I knocked on Lena's door. From inside I could hear her streaming—her talking animatedly, voice pitched high anime-style as she rattled on about video games. Then she began her winddown, thanking her viewers (likely miniscule) and her followers (nearly nil) for their support. I waited till her voice died down, then knocked again. There was the harsh scrape of her chair against wood, and she opened the door.
Lena was dressed in her e-girl get-up: black cut-off shirt over a striped long-sleeve, dark plaid skirt that showed an ample amount of her fishnet stockings, chains and other silver accessories dangling from her neck and wrists. Her murky green eyes were dull as she stared at me. Looked like she was in a bad mood; evidently her stream didn't go well.
But I knew better than to say anything about it. I held up the bag of takeout I got. "Dinner."
Lena gave me a dour look before turning away back to her computer. "I don't fucking get it," she said, dropping her anime-girl voice and returning to normal: pitched on the edge of husky with a touch of southern drawl. "I tried all sorts of shit but my follower count isn't budging. Like, it's not like I'm ugly or anything." She compulsively checked her appearance in a mirror beside her desk. "And I stream frequently, I spend all day looking for new things to try. Like, what the fuck do they want, you know?"
I kept quiet, silently unpacking the food I got her. Lena had always been slightly weird, but after declaring her desire to become a streamer, she seemed to have spiraled even further out of control. It was sad coming by every day only to see her flail, trying desperately to fit into the mold of what was considered good content by the online community. She never understood why none of her ideas worked; why her follower count stayed stubbornly in the low twenties, no matter how hard she tried to connect with people.
Making things worse, she had no friends. I was the closest thing she had to one, and it wasn't like we were really friends. Sure, I listened to her rants and sympathized with her failures, but that didn't mean we were close. We just happened to be paired up together for New Student Orientation, and since then I'd made a habit of buying her dinner because I felt bad for her—especially since I knew she had a nasty habit of spending her money on video games, clothes, accessories, and sleeping pills.
Lena