A Line That Freezes the Heart

My head was killing me.

I staggered upright, a ringing ache pounding through my skull. I remembered playing with Jump. After that, nothing. The rest of the night sat behind a fog, as if someone had reached into my head and stirred everything into a mess.

"Ugh..."

My stomach turned. A desert had taken root in my throat, and the thirst that came with it was staggering. I had expected a hangover. I had not expected this.

I had steeled myself for it, and I still regretted every sip the moment that splitting headache started up. The one small mercy was that I hadn't thrown up in my sleep.

"Waaater..."

I forced myself up through the blur and shuffled toward the fridge. It wasn't far. Today it felt like a mile. Blame the hangover for turning my body to lead.

Gulp. Gulp.

The water from the fridge was ice-cold. I drank too fast, and a drop slid down my throat. Cold.

And of course the phone had to buzz.

My head was already spinning. The vibration made it worse. I should have turned the damn thing off.

...Vibration?

A flicker of unease went through me for no good reason.

Thankfully, it was only a message from Jump. Why he had to text at the exact worst moment and nearly give me a heart attack was another question. I checked it anyway.

...The community?

Curiosity pulled me over to the computer. I must have forgotten to shut it down in the haze; the fans were roaring like it had been running all night. I nudged the mouse and opened the Trisch boards.

Did I... mess something up?

That was the most-upvoted list. And those weren't even all of them — an entire page was packed with threads, and that was only what I could see at a glance. Across the whole board, who knew how many had gone up.

What were they so excited about? The collab had ended hours ago. It was the dead of night, and posts were still rolling in live.

I quietly closed the browser.

Something. I had done something, hadn't I?

The memories were too thin to reconstruct. Too many pieces were simply missing, and the harder I reached for them, the thicker the fog became.

Still, I didn't think I had done anything that bad. I had a hazy recollection of steering the collab with what I would generously call excellent communication skills. Aside from my aim going to hell once the alcohol hit, there hadn't even been a real mistake — and even that hadn't decided the matches.

If anything, the booze had sanded off the awkwardness. So there was no reason for the viewers to be this on fire. People drink, their filters drop, their energy spikes, they say or do weird things. Getting dragged like I had committed a capital crime over a few drinks was bizarre.

Maybe I had been more together than I thought. A person who finished one bottle and a person who finished ten were not the same animal. I had definitely been drunk, but given how much I actually put down, maybe I hadn't been as wrecked as it felt.

Right...

I... I had been fine.

Jump's message made a little more sense now. Honestly, proposing the collab in the first place had been the alcohol talking. Some people got impulsive when they drank, and it had been my first broadcast — the pressure must have been sitting on me harder than I realized. So I had naturally pinged Jump, the one person who was relatively easy to deal with, and asked for a collab.

We had still put on a pretty fun stream, hadn't we? I had at least expected one "that was a good time" post. I had not expected a wildfire.

Just in case, I opened the community again. Same as before: people tearing into each other. For reasons I could not parse, most of the viewers were swinging swords at anyone who tried to defend Jump. The majority of people watching me had to be Jump's fans. So why were the ones standing up for a big-corp streamer getting beaten down? Usually the bigger fandom won these fights.

The word shipping kept cropping up. The comments under those posts were a wall of profanity telling people to shut the hell up.

Was getting drunk and sending a text really enough to escalate all the way to couple rumors?

I hadn't thought anything of it. Apparently the viewers had.

Like Jump's ever gonna get a girlfriend, anyway...

What was their problem with him? He was a big-corp streamer, and his personality wasn't even bad. Surely there were women who would go for a guy like that.

Anyway, this mess had started because of me, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so I would have to mediate somehow. One wrong phrase and the embers would only spread. I needed something that could put the fire out without throwing Jump under the bus. That was probably why he had texted me in the first place.

I had never imagined my first community post would go up on Jump's board. Then again, I hadn't even made my own board yet, so of course it would. Posts like this belonged somewhere with traffic. Opening a board of my own wouldn't have drawn anyone worth mentioning. Most people probably wouldn't even know it existed.

Bzzzzt—

My phone buzzed. Jump must have seen the post ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and messaged me. That was what I thought as I picked it up — and I nearly flung the thing across the room.

Because the person who had contacted me was none other than—

My little sister.

What possible business did she have calling at this hour? If she was a student, she should have been asleep. How was she planning to get to school tomorrow if she was still awake?

A hundred thoughts piled up at once. I even considered just powering the phone off. Life, unfortunately, was not a problem you solved by running from it.

What else was I supposed to do?

"H-hello?"

The voice on the other end was colder than ice. Whatever alcohol was still in my system evaporated on the spot.

Did she know I had been drinking? But how? I had never told her I was streaming.

"Ah— no, that's..."

A few drinks, and I was stammering like I had just picked up a call from my boss. What kind of crime was that supposed to be?

"More importantly... so you knew I was streaming..."

"Th-there were circumstances beyond my con—"

It was a line that froze the heart solid.