Neil
walked there enjoyed the nice wind that only comes in late fall. Neil considered
himself a big fan of wind. Windy days are the best, he thought.
He stepped up onto the little
concrete thingy (Neil didn’t really care what it was really called) that was
below the front door and rang the doorbell. No one answered, and Neil began to
wonder if she had suddenly developed plans and wasn’t going to be able to hang
out. He worried if he’d taken too long getting over to her house.
He glanced down at the clothes he was
wearing to see if they were the culprit, realized how ridiculous a fear it was,
and then looked up back at the door when Asta opened it.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she said, “How are you?”
“I’m alright,” Neil said, clearing
his throat. He was getting distracted by her eyes and was having trouble
focusing on what he was supposed to say next. “How… about you?”
“Good,” she said.
Asta stood in the doorway for a few
seconds.
“Oh,” she said, stepping aside,
appearing to not be used to having friends come over to her house and hang out,
“Sorry.”
“It’s not a problem,” Neil said,
stepping inside. He recognized everything. It looked more or less as it had
when he’d last seen it. The carpets were light blue, as were the walls and
ceiling. The furniture was all white. The television was the only thing in the
living room that didn’t fit the rest. It was a flatscreen, and was an off
white, eggish color.
“So,” Asta said.
“So,” Neil said, when she didn’t say
anything else, “How was school?”
“It was ok,” she said, “Kind of
boring.” She closed the door behind him.
“Did anything interesting happen?”
Neil asked.
“Not really,” Asta said.
“I gotcha,” Neil said.
“How about you?” Asta asked, “Have
you been doing anything interesting?”
“My parents are telling me that
they’ll teach me… uh… magic… I guess.”
“Magic?” Asta said, eyes widening
only slightly.
“I’m a Grey,” Neil said, “Whatever
that means. I’m not even entirely sure.”
They were still standing in the
foyer, except now they were doing so silently. “Uh,” Asta said, “I was thinking
maybe we could play some Reckoning?”
“You have Reckoning?” Neil asked, not
attempting to hide any surprise.
“Who doesn’t?” Asta asked, “It broke
sales records on the day it was released. Which, I guess I’m trying to say,
means that it’s more likely than not that someone has it in their house.” She
itched her elbows.
“You didn’t strike me as a video…
gamer,” Neil said, “And it’s really cool that you are. I am definitely up for some Reckoning.”
“I’m not very good,” Asta said,
walking towards the couch in the living room.
“Oh,” Asta said, “I only have one
controller.”
“I saw that,” Neil said, “We can
trade off every time one of us dies.”
“That is what I was thinking too,”
Asta said. She smiled.
Neil realized what it was about her
eyes that kept distracting him; they were absolutely beautiful, perfect almond
shapes of bright green.
The next two hours consisted of Neil
discovering that Asta wasn’t too bad at video games once she had the user
interface explained to her. Neil wasn’t sure if it was the game’s fault or not.
He’d picked it up pretty quickly. She shied away from multiplayer though, and
wouldn’t let him touch it.
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