→ Sosuke:

After the school day came to a close, Sosuke and Tobias walked home together like they’d always done, only parting ways when they’d reached the first neighborhood (Tobias’). Sosuke then spent his evening like every other typical friday: speed-running his weekend homework so his mother didn’t have a reason to chase him with a ruler, and then basically inhaling his dinner so he could meet up with the boys on their favorite fantasy game.

“Heeeeeey,” Tobias, aka FiretsonNuaed, said once Sosuke connected to the voice channel in their friends-only Discord gaming server. “Did mama make something good?”

“Oh you know it,” Sosuke said into his mic and adjusted his headset to a more comfortable length. “She made your absolute faaaaav.”

Sosuke’s snicker turned into a cackle when Tobias made a gagging sound.

“Sushi is so nasty!” Tobias continued his dramatics and Sosuke rolled his eyes. He clicked on the icon for Iris Legends Online, and the “play button” screen popped up in an instant. He slid the bar over and leaned back in his chair as the game launched into full-screen mode.

“It’s the most delicious Asian delicacy there is! You have no idea what you’re missing out on,” Sosuke said while the logo animations flashed across his computer monitor. Tobias kept up his gagging fest for a couple more seconds as the game’s loading screen played.

“Neveeeeerr,” Tobias hissed and Sosuke imagined his best friend was sticking out his tongue at him.

I’ll make him like it one day, Sosuke thought with a smirk. He rocked his worn chair back-and-forth, making sure to keep it up just enough so he wouldn’t actually fall backwards to the floor.

“Okay,” Sosuke said as the buffer hit forty-three percent. “I hate to say it, but we do gotta talk about the omega lady.”

“I thought you weren’t interested?” Tobias piped in and Sosuke swore he could feel the eyebrow-waggle on the other side.

“Yeah, but the other options weren’t so good, either,” Sosuke continued with a sigh and stared down at the percentile buffering icon. “And you were right about one thing—we could at least hear her out.”

“I mean yeah,” Tobias said as the server screen came up for Sosuke. “That’s what any other kid who needs a job would do. Plus, it feels pretty cool that she gave us her cell number!” Sosuke clicked on their group’s server and laughed at Tobias’ naivety.

“Tobi, she could do that for many people and we wouldn’t know,” he said. “And it could also be another business line…” Sosuke’s character screen faded in and he smiled at the max-level mage scowling back at him. Ah, how he loved the snarky, narcissistic masterpiece he poured years of his life into crafting.

“I somehow doubt that—” A bloop cut in over Tobias’ voice, but didn’t break his willingness to continue. “Like, you saw the way she looked at us. Obviously we’re special, otherwise she wouldn’t have come up to us boys when there were plenty of attractive teenage girls around!”

“Uh, FN,” Sosuke said as a warning.

“The girls were even trying to get a card themselves after we left!” Tobias continued, on a mission to prove his point. Sosuke ran his hands down his face and groaned. He could only hope the friend that entered didn’t question their odd conversation.

“And I didn’t see her write on anyone else’s card when we went to the other booths. She was totally only interested in us, dude, like she’d been looking for potentials like us for a long tim—”

“Hey guys!” thesexiestbeanpole’s scratchy voice officially broke the rest of Tobias’ tangent, and Sosuke had to stifle a laugh.

“Sup, Long Nose?” Sosuke chimed in.

Their friend’s name obviously wasn’t “long nose,” but it was an insult that turned into a nickname sometime after they had all video-called for the first time as a group. The same went without saying for Bug Eyes, aka ur$cariestNightmare, and the Fatty Buchas, or SamuraiJaqueline69 and GodofBarbarians2000.

“Just got out the shower and downed some ramen. You?” Long Nose said. They were only in a Discord call, so it was hard to tell precisely, but Sosuke imagined Long Nose was drinking something since he started smacking his lips together. This reminded Sosuke about his hidden box of the classic Mountain Dew, so he pushed his chair back and got up to retrieve one.

“‘Bout to grab a Dew, hold on,” Sosuke said as he was pulling the headset off. He draped it over the top of his chair and walked over to his closet. As much as he wanted to refrigerate the can, his mom would throw them out during the day, and then punish him later for bringing junk into her house. He could, however, go downstairs to get a glass of ice—if his mom wasn’t within eyesight to interrogate him, that is.

Nah; he didn’t feel like getting smacked with a broom tonight. So, a warm can of Dew would have to do for now. At least his room was relatively cool!

Sosuke put his headset back on and flopped into the chair, which creaked from the sudden weight, but Sosuke paid it no mind, choosing to press his luck further by crossing his legs and bouncing in place a few times. Coincidentally, his mage was bouncing in-place on the screen as well, impatiently waiting for him to load into the game.

“Okay! Got my Dew,” Sosuke panted into his mic and cracked open the soda can lid. “Did I miss anything?

“Just my wondrous entrance,” Bug Eyes piped in and Sosuke laughed.

“Well, you’ve always been the stealthy rogue, so I wouldn’t have noticed even if I had my headset on.”

“You also missed FN’s interrogation,” Long Nose added and smacked his lips.

Tobias was normally super chatty, but he had remained silent ever since Long Nose made his appearance known. Sosuke didn’t want the boys to know about their current predicament, either, so he took it upon himself to clear the air.

“Long Nose, it was nothing special,” Sosuke interjected. “We just had a career fair at our school and were arguing about where to apply was all.”

“Okay,” Long Nose said as Sosuke loaded into the game with his mage. “But I’m curious about what the job was cause FN made it sound like it’s only for girls?” Sosuke saw this coming, but they weren’t even sure about taking the offer, so there was no reason to give their friends any further information.

“Doesn’t matter cause we’re probably not gonna apply. You guys will be the first to know if we do, though.” Sosuke moved his character outside of his forest home and checked the mailbox.

“Now you’ve piqued my curiosity as well,” Bug Eyes said and Sosuke sighed.

“It’s just a job, guys.” Tobias broke his silent treatment and Sosuke did a little cheer with his room-temperature soda can.

Two new bloops resounded in sequence right after and everyone gave a chorus of “heys.” The Fatty Buchas’ entrance shifted the conversation to the nightmare of working in retail, and Sosuke couldn’t have been more grateful for the distraction.

They all collectively agreed not to stream on Twitch that night since the whole group was relatively exhausted for the most part, then picked a random destination on the map to focus on. And despite it being yet another long Friday, the group ran several raids into the early am’s until Sosuke actually fell asleep on call.

Half an hour later, Sosuke woke up to the sound of one of his siamese cats scratching at the back of his old gaming chair. The teen lifted his head from his RGB LED keyboard in slow motion while the cat was at it. He wiped the drool from his mouth and failed to blink away the crust from his eyes.

“S’time is it?” Sosuke slurred. The rainbow streams going across his monitor didn’t give him an answer, but the cat jumping into his lap with bared claws forced his mind to clear.

“Castor!” Sosuke screeched and lightly tapped the cat’s side.

“Mrowwwllll!” Castor moaned and leapt back onto the floor. The cat zoomed around the room a couple times, leaping onto the bed and jumping onto the curtains, before skidding under the bed.

“Fuckin’ asshole,” Sosuke groaned and rubbed at his stinging thigh. He didn’t even need to look at the clock to know it was likely past three a.m.

Since he was rudely awakened, Sosuke unlocked his computer and properly shut it down. He then got up and went to the bathroom because he definitely had to take a pee now. Plus, his mom would’ve killed him if she knew he’d failed to properly clean up before passing out.

And of course, soon as he got to pee, he was struck by the sudden number two and had to sit down. Three a.m. wake-up calls usually ended this way, so he really shouldn’t have been surprised. So he waited for the poop to come and leaned forward, blinking still from the shock of the bright bathroom light and staring at the large crack in the wall.

Wait, had that crack always been there? Sosuke squinted and pushed the wire rack across him to the left, exposing more of the crack. They had a pretty humble house, yes, but his mother ran a tight ship as far as cleanliness went, so this crack was rather alarming. The opening wasn’t as large as he thought it might be, but there was enough space to hide a small stash inside—and, by the looks of it, there actually was something lodged into the crack!