A:
It was after school on the day I planned to officially ask out Marla. Technically, the priority our still finding Ian, but I had other concerns. GamerGodKyle had given us credentials to join his forum after Marla beat him at FighterZ. Now, we were going to catch the GamerGodKyle stream while we waited for Ian to appear on the forum.
I'd invited Marla over to watch it at my house, figuring it would be that much easier to ask her out after. But she couldn't because Betsy'd setup some urgent meeting with her.
So, I watched it alone in my room. The stream had started, but GGK hadn't started playing a game yet. He was too busy berating his audience. I didn't see Ian in the forum yet, so I figured I might as well pay attention to the stream.
"I don't know what's the matter with you guys. You said you wanted to see Lord of Battle, I put up a little poll and that's what you all voted for. But then I buy it, for $60 mind you, and I play it and no one's sending me tips.
You know I do this for tips, right? Don't you all have jobs? I can't have a job, because I need to entertain you with these games. That takes up all my time. But you should have a job. If you're watching this stream and you aren't donating, you better have a job. You better be so underpaid that you can't give me a cent. Because if you're sitting there, and you're watching my streams and you aren't donating and you aren't trying to bring in money, you are a leech. Even worse, you're a criminal."
He was pretty irritating. I understood why his streams lost so many viewers. It was bad enough that he always begged for tips, but he also berated his fans.
His gameplay wasn't even top level. He'd gotten lost in the sprawling over world of the Sword and Sorcery-themed MMO Lord of Battle. He took a pause from his gameplay to answer a $5 SuperChat question.
"Ah, thanks for the $5. It's appreciated. Anyway, he has a question about..."
Kyle started reading the questions aloud, but stopped himself.
"Ok, you know what? I'm not even going to answer this. This stupid question has been and answered a thousand times, dipshit. Yes, I need tips and donations. No, I don't spend all the donations 'gambling' on mobile games. No, I won't show you my phone to prove it. That would be humiliating. You know what... screw it. Just ban this guy. Mods send this joker to ban world."
It baffled me that Kyle got away with treating his community so poorly, but I assumed that's just what online content creation was.
GGK returned to the game, but now some troll had logged on to the server to grief him. They kept standing in front of him and doing other annoying in-game things. Then Ian's screen name pop-up on the forum.
I logged and my heart started beating. If I started asking him questions in public, he couldn't just ignore me. Ian started a thread and posted about his recent activities. I clicked in and typed.
But they greyed the text box out, it wouldn't let me post any messages on the forum. I checked the account page, because I was so new, I needed to be logged in for at least five minutes before I could post anything. I had about three minutes left.
So I sat there and watched Ian's thread develop. He did some friendly greetings to people he knew, but what he posted next shocked me.
He posted a picture of him standing next to some opulent looking sports car and a dude who looked like the spokesperson for steroids. They wore fancy suits and Ian looked hip in some cool sunglasses. I couldn't believe my eyes.
This fascinated me, and I learned more as I read on. Apparently, the car was a "Bugatti" and worth more than a house.
If I'm being honest, around this town, that kind of ostentatious show of wealth was considered in poor taste. Everyone had money, but the flashiness Ian and this other guy were showing was foreign to me. Then Ian started bragging in the forum about all the expensive things he had. One person questioned his shallowness and Ian responded by asking, "What color is your Bugatti?". This humiliated the other poster, and he logged off.
I looked over at my timer and saw that I only had to wait fifteen more seconds before I could talk to Ian. There were a million things I needed to ask. First, I just wanted to find out where he was.
There was an urgent knock at my door. Paris threw it open without waiting.
"Paris, I've told you a million times, a knock means nothing if you don't want for a response."
"Don't worry about that. Come down to the front door quick."
Paris' demeanor was different. I could tell it was something serious. Her voice made me think she knew it was something I'd want to attend to. I cringed at the thought of dragging myself away from the forum. I was about to get to interrogate Ian. Still, Paris' urgency couldn't be ignored. I followed her downstairs and hoped I wouldn't miss my chance to talk to Ian.
B:
When I got to the door, I was surprised by who was there. It was Cole, and he was silent and frozen, standing at the doorway looking helpless. I turned to Paris, and she looked concerned.
"Andy, this is your friend, right?"
We invited him in and sat down. Then he told us what was going on.
"Andy... Luna dumped me. It's over."
He looked like he'd just seen some horrific accident. Not emotive, just in shock. Paris was more emotional than he was. Her eyes starting bawling up, even though she didn't know him, and she ran to the other room to get tissues.
"Man, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I just... I didn't think she would."
"What did she say?"
Cole explained to me she felt like he'd lost focus and ambition. She wanted to date a striver, not a slacker. But even he didn't believe that.
"It just doesn't make sense. She never cared about that stuff before... Why is it so important that I overachieve now?"
The reasoning made little sense to me, so I didn't have an answer for him. We both looked at Paris for some wisdom, given she was older than both of us. But considering her internet loser boyfriend, I figured that she didn't know much better.
But she figured out one thing she could do. Paris grabbed Cole's neck and pulled his face into her chest. I assume this was supposed to be a nurturing gesture. But, considering her lack of chest padding, it was more of an assault. Cole's pleas for mercy only enraged her.
"Ah... too... flat... too... boney..."
"Boney... What do you mean boney?... Wait... ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT MY CHEST?"
Hitting that sore spot was enough to enrage Paris. I had to hold her back while I told Cole to run up to my room and wait for me. Paris' range of emotion amazed me. From sympathetic tears to a rage-filled assault in under a minute had to be some sort of record.
When I got back to my room, Cole was waiting. He was marveling at my manga collection and looked especially interested in Olympus Strikes Back.
"Hey Andy, would it be okay if we watched one of these animes? I'd like something to take my mind off everything."
"Of course. How about that one? It's about this dude Aaron, giant zombies ate his family and he goes out on a mission to kill them all."
"Yeah, that sounds cool. Is it long? I need something to kind of binge."
"It's long alright but.. actually... I'm remembering now that the ending sucks. The writer started getting obsessed with fan comments on Reddit and lost confidence in his own vision. Nothing can survive a writer second guessing himself."
Cole looked at me in awe.
"Wow... yeah, I need that kind of stuff. Something to nerd out on."
At the end, I decided to just let Cole watch Olympus Strikes Back. I figured it was worth letting him come to his own conclusion about the ending. For all I knew, he would like it.
Of course, we didn't get through all 120 episodes that night. We got about four hours in and it got to be too late.
Cole got up to leave, but don't go before giving me heavy and heart-felt hug. It occurred to me that, despite being a celebrity at our school, Cole might have had nobody to confide in at a moment like this. Even in his family, he had this sort of weird relationship with Veronica, and it sounds like there's a lot of pressure put on him for being the oldest in such a prestigious lineage. Maybe that's some of what Luna was talking about.
Before he left, he said one thing to me.
"Andy, I know you haven't asked out Marla yet. But you need to do it. You need to do it as soon as possible. Don't be left with regrets."
After he left, I tried not to think too much about their relationship and walked back to my computer. That was when I realized I'd missed the entire stream. GGK was gone. Of course, the forum was dead. And someone had even deleted the Bugatti thread Ian had made. Frankly, I doubted if the club would even believe Ian was posing with Andrew Jordan Paul next to a Bugatti if I told them.
I had to count the night, from an official perspective, as a failure. GGK would not stream for a few more days, so it looked like we'd have to wait at least that much longer to contact Ian.
It was already late. I'd planned to go to Marla's to ask her out after the stream, but it was now too late to do that. I was still going to ask her out tonight, but I'd need to change my plans.