I'm not playing with you || Bakudeku ||

~2~

For the first few months after my mother's passing I found myself struggling to find motivation even for the easiest tasks like taking a shower or brushing my teeth. Fuck, just getting out of bed seemed impossible.

Although I got better, there are days like these from time to time, usually ends up in me being late or spending the entire day in bed if it's on the weekend but I manage.

Walking out of my room I noticed that my father is no where to be seen, which is definitely a good thing.

I go into the kitchen and start making a coffee. See, I don't really like eating after waking up so I usually skip breakfast- or in this case lunch? I don't even know at this point, but I do need my daily dose of caffeine.

While waiting for my coffee I leaned on the counter and started going through my social media. I noticed a post from one of my favourite youtubers - Your_local_insomniac, saying that he's gonna be playing csgo live with a special guest today at 5pm. So in about 2 hours.

After taking my coffee, I continue going through my phone not seeing anything interesting. When I finished drinking it I quickly washed the cup and went to the bathroom to finish my "morning" routine.

I used to be a lazy person when it comes to stuff like this, I'd leave dirty dishes in the sink and have clothes thrown around my entire room, it became even worse after the accident. But after some time I decided that it was finally time for me to get a grip on myself and I thought that starting by cleaning the space around me is a good way to start. I struggled a lot at first but in the end it helped me so much. Now I actually really enjoy cleaning around the house - not only is it just much better to be in a clean environment but it gives me some time to clear my mind, focus on something else than the thoughts going through my mind, while also being productive so I don't feel as guilty about spending all of my free time playing computer games and not doing anything else.

When I was done it was about 3:30pm so I decided to do some studying. Same situation as with cleaning, something to keep my mind busy while doing something productive.

I set up an alarm for 4:50pm because I didn't wanna miss the stream and when it finally rang I put my books away and got on my pc. I actually barely watch his streams, I just usually turn them on in the background and play games like Minecraft while listening to him talk.

That's exactly what I did today, logged into my singleplayer world and turned the stream on, however instead of hearing his usual intro I heard someone yelling.

"Yo! Whassup idiots?" Well this was clearly someone else speaking. The guy's voice was kinda deep.

"Fu-ck my life" Spoke the voice that I was expecting from the beginning while yawning. "I already regret agreeing to this shit"

"Shut up dude, stop complaining and let's just play the game"

"Yea- so as most of you probably already noticed, I'm gonna be playing with the one and only GroundZero today, woo.." Shinsou, aka Your_Local_Insomniac, said in his usual tired voice, dripping sarcasm at the end of the sentence.

"Yea, yea, glad to hear you too, now shut the fuck up, join the lobby and let's kick some ass" the other one said, clearly getting impatient.

I've never heard about this 'GroundZero' guy before, he sounds really interesting tho. I pause my game and go to check out his channel while they start a game. What surprised me the most is the fact that he has over 10 million subscribers, plays mostly csgo and I've never heard about him before. I noticed that he seems to have a pretty consistent schedule with 2 videos a week and most of them get at least a few million views each. One of them is always csgo and the other is a different game. I save one of his most recent videos to my 'Watch Later' and go back to playing Minecraft.

After some time I can't help but notice how loud and aggressive he gets while playing. But somehow it doesn't really bother me, I find it pretty amusing actually. I look at the stream from time to time and see that he seems to be really good at the game too.

Also, I can't help but wander about their... friendship? They seemed to know each other very well but they never really recorded any videos together and from what I can see they really enjoy annoying one another.

A few hours later the stream ends and I decide to switch the game, so I turn on the one that they just finished playing - csgo.

I played a few quick casual games before playing matchmaking so I don't suck as much and then I start looking for a game. It was like 9pm so it didn't take long to find one. Mirage? Not bad at all, I actually really like this map.

"Anyone with a mic?" I ask when the warm-up starts. No one answered so I asked once again. Still no answer. "Really guys? No one with a mic in ranked?"

"Can you just shut the fuck up dude?" A weirdly familiar voice finally answered.

"Why are you so rude? I just wanted to see if there's anyone with a microphone here and it is a ranked game so communication is needed"

"Ugh... There always has to be that one talkative guy" The man answered and I can't help but feel like I've heard him somewhere before.

"Don't worry, I'll just focus on the call outs, I won't disturb during the game, I'm not stupid"

"We'll see about that..."

"Hey! I could've been a kid swearing and screaming in russian with a 5 dollar mic so stop complaining"

"Pfft, I guess" He said as he chuckled a little.

"Why do I feel like I've heard you somewhere before? Are you like a youtuber maybe?"

"..."

"WAIT I JUST NOTICED YOUR NAME" all this time my brain didn't even realize that his name was GroundZero. "Is it actually you?"

"Fuck- just no fanboying, okay? I'd like to keep my ears intact" he asked and I laughed.

"Dude, I didn't even know who you were before that stream today" I said truthfully and he stayed silent for a few seconds.

"What the fuck? You watch the walking eyebags but you've never heard about me?"

"Well yeah, I guess lol"

"Damn, didn't expect that"

The warm-up came to an end and the actual game started so we obviously stopped talking and the only things that were being said we're the call outs.

We ended up winning the game 16:10. GroundZere was top of the board, me coming up as a close second, having just 2 less kills with the same amount of deaths and one more assist. We said the gg's and I play a few more games after that. However, I stop at 3am because I have school tomorrow.

When I turned the game off I noticed that I have one notification on Steam so I checked it and there it was:

A friend invite from GroundZero.