Cutie Academy - Chapter 4 "Arcade"
#4 of Cutie Academy
This is the fourth chapter for Cutie Academy, enjoy!
In this chapter you find out that Ren happens to be a dragon. I did not explain this in previous chapters and I apologize if this ruins the image you had of Ren.
Disclaimer: All characters in this story are fictional. Any resemblance to real people or things, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
"Ren, it's time to get up."
"It's only 6:00am. I got 30 minutes of sleep left." I groaned.
"I know, but it's Friday! It's your last day of school for the week!" my mom said excitedly, as she pulled down on my roll up curtain, sending it back around its coil.
"I swear to god... I'm buying a new curtain." I growled.
"Not without money you aren't; you better get yourself a job!"
"Mom, please... I have birthday money saved up, I'll be fine."
"If you say so, dear, now hurry up and come downstairs. Your father wants to speak with you."
Great, I wonder what he wants. I pulled myself up out of bed and hung my head between my shoulders. I stood up and grabbed a shirt from the laundry bin full of clean clothing that I have yet to put away, and walked down into the kitchen.
"Ren." my father announced as if he were in a conference room.
"David." I said, with a hint of mockery.
"Where were you last night? The movie was done at 6:40pm and you didn't call us till 8:15pm; clearly you had to be doing something with someone."
Shit! What do I say? He's not as easy to persuade with false illusions like mom is. I had to think of something quick; every second I spend is another second closer to him finding out the truth.
"Oh yeah, Ummm... Yeah, I just went over to the Tom Hooters across the road for a coffee."
"Are you sure that was it? You told your mother that you really wanted to see the movie when you were back at the hospital, and when you called your mother, you said it was horrible; care to explain?" He said, pushing me further to see if I'd crack. My heart was racing now, and I could tell my words wouldn't come out as smooth as I began.
Before I could say anything, my mother interrupted, "Oh come on dear, you know Ren wouldn't be doing anything illegal behind our backs. He has nearly perfect grades and when he's not doing homework, he's reading."
"You're right dear. I'm sorry Ren, I was just concerned, that's all," my dad said in a sincere voice, "I just don't want you to get hurt." He finished by grabbing on to one of my horns, pulling my closer, and patting me on the back.
"You know, we are dragons, dad... whips don't go through our scales that easily," I said with a smile.
"Yes, but guns do, and so do knives. It's not just the guards I'm worried about. People are changing. Violence has become normal now and if you get on the bad side of the wrong people, you could wind up dead."
I was speechless. I was not expecting him to say something like that, especially to me. I understand that violence is part of the law, but to assume that everyone is violent, that's pushing it. Wolfy wasn't violent, he wouldn't try to physically harm me, right?
As I got ready for school, I pondered on the things me and my father discussed. Maybe he was right. He does work for the CIA after all, but I can't assume everyone is more violent. When the bus pulled up, I got on and checked my phone. There were a few messages from Chris.
"Yo Ren, Ren is awake and we should go see him after school!"
"Rex* God damn! You guys need better names >.> you both have 're' and my phone always autocorrects it to the first name I put in..."
"Just meet me after school and we'll go see Ren"
"REX* GOOD GOD! FUCKING PHONE"
I replied with a simple, "Okay." and then put my phone back in my pocket.
School dragged on and during my break Wolfy did not throw any rocks over the wall. I took it upon myself to throw the first rock this time. So I wrote, "Hey Wolfy, how are you?" and tossed it over the wall. I waited and waited, but there was no returning rock. Maybe he was sick or something. I sat down and opened a book, reading it until the end of my break period.
At the end of the day, Chris texted me and told me to meet him at Bus C-M-027. I found the bus, showed them my card, and told them I'd be getting off with Chris. These exceptions were only allowed 5 times yearly and are recorded on your proof card. This was to limit the time spent with friends and to keep everything organized.
Chris is a Lutra Sapiens, an otter humanoid, with brown fur and a tuff of fur on his head that curled down, almost like a wave. The fur on his back had darker patches that looked like a series of arrows that went down on to his left thigh.
When the bus stopped at the end of Chris's street we got out and walked towards his house. Chris lived in the rich part of town; houses that cost upwards of 1 million dollars. As we approached his house his mother came running out to greet us.
"Renny! How lovely of you to stop by! Will you be having dinner with us?" She asked.
"Sorry, Mrs. Lontra, We're going to the hospital to visit our friend," I said.
"Who's in the hos-," before she could finish, Chris chimed in.
"I told you mom! Rex got whipped! That's why I need the corvette today."
"Well, excuse me... The keys are on the counter, have fun you two," she said, as she opened the door and walked back inside.
"Chris, you didn't have to yell," I said very calmly, making sure not to set him off again.
"I know... but she never listens to me, ever, and it's really annoying."
"Yeah, I can see how that would be annoying."
Staring at the ground, I hardly noticed that Chris had opened the garage door, revealing a series of overly expensive cars.
"You have too much money..." I exclaimed, with a hint of jealousy.
"I have no money, but my parents have lots of money," he said with a grin.
"Yeah well hurry up, moneybags," I said as I pushed him towards the expensive cars.
Chris ran inside and grabbed the keys. We got in the red corvette, adjacent to a blue mustang. The interior was all leather, and the dash was completely touch screen, even the volume nobs were implemented into the touch screen interface. When Chris started the car, the engine roared, he shifted into neutral and teased the gas pedal with his foot, making the car rev even higher.
"Hey Ren, this car roars louder than you," Chris said jokingly.
"Yeah, well I've heard squeaker toys that squeak cuter than you," I rebuttaled.
"You don't mean that!" Chris said with an exaggerated frown.
"Oh, I sure do, now hurry up and drive to the hospital," I said, changing the radio station.
When we arrived at the hospital, we asked to see Rex. The receptionist told us he was on the second floor in room 2014. When we opened the door, Rex was sitting up in his bed, staring out the window. He turned to us and smiled, wagging his tail under the blankets.
"HEY!" He shouted, "Nice of you guys to finally show up!"
We ran to his bed side and Chris jumped up on his bed.
"So, tells us what happened, you mangled mutt," Chris said, poking him in the chest.
"The guards overhead me talking about the sex-ed class we'd all be taking next year. It wasn't anything bad either... I just mentioned that I was excited to know what it's all about. They ended up coming to the conclusions that I broke the law because I talked about sex. So they pushed me up against the school wall and whipped me 20 times on the back," he said as he leaned forward, showing us the gaze and bandage around his upper torso, "then the second guard must have felt left out or something, because he ran over and stepped on my ankle, breaking it, and then, kicked me in the face."
"Jesus Christ! What the actual fuck?!" I said, in total disbelief.
"Yeah, I'm better now though, the pain is pretty much gone."
"You look like road kill," said Chris with a smile.
We all laughed and talked for another 2 hours until, finally, we decided it'd be best for Rex to get some sleep. We said our goodbyes and left the room, taking with us the pleasure of knowing our good friend was doing okay. I nudged Chris's shoulder and asked, "What do you want to do now?"
Chris took out his car keys and hit the unlock button on the keychain, "We should do something with someone," he said, playing with the keys in his hands.
"What about Kindle? He's probably up to nothing," I asked.
"Why in the world did his parents name him after an electronic book?" Chris laughed.
I laughed, "Come on Chris, don't be so mean. Our electronic book has feelings too, you know."
"Yeah yeah, come on; let's go see what our little e-reader is up too!"
When we arrived at Kindle's house, he was already outside raking leaves. He turned around and noticed us coming, so he waved at us.
Kindle was an Ailurus Sapiens, a bipedal red panda, with purple eyes. His fur pattern was that of a regular red panda except the white on his face was a little more beige.
"Kindle!" Chris shouted.
"Hello, what brings you guys to this part of the city?" Kindle asked.
"You did!" I chimed in.
"Well, what can I do for you fellas?" He said, leaning against his rake.
"Help us, we're bored..." said Chris.
"Gentlemen, I might have your solution," Kindle said with a grin, "I'm going out to the arcade later; would you guys care to join me?"
"Hell yes!" Chris said excitedly.
I didn't like the arcade. All the games are rigged and it's extremely expensive. It costs 20 dollars for 50 tokens, and each token will yield you 10 tickets, roughly. So for about 20 dollars you can get enough tickets to buy yourself a bouncy ball...
"I will, but I'm not going to buy any tokens," I announced.
"Don't be such a dragon, Ren! Spend your money!" Chris said, patting me on the back.
"For your information, Chris, I am a dragon, and I like to save my money for things that are worth it."
"Fine, save your money, but don't think I'm sharing my tokens with you!"
"That's okay, I like watching people waste their money," I said with a devious smile.
We helped Kindle finish raking the front yard and then piled into Chris's expensive car. When we arrived at the arcade, we walked up to the token dispenser. Chris bought 250 tokens, because the smallest bill he had in his wallet was a 100 dollar bill, and Kindle bought 50. The first game they went to was the Down Hill Ski Jump. The game requires you to drop a token into the slot. You watch as it rolls down the hill and off a ramp into 1 of 3 rotating buckets. If you miss, you get one ticket; if you get a bucket, you get 5 tickets, and if you get it through the hole in the center of the backboard, mind you the tokens are slightly too big, you get the jackpot. The jackpot currently stands at 4554 tickets.
"This one is terrible... don't waste your time Chris," I warned him as he placed a token into the slot, "the hole for the jackpot is too small, the tokens won't-," my words were cut short by the sound of a jackpot going off right next to my ear.
"That's right!" Chris said very excitedly.
"What the...?! That doesn't even make sense!" I said in utter confusion.
"You're just jealous, Ren."
"No I'm not; the game is rigged so no one can get the jackpot... So either you cheated, or that was a faulty token."
The game continued to play the jackpot song as it poured ticket after ticket out of the dispenser. We waited a good 10 minutes before we could move on to the next game.
"1 token and you already have 4554 tickets, well done sir," Kindle congratulated Chris.
"Yeah thanks, now I gotta find myself some more jackpots to win!"
"That was a once in a life time thing, Chris, you'll never be able to do it again," I said with a hint of jealousy.
The next game Chris tried was the Coin Drop. For this game, you put a token into the slot; it drops the token down through a series of obstacles onto a bed of failure tokens. The objective is to fill it up with lots of tokens so that they fall off into a hole. For each token that drops into the hole, you get 5 tickets. This games main purpose is to eat your tokens. The first token Chris dropped into the machine sent a chain reaction that causes a good majority of the failed tokens to fall into the hole.
"Wha...?" I said in total disbelief.
"Success!" Kindle shouted.
"2 tokens down 248 left to go!" Chris said, winking at me.
As time went by, so did Chris's luck. He won a few more jackpots here and there, but a good majority of his tokens were wasted. He was down to his last 10 tokens.
"Choose wisely, Chris," I said with a smirk.
"How about we go shoot some zombies at the 'Apocalypse' machine?" Chris asked.
"You know I don't like first person shooters, Chris."
"Yeah, but you get to hold a gun, not to mention the one here is 3 player, so Kindle can play too."
"I'm down," Kindle added.
"Okay fine, let's go," I said, pushing them towards the shooter room.
When we entered the room, it was as dead as the zombie games within. There were a few people here and there but it was much less noisy and crowded. The game we wanted to play was in a closed off area that had a line up. The line had no people in it, but the game itself was already in use, so we waited by the door. As we waited, I smelt something familiar, something pleasant, but I couldn't remember for the life of me where I had smelt it before. The door to the game opened and 3 figures walked out. I was too distracted by the smell to notice, so Chris turned around and said, "Ren! Come on, we can play now."
I turned around and bumped into one of the people that were leaving.
"Oh, I'm sorr-," my words were cut short when I looked into the stranger's eyes. I panicked, but for a moment I saw deep into his eyes. They were a brilliant shade of blue and under his left eye... there were 2 blue lines.
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END OF CHAPTER 4
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Let me know what you think! ^^