“I can tell you don’t get out much!”
Enyan grinned as Itakay cautiously sat down at the tiny little table. He’d watched every single movement as Itakay had entered, amused by the way Itakay inspected everyone present and checked every exit, all in the space of a couple of seconds. His mind was still on the job, and it was so obvious.
“I…” Itakay struggled to come up with any sort of comeback, and quickly gave up. “You’re right. I hardly ever go out these days.”
He looked his date up and down. Enyan was older than Itakay by three years, and almost twice his height. He was a kindly Ethran-type, light skin with pale blue and white armour, that Itakay had met online a few years ago, who amazingly lived somewhat locally. He’d always had feelings for Enyan, and when it turned out he had feelings back, they kinda… stopped talking for a while. That was, until Itakay called up from out of the blue and awkwardly tried to arrange a meet up. So there they were, a very mismatched couple, meeting in a very small cafe-bar on the edge of Thre-Etas.
“It’s absolutely fine, Ita!” Enyan was still grinning. He was surprised that Itakay had even showed up. He’d always been an incredibly nervous Rethan, even when chatting online or on a communicator. Part of him expected Itakay to bail out at the last minute, but to his credit, he showed up. “Let’s get some drinks, shall we?”
“Sure…”
Enyan waved for a waiter. “What do you want?”
“Lemonitsa. What I really want is something alcoholic, but it stays in the system so bad and I really don’t want to be caught out.”
“One lemonitsa and a cloudy cocktail please…” the waiter rushed away and Enyan gave Itakay a sad look. “Are they that strict with you?”
“Apparently it depends on your boss. I heard the L-Class were allowed to drink after they no longer worked. The N-Class can’t do anything really. The Vice General is pretty relaxed with us, thankfully, but we like, wear sensors all the time…”
“You’re being monitored?” Enyan suddenly interrupted.
Itakay shrugged. “I guess. Not… really considered it like that. They’re just sensors that keep track of our health. Location sensors too but they need to be turned on manually, and they also activate automatically if someone goes missing for over a month. My job is mostly to just keep track of all other K-Class Ksa, and act as a distanced lookout for the Vice General… I’m talking about work. Sorry.”
The drinks arrived and Itakay nervously drank a lot of his in one go, then quickly regretted it. Enyan stirred his drink with a straw, to make the clouds of dry ice and sugar sprinkles fade away. “You never normally talk about work though. Normally you just talk about electronic games. You played much Collection of Champions lately?”
Another shrug. “Not had time to be honest. Thank heavens for the stop-measures, otherwise I would have dropped out of Gold from inactivity. Who’s currently overpowered?”
“It’s weird. All the tanks got buffed, but then all the carries got buffed to fuck and now it’s basically a free for all.” Enyan noticed that Itakay was more relaxed now he was talking about things he liked. He had stopped checking the entrance every time someone walked in. “I haven’t played as much as I used to though. Been more busy with this Thrope import game. Really fucking good.”
“What is it called?”
“Team Fortress 2. No one knows what Team Fortress 1 looked like, but this free game, holy heck, pretty much every gamer Rethan is playing it. Only problem is that the comms don’t seem to work properly so when we play with Thropes, we get stupidly high ping and can’t voice chat with them.”
Itakay’s eyes lit up. “You can play with other races?”
“Totally. I was playing with a team of Vreka and Thropes last night. Real friendly lot.”
Itakay sighed. “I’ll have to get the game. It’ll take ages to learn though. I don’t think I’ll have much spare time when my break ends. And I want to talk about all sorts of things but… I dunno, it doesn’t feel like stuff to discuss in a cafe.” Itakay called for a waiter, wanting another drink.
“You want to order something to eat as well?” Enyan asked.
“I guess. I really liked the look of that chocolate cake, but I want the murang too…”
“Get both then.”
“That’s greedy.”
“You’re on holiday, have some fun.”
“I guess…”
The waiter arrived again, a very patient Hertan-type with little armor. Itakay asked for another lemonitsa and ordered the cake and merang he wanted. Enyan smiled and ordered a platter for the two of them to share as well.
“You shouldn’t be too worried about being not good yet though!” Enyan reassured him. “I’m still not very good, and the beginner classes are genuinely very well balanced so you can learn easily.”
“You sure?” Itakay hesitated. “You know I hate being a noob. Plus I need to buy it.”
“It’s free.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Itakay finally properly smiled. “Cool!”
“When we’re done here, you want to come over to my place and play together?” Enyan suggested, just as their food arrived.
“I would love that.”