[Rain Check] All Fun and Games

“Aghh… come on. Almost. Almost… HA!”

“Tsk… Okay, you win. Can we go home now?”

“Aww, don’t be a sore loser, Ghost! Better luck next time!”

“You’re the one that refused to stop playing until you won at least one rou–”

“Yeah, yeah, just admit that I CAN beat you.”

Ghost and Marcy were stuck at the arcade for several hours together since Marcy had practically dragged the other bun out of his apartment for the day. Neither of them bothered to check the weather forecast, but the clouds were slowly covering the skies of Burrowgatory. And the air felt a tad muggy. This completely slipped their minds, so they were unprepared for what they would have to experience once they left…

The arcade was their usual destination on the weekend when neither of the two had much to do outside of their other hobbies. Marcy being the more outgoing of the two would straight up go all the way to Ghost’s home and bang on his door instead of just calling him like a crazy person.

It wasn’t all that bad, though… Despite the fact that this arcade, known as the Underground Spaceship, was one of those ‘hole in the wall’ type venues that a lot of basement dwellers tended to frequent. You could tell that plenty of other shut-ins favored this place, as well. You would get used to the smell of sweat, musk and body odor if you tried to ignore it. Or if you came here enough… well, you would simply become ‘nose blind’ to it. Ghost at least knew when to bathe. The adrenaline of playing rhythm games distracted him from it, at least.

Marcy, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about it. He got super hyper when he was able to go here with a friend. Plus he barely got to see Ghost anymore due to the guy refusing to leave his apartment unless someone pestered him or physically carried him out the door.

The two of them had just finished the umpteenth round of air hockey. Marcy absolutely refused to leave the table until he won one round; Ghost had beaten him at a few rounds and wanted to call it there. But that wasn’t an option. Not like he took pride in winning. It was just a game to him. Marcy, however, hated losing.

“Wanna go exchange our tickets?” Marcy chirped, taking Ghost’s hand with one of theirs, holding their small cup of little paper coupons with no real value in the other. His eyes gleamed with eagerness.

“Hm… I dunno what if I want anything, but sure… we can go look,” Ghost replied. “Maybe there’s a plushie that won’t cost a thousand tickets for once…”

Marcy tugged the other snow white bun by the hand as they made their way over to the prize shop. They looked around at their own individual paces for at least 10-15 minutes. Marcy picked out a palm sized, big headed alien plushie and a green sticky hand. Ghost actually found a cute Bunrio plushie of one of his favorite mascots: Cinnamobun. This place charged way too many tickets for rare prizes, but it made some sense considering they were probably expensive to stock in the first place. 

The two buns cashed out their tickets and put their new plushies in a plastic bag. Then they made their way out of the arcade to begin walking back to Ghost’s apartment.

“That was fun… we should do that more often!” Marcy exclaimed, skipping along the concrete sidewalk.

“Mm… maybe next weekend. I dunno,” Ghost mumbled in response, tugging his hoodie collar over his mouth more.

Marcy grumbled fussily under his breath and shot Ghost a pouty glare. “Ya know, it’s good for you to touch grass every now and then. Being stuck at your computer every day and streaming for hours straight isn’t healthy without taking care of your health. Do I have to come to your house every other day for a wellness check?” It was a joke, but there was a hint of concern in his voice.

Ghost slowed his walking speed down and sighed. “I’m fine… I know what you mean but…”

While the two slightly disagreed amongst themselves, they were ignorant to the light droplets that had been falling from the skies above. They were interrupted by the drizzling turning into faster downpour. Not quite buckets yet, but enough to get their attention.

“Oh, crap!” Marcy yelped and pulled the hood of their thin jacket over their head. It was made of cloth, so it certainly wasn’t the right material to protect oneself from rain!

Ghost let out a grunt and put his plastic bag over his head since his jacket’s collar didn’t function as a hood, but then he realized that his plushie was in the bag and quickly held it tightly in both arms. His head and ears began to get soaked quickly.

“Gah! Come on, Ghost, let’s go!” Marcy couldn’t help but giggle in disbelief and grabbed his friend by the wrist, scurrying along the sidewalks as they tried avoiding the slew of rain by running under trees and awnings of buildings lining the street.

Of the two buns, Ghost was the least athletic. The only time he could keep his stamina up was when he had to step on arrows during a rhythm game. But they were jogging at a fast pace. He was panting as he gripped his plushie in one arm and allowed Marcy to pull him along by the other.

Marcy laughed gleefully as a rush of adrenaline hit them while they made their way to the apartment. Splashing puddles and nearly slipping several times while Ghost scolded them. After taking a few detours and shortcuts, they finally arrived at their destination. Soaked from head to toe and shivering almost violently. They carefully walked up the stairs to the floor of Ghost’s home and wiped their feet on the welcome mat.

“Ugh… I hate the feeling of wet clothes…” Ghost griped in a hushed tone, pulling a section of their hoodie off of their skin to examine in defeat. “We should’ve checked the weather before leaving…”

“Heh! It’s fiiiiine, Ghost. We didn’t melt, did we?” Marcy shrugged it off and shook their head and hair out like a wet dog. 

“Pft… no… we aren’t witches,” Ghost cracked a small joke before unlocking the door to his home. “Um… wanna come inside? I have warm drinks… and snacks…”

Marcy’s wide eyes became bigger and lit up like the stars they loved to study so much, nodding excitedly and latching onto Ghost’s arm. “Thought you’d never ask! We can make popcorn, and hot chocolate, and uh… Pizza rolls! And–”

“Don’t make me regret this, Marcy,” Ghost lightly jested, nudging his friend with his elbow.

“You looove meeee, hehe…” Marcy snickered as they walked inside.

The two of them knew they’d have to practically strip completely naked to wring their clothes out and dry off, but they would enjoy the rest of the evening snuggled up under blankets with food to last them a while, sweet warm drinks, and endless episodes of their favorite anime.