Nerdjo x fem!reader >>mean popular girl!reader is secretly an obsessive cozy gamer. nerd!gojo is weird, blunt, chronically online, and unfortunately exactly her type behind a screen.
setting: college au, no curses au, popular girl! reader, mean girl!reader, nerd gojo, online friendship, slow burn-ish, flirting, eventual mature themes, author tries writing mean girl!reader but kinda fails, emotional constipation, toxic family mentions, no smut, author goes crash out
⏮️back Masterlist ⏸️ next⏭️
Gojo Art by @albdgreen on insta, Images used from digimon, heavy inspiration and images used from stardew valley, collage made by @vogujojo
Chapter two: bad connection, good company
DigivolveThis: your greenhouse is locked
CerryHex: because someone kept moving my seed chests
DigivolveThis: they were in a stupid place
CerryHex: they were in a cute place
DigivolveThis: cute is not a navigation system
CerryHex: ugly people always say that
Your avatar stands outside the Crescent Glass Greenhouse with a watering can in one hand and a mooncat circling your boots. DigivolveThis is on the other side of the locked door, jumping every few seconds like he’s trying to annoy the pixels into letting him in.
It has been three days since the meteor shower.
Three days of logging in “just for dailies” and somehow staying online until your eyes burn. Three days of him criticizing your farm layout while still using all of your crafting stations. Three days of you telling him to leave and then sending him coordinates to rare spawns because, unfortunately, he is useful.
DigivolveThis: open the door
CerryHex: then perish outside
DigivolveThis: i helped fund that greenhouse
CerryHex: you donated one celestial core and a personality disorder
DigivolveThis: two valuable resources
You laugh under your breath and unlock the door.
His avatar runs in immediately and stops by the moonberry planters. He doesn’t harvest anything, which is smart, because you would actually ban him. He just walks around like he’s inspecting the place for structural damage.
DigivolveThis: why are the sprinklers hidden behind flower pots
CerryHex: because i have taste
DigivolveThis: because you hate efficiency
CerryHex: i hate ugly machines
DigivolveThis: machines don’t care if you think they’re ugly
CerryHex: that’s why they’re ugly
DigivolveThis: the game chat is awful
DigivolveThis: it has a character limit
CerryHex: maybe it’s trying to protect me from you
DigivolveThis: maybe it’s badly designed
CerryHex: don’t insult moonvale in my house
DigivolveThis: your house has six rugs in one room
CerryHex: and yet you keep visiting
You stare at what you just typed. It’s not that deep. It’s just a sentence, a sentence you sent to some random guy in a game because he keeps showing up on your farm and acting like he pays rent. Still, it sits there on the screen looking slightly too smug.
DigivolveThis stops moving.
DigivolveThis: your storage shed is still tax evasion but the crafting access is convenient
DigivolveThis: horrifying word choice
CerryHex: you brought this energy here
You are smiling and you hate that you’re smiling.
The Moonvale mobile chat pings on your phone beside the laptop, delayed and out of order because the app is apparently held together by prayers and loose string. You pick it up, watch the same messages load wrong, and make a face.
CerryHex: okay you’re right
CerryHex: this chat sucks
CerryHex: don’t sound proud
DigivolveThis: i’m radiant
DigivolveThis: for basic functionality
DigivolveThis: i will blame the app professionally
You sit back in your chair, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Discord is not a big deal. Everyone uses Discord. It’s not personal. It’s not like exchanging numbers. It’s not like giving him anything real. Still, it feels like moving something out of Moonvale and into your actual life, even if only by one small step.
You type before you can make it weird.
DigivolveThis: same as your game name?
CerryHex: brand consistency
DigivolveThis: misspelled brand consistency
CerryHex: send the request or die outside again
The friend request appears less than a minute later.
DigivolveThis wants to add you as a friend.
His profile picture is a tiny pixel dinosaur with a star background.
You accept and a new Chat opens immediately.
CerryHex: did you just knock on discord
DigivolveThis: you accepted the freak request
He sends you a screenshot of your greenhouse with a red circle around one corner.
DigivolveThis: this sprinkler can cover four more tiles if you move the lantern
CerryHex: touch that lantern and i’ll uninstall your bones
DigivolveThis: medically difficult
You should sleep, you reeaally should. But of course you do not. You spend another hour arguing about sprinkler radius, moonberry growth cycles, and whether function without aesthetics is just “organized sadness.” He does get on your nerves, which makes it easy to just leave. He also does not get boring, which makes it harder to stop.
Eventually, you log off with a headache, a finished harvest, and one new Discord friend you definitely do not tell Mika or Reina about.
The next day, you are walking across campus with a Coke Zero in one hand and your phone in the other, which is a stupid combination in hindsight but feels completely manageable until the exact second it isn’t.
Mika is fighting for her life in the group chat.
mika: silver top yes or no
mika: both of you are ugly inside
You’re typing something mean enough to make her probably pull her hair when someone turns the corner near the science building too fast.
There is no graceful version of what happens.
Your shoulder hits something solid. Your phone almost slips out of your hand. The plastic lid of your Coke Zero pops loose like it has been waiting all day to betray you, and cold soda splashes forward before you can save it.
Straight onto someone’s shirt.
Black fabric, NASA logo, white hair, square glasses.
You look up. Satoru Gojo looks down.
For one horrible second, both of you just stare at the wet stain spreading across his shirt. Then you look at the bottle in your hand. Your first feeling should probably be guilt.
“My Coke Zero,” you say, genuinely upset.
Gojo’s eyes move from his shirt to your face.
“It was basically full.” You say in sorrow.
“Not anymore,” you say, looking into the bottle. “Now it’s mostly air.”
He stares at you like he cannot decide whether you’re joking or if this is just how you move through the world.
A few students pass around you, glancing over quickly noticing enough that you feel your shoulders settle into place automatically. Chin up. Face calm. Don’t look embarrassed unless you want people to remember it.
You glance down at the stain again. It’s bad. Worse than you want it to be.
The Coke Zero has splashed across the front of his NASA shirt and soaked into the black long sleeve underneath, darkening the fabric in an ugly, spreading patch. A few drops slide from the hem and hit the floor between his shoes, slow and sticky and impossible to ignore.
For a second, neither of you says anything.
You look at the bottle in your hand. There is barely anything left in it.
That feels personally insulting.
Satoru follows your gaze, then looks down at his shirt, then back at you with a face so flat it almost makes the whole thing worse.
“You’re looking at the bottle like it died in your arms.”
“It basically did,” you say, lifting it slightly. “This was new.”
His eyebrows rise behind his glasses. “So was my shirt this morning.”
You glance at the NASA logo, now half-covered in soda, and make a small face before you can stop yourself. “Yeah, well. It already had a lot going on.”
He stares at you for a beat. “Did you just insult my shirt after assaulting it?”
“I didn’t assault anything. You turned the corner too fast.”
“I came from a hallway. That’s usually how hallways work.”
“You came from nowhere wearing a black-and-white jump scare.”
Satoru looks down at himself like he’s checking whether that description deserves a response. His mouth twitches, but he kills it quickly. “You were staring at your phone.”
“I was using the hallway for its intended purpose.”
You hate how calm he sounds. No embarrassment, no awkward sputtering, no easy little crack in his confidence. Just him, standing there with Coke Zero soaking through his shirt, looking at you like you are a mildly fascinating inconvenience.
People are starting to look too, which makes it worse. So you do what you always do when you feel even slightly cornered. You get meaner.
Satoru blinks once. “From the collision I didn’t know was happening?”
“You’re tall. You had more time to see it coming.”
“That is not how height works.”
He adjusts his glasses with two fingers, slow and irritated. “Amazing. Physics is dead.”
His eyes narrow a little at that, and for some reason the look almost makes you smile.
You glance down at the bottle again and sigh, dramatic enough to make it clear who you think the real victim is. “Great. Four dollars gone.”
Satoru looks at the bottle. Then at the stain covering his chest. Then back at you.
“I’m sorry,” he says dryly. “Should I comfort the drink first, or can my shirt be included in the grieving process?”
“Coke Zero has caffeine.”
“So does shame, apparently, because you seem very awake right now.”
Your mouth opens, then closes. Okay.
So he is still weird but not defenseless.
You tilt your head, giving him the kind of smile that usually makes people reconsider speaking. “You’re kind of dramatic for someone dressed like a lost science fair project.”
“I’m covered in soda because you can’t walk and text at the same time.”
“You failed in real time.”
“That’s the stain talking.”
You look down despite yourself.
The dark patch has spread even more, clinging to the fabric in a way that does make you feel a little guilty. Unfortunately, he is also being annoying, and that makes apologizing feel like handing him a trophy. Still, your eyes flick toward the vending machines, then back to him.
“Do you want napkins or something?”
Satoru glances around the hallway, then back at you. “From where?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere.”
“Great plan. Very detailed. Did you workshop it?”
“I want to not be sticky.”
“Then go be sticky somewhere else.”
He stares at you for a second, and this time he actually does laugh under his breath. Not a real laugh, barely more than an exhale, but enough to make your irritation catch on something stupid and warm.
You lift your chin. “And you’re leaking on the floor.”
He looks down at the drops near his shoes, then back at you with the tired patience of someone explaining something obvious. “Because you spilled Coke on me.”
You glance around and, annoyingly, he’s right. A couple of people are pretending not to watch, badly. Someone near the lockers is smiling into their phone. Your skin prickles.
You sigh like this entire thing is deeply inconvenient for you, because it is “Okay. Sorry about your shirt.”
Satoru studies you over the top of his glasses. “That sounded like it had to crawl out of you.”
For a second, you both just look at each other. Then his mouth twitches again, and you hate that yours almost does too. You step aside, giving him enough room to pass. “There. Hallway’s yours again.”
Satoru looks at the space you made, then at you, still pinching the wet fabric away from his skin like the texture personally offends him. “Generous.”
“Too late,” he says dryly. “My shirt and I are going through something.”
You roll your eyes and look away before your mouth can betray you. Because laughing would be embarrassing. For a second, you think that should be the end of it. You have apologized, technically. He is free to go be sticky somewhere else. The hallway can go back to normal, and everyone can pretend they didn’t just watch you lose a fight with a plastic bottle and a physics major.
Then you look down at the Coke Zero in your hand.
There is maybe one sip left. Mostly foam. Completely useless.
You sigh “I’m getting another one.”
Satoru pauses, like he actually needs a moment to process that this is where your priorities have landed. “Right. Obviously the real tragedy here.”
You glance back at him. “I already said sorry.”
“You said it like someone held you at gunpoint.”
You open your mouth, then close it again, because unfortunately, that almost gets a laugh out of you.
Instead, you turn toward the vending machines before your face can do anything stupid.
Behind you, he mutters, “Unbelievable.”
You do not turn around. You definitely do not smile.
By the time you get home, you are still annoyed about the Coke Zero.
You change out of your campus clothes, wipe off your makeup, and open Moonvale Crossing before answering Mika’s messages. Your greenhouse glows under a pixel sunset, moonberries ready to harvest, storage shed still exactly where you put it behind the trees because DigivolveThis does not control you.
Discord pings almost immediately.
DigivolveThis: campus was especially annoying today
CerryHex: i lost a drink in a tragic public incident
CerryHex: it was basically full
DigivolveThis: okay that is tragic
DigivolveThis: i had an incident too
CerryHex: did you also lose a drink
DigivolveThis: someone made me part of their drink problem
DigivolveThis: intentionally
CerryHex: were you annoying about it
DigivolveThis: i was the victim
CerryHex: victims can be annoying
DigivolveThis: horrifying sentence
CerryHex: accurate sentence
You harvest moonberries while smiling at the chat.
Neither of you says enough for it to click. You keep it vague. He keeps it vague. Someone had a bad day, someone lost a drink, someone was apparently the victim of “an incident.”
Very tragic. Very campus. So neither of you thinks much of it. Which is probably for the best.
DigivolveThis: people should need licenses to walk and hold beverages
CerryHex: people should need licenses to turn corners
DigivolveThis: suspiciously specific
CerryHex: trauma is specific
DigivolveThis: your tragedy has layers
CerryHex: finally someone respects my suffering
DigivolveThis: i respect nothing
CerryHex: ugly brand but consistent
DigivolveThis: speaking of ugly
DigivolveThis: your storage shed is still behind trees
CerryHex: my storage shed is shy
DigivolveThis: your storage shed is inconvenient
CerryHex: it’s mysterious
DigivolveThis: it is six seconds farther from the crafting bench than necessary
CerryHex: six whole seconds
CerryHex: thoughts and prayers
A screenshot appears in the chat. Your farm again, marked up in red lines and arrows like a crime scene.
DigivolveThis: if you move it here, it improves route efficiency by 40%
CerryHex: if i move it there, it ruins the view by 100%
DigivolveThis: fake statistic
DigivolveThis: i hate it here
CerryHex: you keep coming back
DigivolveThis: for science
CerryHex: for my greenhouse
DigivolveThis: for efficient crop management
CerryHex: you don’t even own crops here
DigivolveThis: emotionally i do
You laugh, softer this time. Your phone lights up with Mika’s name, but you flip it face-down without answering.
CerryHex: you’re very attached to my property for someone who hates my layout
DigivolveThis: i hate the choices
DigivolveThis: not the potential
CerryHex: that almost sounded nice
DigivolveThis: delete it from your memory
CerryHex: screenshotting it
You play for almost two hours. At some point, he sends another message.
DigivolveThis: voice would be easier for meteor runs eventually
DigivolveThis: typing “mobs left” while fighting is bad design
CerryHex: practical excuse
DigivolveThis: practical reason
CerryHex: same ugly outfit different wording
DigivolveThis: you love calling things ugly
CerryHex: only when they deserve it
DigivolveThis: dangerous worldview
CerryHex: effective worldview
DigivolveThis: so eventually?
DigivolveThis: suspicious answer
CerryHex: accurate answer
You sit there for a second, looking at the word maybe glowing on the screen. Then you open your inventory, equip your pickaxe, and send him coordinates for the next meteor spawn.
mika: Today. suguru’s. no excuses.
reina: she always has excuses when she doesn’t like the guest list
mika: no bc this time the guest list is good good
mika: like men with jobs and jawlines good
you: they’re college students
reina: potential jawlines
You send the lie while sitting cross-legged on your bed in pajama shorts, laptop already open in front of you, Moonvale Crossing glowing across the screen.
Your essay is not due for six days.
It is not even a difficult essay. It is sitting half-finished in your documents folder, which means it is basically done if you choose to be emotionally generous about it.
Mika starts typing immediately. Then stops. Then starts again.
you: crazy how you know my coursework better than me
mika: i know your lying face through text
reina: she does have a point
you: i have a headache too
mika: from what? being mean?
Reina calls, you stare at the screen until it stops ringing. Mika calls two seconds later, you decline that too.
mika: did u just decline me
mika: i’m not loud over text
You toss your phone onto the blanket and pull your headset over your ears. The thing is, you could go. You know exactly how the night would look. Mika would pregame too fast and accuse everyone else of being boring. Reina would say she wasn’t drinking much and then become terrifyingly honest after two cocktails. Suguru’s apartment would be crowded and hot and full of people pretending not to care who was watching them.
You would look good. You would say the right things. You would laugh at the right jokes, cut someone down just enough to make Mika cackle, stand beside Reina in someone’s kitchen like you belonged in a magazine spread titled girls you should not text after midnight.
It would be fine. It would probably even be fun.
But Moonvale has a limited dungeon event tonight, and DigivolveThis has been sending increasingly unhinged messages about preparation for the past hour.
DigivolveThis: bring frost charms
DigivolveThis: not the decorative ones
DigivolveThis: actual frost charms
DigivolveThis: do not bring pretty useless charms
DigivolveThis: i can feel you considering it
You click into Discord and type back.
CerryHex: i hope you know your messages have the energy of a divorced father packing for a camping trip
DigivolveThis: camping trips require preparation
CerryHex: it’s a pixel dungeon
DigivolveThis: that’s what the unprepared say before dying in a pixel dungeon
CerryHex: maybe i want to die beautifully
DigivolveThis: then do it on your own time
You smile despite yourself and load into Moonvale.
The event dungeon sits at the edge of the Hollow Crater, only open during meteor season. The Glassroot Catacombs. Pretty name, horrifying place. The entrance is an archway of translucent roots twisting down into the moon’s crust, glowing pale green and blue. Tiny stars pulse inside the bark like trapped fireflies.
It looks gorgeous. Which means it is probably going to try to kill you.
DigivolveThis is already there. Of course he is.
DigivolveThis: you’re late
CerryHex: by forty seconds
CerryHex: i hope the dungeon eats you first
DigivolveThis: statistically unlikely
You open your inventory just to check, even though you already checked twice. Frost charms. Healing buns. Glow bombs. Moonblade. Pickaxe. Stamina tarts. Two revive feathers, because you refuse to be embarrassed by a root monster in front of a man whose username is a Digimon pun.
He sends a trade request. You accept, suspicious.
He puts three extra healing buns into the trade box.
DigivolveThis: your death would inconvenience me
DigivolveThis: don’t make it emotional
CerryHex: i’m sobbing actually
You pause at that. Then laugh, because of course the most annoying person online would sound exactly like an overprepared dungeon dad.
CerryHex: you sound like you own emergency snacks
CerryHex: that was not supposed to be true
DigivolveThis: emergencies happen
CerryHex: what emergency requires snacks
DigivolveThis: being hungry
CerryHex: genius. revolutionary.
The dungeon gate opens with a soft chime, and both of you step inside. The first level is almost peaceful. Pale roots curl through the stone walls, and the floor is covered in shallow water reflecting blue crystals overhead. Little glass frogs hop away from your avatars as you pass. The soundtrack shifts into something soft and eerie, all chimes and low strings.
CerryHex: okay this is pretty
DigivolveThis: don’t get distracted
DigivolveThis: survival advice
CerryHex: same thing from you
The first mob drops from the ceiling thirty seconds later. It looks like a spider made of glass and bad intentions. You hit it with your moonblade. It splits into three smaller spiders.
DigivolveThis: don’t hit the big ones with blade attacks
CerryHex: you could’ve said that earlier
DigivolveThis: you could’ve waited
CerryHex: for what? its traumatic backstory?
Three more spiders drop. Then two root wisps wake up.Then a little moonmole bursts through the floor directly under DigivolveThis’s avatar and launches him into the shallow water. You laugh so loudly you have to clap a hand over your mouth.
CerryHex: the mole chose you
DigivolveThis: don’t make this spiritual
CerryHex: you were baptized
DigivolveThis: i’m leaving
CerryHex: by the mole? yes
Another spider lunges at you while you are typing, and your health drops by a third.
DigivolveThis: typing is going to kill you
DigivolveThis: it is absolutely not worth it
CerryHex: comedy is always worth it
DigivolveThis: your funeral will be inefficient
You make it through the first level, but barely. Not because either of you is bad. You’re not. That’s the annoying part. You both know what you’re doing, but the dungeon is designed to punish anyone who tries to type while mobs are spawning from every wall like the game has a personal grudge.
By level two everything gets worse.
The water is deeper. The roots move. Some of the crystals explode if you mine the wrong ones. DigivolveThis tries to type instructions and gets body-slammed by a frog. You actually wheeze.
DigivolveThis: everything hates me tonight
CerryHex: maybe you’re the problem
DigivolveThis: don’t steal my word
A cluster of root wisps appears around you.
You try to type left left left and accidentally open your inventory instead. Your avatar stands there like an idiot while the wisps start chewing through your shield. DigivolveThis runs back, drops a glow bomb, and clears half of them.
DigivolveThis: discord call
DigivolveThis: you’re dying
CerryHex: i’m thriving under pressure
DigivolveThis: you opened your inventory during combat
CerryHex: tactical purse check
DigivolveThis: call. now.
You stare at the Discord call button.
Your heartbeat does something deeply stupid.
It’s not like voice calling someone is intimate. People do it all the time. Mika sends you voice messages from bathrooms, Reina calls just to complain about people she “doesn’t care about,” and Suguru once called you for half a minute to ask which translation your professor preferred because he trusted your rage more than the syllabus.
So it should not feel like a big deal.
But DigivolveThis is still just a username. He exists in chat bubbles, dungeon invites, and annoying little comments about your greenhouse layout. That is manageable. That is safely not real.
A voice gives him timing and a way to sound less like a random gamer and more like an actual person sitting somewhere on the other side of the call.
Another wisp hits your avatar while you’re staring at the button. Your screen flashes red.
“Oh, fuck off,” you mutter, sitting up straighter.
You click call before you can think about it too much.
It rings once, then connects.
For half a second there is only static. Loud ugly static that makes you pull one side of your headset slightly away from your ear.
Then his voice comes through, a little too loud and already annoyed.
“Holy shit, is your headset underwater?”
Not because of what he says.
It is familiar in the most frustrating way. Not really clear enough to place, definitely not known enough to name but something about the dry edge of it catches in the back of your mind. You’ve heard that tone somewhere. Maybe in a hallway? Maybe in passing? Maybe not.
The static crackles again.
You clear your throat. “First of all, rude.”
Your voice comes out softer than you meant it to.
Maybe it’s the room. The laptop warm against your legs, the blanket twisted around one ankle, your pajama shorts, the stupid little glow of the game reflected on your screen. There’s no hallway full of people here, no Mika watching your face for cracks, no Reina waiting to turn one wrong word into a weapon.
You don’t have to perform for anyone.
Which is probably why, when you answer him, you sound less sharp than usual. Sleepier, almost. Amused in a way you would never let happen on campus. You notice it a second too late.
“Second,” you add clearing your throat, “my headset is old, not underwater.”
“Your headset sounds like shit,” he says, right after the call stops crackling long enough for his voice to come through properly.
You blink, one hand still on the keyboard. “Hello to you too?”
“I’m serious. Are you calling me from inside a microwave?”
You glance at the headset cable like it personally betrayed you. It is not even that old. Okay, maybe it is old, but not old enough to deserve public humiliation. “It works fine.”
“It absolutely does not. Every time you breathe, it sounds like a plastic bag losing a fight.”
“Maybe you’re just sensitive.”
“Maybe your mic is begging for retirement.”
You open your mouth to argue, but a wisp slides across the screen and nearly clips your avatar before you can move. Satoru’s voice changes immediately, the teasing still there but pushed under focus.
“Left side. Glow bomb first, then move before the roots come up.”
You throw the glow bomb, just not exactly where he told you to. It lands a little too far right, bursts against the stone, and somehow still catches two wisps in the blast. The path flashes pale blue.
There is a pause on the call.
“Okay,” he says slowly, “that was wrong, but it worked.”
You smile. “So it was right.”
“No. It was wrong with confidence.”
A root snaps up from the ground before you can answer properly, catching your avatar and dragging your health down so fast you sit up straighter. Your fingers stumble over the keys.
“Don’t blade it,” Satoru says.
“Then what am I supposed to do, compliment it until it leaves?”
You look at your inventory. Then you look again, like maybe the correct item will magically appear if you believe in yourself hard enough.
Satoru goes quiet for one very dangerous second. “You brought one, right?”
You hesitate. “The pretty one.”
The silence that follows is so heavy you can almost hear him judging you through the headset.
Then, very calmly, he says, “I’m going to uninstall your bones.”
You burst out laughing, loud enough that your mic crackles again.
“See?” he says immediately. “It’s doing it again.”
“I’m sorry my headset isn’t up to your royal standards,” you say, still laughing as you try to get your avatar unstuck from the wall. “And for the record, the charm has frost in the name.”
“It’s called Glitter Frost.”
“It’s emotionally useful.”
“Then heal me, dungeon dad.”
His answer comes way too fast. “Do not call me that.”
“You packed extra buns and made me a route map.”
He says nothing to that, but your health bar jumps back up a second later.
The voice call changes everything faster than you expect. Faster callouts. Cleaner fights. Less dying because you’re trying to type insults while something made of glass tries to eat your avatar’s face.
But then the practical part settles, and something else slips in around it.
His little annoyed exhale when you run toward a shiny ore vein mid-fight.
Your laugh when he gets attacked by the same frog again.
The way he says “behind you” before you even notice something moving.
The way you say “got it” and actually do.
By the third level, the two of you have settled into a rhythm that is almost too easy to notice.
He takes the ranged mobs before they can corner you. You clear the smaller ones when they get too close to his side. When the path splits, you go left because there are glowing flowers and ruined archways and the entire area looks like it was designed by someone with taste, while he goes right because there are resource nodes, a hidden chest, and what he calls “an actually useful shortcut.”
Annoyingly, both of you end up being right.
“Do you see the crystal door?” he asks after a while, his voice quieter now, focused in that way he gets when the dungeon stops being cute and starts actively trying to kill you.
You move your camera until the door comes into view. It sits between two twisting roots, pulsing with a soft blue light, very obviously placed there to be noticed.
“Good. Don’t open it yet.”
You pause with your avatar already halfway toward it. “Yet?”
“Yes. Yet. As in wait until I’m actually near you and not on the other side of the room.”
The door glows again. That feels important.
You open it. For one beautiful second, nothing happens.
Then the entire room bursts open with tiny moon bats, all wings and glowing eyes, flooding toward you like you have personally offended their bloodline.
He says absolutely nothing.
Not a gasp. Not a curse. Not even one of his little irritated keyboard clicks. Just silence.
The kind of silence that makes you painfully aware of every single bat currently pouring out of the room you were specifically told not to open.
You press your lips together, already losing the fight against a laugh.
Then his voice comes through, very quiet and deeply controlled.
“I hope you know I’m staring at you through the screen right now.”
You start laughing so hard your avatar runs straight into the side of the doorway, which immediately makes everything worse because three bats turn on you at once.
“I thought it might have loot,” you manage, trying to get your character to move while the screen fills with flapping little nightmares.
“Bad things glow too. That is a very important life lesson you keep refusing to learn.”
One of the bats clips his avatar as he finally reaches your side, and his mic crackles with the sound he makes under his breath. He starts fighting them off, but there are too many of them, and the whole thing gets ugly fast. Your screen flashes with damage, his health drops, yours drops, and the dungeon music suddenly feels way too dramatic for something this stupid.
“It looked important,” you say, still laughing, because at this point pretending you’re sorry would be insulting to both of you.
“It was locked,” he snaps, though there’s panic tucked underneath the annoyance now. “Locked is the game’s way of saying maybe think for once.”
“Locked is the game’s way of flirting with me.”
You try to help. You really do. But the sight of his little purple-jacketed avatar sprinting away from a swarm of bats while still trying to sound composed is ruining your ability to function. He disappears behind a root pillar, comes out the other side with two bats still on him, then immediately has to circle back because a third cuts him off.
“You know,” he says, voice tight as he dodges badly enough that you know he is annoyed for real now, “I made a route for this.”
“I made a route so this wouldn’t happen.”
“And yet look at us. Bonding.”
“This is not bonding. This is unpaid babysitting with rabies.”
“They’re moon bats. Be respectful.”
“They’re eating my health bar.” One of them starts chasing him in a tight circle around the root pillar and does not stop. It follows him once, twice, then a third time while he makes this quiet, furious sound through the mic, and you have to bite your lip so hard it almost hurts.
“Why is that one so obsessed with you?”
“Probably because it can sense I’m the only competent person here.”
“Or the consequences of your personality.”
You finally stop laughing long enough to aim properly. The frost charm hits the bat midair, freezing it in place with its wings spread and its tiny mouth open like it was about to complain too.
For a moment, neither of you says anything. The dungeon music keeps playing softly in the background, completely unaware that you have just created a workplace incident.
Then his voice comes through, quieter and suspicious. “Was that the right charm?”
You lean back against your pillows, smiling at the frozen bat on your screen. “Maybe I’m growing as a person.”
“No,” he says immediately, but there is a laugh tucked into the edge of his voice now. “Don’t say things we can’t prove.”
It is quick and surprised, like it got out before he had time to make it sarcastic.
The sound catches you off guard.
It makes your room feel a little less empty for a second. Which is annoying.
Because now you want to hear it again.
You clear your throat and focus on the game.
“You sound familiar,” you say before you can think better of it.
The line goes quiet except for the faint hum of your terrible headset. For a second, only the dungeon music fills the space between you, soft and weirdly dramatic for how stupid this conversation suddenly feels.
Taglist: @yourlocalcatscammer @looha @tarzanfollowsyou @batficdweller @dollienanaaa @sugarxrottentiger @captaineelliee
