Star Light, Star Bright

Jack follows Alex out of the car and into a building that he had never seen before. The older boy takes ahold of the younger one’s hand and gives him a smile as they walk inside together. The taller teen has never seen anything like this before. There is an area that you can eat which is normal, but there are a bunch of boxes and other strange things all around. Seeing all this really makes him feel like he’s in the future. Well, he knows that he is, but this really makes him feel like it. Alex leads him past all of the beeping large boxes and circular machines with a moving light in them. They end up over by another machine, but this one looks differently than the others. It has no screen or sticks or buttons. It just have a slot and a tray on the bottom. The younger watches as Alex lets go of his hand to take out some dollar bills from his wallet and then put them into the machine. He then grabs a cup from the stack next to the machine and puts the gold coins that come out of the machine into that cup.
“What are those for?” Jack asks.
“You need them in order to play the games.”
“Games?”
“Yeah. All of these machines are different games that you can play and win tickets to get prizes.”
“Oh. Well, that sounds like fun.”
“And that’s exactly why I brought you here.”
Once all the coins are in the cup, Alex takes ahold of his hand again and leads him over to one of these games. It’s a long one with holes in these circle like things on one end. The birthday boy puts one of the coins in, and out comes balls into a little space on their right. Alex takes one of them and rolls it up the slight incline and into the area with the holes. It lands in one that is marked “30”.
“In this game, you roll the balls up and try to get them into the holes with the higher scores.”
“Alright. I’ll try.”
Jack takes ahold of one of them. He rolls it, but it doesn’t even get into the area. It rolls right back down to him. Jack tries again with the same ball, but it only goes into the one marked “10”. Alex, who was about to put a coin into the one next to it, stops and goes behind Jack, who has picked up another one.
“You need a bit more force than that.”
Alex, being a bit of a romantic, takes Jack’s hand that has the ball in it and guides him just like those guys that guide their dates when playing mini golf. He helps Jack aim and roll it a bit harder. It goes straight up into the “40”.
“It went into a higher one!” Jack smiles. He turns around and gives Alex a hug. The elder one hugs back and gives Jack a kiss on the cheek.
“Do you want me to continuing with what I was just doing?”
“Yes, please.”
They continue doing this for a couple of games before deciding to move onto another game. Since there are so many of them, Jack has no idea which one to play which doesn’t help since Alex can’t really pick one himself either. While walking, they come across a couple by one of the dancing games. The girl has darker skin and dark hair, and the guy as pale skin and dark hair.
“Why can’t you just play this one?” she questions. “I don’t want to play this one alone.”
“I’ll play all the other games, but the dancing ones. I’m not in the mood.”
“Well, why not? We’ve danced before. You’re just afraid that I’m going to win.”
“I’m not saying that. I’m just not in the mood. If you don’t want to dance by yourself, why don’t you ask someone else to dance with you?”
“Because I don’t see anyone else that is willing to dance with me.”
Alex goes up to them with Jack right behind. “I’ll dance against you.”
“Well, there you go,” the guy says.
“Alright,” the girl says. “Get on up here and pick a song out.”
Alex does and puts in a coin for himself. The song starts, and they start dancing like it says to. Jack stares in amazement. From what he can see, they are both doing really well, but Alex seems to be getting a couple more “perfects”. He really has great rhythm. When the song comes to an end, the game totals their points, and it shows that Alex has won. Jack claps a bit for his boyfriend.
“That was pretty good,” Alex smiles. He sticks his hand out towards the girl.
She shakes it. “Yeah, it was. You’re a pretty good dancer.”
Alex chuckles. “Well, I do have a tendency to break out in dance at home.”
“Yeah, he does,” Jack thinks.
“Well, I’m Sally,” the girl says, “and this is my boyfriend, Aidan.”
“I’m Alex, and this is my boyfriend, Jack.”
The two couples end up talking for a bit and then go over to the food part of the place. Aidan and Sally get a themselves a couple slices of pizza while Jack and Alex get a fry to split since they did eat before they came.
“So, how long have you two been together?” Alex questions.
“We’ve been together for a little bit over a year.” Jack can’t help but think that they should have already gotten married. He doesn’t say anything though since he knows that the world is different from what he once knew. “What about you two?”
Alex takes ahold of Jack’s hand. “I just asked him out today.”
Sally awws. “Well, I hope that you two stay together. You two look so cute.”
“Thanks.”
Aidan looks down at his watch. “We have to get going. We have to go and meet our friends, Josh and Nora.”
“Alright. I hope that we run into each other again.”
“Same.”
They part, and Jack and Alex go right back to trying to find another game to play. Now it’s becoming a bit hard because the older boy is trying to find a game that Jack actually has a chance of beating him at. They play a couple of games, but Alex is still getting better scores than Jack since he has played them before. It’s close with the basketball one, but Alex still comes out on top. With not a lot of options to give his boyfriend a fighting chance, he ends up going with the light that goes in a circle. He tells Jack how to play and goes over to one of the other colors. Finally, Jack wins more tickets than Alex. The smile on Jack’s face makes this whole day that much better.
When they are both done, they go over to the machine and have it count their tickets. Jack thinks that it’s a pretty big number, but Alex knows that it really isn’t. They go up to the counter, and that’s when Jack realizes that they don’t have a lot of opinions, and it looks like all of it is rather cheap looking. He just looks at them all and tries to think of what the best option would be for the most stuff. It’s kind of hard though since Jack isn’t that good at math.
“That one,” Alex tells the guy as he points to one.
Jack looks at the ticket cost and knows that that is the only thing that they are going to be able to get. The guy takes the paper with the ticket count on it and then hands Alex the prize that he picked out. It’s a ring that is made out of some kind of metal and has a fake and small blue gem. Alex takes Jack’s hand and puts the ring in it.
“Why are you giving this to me? That’s the only thing that we can get, and it’s your birthday.”
“Yeah, but your my boyfriend now. Besides, I earned most of the tickets, so I get the most say.”
Jack looks down at the ring in his hand. “... Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” He gives Jack a kiss on the cheek. “I have a chain at home that you can put that on if you want.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“So, did you have a good day?”
“Yes, and did you have a good birthday?”
“It was perfect.”

Notes

I'm back and staying!
I didn't write during my last month of school. There were too many school things going on. Well, I'm no longer a high school student, and now I have more time to write and read. (Hopefully video games won't take control...)
The idea of the other couple came months ago during the last episode. I'm also not a big fan of this chapter. Although, I love that cute bit at the beginning with the skee ball and also at the end with that ring. Cuteness!
Anyway, I hope that you liked it!