"What?" Rigby jabbed accusatorially at Mordecai, eyes not leaving the bird as the blue jay grabbed a nice white shirt and a salmon colored tie from his closet while avoiding making eye contact with the angry raccoon's harsh gaze. "You said this would be a bro's night, just you and me and our TV, man!"
"Again, I'm sorry Rigby," Mordecai apologized guiltily. "I wanted to do it too, but Margaret really wants me to meet her parents, and I don't want to let her down."
"Why is she so much more important to you than I am?" Rigby raised his voice, a bit bitterly.
"She's not, Rigs, but things are going really well and I wanna keep it that way. Look, I really gotta go, but I promise I'll make it up to you." Mordecai stepped around Rigby to get to the door of his bedroom "Wish me luck, man."
As Mordecai left the bedroom, Rigby shouted after him, "Fine! Whatever! Good luck." The resentment in his voice was palpable, and he muttered under his breath, "Go ahead, now I know getting lucky is more important than your best friend."
Rigby let out a frustrated growl as he left his room to watch something random on the TV. As he rounded the sofa, he posted his left arm on the seat and jumped, letting his legs swing out in front of him as he flopped onto the cushions. He wriggled a bit, trying in vain to find comfort, but he concluded that he was physically incapable of finding such comfort at that time (albeit in much simpler words to his own mind). He told himself it was because of the coarseness of the fur on his back. Liar.
The raccoon's furry brown thumb tapped at the remote control to the television as he skimmed through the variety of channels with disinterest. The blaring volume of the television failed to drown out the brooding of Rigby's thoughts, and to this ambience he resented Mordecai and lamented his own lack of fun things to do without that blue bird on a Saturday. A pouting frown manifested on his face as he relented his frenzied tapping on the remote, and the television settled on the news.
"...in other news, two buses and a chicken truck got hit by a circus train in front of a flea market..."
Rigby laid for a few moments in catatonic despair, until remembering that there was somebody who wanted to be with him: Eileen! Rigby's hand flew up to scratch at the soft, light brown fur under his chin as he confronted himself with the ethicality of possibly leading on Eileen; Rigby knew that she was crushing on him, hard. He liked her too. As a friend. Maybe more? He didn't know. But what he did know was that he needed to be paid attention to and appreciated at that moment.
The diminutive Raccoon tossed a quick glare at the TV as it continued to spew out gloomy news, shouting: "Stop talking!" With a melodramatic wave of his arm, he pointed his remote of power at the television to silence it.
"...tankard full of human waste exploded in front of the pokemon factory. There were no surviv-"
"Hehehe," He chuckled to himself, reveling in his victory. After some of the playful, childish histrionics he so loved to do, in private and sometime in public, he threw the remote control to the floor and hopped to his feet, quickly scurrying to his room where his phone was charging. He pulled up his address book, and found the mole's number. With a tap, he called.
Bleep, bloop. Bleep bloop. Blee- "Hi Rigby, it's Eileen. What's up?"
Rigby paused for a moment. She didn't sound ecstatic that he was calling; in fact, she sounded a bit stressed.
"Umm, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out or something tonight, but if you're too busy thats f-"
"I'd really love to, Rigby! But I'm just about to leave for a little event tonight, and I don't really think you'd be interested..."
"Nah, it's fine, was just wondering," Rigby supplied a bit dejectedly. However, his curiosity was piqued: "Just curious, thought, what event is this?"
"It's a chess tournament. The local chess club does them, and it's my favorite hobby. It'd be really cool if you wanted to come, but I understand if it's just not your thing..." Eileen trailed off again. A conflict of emotion was palpable in how she did that.
Rigby paused. He knew that he was horrible at games, especially when they required smarts. But he didn't have plans for anything else and it was four in the afternoon. "You know what?" Rigby heard himself say as he came to a sudden and adventurous decision, "I kind of wanna come and check it out. When is it?"
On the other side of the line, Eileen, silently made a fist and pulled her arm back in a Yesssss! motion. "Just in an hour, I'll text you the address. It's just within walking distance of the park."
Rigby didn't know what to do with himself when he walked in. He awkwardly stood near the entrance, looking for Eileen in a lobby that couldn't have been much larger than the living room in his house. His phone buzzed, and he quickly pulled it out, read the message, and stuffed it back in frustratedly.
Sorry, Rigby, I'm running a little late, I'll be there in 5!
Rigby gave a harrumph and muttered to himself, adventuring into the lobby. A dozen or so booth tables made of sturdy white plastic were lined across the room in rows, most of them having a variety of people talking, laughing, or playing practice games of chess. The "boards" they all played on were actually roll-out mats with weighted plastic pieces: pretty standard issue, Rigby guessed.
The new environment was intimidating. Rigby's sensitive nosed crinkled at an odd smell that pervaded the two-storied location. To him, the whole place seemed a bit 'hole in the wall;' the club itself was in the corner of a building with a bunch of different and odd little shops and businesses that lined a busy street near the park. The raccoon stalked off to one of the few empty tables, wanting to isolate himself in the face of the annoying ambience of the talking and laughing and playing of all the people he didn't know.
"First round starts in five minutes! Matches are on the board!" barked a coarse bass voice from behind Rigby. Immediately, many of the seated rose to crowd it and raised the general volume with excited chatter.
The raccoon didn't even bother to look; he just sulked a bit and muttered, "If Eileen doesn't show up here fast, she's gonna miss her match..."
"You know Eileen?" piped up a sweet little voice from Rigby's left. He jumped in place, almost losing his balance and falling of his seat. A little girl had seemingly appeared right next to him, and her big, brown eyes stared up at his face.
Rigby scrambled to make a little space on the bench, a bit jarred. "Uh... yeah. I came to watch her play or something" Rigby averted his eyes and spilled out in a more subdued tone, "and have something to do with a friend. I don't actually play chess, I don't even know how."
The little girl paused, not breaking her stare at Rigby's face. "Want to?"
"Huh?"
"Want to know how to play chess?"
"No." Rigby flatly answered. As she cocked her head in surprise from his rather rude reaction, a pang of guilt drove Rigby to quickly correct himself, "err... I mean thanks, but no thanks. I'm really bad at strategy games, and games that smart people play. And games in general..."
With what had to have been almost prodigal skill, she pouted and shifted her face downward while drawling out, "Pleeeeeeeeeeease?"
Rigby almost groaned, but the little girl's face had a power that was almost hypnotic, that only a person with a will of steel or a heart of stone could possibly resist. Rigby looked into her eyes, and noticed that they weren't so different. Sure, they were different generations, different sexes, and different species, but Rigby noticed that the brown on the little girl's skin was the same color as the light brown of his fur. It was enough to make him realize that maybe he's not the only one who feels a bit alone, who's waiting on a friend.
Rigby warmed. "Ok. Teach me chess." She beamed, and scurried off to grab her chess set. Rigby was smiling. It was so subtle to him that the hardly even noticed it, but he felt that he had new life poured into him when so many times before he felt like he'd been scrambling to recover old life. I should get out more, he thought to himself.
When the little girl returned and laid out the mat, dumping the pieces onto the table, Rigby asked her "By the way, my name is Rigby. What's yours?"
"My name is Ava."
AN: Well, this is my first chapter and I'm very new to fic writing! Please read and review. Tell me what's on your mind!
Also, next chapter will be a bit intensive on the specifics of chess, but I've tried to make it something that people who enjoy chess can indulge in the specifics, but those who don't know much about it at all can still swallow it without feeling like the fic is going over their heads.