games ▹ muke

0.2 - cool

I felt so stupid, sitting there in my already dark bedroom in front of the computer screen, waiting for an answer of a stranger. Why would he even talk to me? Maybe his mic was on by accident. Maybe he logged out. Maybe-

“H-Hello?” the same voice said unsurely, and this time I heard him better. He sounded young to me, and I rolled my eyes. Some stupid kid, probably.

“Hey there,” I said, feeling obliged to answer, even though I didn’t really want to. Why couldn’t I just let the guy play the damn game?

“Oh, hi,” the voice replied with obvious relief. He had a nice tone, it was calm and relaxing. Maybe he wasn’t ten after all.

“I never heard people talking while playing on here,” I tried to explain, staring at the same paused screen in front of me. It started to annoy me, but now I wanted to keep the conversation going. I didn’t want to question myself why.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to!” the voice explained. “I didn’t even know that was an option here,” he laughed nervously, and I smiled. He sounded so naïve.

“Well, since you’re stuck on the level I’m about to pass, maybe you could use this and ask some advice,” I said, still confident that he was a lot younger than me.

“If you don’t mind sharing,” the boy laughed, and I told him what to do to pass the level. He kept silence for a while, and I thought that he either logged out or was just concentrated on passing, when he spoke again.

“There’s an option for two online players here, I just checked. D’you wanna try?”

“Why’d you want to play with me?” I asked, trying not to sound rude. I didn’t have any friends, except one I made about five years ago, and I was never good at making them. I was just trying to understand.

“Cause you’re cool,” the voice said matter-of-factly, and I couldn’t help but smile. I had to admit, I was pretty cool in terms of videogames. This random dude was probably as good as it was going to get. So I exited the game into the main menu and asked:

“Alright then… how do you turn on this two players thing?”