An Aftermath Of Many Years (CrankGameplays)

8

14th November 2016

We were sitting, all four of us, hunched over my laptop outside on a concrete step. People were trying their best to walk around us as we watched the finished product of what we'd spent four weeks working on. Mostly because I had been procrastinating editing it. I hated it less now that it was finished and I could see the way it fitted together and the faces my friends gave as reactions.

We could be the world's most posh people if we wanted to, but we could be some of the biggest party goers if we wanted to. We usually fell in some middle ground of playing Mario cart at mine and Jenny's place. Our place was the place to be, really. Our group of four was constantly there, being idiots and eating everything. At least we enjoyed ourselves.

"Anyone watch Mark's video this morning?" It was Millie who spoke up as I slid my laptop into its case and pushed off the concrete step, still rocking my pyjamas.

"Yes. I edited it," I mumbled out as we began walking. They just sighed and told me to stop being such a suck up.

We headed out to where Jenny had parked her car because she was so intent on taking everyone out for breakfast to celebrate finishing the short film. It was an end of semester assessment that was due at the end of next week, and none of us were as interested in it as we could be. The only thing we were really discussing was what everyone was doing over Christmas. I was still unsure if I was going home with Mark, or staying here. I knew that Jenny was staying here.

Aaron was the one to bring up that we should stay as a group and make a short film. Not one for school. Just one for our enjoyment. The idea was cool, but it was easier for all my friends, whose families lived in the state. I voiced my thoughts on the matter, and they didn't shut me down.

"You do that have to if you don't want to."

I knew that. That wasn't why I said it.

I had to head home before I did anything. Take a shower and get dressed, then I could leave. I wasn't one to pay much attention to anything but the chaos in my own head, so it was a good thing I didn't have a car.

Jenny's class wasn't on at the same time as mine. It was in the afternoons. Yet, she still hung around campus until my class ended. We usually went and got breakfast after, like today, but just the two of us. And we ended up getting something cheap on the way back to our apartment.

Mark was setting up to film a video when I walked up the stairs. Most likely more than one video, but I didn't care that much. I slid down against the wall and opened my laptop. I had to finish up a few things before I could shut off for a while. Mark didn't understand my disinterest in other people but had the respect to leave me alone, which I was grateful for. Tyler didn't quite know when to leave me alone and took my brother distancing himself as a nonempathetic trait. He just wanted me to be good and sat with me, even if I chose to ignore him.

Ethan, however, was quick to give me a character type. Where Tyler and Mark chose to let me sit in silence, Ethan just wanted to talk. I guess us being around the same age, he looked to me for most things when I really wished he didn't. That being said, we seemed to be fine alone and I wasn't sure if it was just a reaction to keep some kind of reputation up with everyone else that I was the way I was with him, or whether my head just wanted to send the poor kid such fluctuating mixed signals.

"Kiara, get up and join in for a round." Mark had spoken, but Ethan was the one to yank me up by my forearms. He was forceful and unnoticing of my unreadiness to be pulled so quickly from the ground. This caused a scene between the two of us, resulting in me shoving him away from me with my little upper body strength and telling him to keep his hands to himself. "This is my sister, Kiara."

I had not taken much notice to realise that this was really the first time being on Mark's channel. Properly in some way. I had been in the background of some of his videos and had appeared in some old skits. I was a common appearance in bloopers. But this was the first real time I had ever been in a video and been advocated with a name, other than the draw my life and the few one-offs he had mentioned having a little sister.

"So yeah, if you see her in the background and stuff, she's my sister."

"Let's do this! I wanna make you spit in Mark's face," Ethan shouted, throwing his hands in the air.

"You?" I questioned. "You're a shamble."

I took Mark's water, as opposed to anyone else's, and filled my mouth, contemplating spitting it at Ethan just because, but I humoured them by playing their game. You could tell that they were trying to be funny, for both me and the camera, and it just wasn't working.

Not that they weren't funny, it was just that I wasn't laughing. I wasn't the laughing type, and Mark knew that, so his reasoning for shoving me in front of the camera felt odd.

He also knew that I was not focusing on any of the boys and the 'no touch' rule solidified that they were not going to get me to laugh. 

"You are the most depressing person in existence," Ethan complained as the timer went off and I spat the water onto the ground, earning a disgusted sound from Mark, followed by a complaint that I didn't need to be one of the boys. I smiled and waved myself off.