You did it. You’re officially an accomplished stalker. Not only did you manage to successfully trick Kronii into clicking a seemingly harmless link on one of your tweets – you also had the foresight to weaponize it. You knew her IP address. From there on, you went full OSINT until you tracked her down.
You’ve made your way to a shoe store. You spot Kronii, whose face you know better than a left-handed avocado farmer knows his avocado field. She seems busy trying to find something that both fits her and doesn’t hurt; at least that’s what you think you can make out from the scene unfolding before you. After all, the behavior of women while shopping is ultimately unfamiliar to you; if you strain yourself, you can barely remember your mom dragging kid you around one day because she was bored.
Ignoring the torrent of tangents in your brain, you have one chance, one opportunity and you’re not about to miss your chance to blow. You plan and calculate all reasonably possible paths to start, lead and finish this conversation that is about to occur. There shall be no mishaps. You’ve trained for months. There’s no way you can screw this up. If Kronii’s got autism, you’ve got turboautism – and, good Lord, may no one ever see the A0-sized conversation chart hanging in your mother’s basement.
You walk up to her. This is it, if you pussy out now, it’s going to be real fuckin’ weird if you go near her again; you certainly have no interest in her being apprehensive.

“So, uh, hi, you like Bionicle?”

In the split-second following right after your mouth finishes the last syllable of this sentence, an explosion of emotions stormed through you. You knew nothing about Bionicle. Even if you did, your brain went full derp and chose something that approximately nobody on the entire planet wants to hear as a conversation opener; hell, Snaa might expand the universe just to get away from you in response. How are you going to get yourself out of this one?
“Oh my God! I can’t believe I’d run into another Bionicle fan!” She prattles on and on about how she got into Bionicle because her parents gifted her a set for Christmas after begging them for months. You barely let on a smirk. You’ve won. You’ve fucked everything up and you’ve won anyway. If God exists, he’s cheering you on from the sidelines. You make a mental note to do your praying reps. And Kronii is so adorable sperging out about Bionicle of all things.
“So how did you get into Bionicle?” You panic, meekly concoct some transparent excuse about having gotten a text that you were expecting, pull out your phone and head to Wikipedia. There’s absolutely nothing of value. You don’t even know what the sets were called or look like. Your heart sinks as a lump in your throat forms as your efforts were but moments from being crushed, your A0-sized conversation chart about to have an unfortunate run-in with a trash compactor.
You quickly glance over to Kronii to check her expression. She’s still expectantly staring at you with purity not unlike that of a puppy having found its soul mate. “U-Uh, I, uh, you see… I’m sorry, I don’t actually know Bionicle.”

The world turns faintly sepia. Things are slowing down as Kronii is just giving you a death glare filled with resentment and disappointment. You watch her back as she leaves the store, stomping audibly with every step. There is nothing but regret left as you watch time gradually grind to a halt. “I regret everything.”

Edit Report
Pub: 06 Oct 2021 02:17 UTC
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