"Date"

Calliope had a terrible day at work to say the least. Her company, BunWorks, lost out on a major contract because a rival company charged significantly lower prices. This also meant tha Calliope’s going to get stuck with stupid website design for that stupid soap company again. What pissed her off the most was the face of that stupid software designer from the rival company. He was so fucking happy when they won the contract, which annoyed her… GREATLY. 

She sighed and took a deep breath. At the very least, playing her favorite video game, Hellscape,  with her friends always made her feel better. She was especially excited to play with one particular friend that she met at a raid last year! This friend showed her the ropes back when she first started playing the game and didn’t know how to play. 

He was always extremely kind to her and she appreciated every time he spent time with her after a bad day at work. Her favorite thing about him was his gentle and kind voice. She images that his face would be just as amazing, but everytime she asks to see it, he always shys away. 

“I’ll see it one day,” she declares. 

She sent off her friend a message to play some videos games and he messages back quickly. She is ecstatic. There is a new raid boss that she can’t wait to experience. 

She quickly logs into the game. She is a neon pink, buff demon character with fire magic and a REALLY pink princess outfit. She has also recently gotten a pink lollipop sword. She has gotten so many complaints before on how garish her outfit was, but she loves trolling, so the colors stay. Her username is “PinkTroll.’ 

She waits excitedly for 15 minutes for her friend to shop up and then suddenly…

xxx

It was a good day at work for the company, and while Chester rode the initial high of winning the lowest bid, it immediately became clear that all of those price cuts were…well, how should he say this…

He was doing a lot more work with a lot less pay. He wished that he had fought some more for a higher price on this one feature, especially since it was new and animated and looked so fancy but meant a lot more headache for him. Ugh. He had to stay overtime to input all of these codes, and even being in the comfort of his own home did not completely deter all of the stress that came with calls, more coding, and breaking of said codes.

By the end of the day, there was not much time left before he had to sleep so he could get his precious eight hours, and he spent a good chunk of that on Hellscape. He had been in this game for a while now, and even showed a number of other users the ropes. There was one that was particularly clingy, but it wasn’t like he minded. He did enjoy the time he spent with her, and she also proved to not only be a good player but a nice bun. He wouldn’t call it a stretch to call her a friend, even if they had never met before.

After logging in, he noticed that she was online, and so sent her a message since he did recall that there was a new raid event that they discussed previously. He quickly closed the pop-up messages relating to other events, especially about the Matentines special. Ches’ character was built as a glass cannon mage, with earth elements that coincidentally compliment his friend’s fiery magic. He was dressed in premium attire, partly earned from playing so long and also paying for it with the paid currency. He was also taller in-game compared to real life, along with the color of his eyes, hair, and pointed ears rather than the typical bun.

He set up the raid event on his end, tapping mindlessly before pressing “OK” on the hologram in front of him, which then teleported his character to…

A nice, pleasant meadow? No, there was a pretty marble set up, with rose bushes and arches and a tea table for two.

The second user was the one he picked, PinkTroll.

In big holographic letters, there was a banner about a big raid, with the final boss being LOVE! And Chester, named Castanea on Hellscape, let out the sharpest exhale. “Well fuck. I should’ve seen this coming.”

xxx

Castanea finally showed up! Calliope was overjoyed. 

“Come one! What took you so long,” Calliope shouted into the mic. They had a special Valentine’s Day event and Calliope was extremely excited to beat it! Everyone who beat it even got a special charm with the partner they beat it with. 

The game mechanics were also new! The game devs wanted to give all the players a surprise for Valentine’s Day. 

Castanea sat down at the other seat, “So… how do we beat this event?”

Calliope giggled, “I have no clue! Let’s find out together!”

Suddenly, smooch hooches and strawberry dango appeared on the table. The game’s music also gradually turned into a more romantic melody. Pink Eroses came over to fill their table with more dishes, such as veggie burgers with heart shaped buns and arugula salad with special heart-shaped strawberries. 

Calliope dug right in! Suddenly a glowing green arrow appeared on top of her head. “I got a HP buff,” Calliope explained as she stuffed her mouth with more food. 

Castanea was a bit worried. Is there going to be a huge boss afterwards with the amount of buffs they’re handing out. He started getting lost in his thoughts when suddenly Calliope shoved a strawberry in his mouth. A green arrow appeared on top of his head. 

Calliope laughed at his cream covered face. “You’re cute,” she said. 

Castanea looked flustered, as the comment seemed to come out of nowhere, really. Maybe it was the game? Or Calliope was just in a really good mood?

Calliope continued, “So how was your day?”

Castanea sighed. “Terrible,” he said, “Our company keeps bidding too low on projects. End up with me working too long for too little carats.”

Calliope, “Tell me about it! Those companies are assholes! And stupid customers don’t care about quality anymore.”

Castanea laughed, “True. As long as I’ve known OneCarat, they never cared much about quality.”

Calliope paused. Her eyebrows narrowed, “OneCarat? The company that sells ingredients for a single carat? You’re the ones that got that advertising contract?”

“Uh,” wait, why would she say that? Not unless she was also one of the people involved in the recent bidding…oh. Actually, her voice did sound familiar. No way, was she one of the staff members from BunWorks? He remembered there was this one bun that had been staring daggers at him all throughout the meeting and made him nervous. Could that bun really be PinkTroll? “Yeah. I work for them.”

The mood felt like it sombered quite quickly at that moment, even if everything else was still the same. All of the pink and fluffy stuff floating around them couldn’t distract from the fact that PinkTroll, in real life, might have a personal vendetta against him (or his company; it was not like it was his fault that they won the contract). Was that the end of their friendship though, just like that?

“It’s not a big deal though, I mean I got a nasty pay cut from their undercutting–”

“Do you know how terribly boring it is to make web designs for soap?” Calliope growled, which looked plenty more menacing in her avatar that was much taller than Chester, “That contract was supposed to change that!” and she let out an exasperated sigh before stuffing some chocolate in her mouth, even if she wouldn’t be able to taste it. “I mean, I’m not here to rant about work off-work. Just pisses me off, but man, that was you?”

“Who was I?” he asked with only a hint of sarcasm.

She visibly rolled her eyes before glaring at him, “The one who was pumping his fist up in the air when OneCarat won!”

Frankly, Chester couldn’t recall. He was probably really looking forward to still having a job and also getting some cheese pizza for winning. “Could’ve been me.” he shrugged, though he could have similarly been hanging somewhere else, or hanging behind somebun. 

“Well, it doesn’t matter, because you owe me now.” Calliope declared, looking rather smug.

“I do?”

“Yes! For getting me stuck with the soap company! You’re going to carry me through raids today.”

“Don’t I always?”

“No, we're doing a bunch more! Like, ten of them! And if you get the super rare drop you’re giving it to me!”

Chester was about to protest, but even if he hadn’t known PinkTroll for as long as he knew other people, he knew that she was stubborn as hell. There were no buts, only grumbling while doing what she wanted. Sure, he could log out, but he figured he would try to play along, especially since it did sound like she was having it rough. “Fine, fine. Maybe with these buffs it’ll be a little easier to clear through them.”