8
Tag

“Okay,” Grace said, swiping around at her phone. “I have to go now, my Mom says we have a family lunch.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. We had been talking for a while, catching up and laughing a lot at nostalgic memories.

“Yeah, we’ll see you later, Grace,” Matthew said, waving at her.

“Okay, bye,” she said, waving back with both hands. “I’ll make sure to call so we can hang out again before I leave.”

I saw her run out of the cafe, going in the direction of a bus stop. 

“Anything you want to do now?” I asked Matthew. “It’s only been two hours if you want to do something for longer.”

“Sure, I have the time,” he said, checking his phone. “Yeah, we can do something if you’d like for an hour or two.”

“Hmm,” I said, stroking my chin. “What is there to do for an hour or two?”

“Let me look something up,” he said, typing away. “Hmm, going grocery shopping together doesn’t sound like much fun, these suggestions aren’t that good.”

“Ooh, what are you looking at?” I said, leaning over to see his screen. I read aloud a rather disturbing article title. “100 Cute Date Ideas to Really Up the Romance?”

“Umm,” Matthew said, clearly caught off guard that I read the title. “What else was I supposed to search?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What to do when hanging out with a friend? That sounds like a better thing to search.”

“Yeah, but it’s just the two of us, that’s a date,” he said, trying to explain to me what a date was.

“That’s not what a date is!” I yelled out, flustered. “A date is like, something romantic between two people.”

“I just thought of it as anything between two people,” he said, scratching his head.

“Nope, that’s definitely not it,” I said, my cheeks burning bright red. Why was the idea of a date with Matthew making me this embarrassed? “We are just two good friends, hanging out, as guys do.”

“As guys do,” he said, laughing. “Sure, but for now, just choose something off of this list.”

“F-Fine,” I stuttered out, looking at the list. The word date kept on floating through my head now, something that annoyed me. “How about laser tag? That sounds like a good bit of nostalgia.”

“Laser tag?“ he asked. “Sure, that sounds like some fun. We’ll probably be against like, ten year olds though.”

“Exactly,” I said, giggling. “That’s part of the fun, come on, let’s go.”

***

“Aren’t you a little too old for this?” the girl working there said. She was similar in age to us, a stark contrast from the many children running around the place.

“Maybe we are,” Matthew said, chuckling. “But we want to play.”

“Sure,” she said, typing something on the computer. “Do you want to do duos or singles?”

“Let’s do duos,” I said, excitedly. “We can play together.”

“Sure, duos please,” Matthew requested, fishing his debit card out of his wallet.

“You’re going to pay?” I asked, looking carefully at the card.

“Why not,” he said, shrugging. 

“Okay so it would be 25 dollars for the two of you,” she explained. “But for a couple’s discount, you get 10% off. So it’ll be 22 dollars and 50 cents.”

“Wait, a couple?” I asked, confused. “We’re not-”

“We are a couple,” Matthew said, suddenly pulling me to his side.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I whispered to him.

“Saving money, stupid,” he replied into my ear.

“I’m not paid enough to care,” she said, sighing. “I’ll give you the discount.”

“Thank you,” Matthew said, handing over his card. The attendant swiped it and gave it back, handing us the receipt. Matthew shoved it into his pocket, letting the poor receipt get all crumpled up.

“Okay, what names do you two want?” she asked in her monotone voice. “We assign you one so we can call out to you when you die.”

“Here, I’m Master Chief,” Matthew said, standing tall. 

“Master Chief?” I asked, laughing. “You’re such a dork, isn’t that too on the nose?”

“I don’t care, it’s cool,” he said, chuckling a little as he saw me laugh. “You will now refer to me as chief.”

“Aye, aye, chief,” I said, giving a salute.

“Okay, how about the girl,” the attendant asked, rolling her eyes at our silliness. 

“Cortana, I guess?” I said, shrugging. I didn’t have any cool nickname to go by besides my gamer tag, and that didn’t sound all that great either since I made it up when I was 13. I didn’t want to go in as xXDestroyerEZXx. “I may as well go along with the theme.”

“Okay, Cortana,” she said. She gave each of us a vest and a gun. “Put that in and go into room 2 when we tell you to over the intercom.”

“Wait,” Matthew whispered into my ear when the attendant got out of sight. “You’re not going by Tyler or something else?”

“I just decided to go along with your name,” I explained. “Cortana is Mater Chief’s trusty sidekick, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said, looking at me strangely. 

***

“Do you mind helping me?” I asked, unable to tie the strap on the vest behind my back on my own. I had been trying for the last minute, and miserably failing.

“Sure,” he said, grabbing onto both straps. He tied them together and then pulled them to make sure it was tight. “Is that good?”

“Yeah, that’s good, thanks,” I said. 

“How much longer do we have to wait?” Matthew asked, sighing as he stretched.

“I don’t know,” I said, checking out our surroundings. There were some arcade games, which could occupy our time. “Maybe we should play one of those.”

“Look,” Matthew said, pointing at an arcade machine. It had a screen in the middle and six drums sticking out of it. “Kung Fu Panda Dojo Mojo.”

“Oh, I loved those movies,” I said, running up to the machine. “Who was your favorite character?”

“Master Oogway,” he responded, making a kung-fu pose. “He’s super powerful and chill as hell, I like him.”

“I prefer Tigress,” I said. “She’s like, so fierce while being calm and collected. I love her.”

“Well, Oogway is cooler, but Tigress is okay too, I guess,” he said. “I’ll exchange some of my money for quarters, so we can play.”

He walked over to the exchange machine. Exchanging 10 dollars for quarters. He carried them over to the machine and put them in. “You can go first.”

“Okay,” I said. Apparently, the objective of the game was to hit one of the drums each time a corresponding dumpling appeared on the screen. I got to the second stage, but hit a bomb instead of a dumpling, losing the game. “Damn it.”

“Move aside, move aside,” Matthew said, gently pushing me away from the machine. He cracked his knuckles and put in another two quarters, starting the game. He somehow made it all the way to the end, beating the game.

“Wait, I don’t get anything?” he asked, looking around. “I beat the whole game!”

“Yeah, there aren’t any prizes here, so I guess this was all just for fun,” I said, shrugging. 

“That’s bullshit,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I beat the whole game and got nothing.”

“That’s just how life be sometimes,” I said, shaking my head disappointedly. “Let’s jump rope next.”

There was an electric jump rope game, where you had to hop before the virtual rope got past you. I decided to go first, and it was fairly easy. “Is this meant to be a challenge?” I asked, hopping as the virtual rope slowly got closer to my feet. “It’s really easy.”

“It speeds up, stupid,” Matthew said, watching me hop around the pressure plate. “Just give it a little more time.”

“Woah!” I yelled out, the jump rope sped up significantly, and I was hopping a lot to make sure my feet didn’t touch it. “That’s pretty fast.”

“Told you,” Matthew said, laughing. “Give it a few more seconds now, and let’s see how it goes.”

“Shit,” I said, barely able to keep up. I was hopping like crazy, and even then I was barely surviving each time. I had to hold down my skirt, as I didn’t want to accidentally reveal something to Matthew, which made the whole experience even more difficult. Finally, I failed, jumping just a millisecond too late. “That was hard.”

“That was funny,” Matthew said, laughing gently. “Seeing you jump around that thing constantly was hilarious.”

“I was fighting for my life, excuse me,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I did my best.”

“Sure, sure,” he said. “Let’s move on now.”

“Move on?” I asked, confused. “How about you, why aren’t you going to play this game?”

“I have no desire to look like a clown,” he said, laughing. “You were already the entire circus.”

“Fuck you,” I said, annoyed. I wanted to see Matthew jump around ridiculously as well.

“Please enter room 2, participants,” a voice said over the intercom.

“Oops, the time is up too,” he said. “Come on, let’s go play laser tag.”

I pouted, sad that I didn’t get to make Matthew do the jump rope game too. I wanted to see him do it. I shook my head, whatever, maybe I’ll see it another day.

***

“Matthew,” I said quietly as we crept around the dark room. “I think someone’s behind us.”

“Okay,” he said back, turning around with his gun brandished out. “Get on top of me.”

“What?” I asked, embarrassed. “Excuse me?”

“Like, get behind me but stand up straight so you’re on top,” he said, seeming completely oblivious as to what he just said.

“Oh, okay,‘ I said, disappointed at where my mind immediately went. Matthew took a knee, having his gun pointed to the corner. After a few seconds, two kids rounded it. We both shot immediately, getting them both down to 0 health points.

“Good job,” I said, excited. “I told you I heard something.”

“You have good ears, I guess,” Matthew replied, smiling.

I heard some of the kids we just took out grumble. “Why are the grandma and grandpa playing with us?” one of them asked the other.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Matthew, giggling. “We’re grandma and grandpa here, apparently.”

“Just an old married couple, destroying kids at laser tag,” he replied, laughing. 

We continued sneaking around the arena, shooting everyone we saw. The kids were mostly uncoordinated and couldn’t aim very well, so it was quite easy for us. 

“Chief,” I whispered, carefully observing the area around me. “I hear footsteps to the left.”

“I’ll go in front, you lag behind and trade me out if I die,” he said, protectively putting an arm in front of me. We slowly inched forward when a sudden burst of light hit us from behind. I got shot in the back, and although Matthew managed to take the two kids out, it was too late.

“I’m down, Chief,” I said, hardly being able to contain my laughter at how silly this all was. My laser tag vest beeped, indicating that I died. “You have to go on without me.”

“Noooo,” Matthew said, looking devastated. “You were of great service, Cortana.”

“Thank you, Chief,” I said as seriously as I could, even though I was laughing so hard my ribs hurt. “Okay, I have to go back now, try and win this for us.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said, giving me a salute. I walked back out of the laser tag room, pulling off the uncomfortable vest.

***

“I did it!” Matthew said, walking out of the laser tag room. He was drenched in sweat and seemed very proud of himself for just defeating a bunch of children in a game.

“Good job!” I yelled excitedly, clapping for him. “We won, I’m so proud.”

He came in and hugged me, taking me by surprise. I gasped, feeling his strength as he gripped onto me. I was pulled into his chest, my ear close enough to hear his heartbeat. A sea of red immediately flooded my cheeks. “W-What are you doing?” I asked, my voice breaking.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, awkwardly pulling away from me. “I was just excited.”

“It’s fine,” I said, although I felt it wasn’t fine at all. “I was just a little surprised.”

“Yeah, of course,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking straight there.”

“It’s really fine,” I said, trying to ease him. “Don’t worry about it.”

“The winners are Master Chief and Cortana,”  a voice said over the intercom. “Congratulations, you two.”

“We did it!” I said, high-fiving him. I couldn’t help but giggle, it did feel nice to win, even if it was mostly bullying children. 

“Yeah, we’re the best,” he replied. “Let’s get some drinks, I’m tired.”

***

We both sipped on some Gatorade as we sat on the bench in the laser tag place’s lobby. “That was really fun,” Matthew said, wiping some more sweat off of his brow. “But God, it was hard winning solo against all the duos that were remaining. I was running around like crazy trying to win.”

“I’m sad I wasn’t there with you,” I said, kicking my legs forward and backward out of boredom. “It would’ve been funny.”

“Wow,” Matthew said, looking disappointed. “So you didn’t even want to be there to help me, but just to laugh at me?”

“Basically, yeah,” I said, laughing at the idea of Matthew desperately avoiding the kids shooting at him. “You were tryharding against literal children.”

“Hey,” he said, trying to justify himself. “A win is a win, and our opponents were fierce. These children don’t take things easy, you know. They have, like, unlimited energy.”

“Yeah, meanwhile you’re some haggard skeleton, huh?” I asked. “You have plenty of energy too, and the advantage of 3 years of puberty on you.”

“Well, so do you,” he said. “Even if you don’t look much like it.”

“Excuse me,” I asked, leaning forward to look at his face. “What did you just say?”

”You heard me,” he said, giving me a dopey smile. “Miss. Shorty.”

“I am not short,” I said, crossing my arms in annoyance. “Puberty will hit sooner than later, and I’ll be even taller than you.

“Sure,” he said, tousling my hair. “I’m sure that’ll happen.”

“Shut up,” I said, pushing his hand off of my head. “It’s impossible for puberty not to happen to someone.”

“Yeah, but are you sure you even want puberty to hit?” he asked. “You seem to be having a lot of fun as a girl.”

“Well, of course, I want it,” I said, my voice shaking a little more than it should. That was a good question actually, did I want puberty to hit? Was I really ready to give up being Katie forever? I shook my head, of course, I had to be. I couldn’t crossdress forever.

“Anyways, let’s head back now,” he said, tossing his empty bottle of Gatorade into the trashcan. “I have to get back home.”

***

“See you, Katie,” Matthew said, getting on his bike. “Today was a nice date.”

“Stop calling it a date!” I said, annoyed. This was definitely not a date, and Matthew seriously had to fix his definition of date. “But yeah, it was nice. I enjoyed hanging out with you.”

“So did I,” he said, smiling. “Keep in touch, okay? I’d like to do this again.”

“Of course,” I said. I waved goodbye to him as he rode off. I frowned though, a weird feeling bubbling inside of me. Why did I miss him so much already?