I Just Wanna Buy You Some Juice

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"Meet me at the station, tomorrow night at seven." Those had been the quiet words carried on Patch's breath before she scurried away, across the soccer field to meet Melody.

That had been almost twenty-four hours ago, and Bon Bon still couldn't get over the fact that, before she charged to see the old vase the rockstar had found, she actually acknowledged her. Normally Patch was the type to run off without thinking anything through, and often that meant just forgetting about whoever it was she was talking to in her haste to study the fun thing of the day.

It was a fairly common occurrence, anyway, and it wasn't until the problem was fixed that she truly knew how much it'd bothered her.

Bon Bon's thoughts continued in their normal sugar-crazed rabbit trails as she tapped her hoof a bit impatiently. She'd been seated on a plastic chair in Ponyland Train Station's waiting section for a full thirty minutes. She knew that the peach pony had a habit of being late for stuff, but thirty minutes? Yeah, if she was late, she probably just distracted herself by thinking she saw some paranormal thing, like always-

...Or, maybe she was on her way right that second. That made sense too, she supposed. But she would still demand an explanation because date or not, being late was rude.

"Hey!"

...It was strange how her thoughts just happened to go right with what happened, Bon Bon mused a bit grumpily as she tried not to turn around too quickly in her seat… but failed miserably and ended up whipping around, as if she was happy to see the horse with the hat which, no way!, she wasn't that excited to see. "Hey Bon Bon," she greeted with a big grin as she got closer.

"What took you so long?"

"Why are you here so early? It's only seven thirty five." Patch gazed questioningly at her friend. "Well, I guess I was a little late…"

"You can say that again," Bon Bon retorted, getting the message. "You set this thing for seven, not seven thirty."

The grin fell off of Patch's face. "Oh. Really? Whoops."

Bon Bon rolled her eyes and turned around in her seat. "Yeah. 'Whoops.'" Yay. Her cold-seeming reaction was working. She didn't seem desperate enough to just accept Patch's tardiness!

"B-But Bon Bon, who cares if we have a half hour less than we could have? We'll have a great time anyway. We're at the station! They have all kinds of cool stuff here." Patch nodded emphatically.

Trying not to sound too interested, Bon Bon echoed back, "Cool stuff?" Stations were… places where trains came into and left Ponyland. Often they carried in tourists, set on the warm weather and filling up lines at restaurants.

"There's an arcade, a movie theater, and a mini-amusement park here," Patch replied, her grin coming back. "Betcha you didn't notice that the last time you were here, ah?"

Actually, no. She'd been too terrified out of her skin that she was going to get jumped by someone. "No," Bon Bon quickly replied.

It'll be fun! All we need to do is figure out what to do first. You know, because there's so much fun stuff here. You're the one who I'm taking on this date, sooooh… hate to break it to ya, but that's your deal."

"So this is really a date?" Bon Bon cut across. Honestly, uncertainty

"Sure. My very first one. S-Since we got into this whole relationship thing." A slight blush, pink in color, spread across her muzzle. "You've been on them before, so, uh, I thought you could… show me the ropes."

Memories of dates past filled Bon Bon's thoughts, and honestly, every last one of them was pretty awful. Back in Mecklenburger boys broke her heart as a game. The one with Ace was, admittedly, nice, but… it was hard to recall how easily she'd fallen for his charm and had her heart broken anyway. But Patch wouldn't do that… right?

Whatever the case, she had a bad track record with romance.

So Bon Bon shook her head. "N-No, you lead."

The genuine smile Patch gave her was enough to tell her that no, she didn't have that particular intention with at least some confidence. She could have still been lying, though.

Patch's ears perked up a bit. "Yeah. Let's get going. Uh, does the arcade work for you?"

Bon Bon climbed off the hard plastic chair, not forgetting the satchel she'd brought along. It'd once been filled to the brim with oatmeal raisin cookies for them to share. Key word: once been. "Okay. That's fine."

⁂⁂⁂

Bon Bon legitimately stopped in her tracks as she stopped the slight dash that Patch had set their pace at. Her azure eyes were as wide and disbelieving while her jaw hung limply.

Did that room even qualify as an arcade?

The room was a backwater room crammed in between a sub place and a trio of doors with different signs on them; triangle for girls, circles for boys, and squares for important ponies. The restrooms and a sub place.

And the thing was TINY; at least four of them could fit in her room with room to spare. And there were only a few games: the claw machine, a tower drop game, some racing one involving jets and not rams (What the…?), and one of those shooting-hoops things, though that was clearly made for babies, with the low height of the thing. There was a Pong and Space Invaders table, rolled up in one, though the Space Invaders portion had an "Out of Order" sign taped to it.

The sound of a toilet flushing nextdoor broke her shocked silence.

"Impressed, ah?" Patch said, smirking a bit as she noted Bon Bon's disbelief.

"...This… is an arcade…?"

Patch nodded. "Ah-hah. What makes you think otherwise?"

"Um… they're bigger. And have enough room to walk in. And we normally race in games with sheep, not planes." She added another note of disbelief to the last point.

"You play racing games with sheeps?" She enunciated a "baaah" sound. "Like that kind of sheep?"

"Why would you do it with planes? There aren't any obstacles in the sky. That's sorta dumb. And This place… it's so tiny." Bon Bon imagined sticking her hoof in the hoops thing, and she would actually be able to brush her hoof against the hoop.

"There are bigger arcades in Ponyland, you silly," Patch responded, amusement in her voice. She slung a hoof around Bon Bon's shoulders and pulled her in close. "And even if there weren't, we'll have plenty of fun, right?"

Bon Bon jumped slightly at the gesture at first… then relaxed and smiled meekly, a red blush shamefully developing under her coat. "Sure."

⁂⁂⁂

And… have fun they did. Bon Bon wasn't a big fan of too many arcade games, with the exception of Pong (Pac-Man and Space Invaders stressed her out). The tower drop was okay too, but that wasn't really much of a game, considering the fact that it was just pushing a button and hoping to get some jangles to pour out of the machine where half the spaces had "0" written next to them.

But it was the claw machine that had Patch sucked in. A determined look set across her face as she steered the claw at the top of the machine. Nothing distracted her, though she did sometimes take breaks from playing to play rounds of Pong with her. But more often she was leaning forward, poised at the claw machine. "I need to win you something, Bon Bon," she explained, as she inserted another jangle into the machine. "I need to win!"

Bon Bon sighed and seated herself in the jet game's seat, watching as Patch concentrated and concentrated. She was only too conscious of the number of jangles her friend was spending… how many did she have, anyway? She was whipping them out of her satchel left-and-right and without abandon. Bon Bon didn't keep count, but she wished she had.

She instead kept count of the number of toilet flushes there were. There were about thirty by the time she came up with a valid excuse why she should stop wasting all of her jangles: "Patch, I don't even-"

It was by then that Patch had finally plucked something out of the pool of cheap toys, and it landed in the prize boxy-thing. What irony.

Patch smirked and whipped the toy out of the box. "Hah! See? Who says a bit of determination does no good? And I got you this brown and white… fuzzy thing." She waved the stuffed toy around triumphantly.

In spite of the cuteness of Patch jumping around and holding that thing up, Bon Bon still had the urge to tell her that she'd wasted all of her allowance (or, perhaps, her parents might have given her extra for the date), that she'd been ripped off. However, she was trained in the art of not saying what she really thought, kept a stiff muzzle and instead just responded, "Good for you."

Patch quit her jumping and stood solemnly in front of Bon Bon. She passed it over to her and smiled. "Eh, this is for you."

Bon Bon picked up the fuzzy thing and could practically feel the cheap stuffing inside of it. And she honestly couldn't tell what it was; it was one of those little stuffed balls in two colors that had a shape, but only a very simple face that gave no clues. It was the thought that counted, anyway. "Thanks."

The yellow pony got the distinct idea that she was supposed to lean over and kiss Patch's cheek, but her face turned red with the thought alone. at the thought. There was NO WAY that was she doing that.

"You're welcome, Bonsy," Patch responded a bit loudly, her grin turning a little bit shier as she noted the blush. "What now?"

It was Bon Bon's stomach grumbling loudly that answered her question. Bon Bon put her hooves over it and felt it vibrating. She looked at the ground shamefully as Patch chuckled. "Alright, come on, you foodie. We'll go get something to eat."

The yellow pony's heart admittedly did a flop as the nickname came out of Patch's mouth. She laughed nervously to try and dispel her own insecurity. "Um… yes please."

Patch grabbed her friend's hoof and pulled her off of the seat, and their eyes met for a moment. Normally it wasn't much to note, but Bon Bon really didn't want eye contact right then. "Let me hold that for you," Patch said after a few seconds, motioning with her head towards the satchel around Bon Bon's shoulder.

Instinctually Bon Bon angled said shoulder away, remembering the goods that once made that place special. Plus, her diary, where she wrote all of her deepest, darkest secrets, was shifting inside of it. "N-No, that's fine."

"I'm not gonna look through your stuff," Patch added, somewhat complacently. "I mean, you'll be right there and able to kick me in the face if I try, right?"

Yeah… no. "No, I'm fine"

Patch huffed in mock annoyance. "Oh, Bon Bon, you are so missing the point. This is the first date. Let a girl be romantic for a change."

Bon Bon rolled her eyes and then gave the jokester a long, sharp look. "Fine, but if you touch it, I won't trust you anymore." She didn't know whether she was telling the truth or not, but that was the only thing she could think of that would bother Patch.

Patch rolled her eyes in response. "Dramatic, much…? Alright, fine. Whatever." She lifted the bag off of Bon Bon's head and threw it around her own shoulder, on top of her own satchel. "Alright, let's head to Subway."

And it was only a minute or so before the pair was sitting around in the Subway at the station and waiting for one of the service attendance ponies to get to them. Most of the traffic was probably elsewhere (Ponyland had a few rare types of food that were pretty exclusive). Hence, it wasn't long until a white server with a blue mane arrived, holding a notepad in his hooves. A bright green and golden yellow vest covered his chest. He couldn't have been too much older than Misty, Bon Bon's older sister, and had acne strung across his face. "Welcome to Subway. What do you want?"

"Subs," Patch responded before snickering. "Alright, alright. BB, you order first."

Luckily, Bon Bon had a refined taste pallet and said, her voice loud and clear, "A foot-long with tomatoes, lettuce, banana peppers, bologna, salami, onions, bacon, and mayonnaise, with a heaping helping of pepper, please."

The server's blue eyes widened. "What?! That's… that's everything on the menu that can go on a regular sub. Are you sure?"

Bon Bon nodded her approval and licked her lips. "Yes please." She happened to glance over at Patch, who was giving her a look, like she thought that Bon Bon was being the cutest thing ever. She blushed a bit, just hoping that the server didn't catch her or her friend in the act. That would be embarrassing.

"I'll just split that with her, then. Are you thirsty, Bon Bon?"

Bon Bon glanced around briefly, setting her eyes on a water fountain just a little bit away. Then she returned her gaze to Patch and responded, "No, not really. There's a wat-"

"So we'll have one, nice tall bottle of apple juice to go with that," Patch added, winking at Bon Bon. Bon Bon's ears just fell as annoyance came over her eyes.

Bon Bon gave Patch a stern look. Weren't friends supposed to listen to other friends? And, even more so, weren't boyfriend and girlfriend (girlfriends?) supposed to do that really well?

"Will you have the funds to pay for that, kid?" the blue-maned pony asked. "I saw you playing around in the arcade. Where are your parents, anyway?"

Patch put her hoof down on the table with more force than necessary. "None of your business. I'm sure we have enough plenty."

"Why don't you pay, then?" the teen responded. "Eleven jangles."

Patch swung Bon Bon's bag around so it was on her other shoulder and rummaged around in her own bag. There were some sounds of jangles clinking together as Patch managed to gather them up.

After a bit, she pulled out several jangles and counted them up. "Nine," she replied, grinning. "Just two more."

The server and Bon Bon exchanged an awkward glance as Patch muttered under her breath, sifting around for the last coins she needed. She plucked out one more, but then grinned nervously at the server. "The sub is nine, the juice is two," he replied with a weary sigh. "Just skip the juice and give me nine-"

"No. Uh, just give me a second." Patch spun the bag around to it was right in front of her and started taking out the various items inside. A flashlight, a novel she was reading, a small field guide about pirates, and a bangle were amongst the things she started laying across the table. Bon Bon put her hoof on her forehead and shook her head in annoyance. All for a juice she didn't even want…

Without warning, the peach pony jumped down to the ground, her eyes scanning the white tiles like a hawk looking for a mouse. Bon Bon could tell exactly what she was hoping for, but the server asked, "What are you doing?"

"Looking for a jangle," Patch replied, not looking up.

Bon Bon sighed, annoyance in the sound. "I have some jangles. I can pay for the juice."

"That's okay," Patch retorted. "I have a jangle around here somewhere…" She felt around on her flanks, as if she had some kind of pockets there. Then she removed the yellow cap she was wearing and checked in there to no avail.

"Why do you care so much?" Bon Bon asked, raising an eyebrow as Patch slid away on her stomach, still determinedly looking for one of the little gold coins. Patch had the strangest priorities known to ponykind. But she normally had some kind of reason, however unorthodox. She wouldn't be able to be friends with her if she didn't know that.

Patch looked up at the yellow pony with a strange look on her face. Not a "what the heck are you talking about?" strange, but an indescribable strange. Kind of like the innocent look that a little boy wore when he were asking his mother whether or not Santa was real. But that was the closest thing to it, because she also looked vaguely annoyed. "But I just wanna buy you some juice."

The server groaned and rolled his eyes. "Kid, are you going to give me nine jangles or not?"

Patch practically slammed her rump down on the seat and declared, "You know, I prefer taking the third option with things. I'll take that apple juice for two jangles."

"Huh?!"

The server already seemed to have grown weary of Patch's weirdness and took two jangles from the pile she had on the table. Then he trotted away quickly, as if he didn't want to ever come back.

Bon Bon turned her attention to her eccentric friend and put on an annoyed look. "What was that for? I didn't even want juice!" She crossed her forehooves and gave her friend her stare. Yeah, she was annoyed over juice in spite of her good intentions, but… she was hungry, what could she do?

Patch put her head on her hoof and sighed. "Is it a crime to want to buy juice for you? Because that's what I was doing."

"But I'm hungry!" Bon Bon patted her grumbling stomach for emphasis and then leaned back in her seat, pouting.

"My mom'll have cookies for us when we get out of here, so stop complaining." Patch actually grinned to herself. Bon Bon guessed that she was about to comment on something 'cute' that she was doing. Because she seemed to think Bon Bon was cute somehow. Yeah, Patch was weird.

But to her surprise, Patch looked away and looked over the restaurant. "Gosh, what is taking him so long? Does it really take this long to get a juice?"

Because he's dragging his hooves about dealing with you again. Bon Bon smiled a bit as she looked over at the peach pony. It really was nice of her to want to buy her some juice. Even if it did come at the cost of filling her stomach with a delicious sub. It was a huge improvement from leading her on just to get a lemonade recipe.

"You know, Bonner… even if I couldn't buy you juice, I'd give you my juice any day."

And, in all of her quirks… Patch still managed to be sweet in her own way. Bon Bon smiled and reached her hoof across the table in a burst of confidence. She put it on top of her hoof and smiled. "I know."

⁂⁂⁂

Well, I was a day late in getting this out in August like I intended to do so... so sorry about that. I'll try to work on another story to be released soon, so you guys should expect to see something from me sometime in September! If not, come by and hit me with a rubber chicken, will ya? I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, my inspiration for this story is the third opening from Sgt. Frog, my favorite anime: "Kimi ni Juice wo Katte Ageru." That's Japanese for I Want To Buy You Some Juice." It's a catchy and fun song, if you ever randomly find yourself on YouTube (don't we all...) and the show is really funny.

But here's what really got me eager enough for all these words (like, whoa, they're so tiny) to pour out of my head. And that is the return of a writer of Tales times past: formerly Bright101Eyes, allow me to present to you MsBrightEyesAndTimeTea. In addition to being a groovy person, she's an active writer these past few days, and wouldn't you know it... she has a PatchBon story (that I inspired the first chapter of)! It's called Masquerade, and it'll be a series of PatchBon oneshots. And even if you aren't a PatchBon shipper but are here reading this PatchBon story by a PatchBon shipper, then she has another story that she intends to finish, Love and Loss. So go bombard her with your welcomes and happiness!