ROISA MEETS ANIMAL CROSSING PT. 1
“Lu, what are you doing?”
Luisa lay sprawled on their couch in a pose that was usually uniquely Rose’s – all legs hanging over one arm and the rest of her flat against the cushions, hair splayed out under her – with some sort of not mobile but still gaming device in her hands. She held up one finger, gave an unhappy sigh at the device, and then held it in her lap, staring at the ceiling. “Lamenting the fact that I can’t have all of the villagers on my island at any given time.”
Rose stared at her, blinked, considered it for a few second, and then said, “Luisa, we don’t have an island anymore. We lost that when you sold me out to the police. Remember?”
Luisa groaned. “I didn’t sell you out to anyone and,” she shifted on the couch, sitting more upright and pushing herself against the opposite arm, “I didn’t say our island, I said my island.” She held the gaming device up in one hand. “I got us a Switch.”
“A what?”
Luisa patted the cushion next to her. “It’s a Switch. Well, this one’s a lite because the normal ones are all sold out and I’m sure your connections could probably get us one of the really rare exclusive kinds but I didn’t feel like that’s what we should be using your connections for, so I got us a lite.” She grinned and settled a little more firmly into her cushion. “I got us two actually. This one,” she held up hers, “is turquoise because you know how I feel about blues and calming and they’re great, and yours,” she pulled out a box from behind the sofa as Rose sat down next to her, “is all rosy pink.” She grinned. Then the grin faded. “Okay, technically, it’s coral but you know what, it looks pink and we can call it rosy pink all we want because no one’s going to be around to hear us but ourselves.” She placed the box in Rose’s lap and then leaned over and kissed her cheek. “And you don’t get to complain about it already being open because no one tampered with it, I just wanted to make sure it was charged and that you had Animal Crossing downloaded so that you could play with me and we could visit each other’s islands and stuff.” She pressed her lips together and looked down at her device. “Only you don’t have to visit my island and I don’t have to visit yours, but—” She sighed. “It’s more fun if we can play together.”
Rose stared at the box, flipping open one of the sides carefully with one thumb. “You want me to play a video game.”
“Well,” Luisa took a deep breath, “I thought it would be something nice to do, you know. And video games you can still kill people and blood and gore and stuff.”
“And you play this game?” Rose asked, one brow raising as she looked at Luisa.
“Oh, no, Animal Crossing doesn’t do blood and gore. It’s actually pretty chill. You just fly out to an island and then you…well, you don’t own the island, but you get to pick which villagers live there sort of and you get to pick where everyone lives and eventually you get to terraforming….” She sighed. “I haven’t gotten terraforming yet. I haven’t gotten much of anything yet because it syncs to real time and I think you have to play for so many days before you can do stuff like that and it’s….” She sighed again. “Right now I only have two villagers and I love them both and—”
Rose reached over to try and take Luisa’s device.
Luisa swatted at her hand and held hers close to her. “No! You have your own!”
“I thought you wanted to show me your island,” Rose said, staring at her as innocently as she could manage.
“When you can fly and visit me! And when I can fly and visit you!” Luisa pouted. “I don’t want you taking it and playing around with it or anything.” She shook her head. “Besides, I thought you’d want your own island to do whatever you wanted with it. And this way we get twice as many villagers.” She winked and then grinned.
Rose stared down at the little device in her hands. Okay, not so little because it’s bigger than her phone is – bigger than her phone has ever been, but smaller than tablets. She’s never really been one for these sorts of things. She hadn’t grown up with them – Elena had refused to get her one, and while Derek had them, that had been while she was at college, and then she hadn’t really cared. She’d had other things on her mind. So this…this was new to her.
“How do I play?” she asked, staring at it.
“Well, first of all,” Luisa flipped Rose’s forward and pressed one of the small buttons on the top, “you press this button to turn it on.” She grinned and pressed a kiss to Rose’s cheek again. “I only downloaded Animal Crossing for you, but I also got us the Pokemon games but I didn’t know if you wanted Sword or Shield – they have different Pokemon on them, so I thought it would be cool to look at them and then if there ones you wanted and liked best you could have that game and I could have the other one and I know we can trade them and everything so we can both have full pokedexes and everything so it’s really not that big of a deal but—” Luisa slowly stopped as she saw Rose’s blanking expression, and she grinned again as Rose gave a little nod. “This is all going completely over your head, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Luisa laughed. “You’re cute. Have I ever told you that you’re cute?”
Rose pouted. “I’m not cute. You’re the cute one. I’m the hot one.”
“Hey, I’m hot, too.” Luisa stuck her tongue out, and as Rose leaned forward, she stuck a hand between them. “And we’re not doing that right now. I’m showing you how to play games.”