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Five originally asks to come to her house, but Miko is currently in a bit of a stand-off about the kind of video games he’s requested at her house, which leads to her climbing through his fire escape instead.
“Alright alright,” she says, brandishing enough HNES games to suffocate a small animal. “What’re we playin’, Chief?”
“How’s about a little Galactic Dingo?” he replies, but there’s none of his usual cheer.
Miko slams that bad boy into the system with gusto. “A man of culture, I see. You want first play?”
“Nah. If it’s cool, I just kinda… wanna watch for a bit.”
She takes that as her cue to turn the system on and settles back against the side of his bed. There was something wrong about sitting on a bed to play video games. The floor was just better. “Righty-o, Fiver-o.”
Miko is, admittedly, not at her top form. Galactic Dingo had aged like fine wine, but it was still sharp, pixel-y wine. The flashes of color and movements tended to draw her eye, leading to quick deaths. She whistles at her first game over. “Retro games really are brutal.”
Five clicks play again for her. “Yeah, I guess. It was one of my dad’s favorites.”
Miko clucks her tongue. “You wanna talk about it?”
He redirects it to her, the clever fool. “You wanna talk about why you’re ditching all your HNES games with me?”
“It’s my love language,” Miko replies, straight-faced, but shrugs. “Momma thinks one console is enough for the house. But I bought these myself, so I wanted them to go to a cool dude I know will take care of my pixel babies.”
Five pulls his scrawny knees to his equally scrawny chest. “It’s not fair how they treat you, you know.”
Miko’s quiet, for a moment. She knew she should probably talk to her parents about how she was feeling. She knew, logically, with her little logical mind-brain, that it wasn’t intentional. The other kids just had things more worthwhile. Sports, and band, and good grades. She was the clinging fiber that blared Guitar Heroine and sometimes forgot to eat because she was too excited about getting out of the house. She didn’t have friends outside of work and she didn’t do much with her time except fix consoles. And she knew, deep down, in the emotional, glitchy-flavored part of mind-brain, that it was probably for the best. That she didn’t feel like she’d earned their full attention.
“I’m over it,” is what she settles on. It’s too complicated to unpack right now, anyway.
“Yeah,” Five says, after a pause. “I am too.”
The game over screen feels like it’s mocking her at this point, but Miko hits play again anyway. Galactic Dingo was needed for realsies right now.
Finally, after what feels like forever, Five says, “My dad has a parole hearing this weekend.”
“Really? That’s awesome, dude!” She holds her hand up for a hi-five, but gets nothing in return. Left hanging, Miko wilted. “Is that… not awesome, dude?”
“It’ll get denied. Always does. This is, like, his fourth one.” Five flicked an imaginary speck away from his kneecap. “Guess they think his hacking is too dangerous or something.”
Miko hit pause, set the controller down, and leaned against his shoulder. “That sucks, man.”
“Yeah. It does.”
“You don’t deserve that. And, like, I know I don’t know your dad, but he sounds super cool, and he doesn’t deserve that either.”
“He doesn’t,” Five agrees, pulling her closer for a hug. “We don’t deserve it, either.”
Miko squeezes as tight as she can, hoping to pop that sad sack like a pimple. It doesn’t work. It never does. But that won’t ever stop her from trying.