"So where's Dipper and Soos?" I turn towards Mabel as we stand in the middle of the Mall.

I shyly stare at her for a bit, she was wearing the same outfit- but this time she had a white sweater with gray stripes, or is it a gray sweater with white stripes..? She was also wearing a cap, that was new, the front was white with a pink heart, while the rest of the hat was pink. It easily compliments her brown hair which reached up to her waist.

She turns to me. "Well... Dipper went somewhere, he didn't really explain." She says. Feels like she wasn't really sure of herself. "Soos went home to prepare."

"How did Soos meet this girl exactly?" I was quite curious. I just got here with Mabel. Since a few hours ago- Soos met some girl and now gonna hang out, which probably is on a date.

"I don't know either. When we found Soos he was talking to the girl and now they're going on a date!" She said quite excited. I'm not sure who's more excited, her or Soos.

"When do you think they're going to come back?"

She shrugs, "Maybe eight? That's when they're going to meet up."

"It looks like we have a few hours until they get here.." I mutter to myself, she was looking at me probably trying to figure out what I was saying."How 'bout we hang out for now? Since you know.. We were going to hang out at the Mall anyway."

"Hmm.." She pauses for a moment to think, before turning to me with a bright smile, "Sure!"

I look at her awkwardly, not really sure what to say. "I.. Uh- What do you wanna do?"

"I don't know.. What do you wanna do?" She says returning the question to me.

I look around the Mall, trying to find something to satisfy our interest. There's food, shops, arcades, mostly what Malls have obviously.. "Then let's explore everything, how 'bout the arcade first?"

"Yeaah! The arcade!" She looks over excitedly to the arcade, which was close to us. It was quite loud honestly, but that's what you'd expect from an arcade. "CATS!" She gasps as she runs inside.

Cats? There are cats in the arcade? I ran over to her so she doesn't get in trouble. The arcade had tons of games- there were only a few people right now though. Everything was the tone of dark blue, which made the atmosphere quite comfortable.

She stops at one of the claw machines. "What is that?" I look inside the machine, there were plush toys that were cats. She was looking at a pink kitty plush.

She turns to me and shakes me, "I want oneee!" She begs, making puppy eyes to me.

I tense up lightly as blood rush to my face. "Y-Yeah. Of course." I reply timidly from her sudden actions.

I look at the machine, I'd say I'm pretty good at this. Since I've played hundreds of times back home with my old friends. It was frustrating at first, but once you get the hang of it- it would feel like you're scamming them.

I take out a coin and put it in. It hums as the buttons and joystick start blinking. It was a game of luck and skill... There was one of the pink cats that were sitting there- literally in the middle with no obstacles in the way.

With pure concentration and some support from Mabel in the background. I got the claw straight in the middle and pushed the button to lower it, the claw fitted perfectly in the body as it starts to lift it up. We stared at it hoping it won't fall.

It was starting to fall from its weight of it, which made me tense up a bit. Then I had an idea... I felt power in my hands as I used them to support the stuffed toy. It glowed subtly, though it wasn't obvious because of the lights that reflected everywhere from the machine. Soon enough it drops it in the hole.

I take it out and give it to her. She looks at me excitedly. She takes it from my hands and squeals, "Thank you! Thank you!" She says as she tackles me for a quick hug. After she was done admiring her new plush, she looks at the machine, "Alright, let me try!"

"Sure, go ahead."

I started it for her, she was close to getting one, but it fell halfway. She tried a few more times.. "This game is rigged! let's try another one." She complains a bit, before moving on to other games.

"Okay, wait for me," I said as I walk after her.

We walked for a while, trying to find some more games to play.

...

William

"That was fun," I smiled at her, I was still feeling the rush from playing all those games. We played for probably more than an hour.

There were a lot of games. Fighting games- which she beat me fair and square. There was also air hockey, which none of us won. We played extremely competitive, making the timer run out before one of us could score. Didn't even know that was possible.

Currently, we were in the food plaza, where there was nobody in sight except the employees. It was already evening, almost eight, so Dipper and Soos will arrive soon.

"Hey, Will. I wanted to say something..."

"Yeah? What's up?" I look at her, with a french fry in my mouth.

She giggles before continuing, "Since Dipper and Soos aren't here yet, I wanted to say something." She looks at me with a confident and serious tone.

Before I could ask anything, I see Dipper and Soos entering the food plaza. "Let's talk about that later okay?" She looks at me a bit confused. I point behind her, "Dipper and Soos is here."

They turn to us, Dipper was the first to approach, "Mabel! Will! Hope you didn't wait long."

Mabel turns to them, "Dipper! Soos! What took you guys so long?"

"I had to fix the computer and I didn't know what to wear, so I just wore this." Soos was wearing the same outfit, but instead of a question mark t-shirt, he was wearing a white t-shirt with a light blue sweater vest on top of it, along with a red bow tie.

"Nice outfit, especially the bow tie." I compliment.

"Thanks, dude, I have a few more of these that looks the same." He says as he sits in one of the chairs

"Okay.. Maybe buy something- that isn't the same thing..." I advise him.

Before he could say anything, Mabel speaks up, "Okay enough chit-chat! Soos, your date will be in like 10 minutes!"

"Alright dudes, What do I do?"

They hype each other for a bit, I was also happy for Soos, not a lot appreciate him. He's childish but he's a good guy, it's nice to see someone could see that side of him.

I didn't want to bother them or anything, so I left them for a bit to get some other food. Since right now.. I'm craving pizza. The guy in the store at the food plaza was lazy so it took some time to get my food. I bought a pepperoni pizza- I'm sure pineapple pizza is good, but.. ya know, it's not for me.

As soon as he handed me the box, I took one slice and ate it. "Delicious," I said to myself with a satisfied tone. Fortunately, it wasn't that hot.

After eating one, I went back to the others. All I see from the distance was Mabel yelling him, probably some sort of encouragement. Soos stands up and runs off. I stop in front of them as I placed down the food that I bought.

"He's already leaving?" I asked, "I was gonna give him some pizza."

"Yep. I'm sure they'll eat on their own," Dipper answers as he gets off the chair. "I'll look after Soos. You two can uh.. can continue what you were doing." He starts walking off and started heading towards Soos.

"Alright, just come to us if there's a problem!" I said, which I'm pretty sure he heard.

"See ya later Bro-bro!" Mabel shouts, that he definitely heard.

I turn back to Mabel, "So... What was that again?"

She looks at me a bit flustered which quickly turned into a confident one, "I was gonna say that.. You were the only guy that actually didn't get weirded out by me at first.." I look at her still confused at where she's getting at..

"I mean- I kinda like that side of you. Strangely cute." I said giving her a genuine smile.

She returns the gesture with a smile of her own and a soft blush, "And you're not some insane guy that would steal the Shack," She says referring to Gideon... "Or some gnomes- or some kind of crazed monster. Or are you? Maybe you're a vampire?" She says the last part hoping, with a joking tone.

"I could be," I humor her, with a smirk on my face. I wasn't exactly gonna tell them that I may or may not be a half-dream demon.. yet. I don't exactly know that anyway. Bill was the only one that insisted on it.

She giggles in response, "Well.. I wanted to say that was that I like you..." She says rather confident now.

I freeze up in the moment with my heart racing. I-I didn't know how to respond. This wasn't something I expected to hear... "It feels like the guy is supposed to say that first right? Heh." I said trying to become less flustered. I cleared my thoughts as I reply, "I-I.. like you too."

I didn't expect me to be this awkward- but it wasn't exactly easy. I tried my best trying to avoid these kinds of stuff based from my previous experiences... I guess it's not that easy. She was staring at me with a smile that told me she was happy with the response.

Before one of us could say anything else. Screams could be heard from elsewhere. We ran over to see that people were running out of the place where Dipper and Soos were.

We entered the room, it was a dark area filled with couches and tables on the sides. In front of the stage were more tables and chairs which now littered the floor.. In the center was a stage with lights, which shines the whole stage.

Dipper, Soos, and.. a girl, which I assumed was Soos' date. They were running opposite the direction of the stage.

"Let's get out of here dudes!" Soos yells to both of us, while still running.

"W-What?" I asked.

Before he could respond there were animatronics running behind them. Without a second thought, Mabel and I followed after them, but before we could all leave, the door shut in our face locking us in with a bunch of crazy robots.

We all turned behind us, "I'm sorry, Soos, but you can't run away from our relationship!" The cheerleader likes squirrel states. She holds her hand out to the skeeball machines, it sparked with electricity and shoots skeeball at us.

We all shielded ourselves, while Soos walks over to one of the arcade machines and flips it. We all ducked in and took cover.

I turn to Soos, "Care to explain?"

"So, about all this, I may have purchased a dating simulator that obtained sentience and went crazy."

"Somehow not the craziest thing I've heard."

The crazy animatronic screams as she shoots lightning off her hand, "Oh, I am crazy. Crazy for you, Soos." After she shot the lightning, the girl's hair caught on fire.

Soos helped in trying to put it out, "Oh no! I'm so sorry, Melody! I'll fix this. It's me she wants. I'll distract her while they keep you safe! It's the only way!"

Melody- now I know her name... stares at Soos as he jumps up the arcade machine, "Soos, these are children."

"The only WAYYYY!" He screams running off towards the animatronic, trying to get her attention, "Over here, GIFfany!" He takes a serving plate, before sliding off to a room with a neon sign that says 'kitchen'. GIFfany, which was the crazy squirrel girl animatronic- thing, followed Soos to the kitchen.

I look over to the others, "So what's the plan?!"

"On three we split." Dipper quickly says.

"Wait what?"

"One, two-.." Before he could finish, an animatronic which was a bear, swung towards us which missed but destroyed the fallen arcade machine in the process.

We all screamed and ran in random directions as we all split up, which probably wasn't a good idea at the time...

I ran in the opposite direction of the others, I looked behind me as I see one of the animatronics was following me. It was a green frog with a white shirt, a black vest, and a farmer's hat. He was holding his hands towards me like a zombie.

I stop in one of the corners, I turn around to face him. He stops in front of me while staring at me with his red eyes.

"What do you want? Huh?!" I yelled at it holding my ground with my fists in a defensive position. It only laughed in a deep voice and started to approach me again. I looked behind it for a moment to see the others running. I have to help them...

Beside the animatronic was a metal trash can. I hold my hand to it, which lifted the can in the air, and with a snap of a finger, it flies towards his face. Which made him fall to its knees. It didn't last for long as he got up and turns around to trying to find who threw the trash can.

I felt power as I approached him with his back turned. I clenched my fist as it burst into blue flames. Without a second thought- I raised my right fist and punched a hole on it's back, which lit a blue fire for a moment before getting extinguished.

I pulled my hand back as it fell to the ground. I turn to my hand, I was confused by what happened and I was surprised that it didn't hurt at all.

I gaze back to the now-broken animatronic on the ground, I kicked in making sure that it wasn't gonna stand up the second I turn my back. "That's what you get you hunk of junk," I said, bitterness and a hint of anger in my voice. "Oh, right the others!"

I look back to see them. They were looking at the window of the kitchen. Dipper, Mabel, and the girl which I haven't introduced myself to was caught and was held up trapping them in their metallic hands as they struggled to escape.

I walked towards them as my blood starts to boil, with my heart racing. Somehow I was getting more and more frustrated and losing my cool. I felt the room heating up- they didn't seem to notice it. Before I could do anything, I see Soos throw something in the furnace.

Which caused the animatronic in front of Soos to scream and fall to the ground as the other animatronics followed suit with a satisfying crash.

I took a deep sigh of relief as my heart rate started to go back to normal. "Since when did I become so short-tempered.." I mumble to myself. Before I could walk back to them.. my eyes fall to the few arcade machines- that was broken from the event.

I saw myself reflected from the broken glass, it was unclear but I still could see myself.. My eyes which were brown had now become light blue- that glowed somehow. My hair was black, had a tint of blue hair.

"W-What the-?" What do I do?! I can't just go back to them like this.. How the heck did this happen?

I take a deep breath before I start to overreact. I mean it's just color.. right? Just relax- it'll go away...

I looked back to see that the slight tint of blue on my hair faded. Though my eyes was still slightly blue, this time it wasn't as obvious. Still, I back off and sat near the entrance. There wasn't anyone around so that's nice. I just need to calm down first.

I probably sat there for almost a minute, before someone else comes along and sat next to me.

I turn my head to the person, it was Mabel, she looks concerned, "What's wrong Will?"

"N-Nothing much.. Just sittin' around?" I replied, she looks at me unconvinced.

"Are you sure?" She asked, suspicion in her voice.

I lightly laugh, "Yes, I promise. Anyways, should I say it?" I said as I cleared my throat while trying to change the subject before she could ask more.

She tilts her head in confusion, strands of hair falling on her.. It was cute... "Say what exactly?" She asks.

I pause for a moment, trying to gather my thoughts. "I was hesitant at first in saying it since it's only been a month since we met each other.. but it's rather clear for me now. I.. I love you, Mabel." I confess as blood rush to my head in embarrassment, but still, I stood my ground with a smile.

She stares at me with a small blush on her cheeks, with an innocent smile. "I... I love you too Will."

"So is it official now?" I said as I giggled, trying to make the atmosphere less awkward.

She pauses for a second before I could say anything, she gives me a small peck on the cheek. "Does that answer your question?" She said teasing me. If it wasn't for my control, I would be having a nosebleed from embarrassment.

"I'd say it does." I start to stand up, "As much as I'd like to continue.. Let's get back to the others first shall we?" She nods as I put a hand out to her which she takes.

"Then let's just hang out again."

"I'm sure we will."

We walk back to the others, hand in hand, which I didn't notice.. or I didn't bother to change and neither did she. Her hand was warm and comfortable. It felt like.. with her- something like earlier, where I got irritated- won't happen again.

We met up with the others, who- thankfully wasn't looking at us.

After Soos said goodbye to Melody, his date. She was nice, I barely know her but I felt like she's as weird and nice as him.

They dropped me off at my house using the golf cart, we talked a bit during the trip with a few comfortable silence.

As soon as I got home, I went to my room and fell face first at my bed.

It was a chaotic day. Tiring, but fun.

...

Chapter End