9 I READ A PROFILE ABOUT LOCAL EDGELORD
The only thing Steven knew about rain was that it fell from the sky.
He tried asking Dieze, but Dieze was not very helpful either. It kept pulling up the lyrics of 'Rain, Rain, Go Away,' instead of anything useful. Oh, why has his digital friend gotten so sassy lately? It used to be so sweet and helpful…
Darn, it was all because of that stupid addiction to video games. Before that, Dieze was the perfect assistant-pal-thing. It had been the perfect 'hobo disease'! But now? It was addicted to sending him game pop-ups. Aka. stat updates. Aka. missions and quests. Aka dumb stuff.
For example, pop-ups like these: ""Ding. ['Face-Saving Fortitude + 1']"
So when Steven said, "I didn't eat breakfast—"
—The pop-up appeared smack-dab into the middle of Steven's field of view, right onto his contact lens. Meaning that Steven was seeing a reminder about how good he was at "saving face" instead of the teacher's face.
Great.
"Here," said the teacher with a 'pop-up-for-a-face'. Ms. Happi stuck her hand out, and out of thin air, pulled out some cookies. Then she threw one at Steven, like: 'fetch.'
Like a puppy waiting for a biscuit, Steven jumped backward, flipped over a desk, a student, and caught the cookie with his mouth.
For a little bit of context, if you care to listen: it was still the first period. Ms. Happi had been taking the attendance when she happened to find Steven sleeping. And that's why she was tossing cookies at Steven's face, yep.
Now, as a teacher, Ms. Happi was super dedicated to fostering young talent. So she stepped back and threw more cookies.
'Whoosh!' 'Fling!' 'Pew!'
Not a single cookie touched the floor.
"That's interesting," Ms. Happi said, "Your name is…?"
"Steven." He answered, telling her the school had spelled his name wrong in the administrative system (because, of course it did). Anyway, if she could fix that, it would be great.
Ms. Happi agreed, before peeping down at her phone. Her face flashed a face that said something like: 'help, someone is paying me to get rid of someone', before she covered it up with a parent-friendly smile. Then, the teacher droned on, before wrapping up Attendance. (Finally.)
The brown-haired teacher drew her glance back at the class and asked, "Who's ready for ice-breakers?"
The class groaned.
"Come on! Vámonos!" Ms. Happi waved her hands like a conductor, and the students stood up.
Steven, meanwhile, glanced around, relaxing at his desk. The rest of the students were doing this awkward 'make-new-friends' dance.
He looked at the teacher, who noticed his glance and proceeded to walk over. Darn it.
"What's wrong?" Ms. Happi asked, worried.
"Nothing," Steven smiled, his dimples showing. "Just tryna sleep, y'know."
This prompted Dieze to send him a message. Steven read it, but it was only a stat update about his 'dumb stat' going up. Okay, Steven had to admit, these stat messages did look pretty cool. They were in these translucent boxes that kinda looked like this:
['Dumb +1']
(But why was that stat so high?)
"Well, yeah," Ms. Happi said, "You 'could' sleep"
"Really?"
"But this activity will be part of your participation grade."
With that, Ms. Happi walked back to her desk, pulling out an entire stack of… what was it… 'pancakes'? She started nibbling on them, as Steven looked.
Helpfully, Dieze sent a pop-up detailing the snack:
[Dorayaki - B+ grade]
['Description: A delightful Japanese treat, Dorayaki consists of two fluffy sponge-like pancakes that sandwich a sweet red bean paste. Tasty.']
Ignoring Dieze, Steven sighed and walked over to Ms. Happi.
"Did you bake those?" He pointed to the pancakes.
"Yeah," Ms. Happi looked down at her snacks like she couldn't part ways with them. She waved them like a frisbee.
Steven hated how his eyes followed.
"They look amazing." He sighed, his voice coming out a bit deeper, as he caught the smell. A stomach growl grumbled from his stomach and he blushed.
He knelt on his knees and clutched his stomach, his eyes twinkling: "Can't I have one, please…?"
A 'rolling-eyes' emoji popped into his contacts view, notifying him that his 'shameless stat' had risen.
"Mm, alright," Ms. Happi smiled, "Fine, but only if you talk with your classmates."
Steven nodded, muttering to Dieze. "Hey, Imma need those character profiles you got. Can you send them over?"
"Nope," Dieze answered: ['Host's audacity levels may corrupt files in this location. Try again later.' X]
Okay fine, Dieze.
Steven was gonna prove he could do stuff by himself. He got this. Right?
Walking around the classroom, he found the golden opportunity. A loner. And they were standing by themselves, too. The guy, a red-head with burning green eyes, looked kind and compassionate. Steven approached him, but was met with a gentle scoff. It went like this:
"Hey, I dig your turtleneck."
Hearing Steven's words, the turtleneck boy scratched his collar, gripped his sleeves, and said…
Something that wouldn't be allowed for TV broadcast, but could be translated to: "Go away."
Okay, time to try again.
The second person Steven tried to talk to was Calum – the boy from earlier, who had been hit with a piece of chalk.
"No way, you don't know what cultivation is?" Chalk-boy asked, jumping out of this seat. "EVERYONE! THIS KID DOESN'T KNOW WHAT CULTIVATION IS??? Das funny. Das funny. That's hilarious!"
The class turned their eyes to look at them.
The third and last person he tried to talk to… sniffed him, before saying, "Don't talk to me. You smell like poor."
Steven stood there for a couple seconds.
"Poor?"
"Profile access activated!" Dieze helpfully chimed in, like Steven hadn't just been fed to the teeth of his classmates… Like he hadn't just been chewed alive. Dude, it had seriously left him to bleed there. Dieze was probably enjoying this too.
Steven looked back at the first boy he had talked to. A little profile-pop-up appeared, as he focused his eyes.
Profiles? Well, they were like these little stalkerish info-cards about his classmates. Usually they were in this format:
[CHARACTER PROFILE: EMBER U. BURNS]
WARNING: DEATH FLAG. Interaction may lead to premature expiration. (Involvement with this character may kill you.)
For example, that red-headed boy he had talked to? He was called Ember, according to his profile. (Apparently, he was like the class's local edgelord or something.)
And along with general warnings, the profile also listed things like age, their family, a likeability meter, a biography, and other information.
According to the bio, Ember was super talented and had a peaceful home life. His best trait… was compassion? And he liked "ice cream, cucumbers, grass and flowers," but disliked "weak people, dads, sisters, and people with daddy issues?"
One last thing, Ember's likeability meter with Steven was "0.5/100", which meant that Steven probably harmed Ember's bloodline several decades ago.
Boy, trust him, he did want to.
Steven rolled up his sleeves, punching the wall.
"Ouch!" He blew his hand. Okay, bad idea.
But he could hit the air instead.
He jabbed his elbow into the air, as another boy walked past.
['Jab Ability +1 EXP!']
"Sorry," Steven muttered. He looked at the person he had elbowed, but the expression was hard to read. And his contacts spurted out a weird message instead of popping out a profile:
['???' X]
-- ??? --
>> ???
Loading… [||||||||||||||||__ 80%]
['ERROR: missing_char_profile' X]
Wearing a red sweater, the boy had pale eyelashes that covered dark, red eyes.
"Nah, it's fine," The boy dismissed politely. His left eyebrow had a nick while the right side of his face was dotted with two moles. As his lips parted, they revealed two canine teeth and pearly incisors. "Steven, right…?"
"Yeah," Steven nodded, "Nice to meet you. You're…?"
"I'm Zero," The white-haired boy introduced, "Zero Dreams."
