"Hey, don't cry. I'm fine now, aren't I? There's no reason for you to be sad, so you better cheer up before I make you!" I said, a smirk forming on my lips as I started poking his sides, forcing him to smile and let out a loud series of laughters. I'm sure that if he'd kept being sad, I would definitely have started crying as well, but I was not about to let that happen.
"Okay, okay! Not sad, really laghy, pl-please, I-I can't-" He mangaed to get out between his laughs, tears now streaming down his face for another reason than before, and I quickly stopped poking him, giving him enough time to calm himself down, before pulling him into a hug which he seemed more than happy to return.
I smiled into his hair, closing my eyes before letting out a soft sigh.
I think I might really like staying in this dimension.
"Player 1, wins!" the machine stated for what felt like the 100th time today, making me groan and throw my hands up in defeat, wich wasn't the smartest move as it sligthtly pulled on the still bandaged wound on my arm, causing me to wince a little. Steven didn't seem to notice, however, as he started dancing a funny little victory dance, smiling like an idiot and laughing.
About maybe two hours ago after we'd finished eating, Steven had suggested we'd go to the arcade, and seeing as it was literally only a few feet in front of us, and because I haven't been to an arcade in ages, I said that it was a great idea and agreed. And that's when it started. The rivalry between me, and Steven Universe.
Of course it wasn't a serious rivalry, it was more like the sort you'd have with your sibling, and the one I'd had with my cousins and friends more times than I can remember. We'd decided after the first game, that had reminded me an awful lot of Mortal Kombat, but more kid friendly, that it would be fun to turn every two-player game into a small competition to see who's better. In the beggining I wasn't really taking it seriously, playing the games and showing off my skills, but still letting Steven win most of the times, just because I felt like it was the right thing to do. But as we progressed through the games, I slowly but surely realized that even when I was trying to win, Steven would still beat me.
Which is why now, after our third time playing Teens of Rage, I had to let myself take a seat towards the nearby wall, to make sure I wouldn't break something out of frustration. I sucked in a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and sighed. The simple action felt like it cleaned my head a little, and I couldn't stop myself from smiling when I saw Steven sit down next to me, still a wide grin on his face.
"So, that would be 28 for me, and... 16 for you. Wow, I don't want to sound rude, but you're really bad at fighting games." he said, looking at me with a slightly sympathetic look. I sighed again, resting my hand on my neck as I let out a light chuckle.
"Yeah, I know. My cousins tell me that everytime we go to the arcade. I guess these sorts of games just aren't for me." I said, smiling at him.
"Then, what games do you like?" he asked, a curious look on his face, and I didn't have to think for too long before I answered.
"I actually enjoy playing rythm-games. Back home we had a game called Just Dance, a sort of dancing-game where you had to move in sync with the dance of the song you chose. The only ones who were better at that game than me were my two best friends, Hannah and Angelica, but that's because they were dancers, so I still beat everyone else whenever they competed against me." I answered, a sad smile on my face as I thought of my friends.
Who knew what had happened to them back home. Had they just ciesed to exist, or were they sent somewhere else, and were still alive? The Doctor just said that my dimension's gone, and that it collapsed, but he never said it got destroyed, so maybe there's a chance that it's still out there somewhere...
"Hey, I think there's actually a game sort of like that in the back of the Arcade, but I think the name's different." He said, resting a finger to his lips as he spoke, like he wasn't really sure about what he was saying. I didn't pay too much attention to that though, and instead almost shot off the floor in excitement, grinning widely at Steven, who looked more than surprised at my sudden change in demeanor.
"Why didn't you tell me this place had a dancing-game?!" I asked, the happiness in my voice causing a few of the kids around us to look in our direction, and to both of our surprise, one of the girls next to us answered.
"Because no-one's allowed to play it." she stated, and her friend nodded, a solemn look on her face.
I could feel my eyebrows furrowing into an expression that matched my confusion, and I turned back to look at Steven, who had a weird look of disgust and sadness on his face, which didn't at all seem to fit with his usually happy-go-lucky personality. Seeing this look on Steven's face made me realize that this couldn't be anything good, so I kneeled down in front of him before I asked.
"Is that why you didn't tell me? I understand that you didn't if that's the reason, but I don't think it's enough reason to be upset." I said, cocking my head slightly to try and look him in the eye. He pulled his knees to his chest, and his face turned almost angry.
"No, it's not. But the reason why we can't play it is just so stupid and selfish that it upsets me." he answered honestly, a sour tone in his voice as he did. His answer just confused me even more, so I sat down and crossed my legs before resting my hands in my lap.
"And what would that reason be?" I asked, gently, so I wouldn't acidentally upset him. Eight weeks spent of working with children during Summer vacation has taught me that it's easier to make a kid upset than one might think if you aproach the subject of why they're upset in the wrong way.
Steven rested his legs back down on the floor, and instead crossed his arms as he answered, pouting slightly, still angry.
"It's because of this guy, who thinks he's so much better than everyone else just because he's got the high-score in the game. Everytime someone tries to play, he'll challenge them in front of an audience, and because he always wins, everyone he beat gets too ashamed to try and play again." he explained, his voice getting more disgusted as he went on. I could feel my own disgust towards this guy, though I had never actually met him, and had to try my hardest to not pull a face.
I've always hated people who see themselves on some sort of pedestal, who think that they are somehow superior to everyone else and feel like they can do whatever they want towards others. Whenever I met someone like that, I always made sure to keep those around them from getting assaulted in whatever way this prick chose to try.
"I get the impression that you don't really like this guy. What's his name?" I said, having a bit of trouble keeping my composure due to the anger slowly starting to bubble in my stomach. Steven's eyes darkened, a sight that almost sent a shiver down my spine, and he almost spat his answer in disgust.
"Kevin."
Suddenly it was like an important piece had fallen into place, and the puzzle had now been solved. As soon as he said it I immediately undertood Steven's hate towards the person he'd been talking about. The first time I watched Alone Together, I was almost unable to look whenever Kevin was on screen. I was disgusted by his character as soon as I saw him, and he easily became my number one most hated character. And knowing that I was now in the same universe as him, it sparked a sort of hatred in me that I hadn't felt in a long, long, time.
But I wasn't going to show my emotions, I couldn't. If Steven questions it, I don't know what could happen. So I'm not risking it.
"Well, sounds to me like he's not exactly your 'BFF', so... Mind telling me why you dislike him so much?" I said, playing the role of not knowing anything, and he took a few deep breaths before he answered, trying to calm himself down.
"Well, once when my firend Connie and I fused to go to a party-"
"Fused?" I asked, faking a confused face. Of course I knew what it was, but he didn't know that, and it felt like I needed to ask as to not make myself look suspicious.
"I-I'll explain later." He said, almost looking a bit nervous, and I nodded. He flashed a small, quick smile, before he continued.
"Anyways... We went to the dance, and we were having a really good time, until Kevin came up and started acting like a total creep! He kept on trying to dance with us, even when we said no, and he didn't care about our feelings at all! It was just uncomfortable, and creepy, and I hate him! I wish that just once, someone would put him in his place... show him that he's not better than everyone else and give him what he deserves." he said, almost looking a little ashamed after he'd finished ranting, and brought his knees back up to his chest.
I didn't know what to say. After watching the episode I obviously understood that he'd dislike Kevin, but this? I honestly felt so bad for both Steven and Connie. They're just kids, and shouldn't have had to go through something like that.
Then it hit me, and I knew exactly what I'd have to do.
"Hey, Steven, did you say that game was similar to the one in my world?"
With a sort of a plan in my mind, Steven and I headed for the back of the Arcade, and like he'd said, there was large dance-game surrounded by teens close to the right corner of the building. The game itself reminded me more of DDR when it came to its appearence, as it consisted of two dance-floors with railings behind them, connected with a large black console that split in two to show a large screen on either side of the control-board. But what seemed to be the biggest difference between this game and any game from my world, was the fact that the two current players had something tied around their wrists and ankles, and if I had to guess what it was, I'd guess it's some form of control that helped track the movements of their limbs.
I looked closer at the players, and felt a fire starting to simmer in the pit of my stomach when I saw Kevin standing on the left dance-floor, the side for Player 1, and I had to dig my nails into my palms to keep myself from running up and giving him a piece of my mind. Instead, I turned my attention to Player 2, who from what I could see was a rather chubby looking dark-skinned girl with blue-died hair that was kept in a Fishbone-braid, wearing a frilly white blouse, pink shorts, white laced knee-high socks and white low-cut Converse.
I took a few steps closer to the crowd, Steven taking a hold of my hand as we started to move through it, and I stopped once I could see the girl's screen. I looked at her score, currently at 5826 points, and then turned my head to look at Kevin's. I felt dread come over me when I realized he almost had her score tripled, and I couldn't help but feel bad when I thought of how the girl would be treated by him once the song was finished.
I looked at her score again, now at 6381 points, and then back to Kevin's... who still had... What?
Something wasn't right here. I did the simple math of multiplying the girl's score by three everytime it changed, and it only took me four tries to realize why the scores looked so wrong. Kevin always had EXACTLY triple her score.
He was cheating.
My theory was only further confirmed when I saw him take a mis-step, and still get a perfect score, and I could feel disgust starting to build up inside me. I soon realized that the song they were dancing to, that reminded me an awful lot of Moves Like Jagger from my world, was coming to an end, and I quickly started moving to the side of the game-console. I stopped once I was next to the blue-haired girl, and was just about to reach into my bag when I felt Steven pulling my hand a little, and when I looked at him, he seemed confused.
The sound of the music and the people cheering was too loud to talk over, so I just pointed towards Kevin, and mouthed 'cheating', and he immediately seemed to have gotten it. Though, he quickly got an angry look in his eyes once he realized what that meant, and looked he considered actually going up and mouthing off to him about it. But before he could, I tightened my grip on his hand and held up my finger, telling him to wait, as the song finally faded into a close.
The surrounding croud started to cheer and applaud Kevin and the girl when they were done, and they all held their breaths as the scores started to appear on their screens. Once they all saw the results, Kevin and most of the teens started cheering, while the girl looked absolutely broken and horrified. Kevin turned to her, a smug smirk on his face, and tears started to form in the girl's eyes.
Steven, being the amazingly kindhearted kid he is, quickly hopped up beside her to try and comfort her. While he did that, I took what little time I was given to pull out the Sonic Screwdriver from my bag, point it at the game, and think 'return it to its normal settings' while pressing down on the small button that activated it. A soft hum was heard from the machine, and if I had been able to use the screwdriver correctly, since this was my time using it, that meant that the Screwdriver had deactivated whatever Kevin had done to it to cheat. Now to see if it really worked.
"Aaw, don't cry, baby. You tried your best, but just like everyone else, your best just wasn't enough to beat me. But don't worry, at least your not the only one here who's garbage when it comes to dancing." Kevin said in a sickiningly smooth voice, causing the tears to now fall from the girls eyes, and I could see Steven trying his very best to keep himself from doing something that he might regret later. Kevin only laughed before he turned to his audience, that smug smirk still plastered onto his face.
"Anyone else who wants to try and see if they might be good enough to beat me, step right up." he said, but before anyone in the crowd could have a chance to answer, I confidently walked right up to him, straightened my back, and looked him dead in the eye as I answered.
"I do."
I heard the people behind me gasp, before they all started to whisper and point at me. But I couldn't care less about them right now, and instead kept looking at Kevin, who for just a moment, almost looked surprised at what I'd just told him. But he quickly shook it off and chuckled, before leaning against the railing on his right hand, keeping his left hand on his waist, as he gave me a disgusting smile.
"That's really cute, babe, but I don't think you're quite in the condition of being beaten by me." he said, using that smoothe voice of his again, and I heard some of the other teens questioning it as well. But I didn't back down, instead I took a step forward, forcing Kevin to lean back in surprise.
"You do not choose my actions, nor will you ever decide for me." I said, my voice so cold and empety of all emotion that it took him aback. His face was of pure chock, probably over the fact that someone had actually stood up to him, and it seemed so unfitting for his character that I almost laughed.
I wouldn't give him the pleasure to think of a remark to my statement, so instead I swiftly made my way over to Steven and the blue-haired girl, and I smiled at them.
"That was awesome! You actually stood up to him! And I so wish I could've taken a picture of his face when you did." Steven said, almost laughing, as he started to bounce a little. I let out a small chuckle, before I turned to look at the girl, who I now realized was at least one foot shorter than me, with warm chocolate-brown eyes and a diamond embedded nose-ring, and smiled at her.
"Don't let that idiot's words get to you. You were incredible, and you're an amazing dancer. Please don't think of yourself as anything else." I said, and the girl blushed a bright shade of red, laughing a little as she wiped away the last few tears that were still on her cheeks.
"Th-Thank you. Uhm... G-Good luck, I suppose." she said, giving me a small smile, before she handed me the red bands she'd worn during the dance and walked into the crowd.
"Hey, um, Felix?" Steven said in an almost worried tone, and I quickly looked at him.
"What is it, Steven?" I asked, and his expression turned into a weird mix of concern and sour.
"As much as I hate to say it, I think Kevin's right. Are you sure you're really feeling good enough for this? What if you open up your wounds? O-Or what if your legs get weak and you fall? Or, what if-?"
"Steven, calm down. I wouldn't do this if I didn't feel I had the strength to, trust me. Now, could you please keep an eye on my bag for me while I dance?" I said, and after a slight hesitation he nodded, and I handed him my bag. Once he'd put it on and taken a place next to the game, I started to put the strange red bands on, making sure to put the right one on the right limb, and once that was done, I looked over at Kevin with a smile.
"Shall we begin?" I asked with a smile, while raising an eyebrow at him.
His face became surprised again when he heard my enthusiasm, but he quickly tried to play it off with a small chuckle, before he looked back to the crowd behind us.
"Since it seems this guy doesn't know the rules we have for this game, I think it's only fair that I explain them to him. Even if they are pretty simple. We'll only do one song, whoever gets the highest score once we're done wins, and whoever loses, though it's obvious who that'll be, will be banned from playing again. Unless, that is, they want to try and challenge the winner with another dance." Kevin said, looking at me as he said the last sentance, obviously trying to get a reaction from me. But I wouldn't give him the pleassure.
"If that's all, then let's not drag this on for longer than we'll have to. Good luck, and may the best dancer win!" I said with a bright smile, while holding my hand out for him to shake, knowing that it would make him confused.
My action seemed to have worked as I wanted, as his face became one of utter surprise and confusion. But, since he still wanted to act like he was the one in control of the situation, he quickly shook my hand, before turning back to his screen, shaking his head and muttering a small 'whatever'. He abruptly stopped however, as the confusion of my kindness seemed to have made him forget what he was planning to do, and quickly turned to the console's controls. Once he started to scroll through the songs available, his smirk returned, and I could feel his eyes on me as he kept scrolling towards the more complicated dances. My guess as to why? He'd stop once he saw me get uncomfortable, and pick whatever dance he landed on.
I saw the list of songs go from beginner, to easy, to hard, and even expert, before I saw his face get a bit worried. But I only kept on smiling, and then he finally stopped once he'd scrolled to the very last song on Master-mode. When a piece of the song started playing, I almost laughed out loud in surprise, and had to ball my hands into fists to keep myself from having a laughing-fit.
The song playing was a slightly more high-pitched, slightly more energetic, instrumental version of Sheppard's Geronimo, and I already knew that everyone watching would be given one hell of a performance, since this was the song that my two dance-machines for best friends had performed to last summer. And right after that show, they had started to teach me the steps, and now... well. Let's just say that I've learnt how to fluently go from Street-dancing to Ballet in only a few movements.
Since Kevin never seemed to actually press the song, probably because he was still in chock over the fact that I wanted to do the hardest Dance in the game, I stepped up next to him and pushed the Start-button instead, and that's when I saw it. Another function that made this game so much different from the ones back home... it had a Freestyle-mode. I didn't even think twice before I pressed it, before swiftly jumping back onto my part of the game, and positioning myself with my feet apart, and my hands at my sides, as the song started playing.
When the song started the room grew silent, and I could once again feel Kevin's eyes on me, but I ignored both him and everyone else around me, and instead focused on the beat of the song. I started to jog in place in time with the beat, and imagined the words in my head as I began dancing.
Because I can not write the description of the dance routine without taking up the rest of the chapter, I will link you the inspiration for the dance; watch?v=FtvQPdkJQuI
After we had started dancing, almost all of the people in the arcade had gathered around us to watch, and for a good reason. Though I wish he'd found out later, it had only taken Kevin about half a minute to figure out that I was leading score-wise, with almost 4000 points more than him, and he had immediately started to actually do some good dancing to try and out-score me. The look on his face while he stood beside me dancing could tell a story, as it was an impressive mixture of confusion, anger, dissapointment, fear and a whole lot more that I didn't have the time to figure out. But even though he was sending me glares that would have murdered me if looks could kill, I only focused on my dancing, and keeping myself from pulling the gash in my arm to much, as it had already started to burn again.
During the dance, I'd used more of the Street-dancing when the song was upbeat, and whenever I spun around, I could see Steven looking at me with star-filled eyes. And when the song slowed down a bit, like it did when I imagined the words 'Can you feel my love?' and 'Bombs away' were being sung, I'd gracefully go into more Ballet-like movements, kicking my legs out and spinning, while always moving my arms in a way that made it seem like they controlled themselves.
And now, once again, the music slowed down, and I knew that this would be the build-up for the end of song, so in only three short moves, I'd now taken a cross-legged position while keeping my arms and head down.
"Well I'm just a boy, with a broken home, all lost and gone."
I didn't even realized I'd sung that part until I heard the crowd behind me gasp. But I didn't think about it as I instead got up on my toes and moved my arms in a small, almost flying-like movement, while shifting between having my right leg in front of and behind my left one, in beat with the music while the 'waterfall' part played in my head.
"So it's here I stand, as a broken man, but I've found a friend."
This time I sang it knowingly, smiling a bit, and bending my left leg to and from my right knee while I sang the words, moving my arms in great gestures, looking at Steven as I sang the last word. In the corner of my eye I could see Kevin slipping up, and almost tripping out of frustration as he tried, in vein, to show he was better than me.
"Now I'm falling down, through crashing sound, but you've come around!"
I kicked my legs to the beat, throwing an arm out to the side with each kick, and stopped to once again cross my legs at the final three words, and moved my arms in a large circle over my head, letting them fall slowly back to my sides.
"And you rushed with me, and you made me free, so I fall to my knees!"
I moved my right leg and arm out to my side, before bringing them in and doing a pirruette, putting my left leg and arm out in front of me once I'd stopped, before pulling them back again and jumping back with my right leg brought up behind me, and bringing my arms up and down once I stopped singing. And as the 'waterfall' part once again played in my head, I made a slow pirruette, right leg stretched out and my arms above my head, before I completely bent down, one leg stretched out in front of me with my arms out at my sides, once the music stopped.
I suddenly felt the same rush that had gone through my body back in Kindergarten, and I smirked, before kicking backwards off the floor as the music slowly picked up again, grabbing hold of the railing behind me and landing on it, before doing a backflip down on the floor behind the game as the first 'Say geronimo' played in my mind. When I landed I quickly jumped up and resumed the moves I'd danced earlier, and when the song really started to pick up I did another quick pirruette before moving into the crowd, grabbing the hand of the person closest to me, who just happened to be the girl who danced before me, and making her dance with me into the audience.
While I danced with her, everyone around us started to dance along to the music as well, including Steven, and the teens who had previously been cheering for Kevin, who was now dancing like a maniac trying to bring up his score. I looked at the blue-haired girl in front of me, and gave her a panted smile that caused her face to go red again, before spinning her and bringing her down in a dip. I brought her up again and let go when I heard that the song had started to fade into a close, and jumpingly made my way to the front of the crowd, before slowly bringing my right arm up on my left side, pulling it back and slowly bringing my arms and head down, and slowly raising both my arms, all in the beat of the final 'Can you feel my love?', before pulling a Rainbow Quartz once the song ended.
What do I mean by that? I spun around and bent my leg behind me, as I fell down on my back, my arms at my sides.
Once the song was finally over, I started to pant heavily, pushing myself up in a sitting position as everyone around me started to applaude me, and I felt like I could do nothing but smile back at them as two of the guys hoisted me up by my arms, causing me to wince because it pulled at my wound, before patting me on the back and praising me. I thanked them, and only had the time to wipe the sweat off my forehead, before I was almost tackled down by the hug I got from Steven.
"That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen! I've never seen anyone dance like that before! And I never imagined that you'd sing!" he almost shouted out of enthusiasm, while laughing and smiling widely. I swallowed the saliva that had been building up in my mouth, before taking a few deep breaths and started to gently ruffle his hair.
"Thanks, cuz." I panted, calling him 'cousin' to keep up with our act, in case anyone around us wondered about our actions. He only answered with a small chuckle, before turning to look at the screen on my side of the game when the scores started to show.
"No way! I don't understand, there's no possible way you could've won!" Kevin shouted out of anger once the scores were visible on our screens, and turned to glare at me with that murder look in his eyes, but I only smiled back at him, still panting.
I'd won with almost 6000 more points than him.
"What's all this fuss back here about?!" a large and booming voice suddenly yelled, taking everyone by such surprise, several yelps were heard from some of the teens in the crowd. The people in the middle of the crowd seperated, and a very crossed-looking mr. Smiley walked over to where Steven and I were standing, before turning to look at me.
"Well, would you be so kind as to tell me what's going on here, son?" he asked, forcing a smile while sending a sour look at Kevin, as he tried to walk away before he could get in trouble. I smiled at mr. Smiley, which seemed to somewhat calm him down.
"Of course, sir. You see, that guy there has been harassing the people trying to play this game by mixturing with the machine, so that it would triple the score of whoever he played against and make those his points. And after every match, he'd verbally assault them by telling them how bad they are." I said, my tone kept flat in an attempt to hide my anger towards Kevin, still keeping the smile on my face. Almost everyone in the audience gasped at my words, before sending sour looks at Kevin, who looked like he'd just been caught trying to steal something.
Mr. Smileys face immediately twisted into one of anger and disgust, before he snapped his head in Kevin's direction, and he started to breathe heavily as he stomped over to him, looking like he was ready to tear him to bloody pieces.
"You did what, with my machine? Did you really think that you could just go and do that to my property, without me finding out?! And for such a selfish and disgusting reason?! Young man, you can grant yourself lucky that I'm not having you arrested-"
Mr. Smiley's angry ranting kept on for quite a while after that, but I stopped listening after the first minute or so when the blue-haired girl walked up to me while I was carefully putting the bag back on my shoulder, as Steven had gone to answer his phone when Pearl called.
"How did you know he did that thing to the game?" she asked, tilting her head a little, while raising an eyebrow. I chuckled a little before answering, bringing a hand up to my bandaged wound to hide the small drops of blood that had started to seep through the fabric.
"Well, it didn't exactly take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that he was cheating. No matter what your score was, he'd always have that exact number tripled. All it took to figure it out was some simple math. Nothing special, really." I said, giving her a sideways smile. She blushed again, and let out a small chuckle, before looking down at her feet and placing her hand on her neck.
"Maybe. Anyways... Thank you, for putting that idiot in his place, and... for the dance." she said, before quickly pulling me towards her by the collar of my shirt, and placing a small kiss on my left cheek.
I felt my face heat up a little when she let go, and when she backed away, her face was so red it looked like it was about to melt. I let out a soft chuckle, making her look at me with an embarrassed face, before I shook my head a little and looked back at her.
"The pleasure was all mine, m'lady." I said, causing her to laugh at my choice of words, before she shook her head as well.
Suddenly I felt Steven grabbing my hand, and when I looked down at him I saw him placing his phone back in his right back pocket, before looking up at me with a wide smile.
"Pearl said that dinner's ready, and that we should get back home soon, before Amethyst eats it all." he said, and I nodded, before I looked back up at the girl.
"I guess I'll see you around?" I asked, and she nodded, giving me a wide smile and a wink.
"You got it! And when we do, how about I treat ya to some ice-cream? As thanks for today?" she said, and I gave her a quick thumbs up as Steven started to pull me with him towards the exit, a small sprint in his steps.
"It's a date!" I answered, just as we exited the arcade, and I could see her face growing red again, which caused me to let out a small laugh.
I finally looked back up in front of me when Steven started to run, and I noticed how low the sun had gotten, and how the sky had turned into a beautiful mixture of all kinds of reds, orange and yellows, and how even now, the stars had started to appear on the parts of the sky that were still blue. All of this I managed to take in in the time it took us to reach Beach Citywalk Fries, and by the time we'd run past the T-shirt Shop, Steven had finally started to slow down, and let go of my hand just as we reached The Big Donut.
Once we were right about to walk past it, I heard the bells on the front door jingle, and when I turned to look, I saw the one and only Greg Universe walking out of the store with a large paper bag in hand. Steven soon turned around as well, and when he saw his dad, a large grin appeared on his face as he started to run towards him, arms stretched out to his sides.
"Dad!" he exclaimed, taking Greg by such surprise that he almost dropped his bag, but he managed to catch it just before Steven jumped onto him and gave him a hug. Greg let out a surprised laugh, before hugging his son back and placing him back down on the ground.
"Hey Shtuball, what are you doing out here this late? Shouldn't you be having dinner right about now?" he asked, ruffling Steven's hair a little.
"That's why we're on our way home!" Steven answered, and Greg looked confused for a second, probably wondering why his son had just spoken about multiple people, before he finally looked up at me.
His eyes widened a little, and I could see the familiar look of concern that my dad always had whenever I got hurt, mixed with surprise, as I gave him a small wave.
"Oh, did you make a new friend?" he asked Steven after he'd finally let go, before looking back up at me, still with concern and worry.
"Yeah! This is Felix, the Gems found him on their mission in Kindergarten today!" Steven said, before walking over to me and grabbing my hand again, and pulling me over to where Greg stood.
"Oh, so you're a Gem then?" he asked after Steven'd let go of me, and I quickly faked a confused face. Couldn't make myself look suspicious.
"If you mean like Garnet, Amethyst or Pearl, then no. I'm fully human." I answered, giving him a small smile. A look of confusion spread across Greg's face when I said that, and he scratched the bald part of his head a little, placing one hand on his hip.
"Really? I thought the Gems said that it was impossible for humans to enter any of the places that belonged to Homeworld?" he said, but before I could answer to his contemplations, Steven answered for me.
"Well, it is, but Felix was only able to get there because that's where the portal that sent him to our world opened!" he said, smiling widely as he looked at me.
The confusion on Greg's face seemed to have multiplied by ten, as he almost looked like the human equivalent of a question mark, before he too looked up at me. I let out a sigh, before resting my hand back on my neck, scratching it a little.
"I know this will sound weird, and unbelievable, and completely impossible, to be honest, but... I'm from another dimension. I was sent here when it got destroyed, and like Steven said, that's how I ended up in Kindergarten. It was only out of pure luck that the Gems even found me there. So, they brought me to the Temple and said that I was allowed to stay there for as long as I needed. And that's why we're out right now, because your son wanted to show me as much of this city as possible." I explained, and it seemed like I had answered at least a few of his unspoken questions, as he slowly nodded in response.
"Okay then, I guess. I mean, my son lives with three magical beings from another planet, so I don't see why I shouldn't believe that other dimensions exist as well." he said, but he sounded like he wasn't even really sure if he believed his own words. I chuckled a little, and brought down my hand from my neck, resting it on the strap of my bag instead.
"I-I know it might be a lot to take in, at least for another human, but I hope that you don't think it's too weird. And I just want you to know that you won't have to worry about anything happening to your son! My world is almost exactly like this one, a-and back home I'd take care of my cousins' kids all the time, and spent almost my entire summer vacation at a kindergarten, so I would never let anything happen to Steven! If anything, I'd be more of a big brother to him than-"
"Hey, hey, calm down! It's okay, I trust you." Greg said with a nervous smile, cutting me off as I started to feel my eyes water, and my heart pounding faster against my chest. Steven looked up at me, worry clearly visible on his face, as he quickly grabbed my hand, giving me enough comfort to calm down a little.
I sucked in a few deep breaths, and once my heart had returned to its normal rythm, I looked back at Greg with a small smile.
"Thank you. And sorry, about that, it's just..." I started, trying to keep the smile on my face, but Greg once again stopped me from continuing, this time by placing a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him, as I felt a small tear slide down my left cheek, and saw him smiling at me.
"It's okay, you don't have to say it if you don't want to." he said softly, and since I wasn't really sure what to answer, I only nodded in response.
"Thanks, mr. Steven's-dad-guy." I said, as I realized Greg had never really introduced himself, which caused both him and Steven to laugh.
"Oh, please, just call me Greg." He said after a good ten seconds of laughing, a small tear in his eyes, as he shook his head. I smiled back at him.
"You got it." I said, before I suddenly remembered that Steven and I were supposed to have been back at the temple at least five minutes ago, and I quickly looked down at him, seeing him wipe a few tears of laughter from his eye.
"Steven, we have to get back to the Temple. Pearl must've started to get worried by now." I said, and he nodded his head, still smiling, before quickly jumping up and giving his dad one more hug. I laughed a little at that, before I turned to look at Greg, smiling.
"It was nice to meet you, Greg." I said, as he placed Steven back on the ground, ruffling his hair a bit, before he looked back at me.
"You too, Felix. Now, get going you two, before the Gems start looking for you." he answered, and I nodded, before taking a hold of Steven's hand and making our way back to the beach house.