Virtual hearts (felix fanfic)

1

"For god's sake, for how long are you gonna play that Marienne? It's getting boring already," the voice of my annoyed roommate made me jump on my chair. She was supposed to be out for a couple of more hours.

"Since when are you standing there?" I snapped my head behind my shoulder. She was unfazed, but I knew she liked to watch me play occasionally.

"Long enough to be bored. Get off, we're going to order food," she said already on the way out of my room to not so spacious living room right outside my bedroom door.

We live in a small apartment in Sydney. I have a very dull and unserious job in a music store, while Ellie is already working in her dream big corporate office job, which pays generous money so we have everything we want here and even save a good amount.

"You can play with me anytime you want, you know that," I smiled at Ellie when I sat beside her on a couch.

"Yeeeah," she paused, "no," she chuckled, "I don't want to be dragged by those idiots like you. They're so mean to you I would just want to kill them," she confessed. And she was right. In the Call of duty lobbies and in games were a lot of mean people - men. Just hearing a girl's voice made them uncontrollably furious and it was difficult to hear those words. How I should go back to the kitchen or that I'm just a slut. I couldn't say it didn't hurt my little soul, but the satisfaction of killing them right after was worth it.

"Also," she looked at her phone dragging me from my thoughts, "exactly in 3 months, you're going to the Stray Kids concert with me."

Ellie's favorite group. She's been ranting about those korean boys for a good year now, sometimes makes me watch their videos, but I could never remember their names and assign them with their delicate and untouchable faces. 

"What? You know I don't know a single song," I looked at her surprised.

"I already bought the tickets, I'm not going alone and I have no one else that could go with me, so you're going," she just informed me about the situation.

"But come on, how would it even look like?" I scoffed. Going to the concert of the group without knowing anything about them. It wasn't a good idea in the first place.

"Just sit next to me and enjoy good music. Can you do that?"

"I hope we're at least far away from the stage," I hoped for a positive answer, I couldn't even imagine standing in front of them, not singing their songs along with them and just BE embarrassed.

"Front row," she smiled widely with her teeth.

Of course.

"Oh my fucking god."

"So?" her hopeful eyes were too hard to resist.

"Yes, I will go," I rolled my eyes, but it was good for me. I needed to have some fun after all.

"I knew it from the beginning," she smiled and we ordered food, even if I didn't stop thinking about going somewhere so crowded just to see a couple of strangers.

We finished the food we ordered and I headed back to my room. It was still early to sleep, Saturday, and I wasn't working tomorrow, so the only reasonable thing was to have a gaming night.

I started another game of Call of Duty, I turned on my mic and began to talk with my teammates, but as expected, I was humiliated again. Not everyone talked but those who did made it a living hell.

But just as they gave me another insult when the game ended, a deep voice sounded through my headphones.

"Shut up," the sound echoed through the lobby. His voice was deep but soft at the same time. It was easily the deepest voice I ever heard in these games. Everyone was suddenly quiet. One could easily spot a huge annoyance in his voice.

"Of course, this slut needs a man to protect her," the boys still laughed at it and logged off right away, so me and the stranger were left alone in a lobby.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Are you alright?" I heard his voice again, he had a strong australian accent which made the whole situation and me feel better. It felt close to home.

"It's nothing new for me."

"Oh, I'm sorry about it. I understand it's tough but don't listen to them. You're more important than their empty words," he said after a long pause when I thought he wouldn't answer me anymore.

"Do you have a discord?" I asked without thinking. Finding a man in these games who thinks kindness is important was so rare.

"Uhmm..yeah. Yeah yeah, I have that," he said hesitantly this time. A couple of seconds after that he typed into the chat lobby.

PLAYER1
player1 #1509 :)

And the healthy obsession of talking to a person I knew for a couple of minutes started right away. I didn't know his name, his age, I didn't know anything, but sometimes that's kinda not important. The kindness is and I knew I couldn't lose my first gaming friend who stood up for me.