Masking Reality

"Remember when we first met?"

Scott gave me the most strangest looking expression anyone could possibly imagine. Those brows that rose upwards and that infamous uncanny frown of his had set sparks to my pleasure as easy laughter escaped my lips. Upon hearing my oblivious laughing Scott glanced at me through the slits of his half closed eyes and smiled just faintly and began to chuckle a bit here and there.

"...Goddamn it." he mumbled under amusement. He even added a simple sigh to his breath.

"What's the matter?" I asked casually, lightly punching him on the shoulder.

Scott snickered, staring at his feet as he grinned quietly to himself.

"Why are you asking me such a question? Are you trying to make me remember the most awkwardest moment we've ever had the moment we met?"

I bellowed another flow of laughing, holding onto my stomach the entire time. Lying down on the floor I stared up at the ceiling candidly, counting all the artificial bumps the texture made from above as a bright smile never once decided to leave my expression.

"Who would've known you'd be on the streaming team, you know? To the point before we met, I hardly knew you ever existed. And now you're there every time, especially during those times when I need you. You're an awesome guy, Jund. Thanks, man."

I sighed, remembering those happy days, however Scott silenced himself for a moment. I could not see his facial expression. His head was facing towards me since I was lying on the floor past him. He lowered his head, it looked as if he were thinking of something. For one split second I felt genuinely worried about something, but all of that faded away when he leaned over and began to punch my arm lightly, as if beckoning me to get up.

"Come on, don't pull any of this sentimental stuff on me," he murmured.

I snickered, but upon looking up at him his dark eyes appeared clouded and they were far from meeting with mine. From there, the doorbell suddenly rang, and the two of us lifted our heads up towards the direction of my door.

"Pizza must be here," he then said.

"Aww sweet," I cheered energetically, bouncing up from the ground.

Scott lingered around the floor though, and although I had already gotten up to my feet, the man slouched onto the floor, laying there motionlessly. To top it off, he even moaned wearily. Classic Jund, I'd say. I didn't even bother to comment about it as I hustled to the front door.

"Jund! Pizza's here!"

I could hear him moan a muffled, "Great..." from inside my room as I placed the food on the kitchen table. Snickering, I opened the box and grabbed a slice and happily started eating it.

"Juuuuuunnnnnd. Pizza's gonna disappear if you don't get here soon!"

I could not care for Jund's presence. Pizza was great. I was not going to wait for anyone when it came to this delicious looking stuff.

Eventually Scott entered the kitchen and grabbed a slice, eating it casually as he leaned against one of my counter tops indifferently.

"I can see you got all of the toppings you could possibly imagine...as usual for Cryaotic himself."

A shyer smile grew on my lips this time around. My eyes were kept on the food rather than glancing at my best friend.

"I thought we decided that you'd just call me Cryaotic whenever we were streaming or whatever,"

Scott shrugged passively, chewing slowly as he indulged his slice.

"Gotta get used to it, right? Wouldn't want to let your real name slip by accident."

"It's been two years now,"

"Still."

A silence passed by us for another long pause which made me feel only slightly uncomfortable once again. For some reason I didn't want to turn my head to look at Scott since he was standing somewhat behind me. A profound sense of negativity grew about me heavily, and its very presence brought upon a bit of anger and perhaps frustration at the pit of my chest.

"What's the point?" I suddenly blared under a husky tone.

"More than half of my fan base already know my real name, anyway. There isn't much of a surprise anymore."

For once Scott didn't make a witty comment of the sort. We sat in further silence, which made me irritable inside. I bore my eyesight into the wooden table, stopping myself from taking another bite of my pizza. It did not occur to me that my teeth were clenched tightly together, as if I were fighting against myself from spitting distastefully.

Scott suddenly cleaned his fingers from the crumbs of his pizza and walked over so that he was closely behind me from my chair. Feeling his presence just a few inches from my back, I froze instantly, automatically curious as to what he was intending to do. Jokingly, he grinds the palm of his hand into my skull, causing my hair to frizz uncontrollably in all directions possible. It appeared to be a gesture of some sort. I was startled by his sudden actions. Normally I would have snickered but at the time I felt entirely too annoyed to cope with that easily.

"That doesn't matter. You shouldn't be worrying on things like that. They'll only mess you up in the end. Besides, there are still others out there who don't really know your name in real life. Heck, they don't even know where you live, and you've stated several times that you're a white boy from New York who lived in freaking Florida all his life," and Scott's voice began to laugh gently at that.

"Just think about that, and you'll realize how retarded all of this is."

My lips curled upwards at that statement. Once again, it was Scott's usual method of cheering me up. Although he approached this subject a bit differently, he still maintained his usual self as always, and perhaps I was thankful for that.

Scott laughed, and then headed back to my room.

"Hurry up already so that we can start planning what to do for the next stream."

Stuffing in a mouth full of pizza I mumbled, "Jund, you know you're going to be hosting the stream tonight, remember?"

Scott stopped in his tracks and glanced meekly over his shoulder at me through the slits of his eyes. He sighed grossly and slouched a bit, making me chuckle at that typical negative response of his.

"...This is going to be another long stream."

"You'll do fine!"

He waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss the topic.

"Yeah, whatever,"

And with that he closed the door behind him as I finished up eating the rest of my slices. That stupid smile of mine would not subside. I knew that if Scott really disliked hosting the stream, he would offer a straight "no" and would not try to compensate anything else thereafter. Although he visibly appeared to dislike it, I could tell that he truly did not mean it. It was like eating the carrots on your dinner plate although you had a distaste for carrots. You would still eat them anyway, but they are not the greatest tasting pieces of food on the dish, right?

Heh. That analogy must be better than the one I made about apples and oranges during that Corpse Party marathon I played through.

---

“Stop letting yourself in here without permission.”

The snickering Scott Jund I knew back then was still the same Scott Jund I knew to this day. The male handed me a bottle of water and some tablets in which I gratefully received and swallowed without a moments hesitation.

“Your mom called me over to look after you while her and Nate are gone so how could I say no? In more ways than one I do believe I have this right to intrude in your resting place.”

His snickers soon became mine.

“I’m not dead yet, Jund. I can take care of myself just fine.”

“Yeah, yeah.” And he turned his back towards me so that he could lean against the outside frame of my bed.

A few moments into the silence and just as my eyes began to lower, Scott awakened me from my trance.

“I think you should postpone your charity stream.”

His words to me concurred as abstracted nonsense. In fact it did not quite register in my head for the first few seconds of my time.

“What? Are you joking? You can’t just postpone things like that. I’ve already made the plan.”

Scott chuckled to himself. His head lowered as continuous snickering trailed from his lips.

“Yeah. You can’t postpone those kinds of things, can you?” He mused.

Another silence crept by us for the longest time, and again my eyes began to lower, drooping out of tire. To respond to Scott did not feel desirable at the moment. My consciousness was floating under water. I felt that it wouldn’t matter as much if I would slip away now just for a little while.

And then silence. The shadows hugged me tightly. It felt cool to my touch. The white noise that bothered me only by a little bit continued to hum in soft buzzes next to my ear. It became difficult to tell if my eyes were truly open or not. Before long, a hand had come to touch my shoulder followed by a soft voice I wouldn’t have been able to forget after so long. She called to me in a soft whisper, alluding me to fully awake from this strange threshold of darkness.

“Ryan, it’s time to wake up.”

A tiny giggle followed her words. It sounded so pleasing to my ears. I was able to remember something then, but it had vanished soon after.

“You silly boy. I know how much you like to sleep but it’s time to wake up.”

My eyes fluttered to an open to find a woman who most particularly matched my most fondest memories in the past lying next to me in the bed I had been sleeping in. It was her, my ex. Jacy.

The odd part about all of this was my indifference towards seeing my ex in the same bed as me. I did not sour at her presence nor did I jolt at the sight of her. In either case, my body felt way too heavy to respond to her properly anyway. My emotions just simply did not have the heart for it.

She smiled at me kindly around the time my eyes had finally focused in on my face. Oddly enough, I smiled back.

“Come on sleepy head, it’s time to open up to a new day.”

I moaned and grumbled, murmuring a muffled “fine” as I forced myself to sit up from my bed. Upon doing so my entire world began to spin around me and for a good two seconds my head had lightened up significantly until I was ready to faint. I no longer had any control or orientation of gravity itself as I began to plummet downwards to my left.

“Woah there, take it easy, Ry.”



Russ had conveniently caught me just in time before I planted my face into the floor below from my bed.

My dizzy eyes gazed up at the hazy looking Russ above me and I blinked, appearing vacant and not even conscious. Looks like Russ switched in for Scott to look after me. I wasn’t even that ill. Surely I didn’t deserve all of this attention and care.

“You feeling better?”

Thankfully my disorientation had finally ceased and I grinned predominantly at my small victory at finally tackling this temporary illness.

“I’m feeling awesome right now.”

Russ grinned at me. When I sat up upright he patted me on the back.

“Great. Just on time, too.”

My mind slowed down for a minute as I pondered his words.

“Wait…what do you mean, ‘just on time’?”

“Well, your charity stream is today so..”

Eyes widened immediately as my mind tried so desperately to grasp the logic in his words.

“What…what day is it today?”

“It’s Friday. It’s 11:00 in the morning. You’ve got roughly three hours to prepare for your 24 hour stream.”

Moaning aloud, I quickly straightened up onto my feet and began to trudge towards my closet. How was I supposed to know that I had conveniently slept for a day and a half?!



“How could this happen now? I need to pack my things! I need to get ready to move out as soon as I’m done the stream! I need to move into the house tomorrow! I need to get to my sister tomorrow….wait, where’s Nate? I never got a chance to…”

Unknowingly my hands and feet moved out of my own thoughtless accord as my brain traveled on rushing hysterics. My eyes could only watch idly as my body worked to shove more clothing and miscellaneous objects into my already overflowing suitcases. While that, my head gradually began to feel a little light, as my face, from its cooler composure, began to boil frustratingly to a peak.

"Ryan! Shit, man, hold yourself together!" Russ shouted, taking me by the shoulder and pulling me back.

I never really realized how "light headed" I had begun until Russ yanked me from my things. I flew backwards, losing instantly my sense of balance, orientation, and function. If it weren't for Russ' decision to plant myself on stable ground with his two hands on either side of my shoulders, I would have had a serious accident. Frustrated, I scowled, my brows knitting in a tight knot across my face. It finally dawned on me that I was losing my mojo and stepping into chaos. I said to myself that if I continued to trip balls like this, I'd be letting down not only myself, but all of my viewers, the people I was fundraising the money for, and even my own sister, who was now relying on my support more than ever, and my sister rarely asked for mine or my mother's help.

Supposedly my eyes grew saddened to be aware of my sister's belief in always playing the "motherly older sister" figure. The thought of her in that context calmed me down to the point where Russ could finally let go of me, amid my blank rocking on the heels of my feet.

"Listen, man. You better take it easy today. The packing can wait. The stream, however, can't. Neither can your sister, although I'm sure she isn't in full demand for your presence, anyway. Look, when Scott and I are free from work or whatever we'll come back and help you out with the packing if we can. And Red's more than happy to help you out, too...providing that she isn't busy today either..."

And Russ scratched his head to that, not entirely sure of his words about Red's ordeal for that day.

My lips pulled purposely into a frown. Truly I was unhappy with this turn of events. It happened then that I noticed Russ reach into his pocket and take out a small plastic container of a sort.

"Here, take these," he said, placing them in my grasp. I stared at the container hollowly. The label said "Vitamin Pills" in orange letters.

"Scott got them on the way to work yesterday and passed them to me earlier this morning. You should take these if you start to feel worse during the stream. You can suck on them or chew it. It's up to you. I gotta go and get a move on out of here. I'll have to see you in a bit."

I gave the bottle a shake, hearing at least two dozen or so pills rattle within the container.

"Thanks. I'll need these."

He gave me a pat on the back and grinned.

"Alright partner, it's time to get your head in the game."

I grinned determinedly right back at him, nodding. I was ready.

...or somewhat ready, at least.

"I'm ready."

Most of my things had already been brought out into the living room and loitered our halls. In the dining room was my computer, headset, and everything else I needed to record for the stream. I did not need anything else but those tools in order to complete my mission. Since our dining room table pilled with all kinds of unsorted junk, owned by yours truly, I instead chose a corner of the living room, sat down on the floor, and laid out my equipment there, making sure I was next to an outlet in case of an emergency decrease of battery. At this point I was on my own. As long as I did not have any interruptions, I was going to be perfectly fine. And by interruptions, I meant any of my sickly problems getting in the way of my play through of Ni no Kuni.

I was so damn ready to play that game.

Thirty minutes left before 2. I anxiously scrolled through the Cryaotic tag on tumblr, seeing what kinds of commotions were going on at the time. I noticed some time ago that the cap I had posted on my charity page had already been reached. Naturally, I raised the value, since I had a feeling that at the speed of contributions that were coming to support my cause, there would be no excuse to raise the cap for all the right reasons. Looking at my marker, I was gradually moving steadily, getting closer and closer to my goal. The more it made me anxious or rather, excited. I could not stop my heart from pumping.

And then, a sneeze. I sniffled, frowning. My body began to feel a bit dizzy. Slapping my cheeks together I tried to pick myself up. Breaking open my newly bought vitamin pills, I popped two into my mouth and chewed on them diligently. A ting of orange soured my tongue. It felt both refreshing and comforting.

Five more minutes to 2. Ni no Kuni, My twitch account, and XSplit were all ready and out in the open.

I could barely wait.