Pocket-sized Mentor

Rambunctious. Uncontrollable. The total opposite of Hugh. The scholar's nephew seemed to find pride in flaunting his blatant preference for disobedience. Even in Terrance's luxury ride, the young child recklessly stepped on the car seats, sullying expensive fabric with dirt from God knows where.

Their surroundings were already more of a mess than they'd ever been in the two years Terrance had used the car. The child with the messy mop of raven hair didn't seem to notice this, too invested in watching strangers from the car's window.

Not that it mattered to Terrance. Such problems were shallow, easily washed away with water and whatever chemicals were at their limitless disposal.

Against all odds, the prodigy wasn't even annoyed by the boy's constant screaming every time he saw a random object that caught his interest or a dog. As much as he pitied his driver who flinched at the sheer volume of Henry's yells, he couldn't bring himself to tell him to lower his voice.

Matter of fact, Terrance felt quite vulnerable, like he was back to being a timid nine-year-old, too anxious to approach obliviously fearless kids like Henry.

He didn't know where to place his hands. He didn't know how to answer any of the child's endless questions, but he did listen. He listened stiffly in his seat, wondering how Henry viewed him.

It surprised him—how there wasn't a hint of intimidation on Henry's face. It reminded him of the first time he met Ambrosia who oh so graciously pulled him into the nurse's office to dress his wounds herself. It was a lousy job done, but he didn't have the heart to tell her, not when his own blood-pumping vessel raced so fast he didn't notice the stinging on his body until hours later.

"Stop!" The child cried out, hand slapping the glass window he'd been pressing his face against. Terrance's driver, entirely confused about the situation, having only been given the instructions to drive around town with no particular goal in mind, spontaneously pressed his foot on the break, the suddenness of the stop causing Terrance to jolt forward.

Henry didn't hesitate to push the door open but failed, impatiently fighting the locks that prevented him from stepping out of the car.

Curious, the older of the two looked over the boy's shoulder, "Where are you trying to go?"

"There," the boy pointed outside, informing Terrance as if his actions made total sense. He could barely make out what the hell the child meant.

"That vending machine has my favorite drink in it."

The prodigy raised his eyebrow. All that commotion for some soda?

He told his driver to unlock the doors, and the two stepped out on the side of the street. Henry eagerly rushed towards the red machine, eye-catching advertisements graffitied on its side. Terrance watched as the boy shoved his tiny fingers down his pocket, trying to shimmy change out of it. When he found a sufficient amount, he fed the money to the machine.

It swallowed the bill mechanically, allowing the young boy to reach over the slot and stake his claim over his allegedly favorite drink.

"Do you want one, mister?" Henry asked, not a hint of hesitation showing on his face.

Terrance was the complete opposite— reluctant, baffled. This kid really had no second thoughts, huh?

"No thanks. I'm fine."

"Suit yourself," the child turned in the opposite direction, feet scurrying to move somewhere else. "This flavor's the best. You're missing out."

The prodigy tilted his head, eyeing the boy's backpack as he walked away. "Where are you going?"

"Towards the arcade."

Terrance deadpanned. Henry returned it with an unreadable expression.

"You're a strange one, mister."

"That's... a lot coming from you." He answered, gray eyes clouded with bewilderment.

Henry only shrugged, unaffected as his pace increased, soda can hastily tossed at a trash bin.

The Hunton honestly didn't know what to do. Hugh was just as unbearable and unpredictable, but this was different—incredibly different. Henry did whatever he wanted without considering the consequences of his actions, a lot like a carefree fun-loving senior he knew.

Right.

He was doing this so he could have Ambrosia all to himself. With Hugh out of the picture, the junior had a better shot at being with his senior.

Terrance gave his driver a look, his car slowly trailing after the two of them. He had to thank whichever Gods allowed the poor driver to understand his gesture because a second later, he drove away, leaving Terrance and Henry alone.

After a short walk, they arrived at a lively establishment, neon signs greeting Henry's excited face. Terrance wished he could return the sentiment. But he moved warily, unused to their new environment. Young children passed by his right, and a few older teenagers to his left entered before he and Henry could.

One thing was for sure—there were way too many people for the prodigy's liking.

As they entered, the child made contact with Terrance for the first time, pulling him towards a claustrophobic-looking booth equally as decorated as the rest of the place.

"Tokens! Buy me tokens!" The young boy urged.

"Tokens?"

Terrance couldn't stop the growing curiosity inside of him. He hadn't seen anything like an arcade in the past. Even Ambrosia who introduced him to things he had been ignorant of hadn't brought him to one before.

"How many tokens?" He asked, looking down at Henry's vibrating form. He didn't know why he expected a nine— maybe ten-year-old to have a reasonable grasp of how much of this foreign currency was reasonable to own, but he had no one else to trust as a basis.

Young Henry counted with his fingers, three, then eight. "Twenty-five will do!" He answered in the end, completely disregarding his previous calculations.

Terrance nodded, pulling out his wallet from his blazer's inner pockets and placing his black card on top of the booth's counter.

"Twenty-five tokens please."

"S— sir, I can't take this—"

--

After a lengthy discussion with the manager and a blatant overcharging of a measly bundle of fifty tokens, not that the heir knew or had the awareness to know, Terrance was finally able to experience the joys of an arcade.

Henry immediately rushed to the wack-a-moles machine, startling Terrance when he threw a comedic-looking hammer into his hands.

The prodigy's fingers shook in shock, eyes widening as he looked at the hilariously minuscule game machine—he wasn't sure if it looked small because it was meant to be used by small children like Henry or if it was just Terrance's height that made it look small.

Even worse, he had no idea how the hammer could be related to the number of holes on the machine's surface. What was he supposed to do, try to fit the tool into one of them?

"W— what?"

"Come on!"

Small phallic-shaped critters started popping out of the holes.

"Ack!" The prodigy exclaimed, not expecting whatever the hell was going on.

Henry pulled on the sleeves of his blazer, visibly agitated. "What are you doing?! Hit them!"

So he did. A bit too hard, apparently, because the machine stopped working after the first two hits. A spark of electricity flew from the head of one of the "moles" and before Terrance could process anything, Henry was already pulling him to the other side of the arcade with a look that screamed trouble.

They gave the claw machines a try, the young boy looking over his shoulder ever so often, assessing if they had been caught. No one seemed to notice yet, with the amount of people coming in and out. Terrance had to admit, the damned glass containers holding a whole store of plushies were addictive. He watched, entranced, as Henry kept inserting tokens despite losing to the claw on each and every try.

When the prodigy gave the claw machine a try, they had won something, to his surprise.

"Hm? You can have this. Here," He gave the bunny plush to the child. The toy looked comically big in the short boy's arms. It was an almost endearing sight if not for Henry's flustered expression, his brows furrowed.

"Ew! No! Don't give that to me!"

"What? Why? You were so eager to waste all our tokens on it."

"You give that kind of shit to your girlfriend! Gross, dude!"

"Oh." He stared at the plushie's freakishly massive eyes, an image of Ambrosia flashing through his mind.

"What? Don't tell me you don't have one, mister strange."

He pondered on what to answer Henry. Truthfully, he'd been too busy trailing after his Rose to acknowledge the multitude of written confessions he received in his locker, despite having a puzzling reputation of being a troublemaker. But then again, he didn't want to come off as a loser in front of someone who didn't scare away from him which was a rare instance in itself.

"I don't."

"That's really expected the more I think about it." Young Henry remarked as he led Terrance to one of the bigger machines.

The gray-eyed student excelled in shooting down a crowd of approaching zombies, something Henry jealously yelled at him about, but celebrated. It left Terrance confused, but he figured he should just go with the young boy's shenanigans.

"Woah! Another high score! We might reach an all time high if we keep going with your skills!"

The prodigy was about to agree, not really having any means to turn down the rowdy kid, but a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him from pushing another token into the waiting slot. Terrance turned to look at the older student trying to get his attention, a glaring competition ensuing the moment their eyes met.

"Hey, stop hogging the game with squirt over there."

"Hey! Who are you calling squirt?!"

"Are you talking back to someone older than you?" The stranger, a head shorter than Terrance, narrowed his eyes at the young boy, Henry not shrinking for a moment. In fact, the fire in him only seemed to grow.

--

"I can't believe you just let them bully us out of shooting!" Henry exclaimed, bashing his fists against one of the arcade's tables.

They were sitting on one of the "booths" now, a plate of fries and two hotdogs presented before them. Terrance found the food unusual, but he'd seen them before on T.V. and tasted similar dishes so he didn't see the problem with ordering them.

Henry didn't seem to have a problem with them as he gobbled down the fries, waves of stress radiating from his figure as he scowled at the prodigy.

"It's only fair that others have their turn. We don't own the establishment." He tried his best to remind the younger of the two, a sigh of distress leaving his lips.

"Well, yeah, but you totally could. Use that mysterious card of yours or something."

It was a struggle to remove Henry from the machine's toy snipers. It was even harder to turn down the offers of a fistfight thrown to him by the older teens. Getting into actual trouble wasn't in his to-do list at that moment, especially since he just ran into seemingly the only way to get Hugh off of his crush's back.

He couldn't fumble. He couldn't let his chance slip.

"You totally could've taken them! You were like— a whole lot bigger!" Henry gestured, throwing unpolished punches at the air—ones Terrance would've laughed at had he not been so worn down by their interaction a while ago.

"Getting in trouble is a hassle." Terrance snapped back.

"How would you know that? I bet you don't even fight back when someone picks on you!"

"I don't." He shook his head, fingers coming up to massage his temples. That wasn't the time to be reminded of the shit he'd get into before meeting Rose. "It's better not to be provoked by childish things."

"No wonder you don't have a girlfriend! You're too much of a wimp!"

The prodigy stared down at the child, small pieces of fries flying off of his plate from the rate he devoured them. Terrance didn't understand why he felt the need to impress Henry, not when he looked like he barely knew anything. "A lot of girls in school confess to me, just so you know."

"What? Are you too much of a wimp to accept their feelings too?" He fired back, clearly out to mock Terrance.

The older one of the two could only roll his eyes, hands snatching a plastic knife and plastic fork from the side of the table. He moved the bun surrounding the hot dog away from the red meat, slicing a portion of it once he figured he had enough space to do so.

"...No. I like someone." He informed Henry before taking a bite of the hotdog staked on his fork.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

"Eating... The American hotdog." Terrance answered, swallowing what he had chewed. It tasted... Different. That was for sure. He didn't quite know how to put it.

"That's not how you eat it, you psycho! Use your hands, like this!" The kid demonstrated, grabbing the hotdog, bun included, and biting off a huge chunk of it. Terrance almost felt offended by his lack of mannerisms if he hadn't been so stunned.

Henry looked at him, urging him to take a bite as well. He opened his mouth, preparing himself for the unusual task he was given. "...Huh. Uh. Ahh."

He stared at the young child, picking through the last pieces of fries left on his plate—the worst ones, he called them.

"Do you— do you know a lot of things about girls?" Terrance asked, recalling the boy's words.

"Huh? Obviously. Is this about the girl you like?"

"Yeah."

"Well, obviously she doesn't like you back. You're too much of a wimp to use your muscles, you back away from conflict, and you barely know anything about the world! It's like you're my younger brother or something."

Terrance couldn't help but remember Lucy. "Is that really the problem? I've heard something like that before. Assert yourself and all that..."

"Yeah, you should do that. Dad says you shouldn't wuss away from confessing your feelings or else you'll regret it. I listened to him, of course. That's why I have three girlfriends right now."

He processed Henry's words, not sure whether he should trust them or not. They were absurd enough to be believable, after all. "...Three."

"Mhmm." The Windsor reaffirmed. "You look like one of those singing and dancing dudes on T.V. You should probably shoot your shot, you know? Pretty sure girls would go for a good-looking dude, if only you manned up."

The prodigy hummed thoughtfully.

"I'll consider your advice."

"And seriously, next time, don't wussy out of beating people up!"

"...I'll consider your advice."