Chapter 12

Tomorrow I need to wake up in the morning because I'm working. I'm being shown how to open the store.

I'm not particularly excited about it.

            It means I'll have to wake up early and that means I won't be able to go to sleep late and that means less Nine Knots content to consume.

            I'm on their social media pages now. They all have Twitter. Jae-sang and Xufeng are the most chaotic of the bunch on it.

            Jae-sang actually tagged a fancam of him grabbing Xufeng's butt on stage and wrote "I saw an opportunity and took it. And by opportunity, I mean Xufeng's butt," and from there people were freaking out and Xufeng was replying stuff "if one sees the butt, one touches the butt" and it became a whole mess, and honestly, they're writing a whole fanfiction of their own, they don't even need Tenth Knot.

            I want to follow them on Instagram because they do livestream often apparently... but now I'm a little concerned about the crazy fans again. If they see me liking their pictures and interacting on their social medias, it's going to get messy again, right?

            I actually just want to delete the whole thing and start again.

            It's not like I have any friends back in Cameroon that even bothered to see how I was doing.

            I clearly haven't made that much of an impact on anyone after years of living there.

            I could actually let myself be sad if I really thought about it.

            If I delete everything, I'll lose all the messages I have with Tenth Knot though, and I kinda don't wanna do that, so I just spend my afternoon deleting everything I have on it, changing my username and blocking literally everyone who's sent me a message.

            I don't want anyone to ever make a connection with me again.

            And once I'm all done doing that, I follow Nine Knots. And Tenth Knot.

            It's already time for dinner by then, so I join my family around the table. Everyone is chatting about their days and I try to look as enthusiastic as I can.

After we're done eating, my mom wants to play cards, so we all indulge her, and we end up playing Queen of Spades. My mom is a sore loser and she get very unlucky so we have to play dice afterwards, Mom's version of Bones. She loses again.

            We're all teasing her and it's kinda funny, and I'm suddenly feeling grateful for my family.

They're really all I have.

            It's late when we stop playing.

I have to take a shower and go to bed. I'll be too lazy to take it in the morning, so it's now or never.

Once I'm clean and in my bed I'm about to start a video of Nine Knots on Youtube when I see a message from Tenth Knot.

She doesn't reply back right away. I check a video, waiting for a reply. And then another. And another.

It's now one in the morning and I should be sleeping, but instead I've gone down the Youtube video rabbit hole and I'm watching a vlog by Matias.

Matias is standing in a hall, holding his camera, and whispers, standing in front of a door. "Viewers at home, let me introduce you to the Dirty Blond Russian bear, better known as the Aleksey Petrovich Chernyshevsky, or familiarly called Alyosha. It is noon, therefore sleeping prime time for the Aleksey Petrovich Chernyshevsky, who is in constant state of hibernating. Let's see if we can wake him up without losing a limb."

Matias then cracks the door open, like he's going to be gentle about it, but suddenly screeches like a banshee, "DESPIERTA!"

You can hear Aleksey's moan of pain and then, "OTVALI MATI" Aleksey yells, throwing something at Matias.

Matias laughs, closing the door to dodge whatever it is. "We have awakened the hibernating bear," he tells the camera. "Permission to enter?" Matias asks, opening the door again.

"Leave me alooooone," Aleksey moans, voice muffled in his pillow.

"Come on, get up, everyone is up," Matias says, walking up to his bed. The room is dark, you can only see Aleksey faintly.

"I was told many times to not jump off a bridge if everyone else did it."

"Get uuuuuup."

"Whyyyyy?"

"I wanna plaaaaay."

"Go annoy everyone else that's up instead."

"Well, you're kinda up now," Matias says, his voice proud.

"I'm not up. I'm barely conscious. I will forget this conversation the moment I close my eyes."

Matias ignores that, and looks at the camera. "Ladies and gentlemen, take note, as I try to tame the Aleksey Petrovich Chernyshevsky."

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the top ten deadliest animal attacks. First video, bear obliterates home cat," Aleksey shoots back.

Matias laughs. Aleksey chuckles a bit too.

"Come on, get up, it's nice outside," Matias presses.

"Outside? You want me to go outside? Nooooooooooo."

Suddenly, the light of the room is switched on, "what are you guys doing?" Luan asks, walking into the room.

Matias has sort of thrown himself over Aleksey to protect him from the blinding light, I guess.

Anyway, the way those two are acting makes me burst into laughter.

"Don't spook Alyosha," Matias tells Luan.

"What? Don't spook Alyosha? You were screaming like five seconds ago."

"Shhh, shhh, it's okay, we're okay," Matias says, stroking Aleksey's head, but like very dramatically.

"Why did I pick you two to be in my band?" Luan mumbles, grabbing something from the room.

"You didn't, Jae did," Matias replies, proudly.

"Yeah, because Jae collects crackheads. We've got dance practice in an hour, chop chop," Luan says, and walks out of the room.

"Noooo, turn off the liiiiiight," Aleksey whines, sticking his hand out towards the door.

The battery on my phone is at five percent I pause the video to plug it.

I get why people ship them together. I mean, nowadays, people don't need a lot for their ships to sail, so it's not that impressive.

I see it with them though. I like their friendship, envy it almost. I've never really had close friends. I don't know how that feels to be close like that with someone else that's not a family member.

I've never had anyone chose my company. Family is kinda stuck with you. Friends aren't.

I think this is one of the things that people like so much about Nine Knots. All these guys are like family, and as good as their music is, it's the bond between them that's kind of addicting.

Proof, I've just spent hours watching Aleksias videos. I work at like six in the morning. It's well past one in the morning. There's a video titles "Luan, Single Father of Eight Demons" It's twenty minutes long. I don't care. I'm not going to sleep apparently. 

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Hi again! Second chapter is up. Two more shall be up tomorrow. It's late now, so I gotta sleep! XD

I hope you're still enjoying this story! Thank you sooo soooooooo much to everyone that comments and reads and votes for it. Honestly, you have no idea how much it means to me!

Oh, and by the way, that's Dorothy and Miller at the top, so now you know how most of the characters look like. I still need to ask for a few more to be drawn. XD 

Thanks again! See you all very soon! <3