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Matthew was even more attractive in person.
Gilbert somehow managed to stumble his way through his own introduction, which involved an excellent maneuver where he knocked a cable off of the table in order to duck down to retrieve it and hide the blush burning its way across his face. It ran the risk of making him look like a clumsy idiot in front of everyone, but it was preferable to them finding out about the nuclear meltdown his brain was going through.
"...first and then we'll go over what we're doing tonight? Or while we're eating. Whichever," Yong Soo said as he pranced back into the room with another Asian in tow. While Yong Soo had a single plate piled with multiple slices of pizza, his friend was carrying two plates with only a few pieces on each. "I figure we should switch it up a little from last week, since that was almost a disaster. I'm really glad you and Emil came back."
"I know. You've told us that, like, five times today."
Gilbert stood up and put the cable back on the table. He felt a little guilt over how thankful he was for the interruption, but he just needed a moment to get himself together. That was all. He could do it. He could get through the night without transforming into even more of a bumbling mess in front of his crush.
He needed a drink. Alcohol always helped, right?
"Gilbert!" Suddenly, Yong Soo was in front of him, still dragging his friend along. It was a miracle neither of them had dropped their food. "Meet Leon! He's helping me host tonight! Mostly because he's the only other person not drinking. Well, aside from Emil, but he doesn't want to play. Which reminds me, everyone else should start drinking so that we're not playing for two hours before the actual drunk gaming starts!"
"Already started!" Mathias called from the kitchen. He reentered the room seconds later, carrying a plate of his own and an oversized mug full of beer. "But seriously, if you want food then you better get in there and get it before Alfred inhales all of it. Pretty sure he's already on his third slice."
"Damn it, Al," Matthew muttered as he rushed into the next room.
Kiku sighed and stood up. "We should go too. Once Alfred starts eating, there's little we can do to stop him. If we don't get ours now, we won't get any."
Gilbert followed the shorter man into the kitchen, where they found Arthur lecturing Alfred on the virtues of slowing down and chewing his food. Matthew had snagged a box of pepperoni pizza from the counter in order to keep it away from his younger brother and began splitting it up as evenly as he could.
It was a chaotic mess, especially once the drinks were brought out.
"Kiku, is that sake?" Yong Soo asked with dread in his voice.
"Hai." Before anyone could say another word about it, he left the room with his drink of choice and a plate of pizza.
Yong Soo muttered something unintelligible under his breath and followed after him. "Okay, but you remember what happened last week! Kiku!"
It took some time, but eventually they all got their food and drinks and were able to gather back at the tables of electronics to talk and eat. Yong Soo tried to keep them on topic, but Alfred and Mathias were experts at derailing any topic and they did it with great glee. After several attempts, Yong Soo gave up and announced they'd just "wing it" like they did the week before.
.
.
"Hey, everyone! Welcome back to Drunk Night! I'm pure-originality and I will once again be your host tonight!" Yong Soo announced to his camera. "And now lets introduce the rest of the group, just in case you're new to this. Starting to my right, we have...!" He dramatically turned and looked at Arthur.
"CaptainKirkland."
Mathias hastily gulped down a swig of his beer and loudly thunked his mug down on the table. "DGMathias here!"
"I'm MapleMatthew."
Kiku hiccuped and turned slightly pink in color. "Apologies. I'm LandofRisingSun."
"And I'm the one, the only, SuperHeroUSA!" Alfred cheered, tossing in his obnoxious laugh for good measure.
Yong Soo stole back control before Alfred could run away with it. "Alright, tonight we have two special guests. Leon is once again borrowing VolcanicFury's system and he'll be helping me out with hosting. We also have with us a newcomer to the world of Hetatubing, so please give a warm welcome to fiveawesomemeters! Say 'hi' to the audience, guys!"
"What audience?" Emil deadpanned from the corner.
Yong Soo jumped at the sound of his friend's voice coming from his headphones. "Emil, what- did you rig up your mic for sound too? When did you do that?!"
"While you were in the kitchen not getting my liquorice."
"I said I was sorry!"
Matthew leaned forward to whisper into his microphone. "And this is how you single-handedly derail a night of drunk gaming. Tune in next week, when we might finally figure out what the hell we're doing."
"Maaaatt, stop it!" Yong Soo whined. "Now we have to start all over. And you!" He gave Emil a sour look. "Turn off your mic if you aren't going to play!"
"You're ruining the footage, Yong Soo! I'm not re-syncing this!" Mathias said.
Arthur sighed. "Well clearly we can't leave this in. No want wants to listen to this drivel. Besides, I'm sure Alfred has forgotten to start capture. Again."
"Have not!" Alfred immediately snapped back. He double checked his second monitor anyway, just to be sure.
Kiku leaned over to help him. "Ah, Alfred, you've forgotten t-"
"Yeah, I see it, Kiku."
Matthew sighed and stood up. "Alright, everyone stop. Don't touch anything. Kiku, would you help Al fix his set-up? Everyone else, now's the time to make sure your stuff is running smoothly. We will have to redo the intro, but that's nothing unusual for us."
Twenty minutes and several drink refills later, they were finally getting into the swing of things. Everyone was recording properly and Emil was allowed to keep his microphone on, so they could all hear him if he noticed anything unusual.
Introductions went better the second time around and Yong Soo was able to charge into explaining the game without any unnecessary interruptions.
"We'll be jumping back into our minecraft world tonight! Once you're in, you'll notice a lovely little village with beds, created by me, Emil, and Leon. Just pick whichever one you like best and pop a sign over the door with your name on it and then we can get started," Yong Soo said. "Our goal tonight is to make a ten-by-ten tower reaching all the way up to the build limit! I thought about just using one material, but that could take forever. What was it we came up with instead, Leon?"
"Each layer is five blocks high and then you switch to something else. We can have repeating layers, but there has to be two different materials between them."
Mathias raised his hand and wildly waved it in the air. "Is this a team thing?"
"Sure is!" Yong Soo replied. "Oh, and we're building from sea level. I've already got the spot and the first block picked out! If everyone's ready, lets get started!"
Getting everyone into the game took another minute or two, as Yong Soo had to send out invitations for everyone to join. Gilbert was the second person into the game, right after Matthew, who erupted into giggles the moment he laid eyes on the village lovingly crafted by the three teenagers.
"What the fuck is this?" Gilbert asked, staring at the group of pathetic dirt structures. "They don't even have doors!"
Matthew's giggles turned to full-blown laughter and he had to turn away from his screen to wipe tears away from his eyes.
"We're barely into the game and Matt is already losing it," Alfred muttered, just loud enough for his mic to pick up. "Bro, what the hell- what the fuck is this?"
Gilbert guessed that the world had just loaded for him.
"Will the beds even work in those small spaces?" Kiku asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
Mathias took one look at their living quarters and joined Matthew in laughing.
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "You lads have outdone yourselves. Truly," he said dryly. "You couldn't have given us doors to keep out mobs?"
The three teens all looked very pleased with themselves.
Gilbert directed his character to walk into the dirt block hut and realized a second problem. "It doesn't even have a roof!"
Matthew had to excuse himself to go to the next room and calm down.
"Yeah, go clam your tits, bro!" Alfred yelled after him.
Matthew threw a slipper, but his throw missed its mark by a mile and smacked into the door frame instead.
Slowly, Yong Soo reigned them in. The process went much more smoothly once Matthew returned from his journey to the kitchen and sat back down across from Gilbert. His cheeks were still a little red from laughing so hard, but he no longer looked like he was going to pass out from lack of oxygen, which was what really mattered.
"Okay, so if you'll all follow me to the real village we created..."
.
.
Three hours in, Gilbert was actually feeling comfortable enough to relax around the group. He could even manage full, coherent sentences when talking to Matthew! Or mostly coherent. He was on his fifth beer, after all.
Or was it the sixth?
"I'm king of the world!" Mathias slurred, tossing in a cheer for good measure.
"Goddammit, stop building pillars out of stuff we need!" Arthur demanded.
It hardly mattered how much he'd had to drink. The others were far too gone to pay attention to his embarrassing mistakes or accidental confessions. He'd made a reference to one of Matthew's old videos at around his fourth beer, but no one noticed a thing.
Gilbert turned his character around in time to watch DGMathias plummet to the ground and land with a sickening crunch before the death message appeared on the left side of the screen.
"Now how are we going to get all of that down, you useless clod!" Arthur demanded.
"I'll just climb up again!"
"NO!"
It was too late. Mathias was already stacking up a column of green clay to get back to the top of his tower of brick.
"Hey, I needed that!" Alfred complained. "Do you know how much cactuses I had to burn for that? A lot!"
"Yeah, because cacti are so hard to find. Leon and I have spent the last hour and a half gathering clay balls!" Yong Soo exclaimed.
"Heh. You said ba-"
"I know what I said!" Yong Soo shrilly interrupted.
Gilbert quietly snickered and got back to work on building the monolith to the sky. He turned back around to do so and came face-to-face with a creeper. He shrieked loudly and backpedaled, accidentally pressing in on the left thumb stick and going to third person mode.
Matthew burst out into a peal of laughter and switched back to his usual polar bear skin. "Got you!"
"Asshole," muttered Gilbert. "Be glad I was crouching or else all our shit would be on the ground way down there. And then the drunk dummy next to you would pick it all up and build another useless tower."
"I know, I know," Matthew said, unable to stop himself from smiling. "You weren't paying attention and I could pass up the opportunity."
"You're lucky you're so cute," Gilbert muttered. He froze the moment his brain caught up to his mouth. Inwardly panicking, he raised his eyes to look at Matthew, who only looked slightly surprised.
In the background, Alfred joined forces with Mathias to shatter however little control Yong Soo still had over their game. Leon and Arthur began dismantling Mathias's towers, though it did little good.
"So, you think I'm cute, eh?" Matthew asked.
"I, uh, yeah?"
Six beers. He was definitely on his sixth beer. He was never so stupid on just five.
Matthew laughed softly, not in a mocking way, but a sweet and pleasant one. "Thanks. You're pretty handsome yourself, Gil."
Gil.
His heart fluttered at the endearing nickname.
"Yong Soo, I have finished the tower," Kiku spoke up, only slightly slurring his wrods.
Any chance he had to drunkenly (awkwardly) flirt with his crush was lost. Any thoughts of continuing the conversation fled as Gilbert tried to comprehend how Kiku had completed the giant tower when he and Matthew were standing on it.
"Kiku," Yong Soo began cautiously. "How much have you had to drink?"
Gilbert looked over in time to see Kiku fumble to hide one of his bottles of sake.
"Just one."
"Uh huh." Yong Soo did not sound convinced. "Where are you and what have you built this time?"
"Do you want my coordinates?"
"Yes, Kiku. That would be lovely," Yong Soo said, struggling not to yell. "I'm not even going to ask why you weren't building with the rest of us."
"Mathias kept stealing my gold."
Yong Soo sighed. "Of course he did. Okay, give me your coordinates. Just the X and Y."
Kiku said nothing for a long time. "Ano..."
"I don't think he has a map," Alfred whispered harshly into his microphone.
"Kik-"
"Ah, there it is!" Kiku exclaimed.
Yong Soo dropped his head into his hands in defeated misery. "How does it always go like this with you?"
"X, one-twenty-seven. Y, negative thirty-two."
"Guess it's time for a group field trip. I've got a map if anyone wants to, like, follow me," Leon said.
"Me!" Mathias shouted, leaping down from his twelfth column. He died by hitting a protruding block along the way, showering Arthur with all of the quartz blocks he was carrying.
Gilbert and Matthew began to arduous process of climbing down the ladders placed all along the side of the large monument. Arthur bought them time by killing Mathias every time he approached the chests containing all of the materials they had collected.
Together, the seven remaining players trekked across the map to reach Kiku. As they got closer, they could make out a wall of pure color stretching way up past the cloud level.
"Is that all wool?" Yong Soo asked incredulously. "How did you get all of that? It should have taken you hours! I know you haven't been over here the whole time!"
"Isn't this where we built those obsidian vaults of storage?" Emil asked.
Yong Soo dropped his head back into his hands and groaned in frustration.
"The one with all of the rooms and the double chests labeled with signs? I found it a half hour after we started," Kiku said, sounding very pleased with himself.
Alfred, Mathias, Gilbert, and Matthew all started laughing. Even Arthur and Leon chuckled a little, while Emil sat in the corner eating liquorice to try and hide how amused he was.
"Right. Well. That's all we have time for tonight," Yong Soo loudly announced, looking back up at his webcam. "I hope you'll join us next week, when I ban Kiku from drinking sake ever again. Thanks again to Leon and Gilbert for joining us! And to Emil for keeping an eye on things and lending his console for us to use. We are Nighttime Gaming and this is goodnight!"
With a relieved sigh, Yong Soo began to shut down his station, being careful to make sure everything saved before closing it completely. The others took it as their cue to do the same. Matthew moved to the other side of the table to assist Gilbert once he was done with his own.
From there it was just a matter of getting everyone to wind down and get packed up. Leon and Emil took care of most of that, while Yong Soo forced his inebriated friends into the kitchen for a snack.
"It went better than last week, but there's still some stuff we need to work out," Yong Soo admitted. "I think we'll do GTA next week. I should have enough time to make or find something a bunch of us can do." He turned his attention to Kiku, who was swaying slightly as he ate a slice of cold pizza. "I know the whole point is for you guys to get drunk, but I'm serious about putting a limit on the sake."
"Hey, lets do the serious talk tomorrow, 'kay?" Afred requested. "Right now I wanna know how everyone's getting home. I know Art's crashing on the couch and Yong Soo lives right upstairs, but what about you, Gilbert?"
Gilbert jumped, startled at being addressed. "I was going to walk, but..." He looked guiltily at the bottle of beer in his hand. "I'll call a friend. Francis should be able to come get me."
"Cool. Mathias?"
The Dane shrugged. "Figured I'd hitch a ride with Emil and Leon. We live out the same way."
"So, everyone but Kiku has a plan, and he put me in charge of deciding for him, just in case. Yong Soo, would you mind keeping him at your place tonight?" Alfred asked.
Yong Soo nodded. "Of course. I should have an air mattress somewhere..."
"Great!" Alfred exclaimed, pleased. "And Mattie lives here with me, of course, so that's no prob. If you all want to come over around three tomorrow, we can go over the audio and use someone's footage to check if there's anything we can't keep. Sound good?"
There was a low murmur of agreement and then the group began to disperse.
While Gilbert tried to reach Francis, Matthew walked over with a sharpie marker in hand. He grabbed Gilbert's arm, pushed up a sleeve, and uncapped the marker in a flurry of motion, but before Gilbert could ask what he was doing, Francis picked up.
"It's rather late, mon ami. Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, just finishing up the game night," Gilbert replied, speaking a little more slowly to make sure his friend could understand him. The feel of Matthew's hand on his arm caused his skin to tingle pleasantly and it wasn't helping the fuzzy feeling in his head. "I didn't wake you, did I? Cuz I kind of need a ride."
Francis was silent for a moment. "I'll come get you. What's the address?"
Gilbert quickly rattled it off, somehow able to remember it correctly. He watched with interest as Matthew capped the marker and rolled the sleeve back into place.
"Huh. I know that place. I'll let you know when I get there. Adieu."
"All set?" Matthew asked when Gilbert hanged up.
"Yeah. What did you-"
"Yo!" Mathias clapped a hand down on Gilbert's shoulder, causing him to jump. "Sorry, man. Just saying goodbye. My ride's here."
"Does Lukas know this time or is it going to be a surprise for him?" Matthew asked, sounding amused.
"Luke loves surprises!"
"Pretty sure he hates them. Along with that nickname."
Mathias carelessly shrugged. "See you tomorrow!" And then he was gone.
The brief interruption wasn't quite enough to get Gilbert to forget what he was saying, but before he could make a second attempt, a new distraction stole away his attention. He and Matthew stood back and watched as Yong Soo and Alfred coaxed Kiku out of the kitchen to head to the upstairs where Yong Soo lived.
By the time Francis arrived a mere five minutes later, he'd forgotten completely.
.
.
Gilbert awoke the next morning with a mild headache and a slight feeling of regret. While the headache remained for most of the morning, the regret only lingered until he caught sight of what Matthew had written on his arm.
"I think he likes me, Gilbird," he murmured in utter disbelief.
Clearly written in crisp, dark ink, was Matthew's phone number, followed by a tiny heart.