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Terry and Pollux paced by the mall, during a particularly lazy weekend. With a bunch of quarters jingling in his pocket, the otter knew exactly where he was headed to. It was hot outside, so he went with his tried-and-true T-shirt and shorts combo, going barepawed like it was usual for him.

Pollux on the other hand was dressed up nicely, along-sleeve purple button down shirt with a pair of black dress slacks and black dress shoes with gold accents was his outfit for the day, he normally dressed up nice when going out, the location didn't really matter unless it was messy. But, today was different, his eyes lit up when he saw the big neon "Arcade" sign at the other side of the mall.

"Alright, here we are! Time to see what they have! They said they would be replacing a ton of broken and old machines and bring some new ones!" Terry grabbed Pollux and shook him like he tended to. "Maybe games we've never seen before!"

Pollux nodded. "I'm so excited, heh!"

They walked from the dimly lit mall into the neon and video game screen-lit arcade, screens were flashing, 8-bit noises and semi-realistic gun noises could be heard, kids laughing and parents sighing, it was a little piece of heaven, but the two knew what they were looking for. They both began to scour the arcade for any hint of new games.

"Alrighty...keep your eyes open, Poll!" He grabbed his boyfriend's head and pulled his eyelids wide open. "Anythinggg..."

The red panda frantically looked around, most of the games looked like they'd been at least cleaned and had new buttons put on, but no new game so far, he wondered where they could be, or why they hadn't spotted them yet... and then... "O-Oh! Terry!" Pollux pointed to a set of three games right next to each other.

"What? What?" He followed Pollux's pointing. "Ohhh! These are definitely new!" He picked the red panda up and ran over to the set of machines, setting him down in front of them. "Ahhh, Guardians of the Galaxy! And...and Cave Story! And...and...Star Fox! Whoo!"

Pollux giggles and looked at Terry. "What do you wanna do first? We gotta try them all!"

"Uhhh, ahhh..." Terry was overwhelmed by the options, looking he was about to lose it. "Aahhhh..."

"Uuuuuh! Star Fox! You do that one! I'll try Cave Story!"

"Okay then!" He reached into his shorts and began pulling several quarters out, his paws shaking out of excitement.

Pollux, instead of actually playing a game, was leaning up against the console Terry was playing to watch him play.

Terry managed to insert the required amount of coins into the machine, putting the rest into his pocket. "Oh man, I knew they were re-releasing this old game in arcade form, but I thought it'd stay in Japan only..." His paws then went to the joystick and buttons, starting up the game.

Pollux laughed, watching how excited Terry was, taking glee in his partner's happiness, it was something he always loved about Terry.

"Ohh, it looks so good! It's not even a CRT! The polygons are so crisp, I could cut my fingers on them!" The otter's eyes were wide with happiness, as he began piloting the Arwing in the game.

The two spent the entire day like this, trying out the new games, retrying them, going to the food court and then coming back, and it was incredibly fun for the both of them.

I've been waiting for the right moment to post these art pieces, considering I wanted them to go up with some backstory on them to contextualize how important these relationships are! For all intents and purposes, this is the true canon of all these characters! Check out the rest of the series!

Art was done by the amazing  ConnerCoon! Go and check out his stuff!
Story is a joint collab by me and  Anciano!
Terry the otter is my fursona!
Pollux the red panda belongs to  Anciano!