A/N
Here's the first chapter to the sequel of Bookshop Encounters called Omegle Boy (Dan Howell/Danisnotonfire/Fantastic Foursome)
Thank you for all the reads, votes, comments and shares it means the world to me :)
End of A/N
CHAPTER ONE
JASMINE
I never saw myself as crazy mad popular, okay scrap that. No one ever thought I'd be crazy mad popular, oh how they were wrong. Well when I started off on my journey to make new friends without actually physically coming into contact with people, I never intended for my life to blow up as the young children say. Not like in an action movie that's full of explosions where all the bad guys get wiped out, more like a firework.
You know when you light it and it gets half way before burning out and suddenly you feel gloomy, and then you approach said firework and as you bend down it explodes in your face, and you and your friends are taken by surprise. That's the type of explosion that happened to my popularity. Though no one was disfigured or burnt in my story, well as far as I know.
Enough talk of fireworks, aint nobody got time for that. Now where was I? I decided to take my first step into the unknown during a god awful New Years Eve party at my friend Lauren's house. The date is December 31st 2015, there is less than twenty minutes until the New Year. It had been a tradition that every year since year 10, about ten or twelve of us would invade her house for the night and get wasted off cheap alcohol and count down the New Year together. In the morning her dad would make us bacon sandwiches which were delicious and an excellent cure for your first hangover. I liked my friends don't get me wrong, I've been in the same friendship circle since year 7, but sometimes you outgrow your friends and you know that the time has come to venture out alone and meet new people.
I got as far as Omegle, it connects you with a random person around the world and you can talk one on one in the text box or if you're feeling brave you can video each other. Though I've gone through my fair share of naked middle age men thrusting their hips at the camera, some things I'll never be able to scrub from my mind. Omegle in my eyes is just a dirtier and uncensored version of Skype; Omegle is the strange cousin that no one ever invites to parties.
For Christmas my parents had splurged out and bought me a brand new DSLR camera which I'd been dreaming of and begging them for months to buy me. See I'm dead into my photography and if I want to take my picture taking anywhere then I needed a professional camera. I don't know if this really has anything to do with me surfing Omegle at 11:40pm in my friend's dining room, which was the only quiet spot in the entire house. The camera does play a big part let me just make that clear just not in this context.
I'd just had the displeasure of seeing a man doing unspeakable things to himself through my webcam and a part of me was afraid to accept the next person who popped up on my screen. Their username was Mike Wood, though it was more than likely their real name, yes the blatant innuendo hadn't alluded me which was why my finger hovered over the accept button. From the other side of the wall I could hear that my drunken friends had started singing karaoke, I shivered at the thought of singing in front of people even if I was slightly tipsy. It took a lot of drink to make me embarrass myself. In my momentary distraction I heard someone cough, I looked around the room in confusion before my eyes homed in on the screen. I'd hit accept when I was listening to the bad singing, the guy on the screen though wasn't that bad on the eyes.
"Not what you were expecting love?"
Oh good god he speaks, did he just call me love? Why I was slightly turned on by that I couldn't answer you. I needed to reply before he thought I was a nutter and moved onto the next person in the queue.
"Well I don't fancy describing what the last guy was doing over his webcam."
Seriously that's what my mind came up with, no wonder I couldn't meet new people, I even struggled online. But to my surprise the guy chuckled, did he find me funny? No one found my funny, strange and quirky but never funny. He repositioned his laptop so that I could see more of him on my screen. I didn't have a type when it came to guys but if I did then this guy would be the one for me. Even in the dim lighting I could make out his vivid brown eyes eyes, his hair was brown and short most likely straightened and he had a fringe over the left side of his face, I didn't think I liked fringes but he pulled it off to a tee. When he chuckled I made out that he also had dimples which was just adorable, he didn't look like the athletic type and his skin was the same shade of pale as mine as if he to spent hours sitting online without contact to the outer world. There was something oddly attractive about him but also oddly familiar as if I'd seen him somewhere before but I couldn't put my finger on it.
"Earth to mystery girl, tell me what you were thinking about?"
His smooth voice jolted me from my thoughts of mentally undressing him and doing naughty things to him. I felt a blush creep across my cheeks, God why did you make me socially awkward? I cleared my throat and tried to look casual; I sat up straight and felt my head make contact with the dining room table I was currently squatting under. I cursed out loud and the guy threw his head back and laughed.
"Err why are you under a table?"
I was clutching my head to try and stop the throbbing pain, wow way to make yourself look like even more of an idiot Jasmine.
Oh yeah I should probably have told you my name and what not earlier but it completely skipped my mind, you know with all that talk of fireworks. Hello people, my name is Jasmine Burke, yes I know my name sounds like a stripper but I assure you I have a career plan that doesn't involve any sort of pole. I am 19 years old, my birthday happens to fall on New Year, so in less than fifteen minutes I'll be 20. Woohoo I'm a New Year baby, cue the clichés but it sucked having my birthday on this day because people always seemed to forget. I'm in my first year of university and I study photography and film, hence the camera my parents bought me. See I told you it played a part in the grander scheme of things. What else do you need to know? I'm 5'6 so average, my eyes are hazel so not brown so people stop saying I have brown eyes because they're bloody hazel, my hair is my baby as I'm always experimenting with different colours and styles; currently I'm my natural brown colour but I had bright purple layers streaked through it.
Now back to Omegle guy, I still don't know his name at this point and he doesn't know mine. But first I need to answer his question about why I'm hiding under a table. I removed my hand from my still throbbing head and straightened my large hipster glasses, no I wasn't wearing them 'ironically' I actually needed them to see and I hate my contacts.
"I don't like socialising and this New Year party sucks. I've spent the last three consecutive New Years with the same ten or twelve people I've known since the start of high school and I'm bored. I needed peace and quiet and my friend Lauren has great Wi-Fi so I hid under the dining room table in hopes of avoiding my drunken friends."
To say that was a bit of a mouthful would be an understatement. What he wanted an answer and well I gave him a rather long winded one at that. The guy chuckled before nodding in agreement, oh my god this laugh was so attractive. Yes I was drawn to people's laughs so sue me.
"I couldn't agree with you more. My friends are wasted and I'd much rather be on my laptop browsing Tumblr and meeting beautiful girls on Omegle."
Did he just call me beautiful? I felt my cheeks blushing, through the screen I could see that my mystery guy was going through the motions. Did he not mean to call me beautiful? He probably called every girl on Omegle beautiful, why did I think for a moment that I was special? I wasn't anything special.
"Err, I should probably ask your name before we start complimenting each other."
He ran a hand through his hair, his fringe wasn't behaving and it made me giggle.
"I'm Jasmine. And before you even think about singing a whole new world I'd consider the consequences."
He put his hands up in surrender.
"Well Jasmine I'm Dan, it's very nice to meet you this fine New Years Eve."
I nodded; just then a drunk Lauren stumbled into the dining room and crawled under the table next to me. She placed her head on my shoulder before going wide eyed and pointing at the screen.
"Jasmine do you know who you are talking to?"
The guy looked familiar but I couldn't place a name to his face. I shook my head and Lauren gripped my shoulder so tight that I flinched in pain.
"That's Dan Howell or Danisnotonfire as he goes by on YouTube. Why's he talking to you?"
"Hi Jasmine's friend."
Dan waved at the screen and Lauren had to stop herself from squealing.
"Lauren I don't think you've had enough to drink, why don't you go in the kitchen I heard they are doing shots."
It was the only excuse I could come up with to make her leave and to my surprise it worked because she was out from under the table in record time and was back to stumbling towards the kitchen. I face palmed.
"I'm sorry about her Dan, she loves everything YouTube and I know who you are but it's quite dark so I didn't want to make a wrong guess."
Dan chuckled and shuffled around on his bed.
"Nah its fine Jasmine, I thought that I'd found a girl who didn't know me. It's cool that you do but because you didn't scream or cry like a normal fangirl when they see me. I love my fans but sometimes they can be a little bit crazy."
"I get you Dan, well I don't because I don't do YouTube and I'm not crazy internet famous like you."
He fake swooned at my words, why did I feel so comfortable talking to him? I never felt this comfortable around guys, was it because there was a screen in between us? I had so many questions running through my head. Luckily Dan quickly snapped me out of it.
"So tell me about yourself Jasmine. You know me but I don't know you."
I normally kept myself to myself so the fact he was asking to get to know more about me scared me a little. He was a big youtuber and what if I messed up or said something wrong, he might make a video or a vlog about that dumb little girl he met on Omegle. Wow my brain automatically jumped to negative conclusions. I shook my head and composed myself, I'd like if Dan knew me better. Maybe I wouldn't scare him off like I normally did to people whenever I introduced myself to them, I was the definition of socially awkward and I was happy with holding that title.
"Well Dan where do I start? I turn twenty in less than ten minutes; yes I'm a New Year baby. I'm a first year film and photography student at University of Westminster. I love pizza, bubble tea and my favourite colour is purple."
"Bubble tea is the best and pizza is the food of gods. And you live in London, damm girl you couldn't get any better."
I felt myself blushing again at Dan's compliment; luckily my lighting was dark so hopefully he couldn't see the effect he was having on me. Not a lot of people liked bubble tea but I'd got my flatmates hooked on the stuff during fresher's week.
"Dan, it's been nice talking to you tonight. I think you've made my night that little bit better, you saved me from my drunken friends."
He smiled and it warmed my heart.
"Yeah the same right back at you. I don't normally spend this long talking to someone online but I'm glad that I get to see in 2016 with you Jasmine."
Ah, we had both rescued each other. In the other room I could make out my friends counting down from twenty. I turned back to face Dan and it looked like he was listening to his friends also doing the countdown. We both smirked at each other.
"Three, two, one happy New Year and happy birthday."
Dan added the happy birthday onto the end which bought a smile to my face. I doubted any of my friends in the other room would even remember that it was my birthday.
"Thank you Dan, at least I'll get a happy birthday off one person this year."
"My pleasure Jasmine. I think I might get back to my party, I can't let my fellow youtubers down. I really want to see you in person."
I nodded and twirled a strand of hair around my finger. I really wanted to see him again so I quickly typed my phone number into the message box and hit send. Just then the internet connection cut off and I didn't even get to say goodbye. Dan had my number, though I doubted he'd even remember me in a few hours.