Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,40

fought back?

It’s not fair to expect people like us to retaliate against bullies like Gunner.

Then why didn’t I just change myself? Adapt to survive?

Hey! Why should we have to change?

I feel you—but look: We changed, didn’t we? And isn’t life already becoming more amazing because of it?

I guess.

Wouldn’t you like to see how much better things could get if we took things further?

. . .

You do!

Shut up. I do.

I spent the morning watching videos with great determination. Not LARPing videos, or maker videos, but live music performances. I watched with headphones on, under a blanket, because I did not want anyone to know what I was doing, which was researching.

I was researching how to be cool.

It was morning, and the texts from Jamal and Milo were already trickling in. I dismissed them all. I was busy.

As I watched, I became convinced of my hypothesis that music performance was a form of LARPing in itself. Rock performers, after all, hoisted their guitars like heavy axes; their screamsong was a kind of battle cry. Rappers swayed their arms and cast elaborate spells with cryptic finger gestures and fast rhymes. Pop stars danced love dramas, superstar DJs commanded their hordes via mass hypnosis, country crooners sold a pastiche of folktale simplicity long vanished.

There were videos on proper hair care techniques for voluminous headbanging flourishes. Videos explaining how to achieve primal screams safely by singing from the diaphragm. Videos showing the canonic list of metal stage moves: the power stance, the backswing, the pick flip, the agony of the floor solo.

I got out from under my blanket and unearthed a Gray outfit I’d hidden in a plastic container. I changed: black mesh zombie top, black wristbands, ripped jeans, Ring of Baphomet. I grasped an invisible mic stand, windmilled an arm, and raised devil horns to the sky—the rapturous satanic prayer of rock heroes throughout history.

How different was this melodramatic playacting from a role-playing game, or RPG for short, not to be confused with rocket-propelled grenade or rotary pulse generator?

It was cool, that was how.

Role-playing games were what you did when you were too scared to put yourself out there—and putting yourself out there was how the real cool was won.

I used to put myself out there in my own small way, back in the Arroyo Plato backyard of my youth. I was a paladin wielding a plunger, and my friends loved it. This was of course before I went into hiding with my dice and my hex graph notebooks.

I could put myself out there again.

I stopped at a sound—the doorbell, the front door, murmuring, and now two sets of footsteps hammering up the stairs.

My bedroom door opened to reveal Jamal and Milo. Jamal wore a shirt with a picture of a twenty-sided die and the words THIS IS HOW I ROLL. Milo’s shirt simply had the word NERD in large collegiate capital letters. These were their favorite shirts for the weekend, when they could let it all hang out safely and without fear of judgment.

“I think we might have something,” said Jamal, and brandished a stiff plastic tube about a meter in length.

Milo eyed my chest. “I can see your nipples.”

“No,” I said, and covered myself with an arm. “Can you?”

“Behold,” said Jamal. “Esmeralda’s Veil.”

Jamal clicked something, igniting a concealed smoke bomb. The smoke traveled through perforations lining the tube, which he waved about to create a wide white scarf. The room filled with acrid sulfur; in moments the smoke alarm began shrieking.

“Plus six missile weapon defense,” shouted Jamal.

“Turn it off,” I shouted back, reaching up to yank the detector from the wall.

“We haven’t figured out that part yet,” said Milo in the sudden silence.

“Help me open windows,” I said.

We shut the door, opened the windows, and waited for the smoke bomb to run out of fuel. It took a good thirty seconds. The smoke cleared. A little. Not really.

“You’re supposed to run ideas through the CREAPS checklist before actually building them,” I said, waving my hand.

“Sorry,” said Jamal. “We tried texting.”

“You’re the Idea Guy,” said Milo. “We can’t do this properly without you.”

“I was busy,” I said.

Jamal and Milo looked at me in my outrageous clothes. Then they looked at each other.

“I’d apologize for not making myself available,” I said. “But we kissed.”

“What?” said Jamal.

“Oh my god, Sunny!” cried Milo, and hugged me.

“That’s amazing,” said Jamal. He shrugged with resignation. “That’s really, really great. Me and Milo can go figure out an off switch for this thing ourselves, I guess, mumble mumble.”

Milo stopped