J sat down on their gaming chair, looking over to a crudely wrapped small box. The wrapping paper had streaks of red, green, and blue. The tape job was even worse, how the wrapping paper managed to cover the whole thing with its sloppy attempt left J impressed.

　　"You gonna open it?" A sleek gray fox asked, stepping into J`s bedroom. They sat down on J`s bed, watching the golden retriever in their flashy seat.

　　"I don`t know where it`s from."

　　J slowly held the box around on one hand, shaking it lightly, a constant pattering sound echoed inside, barely audible.

　　"Whatever it is, it`s small."

　　The fox stood up, and walked towards J. They grabbed the box out of J`s hand and gave it a deep inspection with one eye.

　　"Know anyone who would`ve made it?"

　　"It looks like something Martha would`ve done last second for my birthday, but it`s October. That`s not for another three months."

　　The fox let out a claw, slowly working through the wrapping and cardboard box, a cutting job done so effortlessly you`d think about the first time you used a box cutter.

　　"STOP!" J shouted, swatting at the box in the fox`s grasp.

　　The box fell to the ground, its light thud silenced by the carpet.

　　"DUDE!" The fox shouted, pausing for a moment to hold in some words. Eventually, they spoke again, in a colder and more stern tone. "Why. Did. You. Do. That?"

　　"We don`t know what`s inside! It could be a pipe bomb!"

　　"Who in-" The fox took in a hard breath of air. "Sure."

　　The duo walked closer to the crash of the mystery package, and noticed something new on the black bedroom carpet, it stood out like a sore thumb.

　　A white pendrive.

　　J looked up at the fox, who was still putting things together.

　　"Very funny, Vix."

　　"What?"

　　"You put porn on that pendrive, didn`t you?"

　　Vix jolted his head up, giving J a hard look.

　　"Dude, what? You`re thinking of Pem. I`m not about that stuff."

　　Vix crouched down and picked up the pendrive, it was smaller even in his paw. "Ain`t mine. Looks like you got a mystery."

　　J`s mind began filling up with hypotheticals. What if this pendrive was malware? Thousands of terrible files? Maybe even a single video of the worst footage possible?

　　Vix glanced back at J, realizing they were stuck in their mind again. "Dude, wake up." He said, snapping his claws in front of the canine`s eyes.

　　"We can`t use this." J said, beginning to hyperventilate. They walked back a few steps, and slouched down into their rainbow chair.

　　"Look, I`m not here to help you out of another panic episode, you invited me here to see what`s in the box, now I wanna see what`s in this thing."

　　Vix held up the pendrive, the opposite ends grasped by his claws. It looked like something you`d manage to do while holding a small object with chopsticks.

　　"Nooo&" J groaned, slouching even further down in the chair, their lower back resting in the seat, as their feet fell under into the underside of the desk.

　　"If it breaks your shit, we can just talk to my uncle."

　　That always got J to calm down. Vix`s family had so many different professions under one roof, that you could hire them for any job you needed, and with a guaranteed good result.

　　After what felt like forever, J slowly crawled back up their chair, and let out a quiet "fine" for Vix to take over.

　　Vix looked into J`s computer setup, trying to spot a USB spot for the pendrive to insert. "Where can I plug this?"

　　"I& er&"

　　J went quiet, realizing there wasn`t a USB spot.

　　"Gonna finish that?" Vix asked, grabbing a bit of his green sweater and rubbing his forehead, he couldn`t go a minute without feeling heated up in anger by J.

　　"So, uh& there`s no spot."

　　"What do you mean there`s no spot? Every PC has one."

　　"Well, this one doesn`t!"

　　"NEITHER DOES MY ASS, JAY!"

　　It wasn`t natural for Vix to shout, let alone to someone like J. They know Vix`s patience has been tested past its limits.

　　"You& can- uhm& u-"

　　"Found it." Vix said, patting at the very back of the computer in its downside, his finger entered into a slot, half of it going in.

　　"You didn`t check properly." Vix said. J groaned inaudibly.

　　"I`m grabbing popcorn from the kitchen while this disaster happens."

　　"Actually, uh- my mom doesn`t want you touching our snacks. You ate five tubs of our ice cream last time you were here."

　　"What can I say? Y`all get the best."

　　"Just& uhm& stay away from the freezer. Get popcorn."

　　"Roger that."

　　Vix walked out, shutting the dark crimson door behind him. Leaving J to contemplate the foreign addition to their computer.

　　With a hard sigh, J turned the computer on, flashing colors appeared on the screen as the homescreen booted. All of their applications seemed to be fine, but there was something new.

　　"Minecraft?"

　　Grabbing the mouse, the arrow hovered over the game. They thought for a moment, was this really what the pendrive was for? J had to be sure.

　　They opened their gallery, system files, history, passwords, everything. Nothing they could remember had changed.

　　"Who would give me Minecraft?"

　　No one they knew would be interested in this genre of game. Even Vix is more of a card player. Martha never understood online games, and Pem only favored visual novels.

　　It raised the same question - who would give J Minecraft?

　　Trying to assure themselves, they gave it a security scan. The firewall didn`t detect a single problem. This was the real deal, no doubt. With their anxiety beaten, J opened the game.

　　The screen darkened, loading.

　　"Vix! It`s MINECRAFT!" J shouted, their voice surely audible enough to the kitchen.

　　"Cool." Vix`s voice shouted back uninterested, the faint noise of clattering came as well, J`s best presumption was Vix searching for a good bowl to put the popcorn in.

　　Nothing changed on the screen.

　　Confused, J gave their mouse a few clicks, hoping for an error screen to appear, or a loading bar. Anything that could confirm the computer wasn`t frozen would be a nice sign.

　　"Oh& nooo& is this the pendrive`s goal?"

　　J stood up from the gaming chair, and hovered their paw beneath the pendrive sticking inside the computer. It`s never a good idea to take one out until safely ejected, it could worsen things.

　　"Maybe Vix can help." They said, looking back at the bedroom door, hoping for the shiny fox to return and assist with the issue.

　　The faint noise of music began murmuring in the bedroom. At first, J hadn`t noticed, but progressively, it had gotten louder. As if the computer was slowly increasing its own volume.

　　Sitting back down in the chair, J stared closely at the screen, they weren`t so sure, but it looked like it got a little brighter from its pure darkness.

　　J looked at the small stereo speakers laying on the right side of the computer, and inspected them. They weren`t plugged in, but they were still playing that music they had been hearing.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

　　"This is freaky." J said, getting off their chair and walking up to the bedroom door. As their paw held to the doorknob, the computer`s screen flashed a bright white light.

　　Hesitant, J stood by the chair, hoping that this was just some kind of long loading period, maybe this was because of it downloading from the pendrive.

　　The screen darkened, as the Mojang symbol and a loading bar appeared. J sat down, glancing back at the bedroom door, waiting for Vix to come back with popcorn. Maybe they could somehow play the game together.

　　Slowly but surely, the bar filled all the way. Upon completion, the screen darkened again. J groaned, but kept assuring themselves that this isn`t failing.

　　The main menu finally popped up, with the only button available being "play", and customizing a default fox skin to the right, a splash text beside it read "WINTER EDITION!". There must`ve been multiple default foxes available, the current one looked identical to Vix`s fur.

　　Blinded by how bright the menu was, J tapped into the computer settings to lower the brightness, as they did so, Vix finally came back into the room, holding a large bowl with overflowing popcorn.

　　"How much did you make?!" J shouted, bewildered by the bowl Vix was holding, it was about twice J`s own head.

　　"As much as I wanted." Vix answered, putting the bowl down by the computer, and helping himself to a handful already. "How`s the mining and crafting?" He said, trying to be funny.

　　"It just finished loading." J answered, waving their paw at the screen, the play button highlighted. "Wanna play?"

　　"Yeah, sure. Give me a chair."

　　J looked to the back of their bedroom. "There should be a chair in my closet, might be a stool, I`m not& sure."

　　"I`d prefer something more comfortable like yours."

　　"What? No! You`ll scratch it up!"

　　"The only thing I`ll scratch is your head, but not today."

　　Vix opened the oakwood closet, sifting through cargo pants, sweaters, and jackets. After what felt like an hour, Vix pulled out a large stool. The effort it took left him tired.

　　He set it down by J, who watched the whole time.

　　After a deep breath, Vix spoke up. "So, how are we playing?"

　　J pressed the "play" button, two options appearing. One for single player, the other for multiplayer.

　　"Oh. That`s simple." Vix remarked.

　　"Is Minecraft supposed to be minimalistic?"

　　"Maybe this is a cracked version."

　　"I tried to firewall it, but nothing came up."

　　"Whatever, let`s just play."

　　J clicked on the multiplayer option, the screen began to load. Slowly, the screen turned darker and darker, before completely blacking out.

　　"Is that normal for your PC?"

　　"It`s been doing this since that pendrive`s been in&"

　　"Remember, uncle." Vix said, drilling the reminder into J`s mind.

　　The computer screen began flickering, going from pure void to a bright white light. It was like watching an old 1940`s cartoon. J frowned awkwardly, dragging their eyes down to their feet, trying their best to avoid watching the current disaster.

　　Vix watched in fascination, he hadn`t seen anything like this in his whole life. From gang fights, a plane crash, and J in a ballerina outfit, this situation had him captivated.

　　The unplugged speakers close by began playing loudly, the melancholic ambient music Minecraft was known for, audibly torturing our two curious players.

　　"TURN IT OFF!" Vix shouted, blocking his ears with fistfuls of popcorn. An action he`d soon regret, when needing to clean out the mistake. J looked up at the computer again, terrified of the situation. They tried pressing ALT and F4 on his keyboard, hopefully shutting the game off, but nothing happened.

　　Slowly, the bedroom`s lightbulb began dimming. The two couldn`t tell, nor could they care. Their focus on the anomaly before them. J stood up from their chair, and punched their computer, making it flop backwards onto the desk.

　　The lightbulb popped, the ambient music died down slowly, the lights from the computer faded. There was something oddly beautiful in a moment of silence within chaos.

　　"Jay?" Vix groaned, looking around the dark bedroom. There was no response. "Jay?" He said, more annoyed, batting out the popcorn in his ear canal, some salt still in his fur.

　　With a sigh, Vix slowly stood up from his stool, and held his arms out. Making his way to the bedroom door, hopefully this could give the two some outside light to work with.

　　He opened the door, and flicked a lightswitch in the living room. It wouldn`t illuminate into J`s bedroom all that well, but it was better than bumping into things and guessing where to walk.

　　Vix looked inside the room, narrowing his eyes, and stepped in. Walking directly on the glass remnants of the lightbulb.

　　"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-"

　　A very loud yelp came out of him. Words were said. Bad ones. Boy oh boy were there things that couldn`t be unheard.

　　Vix hopped on his left foot to the living room couch, looking like a flamingo as he did so. He took off his gray sock, now more colorful in red, and slowly picked out the shards in his foot.

　　Each shard came with a frustrated groan. Why wasn`t J responding to him? Are they playing some kind of sick prank? Well, Vix certainly wasn`t having any of it. He stood up, trying to walk on his right foot as light as possible, to minimize the pain.

　　He thought about the sock, but decided to leave it. It was dirty anyway, he could just put on one of J`s. He`ll probably hear about taking their clothes again, but that was lower in Vix`s concerns, outside of hearing from his own family again.

　　He could put on his shoes, but that wouldn`t be comfortable.

　　He opened one of the kitchen drawers he was searching through earlier, J setting up Minecraft let him familiarize himself with the new layout of everything, and took out a small keychain flashlight, shaped and designed like a koi fish.

　　He didn`t think he`d have to use it, but there wasn`t a better light source for J`s room. Tugging his green sweater inside his blue jean shorts, he stepped back into the bedroom, holding the button for the flashlight as hard as he could, to keep the small source going.

　　Instantly, he saw the crash site of the lightbulb`s pieces, as well as a bit of red in a small puddle around. He carefully walked over, making sure not to land on anything that reflected off the light. He quietly cursed at the shards, still resenting.

　　Vix looked around the room, shining the flashlight at whatever he wanted to focus on. From J`s undone bed, to his closet, Vix couldn`t find that idiot anywhere.

　　Tired, Vix sat down in J`s gaming chair. If they were gone, he couldn`t interrupt Vix from relaxing in the soft leather make.

　　Taking in the relaxation, Vix realized something. J punched the computer. He shined the flashlight on the desk, spotting it facing the ceiling, still out cold.

　　Doing J a slight favor, he set it back up on the desk, and tried to turn it on. The less work his uncle would have to do fixing it, the better for having to deal with complaints. Poking around, he felt where the pendrive was, still plugged into the computer.

　　Vix sighed, and grabbed a handful of popcorn on the desk, some of it spilled out of the bowl during the chaos, and he couldn`t see food going to waste.

　　Looking around the back of the bedroom, Vix thought for a moment. Does J not have a window? He flashed the flashlight around the corners of the room, and spotted a large blackout curtain, surely pulling it open could help light the room better.

　　He opened the curtains, the sky outside close to sunset. It would do for now. He sat back in J`s gaming chair, no longer having to rely on the koi keychain flashlight.

　　The unplugged speakers by the computer stood still, haunting Vix from the auditory torture they put him and J through earlier. He could have sworn there was still a faint sound coming from them, which was odd, since they were never connected.

　　Maybe they were Bluetooth speakers. That would be a logical solution. But why the need for audio jacks then?

　　Vix could have sworn that aggravating noise was still playing. Was it that catchy? Does he have it playing as an earworm? Grabbing one of the speakers, Vix brought it closer to his face, and confirmed to his suspicions, they were still going.

　　Oddly, the music wasn`t quite the same. At least, not like before. It sounded like someone screaming with some kind of orchestra. Looking back to the computer, he tapped the screen with a claw. Unsure if it was broken.

　　Nothing happened, at least, he thought.

　　With J missing, and his best source of light leaving by each minute, he began tapping away at the keyboard, trying to use any shortcut to get a sign of life for clarity.

　　Suddenly, the computer screen flashed awake. On screen, was a first-person view of a Minecraft player by a cave and tree. Vix scoffed, no longer in the mood for this game.

　　"Music`s kinda good." He said to himself, slouching down in J`s gaming chair. He made sure he didn`t scratch it, wanting to make J eat their words.

　　Trying to relax in the awkward chorus, Vix`s attempt at mentally escaping was ruined, when the speakers began curdling an annoying scream.

　　"J, SHUT UP!" Vix groaned, believing the idiot finally came out of hiding. He kept his eyes closed, staring up at the ceiling with his head resting on the very top of the chair.

　　It was a little shorter for his tall frame, but it made up for that inconvenience in comfort. J`s scream continued. Vix`s blank frown turned into a more angered one.

　　"Fine. I`ll get off."

　　Vix stood up from the gaming chair, doing his absolute best at not blowing up at the golden retriever. He opened his eyes, expecting to see the anxious host who vanished, but they still kept the title of being missing.

　　"J? Where the hell did you go?" Vix`s voice shouted into the living room, surely echoing out onto the front of the street.

　　"HERE!" J`s voice echoed back. Their exact location, unknown. "J, where is HERE?" Vix begged, looking around the bedroom.

　　"MINECRAFT!" They shouted again.

　　"I am NOT in the mood to play that dumbass game."

　　"I`M IN MINECRAFT!"

　　"YOU ARE NOT IN MINECRAFT."

　　"LOOK!"

　　Vix sighed very loudly, a long deep guttural one, truly blowing out all of the oxygen in his lungs, before taking in a fresh breath of air, a calming breathing exercise.

　　"I`m going to look at your computer. If you`re in there. I`m raiding your freezer for whatever ice cream gives me a headache so I can pass out."

　　"NO! DON`T DO THAT!"

　　With his eyes closed, Vix slowly turned his face towards the computer, and opened them. On screen, was J in their plaid T-shirt and black pajama pants, in Minecraft.

　　"Jay." Vix said, completely done.

　　"ARE YOU LOOKING?!"

　　"Jay." He repeated, more cold.

　　J noticed his tone, and answered with a concerned "What?"

　　"I`m leaving."

　　He began walking towards the bedroom door.

　　"VIX- PLEASE! I DON`T KNOW HOW TO GET OUT!"

　　"AND I`M SUPPOSED TO CARE?!" He argued.

　　"YES? WE`RE FRIENDS!"

　　Vix walked back to the gaming chair, sitting down.

　　"Friends. With the guy who can`t go a minute without throwing up dumb impossible hypotheticals and acting like they`re guaranteed to happen."

　　"The guy who can`t even stand up for himself if it took him a SINGLE ball. I don`t care about your they/thems or whatever, you go EVERY damn second trying to normalize yourself to get people to like you. I`m STUCK with YOU."

　　He took a deep exasperated breath, anger in his veins.

　　"I came here just to deal with your stupid anxiety over a box. I thought I could relax with this STUPID game. And now I`m busting you out of another problem."

　　He took in a sharp inhalation of air, sniffling a bit.

　　"I could save myself right now, just leaving you here. Is that fair? I don`t know anymore, you fucked my head up, Jay. You fucked everything up, you fucked ME up. I don`t even know why you name yourself "J" as if it doesn`t READ THE SAME."

　　He began panting between breaths, trying to preserve some form of collected emotion in his anger. "And to top it all off, the only thing you`ve done is make me do everything AGAIN."

　　The ambient music in the speakers slowly died out, the only sound left being J`s inaudible childish mumbling to Vix`s frustration.

　　He stood up.

　　"I`m out."

　　Making sure he wouldn`t hear another word, Vix picked up one of the speakers and lowered the volume in the dial all the way down. He left the room in the mess it was, a somber image for J`s mom when she gets home. Maybe she`ll take this as a robbery or kidnapping.

　　Vix put on his bloody sock, and gray sneakers.

　　And left.