Page 3 of Fated
Oh no.
Oh dear, sweet god.
I was in love with Areth, wasn’t I?
After years of following his orders, fighting at his side, and watching him save the world by popping off the heads of bad guys in the hottest way possible, I’d gone and fallen in love with an NPC in a game. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be considering going out and dropping money I didn’t have on a chair Areth would never sit in.
Because he didn’t exist.
My throat prickled sharply, and I began to cough so hard I could barely breathe. Flower after flower hit the floor as my friends scrambled off of me. Lauren helped to brace my poor, shaking body until I finished, laying limply in her arms, utterly spent and terrified.
I couldn’t count the number of flowers scattered across the floor.
“Is it supposed to happen this quickly? The stories usually make it sound like it takes months before it gets this far,” I rasped after catching my breath.
“The stories are all different,” Lauren said. “And you have to keep in mind that they are only fanfiction. If this is a real disease,the likelihood of anyone getting all the details right is low. Plus, in some of the stories, the disease progressed quickly once the inflicted accepted their feelings.”
The possibility of Lauren being right made my stomach tighten painfully. I’d just realized I was in love with Areth, which, of course, immediately caused me to produce enough flowers to decorate a small wedding.
I was in love with someone who wasn’t real, and sometime soon I was going to die because of it.
“I think I need to be alone.” I couldn’t sort through my feelings on such a huge thing with an audience. In order for one to scream into the void, there had to be a void to scream into. And a living room full of friends did not a void make.
“Max, we can’t leave you alone right now. We have to fix this,” Josh said. “We can research it. I’ll…I’ll read fanfiction to see if there is another way. We all will.” It was a testament to his loyalty that he offered himself up like that. He hated reading. He was strictly a movies, television, and video games nerd.
“There is a way,” Lauren said softly. As a fellow fanfic nerd, she knew as well as I did about the only other way it could be cured.
“Don’t, Lauren,” I begged.
“You have to have the flowers removed surgically, Max. You know it’s possible. Modern science might not have any knowledge of Hanahaki, but a decent doctor won’t let a patient run around with flowers in their lungs. Even if they don’t know how the flowers got in there.”
“I can’t.” I really couldn’t.
I didn’t have anything other than Areth and the world he lived in. I mean, I had friends, but we all bonded over our mutual love of Hellwing, the game Areth was from. If I cut Areth from my life, what would be left? What fanfic would I read? Who would I talk to? What would I think about?
Certainly not the dreadful IT job I did from home. Sure, my friends would still love me, but eventually, we’d drift apart. For fuck’s sake, we’d been in the middle of playing Hellwing together when my flower attack struck. My love for Areth was bound up tightly with the game itself. Without Areth, I truly had nothing.
I looked at the TV screen and stared at Areth’s frozen figure. His sculpted, winged form was framed by a full moon. Just looking at it caused my heart to beat erratically.
If I had my feelings for him removed, this gorgeous scene, and all the ones like it, would mean nothing to me.
“Seriously, guys. I really can’t do it.”
“You have to, Max. We’ll quit the game with you. It’s all or nothing,” Lauren said loyally.
I knew they would too. But like me, each and every one of them had their lives tied up in this world. Thousands of dollars, countless hours, and an entire social network would be gone in the blink of an eye.
I couldn’t do that to my friends. They needed Hellwing as much as I did. If it was between them losing a single friend, or losing an entire life? They were as shut in and fucked up as I was. They’d all be ruined if I let them choose me.
But if I didn’t give them something, they’d never let the matter go. As hypocritical as it was, I knew if I were in their place, I’d fight every step of the way to keep them with me.
Maybe therapy hadn’t been helping me as much as I’d thought it was.
“I’ll think about it, okay? But let me do it alone. We can talk about it tomorrow. I promise,” I added when all three of my friends started to argue.
“Tomorrow, Max. We’ll all be here an hour before our usual game time, and we’re going to figure this out.” Lauren’s face left no room for argument, so I nodded.
Once everyone left—after giving me half a dozen hugs each—I went to my backyard. It was a cool, clear night, and I thought Mitzy might want some company. I certainly needed hers.
