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“Hey, are you that alien guy on YouTube?”
Ken swallowed against his tight throat and hoped the person (a girl?) didn’t see his face. People often called him the weird alien guy. Those people were usually holding a stolen magazine over his head in school. Only online was he the alien YouTube guy after finally getting the courage to put information dumps of favorite conspiracy theories on his channel. The Okarun channel didn’t get many views on his old fixit stuff. This was the grocery store in his hometown. He wasn’t popular enough to get recognized while buying toothpaste.
Tightening his slacked mouth into something more presentable, Ken slipped into the cool guy persona he psyched himself into before filming. Ken couldn’t handle this, but Okarun could.
“Yeah, you could call me the alien guy.” He said it before turning in case he couldn’t keep up the facade while looking at someone. It was one thing to be Okarun in front of a camera and ring light. Okarun had never had a live audience and he was terrified.
Ken was not ready for the things a slouchy sweater was doing to him. Were those jade earrings? The skirt looked like your standard school uniform. This was definitely a girl and she was definitely too cool to be a viewer. Her bangs criss crossed in front of brown eyes squinting at him with scrutiny. Dammit, he was found out by some hot mean girl. His final year of high school was going to suck.
Her frown and knit brows morphed into a grin and Ken was done for. This girl was gorgeous.
“Ha! I knew it, I mostly watch your tech stuff and skip the alien shi- stuff” She pointed to the phone that had a shocking amount of cracked glass on both sides. “My phone gets broken, a lot.”
“That kind of makes more sense.” Ken could feel the cool guy slipping and his shoulders slouching. Of course she was just into the phone stuff and not the alien ‘shit’. At least this hopefully lowered the chances he was about to be outed at school. It’s one thing to have your stuff dangled out of reach and another to have everyone know you have a three part series on how the Dyatlov pass incident was a failed alien abduction.
“My grandma does a lot of - “ She grimaced “Traditional rituals as part of her job and I have to participate. Those old robes don’t really have pockets and I pick this bad boy up off the ground a lot.”
She shook the phone and Ken could recognize his hot glue fill in method on a corner. Those were supposed to be a quick fix, but this hot glue looked flaky and tinted with some brown substance. Jade nails covered the corner and he looked to see her eyes closed and her other hand flipping her bangs.
“Well I’m glad it could help. I get comments, but I’m never sure if they’re really just bots. It’s nice to meet someone in real life.” Ken’s mouth moved without his permission to fill the awkward space his staring had left. He really needed to figure out people skills.
The girl stopped messing with her bangs and smiled again.
“Yeah, thanks a lot. I use my phone to post my own videos sometimes too. I do ghost stories and paranormal stuff. Sometimes the places grandma goes are too spooky not to share. I’m Ayase by the way.”
Ghosts? How could she believe in ghosts and not aliens? It was one thing to believe in all paranormal stuff, but just ghosts? Just his luck, a crazy crystal girl type. Oh well, a crystal girl that watched his phone fix videos was better than no real audience. Ken caught himself chuckling.
“I’m Ken Takakura”
Red filled her cheeks. Had he pissed her off? Weren’t you supposed to give your name back when someone introduced themselves to you? Was the full name too formal? With Ken’s mind spiralling out of control, Okarun stepped up to pull him out of this catastrophe of a first viewer meeting.
“Hey, let me know your channel name and I’ll give it a look.” Casual. That totally sounded casual. He was Okarun, cool YouTuber. Ken pulled out his grocery list and flipped it to get a channel he would definitely only watch the normal amount. “I haven’t spent much time on ghost stories. I haven’t found one I believe.”
Ayase’s eyes widened and her skin paled. Was this what his face looked like when she first clocked him as Okarun? God, he shouldn’t have asked for her info. Or insulted her interest. “Sorry, I’m kind of an awkward guy.”
She looked horrified now. Damn, he’d really missed the mark. He was sure she wanted to connect when she mentioned that she did YouTube too.
“I gotta go. Ayase’s House of Mysteries. NIce to meet you.”
Ken could hear the clatter of her jade earrings as she shook her head and turned around and said over her shoulder.
“You’ll always be Okarun to me.”
Ken crinkled the paper mid scribble. No one had called him Okarun before. He watched as Ayase left the store without buying anything. How weird.
“Wait, what was that name?”
—
Momo stared at her phone in horror as she looked at her username. MomoMysteryHour. How could she forget it? She wasn’t expecting him to ask and she blanked. No one knew about her channel. She had less than a hundred followers. She was still tossing around names. Her channel was too small to let her change the name.
Laying in bed with a cat plush she tried to squeeze away the embarrassment. Momo ran her finger over the gross corner filled with hot glue. She saw him notice the poorly done fix discolored with her foundation. Oh well, at least he’d never find her and they’d never meet again.
God. How was his name Ken Takakura?
She looked up at her poster of the old movie star and vowed to never watch his channel again.
—-
Momo Ayase stuck to her promise and would not see the video that Okarun ended by talking to the viewer he ran into at the grocery store. Ken thanked her for saying hello and apologized for missing her channel name. He wished her many views and told her to feel free to reach out.
The comment section teased him to no end.