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Bad is a routine person, but lately he has been feeling odd. Maybe bored? He thinks. It was hard to think there was a fault in his living style because he thought it was so perfect, he designed it himself to fit his necessities and preferences. He was just so comfortable. Well, everything has to fail at some point, that's why things change. He thinks.
If he's bored couldn't he do more videos? Yeah, sure. His career gives a kind of special opportunity for creativity. But, the thing is, Bad is not the kind of guy to break the system, at least he doesn't feel like he is. He has been making content for far too long to just bring sudden changes. If his fans like him it's because he is BadBoyHalo, not any of his friends like Quackity who is comfortable with constantly changing the core of his content.
He loves and admires his friends, but also, he isn't them. It's not that he isn't a dreamer, he wants to do good with his content and reach people who need it. He just isn't the kind of person to have millions and millions of followers, he doesn't have it, the personality, the creativity or the guts.
That's how he is feeling while he is looking at discord figuring if he should call any of his friends to keep his mind busy in something else. Turns out he did find something to occupy his mind: Skeppy. He and his best friend haven't been talking a lot lately, Skeppy says he's busy and Bad understands, but that doesn't mean he doesn't miss him.
Although he doesn't call or text him, thinking about Skeppy was so distracting he doesn't try with any of his other friends. Instead, he prepares himself to go to the grocery store with automated movements from doing this every week.
It isn't a complicated subject, but his mind is trapped wanting to call Skeppy and wondering what he is doing, he hopes, whatever it is, it's going well for him. That's how his whole ride to the grocery store goes. And when he arrives he just distracts himself looking at products and prices, picking what he feels like eating for the next week or so.
It has been said before that he goes to this store every week, but something not even he knows is that he has been subconsciously paying with the same cashier for months now. Lost in his thoughts, he doesn't notice the girl looking at him with a nervous expression.
She tries to start a conversation.
“Weather´s nice lately, isn't it?” She says while putting Bad´s food in a bag.
“Yeah, just a bit cold for my taste” He answers politely.
“At least better than last week´s”
Did they talk about the weather last week? Yes they did, but Bad has no idea. Can you blame him? Buying groceries is not a big event, so he puts his mind on autopilot mode.
“But you´re right, it's still a bit cold” After a pause, she continues “Like for going out for a coffee or something like that”
“Yeah, that would be nice” Says Bad, still clueless.
“Great! so it's a date, here's my number, just text me when and where” She gives Bad his credit card while winking at him. On the other side of the card, there's a small paper with something written.
With his groceries paid and in his hands he can do nothing but blush and be pushed to get out of the line. The girl giggles before continuing working and Bad finds it more embarrassing not being able to say anything back than having no idea of what was going on. So he just leaves and heads directly to his car.
His ride back home was very different. Instead of thinking about his best friend, Bad was panicking a little about what to do. It was night and quite dark so he decided to put on some music and not think about it until he arrived home.
When he does, Lucy looks at him with impossibly bigger and cuter eyes, so he plays with her maybe to avoid his thoughts. He ends up lying on the couch with Rat on his chest and scrolling through Twitter. After a few minutes he gets a message from Skeppy: ´Wanna hang?´ Of course he wants to, it's only 10 pm and he is desperately looking for a distraction.
He answers immediately and goes to his computer after carefully putting Rat on the floor.
“Hello?” Bad starts, excited to talk to his best friend.
“Hiii” Skeppy answers with a happy tone but lacking energy.
“Ow, you sound tired” Bad says, a bit worried.
“Yeah, it's been a busy day, I just want to relax a little”
“Oh, so what do you want to do?”
Skeppy hums “Mmm, just, talk”
This isn't really helping Bad to clear his mind, but he would do anything for his best friend.
“Oh, and I think there's a few things I still have to work on, so sorry if I get distracted” Skeppy´s voice is low and clumsy, his words come out slowly and softly, like he could fall asleep at any moment. Bad notices this and gets more worried about his friend, he wants to do his best at entertaining him and make the end of his day pleasant. Come on Bad, think about a topic of conversation. What did he do in his day? Not much, the only highlight of his day was… right, maybe asking for advice is a good topic of conversation.
“Hey, Skeppy, are you seeing somebody?” Wow, take that out of context. But because Skeppy notices the shyness in his voice and recognizes that Bad isn't very open about this subject he restrains from laughing or making any kind of joke, or maybe it's just because he's tired.
“Like, romantically?”
“Yeah”
“No, you know I would tell you if I was”
“Right” Bad pauses “It's just that I wanted to ask you for advice”
“What happened?” Skeppy´s tone changed because he is now putting all his attention on what his friend is going to say. Bad didn't realize at the time that asking for advice is not a good topic of conversation to talk with someone who is busy doing other stuff.
“Nothing big” Well, it is bigger than what has been happening in his love life for the past couple of years. “The cashier at my local grocery store asked me out to buy coffee”
“Oh” Skeppy pauses “And what about it?”
“She just gave me her number, I don't know what I should say or do, or if I should even text her”
“What? You don't want to go with her?” Not everyone would assume that, but Skeppy knows Bad too much to not notice it in his tone.
“Mmm, not really, I don't even know if I have time in my schedule for something like that, plus…” Bad hesitates to say the following “I´m not very good at dates” Can you blame him? He felt terribly awkward when he just ran away from the girl, he just isn't comfortable with the idea.
“Oh, come on, you use the same excuse to avoid doing anything new” Skeppy sounds just a little bit annoyed while saying it.
“What? no I don´t!” Bad is having a hard time figuring if this is just one of their playful arguments they do all the time or if there´s in fact something else behind it. He chooses to believe in the first option.
“Yeah you do! You want my advice? Go out with her, live a little”
There's a pause because Bad is thinking about what was just said to him because it sounds just too close to what he was thinking about before going to the grocery store. Bad believes Skeppy would do it, he is way more impulsive than him, and he admires and loves Skeppy already, maybe he just needs to be more like him, to have that impulsiveness in his life.
They keep talking and Bad ends up swearing he will text the girl in the morning. And even though on the surface the problem is solved and asking for advice was successful. There's something odd in the way the conversation continues, like if someone had said something they regret, but Bad can't figure out what or even who did the mistake.