As One || A Skep6dHalo AU

13: Getting Closer

Zak wakes up quite late in the morning, probably around 10 a.m. He tries to open his eyes, but it felt like he couldn't open them and something heavy was holding it from opening.HE finally managed to open them and he sees an empty ceiling. He looks around and sees a paper bag next to him on the table. He tried to get up, but suddenly his head hurts. He massages his forehead and lets out a loud groan. 

"Zak?" a voice came from the bathroom door. It was Darryl, who just finished washing up. He helps Zak to sit down on his bed and sits down next to him. "You feeling okay?" Darryl asks, full of worry. "I guess. What happened last night?" Zak looks at the very worried Darryl. "Well, you got drunk and I had to take you back to the hotel by myself." Zak suddenly remembered what happened and he remembered that he had a fight with Darryl. "Dammit..." Zak says silently. "What?" Darryl heard Zak saying it under his breath. Zak looks and Darryl again and takes a deep breath. 

"I'm, really sorry. About last night. I shouldn't be treating you like that. I treated you like absolute trash, I'm an idiot-" 

"Zak, it's totally fine." Darryl cuts off Zak's words. "I understand what you felt. But I thought of happy thoughts. Like, when I'm recording a video with you, or making streams that had no memers in the chat or just hanging out with Rat-" He pauses for a while and continues. "-and I thought of him too." 

"Will you forgive me?" says Zak. "I already have." Darryl answers. Zak smiles and pulls Darryl into a warm hug. Darryl didn't expect Zak to hug him so unexpectedly. He hugs back and they pull away. Suddenly, Zak felt something bad happening in his stomach. Darryl laughs and says "You know I actually thought that you were gonna throw up on my shoulder last night-" "Speaking of throwing up, excuse me!" Zak cuts off Darryls words and runs straight to the bathroom. He locks the door, leaving Darryl outside. "Zak, are you gonna be okay? Zak!" He knocks on the door several times before stopping. He waits outside, feeling anxious about Zak's health after getting drunk. 

A few minutes later, Zak comes out from the bathroom feeling a bit weak and his face turned pale. His vision turned a bit blurry and could barely walk. Darryl sees him walking out from the bathroom and hands him a bottle of water. Zak smiles and takes the bottle. "Thanks." He drinks almost half of it and leans on the wall. "Hey Bad, you wanna know something?" Darryl wonders what Zak is about to say. "This is actually my first time being drunk. Like seriously." Darryl sighs and brings Zak to sit down on his bed so that he could rest for a while. "Next time, please don't drink anything that has a high alcohol percentage. And don't drink too much. It's unhealthy for you! You're still young, you know." Darryl crosses his arms. Zak laughs and says "Why are you talking like my mom right now?" "Skeppy, it's my responsibility to take care of you as I am older than you." They both laugh together and Zak sees the paper bag on the table.

"Oh and by the way, what's in there?" he asks Darryl. "It's your breakfast. Now eat it and get some rest. We'll be meeting someone later in the afternoon." Zak takes a piece of the pastries. "What? Who?" he questions Zak. "Not telling you. You'll know later." Zak is suspicious of Darryl saying that but continues eating his food anyway. "Oh yeah, Zak." Zak looks at Darryl that is opening his phone next to him. He shows the message he got from 'A' last night. Zak finishes his food and clears his throat. "So he's giving us 3 more days?" he asks. "Apparently, yeah. And eventually, he knew that we fought last night, but I don't know how he knew that." They look at each other and back at the message. 

"We should be careful with what we do, what we say and how we act. We do not know where his people could be." says Zak. Darryl agrees. 

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Zak and Darryl are now sitting at a cafe just beside their hotel building. It looks like they are waiting for someone.  Since it's the afternoon, a lot of people are in the cafe. Suddenly, a person who seem to look like a young boy enters the cafe and sees both Zak and Darryl chatting. He approaches them and taps on Darryl's shoulder. Darryl looks up to see him smiling brightly. "Oh, you're here! Please, take a seat." "Sorry I'm a bit late. I was fixing my CPU back at home." he had a French accent, and Zak immediately knew he was French. He sits next to Darryl. "Zak, this is Damien. He's Vinc's friend. I contacted him through social media to ask him about Vinc." Zak gives a warm smile at Damien. "Hello, I'm Zak." Damien sticks out his hand to offer him a handshake. "I'm Damien. But you can call me Demi." Zak accepts his handshake and Darryl starts to question him about Vincent. 

"Okay, Demi. When was the last time you met up with Vincent?" Darryl asks the first question. "Hm, I think it was the day before he got kidnapped. We went out to go looking for new equipment for our setup." Darryl nods. Zak also decides to ask another question. "Do you have any idea who this, 'A' guy is?" Damien thinks for a while and answers "I'm not quite sure. I know a lot of people that their name starts with an 'A' but not all of them know Vincent." Zak leans back on his seat when suddenly, Darryl asked a crucial question. 

"Did he join any competition recently?" Damien shook his head an answered "Nope, but he did join a server making competition a year ago." Both Zak and Darryl are starting to get hints. "What was the competition about?" Zak asks. 

"There was this Minecraft server making competition held in Paris everyone 2 years. You have a certain amount of time to make a fully functional Minecraft server with all the plugins, mods and servers. The server could be Mini Games, PvP, Role-Play. As long as the server works, you're good to go. Vincent joined it last year and I heard he got first place. If you win the whole competition, you get a cash prize of €10,000/$11,264.50. He definitely deserved the first place, but there was something wrong with the person winning second place. I heard from my other friend who joined the competition as well and heard that the person was not having it. Outside of the building, he heard him screaming and cursing. He even recorded it and sent it to me."

"Could you send it to me?" Zak asks. Damien takes out his phone and opens up the video of the person screaming and cursing. All three of them watched the video seriously and in Zak's mind, he was about to say 'What the hell is wrong with this guy?'. The video ends and they look very concerned about his mental health. Darryl notices something that maybe able to help them. "What did he say at the end? I didn't understand." Damien sighs and says "He said, 'I'm gonna get you Vincent. I will do anything to get my money back even if I have to kill you.'" Both Zak and Darryl were shocked after hearing this. They looked at each other and they were now extremely worried about Vincent. 

###

The three boys are now outside the cafe, saying their farewells. "It was nice meeting you two. And I hope you'll be able to find Vincent." "It was nice meeting you two. And dont worry, we will find him." Zak says, confidently. Damien smiles and walks the other. Now it was only Zak and Darryl alone. 

"We are getting closer to finding him. And I'm sure we will find him. Together." Zak says looking at Darryl and smiles. Darryl smiles back and puts his arm around his shoulder. They walked back to the hotel, and the sun sets at Annecy once again.