This is probably on stream, Alice thought to herself, as she looked to the left and right, as some random guy whom she had maybe seen around but never really talked to confessed his feelings and asked for a date. It was already a piss take that she had had to travel to school during the lunch break and now she was faced with this monkey bullshit.
She blinked, as the reality sunk in.
“Are you being serious?” she asked.
The young man froze up.
What is this shit? Was this a joke? This kind of stuff only happens in anime, right? She looked over her shoulder and checked the scenery for smirking faces staring through their camphones as they prepared for the revelry on their channels.
Behind the bike sheds, it didn’t seem that anyone was around and moreover, nobody used bicycles and it was all going to rust. There was also a weird smell in the air, like seaweed and damp grass.
“Are you streaming this?” She asked.
This question seemed to bring him out of his stupor and he looked up momentarily from the ground, as it seemed as if this could be a happy occasion to do so, and he whipped out his phone.
“I can start-” and he started swiping to find the app. “No”, she said, gently pushing his phone down. “I don’t think you want to do that.” The hope in his face fizzled away as he heard her tone. “So,” his voice on the edge of tears, “there’s no chance then.” His head fell forward like a deactivated android. She couldn’t help putting her hands on her hips as she asked, “do we… Do we even know each other?” She was getting angry, she honestly couldn’t believe this, this had to be a joke, when did anyone actually ever succeed to get a date this way, and no he wasn’t asking for a date, he was literally asking to be her boyfriend. Like what the fucking fuck?
He struggled to answer, as if a teacher was asking why he had crushed a bug underfoot. Everyone knew they couldn’t tell the real truth.
“I don’t know, I mean, I’ve seen you at school, you are so beautiful and smart, I mean-”
“Ummm…” cutting in with sarcasm was fun. “Stalker, much?” As she posited, she was relieved by the look of shock on his face, rather than one of anger.
He was indeed startled by this turn of events. This wasn’t going as planned. He had envisioned that, just like in anime, she was supposed to be impressed, appreciative, understanding… she would accept his proposal, he would kneel and kiss her hand, carry her off into the sunset, take her out on dates, and protect her from dragons with his huge sword-
“Hello?” She was about to rip into him but he was still reeling. She felt pity for him, but wow, he was so clueless and fragile. She didn’t want to be responsible for him turning into a serial killer.
“Listen guy,” she said kindly, “I don’t know who put you up to this, but it just doesn’t work like this in reality, you know? I just like, like, what, what, who even are you? Maybe check that the other person even knows you exist, first, yeah?”
“Ok fine,” he said, as the tears were brimming, “I get it, I’m an idiot, a fool, you… you don’t have to be a bitch about it!”
She was about to laugh at the ridiculousness when she heard some cackling behind the corner. The fear shot through Alice like a bolt of lightning. This was everyone’s real fear. “You are streaming this, aren’t you.” Her eyes glaring, Alice suddenly looked and felt very very tall.
“What? No!” he retorted, as he shrank and turned round, “oh no, no fucking way.” And with that, they both rushed over to the corner (well, ok, she went first, and he followed) and the perpetrator stood there, phone in hand, camera facing them both.
“Bruv got pwned hard and bitched her out lololol” this styled blond skinny young man commentated proceedings to his audience, with his school tie tied around his head, he waved his free hand around for extra ummmm hype.
“Mike, what are you doing?” protested the confessor, “you told me you wouldn’t stream!”
“Ahahaha, look he’s crying now, this is delicious, the salt is real!!! Let’s take a selvie to remember it! Drop a like if you want to see what happens next!” With his blazer half on in some sort of attempt to be rebellious yet fashionable, this annoying person swung around and flipped the camera around to add himself to the scene. While it might sound illogical, nobody could escape, they were in the camera’s thrall, as Mike scanned through the stream comments. With only the power to move her eyes, Alice noticed the back of Mike’s head.
“Shouldn’t you be more salty about your hair,” she said with a restrained glee, “it looks like your mum didn’t tell you her hand slipped.”
“What?” Mike checked the back of his head and a look of alarm crossed his face, indeed there seemed to be some hair missing.
“Mike,” he said, quite cross. “I’m changing my moviez password.”
“I’m changing my moviez password!” parroted Mike, in a heavy Indian accent, bobbing his head from side to side. He started laughing but it seemed a little insincere. The chat didn’t like it, mostly. Noticing the backlash, Mike was quick to try to patch things up (with his chat): “Hey, I’m only joking guys, it’s just for fun, we’re friends really. Well it’s time to wrap this up so.. ”
“No friend of mine, you racist fucker!” said the short Asian boy, as his backbone seemed to grow, and he hunched, a bit like a dinosaur.
“Who even are you?” as she asked the question, it was make or break time for Alice.
Mike tried to start his self-introduction but she interrupted, wagging her finger, “you’re a no-one, a nobody, a wanna-be, got your haircut done by your mum for free, but she missed and you’re dissed, live on TV, better quit your stream, coz they’ll all sub to me.” She held it up, then dropped the invisible microphone.
“Yeah boyee” chimed in her newest crew member, making random signs with his hands, as Mike blinked a few times then tried to laugh it off as the chat exploded with reactions.
Finally free of the camera’s icy grip, Alice walked off, as the coping streamer tried to save face and end the stream.
Turning back to the bike sheds, she met her friend around the corner, who had also been filming.
“What the fuck, Candice,” making a point to screw up her face, “maybe you could have stepped in with a little back up?”
Candice met her look, restraining the urge to laugh and stood firm. “With what, a beatbox? That was hilarious, and I was recording the evidence! You’re welcome, innit!” They started to walk back to the bus stop. Candice definitely wasn’t going to keep this video for various uses. Yes, that last sentence was ironic. She deflected from the ethics quickly by turning to this random Asian dude, who for some reason, was accompanying.
“Can I help you?” she asked him. “Me? Ah, yes, hello, pleased to meet you, my name is Vindy. I’m sorry for all the trouble. My dog died, and I listened to some bad advice about girls,” he had gone from chipper to half mumbling misery in all of a second, “it’s been a bad day.” And of course now it was impossible for either of the girls to tell him to fuck off and stop being weird. They all fell silent. Candice racked her brains for a way to get rid of him without looking like a horrible person. Alice had totally forgotten about being called a bitch and now was trying to figure how the voices would react. Would they support her, or troll her? She wondered about going offline for a while. The boy had resumed sniffling, wincing and pulling his jaw downwards to stop himself bursting into tears, so it seemed only right to take him to the soft drinks machine, and have him buy a round.
And this was how Vindy found himself lucky enough to talk to two real, not AI-powered, actual human girls in the flesh (and they were not his cousins either). He managed to keep up with the talk about what just happened for at least five minutes, to boot. He described how he had seen the romantic situation in a ton of anime, and the two girls burst into laughter. He decided to laugh along with them, as the tear ducts started to swell again. It then became a discussion on romance and chivalry and Vindy learnt in those five minutes that everything he had been taught was wrong and yet in the back of his head there were various examples of people successfully doing the things the girls advised him specifically not to do. He would think about it later.The topic went a bit sideways as they discovered they shared tastes in anime and they shared contact details (i.e. subbing to each other’s channels), and in the end, the two girls considered him decent enough to friendzone. And, later on, by following up on the topic and listening rather than bragging, Vindy became one of the three. He felt a little emasculated, but it was better than feeling alone. As he walked back home, he continued to sniffle as he came to the conclusion he had no choice but to kill his dog to make sure his story was airtight.