It had been a week and a half, more or less, since we'd played that victorious match with Harley. A week and a half since I'd lounged around his social media and responded to something on his Twitter.
The tweet had boomed over the comment alone and there were people who still came by to ask whether it was the real Peps on that thread.
He never responded to it, or anyone else but a single verified account; someone named 'Muselk' who claimed to be the real Peps to end the debate. "Yes. Peps is Elliot with a voice changer, guys." The comments that lingered and trailed behind occasionally popped up and it had been a great source for some giggles.
But it had just been half a week from that initial day, that I had missed the fact that he'd joined my lobby, all because I'd been busy playing a match with somebody I'd met on the Oceania region ages ago.
[7:34 PM] Party: mrfreshasian joined the party.
[7:34 PM] mrfreshasian: Yeet
[7:36 PM] mrfreshasian: Forgot to ask last time, but would it be alright if I put you and Blues in my next Youtube video? Tomorrow.
[7:49 PM] mrfreshasian: You're taking too long. Join my party when you've got an answer. Get that Victory Royale.
[7:49 PM] mrfreshasian: :) And let's make some content again sometime.
[7:50 PM] Party: mrfreshasian left the party.
"No fuckin' way, that couldn't have been Fresh. How the hell did he get into our lobby?"
I didn't answer at that point, merely because I'd been squinting at the messages the streamer had left behind. Blues would die if she knew about this; she'd be so delighted. There was no way that it wouldn't be okay with her. "I may or may not have gotten a friend request from him at one point or another."
I sipped my coffee, loudly, into the mic and my friend swore. In a breathless voice, they repeated, "No fuckin' way, [Y/N]."
"Way, my dude."
We continued playing a few matches to complete missions for certain weeks—all except trickshot eliminations after using vehicles, because screw those missions—and said our goodbyes for the night.
8:52 PM had blinked onto my phone and Epic Games had Mrfreshasian as a suggested player to invite into my lobby. He still needed that answer, but the deterring factor was that he had three of four players in his game. Was it even possible to get the chance to play a couple of matches with him? I didn't want to be a bother, incase they were getting content.
If it was one thing I knew, it was that Mrfreshasian was a consistent content deliverer. The least I could do was give him a yes or no to have something for the next video.
Suck it up, [Y/N]; he's just a boy. A boy with millions of subscribers and is most likely streaming anything and everything that's going to happen. Be quick; in and out.
[8:57 PM] Party: nuclearpepsi joined the party.
[8:58 PM] nuclearpepsi: Yes.
[9:00 PM] nuclearpepsi: I mean, yes, you can put us in your video! Blues is going to love this. Thanks, so much, dude.
[9:00 PM] Party: nuclearpepsi left the party.
But something must have happened between those twenty-four hours because I had to sit down with Blues on the mic, the next night, and explain to her why my promise for a surprise meant absolutely nothing.
Plans changed, ideas got scrapped, and for whatever reason, the video didn't go up the next day. Or the day after that. Or ever, for that matter, over the course of the next week.
"I thought you said Fresh wanted us in his video, [Y/N]?"
Did that boy know how it felt like to hold the delight of a little girl's heart in the palm of his hand, just to crush it right in front of her face? Did he know what it was like to hear the disappointment in her voice as she went through video after video, after video, her heart breaking a little more after each one?
And what did I have to do? "Maybe he didn't have enough to fit us in anywhere." Pick up the pieces. "Hey, it's okay though. Right, Blues? You got to actually meet him and got us a win that game. I'd say that's so much better than some dumb replay cut and pasted on Youtube."
But who was I to convince anybody of anything? Especially if it was at the cost of a little girl's hopes.
"It's almost my bedtime, [Y/N]. I have to go."
I nibbled the flesh of my lower lip, wishing something else could be said to help her sleep on a happier note, but the sound of a parent telling her to get ready for bed stopped me. "Okay. Bye, Blues." She was going to be okay. I knew that. It would just take some time.
Kicked into my lobby, I slumped back against my chair and exhaled a long sigh. He could've at least let me know that he'd changed his mind. Harley hadn't even accepted any of my invitations to play a match and I shouldn't have to feel embarrassed, because he'd been the one who asked, but I did.
The wheels of the seat rolled away from the desk and I stood up to head for my bed. This change in sound must have alerted Chewie because it wasn't long before his paws pitter-pattered to my door. "Come here, Chewie."
I beckoned for him and, after a moment of staring, he darted over to be picked up. Over trial and error, and bopping his head on the mattress, he knew he wasn't capable of jumping up on his own. "You wouldn't blow me off, would you? Why are some boys so douchey? Hm?" The pup only wriggled himself free and went to rolling around the bed, waiting for me to play with him.
My laptop sat charging at the edge of the mattress and before he could knock it off, I grabbed it. I uttered at him, or rather myself, to be more careful. With the cockapoo staring at me with his head cocked, I started to ask, "I shouldn't be giving him the time of day, huh?" With the couple seconds of silence, I grimaced at my laptop until the urge to open it was too much to bear.
Soon enough, Mrfreshasian's Twitch stream was up and playing.
"LANNAN, NO!"
The screen blacked out with a boom and they were placed 55th, accompanied by defeated gasps of laughter from the men. It wasn't long before the entire squad of Mrfreshasian, Crayator, and LazarLazar were booted into his lobby and the chat was calling them bots for getting blown up so quickly.
"That was toxic. You guys are toxic," LazarLazar was saying over Harley's laughing and Crayator's repeated banging of something on a desk. "You see, that wouldn't 've happened if you'd just let me meme properly."
"Lannan, we were going to die," Crayator scolded, sounding like he was repositioning himself after the frustrating breakdown.
The one named Lannan spoke a naively believable, "You don't know that" the same time as Harley's interjection of, "Memes strats don't work against sweat strats, Lannan."
There was no denying the entertainment they provided. I glanced away from the screen when Chewie started to tug the sleeve of my hoodie, wanting my attention for himself. I pretended to get ready to catch him and the pup darted out of the way, tumbling to the other side of the bed.
Lannan went ahead and declared, "We're going to need one more person for this meme to work. And no, not Elliott because he's a bot." Over somebody's snort, he went on to offer someone named Mau—who we learned wasn't online at the moment. "Scrap that idea. What do we do now, boys?"
The screen I was looking at showed that Harley had opened his friends list and, at one point, he scrolled past my screen name. I took a quick glimpse at the PC on my desk but made no move to head toward it. Instantly, the chat was bombarded with comments asking for Peps. 'Peps is online, guys,' 'Play with Peps,' 'Invite Peps into the lobby!!!'
I gave a thoughtful hum and leaned into my cushion of pillows propped against the wall, petting Chewie absentmindedly. If he did send an invite, should I ignore him just to be a tease? It would only be fair. I hadn't realized that my own amusement had gotten ahead of itself, because what Mrfreshasian said next had it stopping in its tracks.
"Sorry, chat. We're not playing with Peps."
As Lannan gave a sort of entertained scoff, Crayator butted in, "Peps? Who's Peps?" His Hayseed farmer skin's mouth opened and closed as he talked. It would've been funny, had Harley's tone not sounded so uneasy. "Oh! Isn't that Fresh's new Fortnite girlfriend?" Crayator paused, then was stumped by something. "Why not? Why aren't we playing with her?"
"Because she's toxic," Lannan said, ever so bluntly.
And with that, my heart stopped beating. There was no joking tone in that and too much subtext. What the hell did LazarLazar mean? I'm not toxic. Why would he say that? They had to be joking.
When Harley spoke, I almost expected some sort of defense but got the exact opposite. This couldn't be because of the pterodactyl comment, could it? That's stupid. "I don't think we should be talking about this, guys."
"Why not?" Crayator pressed, sounding too close to his mic. "What's the tea? Spill it. Spill it, Fresh! Give. Me. The. Tea." He punctuated each word with a hearty clap but the boy under pressure, for once, didn't sound pleased.
Chat was filled with questions following Crayator's lead, demanding Harley to spill every detail. Every detail that I wasn't so sure about anymore. 'What happened with Peps?', 'Fresh, are you okay?', 'Chat, who's Peps and what happened?', 'The tea is scorching!'
There was no tea to spill!
Lannan gave a clear of his throat. "For those of you in chat who don't know, Freshy boy played a match with this American girl about a week ago." He paused for a dramatic effect, inducing a groan from Harley and an urge of 'Yes? Go on,' from Crayator. "I'll let you know that I saw the stream and I thought she was nice, but a couple of days later and this chick slides into Fresh's DMs on Twitter and—"
"She wasn't so nice." Harley cut in before the other could finish.
No. I never slid into anyone's DMs on Twitter. I never slid into Mrfreshasian's DMs!
Straightening my back, mouth open as if I could interject myself into the conversation, my face bloomed a bright red. "No, no, no, what the hell are they talking about?" My nerves were tingling and my heart rate had increased. Chewie had stopped messing around and now had a paw on my knee, his wide eyes staring. "Dude, I never messaged Harley other than that day in his lobby."
"I mean, I dunno what happened, guys," Harley was saying, then took a breath before starting up an exasperated rant. "I thought she was cool. Chat, you guys were there when I joined her lobby. You know, to ask about putting her in my video last week. She said yes, didn't she? Then, the next day, she messages me on Twitter and says no to the video—"
Lannan finished the story for him, "Then this girl has the nerve to insult our Freshy Boy."
"And tells me to stop bothering her."
I couldn't just sit back and let this continue. As I rushed to my PC, startling Chewie in the process, I tried to check my Twitter account in case something really did happen. Impossible. There was nothing on my Twitter that even connected me to Harley, apart from the one tweet response.
Anxiously, I searched through my friend's list until I saw Harley's gamer tag. I invited him to join my lobby and spun my chair around to look at the laptop on my bed. Chewie had hopped off and scampered toward my feet, pawing at it. "There has to be a mistake, boy. I never messaged him about anything."
A blip sounded on the stream and Harley hummed. "Speak of the devil." He let the request sit there and sighed. "[Y/N] was so cool during that match."
"You still have her in your friends list?" Crayator exclaimed, flabbergasted. "I thought you said she was toxic!"
"Cray's right, Fresh." Lannan's tone got surprisingly serious. "Just delete her. Problem solved."
Wait, wait wait. I took a deep breath and spun back to my PC, biting my lip. Okay, sure, he had the right to not put Blues and I in his video, but he did not have the right to make up stories about me being toxic when it never happened.
"I guess you're right."
Holding onto my pride, I tried to send him another request to join me but, by then, Epic Games informed me that something had gone wrong. I closed my friends tab, then opened it up again to scroll down only to find out that Mrfreshasian was gone from the list.
"I don't wanna talk about this anymore," Harley said. "I don't need any damn Twitter drama. Let's get to meme-ing."
"Meme strats, boys! They always work, I'm tellin' yah."
"This is so fuckin' stupid," Crayator snickered.
What just happened? I slumped back into my seat, my face burning and heartbeat pounding between my ears. That just happened live on stream. I just got humiliated, live on stream, for something I didn't even do.
It had to be a mistake.
Something got scuffed.
A hack.
Chewie began to bark and tap on my foot, then he went to nudging my leg. The pup tried so much in his power to get my attention, perhaps knowing that something was up. That his owner was upset?
My phone vibrated and the messages started rolling in on Twitter.
'If this is the real Peps, leave Fresh alone. Stop being toxic.'
'Stop try'na get attention through Fresh.'
'Such a fake.'
'Toxic.'
I had to fix this. I had to message Harley on Twitter. And, for my sake, he had to respond.