This is my Valentine's Day present! This is a one-shot dedicated to my crush, and laced with stories about me in real life and in-game. Not all of the things mentioned are entirely true, though they are close to the truth (i.e. names Laurel and Kent, home of Michigan, age of 15 (fun fact, I used Ludington, Michigan as my fake home because my grandma has a cottage there and we visit every summer, so I know the area)). I never played Minecraft with him (I don't even have a regular MC account, only Xbox and PE. And for the record, I don't know much about Mineplex either, only from YouTube), he told me his account name once, but I can't remember it. Rikimaru is his account name on the website we talk on, and LaurelPrincess is, obviously, my name here. But honestly, the story about what happened with him is 100% true (as are how we look). I don't claim to know how he feels about me, or even how he'd react to things anymore (meaning, this situation would never happen, I have no idea what he'd do if we really were in this scenario), I just felt like writing this for him, though I doubt he'll ever read it. He read part of Hardly Human, a long while ago, and I don't think he'd look around at my other stories. If he does, well, K… I guess you finally know how I feel about you…
Happy Valentines Day!
Love, L.
(Italics is chat stuff)
(Bold is beginning and end ANs, as always)
(Please read beginning AN)
My name is Laurel. I'm a fifteen-year-old girl from Ludington, Michigan. I have straight (medium-dark) brown hair that comes down a few inches below my shoulders, and my eyes are hazel (mostly green with an inner ring of brown, though it changes due to light sometimes).
I love to play Minecraft, and a lot of other video games. Today, I was playing on a server, Mineplex.
It was only my third time playing on a server, I'm more of a survival, collect everything, sort of player. My older brother sometimes teased me for making lots of potions and collecting lots of ore, even though those were my favorite things to do: mine and make potions and enchant.
I wasn't one for pvp, and could barely do any but simple parkour, but I did like to hop on the server every once in a while and goof around on the mini-games.
But today, I was hanging around in the lobby, waiting for a Dragon Escape lobby to open up, since there apparently was some YouTuber playing it and making a Lot of people flood the game, when I spotted a familiar username.
Rikimaru has joined Mineplex
My breath caught in my throat, wasn't that… the username my old friend had told me…?
Quickly, before he joined another lobby or game, I messaged him.
/msg Rikimaru Hey K, it's me.
Almost instantly, he sent me a message back.
Laurel? I forgot you had an account, how you doing?
I'm good, Kent. You still have Skype, right?
Yea, Rikimaru, just like always.
Okay, mine's LaurelP.
Hang on a sec.
It took a moment to switch to Skype and call him.
When he picked up, I caught my breath. He hadn't changed at all. Short, dark blonde hair and friendly gray eyes exactly like they were the day he left, and he was still super skinny (he's naturally thin and bony). As always, he had a wide grin on his face. We hadn't seen each other's faces since that day...
I first met Kent in the beginning of my eighth grade year of school, when he moved to Michigan from Wyoming (the Wyoming part is true. He moved back to my home state, where he was born and raised, from Wyoming, where he lived for a few years). He and I became very good friends after we found out how many interests we shared, including the Warriors series and video games like Minecraft and Pokémon.
But my dear friend moved after the end of the semester, a mere four and a half months since we'd met. He moved to Wisconsin, and I hadn't seen him since, though we did often talk through a pm system on a website he frequented.
I probably didn't look too different either, even though it had been over a year since we last saw each other. The only difference really was that I had cut and donated my hair, to Locks of Love, and got caramel-colored highlights (true).
"Hi, Kent" I greeted him.
"Hey, Laurel" He responded
No matter how much we tried to hide it, I would admit I was feeling very awkward, and I was sure he was too. What do you saw when the only correspondence you've had with someone for the past year was though messaging? Not even remotely personal?
And I would easily admit we've had our fallouts because of that. I never used the website except to talk to him, but there were many days when he would go on the website to check on things and update, but would ignore my messages. He said he would stop doing that, and had been better at answering, but sometimes it still happened, like recently he hadn't answered my messages for a week.
My best friend in school, who had met Kent when he was here, had said she thought he had a crush on me, because of 'The way he looked at you' Thanks a lot for the vagueness, Skyler! (Once again, close, but not her real name. This is what she likes to be called. I'm sending her the link to this. She better read it!) Honestly, Skylar was the only one I'd ever told that I had a crush on Kent...
"So, you wanna play some Hunger Games?" Kent asked.
"Sure" I immediately responded, despite the sinking feeling in my gut. Oh god, pvp…
"Great! SG 6, okay?" He said.
I moved the Skype window to the background and jumped back into Minecraft, moving away from Dragon Escape and going over to the Survival Games lobbies, clicking on SG 6.
Choosing the beastmaster kit, I took a moment to observe Kent's skin, since he had gone silent for a long moment. It was a classic assassin-warrior type skin, with red-black clothes/armor. Sometimes it's hard to tell what a skin is supposed to be without actually talking about it with the person.
My skin was simply called 'Flower Girl' (my actual skin in Xbox version) A girl with long, light brown hair with blue, pink, and yellow flowers entwined in it, and green eyes. She wore a blue dress with a brown vest, a brown headband, and slipper-style shoes. I liked it. Sure, my brother called it a hippie skin, but then again, he was a boy, and his character was some kind of robot-templar-knight thing.
"We are teaming, right?" I asked nervously as the lobby was filled and the countdown started.
"Why wouldn't we?" Kent frowned though Skype, "Teams are allowed, and it's been so long since we saw each other. Besides, we need to catch up"
"I thought that's what we were using the messaging for" I said, bitterly, "I, at least, told you pretty much everything that's been going on around here in Ludington since you left. All you've told me was what you got for Christmas!"
And it was surfacing again, my mostly dormant anger at him. I had poured out everything to him, and he barely said anything.
I shook my head as we were teleported to the pedestal, "Never mind. You apologized and said you felt guilty, that's the end of that. Let's just focus on the game"
I dashed away from spawn, though I spotted Rikimaru going towards the chests in the center. I grabbed a few chests on the way, but got only armor and food, no weapons. My wolf followed me around, having no more use than getting in the way and giving away my position, since I wasn't fighting anyone.
"Kent, where are you?" I asked, looking around, partially amazed I hadn't been killed yet, "I don't have a sword!"
"I'm killing someone! Hang on a moment!" He was very loud.
"Use your wizard powers! Kill him" I encouraged Kent, using a bit of an inside joke (explained in part 2, Messages).
"You still remember that? Okay, I got him. Where are you?" He said, laughing.
"You're a wizard, Kenny!" I joked, "Umm… I'm next to some kind of farm?" The Frost was still pretty far off, and people were dropping like flies.
"Hang on a moment, I've got a player tracker and you're the closest person, I'm coming"
A moment later, I saw Kent's avatar coming towards me. Where I had a mix of gold, chain, and leather, Kent had mostly chain and gold, with an iron hat. He gave me a wood sword, while he was using a stone axe. However, he did need some food, which I was quick to supply him with. I was careful not to hit him, and warned him not to hi me because of my wolf. He was using the warrior kit.
"There you go! Now let's get hunting!" Kent said eagerly, his face lighting up on Skype.
"Okay" I muttered.
I followed him, and it was only a short while before we ran into someone.
I called it out, "Kent, there's someone with a stone sword and decent armor over there by that big tree!"
"Thanks, let's go in!" He replied, switching back to his axe, "We can take him! We have better armor, and there's two of us"
"Got it!" I called back, my nervousness dissipating now that I was armed. My brother had taught me some things about pvp, in our multiplayer world, so I wasn't exactly hopeless when it came to fighting.
(Note: Fighting scenes are so much easier to write when it's not in a game, when it's actually characters fighting. No defined rules of movement like there are in MC. I've written two actual fight scenes that take place in MC, not from the pov of people playing MC (one was the squid fight scene in Hardly Human and the other was a partial Survival Games story I wrote) and those were a lot easier)
We charged towards him, brandishing our weapons. He obviously saw us, and thought he could take us.
I slashed him a few times, and Kent got some good chops with his axe. I sent in my wolf and then took a few hits, the other player focusing on me, but it only got me down to half health, where I backed up and let Kent take the kill.
"Good job, how's your health looking?" He asked, tossing me some more armor.
"Regening" I said plainly, "Got down to half. You?"
"Only took out a couple of hearts. By the way, got any mushroom stews?"
"I have one, but it's all mine! Mwahahahah!" I cackled.
"You're weird, but then again, aren't we all?"
"What do you mean? No, only us few chosen ones are allowed to be weird!"
"You all good now?" Kent asked.
"Yeah, I think I got that maniacal laughter out of my system"
"I meant your health"
"Yeah, my health's good too"
(This sounds scarily like a conversation I would normally have with any one of my friends)
We moved out again, keeping an eye on the Frost as we looted chests and killed people. After a while, I noticed something going on in the chat.
(completely random made-up generic usernames)
KillerPanda66: Hey, is Rikimaru in this game?
Ponylov3r: Rikimaru? Wanna team?
Then I noticed Kent was replying, whenever I stopped to check a chest and he had a moment, he would type a message.
Rikimaru: Sorry, guys. I don't team with random people.
Ponylov3r: Why not? :(
Rikimaru: Teaming with someone already, old friend of mine.
With a secret little smile, I added.
LaurelPrincess: Yeah, he's MY friend. Dunno why you wanna team with him, but Riki's my teammate! Wizard and Sorceress forever!
"What does that mean, Laurel?" Kent asked, "Wizard and Sorceress?"
I grinned, "Well, we've already established that you're a wizard. You know how I make up stories all the time and write them down, right?"
"Yeah, and?"
"In a dream I once had, I was a sorceress, the daughter of an extremely powerful mage. My magic was specialized to life, which controlled all the elemental powers. So I like to call myself Laurel, the sorceress princess" I said.
(That was an actual dream I had. In my stories involving her, Laurel in the name of my sorceress character who specializes in life magic, and who is also secretly (or she doesn't know that she is, depends on the version of the story) the lost princess of a fallen magical kingdom. I know, I have weird dreams. Might be based slightly off of my name (which I had before the dream))
"Interesting" Kent said, obviously not knowing what else he could say.
"Frost's coming in. Time to move" I said bluntly, noticing the snow and ice had crept closer since we had stopped to talk.
"Right, there's a supply drop coming in, and six tributes left. Let's go" He pulled out his compass and started sprinting towards the supply drop beacon, me following close behind.
By now, we had chain armor and some iron. We both had stone swords, and I had the supplies to craft an iron sword, as well as plenty of arrows.
"Hey, Kent, you got a bow for me?" Out of all the things I'd gotten so far, a bow wasn't one of them.
"I've got only one, but barely any arrows"
"Can I have them? I've got stuff for arrows, and I'm admittedly better at shooting than close up pvp"
It was true, I'd spent a lot of time in singleplayer honing my archery skills on mobs and target ranges. (so totally not true of me, the most pvp I've done was in a multiplayer world with my brother and sister, and we were just punching each other to death for some reason. That and the one time where my brother nearly killed me because he thought I'd taken some of his stuff when it was really my sister who had (not the first time that's happened), and I ended up killing him because I had a better sword and better armor on)
"Okay then, but I get the iron sword!"
"Fair"
He handed over the weapon and ammunition, which I immediately set in slots in my hotbar, which was set up like this: Stone sword, bow, steak, mushroom stew, pumpkin pie, bread, raw beef, arrows, cooked pork. A lot like I set it up in survival, with the sword, bow, and food in the ninth slot, but naturally, survival meant I had tools set up in the other slots.
We found our way to the beacon, where we killed someone less geared than us. One person was left until the deathmatch.
When the crate landed, I opened it while Kent kept watch, "Awesome! Diamond sword and iron chestplate!"
I put on the chestplate, maxing out my armor, and we headed to spawn. I gave Kent the diamond sword and crafted the iron sword and arrows for myself.
By then, someone must have died, because the deathmatch counter was ticking down.
"Ready?" I asked, making sure my hunger was full before we teleported.
"Ready" My friend affirmed, that huge grin still plastered on his face.
We were teleported, and the deathmatch began.
I drew back my bow and aimed at the particle effects where a player was standing and waited. Once the counter ticked down to zero, I first checked to make sure I wasn't aiming at Rikimaru, then let the arrow fly. I hit my target, Ponylov3r from earlier, and kept firing arrow after arrow at him/her. I wasn't in range to send my wolf after them, however.
I kept half an eye on Kent and the other player, who were fighting. Ponylov3r was chasing after me, and I had to run before they hit me.
I heard the canon as Kent killed the other player, and had to keep running.
"For Narnia!" My friend yelled as I passed him, charging towards Ponylov3r.
Since he was distracting my attacker, I turned and charged up my bow, waiting for a moment of opportunity. It didn't take long. Kent sprinted away from Ponylov3r after doing some good damage, though I had no idea how many hearts either of them had.
I fired two arrows in succession while Ponylov3r tried to run away, and ended their game decisively.
"Good run. How many kills you got, Laurel?" Kent asked, coming up to me placidly.
"Four, I broke my old killstreak of two" I replied.
"That's good. I got six, and my top killstreak is ten. Not too bad, eh?"
I couldn't help it, I smiled, "Not too bad. How you wanna end it?"
He thought for a moment, then stated, "I will sacrifice myself so that my lady will win"
It took me a moment to register what he'd said, "Wait, what?"
Without a word, Rikimaru turned and ran, right into the Frost at the edges of the arena.
"Kent!" I exclaimed, more than a little confused as the notification popped up on my screen.
LaurelPrincess won the game!
"Why would you do that, Kent?" I asked, annoyed. I was teleported back to the lobby.
"For you, of course. Silly little Laurel!"
"I am not little! I'm a few weeks younger and a few inches shorter! That's all!"
"Well, anyways, hope you enjoyed that Survival Games with surprise guest, my old friend Laurel! Don't forget to like and comment! She doesn't have a YouTube, but she writes stories. I'll link her profile in the description, so go show her some love!"
I recognized what he was doing after a moment of confusing, "Wait, Kent, are you doing an outro?"
"Thanks for watching, guys! See you in the next life!"
There was a long pause, where he was probably shutting off his recording software, then he said, "So yeah, I'm a YouTuber (he's not in real life. I just wanted to accuntuate how little I actually know about him ever since he moved away). My channel isn't too big, I only have about 10K subs"
"Ten thousand is still a lot" I commented dryly, "The most amount of views I have on one of my stories is barely five thousand (Hardly Human)"
"Yeah, it really is. That's a lot more people than I know in real life"
"Now tell me, what was the real reason you suicided so I would win?"
He sighed, "Fine. I get the feeling that was the first game you'd gotten this far, and I didn't want to risk killing you"
I almost wanted to punch him, I was so annoyed, "Kent! It's me, it's not like I would break down crying because I only got second place! Sure, I don't play SG much, but I would have been perfectly happy to get second, it's the best I've ever gotten!"
"Also…"
"What?"
"I didn't want to risk that you'd be upset. It's the first time I've seen you in over a year, and… I've let you down so many times, Laurel…" My friend's voice trailed off.
My voice caught in my throat, whatever anger had been forming dissipated, "We've talked about this, Kent. It's fine. I do get a bit annoyed at you, but you've never really let me down"
"Yes, I have" He insisted, "You tried so many times to meet up with me, and I did nothing! I never made an offer, I never tried to go, I never even told my family about your offers!"
While I was looking for something to say, I heard another voice from my friend's side of the call, "Kent, why are you yelling…? Oh"
Switching to Skype, I saw Kent's younger brother, Jack, standing behind him. I'd only met Jack once, and only in passing.
I greeted him, but the younger boy was staring at my face, since apparently my friend had switched his screen back to Skype too.
Without a word to me, Jack turned to his brother and deliberately said, "So Kent, is this that girl from Michigan who you like?"
I felt warmth flood my face, and Kent immediately stood up and shoved his brother towards the door, yelling, "Get out, and stay out! Everyone leave me alone for a while!" He slammed the door behind Jack.
As he returned to his desk, I pondered over what to say.
"Is it true?" I eventually asked, "I thought you told me that you liked that girl called Amanda at your new school"
Kent's face was as red as mine felt, and I was suddenly very glad that only my mom was home. My dad and siblings loved to bug and tease me.
"I may or may not have lied… Amanda is a popular girl at my school. She's pretty, sure. But no one's even anywhere near as beautiful as you" He admitted, his face flushing an even darker red.
"Kent…" I whispered, amazed.
Soon after I'd met Kent, I had realized that I really liked him. I never said anything about it to my friends until long after he was gone, however, because another one of my friends had said she liked him. But then again, my friend Juliette was never near as close to Kent as I was. He'd never trusted her and had barely known her either. Kent had told me so much about himself that he said he'd never told anyone else.
It had always been us. The moment Kent met me and my friends was because of me, when I'd announced in our Civics class that my favorite book series was Warriors. Kent's head had whipped around, and he'd stared at me with a huge grin on his face. That was when we'd first met, united by our common interests. I remembered it all. Kent had run by my side in my least favorite class, gym class, and we had talked about how he played Trouble in Mineville. During the ballroom dancing unit in the same class, I'd danced the Foxtrot with Kent for the test because his partner had been gone. On the way to the pep fest at the middle school, we had walked together and talked about everything, and I had learned so much more about him. And most of all, the Halloween dance. Kent hadn't been planning to come, but he did, although he didn't have a costume. I was dressed up like a frontier girl and Skyler was working in the haunted house. We'd spent a while sitting upstairs watching people dance. We requested a song, Viva la Vida by Coldplay, and the DJ made us get up and dance although we hated it. We snuck around the back and stood there, pretending to dance. After that, we went downstairs to where concessions were and I bought a bag of candy for us to share. We sat there and talked the whole time, messing around with glowsticks and decorations and stuff. It was the best school event I'd ever been to. And so many amazing things never would have happened if I hadn't ever met Kent.
(Every single bit of the above two paragraphs is true. All of it)
"I really, really like you, Laurel, in a way I've never felt about anyone else"
"I really, really like you too, Kent"
That was the way it always was with us. Never like with anyone else.
