Disclaimer: Do not own Ant Farm

Chapter 13

Fletcher was having an awesome time so far in Tokyo. He was at the Mega Arcade (The Mega Arcade!) with Angus and Tyler, and between the three of them they had spent hours laying to waste anybody who dared to challenge them in any video game. Whether it was free person shooters, sports games, puzzle games, even Pacman, no one had even come close to sniffing a victory against them. Even the regular customers – Japanese, grungy looking kids with long, dyed hair and unkempt clothes - lost to them, even after rematch after rematch after rematch.

Needless to say, they had made a killing in quarters and tokens.

It wouldn't be long until they reached the necessary 35 billion tokens needed to win the grand prize – whatever it was – and it really was thanks to Tyler. He wasn't lying about being the world's best video gamer!

Over time, Fletcher noticed that the Mega Arcade had gotten quieter and quieter. He looked at the time. He noticed that it was still pretty early. So why was it suddenly near empty?

Angus answered his unspoken question. "It's us. We sucked the fun out of this place. We've got the top record on every single machine and nobody has any hope of ever reaching it."

Fletcher let out a small "oh," then shrugged.

"Yep," Tyler agreed. The boy was taller than both Angus and Fletcher so they had to look up when he spoke, "I guess we should pretty much bounce. Nothing else to do here."

Nothing much for Tyler to do anyway.

But Fletcher wanted to stay. His pride wouldn't let him acknowledge the fact that there wasn't a single record of Tyler's that he could break, or at least tie. He stayed long after Angus and Tyler left. After futile effort and futile effort, not a single record of Tyler's was touched.

Fletcher realized that he had run out of money, and it was time to leave. He really should just stick to art.

He made the short walk back to the hotel. Once there, he spied immediately that Asian girl again. She was with a bunch of friends, all in designer clothes, and armed to their shoulders with shopping bags.

Ah, he should've figured the girl was rich.

Again, it was like the girl had a radar in the back of her head! She snapped her head to him, and this time he wasn't so surprised that she smiled. A little confused, maybe. What would a girl like that be interested in him for?

Over the summer, he had sensed increasing attention from girls wherever he went. Sometimes they would look at him and then look away, the bolder ones would say hi and the ones with no fear at all would introduce themselves. But a girl like that Asian girl looked way too out of his league. Why would she be interested in him?

He felt a small flicker of confidence stir inside him. Maybe, he should find out. The girl had already spotted him twice, and didn't turn away. She probably wouldn't turn away if he'd go over to say hi, would she?

Her eyes were still on him as he made to walk over. His confidence got higher and higher as he got closer. So what if he didn't manage to say anything witty or charming or smooth when he opened his mouth to chat it up with all the random girls he'd met this summer? This time, he was sure it'd be different. He was going to be Mister Suave and that girl will be swooning head over heels for him.

But then he was yanked rudely in the opposite direction. If the girl he wanted to talk to was South, then Fletcher was forced to make a hard, hard right, going West. Someone was leading him away from the girl, and had a vice grip on his wrist.

"H-hey!" He sputtered helplessly.

After some distance was made, the yank-er stopped. Fletcher was about to give the person a good piece of his mind until he saw who it was.

Suddenly he forgot all about that Asian girl. There was only Chyna.

"Oh hey, Chyna! Uhm, what was that just about?"

Chyna flashed him the widest smile he had seen in the longest time. "Oh, what? Oh, that! It's nothing, I just really wanted to show you something."

Fletcher perked up. "Really? What do you want to show me?"

There was a pause. Then Chyna laughed, a sputtering, halting laugh. "Oh, what do I want to show you? …I can't tell you, it's a surprise!" Her shoulders bobbed up and down as she laughed.

She led him to an intersection of two main hallways in the hotel, and stopped. She looked both ways, and after a moment, she shrugged and went left. He followed, but it all felt a little weird. It was as if she picked the direction at random.

She led him up a flight of stairs that he wouldn't have seen if she hadn't picked it. They went up and around the corner, which led to an arched passageway. He followed her through the arched passageway and gasped. They had been to the hotel garden before, but this was a part of the garden that he hadn't seen yet.

They were on top of a hill that oversaw the whole garden. The passageway behind them was several feet deep front to back, so it formed a nice cover over the two of them. He could see small, makeshift rivers; people traveling on them in canoes; hedges of flowers and plants that formed complicated, pretty mazes; then there was the afternoon sun. It was setting now, and it made orange and pink colors as it mixed with the rest of the sky.

"This is cool," was all he could say.

Chyna laughed. This laugh was different from that sputtering, halting laugh from earlier. It was deep, rich, from the belly. "T-that's, all you can say? I think this is really beautiful."

Fletcher shrugged. Yea, that was something a girl would say.

Down the hill, he spied three girls skipping and hollering on the concrete. He saw chalk marks on the floor. They were playing hopscotch. Suddenly, he was met with inspiration.

He raced down the hilltop, barely hearing Chyna yelling, "Fletcher! Hey, what you up to?" Halfway down, he turned and motioned for her to keep up, and then he turned back around to reach the bottom of the floor.

The young girls didn't notice him approaching them until he was standing right there where they were playing. They spoke to him in rapid Japanese, none of which made any sense at all to him. He wished Olive was here to translate.

"Listen," he implored to them. He looked to them, and the sunset, and back to the kids again. He didn't have a lot of time. "I need your chalk. All of it." He motioned to the dozens of chalk they had on the concrete next to them.

Again, they chattered at him in rapid Japanese. He was fairly sure they weren't saying, "Oh sure mister. You can have all of it, by all means." They definitely wanted him to leave them alone.

Fletcher noticed the sun resting lower and lower in the sky. "Please?" He begged, growing red with the increasing desperation for the chalk. But they kept hurling at him words that he was sure meant, "Go away!"

After enough begging, he decided that it was now or never. He scooped up the chalk in his arms, ignored the crying, and dashed in the opposite direction, all the way past Chyna. Chyna gasped, "Fletcher. Did you just steal those chalk?"

"No, I'm just borrowing it!" He answered without pausing to stop. He just kept running and running.

Fletcher didn't stop until he reached a concrete walkway similar to where he had "borrowed" the chalk. The walkway was secluded, it curbed around a nice, large chunk of rock that thankfully blocked out the direct heat of the sun on the right. But he still had a good view of the sunset straight North, and the still water of the makeshift river on his left. The passageway hugged the curb of the river.

He heard the footsteps of whom could only belong to Chyna get louder. He started panicking a little bit because he didn't know where would be a nice place to start.

But when Chyna demanded - "Fletcher what's goin on? Why'd you steal the chalk and run off like a fool?" – he made up his mind.

"Chyna, sit," was all he answered.

"Wait. What?"

"Just sit. I'm about to paint a picture of you with the sunset in the backdrop."

Silence was all he got from Chyna. He didn't know what to make of it.

"This will only take 15 minutes. Try to smile, and please don't fidget. I want it juuuust right."

A quiet "ok" was his answer.

Fletcher went to work, fast and furiously. Before long, he finished his handiwork. He got up and took a step back to admire it from another angle. He was proud of his work.

He could feel the blood rushing in his head now. He couldn't predict what Chyna would make of his.

"Ok," he called out finally. "You can take a look now."

Chyna got up from her "seat" and stepped around him to look at the work from his point of view.

Fletcher looked up at Chyna. He wanted to see her reaction. He could've sworn he heard hallelujah choirs singing in the distance. The look on her face, was the exact reaction he wanted. A smile that was all teeth, sparkling, white teeth, beaming down on him.

Now that was what he called beautiful, he thought.