Sound and Silence 5: Parkside
#6 of Sound and Silence
Two friends go to the amusement park. uwus are had.
...because every vaguely romantic story absolutely requires an amusement park side story.
The sound of screaming children and adults resounded in a lively chorus... as the roller-coaster tilted just over the apex of the first big hump up of the track and started rushing downwards with full force. Clair was cheering at the top of his lungs with excitement and exhilaration, and Reyson... well... he was doing alright. The rush of wind felt nice, he thought to himself.
As per his usual antics, the cat had demanded that they just had to go to the amusement park that had just finished it's renovations, and the wolf, never one to refuse an offer to do something with his friend-or anyone, really, obliged without much of a fuss.
The two quickly went around the park, with the feline gripping the lupine's arm as Clair dragged Ray to all the places he wanted to go, with the latter struggling to keep up with his enthusiasm. There was a mini-arcade in one of the corners of the park with an older version of Cat's Dance Evolution, so naturally Reyson wouldn't budge until they played a few games of it. They also took an adventuring foray into the haunted house attraction, where there were more sounds of screaming childrens and adults resounding in said lively chorus... but of the spooky variety. While Clair was visibly shaking and howling at every little light flicker at each twist and turn (it was his idea...), Reyson showed no signs of fear... aside from the vice-like grip he kept on the cat's hands and the sharp gasp-almost-screams-but-they-definitely-weren't-scream-yells from the few jumpscares that caught him off guard. Eventually, the duo made their way to the definitely not rigged game stalls.
"Knock over the bottles and win the biggest prize!" the booth employee announced, while directing the attendee's attention to a stuffed bear hanging from the ceiling of the booth tent.
"Oh! Let me play! I love bears!" Clair shouted as he plopped his payment in front of the shopkeeper.
"Mm?" Reyson muttered at Clair as he pat his own general lack of belly.
"Shut up, Ray!" Clair clapped back... Reyson hadn't said anything yet... but he gave a light and playful smirk.
"Mm."
"Alright, buddy, you have three balls, three chances to knock them all down, give it your best throw!" The avian owner said as he assembled a pyramid of steel milk bottles in their correct position. Clair wound up his first throw, and launched the ball fiercely... completely missing the tower of bottles... and nearly hitting the shopkeeper.
"Whoaaaa there, I'm not a prize, friend! Give it another go, and uh-try not throw it so hard! Hospital bills aren't exactly a great prize either!"
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" Clair apologized in embarrassment as he gave it another try, focusing just a tad more on accuracy this time. The second ball struck the top bottle, knocking it over, but leaving the 5 other bottles beneath it intact.
"That's better! Alright, just one more ball, make it count!"
Clair was revving up his third pitch until-
"Clair, wait." Completely breaking his focus and causing the cat to nearly topple over, Clair stumbled and looked towards the interrupting wolf.
"Oh, what's up, Ray?"
"...Your form sucks." he said, unabashedly. Clair immediately flew into the defensive as he tried to justify his lack of skill.
"H-hey! It's not like I do this every da-" He was interrupted with a flustered shock when Reyson suddenly got up behind him and took both of his arms in his hands.
"Wha-what are you-"
"Throw it like this." While continuing to grip the lithe cat's arms, he slowly performed the motion of a pitch with proper-well, more serviceable technique-Reyson wasn't really an expert himself. "Can you do that?" he then asked as he released his grip on his friend's arms. Clair didn't turn around, his face a mess of embarrassment as a few of the bystanders who happened to take notice started giggling.
"Ye..ah! I got it. Jeez, you could have shown me without cathandling me...."
"It's better if you feel the movement yourself" Reyson responded, with ever the unassuming tone of voice.
Grumbling, Clair prepared his third pitch, following the movements that Ray had shown him. The ball sailed forward in a smooth motion and struck the center of the formation perfectly, knocking over the two bottles in the upper row, and the middle bottle in the bottom row. The two bottles on the sides wobbled feverishly for a few moments as Clair stared at them in nervous anticipation, but unfortunately, settled back down in their upright position.
"Ohh, darn, a split. You were so close! Want to give it another go?" The stall owner said encouragingly. Clair grimaced in frustration, but quickly let it go. It would have been nice to be able to win something, though...
"Nah, I'm good! Thanks for the tips, Ray. Let's go to another game!"
"Hold on." The wolf said, as he approached the counter this time. "May I?" He asked as he plopped down his own payment to partake in the stall game.
"Oho! A new challenger! Come to avenge your friend, eh? I'm all for it! Let's see what you can do!" the sparrow joyfully exclaimed as he reset the bottles and handed Reyson 3 more balls. Reyson took the first one in his hand and tossed it straight up a few times, carefully assessing its weight and size. He then faced the bottles and readied his throw.
While not having the perfect technique, he focused his eyes on his target: the intersection of three bottles in one of the lower corners. With a solid pitch, he released his throw, and the ball rushed straight into his objective. As the bottom formation collapsed, the bottles on top also fell over without their support, and suddenly, all the bottles had toppled over in a cascading chain reaction. The owner gave an enthusiastic smile as he clapped for the winner.
"Amazing! You got it in one shot! You a professional or something?" he praised Reyson as he retrieved one of the many stuffed bears from among the prizes and handed it to him. Reyson nodded in confirmation and gratitude, and started making his way over to Clair.
The cat, however, ever quick to spot a devilish opportunity, was already back up against the counter with his face up and personal next to the shopkeep.
"Wait- Ray has two throws left, right? That means he can win two more times!" A surprised booth-keeper stammered.
"Uh, I don't need..." Reyson started responding, also confused.
"A-er, well, it's three throws for one game.. Not-"
"Aw come on! Don't be so stingy! We're all here to have a good time, right? Ray might not even win if you set it back up!" The feline then leaned in even closer and whispered into the employee's ears.
"And besides, we all know these games are basically rigged in some way, and that you all get these toys for 10% of what you charge people to play. Cut us some slack! You don't care about the park's bottom line that much, do you?" The shopkeep stepped back with a bit of nervousness, but after a moment of thought, gave a defeated half-hearted chuckle.
"Alright, alright-you win. Your big friend can get his two extra throws. Just don't rat me out alright? I do happen to like this job, haha."
"Yay! Knock 'em out for me, buddy!" Clair said to his friend as he passed him one of the remaining balls and snatched the teddy bear from his arms. Ray looked at the feline, who was clearly satisfied with his shenanigans, and sighed as he stepped back up to the stand.
Long story short, Ray quickly found himself with his hands very full as the shopkeep handed him two more large stuffed bears. A couple bystanders who were watching the whole fiasco applauded quietly as two kids broke away from their parents to rush to a wolf with his hands full.
"Wow, mister-that was so COOL! How did you do that!?"
"Yeah, mister, that was amazing! Can you teach me how to throw like you do!?"
Ray looked down at the kids while holding his stuffed animals, and then kneeled down, offering a prize to each of them.
"Really? Wow!!! Thank you!" The two children snatched up one teddy bear respectively and ran back to their parents to tell them about their new acquisition. The parents smiled at Ray and Clair and mouthed a silent "thank you" before pulling their kids along to see the rest of the park.
"Awww, Y'all are good kids." The booth keeper said to the duo.
"Nah, Ray over there is the good kid. I'm just an agent of chaos~" Clair replied, sticking his tongue out at the owner. He flashed the cat a warm smile.
"Well, ya both did a good thing. Y'all should scurry along now and check out the rest of the place. I still got a booth to run, and nice as I am, I ain't handing over my whole prize stock over to ya." The owner finished up before finally putting his enthusiastic persona back on in full force.
"He's right. Let's go. I want to play the other games here too!" He said as he started heading towards another game stall. Ray quietly nodded and followed along after him.
As the two continued on, Clair added:
"You know, you're pretty good with kids. Have you ever thought about having any?"
Reyson stopped for a moment, thinking deeply about the question. Clair noticed and stopped with him, cocking his head in confusion.
"I don't know." Reyson answered, after some time.
"You don't like kids?" More silence.
"...I'm scared of being a parent." This time, Clair stopped. He looked at Reyson with a forlorn expression.
"Ah, I see. I'm sorry if I... uh..."
"You didn't mean anything by it. Let's go."
The two frequented a few more of the game stalls, most of them ending up the same way as the first one did-that is, Clair fumbling about trying to win, and Reyson stepping in and winning in just a few tries, only to pass off the prize to his friend. Clair did, however, win a small keychain with a little star off one of the ring toss game's consolation prizes, which he immediately passed off to Ray, not wanting to "owe him one." The wolf accepted the gift without much of an expression, but promised to take good care of it as his tail swished idly back and forth. They also eventually got a bag to carry all of the prizes Ray-er, they had won.
They were on their way to the next attraction when they were stopped by a group of three hyenas around their age. The one in front approached the two while one of his friends tried to stop him.
"C'mon dude, just let it go. Leave the-"
"So, the two fruitcakes are going on a romantic date, how cute~" But the look and tone of the hyena's voice clearly didn't match the words he was saying. "Oh, did I say cute? I meant disgusting. Why don't two suck face somewhere else, you sick fags?"
Clair, already used to this treatment, was not one to back away, approaching the hyena with a confident and teasing smirk.
"What, you're not approaching us because you want to see more~? Or maybe... you're just jeal-" His provocation was interrupted by a firm shove. He stumbled, not expecting the physical retaliation so soon, and stumbled, dropping his bag and scattering the prizes he and Ray had won everywhere as he fell to the ground.
"DUDE! STOP! This isn't cool!" The second friend was desperately trying to talk sense into the bully as the third party member cowered as though they wanted nothing to do with this situation, their eyes darting everywhere except the scene of the action.
"Like hell I'm going to stop. These fuckers need to be put in their place." The big bad started approaching the fallen feline, scrambling to regain his composure when Reyson stood in front of them.
"Can you... back off?" He asked the bully in front of him with his usual gentle tone of voice. The expression in his eyes, however, clearly reflected animosity and rage.
Clair, meanwhile, was looking around for something. After spotting something in the distance, he made a discrete flick of his hands, a wisp of sonomantic light flying off into the distance of where he was looking.
"Oh, look. The boyfriend has come to the rescue! Why don't you take your fairy fuck and get out of here already before I make you?"
Reyson stared down the fury-filled hyena, and then turned over to his friend, who was still pleading with him to stop.
"I don't want to hurt your friend." he said, with a look of sympathy for his efforts.
"I-I've been trying to talk some sense into him, but he-"
White. That was all Reyson could see for a moment as he buckled from the blow to his face. The audio around him was muffled with a high pitched whine as he could hear names being yelled out and sounds of a struggle.
When he regained his senses, he could see Clair standing next to him with a deeply concerned expression with a hand near his eyes where he was struck. Meanwhile, the bully was being restrained by his friend as he struggled to break free, hoping to land another blow.
Reyson stood back up after regaining his composure and dusted himself off. He then took a moment to examine Clair to make sure he was unharmed. As he was assessing the cat's injuries, two security guards showed up to break up the altercation. They had come from the direction in which Clair had been looking at earlier.
"Does there seem to be a problem, young man?" The first security guard said, with a stern look piercing through the belligerent hyena. The second guard added onto his statement:
"We heard some hyenas were out here verbally abusing fellow park attendees with the use of homophobic slurs. This is a family friendly establishment that is accepting of people of all kinds. Speciesism, classism, homophobia, prejudice of any shape or form will not, under any circumstances, be tolerated. IS THAT CLEAR?" The rhinoceros roared the last question with such booming volume that it nearly seemed like the ground was shaking. Clair had to cover his ears for that last part. The "leader" of the hyena group stumbled back in fear as he fumbled back defensively and pointed towards Clair and Reyson.
"Th-they-" He tried to say literally anything, but his words were quickly failing as the intimidating rhinos left him paralyzed with fear and anxiety.
"I-" A soft-spoken voice rang out. Everyone turned to look at Reyson, who had spoken. "There... there was probably just some sort of misunderstanding. We're sorry for any trouble we caused. We'll get out of your way."
"Ray, what are you-this isn't-" Clair started.
"Are you sure you're okay? These people clearly seem to have been bothering you, and you may be injured. We can take you to the infirmary if you'd like." The first guard inquired. It was fairly self-evident that the guards were siding with the pair in this issue, though surely most reasonable people bearing witness to this turn of events would have done the same.
"Yes, we're fine. Clair, you're okay, right?" he asked his friend as he held out an outstretched hand to him.
"Ray, are you just going to let them-" Clair stopped as he looked up at Reyson. His expression was a visibly pained one with signs of bitterness and fury. At the same time though, he could see genuine concern and what looked like pleading eyes underneath all that anger.
"...Let's go home, Clair."
Reluctantly, Clair acquiesced and took the wolf's hand as he was pulled back up.
Reyson started picking up the plushies that had fallen onto the ground, with Clair helping out as well. Some of the stuffed animals were already quite dusty... Once everything was accounted for, Clair and Reyson made their way back towards the entrance as the security guards stayed behind to share a few more choice words with the hyena trio.
"Ray, Why didn't you fight back!?" Clair was yelling at Reyson back in the car, full of frustration and disappointment with his passiveness in the previous encounter.
"If I fought back, he would have had to go to the hospital." The wolf replied with his unchanging tone of voice.
"So!? He was being an asshole! He deserved it! And he struck you first-you had every right to fight back! Self Defense! You were angry, weren't you?"
"...Yes, I was." A faint hint of a growl escaped from Reyson's voice, but he suppressed it quickly.
"Then why didn't you do anything!?"
"It's not good to hit people."
"He was being a terrible person! Ray, you're being ridiculous-"
"I'm not my father, Clair." While he didn't yell, Reyson raised his voice for the first time in a very long time. Clair instantly deflated, losing all of the wind from the argument he was planning on making.
"But that... that... that's not... the same..." he uttered weakly.
There was a very long silence as both of them stared back towards the direction of the amusement park.
Reyson was the one to break the silence.
"...Were you the one who brought the guards over?"
"Yeah, I used my sonomancy to project the sound of a passerby shouting for help near where the guards were." Clair said flatly. If the current mood weren't so thick with gloom, the cat might have asked for praise just now, but Reyson gave him some anyway:
"That's impressive."
"Yeah... whatever."
There was another long suffocating silence. Clair was still stewing in mixed emotions of guilt and irritation, while Reyson was absentmindedly pondering the day's events, his anger quickly beginning to subside.
"Thank you for taking me here today, Clair. I had a lot of fun." The wolf said. The cat frowned in response.
"You don't have to lie to me to make me feel better. You only tag along with my escapades because I drag you along." He muttered in annoyance.
"That's not true." Reyson placed his hand over Clair's. "I'm a dull and uninteresting person. You bring fun things into my life. I'm grateful for that." The feline rubbed one of his hands against his neck, not entirely convinced by his friend's words, but not really knowing how to respond either.
"I wish you would stop selling yourself short." He finally said, his voice barely a whisper.
"I don't believe in myself and I'm fine with that. You already know that." Was the reply, said matter of factly, and without any traces of lament or sadness.
Ambient noise was once again the only sounds available to the two as neither spoke for a while. In the direction of the entrance, Three familiar hyenas were escorted out of the park by the security guards. Though not audible to the two-actually, Clair could probably hear them-one could clearly see two of the hyenas putting the third on blast before leaving him all by himself. Clair thought back again to words said during their encounter earlier. "The boyfriend has come to the rescue"....
"Hey... Ray. Do you still love me?" Reyson looked away, but answered immediately.
"You already know the answer to that question."
"Well, tell me anyway." A pause.
"I could never not love you." From the reflection of the window, Clair could see Reyson's face. Even with a blackened eye, his expression was softened with a look of bashfulness and childish affection. Clair hesitated.
"I..." Ray interrupted him as his face tensed back up again.
"-But I'm not ready for this conversation yet." He finished. Clair's eyes dropped with a hint of shame for bringing up this topic.. Along with the many others he thought he probably shouldn't have brought up today.
"O-oh. okay. I'm sorry...again."
"It's not your fault."
After a few moments of idle fidgeting, Clair reached into the bag and pulled out the stuffed bear among other prizes that Ray had won. It was quite soiled from having fallen onto the floor, dust splotches clearly visible on its once pristine white fluff.
"He's all dirty now..." Clair said softly with a pout. Reyson looked back at him with a reassuring and playful smirk.
"We'll just have to give our new friends a bath when we get back." He said. The cat gave him an incredulous look which was quickly replaced with his signature goofy smile.
"Yeah, let's give them a bubble bath when we get back~"
"Sure." Ray said as he started the car and the two pulled out of the parking lot.