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twenty-two. galvanized steel and eco-friendly wood veneers
warnings: spoilers for jujutsu kaisen (manga only), cringe brain rot 😓
NERVOUS WOULD BE A COMPLETE AND UTTER UNDERSTATEMENT FOR WHAT ANTON LEE CURRENTLY FELT.
After he had made sure that the stream was officially over and that his camera was no longer running, he had made a quick dash towards the nearest mirror in a vain attempt of making sure he didn’t look too much of a try-hard with his outfit and hair. Only after making sure that he didn’t look like either, he gathered the last of his wits (what much was left after playing Resident Evil 4 for two whole hours anyway) and proceeded to make his way down to the lobby to finally meet the ”girl of his dreams,” according to the embarrassing, spur-of-the-moment tweet he had made earlier. He cringed just to even think back on it.
“Where is she?” Anton muttered as he stepped out of the elevator, quickly looking around the relatively empty lobby for any sign of you, much to no avail.
Well, this is it, he thought while attempting to steel his nerves for the umpteenth time. This was the moment all previous chapters have accumulated to—the peak of countless weeks of having known each other online in and out of streaming and private DMs he would sometimes think about during the crack of dawn on a random Tuesday. He figured that there wasn't much to do now since he already hyped himself up while he was cleaning this morning, and recently just now when he was still five floors above. Sure, he probably looked real stupid when he kept repeating affirmations to himself (“your rizz is real, your rizz is real…!”) in front of whoever was monitoring the CCTVs today, but Anton realized that he was far too skittish about your short-notice meet up to truly care about others’ perception of him anymore. Which, in hindsight, was concerning. He wonders if he needs to schedule an appointment at the doctor’s…
“Boo.”
Anton jumped lamely, cursing under his breath before having it immediately taken away when he turned around to face you.
You blinked up at him.
“Woah,” you said, a bit surprised, “you’re so… tall.”
“And you're so… short,” was his genius response.
“What was that?” you asked darkly. Anton gulped nervously, but then you looked at him quizzically. “No, like, seriously, what’d you say? I couldn’t hear you properly; your voice is too soft, man.”
Oh, okay. He almost breathed out a sigh of relief because you didn’t hear that.
“Nothing important,” Anton stammered, hastily ushering you towards the elevator doors without giving you a chance to say anything else. “Let’s just go. You wanna see the fish, right?”
“But I—…” you trailed off, watching him hurriedly press the buttons on the wall. “Yeah, okay,” you breathed out eventually, awkwardly fiddling with the straps of your bag. When the doors finally closed, Anton stood back and glanced at you briefly. It didn’t go unnoticed however, as you quickly returned the look, offering him a small, steady grin.
“Hi,” you greeted.
“Hi,” he nodded back at you, before tearing his gaze away.
Anton didn’t bother to say anything else, and neither did you, so it was safe to say that the ride towards the seventh floor ended up being a little awkward, what with him trying to discreetly steal glances at you every now and then without you noticing, far too busy finding out what’s so interesting about the elevator ceiling.
By the tenth urge, he realized just how hard it was to resist looking at you.
Truly, incredibly, and scarily concerning.
Now, don’t get it wrong: Anton’s not the kind to just fall for anyone that easily. Sure, he may be young and chronically online and knows too much brain rot-terminology for his own good, but he wasn’t some fourteen-year-old on Discord with a Ken Kaneki profile picture who’d join random servers that would probably die within three months, snag an E-Girlfriend within that time frame before breaking up with her because ‘LDR just won’t work out, babe, it’s not you, it’s me’ or however those situations would go. He was better than that, or so he’d like to think. (Although he was, unfortunately, a twenty-year-old on Discord.)
Point is, Anton wasn’t stupid enough to fall for just anyone he met online—much less someone he met on Roblox Altitorture, for goodness sake! He can entertain the thought of finding them pretty through pictures he’s seen online, yeah, and he can entertain his friend’s teasing remarks about his supposed crush on someone he hasn’t even met, but Anton liked to believe that it never was that serious. He wasn’t that jealous over you sitting all alone inside another guy’s house, looking after another guy’s fish, or planning to spend another guy’s fifty bucks on useless micro-transactions he could buy for you as quick as lightning without you having to lift a finger (and he has!), and he definitely wasn’t that serious when he accidentally blurted out a sentence that could potentially jeopardize the fanbase he had been steadily building up since he was fifteen, right?
And inviting you over to his house under the pretext of taking a look at his fish (who was probably in both Sungchan and Shotaro’s hit list) wasn't that serious.
…Right?
You’re just friends, Anton convinced himself when the two of you exited the elevator and walked towards his door. You’re just friends, Anton repeated inside his head as he typed in his PIN on the keypad. You’re just friends, he reassured when he finally swung the door op—
“God, you’re so rich,” you muttered the moment you entered his condo, and all thoughts of denial Anton had repeating in his mind suddenly came running out the window as he watched you remove your shoes at the front. “You have all this space to yourself?”
“My mom visits sometimes,” he squeaks out pathetically.
You looked back at him, a bemused smile on your face and—oh, who was Anton kidding? You’re way prettier in real life compared to the pictures he saw on Sohee’s Facebook post, and whether that was a good thing for his mental health or not—well, he didn’t want to find out anymore.
Wrongly assuming you’d head straight towards his fish tank, Anton found himself trailing after you as you started loitering by the living room. “Are these your parents?” you asked, signaling towards the multitude of frames on top of the wooden furniture. “You have a brother? He looks just like you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Anton affirmed, moving to point at the photos. “That’s my mom, my dad, and my younger brother. Over there are my grandparents.”
You whistled. “Wow, your mom’s really pretty,” you noted with a laugh, “she looks like she could be famous, or something.”
“Uh, she was an actress, actually.”
Your smile dropped as quickly as it appeared. Anton had to stifle back a snort.
“...For real?” you asked, carefully looking back at the picture and then towards him. He slowly nodded. “What? Don’t tell me your dad’s famous too? Your grandma? Your childhood dog? The mailman who steals your Amazon deliveries?”
His silence practically confirmed it, and you squawked in response. (Though you weren’t too sure about the mailman. The grandma and the dog? Sure, since even his fish was famous.)
“My dad’s a music producer,” Anton elaborated, moving away from you to head towards the corner where his fish, the supposed star of the day, resided at. “He’s over in Korea, though, so I don’t see him as often anymore.”
You followed after him, unsure of where else to go. “Your mom was an actress, and your dad’s some hot-shot music producer… and you decided to become a Let’s Play streamer?” you wondered to yourself, incredulous. Anton looked back at you indignantly, but you merely shrugged back at him. “I’m just saying, dude. You could be, like, I don’t know, a K-pop idol or something with those connections. Oh! You could be in NCT—what do you think of bright, green hair on those luscious locks of yours?”
Anton gave you a scalding side-eye.
“...Nah,” he eventually said with a shake of his head, a wistful grin on his face. “It’s a little late for that.”
You were about to say something else, something probably much more snarky to the absolute nonsense Anton responded to your suggestion with, but your words quickly died down inside your throat the moment a familiar shape of glass appeared in your vision. Anton promptly stepped aside to let you have your moment with his pet, unable to fight off the smile rising on his face as you approached the tank with wide, astonished eyes.
“Stonerland,” you breathed out quite dramatically, finally witnessing the white betta fish swim inside his lonesome tank. “You’re real.”
You inched closer towards the glass, but remained mindful not to touch it per Leehan’s wise teachings. The light from inside reflected onto your eyes, splashes of green and white appearing in them. It would’ve been off putting to anyone else who was observing you, the you who was unblinking as you stared at the oblivious animal, but you didn’t seem to care. You were completely and utterly entranced, lost in your own little world.
“...You’re so pretty,” you murmured, following Stonerland’s every move.
Your gaze slowly moved towards him.
“Right, Anton?” you asked, fully expecting him to be looking at the fish as well.
Instead, you were met with him already staring back at you, like those romance K-Dramas Eunseok always made him watch with their cliché fireworks scenes that always had Anton’s eyes rolling whenever it inevitably came up. They were all just copies of one another anyway—Han River, fireworks, and the main couple having the space all to themselves when it really should have been packed to the brim with other couples because it was South Korea.; he really could have cared less about such things (even if Eunseok swore to him that they were “peak”).
“Yeah,” he breathed out absentmindedly.
And because Anton always disliked watching those scenes, the thought of him doing the same thing, albeit at a different situation but with the same principle regardless, never crossed his mind.
But now, inside his place—the Han River—and watching his fish—the fireworks—with only the two of you beside each other, Anton didn’t even have the chance to roll his eyes because he was too busy staring at you, like some cliché male lead in some cliché romance K-Drama.
“Oh,” you said.
And then Anton blinked, snapping himself out of his reverie. “What?” he sputtered out, looking away from you and towards Stonerland, before inevitably bringing his gaze towards you again, only to shy away when you caught him in the act all over again. He coughed out, “What were you saying? Sorry, I was… I was thinking about something else.”
“Like what?” your head tilted to the side.
“Like,” Anton nervously began, licking his lips as he thought of something to respond with only to come up with blanks. “Like, uh—”
His eyes landed on Stonerland.
“—I was just thinking of ways that I could fortify his tank so evil, malicious forces won’t get to him…?” he cringed as the words just kept tumbling out of his mouth. “Because I’m low-key scared that if I invite the boys over, Sungchan and Shotaro will find a way to murder my fish when I’m not looking. Or something like that. I don’t know—I’m just getting bad vibes from them, you know? I might just be paranoid, though.”
Anton immediately found himself desperately avoiding your gaze, feeling the tips of his ears turn red at how stupid he must have sounded just now.
“No, I get it,” you said, which catched his attention. “Those two are definitely up to no good, since you practically memorialized the empire they worked so hard to destroy in the form of a fish. A small, helpless fish up against two grown men… yeah, maybe just don’t invite them over.”
Anton looked at you hopefully, only to be immediately let down when you continued.
“To be honest, if Stonerland was your pet fish in Minecraft, I’d probably blow it up when you aren’t looking too. Redstone engineering and all, it’d look like a whole fireworks show,” you added bluntly, watching the tank with blank eyes. After a second, however, you quickly look back at him with an easygoing smile, cheerfully saying, “Good thing Stonerland’s a real fish, right? So cute! Betta fishes are the best…” you sighed wistfully.
You didn’t bother commenting on the look of absolute horror on Anton’s face, too busy cooing at his fish as if you had not just threatened to blow it up in another life.
He looked at Stonerland—poor and unassuming Stonerland, oblivious to the evils surrounding him and his owner. He wasn’t even safe from the girl who kept squealing over him, simply because of his given name. Poor, poor Stonerland indeed. Anton briefly considered changing the unfortunate fish’s name, maybe install some galvanized steel beams around his tank and some eco-friendly wood veneers for extra protection just in the slightest case anyone would dare to think of hurting his precious betta fish, but he was definitely putting up a sign that had Sungchan and Shotaro’s names crossed off on his front door.
He slowly turned to you, meekly saying, “Please don’t hurt him.”
You looked at him, absolutely flabbergasted. “Stonerland’s a guy?”
“Yeah?” Anton’s eyebrows furrowed. “...You didn’t know?”
“What!” you gaped. “But the fins…! It’s so pretty and long!”
“Male betta fishes have longer fins, and they’re much leaner,” Anton explained, pointing at Stonerland’s white, flowy fins. “Shouldn’t you know this? Isn’t that Leehan guy you’re friends with a fish-expert or whatever?”
You pouted. “Well, he is, but he doesn’t own any bettas… so I don't know if he knows anything about them.”
“Hm, so Leehan doesn’t know shit about bettas, the coolest fish ever. I see.”
He felt pride quickly bubble inside his chest when you looked at him expectantly. “Right, yeah! Bettas are so cool! And you know so much about them; that’s so cool!”
“Nah,” he pretended to be humble, scratching the nape of his neck. “I just did my research.”
“You should buy a black one,” you continued enthusiastically, “so they can swim together! Isn’t that cute?”
Anton deadpanned. “Uh, they’ll probably fight to death if that happens…”
“Oh, so like SatoSugu,” you said blandly.
Yeah, whatever that means, Anton thought.
The both of you stayed there for a little while more, with most of it spent on useless chatter and you taking hundreds of photos of his fish, so much so that Anton worried whether your phone’s storage was about to reach its limit, however you didn’t seem to care. He honestly didn’t know what exactly was so enamoring about the fish—it was just some small living creature that came with flowy fins and a penchant for loneliness, and all it would do is swim and eat and live off of Anton’s paycheck, but he supposed that if you enjoyed looking at it so much, then he was fine with keeping it. Heck, he’d be fine with protecting it against Sungchan and Shotaro, if it meant that it would keep you happy to see it was still alive.
Which is, again, concerning. Anton never meant for any of this to happen—he never meant for him to wake up on a random Friday and decide that he was gonna let you into his house when you were, at the core of this situation, just some girl he had just coincidentally met online—and at a kids’ game of all places.
But between the calls you’ve shared, the jokes, the countless hours you’ve spent together playing games, and the private DMs you’ve shared where no one else could interrupt him teasing subtweets or obsessive ramblings from either shippers or haters, then Anton figured that getting Stonerland was worth all the trouble and money (and Wonbin’s constant whining at the bus) just to see you smiling towards the tank.
…So, yeah, maybe he was jealous of you sitting all alone in another guy’s house, watching another guy’s fish, planning on using the money you earned to purchase useless micro-transactions he could easily buy for you, and maybe accidentally blurting out a sentence that could potentially ruin his career was all the more worth it when you are literally standing right next to him now.
Anton never thought that everything would eventually lead up to this moment, and he might not be extremely smitten with you right now the way those male leads in K-Dramas would be, at least he doesn’t think so, but what he knows is that there was already a tiny voice inside his head constantly saying that, eventually, at a moment when he least expects it, it will happen.
“If you want, I can buy you a black betta fish,” he started, leaning his chin on his palm, “and then we’d have matching fishes. Just like SatoSugu, right?”
You glanced back at him, a little bit shocked. But then your eyes twinkled, and a laugh escaped from your lips. Anton found himself smiling back.
“No way,” you said, “you don’t have to do all that. You already bought me some Robux.”
“It was literally just twenty dolla—”
You cut him off. “Plus, one of them dies anyway," you said grimly, your expression darkening. "Actually, they both die."
That quickly shut him up.
You continued with a snap of your fingers. “You know what, I’ll just tell you their whole lore—no, wait, we should just watch Jujutsu Kaisen instead! Do you have a Netflix account? Let’s binge the first season.”
Seemingly without a choice, Anton promptly handed you the remote to his TV, staring blankly ahead while he followed you towards his couch.
It seemed that it was also safe to say that your online personality translated perfectly into real life. For better or for worse.
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SYNOPSIS. not everyone is good at playing obby’s on roblox, and you’re no exception to this rule: after a particularly nasty encounter with another player on roblox’s altitorture, you log into twitter only to find out that the very same player who publicly dunked on your gaming skills turns out to be anton lee, a well-known streamer who also happens to be a friend of a friend. fed up with his fans bombarding your dms with teasing remarks or jealous musings, you decide to end it once and for all by appearing on his next stream with a promise to get through an obby successfully. however, you realize that the only thing you’ll be successful at is falling for anton lee instead.
AUTHOR'S NOTE. wooo first written chapter! what do you guys think so far??? i really like putting the pov on anyone else BUT y/n, it makes her more mysterious HAHA
TAGLIST. (closed) @shoberi @gisellessgf @serafilms @palchokitty @seunghancore @nujeskz @hisrkive e @alwayswook @emohoon @milktea-academia @kyusqult @dolloie @slutforjeno @meowbini @yizhuobberi @fae-renjun @kcharlyy @whoisgwyn @saranghoeforanton @au-ghosttype @gyehyeonist t @dodot04lover @outrologist @papichulomacy @odxrilove @maleegayuh @ilovejungwonandhaechan @dalsosapple @starwonb1n @tojis-luver r @slayhaechan @lakoya @he6rtshaker @rikianton @brachioswrld @woonagi-lemon @ffixtionista @endtostartbreathin @ki3ntot t @bidibaabidiboo @totheseok @astrae4 @hanbinniesmango o @daegale @regrool @sunflowerbebe07 @taroddori @miyawwn @snowyseungs @p-d1ddy
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