Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,91

was Hot Girl Artemis, still at the locker next to mine.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” said Artemis.

She’d been typing something on her phone. I stared at it, wondering if I could ask about her friend and fellow incompetent trackmate. Wondering if I even had the right to ask.

“You, ah, ever hear from . . . ?”

“Cirrus is fine,” said Artemis, bound by loyalty to never betray any report beyond the most trivial minutiae. “She says China is really pretty.”

I pictured Cirrus’s mouth forming the words of that anodyne statement:

China is really pretty.

“This is on that AlloAllo thing?” I said.

Artemis answered only with a nod. She knew she couldn’t give me Cirrus’s handle, and I knew I was in no position to ask for it.

Gunner shattered the awkward moment by giving me a backslap strong enough to loosen phlegm from my lungs.

“Hey, Gun,” I said.

“Hey, Sun,” said Gun.

He turned to Artemis for a slower, more sincere “Hey.” He ran a hand through his hair, clearly to see if she would notice, and was thrilled when she actually did.

“Your fantasy football post was funny,” said Artemis.

Gunner whipped forth twin finger pistols. “It’s just D&D for jocks, loll.”

And Artemis laughed!

Before I left, I reminded Gunner: “Livestream tonight.”

Gunner knew I meant DIY Fantasy FX, and nodded. As I walked away, I saw him murmur to Artemis, “We broke a thousand followers this week—it’s pretty cool.”

It was pretty cool. It might not be the kind of cool that other people would readily understand, and I was fine with that. It felt cool to me.

The vice principal called out, “Brain train’s leaving Grand Mental Station, all aboard.”

Mr. Tweed very gently encouraged me to take sanctuary in the music room to develop what he perceived to be true musical talents hidden amidst all the fakery, but I wasn’t ready to reenter that room yet.

I needed a reason to make music, and my reason had flown away first class.

* * *

—

At track, I stared wistfully at the girls’ team, willing Cirrus to appear alongside Artemis, then stared down at the clover. I flipped off the poor little plants with one finger, two, one, two.

“Let’s go,” said Coach Oldtimer.

“Yes sir,” I said, rising.

“We’re hopping bleachers today,” said Coach Oldtimer.

“Yes sir,” said Jamal.

The three of us rose like old men on a cloudy day.

Out of sheer boredom I found myself actually trying.

I ran my long jumps and averaged five meters, a new personal best.

Milo threw the shot put an incredible twenty-two meters, which nobody noticed because still nobody cared about shot put.

Jamal got the high bar stuck between his legs while midair and abraded the groin muscle next to his right testicle.

One evening, I suited up for a ride. Gray poked his head up from his basement staircase and asked if he could come, too, and of course I said yes.

So Gray and I hit the streets together.

“So, I start tomorrow,” said Gray.

“The new job?” I said.

Gray ratcheted his pedals backward a full revolution. “That’s next Monday. Tomorrow’s recording.”

“Recording,” I said.

“I’ve been talking with this married musician couple on Stalker Classifieds,” said Gray. “Legit veterans looking to experiment and create a new sound. They liked my reel.”

“You have a reel?” I said.

“It’s just one song,” said Gray.

I wanted to jump a curb with joy. There was as yet no such thing as an elliptical stunt league, which was a baffling mystery to me. Maybe I would create one—everyone would find elliptical tricks extremely cool, perhaps at something like the X Games.

We zipped past Cirrus’s condo, now her old condo. The vestibule had a little log-pile of forsaken newspapers.

We reached Jamal’s house and made our way to the back garage, where Jamal, Milo, Gunner, and August already were.

We parked our bikes, said hi, and toasted with Ramune sodas. Gray was immediately entranced by Jamal’s music workstation. The two of them began geeking out over crafting beats and patterns, then stringing those patterns together to make the epic, ever-evolving soundtrack of our evening in real time.

Milo showed Gunner all the props we’d made. After asking dozens of technical questions, he enveloped an unsuspecting August in the bright green bolts of Raiden’s Spark. August retaliated with a shot from the Crucifix Slayer—an electroplated PVC crossbow able to launch marshmallows up to ten meters. And before we knew it, the four of us were having a battle in the herringbone courtyard.

Jamal had a collection of fancy hats, so we wore fancy hats. As Dungeon Master, I dictated the parameters of the current sticky situation, and