fucking with our lovers' heads

Chapter 1: Jeremy

BACK!! This chapter is longer, promise. You know I had to split it up into reasonable chapters ;)

Boyf_: is this marshmello?

Marshmello: Yea

Boyf_: hi

Marshmello: heyyo

Jeremy knows he's typing and typing. And deleting it. He should be able to come up with something to say—it isn't as if this guy's asked for his discord looking for anything profound. He should, like, make conversation. But he's never been good at that, really. And with the SQUIP gone, it's like he had this bank of How-Tos in his brain, and now it's just gone, the ghost of it lingering at the back of his mind, like if he just dug a little deeper, he'd still find some sort of instruction on how to make friends and shit.

He sits back in his twisty chair, looking around at the walls of his bedroom as if the SQUIP might have left advice there—but the walls are bare. Completely bare. The SQUIP made him take down all his "nerdy" posters. (Which Jeremy still qualifies as "geeky" but how can he argue with a supercomputer?) And even though it's been almost a year... well, he hasn't thought of much to put up there, really.

He taps the space bar listlessly with his thumbs, and then deletes until all the spaces are gone.

He's coming up empty.

And who's he kidding, this Marshmello isn't looking for a friend, he's just saying hi. As people do.

But, like, not usually to tournament opponents who just killed them.

Boyf_: who do u think is gonna win?

Marshmello: H8 to say it but prolly not my team

Marshmello: we r not that gr8

Marshmello: if u tell them i said that i shall murder u with 0 regrets

Jeremy considers this. This is a joke, and he should respond accordingly—only, he's not quite sure how to do that. If he plays along (what's said in dms stays in dms) and it looks like he's trying too hard, that's not a very good first impression to make. On the other hand, if he doesn't play along (why would I do that?) he's going to look like an idiot who doesn't really know how to have fun.

On the other other hand, the longer he thinks about this, the more he already looks like an idiot because he hasn't responded.

He considers for a moment—which is probably a moment too long, really.

Boyf_: haha don't worry

Boyf_: won't tell

Jeremy adds a zipped lips emoji at the end.

And then he kind of regrets it after sending. What if this guy is one of those guys who's weirdly against emojis? Very into emoticons? But it has been sent, and it'll look even weirder if he edits the message only to take back an emoji. Like. Who does that?

So he just sits there and waits to see what Marshmello says back. Marshmello's quiet for a moment, and while Jeremy knew it would look lame and awkward if he didn't know how to respond earlier, when Marshmello does it, it's suspenseful and kind of cool, like Marshmello's got a bunch of things on his mind and Jeremy's just some dude he doesn't have too much time for.

So not cool.

But kind of. Like. Cool.

And the least cool thing to do here would be to keep messaging this guy that hasn't responded yet, but what can Jeremy do? Leave it? And then what? It isn't like he left something for Marshmello to really respond to there, anyway. He should give something for Marshmello to bounce off of, right? That's what the SQUIP would've told him to do, before.