Arin looks excited, to say the least, that I may have a crush on his best friend, Dan. He smirks and says quietly, "On a scale of one to ten, how much do you want to fu—"

   "Arin!" I hiss, knowing that I'm blushing. I sigh. "You're so immature."

   "Answer the question!" Arin demands.

   "No," I say. "I really regret telling you about this."

   "Okay, okay, new question." He puts a hand on my shoulder and lowers his voice. "On a scale of one to ten, how mad would you be if I told Dan?"

   I glare at Arin and go, "Twenty."

   Arin whistles and mutters, "Damn. That's a lot of rage."

   I nod. "Which is exactly why you won't breathe a word of this to Dan."

   Arin smiles mischievously and says, "No promises."

   Then he skips back into the living room. Where Dan is located.

   I'm legit two seconds away from strangling that boy.

   Man, having an adult child as a brother is great.

I roll my eyes and walk into the living room as well, hoping that I won't have to smack my big brother. But if he tells Dan, I might not have a choice.

Arin's back at the TV set, controller in his hands. "All right, I can do this," he's saying to himself over and over again. Dan is watching him, munching on some Sour Patch Kids.

"Is this for a video, or..?" I ask, looking around. I don't see any cameras...

Dan shakes his head, eyes still on the TV screen. "Nope. We're just doing it for fun right now."

"Fun?" Arin scoffs. "This is not fun."

"Then why are you playing it?" I say, laughing slightly.

Arin goes silent. Then, "Lemme rephrase. It's fun but hella frustrating."

I look at the graphics of the game. Ah. I know which Mega Man this is. "Mega Man 3, huh?" I ask, chuckling. "I've beaten this game before."

Arin looks at me with a "that's bullshit" look as he dies. "All right, big shot. Try to beat this boss, then."

"All right," I say. I sit down on the couch and grab Arin's controller from him. I'm about to press "continue" when...

"Wait!" Dan says.

I look over at him. "What?"

He grabs a Sour Patch Kid from his bag. With a smile, he hands me it. "For good luck. Kill that motherfucker."

I smile back and pop it into my mouth. "Thanks. With the fuel of your gift, I shall defeat this boss."

"That's not the only thing you'll be putting in your mouth," Arin mumbles, smiling to himself.

I nearly spit the Sour Patch Kid out. "Arin!" I hiss. "What did I tell you?"

Meanwhile, Dan looks confused as hell. I can tell he wants clarification, even though he doesn't ask.

"What? It's true!" Arin says, giggling.

Finally, Dan says something. "Um, I'm not sure if I'm following."

And I'm not gonna let him follow. "Oh, it's nothing. I just told Arin of my crush, and now he's bothering me about it."

"Yeah, it's totally not you or anything," Arin mumbles, acting all innocent.

"Excuse me?" Dan asks. I know he heard Arin just fine. He just can't believe what he's hearing.

I roll my eyes, trying to act as cool as I can, even though I'm two seconds away from flipping Arin off. "Oi. It's not you, Dan. It's just some dude I went to high school with."

100% lies.

Dan nods. "Ah, okay."

He doesn't question anything, and I'm grateful for that.

   My hands are shaking slightly as I hit "continue". From both rage and nervousness that Dan will find out. Hell, I don't even know if what I'm feeling is a crush. I'm allowed to think somebody's hot without having a crush on them, right?

   Right?

   Oh well, that doesn't matter right now. What matters is beating this boss so that I can strangle Arin when I'm done.

   The battle starts, and I'm laughing at how easy it is. Granted, I've beaten the game multiple times, but still.

   Dan whistles. "Damn, Arin. She's gotten further than you have after fifteen hours of trying."

   Arin huffs. "Shut up."

   I then hit the boss again, and he dies.

   I drop the controller as if it's a microphone and look at Arin with a smirk. "First try," I say. I sounded a lot like Batman when I said that. Deep voice and all.

   Dan laughs. "Wow, Arin. (Y/N)'s better than you in every way possible. She's nice, she's good at games, she's good-looking..."

   Good-looking..?

   I blush and brush that off and scoot over to the pouting Arin. I pat him on the back, saying in a baby-ish voice, "Aw, who's the disappointment of the family?"

Dan joins me in making fun of Arin. "Aw, do you want a sticker? I think I have a 'you tried' star in my pocket..." He then acts like he's fishing in his pocket for said sticker.

I laugh and pat Arin's head. He glares at me like he's never glared at me before. It's a glare that means "I'll tell the world your worst secrets as payback" in glare speak.

I put my hand at my side, not wanting Arin to say any personal information.

To my dismay, Arin gets up and swaggers over to Dan.

No. No. No. No.

NO NO NO NO NO.

"Hey Dan!" he says loudly.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

Dan looks confused. "Uh...yes, Arin?"

"I have something to tell you!" Arin says, looking at me with a smirk.

"No, Arin," I whisper pathetically. "Please."

Arin looks at me again, and an expression of pity crosses his face. He then looks back at Dan and says, "I bought ice cream today."

I sigh with relief. Thank God my brother's not completely heartless.

Dan looks stoked, to say the least. "HOLY SHIT, REALLY? HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THIS?"

Ow. My ears were just assaulted.

Arin nods. "They're in the freezer."

Dan runs to the freezer, grabbing a tub of ice cream. He comes back excitedly.

"And, by the way," Arin says to Dan. "(Y/N) says that you're hot as fuck. Her words, not mine."

My heart drops to my feet.

No.

No.

NO.

Dan slowly looks over at me, in the middle of opening the tub. "Did you...did you really say that..?"

I feel like I see his face go red, but I know in my heart that that's wishful thinking. In reality, he's probably just hella weirded out.

I feel like I'm gonna throw up. I hate Arin so much right now.

I clear my throat and say in a slightly shaky voice, "Ah...I've gotta go to the bathroom..."

Uh-oh. Here come the tears. Better go.

I dash into the guest room, despite saying that I had to go to the bathroom. I lock myself in it and throw myself onto the bed.

Damn, why am I so emotional? It's just an embarrassing moment. Everybody has them. And they don't feel like this.

I'm actually crying now. Geez, get yourself together, (Y/N). Why am I like this?

I dunno.

But what I do know is:

I really don't like my brother right now.