Finished Live a Little

There was only so much studying one person could do before they grew bored of it. Carmin had been working through math problems all day and had finally run out of steam. It was good to study, but this was getting excessive. Studying and reading were all he ever did, and while it did keep his mind busy, it was becoming kind of lame. He needed something new to do.

That's when he glanced at the black laptop sitting on his desk. Apparently he could watch tv on that thing. Perhaps it would be worth a try? But then another thought hit him. The girl who had told him about it, Madeline, was just a little ways above him. He could ask her if she wanted to join him and then actually hang out with someone.

His mind quickly dismissed the thought as crazy, he didn't need company, but it resurfaced again shortly after. She did tell him where her room was, she probably wouldn't have done that if she didn't want to see him ever again. But the very idea of him going and asking someone to hang out was absurd. What if she said no? It might be better to just wait, then she'd talk to him again if she really felt like it. Besides, she wasn't like him, she was probably doing something fun or important already.

He paced around his room for a good ten minutes arguing with himself until he finally decided he'd do it. Being a coward, sitting there in his room, that sucked. Even if she said no to him, he could at least say that he made an attempt and he could stop blaming himself for being bored all day.

Carmin walked out of his room feeling pretty nervous. He stood there for a few seconds, thinking it through again, but still decided to go through with it. He walked up the stairs and made it to her room with little difficulty, stopping again in front of the door. He then took a deep breath in and out, closed his eyes, and knocked on the door.

@Kait

She was home. Carmin was both glad and afraid at the same time. He wanted to do something with a friend for a change, but at the same time he didn't want to take the tremendous risk of asking them to hang out.

"Hi Madeline." He awkwardly grabbed one arm with the other, gripping it tightly like a stress ball. "I... was... wondering..." He spoke with a break in between each word, as if to delay what was to come. "If, maybe, you wanted to hang out for a bit." His face blushed and his eyes looked down to the side very shortly after he finished, quickly adding. "If you aren't busy, of course." Lining up an excuse for her to use if she didn't want to was a good strategy. If she didn't want to, she could play along and he'd never have to watch her awkwardly come up with an excuse.

Carmin filled with anticipation as he waited for her response. But when he finally got one, he was caught off guard by it. "Wait, really?" Immediately realizing just how insecure that sounded, Carmin made a pretty weak attempt to cover it up. "I mean, awesome." Was he really expecting rejection that much, he was disappointed in himself. But there were more important things at hand, so he figured self pity could be rescheduled for a later date.

"I was thinking maybe we could just watch tv or something." Carmin very clearly hadn't done this in a long time. This would mark the date of his first time asking someone to hang out in over six years.

When the invitation was there, Carmin hesitantly made his way into her room. This would mark another first for him. He hadn't actually been inside another student's room yet during his time at the school. Though he couldn't help but feel envious at what he saw. Her room was better than his in every way possible. She didn't just have the school provided laptop, she had a proper computer, with two screens? The room had character, with lights taped up along the wall and furniture that wasn't so horribly plain. It also looked like a teenager was living there as opposed to his room which looked more like the property of a child, complete with a sandbox.

He was distracted for a solid minute, just looking around the room with curiosity and jealousy. It took him a moment to register what she'd said when Madeline spoke to him. "Hm? Oh. No, I haven't actually figured out how to use the tv service on the computer yet."

Carmin watched with a look of childish awe as Madeline easily navigated through the computer and got to a screen full of different shows. It reminded him of an online streaming service a friend from a long long time ago used to use. Although the shows seemed more supernatural than usual? Come to think of it, he remembered Madeline saying something like the streaming service having special shows.

When asked what he liked, Carmin drew a blank. "I... Uhm... I don't really know. It's been a really long time since I've watched tv." Over six years actually. And back then he was still just watching cartoons, and just getting into cooking shows and sports. All three of which he wasn't too sure he'd still be interested in.