Video Love (The Poofless Epic)

Chapter 27

If you're interested in bonus content that doesn't fit in well with the main story line, the chapter of "Bonus Hearts" titled "Words" fits into the timeline here. You don't have to read the extra details to follow the main plot line of this story.

----------------

December 19, 2012 at 3 AM, Fort Worth, TX: Preston

"I sees you later, bby. Enjoy your fake meatballs." Vik snorts and Rob gives me his 'you hafta be kidding me' face before he blinks dramatically with a pout and starts to close Minecraft and the recording programs on his computer. He's getting ready to log off and do his editing before he goes to sleep, and he won't need any of that stuff open to nuke noobs with me and Choco this afternoon. Tonight is guys' night online and no one's gonna do any work for the whole night, except Choco and his weird snooping around he does for the Bacca. That doesn't really count. He's getting ready to start his own channel next month and we're helping him get used to commentating over his gameplay instead of just playing support and calling out locations. Or randomly screaming out directions in the middle of a sentence. He's pretty funny when he gets frustrated, too. Such a salt mine.

"I love you, Preston," Rob whispers in his derp voice as he leans towards the mic so I can hear his creepiness in perfect surround sound. His pupils are really huge because he's sitting in the dark like a total weirdo with that dumb crooked smile of his. He looks like he's insane, like 'I'm gonna sneak in your apartment when you're asleep and cut you into a billion tiny pieces and cook you so I can make cactus tacos' insane. His crazy eyes are actually freaking me out and my skin breaks out in goose pimples.

"Shut the fudge up." I click on the remove button and Mitch him from the Skype call and I see him laughing at me before his video feed disappears. Now it's just me and Vik in the call. He looks like he got run over by a train and you'd never guess he was the same guy we were recording with five minutes ago. It's kinda disturbing how fast he can go from being super happy and hyper to just being completely wiped out and zombified. Sneakstar123 is too good of an actor for his own good. If you watched the video we just did, you wouldn't even be able to tell that he hasn't slept in 36 hours. "You gonna jump off here, too? Or is it editing time again?"

"Naw, I'm done. Even in school I was never one to pull all-nighters, let alone two-nighters. I need to throw it in before I break another keyboard."

"From what? Goin' Hulk on it?" Now that's something I wanna see: skinny little nerdy Vik screaming with his British accent and beating the crap out of a computer in a fit of blind rage in the middle of the night. I could get so many views if I recorded that. Talk about a Christmas bonus.

"Bruh, we aren't talking about you doing parkour maps. I just... fall asleep on them and when I wake up, the middle keys are skewed or broken off." He yawns halfway through and automatically flattens the top of his hair down in front of his headset as he glances down at the clock on his monitor for the thousandth time. It looks like it's already pretty late in the morning where he lives. I know I've made a lot of jokes about how uptight and high-stress Rob is, but he doesn't even start to compare with Choco and Vik. Maybe it's an Asian thing. Or maybe getting perfect grades in school just screws people up for life. I'm so glad I suck at math and American lit and got that barely-a-B game going.

"Aww. Stop cuddlin' with your keyboards, Vikky. It's too fudging kawaii."

"It's 'kuh-wai-ee,' not 'koo-way.' 'Koo-way' means frightening."

"And now he speaks Japanese. Stop being smart."

"Am I smart, or is everyone else just dumb?" he giggles with his usual cocky grin and I just wanna reach through the screen and give him a noogie. I feel like I'm in a deleted episode of the Big Bang Theory – I'm always surrounded by geeks who think they know everything. Even Mitch is a know-it-all and he barely knows his own name most of the time.