My Virtual Lover

Live 13: The Crab's Interest

‘Her power is outstanding’ was the first thing he thought of when he sees her walk from the drama she’s accidentally involved in. Kevin merely snickers at the two men who were left by his friend. He doesn’t want to get involved in any drama, hence he merely snickers at the dejected users who were left by Tempesta all alone.

“You will regret this! How could a woman be so foul-mouthed like you are!? I will tell my followers about your harassment!” Davis hollers at the ignorant girl.

“Go ahead and complain princess” she smirks at Davis. “Your heart is too weak for my words of advice huh? You call yourself a man!? Hahaha”.

She laughs evilly, her horrendous laughter fills the city square in excitement as they look at the drama in curiosity. Embarrassed of being ridiculed by Tempesta, Davis backs away from the crowd; leaving the city square with his online girlfriend who treads lightly behind him. 

Kevin catches up to Tempesta with a huge grin, he asks her if she just challenged the popular celebrity in a battle. 

“I didn’t challenge him whatsoever” Tempesta replies while rolling her eyes. “I mean sheesh, I’m just scolding both of them for being childish”.

“But his followers will hear about this you know” Kevin shrugs. “You’re messing with a 2k followers Holorealm celebrity”.

She doesn’t seem to care, she shrugs it off even if she knew that the man has more followers than hers who only have around a thousand followers. Tempesta doesn’t seem to mind if she’s being hated or ridiculed, she admits that her words might be insulting and blunt. However, she just needs to justify their childishness and correct them if she could. 

Her brashness and hot-tempered attitude cause a huge stir for a while in Holorealm, Tempesta’s sharp tongue continues to amaze him. A part of his heart is amused with her honesty, he was after all told as a brash and straightforward man as well. Kevin is interested in him as she puffs her cheek.

“Let’s go to your house” Tempesta tugs on Kevin’s starry blue hoodie. “Come on, let’s just talk about games!”.

Kevin almost bursts into laughter, seeing her ignoring the previous incident as if it was nothing. He was a bit baffled but amused at her ignorance at the same time.

“Alright, as you wish” he grimaces. “Let’s go to my house, it’s in the city square”.

He pointed at the end of the city square section which is his house, various anime posters are plastered in his room. The exterior is minimalist and clean, Kevin doesn’t like lousy decoration on the exterior walls of his house. When he first plastered anime posters outside by accident, he was called out as a weeb.

Kevin lets the girl in inside his house, the girl is full of vigor and lively for his APEX tales. It is as if she’s idolizing him, but his feelings could be wrong. After all, Kevin is just a Gundam nerd and a gamer. He is beyond saving at that point, he was also not that interested in romance in real life.

Kevin watches the screen of his cell phone, captivated by the girl’s enthusiasm for his hobby. He explains that he’s quite versatile when it comes to a role in FPS games, he particularly likes a character who is aggressive and quick. He can solo kill a squad, but he’s quite bad at team play. The two individuals sit on the sofa, her eyes sparkle in excitement as she listens to him.

“Oh wow! I wonder if Kano is also that experienced!” she gawks at Kevin. “I want to hear more of your story!”. 

Kevin starts to think that she’s idolizing him merely because he can play APEX as his idol did. However, he likes the attention he got from the girl for doing that. He asks if she’s interested in playing with her. Tempesta doesn’t seem to be keen on that though, it is as if she avoids that question for a while.

“Um, I’m not that particularly good in FPS games” she laughs awkwardly. “I’m fine with watching you play Kani”.

“No, no I insist!” Kani encourages her to try as he grabs her shoulder. “I teach you how to do it! I promise!”.

She seems hesitant, but since he offers then it shouldn’t be a problem. Tempesta nods slightly, deciding to learn an FPS game for the first time with Kani. She looks fierce and courageous, but strangely enough, she becomes reserved and shy in front of him. Kevin wants to hear her evil laughter and sees her arrogant smirk.

He wants her to be herself instead of being reserved and shy, the man is not satisfied with her attitude. Kevin unintentionally lets out a smirk, a nasty smirk that he will probably forget for a lifetime. His greedy self wants her attention only for him, they exchanged numbers and social media usernames.

“Alright, let’s start playing on weekends then! Don’t run away okay?” he grins at her. “How about Saturday?”.

“Sure, I can play on Saturday” she smiles angelically at Kevin. “Discord?”.

He nods then the two leave Holoream because Kevin is preoccupied with his homework, while Tempesta is busy with her freelance job. They said their goodbye before logging out from their Holorealm account. Kevin was a bit saddened when he sees logs out from the application, but he needs to focus on his task.

“I need to do my task” he sighs heavily as he leans on his plastic chair. “My interior design homework needs to be submitted before the day after tomorrow, and my sketch is still beyond me”.

The piece of drawing paper is in front of him, Kevin is frustrated since he had no idea what to design. As an Interior Design student, he needs to think of a way to decorate the interior of the room with interesting ornaments and elements. It was a difficult task, especially doing it online with the lecturer constantly yelling at the students.

It can’t be helped that the pandemic makes their learning become slower, online learning isn’t suitable for their future needs. Kevin is a genius, but even he needs more comprehension when he learns something new outside of his high school subjects. Online studying made him quite dumb lately, he had to study with the help of a friend.

“Geez, I need to scribble something” he uses the long plastic ruler to measure the height and width correctly. “I should design a cafe-themed interior, the lecturer didn’t say anything about what interior should I do though”.

“KEVIN! YOUR FOOD IS HERE!” he was surprised by the yell from his uncle downstairs. 

The young man exits his bedroom, he sees his uncle is playing with his daughter while carrying a plastic of brown-wrapped rice. He ordered prawn rice, it’s a simple dish he ordered from an application. A courier sent it for him, it was a delicious dish for him even if it doesn’t appear to be extravagant food.

He opens the wrapped food, digesting the rice along with the prawn. His head is hot due to all the thinking and frustration that piling up in his mind. He’s afraid he won’t be able to meet the deadline now that he remembers that they are required to gather fifty pages of interior design thumbnails.

“How’s ur college doing?” his uncle asks curiously to Kevin.

“It’s been going great” he grapes a spoonful of rice with a plastic spoon he was given to by his dear nephew. “The task was quite a handful one but overall I’ve been doing great”.

Kevin munches the spoonful of rice as he smiles awkwardly at his uncle, he was feeling awkward now that he’s living in his uncle’s house. His house is located at the edge of the Bandung, rather in a suburban area that no one rarely visits. Since it’s pretty far, his mother decides that he should live with his uncle who lives in the heart of Bandung.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t go as well as they expected because of the invasion of COVID-19 to Indonesia. It was an unfortunate outcome that cause him to be stranded awkwardly at his uncle’s house, doing an online class that he could do at home instead of at his uncle’s house. Nevertheless, he gets to meet a new friend online while he’s bored at his uncle’s place.

“Tempesta, I wonder what kind of person she is,” he thought silently in his mind. “She shared her work account, but she didn’t show her real social media account”.

He eats his food in deep thought whilst thinking about the interesting girl with the username Tempesta. She sounds older than him, but she can be childish and more temperamental than he does. Kevin can’t wait for the time he can play with Tempesta, he expects to see more of her different sides that she doesn’t show to anyone but him. 

“Well, I guess I should hurry up and finish my task” he nods as he thinks for himself.