Kit had been waiting on the porch for about five minutes. Not too long, not too late. She’d been given a specific time that Hana was going to arrive at her house, and then she’d Googled whether or not she should wait outside, and Google had told her that yes, she should. So, here she was. Only, as she waited, she started thinking about the day, and how this was going to go, and she realized then and there that she wasn’t really prepared to meet her hero.
Didn’t the Doc always say not to meet your heroes? She was doing exactly that! And the Doc was one of the smartest people that young Kit knew! She was pacing with her arms behind her back by the time that the vehicle approached their luxurious home, and she only stopped when she heard the footsteps approaching and looked up to see Hana within
speaking distance. Alone. Not at school. With no plan, and no Hailey to call and reign Hana in.
Oh god.
What was she going to say!?
“HELLO, WOULD YOU LIKE A SIP OF WATER?” If the Thomas clan had neighbors, they probably heard Kit’s voice as she bellowed in Hana’s direction, and immediately put her face in her hands, mortified.
“I just yelled at you.”Almost immediately Hana was regretting this if all she could expect was to be yelled at like a pet that had made a bit of a mess on the floor. Even though they were outside, Kit’s voice carried and Hana was startled back and almost tripped over herself onto the ground but fortunately her coordination wasn’t so terrible. It left things in a rather awkward state with Hana desperately looking to see if Hailey’s limo was turning around while Kit was standing looking like she’d just gotten tragic news about a loved one.
”I’ll take a soda if you have one?” Hana started to reach out to offer a comforting tap on Kit’s shoulder but she got about as far as lifting her arm before dropping it back to her side. This...this was going to be something.
Phew. It wasn’t all over yet, Kit. The dream still lived, though it was arguably on life support. She nodded, and gestured for Hana to follow her into the house. She opened the door and walked inside, leading the way to the kitchen. After she grabbed a pair of cups, however, Kit didn’t stop to get drinks from the fridge, instead again looking over her shoulder to make sure Hana was following her, before beginning to lead her way up the marble staircase,
“I have a thingy in my room.”Though Kit didn’t fully grasp how ominous that may have sounded to the reluctant, nervous Hana, she didn’t seemed to care either way.
“So this is my house. The Doc and the Professor — oh, uh, that’s my mom and dad. — are out for the day, they’ll be back in the morning. We have the place to ourselves!” She smiled, and stopped at door that had her initials (well, name) engraved at the top of the wood: K.I.T. Kit opened the door, and it revealed a room that looked like it had just been cleaned, even to the point that it smelled like Febreeze.
In the corner was ‘thingy’ Kit had mentioned:
a Coca Cola freestyle machine.
“Ta da! You can have whatever kind you want. It might be out of vanilla root beer. I… I have a slight addiction...”The first thought that crossed Hana’s mind was how everyone she knew seemed to live in better places than she did. She shared an apartment with her sister which wasn’t exactly spacious or glamorous and certainly wasn’t the best when it came to privacy - on more than one instance Hana’s anger at a poor raid group was met with Abby banging on the wall and asking her to tone it down. If she felt jealous or inferior she was exceptionally good at not showing it. The second thought was on seeing the initials on the door.
”Your name isn’t Kit? Hana didn’t know exactly where to sit in Kit’s room, instead looking around and quietly wondering if it was usual for people to have rooms big enough to have Coke machines in them when she barely had enough room for her desk and monitor. The scent of air freshener she let go without comment.
”Well..you’ve got a very...spacious room.”“Oh, uh. Nah. My name is Kathryn, but I really prefer Kit and variations of it, so please just use that.” Kit said, looking over at Hana again before she held out a cup. Hana could select her own drink, Kit wasn’t about to scroll through the options. With Hana’s second comment, she looked around the room, and then nodded her agreement,
“yeah, I do. My cousins say I suffer from ‘only child syndrome…’” Kit said, shrugging her shoulders.
To the point, though: Kit’s room was almost hilariously oversized, for one girl of her side. Even the bed, tucked into a corner opposite the machine, was an oversized California King, with a mint-green bedspread. The wall to the left of the door (positioned so that people entering unannounced wouldn’t immediately see what she was doing) was a massive floating desk that stretched across the whole wall, with a square set of four, bezel-less monitors where Kit’s computer was set up. Sliding down the desk took them to the TV, and the controllers sitting in front of it. The whole setup was lit up by RGB LEDs that flashed different colors. The only thing missing from the place being setup for the two of them to play video was a second chair for Hana.
“Oh, dangit. I forgot to roll the second chair in! Hold, please.” Kit held up a finger, and skipped out of the room, leaving Hana to stare at the four wallpapers on the monitors. One was a vertical poster of the Tekken girls, one was a scenic screenshot from FFXIV, the second vertical one was a picture of Iron Man, and the final monitor’s wallpaper was the simplest: the EVO Logo.
With cup in hand and left to her own devices for however long the moment might be, Hana first made her drink selection; the only place she saw machines like this were restaurants or the movie theater. She didn’t want to imagine how difficult it might’ve been to replenish the supply, but having a machine like that would likely help reduce cans clattering and spilling all over the place. Not that Hana ever dropped empty cola cans onto the floor or anything of the sort.
She sipped at vanilla coke and eyed the decor of the room with an inquisitive eye. For a moment Hana wondered what would happen if she opened a closet, would stuff that had been strewn on the floor come barrelling out or would she just find boring clothes? Not that she had any intention of finding out, of course, that would be rude.
”Hmm. Lower La Noscea. Not bad.” Hana remarked upon the scenic image from the MMO that she had a fondness for, the setting sun casting a pinkish hue on the horizon was a telling sight.
”...What the heck is an E, VEE, OH?”“EVO, dude! Evolution World Championship. It’s a big fighting game tournament that takes place in Vegas every year. It’s where the best of the best of the best compete to be crowned the king of kings! I would very much like to go there. I qualified for the qualifiers… they’re in a couple of weeks. I hope I do good.” Kit was back in the room, pushing a
chair for Hana, with a pan with a cake sitting on the seat, alongside two plates and silverware, which Kit sat up on the desk.
“So I made this vanilla custard cake. I figure you probably like vanilla, right?” Kit patted the chair,
“Sit. You can sit.” Kit then went to the soda machine, and filled her cup up with some Hi-C, then took a seat at her own chair.
“If you want, I can order some pizza or something for later too. We have the internet. We could Uber Eats some McDonald’s. That’s… that’s not a bad idea…” Kit held up a finger to indicate that she needed one last thing, before hopping out of her seat and heading over to the closet.
When she opened the door, it would be at Hana’s discretion if the result was ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Behind Kit’s closet door… was nothing but neatly stored away clothes… and a
piece of glassware that Kit pulled out, bringing it to the desk and sitting back down at her chair.
“I’ll do it outside, since your mouth is probably virginal and I don’t wanna ruin that.”Jeez, she was like a ninja with how she responded suddenly. A ninja wielding cake and a chair, which Hana sat in as soon as it was offered; the cake she accepted but set aside for the moment. The royal treatment felt a bit wasted on her, Hana didn’t think she warranted being impressed or the like, but so it was.
”Fighting games? Yeah you mentioned you played them. I...am not exactly an expert but good luck, I guess.” This was awkward, wasn’t it? That feeling the other out phase, the trying to make polite conversation but having nothing substantial to add to it. It was like a date.
”What do you mean virginal? I have a girlfriend. We kiss.” Of course Hana knew what a bong was but she wasn’t putting two and two together with Kit’s comments. Personally Hana didn’t partake, nor was she going to.
“I know you’re not an expert. There’s a YouTube video out there of me smackin’ you around.” Kit ended that sentence with a wink, before taking a sip of her mountain dew.
“Sure, dude, but I bet you never kissed before that, huh? Anyway, I meant I didn’t want you to breathe in smoke from me doin’ this.” Kit said, before pointing at her bong. Geeze, was Hana dumber than she seemed to be when she played FF? If so, then Kit’s evening was gonna suck.
“I don’t know what you want to play, but I installed every co-op game I could find in my very full very unorganized Steam library.” Kit said, turning the TV on with the remote.
”So you’re the reason why I don’t play those kind of games. It’s not really a fun experience when you try to have a match and your opponent just wins in five seconds.” Hana still remembered the brief foray into other types of content, testing the waters for some kind of potential video gaming channel outside of her usual wheelhouse; it didn’t exactly take after being humiliated when she was just trying to learn how to do a move.
”And yes, I would prefer not to breathe in your smoke.” Did she come off as bitchy? She didn’t want to.
”I don’t really mind what we play...whatever you think would be fun.” “You gotta learn fighting games, man. They’re basically the truest form of skill in our sport. Every time you lose, you only have yourself to blame. I’m sorry to be the reason that you gave up on something so wonderful. They’re so cool… Every little decision or input that you make has massive influence on the outcome. They’re so deep and cool and I’m sorry I’ll shut up now.” Kit said, grabbing one of the controllers while the screen displayed Big Picture mode. Idly, she scrolled through the game, thinking about what they should play… There was almost too many options; picking one out wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do, especially not when there were
so many to choose from.
“Geeze, uh. What kinds of games do you like? Dude, there’s so many to pick from… Wanna play LEGO Harry Potter?””Our sport?” That terminology confused Hana specifically on account of someone considering their hobby to be a sport. It hit slightly close to home given that Hana was an athlete and thus competed in sport - though now it was more apt to say she was in a new field altogether. It was best to just let the comment slide as just being a simple comment. Kit was nothing if not passionate about her games and Hana could understand; she got a bit passionate about raiding and content clearing enough so to learn mechanics and percentages to take out bosses in the most efficient manner possible.
”They made a video game based on those old, crappy movies?” Hana wasn’t overly familiar with them, but her sister and parents were. It was about the only thing her sister and parents agreed on.
“Dude, not only did they make a game about it, it’s a game where everything is made of LEGOs. Look, dude. Check it out.” Kit gave her explanation while the game booted up to the opening scene.
“Press start to join. Then it’s, uh… Square to hit, Circle to interact, and X to jump? Not sure exactly but I think that’s it. First, we have to watch this cutscene.” Kit said, before pointing at the screen that showed the Lego game.
”Wow this must be an old game. None of the characters even talk.” Hana waited for the cutscene to finish, barely registering a chuckle at the game’s unique brand of visual humor and gags before it started proper.
”Okay I’m this big dude with an umbrella? What’re these things we’re collecting when you break stuff?”“They’re uh… Studs! They’re little LEGO parts. You wanna collect enough on each level that the top bar becomes blue. That’s how you get 100%, and I don’t know about you, but I'm definitely a perfectionist. One hundred percent or bust, for me. So we have to go back after we beat the game,” Kit explained, smiling as she smashed things.
“Because, different characters can do different, stuff right? Like, uh, some characters are smaller than others, so they can squeezeeee into tight spaces. Other people jump higher. It’s definitely kiddie, but it’s still fun if you ask me.””It’s kinda hard to one hundred percent the games I play, but I do have the highest achievement count on the server and my guild has been in top competition for world firsts...so...I get it.” If there was a way to humble brag about nerd stuff, Hana had just figured it out, and her tone wasn’t all that dissimilar to when Kit had talked about fighting games.
”Oh, there are puzzles in this game? That’s cute. I knew someone that was, like, obsessed with puzzles, she’s probably dropped out by now. Hey, there’s team killing? Don’t even think about it.”“There are like, a lot of puzzles. That’s basically the hard part of the game.” Kit explained, casually moving her character closer to Hana’s.
“What? Team killing? I’d never.” And then, Kit smashed the Square button, smacking Hana’s character until she died. Quickly, Kit spoke up to defend herself.
“That wasn’t team killing, that was, uh… punishment for not picking the game we played fast enough and delaying us.” Kit said, grinning dumbly.
”You bitch!” Hana returned the favor by swinging wildly at Kit’s little LEGO caricature but only managed to hit the scenery which promptly exploded into studs.
”That doesn’t even make sense! I let you pick the game, how is that punishment?” Hana knew a little bit about punishment, though Kit didn’t exactly need to know about that.
”Oh, looks like you need me to solve this puzzle...guess we’re not clearing this level, huh.” Kit was all giggles, bouncing around to keep herself just out of reach of Hana’s attacks, even being cheeky enough to grab a few of the studs that Hana brought to the map. Once they got to the puzzle, and Hana put up her ultimatum, Kit’s giggles stopped.
“What?! That’s hardly fair. I told you to pick the game, you can’t just make me pick after that. So you got punished for it. Just like in my Chinese comics.” Kit grumbled, before she reached over to try and snatch Hana’s controller away from her.
Hana’s reflexes as a softballer came into play as she kept the controller out of reach of Kit’s snatching hands. The assault was relentless but Hana was good at playing defense.
”If you don’t team kill I’ll solve the puzzle for us.” An addendum to an ultimatum, a peace treaty to end the war.
”And the word is manhua.” “Ugh, fine. I won’t do that. And I know what the word is, I was making a meme. Because I’m… Well, it’s not important. Just, can we finish the puzzle?” Kit asked, gesturing for Hana to move along, while Kit cut herself a slice of the custard cake and put it on a plate, taking a bite.
“I thought it was funny, though.””You can’t just make memes. You sound like my parents. ‘Memes’.” Hana, true to her word, finished the puzzle and allowed for progress to be made.
”I guess everyone has their own...brand of humor. I don’t get it but I’m sure someone out there does.” Hana wasn’t exactly humorless, but it was hard to have a sense of humor when her closest thing to a friend for the longest time was her sister whose idea of a good joke was sub dad-joke level: cop humor.
”I guess this game is alright.” “Listen to me, Hana. I am a connoisseur of dank maymays. I’m gonna be a streamer, and then my whole chat is gonna be filled with people who wish they were as good at memes as I am.” Kit said wistfully smiling as she took a bite of the cake and watched as the puzzle was completed, and they neared the end of the level.
“I think it’s cute and comfy. It’s nothing special, but it’s okay for what we’re doing: talking.”At that, Hana had to hold in a snicker, though she did a poor job of it and sounded like she was snorting after taking a sip of water - or in this case a sip of vanilla Coke.
”No offense, Kit, but you’re not going to make it as a streamer unless you show skin and act stupid. Trust me, I’ve been down that road. Not the showing skin thing. And the only meme in your chat will be people being shocked that you’ve got boobs and know how to play a game.” “Oh ye of little faith. Let’s just wait and see about that, huh? You don’t know it, but you’re sitting with the next big thing. The future looks bright, because I am the future, and I’m bright. We’re gonna be a stream team. We’re gonna be Kitastrophic Sunrise. Get it? Don’t laugh.” Kit took another bite of the cake, finishing it up in damn near only three bites, before she looked over at Hana,
“do you want to play another level?””Back up, what do you mean a team? I didn’t sign up for anything.” Hana lived with a cop, she knew how to deal with distraction questions and she knew how to listen for the meat sandwiched between the pieces of bread that was Kit’s verbiage.
”And that name is too long, Kitana would sound better, like a sword cutting through the crap out there.” In the process, Hana started the next level.
“Like a sword killing off Twitch thots, dude. I like it. We’ll be Kitana. Oh! I guess I didn’t ask. Wanna be a stream team dream team with me?” Kit asked, smiling sweetly at the older girl as they rolled into the next level. Kit was nothing if not persistent, and she wasn’t about to let it go without a fight.
“We’d be really cool together. You’re smart, and I’m smart, and you’re entertaining and I’m definitely entertaining.””You said team twice.” It was hardly an answer and Hana seemed acutely aware of that fact as she refocused her attention on the game...which amounted to little as the game, while not bad, was hardly challenging with one person let alone two.
“That’s correct, because it’s the team so nice, you gotta say it twice.” Kit said rolling her eyes.
“Come on. It’s not like you’re doing anything with your time other than hanging out with Hailey. Instead of posting YouTube videos, just stream with me.””Hailey is worth the time I spend with her.” There was a hint of defending honor to her rebuttal even though Kit didn’t really say anything troubling or remotely conflicting.
”Besides that, I also happen to have a job that occupies a great deal of my time. So that’s where my time goes.” “Quit the job and become a streamer? You’re dating someone from the richest family in history. You can afford to not work, and instead spend time with you new friend Kit.” Kit protested, glancing over at Hana to try and gauge the way Hana was feeling about what she was selling.
”I like my job.” Hana lied through her teeth without so much as a crack in her visage.
”Plus I’m also working for the richest family - Hailey’s dad owns the place. Imagine how that conversation would go? ‘Sorry, sir, I quit, but can I still have sex with your daughter because I quite like having sex with your daughter.’” Hana adopted a mocking, fake masculine voice for some reason even though she was speaking as herself in a hypothetical situation.
”...Forget that last bit about the sex but you get what I’m saying.”Kit did indeed know that Hailey’s dad owned Captain Cuddles, but she chose to keep her mouth shut about how
she felt about him.
“...you ain’t really gonna say that stuff about having sex with his daughter, right? Because that’s weird, dude.” Kit asked, shaking her head in disbelief. She didn’t know that Vanilla Sunrise was dumb, but hey… the doc did say to never meet your heroes, and here she was, doing exactly fucking that.
“You’re a high school pizza place worker, you’re disposable.””Yes, Kit. I’m going to tell my girlfriend’s dad that I like having sex with his daughter. Then the only thing I’ll be having sex with is my dil...dil...lilah...Dililah, this mutual friend. A real...scissor...sister.” The grave was wide enough to fit ten Hana’s in with how quickly she was digging it.
”Plus, I’m meeting Hailey’s dad this Friday, like as a girlfriend. It won’t look good if I quit one day then turn around and have dinner with the guy the next day.” “I know what a dildo is, dude. I’m not 12, I just turned 15!” Geeze, now Kit was having to do this all awkwardly, and with no idea if it was even going to come close to working. Hana was like a rock! She showed no signs of cracking.
“Alright, alright. I give up. You can just come over sometimes and play videogames with me. I won’t bug you to be a stream team dream team.” Kit spoke with a mockingly sad voice, hamming it up to the point that it was almost ridiculous.
Even with the shocking revelation that Kit knew what Hana had almost let slip, Hana wasn’t about to backpedal. They were mere acquaintances and it was incredibly bad form to talk about sex toys on a first meeting. It was like talking about marriage on a first blind date.
”I didn’t say no.” Dammit, why did this girl have to hit Hana with the sad voice, it was like puppy dog eye level of guilt.
“But you didn’t say yes, either… and I know what that means…” Kit said, pushing out her bottom lip slightly as she tilted her head down, though her big, wide open eyes looked up at Hana.
“I’m sorry I bugged you with my idea. I know it’s dumb.”Of course Kit knew how to use the puppy dog eyes, the natural kryptonite of Hana Park and the reason why she was only a strong leader over raid chat.
”Alright, okay, I won’t quit my job but I guess we can try it once.” Despite learning a few tricks of the trade from a uniformed officer, Hana clearly would make for a terrible negotiator.
“Yay! Thank you so much!~” Kit said, leaning up straight and even going so far as to clap her hands.
“You’re wonderful. I’m so excited! I have ideas, but we can talk about ‘em later. We got all the time in the world!”Well..what was the harm in
one stream? It would go poorly and Hana would have fulfilled her obligation. Truly a win-win if ever there was one. Hana set her controller on the desk and stood from her chair in order to refill her cup with vanilla Coke.
”We’re not gonna stream you beating me over and over in a fighting game.” Hana had her reputation to think about, though educational game streams were hardly popular outside of speedrunners or the like. Hana returned to her chair, noting the high spirits from the host of the hour. After sipping the cold, refreshing beverage, Hana leaned forward and reached for her controller...as her knuckles brushed past the bong also on the desk. It was when Hana pulled her hand back, with the controller, that the bong tipped, rocked, and tumbled off the edge of the desk, falling onto the floor with a definitive crash.
