I'm Here

I Gotta Tell Him

            My eyes flutter open at the sight of sunlight through the windows in front of me. I squint as I pick myself up into a sitting position on the couch, my hand in front of my eyes to try and shield them from the light.

"Hey,"

I slowly turn my head towards the sudden voice, and Mark standing with his top half of his torso leaning over the counter and his morning cup of coffee. He takes a sip, and smiles warmly at me. I blush and smile back. Don't blush you idiot.

Then, it hits me; I'm not wearing my glasses or my contacts. I start to feel the headache come on, so I ask Mark, "You know where I put my jacket last night?" He thinks for a second, then shakes his head. "Sorry, I don't."

"Eh," I shrug it off. "doesn't matter. I'll just have to take some meds when I get home is all." Mark puts his cup down, "Anything important in there?"

"Glasses. I don't wear my contacts much anymore since I got them."

"And how many headaches do you get a day cause of that?"

I give him a small embarrassed smile and he groans.

"You can't do that, man. Especially when you got the weight of Game Grumps, Ninja Sex Party, and Starbomb on your shoulders." he said sadly.

"I know, but I can't help it. I thought the glasses would be too much change. And you know how the Lovelies hate change."

Memories of those hateful comments were flowing back into my mind like a roaring river. I felt a familiar amount of dread, until I remembered Mark's. His words of encouragement, how he wrote it. It gave me chills. The good kind. And it didn't stop after that. Every new Ninja Sex Party video we released, Mark commented. Saying things like "Great job," or "That was awesome!" I do remember one where he had written, "Dan's voice gives me chills," which made me particularly happy. Especially from him. Then again, he could've been just messing with me. That's also a possibility.

"I don't think they'd care that much if you started wearing glasses more. Besides, I bet you look great with them on."

I look down to try and hide my red face, but I guess he noticed cause he laughed a little. What did I tell you about blushing! Shut up, brain. No, you shut up! No you! You!

Mark then stood straight and jogged over to the coat rack by the front door. After looking through a couple, his eyes brightened and he held up mine. He jogged over to me, handed me it, and our hands awkwardly touched.

"Oh, sorry." he pulled his hand away from mine.

How is he so cool with this?

"Don't worry about it."

I search the pockets and pull out my glasses. When I slide them on, my current headache starts to recede as my once blurry vision clears up. It was quite the relief.

---

I walk in the front door of the office, wave to Mark, who had given me a ride since my car was here, and close the door. Then I slam my head onto the wall and slide down into a sitting position against it. My legs drew close to my chest and I crossed my arms on top of them, hanging my head low so that my crotch was in my line of sight. I felt tears start to collect in my eyes. That's when I heard the thumping of footsteps coming towards me.

"Hey dude, what's wrong?"

Arin.

I lift my head up so he could see what a mess I was. My hair was all knotted since I didn't brush it when I woke up, my face was hot and red, and I was already starting to cry. I just felt overwhelmed. I thought I could talk to Arin about this since he's the only one who knows my secret. The secret I've been hiding my entire life.

"I can't keep doing this, man."

Arin sat down on the floor next to me, "What happened, buddy? Did you tell him and get rejected?"

I wiped my eyes, "No..."

"Then what's wrong?"

"That's just it, I can't tell him. No matter how hard I try and plan to, I just can't work up the courage to. It's fucking torture, man. Just torture."

He nodded as he looked at me with such sad eyes.

"Come here." he widened his arms for a hug, and I accepted his offer. What would happen if I were to confess to him? Would he accept me? Or would he just laugh in my face? How would I even go about confessing? Just tell him? Or make a big deal about it? It pained me not being able to answer any of these questions.

"Wait," Arin let go of me, but kept a firm grip on my shoulders as he looked me in the eyes. "I can totally help you with this."

I sniffled, "How?"

"Okay, what we need is a game plan. You're a singer, so maybe you could sing something to him. Y'know, like a romantic song. You know plenty of those, right?"

"Yeah... I guess I could sing to him... But what song?"

"Whatever song you want! There's fucking millions of love songs out there! Hell, most songs that have ever been made are about love! You could literally think of anything."

"Good point. Maybe I could just narrow it down to one artist."

"Yeah! C'mon, let's go downstairs to the Grump Room and brainstorm."

Arin offered me his hand, and lead me downstairs. Now that I looked at all the workspaces, I noticed that we were the only ones there. No one must be in yet. We made our way to the Game Grumps recording room where Arin then moved all of the microphones, and plopped onto the couch. I followed, but I sat down more gently. I was still blown away by the fact that he was actually helping me with this. My best friend was helping me get a guy. Man, sounds like something out of a teen movie. A cliché teen movie.

"And I have just the place where you can do all this." Arin declared.

"Where's that?"

"There's this party going on tomorrow night that I was invited to and I was thinking of bringing you and Mark along with me and Suzy."

"You sure the person throwing it won't mind the extra baggage?"

"Nah. They're cool with it."

"You sure?"

"Yes, Daniel."

"Okay. Don't want to crash it, y'know?"

"Yeah, but trust me man, this is where it'll happen."

"Gotcha."

Sorry if this was a boring chapter. It was just some filler stuff to set up some of the plot. Like the video at the top said, this is filler. Better chapters coming soon! Happy Easter for those reading this when it's posted! Those in the future, pay not attention to this.

~Luna