“Are…are you Sato?”
Of course I couldn’t go around asking that! How had I not considered this before I had left? I wasn’t even shy normally, but the thought of approaching the wrong person sealed my mouth. Even the picture of Sato’s avatar in my head began to blur.
I had been sitting on the same bench for nearly an hour now. After the first ten minutes I convinced myself I’d sooner be approached by a cop for loitering than meet the reason I went so far out of my way to find this small, backwater park.
Of course, I had arrived more than an hour early, so the reason for my paranoia most likely wasn’t around anyway. But I had figured better early than sorry, though all I had felt since then was stress.
Maybe she decided to ditch. And because I was too nervous to check my emails on my smart phone I hadn’t seen her notice.
Maybe I was an idiot for waiting around, for ever expecting her to show in the first place. Only a game connected us, and that wasn’t nearly enough to warrant a meeting in real life. This whole fiasco was just a troll; to test how far I’d go for a stranger, how much money I’d waste.
Sato wouldn’t do that.
Regardless, if I left now I could catch the next bus to anywhere but here with only minimal waiting.
Standing up to leave, I had just taken a step forward when a voice behind me froze my step halfway to the ground.
“Hey, are you-”
“Sato!” I exclaimed, forgetting my plans to flee as I spun around, my mind whirling with the motion.
I should never have doubted Sato – of everyone I knew she was the only one who had never let me down, game or not. Except–
“Yeah.”
I should have known by the voice, but my head had been too full of thoughts of in-game Sato to let any problems register immediately. But now they began to filter in. The voice that had spoken was too low and gruff, not even a hint of the feminine charm and undying enthusiasm present that I always imagined Sato with as we chatted back and forth after a raid or event.
Well, that could probably be attributed to the fact that he was male.
Why had my assumptions had to let me so far down?
For a few excruciatingly long seconds we looked each other over, silence pervading the small park. Even the birds were too unnerved to sing.
Although the way he carried himself screamed indifference, his eyes were filled with judgment and…derision? Not that it was my place to speak, since my eyes probably transmitted around the same impression.
Stay away from him; he’s dangerous.
From his shaggy, unkempt black hair that hung over one of his eyes to his skull decal shirt and ripped black jeans, everything about him personified the type of character my parents had always made me promise to avoid when I was young.
Though I tried hard to keep an open mind, I already found myself trying to decide if he was more emo or punk, and if one was even preferable to the other in my situation.
Punk, emo, or none of the above, he wasn’t Sato.
“So…” I began but found myself lacking words to follow my poorly considered attempt at conversation, his dark gray eyes stealing away all the conversations I had imagined having with Sato while on the bus. It couldn’t just be in my head that he was glaring at me, right?
But back to the issue at hand, what could I even say to someone like him? Someone who had so completely failed my expectations; a fact which I was struggling greatly to hide along with my embarrassment for assuming that I knew anything about Sato.
The only coherent thought I could seem to fully form was how could someone so obliviously rough around the edges use so many emoticons?
ns 15.158.61.20da2
