Raph ducked underneath Carmen’s Electroshock, and the bolt of lightning leaped from their rooftop terrace, cracking through the sky. Daniel watched from the sidelines, beside Mr. Stone and Cedric. They stood in the open section of the rooftop terrace, a few feet away from the blue line marking the boundary of their arena around the patio tables and chairs.
They only had one round. Carmen left Chip in place and retreated between two tables, and Raph pursued her with a blockstring, ignoring Chip. The moment she caught a break, she acted out the commands for Electroshock once again. Raph flinched into a block, but he was facing Carmen — not Chip, the one who actually fired.
As the lightning paralyzed him, Carmen wailed away at his midsection before launching him into the air with an uppercut. Chip followed him into the air and continued the combo, punching Raph down through a patio table. The fragile wood shattered underneath his weight.
Red consumed his healthbar.
“K.O.!” the referee announced, raising Carmen’s hand into the air once she landed. “Electrica wins!”
Cedric applauded, and Mr. Stone nodded slightly, stroking his beard. Daniel rushed over to Carmen, arms open wide for a hug. Carmen’s face brightened as she opened her arms, too. But, when Daniel realized who they were around, he dropped his arms, sheepishly scratching his head as Carmen held her hands behind her back.
He cleared his throat. “Nice one. You did great.”
Meanwhile, the referee revived Raph and pulled him from the table wreckage, repairing it instantly in a flash of blue light. Raph slumped into a chair. “Dammit. I thought I had that one.”
“Rafiq. Language,” Mr. Stone said, taking a seat beside him.
“My bad, bro, but that’s still my second loss back to back! What else am I supposed to do?”
“Well, let’s see. Carmen, as his opponent, what flaw did you notice in Rafiq’s playstyle?”
Carmen winced. “Are you sure you aren’t gonna be mad at me?”
“Nah, you’re good! I need to know this, for real.”
“Well, you were really easy to trick. Like, you’re so aggressive in your offense that you didn’t notice every time I snuck Chip behind you,” she said. Perched atop her shoulder, Chip silently laughed.
“Interesting observation. As a spectator, what did you observe, Daniel?”
“The same thing. It was kinda like you were just tunnel visioning on her and your dodgeballs.”
“As the other spectator, I’ll have to agree,” Cedric said. “No offense, but it's people like you that make me glad to be a Grappler. I take honor in being the one to teach you a lesson.”
Mr. Stone nodded. “I agree with their observations, too. You spend too much time playing fast, Rafiq, when you need to spend more time playing slow.”
“Playing slow? Huh?”
“Yes. I read about it long ago in a chapter of a book on theory behind the mindsets of Fighters — I must purchase copies for you all one day. But, essentially, there are two thought processes that your brain flips between when it comes to accomplishing tasks. Daniel, what’s two plus two?”
“Four.”
“Do you see how quickly you answered that? It was effortless and automatic, so we’ll call that System One. Now, answer this, Rafiq. What’s sixteen times twenty three?”
Raph knit his eyebrows. “Uh…well, ten times twenty’s two hundred, so—”
“Stop. See how you had to slow down and methodically calculate the answer for that? That is System Two. System One is acting on autopilot, while System Two is acting with conscious thought.
“Daniel, for example, constantly relies on his System Two method of thinking,” Mr. Stone continued. “In order to land his Counter, he must focus on his opponent’s habits and the timing of their attacks to predict what they do next, because that’s all he can do. On the other hand, you and Carmen have movesets versatile enough to switch systems at any moment, but while Carmen relies more on her System Two, you rely more on your immediate, automatic impulses.”
Raph’s shoulders slumped. “So you’re tryna say I suck ‘cause I don’t think enough.”
“I never said not thinking was a bad thing. Both are necessary,” he said. “Carmen’s overreliance on her System Two thinking makes her slow. You were able to stay aggressive for most of the fight because it takes her time to figure out how to trick you.” Mr. Stone put a hand on Rafiq’s shoulder. “You are a very intelligent person. We just need to practice more on discerning when to act and when to stop and think.
“But…” Mr. Stone rose to his feet, leaning on his cane. “That’s for next time. Good job, everyone.”
As he led the way to the rooftop stairs, Daniel hurried over to be first to the door, holding it open. They each thanked him, but it wasn’t their thanks he was looking forward to — it was the thanks and the sweet smile of the person last in line. Her gaze before she continued down the stairs in front of him was enough of a reward.
Daniel closed the door behind him, and tapped her on the shoulder as they descended. The moment she looked back up at him, he buried his hands in his pockets, trying — and failing — to fake whistle. When he turned back, Chip was right in his face, and he jumped in surprise.
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Before long, they made it back down to their floor. Cedric said his goodbyes, and they each filed away into their hotel rooms. Daniel let Raph enter their room first, and waited until Mr. Stone was back in his own room before knocking on Carmen’s door.
She opened the door on his first knock, already waiting to pull him into a tight hug. “Goodnight, Daniel. It isn’t rough sleeping by Rafiq, is it?”
He shook his head, face full of her curly hair. “Don’t worry, it’s all good. Just as good as I hope your night is.”
Once they pulled apart, Carmen raised her finger. “Never have I ever hugged someone outside of my family for more than twenty seconds.”
They both dropped a finger, losing another life in their eternal game of Never Have I ever. Once Daniel made it back to his room, Rafiq was standing on top of the bed, his face like a bomb of excitement ready to explode.
He pointed towards the wall they shared with Carmen’s room, raising his eyebrows.
Daniel nodded quickly, a smile spreading across his face.
“Let’s go!” Rafiq shouted, pumping his fist in the air as he jumped off of the bed and pat Daniel hard on the back. “When did you ask her out?! Did you ask her out at the—”
“At that snail place yesterday? Yessir!”
A knock at the door interrupted their celebration. Daniel opened the door for Mr. Stone to peek his head in. “You two do realize it’s nine o’clock at night, right? We are not the only ones in the hotel. Please respect how late it is.”
“Shoot. Sorry,” Daniel said, nodding as he gazed at the floor in shame.
“Yea. My bad, too, teach.”
“If you do not mind my asking, what were you two even so loud about?”
“Music,” Daniel blurted out.
“Sports,” Raph snapped at the same time.
“Huh. Okay…”
----------------------------------------
Carmen left her room immediately, but Mr. Stone was there, outside of Daniel and Rafiq’s room, closing the door. “Oh, hello, Carmen,” he said. “Where are you headed?”
“Just on a walk.” Worry made her heart jump as she clutched the Memory Mint in her fist. He was the last person she expected to see. “Need to get some fresh air.”
“Oh, okay. I still have my shoes on, so I can go with you, if you’d like.”
“No, you don’t have to! I just gotta clear my head, anyway.”
“I’m sorry Carmen, but if no one’s going with you, you must stay here at the hotel.” His expression softened. “I cannot risk your well-being again.”
“Please, Mr. Stone? I’m not going that far. I’m just walking to the cafe across the street.” She raised the pitch of her voice at the end, laying the sincerity on thick. Somehow, she had to test it out, and she couldn’t hold the anticipation back.
Mei said she had the most potential, after all. What did that mean?
“The one in view from your balconies?” Mr. Stone stroked his beard. “I’ll ask Daniel and Rafiq to keep a lookout, but you must return by nine-thirty. And keep your phone on. If you don’t answer, we’ll be over there immediately.”
“Alright! I’ll be back, then!”
He let her go after that, and Carmen set a timer on her phone for ten minutes before she had to be back. It gave her a twenty minute window to find an opponent to test the Memory Mint on. She couldn’t challenge anyone ranked too high above her, or winning would make the others suspicious on how her rank had jumped so far.
But, another part of her was entirely focused on something different, the source of all the shouting mere minutes ago.
Daniel.
Her heart fluttered as she reached the hotel lobby, replaying the entire scene on the balcony in her mind once again, just to ensure it was real — that he really confessed to her. Of course she remembered his words that day. No one had ever been that nice or sincere with her, let alone holding her hand, speaking years’s worth of kindness without a word.
Ever since that day, she’d wanted to bring it up, but it felt wrong to break the ice, considering he never did, either. His silence didn’t help, either. After so long, she let the dream go, writing it off to the hopes of the naive girl within for her to have a chance at anything more than friends.
But she didn’t have to, anymore. As she left the hotel, she glanced at Daniel’s balcony, continuing down the street, ensuring no one was watching yet.
She shot him a quick text, asking for him to cover for her while she looked for an opponent to test a combo on. Daniel responded in seconds. Her eyes scanned his thumbs up emoji as his words echoed through her mind.
I’ve been too afraid to ask you about it because you never responded and I was afraid you’d say no.
He was afraid? Only twice had she seen him truly afraid — the first was the crushing existential fear the day he arrived in this world, when she and her father went with him to the Fighting Center. The second was how tightly he hugged her after saving her from the debris, with his desperate glance as Apex and her ten underlings surrounded them kept as an honorable mention.
Asking her out was just as bad to him?
He was better than her, there. Alternate dimensions, death, and rejection were what scared him, not stuff as petty as whether or not his parents were watching, or if he’d fail, or even talking to strangers. Compared to her, he was invincible.
A warmth filled her heart as she thought back to their cooperative fight against Bullet Fandango. With him at her side, she felt invincible, too, like she could take on the world — and even if she couldn’t, he’d be there to cover her.
Her eyes drifted to a sign inside of a store as she strolled by. Paris, the city of love. Maybe they really aren’t wrong.
But, she didn’t come here just to dream about love. Carmen swiped her menu open at her wrist, navigating to the Fighter menu and starting matchmaking, searching for a nearby opponent around the same rank. As the matchmaker worked, she opened her phone and navigated to her list of blocked numbers, and the singular entry.
Monique.
Carmen’s shoulders slumped as she walked, and a pit formed in her stomach. On a night like this, most normal girls with friends would call one up to vent in excitement about finally getting a boyfriend. She’d seen it in movies. And yet, here she was.
Friendless.
The white line at her wrist flashed yellow with a high-pitched ringing noise. A notification spawned into the air. “Match found. Please proceed to the highlighted opponent.”
The menu bar expanded to a minimap, displaying the location of her opponent, Montana — only a block and a short jog away. In a dark alleyway between two buildings, a man in a white long coat leaned over an old woman, clutching her tight in a hug.
Carmen could barely trace the movements of her lips.
“I love you.”
Montana sank his teeth into her neck with a gut-wrenching crunch. With every passing second, the color drained from her skin. When he let her go, her body dropped to the floor, white and clammy. Montana turned to face Carmen — his features made it obvious he was Mexican, too, but his blood-red eyes and sharp fangs meant he was something else.
A vampire.