Pyrrha knew she should have been worried when Ruby had whisked her off on a 'secret' date.

Rather, Pyrrha had been ecstatic – after all, she always had fun whenever Ruby planned for a date. Not only because it was great to spend time with her energetic girlfriend outside of campus, but because no matter what zany adventure or place Ruby took Pyrrha to, they always found a way to brighten up her day or even week.

What should have tipped it off to the tall redhead was when Ruby was staying unusually tight lipped about where exactly they were going. Usually, the short teen would spill it the moment they got into the airbus… but not this time.

It wasn't until the two arrived at a rather secluded looking arcade that Pyrrha started to get an idea of where this was going. "An arcade?"

"Yup~!" Ruby twirled around to face her before pointing at Pyrrha. "We're going to do the one thing you've never been able to beat!"

Pyrrha's insides went cold as she started to back away in terror. "No, anything but that…"

The tall redhead wasn't able to take more than two steps before her girlfriend put a stop to that. "Aww, please?" Complete with the pout. The one that made Pyrrha entirely certain her smaller half could get away with murder.

"I-I-I'll give it a shot…" That pout turned upside down into a radiant smile letting Pyrrha breathe a sigh of relief.

"Yay!" Ruby grabbed the considerably less excited teen by the hand before leading her into the maze of brightly lit machines – but not before exchanging some lien for game tokens. Their brief journey ended with Pyrrha in front of the machine.

We meet again, skee ball machine.

"A-a-are you sure we have to do this?" Just because Pyrrha had agreed to give it a try didn't mean that she was set in actually doing it. "There is a really interesting racing gam-"

"Every ball you get in the hole you get a kiss."

Now that's just playing dirty, Pyrrha thought as she resigned herself to her fate, Ruby's pulled out the pout and bribery… I really don't have a chance, do I?

"Alright Ruby, I'll do it." The redhead answered with a long sigh before the younger one merrily handed her one of the many skee balls that belonged to the machine. Taking another deep breath, she let it out before focusing on the task at hand.

Gripping the ball, not too light or too tightly, she rolled it down the track towards the center vertical line of holes. Pyrrha's breath caught in her mouth as it hit the ramp at the end before smacking into the wall… and rolling into a hole. Success?!

Pyrrha's jubilation was cut short by being gently pulled down for a quick kiss on the lips from her clearly happy girlfriend.

Maybe this won't be so bad?

Two hours later they were out of game tokens and willpower.

It had been abundantly clear within a few games that the first ball going in had been a fluke of beginner's luck, as the most balls either ended up in the gutter… or bouncing off the cage end and rolling back down the ramp.

To call it mercy that they'd run out of game tokens would be putting it lightly in Pyrrha's mind. No, it was a miracle to the redhead when the large pile was finally nothing more than a memory.

Out of two hours of playing skee ball, Pyrrha had exactly gotten six kisses from her encouraging girlfriend. Only six.

To say that it was relief when Ruby finally led her out of the arcade was the understatement of the year. What was weird, at least to Pyrrha's failure-addled brain was that instead of going straight back home after her less than… stellar-performance, the duo was headed in the opposite direction.

Emerald eyes blinked in surprise as Pyrrha realized Ruby was leading them towards a small ice cream parlor. "Ruby, I… I did really badly. While I appreciate the thought, - and ice cream does sound good right now - we could always just call it a day here."

"Nope~!" Ruby veered sharply at the shop much to Pyrrha's confusion, and instead headed to a rather unused section of space between buildings.

"Wha-"

"Not ice cream!" Pyrrha found herself being pressed lightly against a wall as Ruby strained on her toes before just yanking the tall girl to her level. "You'll see."

Suddenly this day had gotten a lot better for Pyrrha as her girlfriend's hot lips gently caressed her neck.

Much better.

AU: This has reference to another story I imagine many readers now :P

I felt the ending was a bit abrupt but that's all I could really think of to be honest. Sorry if the quality was a bit off… my mind has been a bit occupied as of late. Working on the MonCon submission (which is at 8400 words now and climbing, OH BOY!) and… Well, kinda had to put my dog down yesterday. Yeah.

Honestly that last reason is why the quality really fell today and this is shorter then usual. I'm sorrry! X_X

A bit more on this but... it wasn't a sudden thing by any means; Stella's health had been failing for a long time. The past few weeks or months its gotten to the point to us having to carry her outside to go to the bathroom... it was just that bad. So it really was time. I could go on, but I think I'll hold off because you guys and gals probably don't need to hear more on it.

Not a good way to start off the weekend... Anywho, I hope everyone liked the chapter and has a good weekend!

Thank you all for reading, and have a great day! :D

P.S. It's also the one year annviersary of Dilation! I'll try and get a chapter up as soon as possible! :P