“Hi everyone!”, I exclaimed, as I entered the living room full of people.

Jesus, I hadn’t been around this many people in a while!

Our group consisted of almost ten people by now but, including me, only six were present. The total size of our group was sort of meant to compensate for scheduling issues that might arise in real life.

Speaking of who was present, Crush was not.

“Hey there, big guy!” Mika came running towards me and gave me a hug.

I was inclined to make a social distancing joke at this point, but for now, I’d rather not. I was there to pretend to be in another world after all.

“Hi, nice to finally see you in the flesh again!” I answered as I reciprocated her hug.

God, it felt so good, to properly (appropriately) touch another human.

Shame it’s not a guy.

Shame it’s not that guy.

Shame he wasn’t there yet. Although I was relieved, he wasn’t. But also. Argh.

You understand.

The emotional turmoil this guy puts me through, despite us not having met.

It’s so stupid.

It’s stuff that can only happen to idiots, who are emotionally starved.

Or gay people.

The Venn diagram of both is likely a circle.

Anyway, now I needed to figure out how to subtly inquire about Crush, without seeming too obvious.

On another note:

“Wow, it’s so crazy to see you people again,” I said as I took a big lap, giving everyone a hug.

“Hello Miss Gaia, I see you’ve been enjoying your new life as a V-Tuber?” Karim replied, who was probably the only cishet guy in our group. I give him maybe until the end of the year.

“What do you know about my V-Tubing?”

“What does he know about your what?” Amira interjected.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Gay anime shit,” I explained, and left it at that.

I really hated explaining my hobbies to the uninitiated.

It always went like:

“Yeah, I like anime.”

“Oh, you mean that Chinese por-”

“Yeah no.”

And while I felt safe having this group of mostly nerd friends around, I still hated talking about nerd stuff.

I have insecurities!

After finishing greeting everyone, I sat down next to Mika, who immediately handed me a bottle of beer. She always was like this. I don’t mean getting people drunk, but being very ... hospitable would be the word, I guess. Must be exhausting.

“Alrighty then, are we ready to start?” She asked immediately after.

“Huh, aren’t we missing some people?” I asked.

“Of course, we are. Would be weird to play with the full group, wouldn’t it?”

Jane, another one of our group, appeared in the doorway from the kitchen, carrying a bag of chips.

“Who’re we missing then?” asked Amira.

“Khalid, Babs, Angel ... who am I missing?” Jane counted.

There was my chance!

“Crush?” Mika said almost simultaneously with me.

She looked at me apologetically.

“Ah yeah, he said he got a cold and didn’t want to take any chances, so he didn’t come.”

“Oh.”

Well, that was that.

Didn’t really know how to feel about that.

Am I relieved?

Yes.

Am I disappointed?

Yes.

“You good?” Mika asked.

“Nahhhh.”

“What’s up?” She asked, as she turned around to face me. She sat cross-legged on the couch now. As I considered how much to tell her and how much to better leave unsaid, I also put my feet on the couch.

“Just kinda disappointed, Crush isn’t here. Was kinda looking forward to meeting him. We’ve been texting over the past few months.”

“Texting? Or texting~?” She wiggled her eyebrows at the last one.

“Jesus, Mika. It was regular texting. No dickpics involved.”

At least not yet.

Heheh.

Hahhhhh, I wish.

“Well, that whole pandemic got everything, and everyone screwed.”

Well, except me.

Jesus, what did my twitch chat do to me?

“Speaking of which, you coming to the party?” Mika asked out of nowhere.

“Party?”

“Yeah, a couple of people from my study program are throwing a party. I decided to just invite our entire group. I don’t really like the people from my uni, so I guess I’ll be bringing some fun for me to the party.”

“Yeah sure, I most likely haven’t got anything better to do.”

“I heard you got that streaming thing going though?”

“Wow, literally everyone knows?”

“Hard not to. You and Crush always plug your streams in the Discord and also you two seem to be each other’s biggest fans and also, oh my god, are you dating?”

I was praying the entire time for her to not have realized what was going on. And while I was relieved, she was off the mark, she was wayyyyyyyyy of the mark! What?!

“What?! No, we’re not.”

“Kay then.”

“Okay, I kind of have a crush on him.”

“Well, you are easy to break. So, what’s stopping you then? I’d say the interest is mutual.”

“You’re gonna laugh.”

“Am I.”

“I think, he thinks I’m a girl.”

“Shut up.”

“Mmmmmhhhhhhh.”

“What the hell, Guy, have you been pretending to be your DnD character, whenever you two have interacted?”

“It was an accident! You know I like making funny voices! It did not even occur to me he might think I’m a girl until a few weeks ago!”

“Oof, that’s rough buddy,” said a male voice, that definitely didn’t belong to Mika.

I turned to the speaker and noticed everyone’s eyes on us.

Karim handed me a second beer and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Well, you dived head-first into a big pile of shit.”

Despite holding two beers in my hands, I realized I might need many more for what was to come.