"Huh." Sandra looked at Will with disbelief in her eyes.
"What?" Asked Will.
He was in the middle of telling her Alex's backstory,
"I just find it hard to believe that that's Alex. Did he run away from home or what?" Sandra would have never thought that both of them met like that.
"Yes, but for a good reason…"
Will continued explaining to her everything he knew about Alex.
Somehow he was able to trick his own parents and successfully hid Alex from his parents for one night.
Alex slept in the closet, which was huge. It made sense since Will lived in a large house and thus all the closets are the size of smaller rooms.
Alex made a little joke about a show called 'Bleach' and how it reminded him of it, when Rukia hides and lives in Ichigo's closet. Will has never seen that anime so he never understood what he meant.
When he was in the closet, Will gave him a blanket, a pillow, some new clothes including his own pyjamas. Will asked Alex NOT to take a shower. It would make too much noise and alert his parents. Even though Alex smelled like he hasn't taken a shower in years, Will did not mind the smell as long as he wasn't too close to him.
Alex and Will thought that he would only stay for one night. But the second day came and there was a problem, his parents decided to stay home the entire weekend inside the house with Will, to spend time together as a family, which is something they rarely do.
Will loved his parents, but he really wanted them out of the house otherwise they would find Alex.
Will made some suggestions to eat outside, or some excuse to bring his parents out of the house. But they didn't like the idea and instead watched movies all weekend, played family games, and ate so much junk food. They just didn't feel like doing anything.
Had Will continued to pressure them to go outside, they would find his actions suspicious and would ask questions. Will knew this as he had made these mistakes several times before.
With no other choice left, Alex had to stay quiet inside the house which was a good thing for him. Will gave him free lunch in the meantime which was a heavenly treatment for Alex. It also provided him warmth, shelter, and everything he could ever hope for.
Why didn't Alex simply leave the house when Will's parents are asleep? Is because they set up an alarm which sets off after a specific time. This is so Will never sneaked out, and no one could enter. The minute the alarm sounds, police will be sent to their house. They live in a nice neighbourhood, but better safe than sorry.
Alex was not confident in outrunning the police. It was simply too risky. So he stayed most of the weekend alone, by himself with his own phone. Will was keeping his parents away from the basement away from Will.
But thanks to his phone, and the great internet Will's family had, he could watch so much anime without the screen freezing up or whatnot. A lot better than using the free internet from any fast food restaurant.
On a sunday, Will successfully managed to escape from his parents and head downstairs to the basement. He didn't do this for Alex, but because he was simply tired of all the 'family time' that he didn't have time to play his favourite game, minecraft.
He sulked a little because his bloodborne game was gone. But since he wouldn't be alive if Alex hadn't been there. He counted himself very lucky. Will wouldn't be going outside any time behind his parents back again.
And yes he was tired of spending time with his family but not tired enough to not play minecraft on his computer.
Alex was a little bored and needed a drink. So he exited Will's closet and Will's room.
"Hey, whatcha doin'?" Whispered Alex when he saw Will playing a game he'd never seen before.
Will looked at the steps but heard nothing. He sighed because his parents didn't hear him
"Playing minecraft." Will couldn't tell Alex to go back to his room like commanding a dog. He saved him. And besides Alex has been in the closet for over a day now, he needed to stretch out his limbs.
Will's house only had one computer, Will's computer. Will used it to play games, and very rarely to do actual homework. Honestly the chances of him doing homework on his computer are as low as the legendary author 'DemonGodHiatus' posting a new chapter every day.
His parents don't use computers since they spend most of their time outside on their work. They usually use their phones or laptops for work and work only.
"Minecraft? I think I've heard about that. Is it a block game with zombies?" Alex seemed a little interested in it. He sat beside Will.
Will noticed that the pungent stinge that came from Alex before wasn't there anymore. And he even looked clean.
Before Will looked like a homeless person, dirty, smelled, but now he looked like a clean, normal, decent human being.
"Did… you shower?" It was the only explanation he could think of.
"No. I am not dumb. I simply took a wet towel, some hand soap and washed myself everywhere. Don't worry, I made sure to wash it and dry it after using it."
Alex knew that taking a shower would make too much noise, like Will told him before. But he still wanted to be clean. So he was smart and wiped himself clean with a towel instead.
"That's… smart… Wait, what's your name?" Will asked.
He didn't ask Alex before because Alex was sleeping most of the time he was here. Alex was very tired and it was the best sleep he had ever gotten in all his life.
"Uh… it's… my name is… Alex. Alexander Anderson."
The reason Alex hesitated was not because he was afraid of Will knowing his name, but because Alex never had a proper name. He just thought of an anime character, and the first one that popped in his head was Alexander Anderson from Hellsing, and used that name instead. (Explained in 'Killer of mc's)
And also it was basically the only normal name he could think of at the moment.
"I'm Will… um… do wanna play?" Will pointed at the computer screen.
"Um, sure. But I don't know how to play."
"You don't know?" Will's eyes shined. Not because Alex didn't know how to play, but because he actually said 'yes' this would be the first time he would play a video game with anybody.
He had asked his parents to play with him several times, but they were either too busy or simply didn't like the video games Will plays. Except tetris, candy crush, or chess, but those aren't fun to Will compared to Minecraft or Terraria. And he doesn't have any friends.
"Wait here." Will ran up the stairs, but slowed down once he remembered his parents were sleeping in the living room. He was so excited that he forgot about them.
'Not like I can go anywhere else.' Alex thought. He sat down on the comfy sofa. Now that he was clean, he could sit on it without dirtying it.
A few minutes later Will returned with an expensive laptop, an expensive keyboard, and an expensive computer mouse.
Will opened up the minecraft game on the laptop using a different account. Since they only had one computer Will had to use his own laptop.
He had made this second minecraft account and a free multiplayer server on his birthday when he only wished for his dad or mom to play minecraft with him. Unfortunately they never did play with him, and the account he made for them ended up being a waste, until now.
He loved his parents and his parents loved him, but they simply could not understand their son's love for video games. Perhaps he thought that they thought his parents found video games a waste of time, something that they only should do in their spare time. And even when they have spare time they'd rather spend it doing something else.
For 15 years Will has never had a proper friend. He has long gotten used to being alone in school. And in school he is known as one of those 'quiet kid' type kids and people would occasionally avoid him. But in reality he just wants a friend to play video games with.
"Haha, yes!" Will said that quietly. He quickly connected both accounts to a multiplayer server.
Alex has absolutely no idea what was happening.
"Okay, are you sure you don't know how to play?"
"Not at all."
"Have you ever played any PC games?"
"PC?"
"I'll take that as a no. Okay, this is how you move, this is how you jump."
Will was very patient teaching Alex the very basic controls of minecraft. Alex was basically like a newborn child that was just learning.
After literally almost an hour of explaining and showing, Alex could barely move his character normally. This would be the first time Alex would play a video game, and touch a keyboard and mouse. All this was a brand new experience for him.
"Awesome!" Will was excited to see someone else play with him in his multiplayer server.
"What's the point of this game?"
He had seen this game being mentioned a few times on the internet, but it never caught his attention so he ignored it until now.
"Simple. We get wood, craft stuff with it, mine, kill mobs, do a few things after that, then kill a dragon."
"Sounds simple enough." Said Alex, who is having trouble mining a piece of wood with a stone pickaxe.
"Yeah. But it's the freedom of being able to build that you can imagine that makes this game awesome." Will was feeling very happy right now.
It was painful and cringey to watch Alex fail so badly at minecraft. It was like watching those dumb plays on youtube when youtubers fail spectacularly at minecraft.
After an hour, Alex got used to the game but not that much better.
Will, who has played minecraft ever since its release, felt as if this was an entirely different game the second Alex joined him.
He is 15 years old, and Minecraft came out in 2011. He has played this game for 4 years. He created many worlds, when he got bored of those he created more. Lately he'd get bored of it faster than usual. It didn't help that minecraft wasn't getting any major updates.
But this time, for some reason it felt different, as if it's an entirely different game, a new experience simply from playing with someone else.
They played minecraft until midnight. Will hasn't felt this connected to the game ever since he first played it.
"Hey, I have a great idea! We should play a type of minecraft game. Like I'd win if I beat the ender dragon, but you try to hunt me down before I slay it and win if you kill me. Sounds fun?" Will asked Alex with sparkly eyes.
"No. I don't see how that would ever be interesting. And I doubt that that type of game would ever be popular." Alex would soon be proven wrong.
"But… okay… Man, it's midnight." Will checked his phone. He had to go to 'hell' early tomorrow. And by 'hell' he means school.
"Okay. Guess this is our last day together. Thanks for everything." Will got up to once again stretch his legs. He had fun playing with Will.
"Last day? Oh…" Will was feeling down. This is the first time anybody has played with him in any video game that he likes, and it was short lived but a great memory.
Who knows when will be the next time that he would have another 'friend' to play with.
"Like we discussed, then. When your parents take you to school, I wait for a while and sneak out of the house."
"Yeah, sounds good. Hm?"
They heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
"Hide!" Will whispered to Alex.
The one who came down was none other than his mother.
"You're still up, Will? It's late and you have school tomorrow." His mother just woke up from a nap. Her eyes were still getting adjusted to the room's lighting.
"Yeah, just playing minecraft." Will was nervously sweating.
Alex didn't run to the closet because he didn't have time to run across the basement, open two doors without making noise, and all this before his mom would reach the basement floor.
So Alex was hiding behind the couch that was just enough to cover his body from Will's mom's sight.
And also he didn't know whether to call the furniture covering him a couch or a sofa, neither did Will know. But that hardly matters.
"That game again? We returned your PC after a month of being grounded, you wanna go for two more months!" She suddenly got mad at Will.
'Uh oh.' Will knew what was going to happen now.
"I mean, have you even taken a shower today? Have you done your homework? One of these days you're gonna look back and think 'I wasted my life playing video games' when instead you should be studying. When I was a kid even younger than you, I used to wake up every day at 2 am after sleeping for only 20 minutes. I would cross deserts, fight bandits, climb mountains, just so I could go to school. And yet I still got full A's on every subject…"
His mom just stood there in one spot, lecturing Will.
Will has heard his mom's lectures practically almost once a week.
The lectures she gives him always, ALWAYS goes off the rails.
For example: now it starts out with his video games and how it affects his grades, then she talks about her school life, then she goes to clothes, and science stuff, and his hygiene, and their family, then sports, it's just random stuff she adds in the end.
Sometimes she lectures him out of the blue for no reason. Not just him but Will's father is also a victim of her constant nagging. Will suspects that if maybe she hung out with friends instead then she wouldn't lecture them as much.
She's a good mom, but her lectures are as pointless, long, and as boring as a boring teacher in any school. Her lectures could just be shortened down to 5 minutes and not 2 hours of lecturing and it would have the same effect.
'Please, don't let her lecture me right now' Will begged the gods once again for their help. The longer she stays here the more likely she'll notice Alex who is literally no more than 5 meters away from her.
He hoped that something would distract her, anything would do! A fire, a phone call, a scary ghost entity.
*Ring* *Ring*
Her phone rang from upstairs. She and Will's father have different phone sounds. It sounds like an old fashioned home phone ringing. Will's father on the other hand has the famous alarm sound that gives anybody PTSD upon hearing it.
"Hold on." She ran up the stairs to grab her phone.
Once she was out of the basement floor, Alex bolted straight to Will's room and hid in the closet.
'Thank god.' Will was relieved. He didn't even need to tell Alex what to do.
"Yeah. We can just skip that part." Sandra said.
Sandra interrupted Will's backstory about Alex.
"Skip what?" Asked Will.
"You do this whenever you tell a story you always include non-important stuff, like those pointless filler episodes in Naruto. Like I already know that Alex stays in your house for many years. But was it necessary to add the other stuff?"
'Oh my god. I'm like my mom!' Will's worst fears had come true. He was basically explaining things like his mom would, adding random stuff that has no meaning.
"Okay… So after that I told Alex to stay at my house, that way he didn't have to live on the streets, and I could have a friend to play with. He agreed and was happy. It wasn't until… 1 year later Alex gave me the courage to confess to you."
"Wait, Alex was involved when you confessed to me on that day?"
"Yeah."
"You said that one day you got the courage to confess to me and that nobody else had anything to do with it."
"Yeah… I lied. Truth is… here's what happened."
Alex and Will were currently playing some other video games. It has already been 1 year since Alex started to live there. This whole time Will's parents never knew that Alex was living in their house. Thanks to their jobs they always returned late, and left early.
Alex mostly cleaned the house, not just the basement. Alex felt like it was the least he could do for Will for letting him stay. Living outside is simply the worst. In here it was heaven.
Alex did get bored staying inside the house for long periods of time, but he didn't mind it. As long as he had the internet and his entertainment it was all good.
"Oh, cool. Someone at your school won a gold medal yesterday in a karate tournament. Bruce is his name. Do you know him?" Alex checked the school's site and social media. He likes to see how the schools work because he always liked to go to one.
"..." Will was feeling grumpy today and didn't respond to Alex.
"What's wrong with you?" Asked Alex annoyingly. This wasn't the first time Will made that face.
Will has a seriously depressed face, as if his dog just died. He doesn't have a dog.
"I saw some of my classmates today. Two of which I know just started dating each other. Kinda jealous."
"Then ask a girl out, like the blonde girl you talk about… um, Britney!"
"Dude, she's way out of my league!!!" Will could never have the balls to ask a popular girl like Britney out. He might not like his status as the 'quiet kid' but it's better than being made fun of by the entire school.
"Okay. Then go to Victoria."
"Bleugh!" Will almost threw up at the mere mention of Britney, he even made a sound which he never knew he could do. The thought of that made him feel beyond disgusted.
"Don't! Ever! Say! That! Again!" Will said very seriously.
Alex has never seen that side of Will before. He said that as a joke but that really hit Will harder than he thought.
"Oookay… then confess to someone and just get it over with." Alex at first could handle Will's complaints, but now it has gotten annoying. It's like the 20th time Will has said something like this, and Alex wasn't eager for the 21th time.
Alex could not understand why Will would want a girlfriend. Probably because he's living in his house, has no I.D. and doesn't even have a job.
Getting a job when he's still a minor, has no I.D. no parents, no nothing, was basically like trying to walk on water, impossible.
"Like?"
"I dunno! How about that… red-haired girl, Sandy."
"Sandra."
Alex knows about Sandra because Will talked about his classmates, not just the girls. Like that one kid with 8th grader syndrome.
The reason Alex mentioned Sandra is because he only remembered her because of her red hair.
"Same difference. Just ask her out after school tomorrow. It'll be friday, everybody will want to go home early so you don't need to worry about making a scene in front of a lot of people. Write her a note or something to meet you at the back of the school. If she says no, tough luck. If she says yes, exchange phone numbers immediately, then plan and take her out on a date on the weekend."
"Um… I don't know, Alex. I am getting cold feet already." Will was more fascinated that Alex had already planned it out like that.
Sandra is a normal girl, not too popular, average in looks, grades. Her unique trait was her natural red hair. Still even Will saw her as someone out of his league.
Will has such low self esteem that he even thought that an ordinary girl was out of his league. He even thought of Alex as one of those 'cool kids' that appear in those high school movies.
Alex only said that to finally get Will to shut up. He's a guest in his house, so he respects him as a friend, but he's annoying as hell when it comes to wanting to date someone but never having the courage to do it.
"Okay, fine! I was hoping it wouldn't come to this but…"
Alex pulled out Will's laptop and logged into minecraft.
"What are you doing?"
"You made me do this. Look."
Alex showed him a screen of a lever, some redstone connected to a lever, and the end of the redstone is connected with mountains of TNT. The TNT surrounded their base. There wasn't a single spot in their base that didn't have TNT.
When Will was at school or sleeping, Alex secretly collected sand and secretly made a gunpowder farm, all for this very moment. He was just glad he added the TNT before because he knew Will would do this again.
"GASP! Don't! It took us weeks to build it!"
Their base was basically a giant villager town meant for breeding and torturing villagers, most of which was Alex's idea. Trading with villagers wasn't that great yet.
"If you don't ask Sandy or whatever her name is out by tomorrow, I will pull the lever. And I do not have a backup of this server, and you know I am not kidding because you should know that I know almost nothing about computers!"
Will knew that Alex wasn't bluffing. He doesn't ever know how to add skins yet to his minecraft account much less know how to make backups.
"Okay, fine. But please don't blow up the base! Please!"
The next day, Will did exactly as Alex told him only because he held their own base hostage. Will absolutely hated it when he had to restart over something that he had invested a lot of time in.
Will is currently behind the school after it had already ended. He is waiting for Sandra.
'Alex… how could you betray me like this.' Will was feeling a little betrayed. Who would have known that Alex would do this to him?
Will felt bad for wasting Sandra's time. His plan is to ask her out, get rejected, tell Alex about it, and liberate his base. Honestly he had no hopes of getting a girlfriend. At least this way he won't feel heartbroken when he gets rejected.
"Will?"
A young girl's voice called out to him. Will saw that it was Sandra. She wore casual clothes, a long, plain, blue skirt. Her shirt was white with some white flowers sewn into it, and with long white sleeves. She also had a small backpack which carried her gym clothes and other stuff.
"Did you need me for something?" Sandra was a little bit weirded out that Will, a classmate of hers whom she has never communicated with, decided to hand her a hand-written message telling her to come behind the school.
Luckily she has pepper spray on her hand that was hidden from sight. Should Will attempt to do anything to her she wasn't afraid to use it.
"No, um… it's just…" Will got cold feet and started feeling incredibly nervous. He couldn't even find the right words to say.
'Wait, isn't this a dick move on my part?' Will just noticed that he is playing with a girl's heart and emotions. Wasn't this basically a confession with zero heart and feeling put into it?
But remembering that Alex has his base hostage, he regained his composure.
"Would you like… to go on a date or something?" Will couldn't even look her in her eyes properly. It was like a magnetic force that was pulling his eyes away from hers.
'Cringe.' Will thought to himself. He thought that he should've rehearsed before.
"Sure." Sandra replied immediately.
"Huh?"
'Da fuck?!'
Will was very certain that Sandra would say 'no' because he would if he were in her shoes.
"Did… did you not hear what I just said?" Will asked to be sure.
"Yeah. You said 'we should go on a date' and I said 'yes.'"
"But… why?"
Most people would be excited to the point where they would want to strip naked and run around the world. But Will was beyond confused that no other math test question had ever made him rack his brains like this.
Will saw himself as someone 'worthless' 'dumb' 'slow' 'lazy' so he never thought that any girl would ever want to go out on a date with him. Some people should give themselves more credit and have more confidence, but that is easier said than done.
"Why what?" Sandra could not understand what Will was asking.
"Why would you ever go out with me? We barely talked, we're not even on a friendly basis, you're out of my league. So why would you ever say 'yes' to me?"
"Because…" Sandra wanted to say something else, but refrained from it.
Will immediately thought this was a trap set up by her friends. He read before on reddit that some girl's get dared by their friend's to ask out a guy.
Checking his surroundings he saw no one around. But this could still be a trap…
'Wait, if this is a trap, doesn't that mean that I am too late already? Crap!' Will cursed himself. He already confessed, and if Sandra had recorded the whole thing he's done for.
"Do you want to go eat at Mcdonalds… together?" Sandra pointed to a famous fast food restaurant that was literally 2 blocks away from their school.
"Sssshhhure."
Everything that has happened today was going the complete opposite as Will had planned. Nonetheless Sandra took the lead and led Will to their first date, which is at a fast food restaurant.
On the way, they both saw a bouquet of roses neatly wrapped up in paper that was sitting on the ground behind a tree. There were exactly twelve roses in total and they were all fresh.
"That seems like a waste." Sandra lamented. Roses are expensive. Throwing away 12 of them like that seemed like a complete waste of money and good flowers.
They ignored the roses and went ahead with their date.
"And that is what happened." Will completed his story.
"..." Sandra.
"Will… could you take off your helmet and your mask?"
"Sure. Why?" Will did as she wanted.
*Bonk*
Sandra used Will's dragon scale helmet as a blunt weapon and his Will on the head.
"OW!" Will cried in pain, but mostly from the feeling of betrayal.
"You confessed to me because of your minecraft base?" Sandra felt hurt. But thinking about it, it all made sense now. But the truth was painful.
"Sorry!"
"You should be sorry!"
"But, Sandra, isn't it a good thing that it happened? If Alex didn't threaten me that day I would have never been able to confess to you."
"I know that! But you should have told me that instead of a crappy lie like 'I confessed to you because I really do love you' this is the second worst thing you have done to me."
"Second?"
"The first is getting me pregnant. And having me secretly raise a child with my parents."
"HOLY! WHAT THE HELL!" Will was shocked, as if his own world had fallen apart. He has a child? Had he fallen to a new low that he couldn't even be there for his own child. And worst of all he didn't even know.
"Just kidding." Sandra smiled coyly.
"Sandra… not cool, dude. That was too much." Will felt like he was going to get a heart attack. He believed her because she isn't the type to joke like that.
"Now we're even." That was merely payback for lying to her all those years ago.
"Okay… should we sleep then?" Will pointed to the beds. He didn't feel like talking anymore.
"Yes. But right now I don't feel like sleeping together." Sandra dragged her bed all the way across the other side of the room. She was still a bit mad at Will, but she's easy to forgive him.
The night went by without any more problems popping up.