning of Freshman year, but this city is my birthplace."
"Would've never guessed to be completely honest. Although I can now understand why you love the park and Manhattan so much."
She gave a nerdy grin as a flower peddler soon approached us. It was a lady in her late 80s with a basket full of flowers.
"Oh my, why look at this, such a young couple. Lucky for you, I can tell the fate of many young lovers. So for you my dear lass, take this daisy. A daisy means loyal and pure love towards someone, so make sure to keep it close."
The old lady gave a wink towards Claire as she smiled and sniffed the flower, mesmerized with its aura. The peddler then soon turned to me, giving me an inquisitive look at first, she neutrally handed me a single daffodil.
"This may be a little premature, but this is a symbol for your future."
I took the single daffodil, it looked pretty with its yellow petals, but the tone of the lady I didn't like.
"What does a single daffodil mean?"
By the time I asked the old lady had walked off without time to word out my concern. Claire was still infatuated with the flower. A minute later she snapped back to reality as the sun began to set on the horizon. She gasped sporadically.
"Let's quickly get dinner, I know this one burger place that has the best milkshakes!"
She quickly tugged on my arm as we fast-walked back towards the core of the city. I quickly placed the daffodil on my bag before we set off. A few minutes later we ended up in front of a diner as she gave a smug, conceited smile towards me.
"Hm, seems that these diners have a special symbol in our friendship soon to come."
I rolled my eyes are her stupid attempt at being poetic as we went inside. It was more modern than the previous one, full of customers as well. The waitress at the front took us to sit at the bar and handed us our menus. Claire's excitement was surprising, she was telling me what's the best thing to get on the menu. I guess she was familiar as a kid with this restaurant, or maybe has a hold of nostalgia. It would make sense why she would feel confident here, but not at the restaurant near our homes.
She persuaded me into getting a bacon cheeseburger with fries and a vanilla milkshake as she ordered the same for herself. Claire did not undersell this place at all, the burger was juicy and the perfect amount of bloody with a nice tenderness. The crisp fries with the sea salt crystals gave the ultimate salty taste, counteracted with the sweet vanilla shake. The food was to die for.
"Man, Claire, you made the right choice taken us here."
"Of course I did, I may not be the most confident with restaurant knowledge, but Manhattan is my turf, I know the ins-and-outs to it."
The bill came along between us as I slowly reached out for it. Claire on the other hand snagged it as soon as she saw my attempt to grab it.
"No way dude, I'm paying for us this time, consider it a favor repaid since you bought for both of us last time."
I gave a light shrug acting like it was no big deal, but if I'm going, to be honest, this was a new thing to me. Always with hanging out with friends online or in person, people tried to use my wealth to their advantage, even if Claire did not know it was good to feel someone chipping in their part.
She went to pull out her phone as she pocketed shortly after.
"We got an hour left, we should start heading out to make sure the PC cafe isn't full and we can set up in time."
Luckily we left just at the right time, by the time we got in and set-up we had a little less than 10 minutes we both waited at the log-in screen for the game.
"By the way Faust, what are you?"
I tilted my head towards her.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean ethnically what are you? You are a bit tanner, I would say something across the lines of Hispanic, but I don't want to be rude."
"I'm Moroccan with a hint of Spanish cause of the occupation. What about you, you just seem like a white girl to me."
She gave another pout as she punched me on the shoulder.
"French, thank you very much."
I gave a snicker as I waited for the next few minutes. Soon enough, we were loaded into the game. I don't remember much about it, but we played up until midnight, grinding the new story, running through dungeons, and double-teaming on some unfortunate players in PvP areas.
As it turned midnight we thought it was time to head home before the busses stopped running. We walked out as we reflected excitedly about the new content in the game we experienced. Although, this was our first mistake. We were too excited talking that we ended up getting lost in an impoverished part of the city, we quickly realized this as Claire led me through an alleyway that'd be a shortcut straight back to the bus stop. Going down this alley a figure popped up from one of the concaves meant for a backdoor in one of the buildings.
Before I could even react the hooded figure shoved me to the ground as I hit my head on a dumpster, blacking out. I assumed a dozen or so seconds passed as I opened my eyes to be blurry, I saw the man pinning Claire against the wall with a very sadistic grin to his face. I grabbed a nearby leaded pipe as I got back up. He let go of Claire as I tried to quickly close in the distance and swing at him. He caught the pipe midswing as he front kicked me back down to the ground, soon dropping it after. Claire soon after began picking up pieces of broken brick and throwing it at the guy, hitting him a few times after he began angrily walking to her as he threw a punch right at her eye. Right after that Claire fell to the ground as she threw one last rock at his groin. While this was going on I quickly got back up and by the time he was hit in his junk he became winded and I slammed the pipe right on the back of the neck as hard as I could. He fell straight to the ground as he laid limp. I grabbed Claire as soon as I can and began running towards the other side of the alley, in her panicked state she was still able to tell me which street we had to go to as we soon made it to a bus stop. A tired bus driver looked at us both in a ragged state as he had zero care of how we were, although he just pointed to the back of the bus and didn't even ask for fair. I guess he understood the situation.
I no longer had my bag, thankfully Claire still had her stuff since she had a traditional backpack, but I went through my pockets. My keys, phone, and wallet were still there. I didn't care about me leaving my laptop and junk there. I was just happy to get out alive. On the bus ride home, Claire didn't express a single emotion or word from her mouth, we both just sat there silently. She had heavy panting at first, but soon we were just in a shocked almost comatose state. As our stop came out we got out and Claire looked at me.
"I can't go back home like this, my father will freak the fuck out."
She began tearing up as I began walking home and grabbed her wrist to lead her the way. To be honest, I would be scared to head home looking like this, but she was already manifesting a black eye. I did not like how this was going to go.
We got to my apartment as I opened the door and began setting up the futon for her while she took a shower. The way my apartment was set-up, it was all one big room, except for the bathroom. There was a staircase that led up to an elevated area, which was where my bed and dressers were, but the kitchen and living room were at the bottom not too far away from it. Soon after, I showered and we both went to sleep without a word to be said.
Throughout the night I did not get any sleep as I heard Claire's muffled sobs through the sheets, and pillow she tried to hide under. As for me, I was still in that comatose state, not knowing what to think or feel. I felt like I was paralyzed in my bed, that I could only turn and slightly move. During the night, my body began to ache more and more as my bruises manifested. I didn't want to complain, it was too selfish and greedy to complain, we were supposed to die right there and we just cheated death. I had a bad feeling about that.