3000 Stars

High Score

"Your account has three thousand stars? That's a miracle!"

Taehyung quickly turned his phone off and shoved it in his pocket, pushing Hoseok away with his shoulder. "Gosh darn it, seok, don't do that!"

"But it's amazing! You could totally enter a battle with those stats!"

Taehyung rolled his eyes. "I don't want to battle. Don't you get it? I had a stupid power from the start."

"I don't think so," Hoseok sulked.

"Seok, that's because you're ace. It doesn't affect you."

"Rude," Hoseok huffed, shoving him with his shoulder. "Take it back!"

Taehyung sighed. "Right. I'm sorry for invalidating your sexuality, or whatever."

"That's not what you did!" Hoseok groaned. "When will you guys understand? It's the assumption that I can't recognize beauty that does the most damage here!"

Taehyung sighed, shrugged, and rubbed one eye. "Fine. Be that as it may, I'm not entering a battle. And no," he added grumpily, "I'm not signing on for those stupid beauty fights. They're such a waste of time and effort. There's not anyone I want to use these powers on anyway."

Hoseok rolled his eyes, kicking a stray can into the gutter. "You say that, but I bet you've got three crushes again. Liar."

"I'm not a liar!" Taehyung whined, shoving his hands into his hair and aiming a grumpy kick at his friend. "I don't have any crushes. Besides, wouldn't it be unfair to use something like that on them?"

"Are you kidding? Jeongguk does it all the time!"

"Jeongguk is stupid and prideful," Taehyung muttered, letting his hands slide down to hide his red ears. "I don't want to be like him."

"You could just say it was an accident."

"And get locked up in the misuse office until they confirmed I could use it properly? No thanks."

Hoseok groaned, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him back and forth. "Come onnn! Fine! I just want to see it again! You might be able to do holograms with a high score like this!"

"Then I'll get a worse one," Taehyung said, pulling his phone out and turning it on. In moments he had the camera on. "What's a really stupid face?"

"Nooo!" Hoseok lunged for the phone, and Taehyung stumbled, startled. The phone slipped from his hand and into the gutter, bouncing a few steps before falling down a storm drain with an ominous splash-plunk.

Taehyung glared at Hoseok. Hoseok grinned sheepishly.

"You're lucky the account is synced," Taehyung gritted out. "Or we'd be in real trouble."

"I'm sorry," Hoseok said.

"Yeah, sure," Taehyung sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I'll have to ask the school for a new one."

"Why not ask your parents?" Hoseok asked nervously. "I mean, it was my fault. Surely they won't be mad at you?"

"Things like fault don't matter when it comes to damaging a phone," Taehyung said. "Besides, bad photo quality might finally lower my score."

"What is it with you and lowering your score?" Hoseok groused as they started walking again, "Most people your age want it to go up!"

"Scores and battles are a waste of time," Taehyung said. "It's that simple. I don't have anything better to do, but I don't even want to watch those stupid people. Just because a computer program gave you flames for hair..." he trailed off, scowling as three men appeared in their field of view.

Hoseok followed his gaze and gulped, running a hand through his hair. "Oh," he said, but it sounded more like a squeak.

"Taehyung!" the man in the front called, grinning and waving excitedly. "Fancy seeing you here! I just saw your FaceUpp Score!"

"Did you?" Taehyung grumbled.

"It was amazing, man! You should enter those contests. Jimin here does them all the time. I'm sure he could--"

"Thanks, but I'm not interested," Taehyung said, giving Jimin a tight smile. "You of all people should know that, Namjoon."

"Aww, I was hoping you'd changed your mind," Namjoon sighed. "Ah, well. Have you met Yoongi? He's just gotten a score like yours on FaceUpp too."

Taehyung turned his gaze to Yoongi, who nodded, smiling softly. "It was a bit of a fluke," he said. "I guess people like the color of my hair."

Taehyung's eyebrows shot up. Yoongi's hair was a pale green-- soothing, yes, but not very conspicuous. He always forgot how arbitrary FaceUpp was. "Is he trying to convince you to join a fight, too?" he asked, glancing back to the storm drain his phone had fallen into.

Yoongi shook his head. "I'm a fighter already. This score just helped boost my power for today. I might do more pictures of my hair in the future."

"Nah, don't bother," Hoseok said. Taehyung flinched-- bad as it was, he had forgotten his friend was there. Hoseok rolled his eyes at him. "Doing something more often doesn't get you more votes overall. You've gotta keep it spaced out so it's special."

"Oh? Maybe I'll do that," Yoongi said. "What did you say your name was?"

"Hoseok," Hoseok said, breaking into an ear-splitting grin. "Nice to meet you. What's your power?"

"Liquid manipulation," Yoongi said. "We were gonna find somewhere to see if this score will let me change the density of liquids to use as shields and stuff."

Taehyung saw the gears turning in Hoseok's mind. He opened his mouth, not wanting to get wrapped up in some stupid display, but before he could Hoseok pointed back to the storm drain. "In that case, could you test it there? I knocked his phone into it and we heard a splash."

Namjoon shot Taehyung a knowing look. "You were about to take one of those stupid selfies again."

"So?!" Taehyung cried. "Maybe I don't want a high score!"

"Keep giving them funny faces and they'll assume it's part of your charm," Namjoon chuckled. "Your tactics won't work for much longer."

Taehyung groaned. "Whatever. It's fine. I can get a new phone at school, and--" he stopped. Yoongi and Hoseok had already disappeared. He whirled around, getting ready to yell, and came to another stop. This time his mouth dropped open. Yoongi and Hoseok were soaking wet and laughing hard. Clenched in Yoongi's hand was Taehyung's phone. 

Not sure how I'll organize this, but I'm willing to give write-to-update a try again. Hopefully this will end up a full story either way. Hold me to this, everyone. I'm committed. Let me know what you think, and have fun with each other-- I always enjoy seeing your comments and watching you interact. As of yet this story has no warnings, but I'll let you know if it looks like things will change. Luv ya! 

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