#Ship: CheeseKearnel

[foolishquarry]

|| @eyeswiped​ cont. from here ||

 Last night’s ghosting left a little bruise.

Yea, yea, Max knew the fickle nature of online friend-making, but… After stumbling into each other through a mutual friend’s server, it’d been ages since he and Popcornkearnel first formed their steadfast gaming alliance over summer break. Months of daily banter about historical references flying over his head, creatively avoiding swears even in the heat of battle, venting about weather and parents and then school-- it didn’t seem to matter how wildly different their interests were, they’d pause their game and just ramble at each other while doing homework some nights. The friendship felt solid.

Kind of felt like flirting too, sometimes. Maybe. Maybe Kearnel just had a really charming voice.

His PC was an old hand-me-down thing, souped up to handle games but lacking a webcam. He didn’t care enough to buy one separate since his headphones had a decent mic and face streaming would just slow his frame rate, but when Kearnel finally started oh-so-casually asking about a face for her pal, that meant he had to go and hand pick something to send that didn’t look like trash or a dating profile. A grinning group photo with his teammates’ faces scribbled out seemed... safe? Kind of? Kearnel knew he did soccer. Sweaty-but-not-too-sweaty, casual, didn’t scream showing off, and a blurry enough school background that if she was secretly an ax-wielding cougar behind the screen she’d have to work for that body count.

She dipped immediately. Immediately. At seven-thirty. Barely into their usual rounds of post homework chatting, game not even started yet, and she didn’t log back in the rest of the night.

Ouch. It took til morning to do emergency patch work on the ol’ self esteem, but… at least it wasn’t Dodge-ball.

Being wordlessly rejected by an almost-maybe-interested online friend for having too many freckles or whatever? Sucked. Still better than winning a death match in gym by pelting your crush in the face. The guilty mortification of giving someone a serving of defeat and a bloody nose; someone who made the weirdest, cutest smug faces correcting teachers on the regular and was definitely allergic to losing; that one would haunt him always. The way she’d stared made his days feel numbered.

And hey, maybe Kearnel just had an awkwardly timed family emergency. For all he knew, she would be back online like nothing happened after school, wanting to know why he deleted the pic before she could see it. Better not to think on it for now.

Max was in the midst of a laborious two-thumbed text on his flip phone, brows furrowed as he discarded his own advice and dug for a second opinion from his friend Perry, when he became aware of Laura’s locker ambush. He looked up owlishly at her waving, then over his shoulder for another Max. Nada. Just Carl McDowd carrying way too many binders again and giving Max a nasty look for stopping suddenly.

“Crap.” This had to be about the essay extension he asked for in Mrs. Lamp’s. The lady was notoriously impatient and known to send her favorites on collection rounds. Max raised his hands in supplication, phone clicking shut in his palm, and approached with a sheepish smile. Trying to sidle in to use his locker without asking Laura to move outright, he unintentionally gifted her a light whiff of freshly showered boy as their shoulders brushed. “Heeey… Um. Listen. I’ll definitely have it ready after lunch. I know I’m not, like, your favorite guy, but if you pretend you didn’t see me-”