Team Player (Train Wrecked #2)

Cross

Note to self: avoid letting peer pressure convince me to party until four in the morning with the bloody vespers. I have no idea what they put in the punch, but I can still hear colors.

I dragged myself out bed anyway—my mother will kill me if I miss the first day of her official appointment as the head of Rothford University. It’s an achievement for her; she’s one step closer to her goal of becoming a Thorn Fall institution.

The plan’s simple: locate caffeine, get to the main forum to listen to her speech, return to bed, preferably with one or two of the swimming team chicks. I figured out a long time ago that no one can hold their breath longer than those chicks.

Conscious that the alcohol content in my bloodstream can likely start a fire, I have to walk. The rest of the fuckers I call friends don’t have the dean as a mother, so they’re happily snoring. I can’t even catch a ride.

Luckily, the Shark House is one of the first buildings on our campus’s private drive, so it’ll only take me fifteen or twenty minutes, but the whole thing is offensive. As is sunlight. I should have taken the time to find my sunglasses.

“Watch out!” I hear from the left.

I turn, though my reflexes are way too slow to avoid the tornado on a collision course towards me, so I just accept my fate, staring dumbly at the pile of boxes rolling down the gentle slope—towards me.

My eyes squint, and I consider whether I should sue whoever made the vesper punch yesterday, because clearly, I’m still tripping.

The pain I expect never comes, because a video game character leaps into action, running way too fast, before throwing himself in the path between the tray of boxes and me, stopping it in its stride.

Straight platinum-blond hair, with dark roots, falling to hip level, a dark leather duster with white metallic shoulder pads, thigh-high boots, a four-foot-long sword. The only thing that doesn’t fit is the fact that this Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII has tits under the leather harness.

I blink. Sephiroth is still there. Too short, and disturbingly hot, but nonetheless present.

“I should go back to bed,” I decide.

Sephiroth huffs. “You could just have moved out of the way, you know.”

His voice is all wrong. Sweet, with a bit of an accent I can’t quite place, and most definitely not the deep Japanese rumbles I remember from my geek days.

So, what? That was a decent game. Quite frankly, I’d still play if the fifteenth hadn’t turned me off the franchise.

I wouldn’t actually do it in front of anyone I know, but it isn’t my fault if I’m surrounded by jocks and morons. I blame an accident of birth. I so happen to have an aptitude for physical activities, and people decided I was cool because of it, so at age fifteen, I joined organized team sports.

At Rothford, my priorities are getting a good degree and connecting with the leaders of this rich-as-fuck town to guarantee my future.

Unlike the rest of the students living on our private drive, I am not rich enough to buy a small sovereign nation.

We Crosses do all right, but all of us work for a living.

I don’t have an endless trust fund to fall back on—mine is a small six figures.

I can’t quite break away from the jock persona I’ve cultivated for years, but I joined the most pathetic sport on campus in order to ensure I don’t have to waste too much energy on it: the hockey team. And it helps that the whole sport is mostly about violence. I like to let off some steam.

So I am no longer officially a complete nerd.

The sight of this Sephiroth still brings no small amount of nostalgia and appreciation, especially now that my brain functions well enough to realize that the vision before me isn’t a hallucination brought on by too many controlled substances slipped into my drink, but a cosplayer.

A petite female cosplayer with great tits. Which explains why Sephiroth has green eyes and rectangular glasses.

“Sorry, nerd. I’m a little worse for wear right now.” I have the sense to help, pushing the boxes back as she maneuvers her dolly back on the footpath leading to the common dorms. I glance at my watch, and decide I have a little time to spare, so I grab the dolly.

“You don’t need to—”

“Whatever.” I shrug. Even on wheels, that shit is heavy. “Jesus, what the fuck do you have in there?”

“A 3D printer and a sewing machine, if you must know,” She-Sephiroth says primely. “I’m glad they didn’t end up in a ditch. That’s all of my savings for like, a whole year.”

I eye her costume again. Almost perfection.

“You sewed that yourself?” I guess.

She flushes, glancing down at herself as though she completely forgot what she’s wearing. “Yeah. There’s a competition this afternoon in LA—I figured I had time to drop by with my stuff, then head out. But it’s taking forever to unload.”

She bites her lip, which makes me look at it.

It’s a pretty lip, round and plump. Her bite made it redder, and tired as I am, I can’t deny the sudden jolt to my cock.

She’s a very pretty chick.

“A competition?” I repeat, wanting her to keep going as I follow her to the elevator.

“You know—for this.” She gestures to herself. “I’ve won a few before, but never in a city as big as LA, so, there might be better cosplays,” she mumbles.

“You look good. Even your Masamune is pretty realistic. I’d say the only flaw’s the eyes.”

She gapes at me open-mouthed. “You know Final Fantasy?”

Her green eyes take me in from head to toes, widening in surprise.

I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a cliché, the poster boy for preppy guys, with my chinos, shirt, and blazer.

I smirk. “We all have our deep, dark secrets. Mine’s finishing Final Fantasy XII in under a week when it first came out.”

She beams. “It was a pretty good story, wasn’t it? Too bad about fifteen.”

“Right? I haven’t really touched a game since. I mean, I considered Zelda, but I’m not into the Switch.”

“Oh you must try it, it’s awesome,” she gushes, launching on a monologue about what clearly is one of her passions. “You can even get a traditional controller for it, if you don’t like the remote.”

We’ve reached her dorm on the second floor. I look around, curious. I’ve never been to the common dorms, but her room’s nice, though I would hate sharing my space with someone else. I see a second bed so she’s likely sharing.

Somehow, I end up following her to her banged-up car and bringing a second lot of heavy boxes up with her. I think to text my mother to explain I’m helping a new chick move in, aware she’ll have my balls at dinner this weekend for missing her speech.

I’m almost sad to watch her drive away two hours later, still in her cosplay.

I wonder if she’ll win.

I wonder what her name is. I never bothered to ask.

But I know her room number, so it doesn’t take me long to work it out.

I snoop, finding out that Lily Trueman’s, nineteen, a freshman with a full scholarship.

She’s smart, then.

To my surprise, none of her classes are creative, despite clearly having some talent with her hands if she managed that cosplay. A bit of a waste of talent.

I find her social media, but nothing shows any of her cosplay, so I hack into her account to figure out more. It doesn’t take me long to find her real profile.

Fuck, she’s good. And hot. That Catwoman cosplay of hers? Fucking indecent, with her tits. My cock twitches in my pants and I save all the pictures.

By the time I realize that I’ve found another obsession, I’ve read most of her recent emails and private messages.

I’m not as disturbed by my intrusion as I would have been two or three years ago.

I know myself now. I’m generally bored and uninterested by anything—anyone.

That means that when someone stands out, I always want to know every single thing there is to know about them.

Until I’m bored again. My shrink had a field day with me.

Ultimately, I stopped therapy, because there was no changing me.

Besides, I’m not an actual psycho, unlike half of my friends.

I don’t do anything to those who catch my interest. I just learn about them.

I’ll be bored of this chick by the end of the week, so it doesn’t matter.