Chapter Text
Wifies didn’t always want to be a YouTuber.
At first, like most kids, he wanted to be a firefighter, heroically saving people from burning buildings and, of course, driving around with a loud siren. One of the first toys he remembered playing with was a bright red firetruck, one that he used to ram into wooden blocks that were meticulously towered by his mother at his demands. She used to take him on walks that always passed by their local fire station, where he could see a real truck in all its glory. It was a fleeting dream, and he immediately abandoned it after a single visit to his aunt’s house.
It was when Wifies spent the whole day running around with her two dogs that he decided that he wanted to be a vet instead. He was maybe nine at the time, and the idea of hanging out with animals all day excited him beyond belief. His parents were supportive, but tried to gently explain to him that there was a lot more to being a veterinarian than just playing with puppies.
Later, he had a brief period of time where he wanted to be an actor after learning that that was a job that people actually had and they didn’t just film movies as they are. But he hit the age where he realized about his large insignificance in the world, and options, all of a sudden, overwhelmed him.
In his junior year of high school, Wifies spent the days listening to his classmates talk about their SAT scores and first-choice college programs. Wifies went home that day and curled up in the comfort of his bed. He scrolled through university websites in a rushed manner, searching for something, anything, that did not make his eyes twitch. He grunted, imagining that he was smart enough for certain engineering programs and computer sciences—but the idea of wasting his life away at some desk job just absolutely terrified him.
Wifies wanted to do something fun. He wanted to solve puzzles, create his own work, bring things to life; he wanted to tell stories that changed people’s lives.
It was his friend’s idea to make a YouTube channel. Wifies didn’t know what to expect, nor did he have high hopes of going viral, but he quickly learned that he enjoyed making content. From the research, to the planning, and finally, bringing the whole thing to life: he loved being able to look back on what he did and know that this was a result of his hard work. Regardless of how the video performed, he took pride in the fact that it was his.
He started posting more during the summer between his junior and senior years. In the beginning, it was a lot of tutorials and informational videos on how certain things in Minecraft worked. After playing with his friend on an SMP, he had the idea for something even more creative.
That was how his first Minecraft ARG came to be. It gained a decent amount of views, but it wasn’t until he made his third one that it garnered a significant amount of traction on the platform. He could only watch, dumfoundedly, as his views soared and thousands of positive comments flooded his inbox.
His new fans made art, wrote fanfiction, created TikTok edits. There were even internet threads on intricate details that he had hidden in his video, people met every single thing he did with awe and wonder.
Wifies’ heart swelled with immeasurable pride, and that feeling showed him that he was finally doing something that had meaning to other people. This, though, was only the beginning, he thought. He knew he could do so much more, do things on a much bigger scale. His stories could be more elaborate, he could put more effort into the details and come up with crazier plot twists.
Anything just to feel that high again, that rush…
But his mood soured when he finally told his parents. He told them he wanted to make YouTube videos for a living. They didn’t understand the whole internet thing. It made them uneasy. The idea that he would rely on this new path for the rest of his life.
He couldn’t forget his mother’s tone that day as she admonished him with, in his mind, misplaced concern.
“Wifies, you’re a smart kid. But, is this really what you want to do?” Her sharp words caused his smile to drop, as if ice-cold water washed over him. “You have potential for so much more. Do you really want to waste your life on this YouTube thing?”
Wasted potential…
Is that what this was?
This thing that felt so right. The joy of creation; the thrill of attention.
How could it be so wrong?
He absentmindedly scrolled through his comment section, his head filled with numb static instead of the usual excitement that he felt. The more he read, the deeper he slipped into the dark, murky water. Days of monotonous actions and skipped meals blurred together, his motivation drained until it left him completely empty.
Eventually, they settled on a compromise: Wifies could continue making and posting YouTube videos, but he would have to work on getting a college degree so that he would have something to fall back on if things fell through.
And that’s how he found himself editing clips together for his new video, in his dorm room, at 11:30pm. Wifies had amassed a good amount of followers, and most of his videos regularly got over a million views. It blew his mind even now. A million people watching his content.
Suddenly, he heard a knock on his door. He slipped his headset off so that it rested around his neck instead. “Come in.”
With his permission, his roommate opened the door. “I made too much rice. You want any?”
Derek Hutchins was a third-year Computer Science major and Wifies’ roommate for the current semester. It was a last minute switch after Derek complained that his previous roommate kept giving him chronic migraines. The two of them got along really well, and he would go as far as to calling Derek his friend. Derek cleaned up after himself and tried to be quiet during the night, which seemed like the bare minimum, but Wifies had a couple of horror stories from his freshman year. Derek also liked cooking and preferred studying in their shared living room instead of his room.
Wifies, apprehensive, considered the offer, knowing he knew he skipped dinner in favor of trying to finish editing his video. “Uh, sure. Thanks, man.”
“No problem.” He disappeared back into the living room.
Wifies stretched, his muscles complaining at him that he had sat in the same position for way too long, and finally followed Derek out of his room.
The living room was also the kitchen and dining room, but at least they had their own bedrooms. They got lucky with the housing lottery, getting an apartment style dorm as opposed to a single shared dorm room with a communal kitchen somewhere on their floor.
The centerpiece of their kitchen was, of course, the air fryer. It was truly one of humanity's greatest inventions and Wifies wondered how he went his whole childhood without owning one.
Wifies chucked a couple of chicken tenders from the depth of their freezer and tapped to button to start it.
Their living room had a massive couch that Derek miraculously found online. They got it from some frat guys who were moving out, and they gave them a pretty good deal on it. Taking it apart and hauling it up to their fifth floor dorm room was a struggle, but having enough space for both of them to lounge around made it worth it.
Wifies settled down next to Derek and peeked at the tab open on his laptop. “What's that for?”
“Oh! We’re covering generic data structures. It's actually pretty fun once you get the hang of it.”
Wifies chewed his bottom lip as he processed the information. The more content he saw from Derek’s classes, the more confident he was in his decision in not committing to a Computer Science major.
After much consideration and his parents’ displeasure, Wifies ended up majoring in Psychology. It was between that, Digital Media Production or Computer Science. He decided on psychology instead to get a better understanding of the inner workings of people. He figured that the human psyche was his pathway to making better content, and he also slotted a few creative writing courses into his free elective spaces.
He was fascinated by the fact that every human being was so uniquely different, and there was always something new to learn. From values that were instilled in them because of how they were raised, to the way that biology wired their brains. He loved learning about how fear and love drove people’s decision making. Wifies needed to know what drove people to their extremes.
Yet, the more he learned, the more he realized how little he had scratched the surface of his storytelling potential.
“Looks complicated.” Was the answer he settled on, and Derek let out a chuckle.
“How is the new video coming along?”
“I'm almost done editing it, it's just missing a couple of sound effects here and there.”
“I'm sure it’ll be great.” He said, pulling his laptop back onto his lap. “Any plans to do something special for one-million subscribers?”
Wifies was still amazed at getting a million views, so it was hard to imagine having one-million subscribers. Sure, it was every YouTuber's dream to hit the numbers that he did, but the odds of it were still low, and he still couldn't believe it happened to him of all people.
“Not sure. Uh, maybe get myself a cake?”
Derek gave him a disapproving look from behind his glasses. “Come on, Wifies. It’s one MILLION subs. You gotta think bigger than that.”
Besides just getting along, Derek started to influence Wifies’ outlook on life. They were both very analytical people, but Derek made sure to show appreciation and celebrate even the little things. Wifies found it a bit odd at first. Growing up, his success was an expectation rather than an achievement. His parents have not said anything about his YouTube channel since their original disapproval. They still didn’t understand how it worked, and it was a sore topic of conversation between them anyway whenever he did try to bring it up.
On the other hand, Derek thought Wifies was the coolest person ever when he told him he made YouTube videos as a job. He binged a lot of Wifies’ content when they first moved in and texted him what he liked about every one of them. When one of his videos hit ten million views for the first time, Derek took him out to a decent hot pot place to celebrate. Even though Wifies had a lot of fans on the internet, having someone close to him be so invested in what he did really warmed his heart.
“What would you do if you hit one million subs?”
“Alcohol.”
Derek’s reply came so fast that Wifies couldn’t stifle his laugh.
“What? You’d throw a house party?”
“Maybe, or go to a bar. It’d be fun, I promise!”
The air fryer took that moment to signal that his chicken tenders were done, so he went to grab himself a paper plate and loaded it with the lukewarm rice and his tenders.
“Thanks again for the food,” Wifies shifted, “Um, I hope that assignment isn’t due tonight.”
Derek rubbed his eyes. “It's due Wednesday. I just need to make sure I got it all before office hours. My professor only has office hours on Mondays, isn’t that crazy? The TA for this class is also pretty buns.”
Wifies had never been to a single office hour in his life, but it did sound miserable. “Can't you ask a classmate?”
“Nah, they are usually as lost as I am,” he said. “Fuck, you just reminded me I have something else due tonight though. Thanks!”
Wifies nodded, “Good night and good luck, Derek.”
“Night!”
Wifies didn't know what compelled him between his hunger and his drive to finish this YouTube video, but after what Derek told him, he opened up his Assignments tab instead, just in case.
Sure enough, there was a discussion board due at 11:59pm, which—Wifies glanced at the bottom of his screen—was three minutes from now.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Good news was that Wifies had actually already submitted his response to the discussion board for this week. His professor opened it up immediately after their class ended on Friday, and he quickly typed up a paragraph while everyone was packing their stuff up and leaving. Bad news was that he had to reply to two other responses, which he couldn't do originally because being first meant that no one else had posted a response yet.
He scrolled down the list of responses, looking for a post with little to no interaction.
A post by a guy named Hummer L. caught his attention:
“This week I decided to read “Unrequited Love: On Heartbreak, Anger, Guilt, Scriptlessness and Humiliation.” The most fascinating part was its claim that the would-be lover (the person with an unrequited love for another) not only had to experience the humiliation and frustration of desire from the romantic rejection, but also guilt about burdening their object of affection with their feelings. The study offered a lot of other relevant emotions, but humiliation and guilt were the two broad categories that they fell into.”
Wifies had to reread the paragraph twice before he realized what was bothering him about this response.
To put it simply, it was incorrect.
Typically, they only had to choose and do one of many optional readings, and write about an interesting detail they found that wasn’t directly related to the outcome of the study for the discussion board. Wifies usually read them all throughout the week to see if there was a concept that he could reference in his content. In this particular study, they actually reasoned that while yes, the would-be lover does experience humiliation, the guilt falls on the one rejecting the love, rather than the one offering it. Moreover, most unrequited lovers did not result in regret.
Feeling crazy, he checked the few responses to the post.
The first one was a simple: “Nice post, Hummer!”
Wifies snickered. He thought, surely this wouldn’t get any points for its lackluster nature.
The other read: “Wow, Hummer! This truly is a testament to how much effort you put into your analysis of the reading this week. I thought your paragraph was clear, concise, and followed the guidelines exactly. Good job!”
Wifies sighed, exasperated. Was that an AI response? Why are people still using AI to respond to discussion boards? All they had to do was talk about their favorite part of the response. Was writing two sentences that difficult?
Although, he did admit that Hummer’s post was well written and included details that one would not know without actually reading further into the study. But that means Hummer either completely misunderstood the last bit of the study or he was lying about it on purpose. Surely his college classmates would have better reading comprehension than that, though. And why would he lie?
He didn’t have the time nor interest in correcting the post, so he scrolled past it to find someone else's post to respond to instead. After writing his two responses, he closed out of the tab and returned to his video editing software, ignoring the fact that it was a couple of minutes past the due date.
Later that night, Wifies could not get Hummer’s false post out of his head. He tried to come up with a reason he would lie while sleep pulled him under.
Hummer wondered if there was at least one other person in his class who felt like their nerves were on fire waiting for the class to start.
This was a common occurrence for Hummer, this unease he felt, and the wonder if others felt the same way.
He got to class just as the previous one was leaving and took his seat in the second row, where he had sat since the very beginning of the semester. He learned from previous experience that he should wait a minute or two before entering each class whilst the professor was either still teaching or answering questions—as to not receive any odd looks from the students (or professors) while he pushed past the line of people exiting.
Hummer would then spend the next thirty minutes fiddling with anything he could before the start of class.
He pretended to scroll through his notes for this class, and then some others. The repeated content didn’t hold his attention for long, though, and he turned his attention to the blackboard instead. Despite the eraser smudges, he could make out a couple of integrals that he may have been able to solve at one point, but he knocked out his math credits early and then pretty much forgot everything. When deciphering the math bored him too, he chewed on his hoodie string and counted the tiles underneath his feet.
Hummer could recognize at least the few couple of students that were also early to class. It was at the five minute mark when a sea of students started flooding in, and he lost track. No one really talked to him, or each other for that matter. The class was full of people who just took the class for easy credit. It wasn’t for a particular major or anything like that. The only conversations had were by the rare few who were friends outside of class or people who missed class asking for notes.
He then made the mistake of making direct eye contact when a girl his age walked towards him. She gave him a small wave, but Hummer remained frozen in his seat.
The moment was broken when she moved past him to take her seat.
She wasn’t waving at him, was she? Afterall, he knew that she sat behind him, and occasionally heard her talk to someone else. She must have been waving at them, and not Hummer, who couldn’t even remember her name.
Hummer’s thoughts ran rampant; he didn’t see anyone else walk past just yet. Could it have been possible that she was actually waving at him? If so, Hummer just ignored her! His mother would have his head if she ever found out he ignored a lady like that.
His regret ate at him until the sound of the door opening shook him from his thoughts, with the professor’s distinctive heels clacking down the aisle. She sat down her papers and bag beside the front desk, then promptly began the lecture.
The class went as predicted. She introduced the next unit, then went on some tangent about the new assigned readings. Hummer fiddled with the now wet strings of his hoodie, fighting the urge to chew on them again. The professor asked a couple of questions—which were met with long silences from the class until she reluctantly revealed the answer and moved on.
Hummer let her words wash over him as he absentmindedly jotted down a few key ideas here and there, but perked up as soon as she started talking about the midterm project.
They had to replicate any social psychology study that pertained to the course. Obviously, they were expected to produce results at a smaller, more attainable scale, and reassured them that the assignment was supposed to be low-stakes. As long as they did their best and discussed their limitations in their essay, minor mistakes in accuracy wouldn’t be punished too harshly.
It seemed fun. Although Hummer’s skin crawled at the thought of having to find a partner in a class he didn’t know anyone. He briefly entertained turning to the girl behind him, but remembered his earlier transgression and sunk deeper into his chair. His single lifeline, and he blew it.
Shit.
“If you can't find a partner, please meet me at the end of class. I can randomly assign you a partner. You guys can use this time to talk to your partner and brainstorm ideas for your desired study and papers.”
The previously quiet classroom erupted into the sound of conversation and chairs scraping against the floorboards as people moved around. Hummer reviewed the project outline on the board, then stared at his professor. She was already too engrossed in something on her laptop to pay attention to what was happening.
Hummer let out a sigh. There was no chance that he would get up and talk to her in front of everyone. So, he decided to wait until the end of class to hopefully find someone as unlucky as him to take on as a partner. He double tapped his phone screen to reveal that there were a whole twenty minutes left of class and warily eyed the door. Better find something to do in the meantime, he thought.
Out of the corner of his eye, it seemed as if someone was approaching him. He knew they weren’t coming to ask him to pair up. Like the girl from earlier, he would move past him to talk to someone who sat in the back of class instead. Yet, Hummer made a mistake for the second time that day—he looked up.
He recognized the guy, he remembered the faces of most people that regularly attended class but couldn’t put a name to any of them. Hummer let his gaze linger on his features: his dark hair hiding a purple headband under it, sharp cheekbones and determined eyes looking straight at him.
Wait, looking at him?
Hummer’s body tensed as he waited for him to walk past and find what he was looking for in one of the rows behind him.
To his surprise, the boy didn't break eye contact, he didn't even smile as he took a seat right in front of him. “Hummer, right?”
Hummer swallowed. “Yeah, that's me.” The words sounded foreign in his mouth, and he was suddenly very self-conscious of his accent.
“My name’s Wifies.” He introduced himself, speaking into the floor as he dug through his backpack, which he put down beside him. Wifies sat back up, setting the laptop onto the small desk of the lecture hall. “Do you have a partner for the midterm project yet?”
“Uh, no. No, not yet,” Hummer responded, eyes glancing between Wifies’ hands flying over his keyboard and his own reflection behind the darkened screen. “Did you- Did you want to, I mean, do you have a partner?”
The shame that began to consume Hummer from earlier this class grew tenfold under his complete and utter fumble. It was a stupid question, and the other probably thought Hummer was an idiot and wouldn’t want to work with him anymore. How could he mess up the second opportunity he was granted today?
“No,” Wifies abruptly stopped typing and turned to him. “Why did you lie on your discussion board post?”
The seriousness of the sudden accusation took Hummer aback. “I’m sorry?”
“Your discussion board post from last week. It was incorrect.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He sputtered defensively. “Maybe I just misunderstood the reading, that’s all.”
"And I refuse to believe that. You clearly read the reading, otherwise, you wouldn't have gone into that much detail about the results. It was barely mentioned in the abstract and roughly touched upon in the discussion." Wifies pushed. "You must've lied on it, and I want to know why."
Hummer was helpless under the weight of Wifies' gaze. His voice was filled with so much conviction that he lied, and he found himself giving in. So he gave him the simple truth: "I guess I just wanted to see if anyone cared.." His eyes furrowed—the admission shook him, but it felt freeing to finally get that tiny fib off his chest. "I mean, I'm sure you can see it: how many people actually care about this class?" His voice wavered, but he continued, "They're just here for easy credit, no one here wants to learn, so I wanted to see if there was someone who would even care enough to correct me."
‘You’re the first one to care enough to ask’ went unsaid, and Hummer watched Wifies closely as he considered his words.
“Not even our professor?” He asked eventually.
Hummer smiled. “Not even her.”
Wifies laughed, and Hummer felt a flush of embarrassment crawl up his neck.
“So, which study were you considering doing for the project?”
“Wait, actually? I mean, I didn’t start thinking about it yet.” Hummer didn’t want to admit that he was too worried about not having a partner to even start thinking of a psychology study to replicate on a smaller, more amateur scale. “Did you have a preference?”
“The Milgram Experiment,” he answered without hesitation.
Hummer stared at Wifies. He settled with clearing his throat and thought back to his professor's words, "Okay, well... let's think about ethics for a moment."
“I’m just messing with you. Class ends in ten. We can find something until then.”
They both turned to their own devices to skim through studies they would like to do. Hummer scrolled through some examples from past readings absentmindedly. Every once in a while his eyes flickered over to Wifies, whose body was still angled towards him despite being engrossed in a study on his own laptop.
He couldn’t believe he found a project partner this easily, especially one that took the effort to seek him out. Hummer was posting fake discussion boards with the hope of this happening, but with each passing day he lost faith. When Wifies mercilessly accused him of lying, that quiet part of him that did hang on to some delusional belief grew and blossomed into a new emotion he couldn't quite place.
“How about this one?” Hummer asked, turning his laptop around so Wifies could see the screen more easily.
“The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness… isn't this the study to make people fall in love?” He asked, staring straight into Hummer's soul.
“That's actually not true.” He protested, anxiety spiking. “It's called the study to make people fall in love but it actually just—”
“Creates a baseline for closeness by revealing vulnerable information. I'm aware.” Wifies answered and the tension in Hummer eased. “I was just messing with you.”
“It's not any of the studies we have covered in class, but it's an interesting one.” He continued. “The study was done with cross-sex and same-sex subjects, but they were mostly pairs of women. We could try to do it with mostly male pairings to add some variety to it.”
“I could get behind that. Assuming we find enough people to be our participants.”
Their class was predominantly women, but the university had a system set up to help psychology students doing research get willing participants more easily. Hummer could build up courage to ask a few guys in his Marine Biology classes to partake as well.
There was a separate reason why Hummer was interested in the study. Yes, the concept was fascinating to see if you can invoke a volatile emotion such as love with a couple of questions, but Hummer was looking beyond the initial closeness. If two people laid their souls bare in front of each other, they both got to know the other in their rawest, ugliest states. A mutual bond would be formed between the two. Call it his twisted curiosity.
“Sounds good.” He nodded. Ask for his number. Ask for his number.
Before he could muster his courage and reason that it wouldn’t be weird to ask for his number because they are literally group mates for a project that was thirty percent of their grade, Wifies held his phone out to him.
Hummer took it, biting back a comment about the parrot feather charm dangling against his palm. It seemed out of character for the guy with the grey hoodie to own something so colorful, but he didn’t feel like it was his place to ask.
He double checked the accuracy of his own phone number and handed the device back. “I’m usually free whenever, my sleep schedule is pretty messed up.”
“Don’t worry, me too.” Wifies pocketed the phone just as the teacher announced the end of class. “See you Wednesday?”
For the first time today, Hummer found himself smiling. “Yeah, see you then.”