games ▹ muke

0.5 - silence

All day in school I’ve been thinking about what he had told me and how I wanted to talk to him again. I started to fucking hate the fact that I didn’t know his name and I had nothing to refer to him to. I just couldn’t wait to get home and log into the game, but I couldn’t skip lessons today – there was some sort of event at school and they made everyone go, calling their parents if they didn’t.

I’d had enough bad words from my parents thrown at me for failing classes, I didn’t need any more, so I had to go. The event turned out to be the annual concert where students performed whatever they wanted, so I prepared myself for the worst and found a place in the back. School was boring during classes without my only friend Calum (he was a great soccer player, so he was invited to Brazil for training) – but it was fucking unbearable during some event shit like today. Usually we’d sit in the back making fun of everyone and passing time, but today I was alone.

I wondered if he was already home, waiting for me to log in, and it pained me to be here when I needed to talk to him so badly. But I couldn’t get into any more trouble, so I stayed put, looking at some girl getting ready to perform.

It was typical, all in all. Girls either sang stupid long ballads or bubbly butterflies crap, and boys were just so terrible I couldn’t even distingush what the hell they had chosen to sing.

There was that one guy, though. No, he wasn’t great or anything, but I could actually hear the words that he was singing, and I really liked the words. I quickly googled them, not paying attenton to the crowd cheering for the blonde guy who ended his performance, and saved the results of the search to look through them at home.

Thankfully, after that they finally let us go and I ran home, noticing that I’d been at school for two extra hours. I rushed into my messy bedroom, dropped the backpack and kicked off my shoes, turning on my computer. I was starving, as usual, but I decided it could wait until I figured everything out with… my friend? My gaming partner? My acquaintance? Who?

But the screen finally lit up with an opening message, and I hurriedly closed all the pop-ups, going straight for the browser. One click, and I was on the gaming site, another click…

He wasn’t online. Not when I logged in. Not two hours later. Not ever that day. And next day, and every day that week.

I tried not to think about it, I tried telling myself there wasn’t my fault in what happened. I didn’t know why he wasn’t online, and I convinced myself there could be a thousand reasons for that.

So I listened to music. That song I heard at school was by some American band, All Time Low. I’d never heard of them before, but after downloading three of their songs and giving them a listen, I went to the music store and picked up all their albums – three or four, I lost count. I just listened to them non-stop, trying to lose myself in music. I couldn’t game anymore, I couldn’t even go to that damn website. All it did was make me feel even more like shit, reminding me about my friend that never was.