Changing Topics, Again and Again

‘Ehem… Sorry, can you hear me?’

The most classic of starts to any call: confirming whether the other side can even hear the sounds in the first place. Lowering his voice as much as possible, Yan can only hope his mic can pick up the whispers from his mouth. Too often his parents had to tell him to speak up when they called over the phone, and given he’s speaking even quieter than usual, there’s a good chance Crystal might not hear him.

‘Yeah, all good,’ the familiar voice of Crystal answers, albeit on a slightly lower volume than usual. ‘Took you a while.’

‘Had to grab my earphones, sorry.’

‘Anyway, you know how everything seems so ordinary yet so mysterious at the same time?’

And straight back into the topic. Crystal simply does not waste time for awkward small talk. Thankfully.

‘Yeah?’

‘The author uses the nostalgic setting so well, that despite some chapters literally just having the main characters going about with their lives, it still keeps you hooked and wondering what happens next. That’s like, really cool, isn’t it?’

‘Uh, yeah, I guess. The setting is definitely one of the story’s best parts.’

‘Dude, I know right? And the characters are soooo pretty as well.’

‘Yeah, their eyes especially.’

‘You have no idea how much I stared at the character design. The dresses, right? On one hand I think they look too fancy for the setting, but on the other hand, it just makes the girl look so elegant and pretty. Meanwhile, the guy just wears a boring office dude outfit, but somehow that paints such a contrast with the girl…’

And on and on she goes. The words pour endlessly out of her mouth, her oratory engines losing the ability to brake as she enters book review mode once more. Unable to keep up with her insanely fast brain processing, Yan opts to simply shut his brain off, patiently waiting for her to finish while mumbling ‘mm’s and ‘yup’s every now and then. Not exactly the most interesting conversation. In fact, he now has even less to say compared to texting earlier.

But there’s something about Crystal going on and on that makes him want to listen more despite what should’ve otherwise been complete boredom. It’s the passion in her speech, the way in which she just pours all her thoughts out without reservation, even if this means blocking him of any opportunity to offer his own words. But somehow, it feels totally fine.

‘... Dude, I am so gonna draw her tomorrow. Oh, by the way, do you play gacha games?’

‘Huh?’ Yan switches away from his npc-esque dialogue options at this sudden turn of events. Just last sentence, she seems to still be talking about the characters, their outfits, and the immersion it brings to the story, but now she’s asking him about… gacha?

The hell does it have to do with anything earlier?

‘Uh, used to. Not much anymore,’ he finds himself answering, dragged along by Crystal’s enthusiasm.

‘There’s this game, right? It’s actually sci-fi, but one of their characters’ outfits would fit the girl so much. Similar vibes, you know?’

‘Uh… huh…’ He is completely lost.

‘Wait, lemme show you.’

For ten seconds or so, there is a rare moment of silence as Yan tries to collect his thoughts. Now that the topic has moved beyond Romance in the Walls (or JnK as Crystal kept mentioning earlier in her ramble), he has no choice but to follow Crystal’s lead. He scrambles bits and pieces from the ramblings earlier, but before he can make a cohesive summary of sorts, a notification ping sends him back to reality.

A picture of a game character, at first glance a cyborg, shows up on his screen. Not being extremely well-versed in the world of sci-fi, he can only describe the appearance as sleek and streamlined. And just as Crystal said, it does remind him somewhat of the main heroine from JnK.

‘Cool, right?’ Crystal asks. ‘You see the resemblance?’ Yan can practically sense her grin from the other side of the screen.

‘Yeah… I haven’t played the game before, but it does give those vibes a little despite the difference in genre.’

‘You don’t play sci-fi games?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘You should really get into it! Expand your horizons, even for fictional genres. Oh, if you ever wanna get into sci-fi, I got some manga to recommend. What sci-fi are you kinda interested in?’

Oh, she changed the topic again. Yan begins to sense there is a pattern to Crystal’s mode of conversation. A pattern that feels more like chaos to his brain than coherence.

‘Um, uh… I actually have watched a bit of Gunbam before. And built some gunbla. I just don’t really play sci-fi games in general.’

‘Ooh, that’s really nice! Have you watched Avangelion?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘You should totally watch it! Best mecha of all time. Also the only mecha I’ve watched. Shinji you bastard.’

‘Uh… nice.’ Yan’s head is spinning from the rapid pace of conversation, his vocabulary now back to the default words.

‘You gonna try watching it sometime?’

‘... Yeah, I guess.’

‘Eyyyyy!’

How does she even maintain this enthusiasm?

As Yan begins to track back the topics, he realises they have long deviated from simple book discussion. Somehow, talking about JnK led them to Ava? He honestly has no idea how that happened.

‘Dude, I just realised we went wayyy off topic lmao,’ Crystal chuckles, as if she just read Yan’s mind. ‘Sorry about that. I just have a tendency to not stick to a single topic for long.’

‘It’s fine,’ Yan tiredly replies.

‘Hope your brain isn’t fried.’

‘No, it’s fine.’ It’s fried.

‘You sound so dead,’ she laughs.

‘You just realised?’ Yan chuckles, not realising his voice has just entered an unnaturally high register.

‘What was that laugh?’ Crystal snorts. ‘You sound like you’re wheezing!’

‘S-Shut up!’ He tries to stifle his laughter, but giggles escape his mouth, causing Crystal to laugh even more, causing him to lose control even further, causing Crystal to— Yup, a death spiral.

I-I can’t stop, oh my god, jesus, her laugh is just too infectious—

Suddenly, the door clicks.

Oh shit.

The laughter abruptly stops with a hiccup as Yan instinctively shoves his phone underneath his pillow, the earphones still plugged in. In less than two seconds, he rolls over to his usual sleeping position, his head sticking out of the blanket, his body facing the wall, one leg curled up with the knee practically touching the wall itself. Leaving just one eye barely open, he witnesses the door creak a little, the half a second left feeling like an eternity in his mind.

Enter the silhouette of a middle-aged woman, her shadow cast against the wall like a monster in a horror movie approaching its prey. Her footsteps are light but steady, clearly not that of a person submerged in drowsiness. And as she turns the corner to have the bunk bed completely under her field of vision, Yan’s muscles tense up, panic sets in his brain, and his fight or flight senses are activated… except he can neither fight nor flee. Not in this situation.

‘Jesus christ, what’s happening to your mic?’ He can still hear Crystal’s voice, but god oh god he prays she didn’t hear that coming from his earphones.

He closes his eyes. His world goes dark. The footsteps stop. He can practically hear his own rapid heartbeat and breath. He feels an invisible weight bearing down on his frozen body.