Oben: go on a private server

Sang: what?

Oben: If Del and Ki see we're on they'll harass us til we agree to play with them.

Sang: right. I'll send you an invite

Newt opened a private room on the game and invited Oben. He waited for the boy to join, smiling softly when he did. Newt turned on his headset.

"Hey O."

"Hey."

Newt jumped when he heard the voice. It wasn't the normal voice Oben spoke in. His voice sounded, softer? Nicer? Newt wasn't sure, but he wanted to hear it again.

"Uh, you good there?"

"Yeah why."

"Y-you sound different."

"Fuck!" Oben cursed quietly before banging could be heard through his headset.

"O?"

"Sorry." The voice was back to normal now. "I forgot to turn on my voice changer, it happens sometimes when I switch servers. Good that I'm already humiliating myself."

Newt was smiling. O's real voice was nice, he liked it. "You're not humiliating yourself."

"I look like a tomato right now, you had to hear my squeaky actual voice and now I'm going to make you cry with how horrible I am at math."

Newt swallowed hard. "I-I could turn off my mod too. If that would make you feel better."

"No no you don't have to..."

"How about when we do math we turn them off? It'll be a fair trade."

"Okay," Oben said quietly before clicking off his mod. "Okay mine's off."

Newt clicked his off, clearing his throat and trying to ignore the pounding of his heart in his chest. "Okay mine is too."

Oben was quiet for a second before muttering. "You have a nice voice."

Newt laughed awkwardly. "Thanks."

"You have a british accent."

"Thank you for pointing that out, I never noticed that before."

Oben groaned loudly. "Oh my god this is why I barely talk when we raid, I always make a fool of myself."

Newt smiled softly even though Oben couldn't see it. "It's okay, don't worry."

"No you guys are like cool and-" Oben let out a breath. "You know what, math, let's focus on something else I'm horrible at."

Newt almost wanted to laugh at that, if only Oben knew him in real life, the actual him. Cool wasn't even a word his own mother would use to describe him.

"Wanna read me the problem and we'll talk it through?" Newt asked as he uncapped his pen. The problem was that Oben couldn't see his page, they had to do this strictly through voice.

"Yeah, yeah okay." Oben cleared his throat. "Um integral of one over twenty five plus x squared. I-I don't even know where to start."
Newt smiled softly as he wrote it down. "Okay this ones a rule, you have to remember it. It's one over a arctan of x over a."

Oben was quiet for a second. "I'm sorry Sang but where the fuck do you see and a?"

Newt snorted out a soft laugh. "Sorry. The integral is in the one over a squared minus x squared. So a is the square root of a squared. A squared is twenty five so a would be five, make sense?"

"I'm going to throw myself off a cliff," Oben declared as Newt could hear the scraping of his pencil across his paper. "I'm going to actually get an F and my mom is going to smash my computer with a meat hammer."

"A meat hammer?"

"She's creative."

"You won't get an F."

Oben hummed. "Just keep talking in that British accent of yours, it's making this math not so horrible."

Newt felt his cheeks heating up. "What is it with Americans and their weird accent fetish?"

"Have you heard the way I talk? We sound like we're scraping our words on sandpaper."

"I like American accents," Newt said. "I always kinda wished I had one."

"I like British accents," Oben replied. "I wish I had one."

"You literally just said what I said."

"Do you say bloody?"

"That doesn't sound like you're doing math."

"That sounds like you avoiding my question."

Newt let out a breath. "Yes I say bloody, but not around you morons because going off of the way you lose your shit when I say mum I don't think you could handle it."

"You mean Ki would never let you hear the end of it."

"Yeah. That."

Oben was quiet for a moment. "Uh how do you integrate one over x."

"Ln of x."

"In english please."

Newt huffed out a laugh. "Natural log of x. It's another rule you have to remember." It was so different than helping Chuck, Oben was so different than Chuck.

Oben groaned loudly. "Fuck that honestly."

"O, focus."

"Sometimes I forget you're referencing to me when you call me that."

"You're the one who picked a lame screen name."

"Why do you make your voice so deep when you play Sang?"

Newt flushed again. "I don't know, I don't like my real one. I sound like a bloody girl."

"I knew it! You totally say bloody! God you're so fuckin british."

"Are all Americans annoying?"

"Ki sure is."

"Do we know for sure Ki is American? I feel like he's severely more irritating than you, he's gotta be his own breed or something."

Oben laughed at that which made Newt smile. "You're spot on with that one, he's a good comedic relief."

"He sure is something."

"Can I ask you something?" Oben asked, suddenly sounding serious.

"If you do another math question then yeah."

Oben groaned again but then faded out. Newt could hear the scratching of his paper and busied himself with drawing some random trees on his own page.

"Done!" Oben exclaimed cheerfully which made Newt jump.

"Okay, ask away then."

"How did you know you like boys?"

Newt was taken aback by that, yeah he wasn't expecting that one. "Uh it was because of this kid in my english class actually. While everyone was drooling over the girl who developed tits a year before everyone else, I was thinking about that boy's eyes, yes his bloody eyes. I went home and took an am I gay quiz and realized that if I was taking that quiz I probably was gay and yeah, I am."

Oben was quiet again. "What if you like both?"

"Are you asking me if you're bisexual?"

"Maybe." Oben groaned again. "This went a lot better in my head. I-I...just none of my friends are and I thought I could ask you because well you kinda know and- I'm sorry."

Newt smiled softly. "I'm guessing there's a boy?"

"Maybe," Oben whispered quietly.

"Well tell me about him?"

Oben let out a breath. "He's cute, blonde. I don't know, I just like spending time with him? Like I go out of my way to hang out with him at school. I always think about doing stupid stuff, like holding his hand and putting his head on my shoulder. I don't even know where the thoughts come from, I just see him and my brain short circuits. I know I like girls too, I've had girlfriends that I liked, a lot actually, but it's different with them. I can talk to girls, but boys, it's like my brain stops working and I can't stop saying stupid things. Do you know what I did Sang? Do you want to know why I almost buried myself in a hole yesterday. I was at the bleachers at school and I was trying to get around my friend and I tripped and I fell on his lap, his freaking lap and my face turned fifty shades of red and I froze and I was just staring at him and god it was so awkward, but he's so pretty and he just asked if I was okay and he put his hands on my hips to help me up and of course I did the most humiliating thing ever and got a boner and he definitely knew and then I started word vomiting which made it worse and I haven't been able to look him in the face since."

"Cute boys are intimidating," Newt muttered.

"They are!" Oben practically shouted. "And I don't know why!"

Newt laughed. "Because you have to try and stop thinking about kissing them so you can form coherent sentences."

"You're so right." Oben laughed again. "You're the only person I told about this so...thank you."

"You're welcome," Newt said back because he really wasn't sure of what else to say.

Oben let out a long breath. "We can't tell Ki about this, the us talking without our mods on, I think he'll be hurt."

"Yeah, okay."

It was quiet then, silence fell over them but it wasn't awkward, it was comfortable. Sometimes Oben cut in to ask questions about math which Newt happily answered.

As they talked Newt seriously wondered why Oben didn't talk more. He was honestly funny and he was good at keeping conversation.

Newt pursed his lips as he continued rewriting the code over and over on his paper. Maybe Oben was insecure.

I mean, in reality I guess, weren't they all?

____

    "Eden," Newt said into the phone immediately as the girl picked up.

"You okay?" The girl asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I think I figured something out," Newt swiveled around on his chair, grabbing the paper that he stuffed under his books. "It's about Lizzy."

"Okay, what's up?"

"The numbers, I don't think it's a code anymore. I think it might be a clue."

"A clue? For what?"

"Haven't gotten that far. But I was looking into it more and it might be coordinates, like places in the game. I think that whoever left these was trying to show us something."

"I believe you Newt, I mean you know the game in and out, but I'm confused on why."

"Well, I have a theory. I think that WICKED has something to do with it. WICKED has been trying to gain access to the game for years. Now they finally have it, I don't know, I feel like they're trying to sabotage from the inside or something?"

"You think WICKED is killing kids...for what exactly?"

"I haven't figured that part out yet, but E, it hasn't just been Lizzy."

"What?"

"There's others." Newt's hands were shaking as he picked up a page of his own scribbled notes. "A boy in Utah was found missing both his uh...yeah both his hands. There was a girl in Cali, found same as Lizzy. Three in Florida, seven in Texas. I found twelve from the UK. No one's reporting on them. Honestly think about it, how much did you see Lizzy on the news? Not at all. No one cared, or at least that's what I thought. I think that someone is keeping the public quiet."

Eden let out a slow breath. "You can't blame me for being skeptical...it sounds- far fetched."

"I know."

"How did you even know about all those kids?"

"I-uh it wasn't exactly legal."

Newt heard Eden take a shaky breath.

"E are you okay?" Newt asked as the girl didn't reply.

"I want you to stop," she replied softly. "I want you to stop poking around and digging Newt."

"What?! No! I need to know what happened to my sister!"

"Please," Eden's voice cracked. Newt could tell she was crying. "I know she was killed, I know someone did this but I can't- I can't lose you too."

With that the phone line clicked dead.

Newt stared at his silent phone. His stomach felt hot and his skin was tingling. She was probably right.

Newt's phone buzzed and he looked down at it.

the garage:
[Kilee] 3:45pm: hey guys I think I found something weird, someone come on here and check it out

[Sang] 3:46pm: what's up?

[Kilee] 3:47pm: I don't know, it's a weird instruction set

[Oben] 3:47pm: where did you find it?

[Delario] 3:48pm: ^ this already seems sketch to me

[Kilee] 3:49pm: okay fun fact about my personal life, but I kinda code, well hack more of less, and I was messing around...with the auction

[Delario] 3:50pm: you fucking IDIOT, you don't mess with the auction. Dude you could get BANNED, like permanently. You could get demoted back to level ONE

[Kilee] 3:51pm: I know, I know, I know, but listen I found like a black market of auctions and the game let me walk through a wall to a room I've never seen before. It was creepy, scary even but long story short I got a pack and there's instructions on it and I don't know what to do with it

[Oben] 3:52pm: well what's in it?

[Kilee] 3:53pm: I'm not sure exactly, but there's almost like a quest. It's not normal though and the rewards are insane

Newt felt weird about whatever Ki was describing. Something about it didn't feel right. He was about to reply when he got a private message.

Oben: please go on a private server.

Newt furried his eyebrows but typed out a quick message to the garage saying that he had to go and he'd think about the pack before logging onto a private server with Oben. He could hear that Oben was sobbing when he turned on his mic.

"O, bloody hell man, what's wrong?"

"I'm sorry I-I," the boy stuttered as he gasped into the microphone. "I didn't have anyone else I could talk to and-"

"Oben, it's okay. I'm listening," Newt said softly.

"Remember the boy?" Oben started, his loud sniffles making it almost hard to makeout what he was saying.

"Boner bleachers boy?" Newt asked with a small smile.

"Yes!" Oben paused for a second to blow his nose. "He kissed me."

"And you're crying because...?"

"He has a girlfriend."

"What?"

"I didn't know about her! I was the other dude!"

"Are you upset because he cheated?"

"I'm upset because I think I loved him Sang."

Hearing that made Newt feel weird. He had no idea what it was like to love someone in that way, he had no friends for fucks sake he had never even experienced platonic love.

"I-I think you deserve better." Newt swallowed hard after saying that, feeling his heart crawl up into his chest, it felt weird giving advice on something he knew nothing about.

"I know I do!" Oben was crying again. '"It's just I don't want better, I want him."

"What did you do after he kissed you?"

"We made out for a while and I was on cloud 9, then he told me not to tell his girlfriend and I told him to fuck off and I fled, I fucking ran away like a two year old."

Newt felt himself frowning. "You should have ran away, he's an arsehole." That much he could be sure of.

Oben huffed out a laugh between his sobs. "You even say arsehole."

"Do we have to go over the fact that I'm british again?"

"Do you say rubbish bin or trash can?"

Newt smiled at that. "Awe come on O, I'm not an absolute heathen."

He heard the boy laugh a little before sniffling loudly. "I'm sorry, I'm so dramatic."

"You're not," Newt said softly. He wasn't, Oben would never be dramatic in his eyes. "Want me to embarrass myself too?"

"Kinda," Oben admitted through his sniffles.

"I think you're the first person who's ever come to me as advice as a friend, so please don't feel ridiculous because it makes me feel good."

Oben was quiet for a second which kinda made Newt's heart pound.

"You're easy to talk to Sang, I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to come to you for advice."

Newt felt himself smiling softly at that. "Should we jump on the game with the losers? They're probably going insane without us."

"Yeah." Newt could practically feel the smile in Oben's voice.

As soon as they hopped Ki and Del were already on.

"We've been awaiting your arrival," Ki said as soon as Newt turned on his voice changer mod.

"Would you shut up," Delario snapped back which made Newt laugh.

"Do you know that people know of us?" Newt asked as his mind for some reason flicked back to the conversation he had with Chuck the other day.

"What do you mean?" Oben asked. It was weird to hear him with his voice mod back on. Newt kinda missed his soft, real, voice.

"This kid at school, asked me my user and he got kinda siked out cause apparently he knows of the garage."

"Really?" Delario asked as she cleared her throat.

"It's kinda weird right?"

"Yeah, we're nothing special, I play so much because of you guys," Oben admitted.

"Agreed," Kilee said as he crunched loudly into his microphone. He had a horrible habit of eating with the mic practically in his mouth.

"We're not even that good," Delario stated which made Oben laugh.

"Nah, we're pretty good."

"Four losers with endless time on their hands, yeah we're pretty okay." Ki snorted back.

"How do you know we're all losers?" Delario asked which made them all laugh again.

"Okay, okay at least three of us are," Ki said as he crunched loudly again.

"You're definitely a loser," Oben spoke up.

"I'm admitting it, I'm kinda banking on Sang being the cool one out of all of us."

Delario groaned loudly. "God can you stop jacking off to him for two seconds."

"I'm not! He's just so mysteriously sexy-"

Newt snorted loudly into his microphone. "I hate you so much."

Kilee fake moaned loudly. "God I love it when he degrades me."

For some reason Oben found that really funny, he cracked up so loudly that Newt couldn't help smiling too.

"Ki, tell them what you told me about the pack!" Delario piped up as soon as Oben calmed down.

"Oh right! The black market pack..."

"You still shouldn't have done that," Newt said sternly. The last thing he wanted was Kilee to lose his 150 levels over a stupid hacking adventure.

"Yeah yeah, scold me later. So it's a quest, it's long there's like 7 parts and it goes into places we've never even been before."

"How did you even get i-"

"I sold my armor set that we got from the death cure special event?"

"You WHAT?!" Newt practically shouted. It had taken them weeks to beat that campaign special. It was a two hundred floored building which obviously got harder as they went up. They'd spent their entire winter breaks beating that event, countless nights staying up until 5am. So far it was the best tank armor in the entire game. Only about ten characters had even gotten it.

"Listen for a second before you all scream at me. When I went into the auction black market, there was a guy there who's character kinda resembled Jorge, it freaked me out a little but also it could be like a hidden part of the game. Like one of the easter eggs!"

"You think it's a 200 easter egg?" Delario asked, sounding a little interested now.

"I mean maybe! Jorge did say it was near impossible to reach 200, I mean maybe the black market was made by him."

"You know that doesn't seem too crazy actually," Oben admitted after a beat of silence.
Newt had a weird feeling in his stomach about all of this.

"Something seems off about this don't you think?" Newt asked carefully.

"I thought that too at first but then Ki sent me a picture of the pack..."

"You can send pictures over the app now?" Newt asked.

"Well no," Del started again. "But Ki gave me his number."

"We're not forcing you into anything Sang," Kilee said quickly. "I promise we just sent the picture. No identity revealing or anything."

Newt felt tears well up in his eyes for no reason at all. Maybe it was the stress of everything going on or maybe it was his deep rooted insecurities but Newt would rather be blown off the face of the earth than let any of them lay their eyes on him.

"Sang?" Kilee asked softly. "There buddy?"

Newt felt his throat tighten but he wiped his eyes hard. "Uh yeah sorry, what were you saying about the pack?"

"It has Jorge's official symbol on it so I'm thinking it's legit. I did some research and I think that it's a 175 seasonal event pack but we're only 150s so it would make sense why we haven't had a chance to get it yet."

"You binded it to you already?" Newt asked, as he rested his face in his hands.

"Yeah, binded as soon as I got it but I can share it with you guys so I did."

"It makes sense, but I don't know how much I like it," Oben said and Newt wanted to throw himself down at his feet. Someone with some common sense.

"Listen, I have it, it's not going anywhere, maybe we can think about it a little bit?"

"Wait Ki you didn't tell them the other part," Del piped up.

"Oh yeah," he let out a long breath. "Under Jorge's symbol there are two numbers printed. They're small. I almost missed it. But they're the first two numbers of the code they found with Jorge's body."

Newt felt almost all the wind leave him then. He felt sick and he must have made a weird sound because suddenly everyone was asking if he was alright.

Newt couldn't breathe. Everything was coming back to his sister. The person that killed his sister. He let out an audible sob as he tried to pull his headset off. It got stuck which made him cry harder. He knew they could hear him, he knew he was making a fool of himself. He couldn't help it. He fucking missed Lizzy.

"Sang what the hell is going on over there?!" He could barely hear Oben shout over the deafening sounds of his own thoughts.
It was too much. It was all too much. He slammed the off button on his computer, stopping it all for a second. He finally ripped the headset off his head, pushing himself off his chair and into the corner of his basement. He pulled his knees to his chest and finally let the dam break down. He sobbed into his knee caps so loudly he could feel the wetness on his pants. He could hear the buzzing of his phone from his desk but he didn't want to be bothered with that right now. He knew his friends were worried about him but in reality he was more worried about them. In theory looking into what got his sister killed seemed like the social justice closure that he needed but now he wasn't too sure. Maybe Eden was getting into his head or maybe she was right. Maybe this was going to get them all fucking killed.

When Newt woke up that morning his eyes ached from crying and he was on his basement couch. Thankfully it was Saturday so he didn't have school but he felt a pit drop in his stomach when he thought of checking his phone. He knew for a fact that the garage was going to be blowing it up to say the least. Newt cringed when he saw the amount of messages on his phone.

the garage
[Kilee] 9:54pm: sang dude what the fuck just happened

[Delario] 9:54pm: yeah wtf

[Oben] 9:55pm: sang come back we're kinda freaking out lol

[Kilee] 9:56pm: kinda is an understatement there O

[Oben] 9:57pm: okay yah we're really worried...at least tell us if you're okay

    Newt let out a breath and ran his fingers through his hair. These were his best friends he needed to give them some answers. He hesitated and started to type, feeling his heart pound in his chest.
   
    [Sang] 8:34am: morning guys...

    [Kilee] 8:34am: DUDE WAY TO FREAK US THE FUCK OUT. I'VE HAD MY RINGER ON ALL NIGHT WAITING FOR YOU TO TEXT WTF HAPPENED

    [Oben] 8:34am: are you okay :(((( u can talk to us

    [Delario] 8:34am: I'm gonna kick your ass and hug you at the same time

    [Sang] 8:35am: well I'm slowly getting over the fact that you all had to listen to me cry and completely humiliate myself

    [Delario] 8:56am: who cares about that shit

    [Kilee] 8:57am: you cried? nbd, we just wanna know what's wrong

    [Oben] 8:57am: ^^^^^ !!!!

    [Sang] 8:58am: I think I'm ready to tell you guys

    [Kilee] 8:58am: no judgement zone you have our word

    [Sang] 8:58am: just no one type anything until I'm done...here it goes

    [Sang] 8:58am: I don't know if you guys remember but just around when we were meeting that girl would play with us too and then she stopped all the sudden. I know I told you guys some bullshit lie about her but the truth, the real truth, is that she was my sister. She wasn't just my sister I guess...she was my best friend. Well a while ago she died, or was murdered more like it. They found her totally mutilated...I don't even want to think about it. It sucks. It sucks so bad I miss her everyday. They ruled it a suicide, said she jumped in front of a car but she wouldn't do that. My sister never would have dreamed of doing that. The thing is I found a paper that she left. It had the same exact sequence of numbers that the paper they found with Jorge. It hasn't just been them, there's been others. I've been looking into it for awhile, trying to find something out by myself because I don't want anyone else to get involved in it, but the pack...and the numbers. I'm worried that you've already gotten yourselves involved.

    Newt felt like he was holding his breath as he waited for a reply.

    [Kilee] 9:05am: holy shit man I had no idea

    [Sang] 9:05am: I know, I didn't tell you guys

    [Delario] 9:06am: bby :((((( my heart is absolutely breaking for you

    [Sang] 9:06am: it's okay

    [Oben] 9:07am: it's really not

    [Kilee] 9:07am: I feel awful, I didn't know. I never would have gotten it if I would have known. I thought maybe we could dig up some proof that WICKED killed Jorge but I didn't think it was...idk what I'm saying. I guess I never thought we'd ACTUALLY do something

    [Sang] 9:08am: I should have told you sooner

    [Kilee] 9:08am: you weren't ready

    [Sang] 9:09am: if you guys got hurt I'd blame myself

    [Delario] 9:10am: you did nothing wrong Sang. I promise we're not upset

    [Oben] 9:11am: ^^

    [Sang] 9:12am: I want to play through the pack. Even if it's some sick joke I have to see if it maybe relates to my sister's death

    [Kilee] 9:13am: you know we won't let you do it alone

    [Oben] 9:14am: we'd never let you do it alone

    [Delario] 9:14am: all of us or none of us right?

    [Sang] 9:15am: I'm scared of what it might consist of

    [Delario] 9:15am: and ?? when has anyone ever been able to stop us before??

    [Kilee] 9:16am: plus if we find shit out we can go right to the police and maybe they can throw the dirtbag who hurt your sister in the can to suffer for a lifetime

    [Delario] 9:17am: Sang????

    [Sang] 9:17am: yeah???

    [Delario] 9:18am: let's find out who the fuck hurt your sister.
_____
okay guys this is all I have in my drafts so honestly IS THIS SOMETHING I SHOULD FINISH OR NO ?¿

sorry this is 5k words I really made y'all sit through a five thousand word chapter my gosh