Best Mate: Ace

A white-haired boy takes the stage, a mic in hand. 

“Hello everybody. I know you are here to talk today with Jem. But I’m sorry to say that she’s not available right now.” 

There’s a loud chorus of BOOs! being yelled at him. He waits for everyone to quiet down. Once they do, he starts once again. 

“But. Since she isn’t here right now...I'll tell you guys about her. Okay?” he asks and that seems to make everyone happy. “Take a minute and think about what you want me to tell you.”

“Why is there nothing about her on the internet?” someone from the crowd asks him. He looks at the girl who asks her the question and smiles at her. 

“She’s just a very private person. There are some parts of herself that she doesn’t like, so she doesn’t share much about herself.”

“What would you say her personality is?” a boy from the crowd asks him. The white-haired boy scrunches up his face, his eyes turning into thin white lines as he thinks for a long time.

“What to tell you? She’s many things all at once.” he walks forward towards the edge of the stage and sits down, his legs dangling over. And then the crowd can see that his eyes are mismatched. One is red, the other a bright green. 

“Jem is an introvert who yearns for affection from her peers and wants to be taken care of. It is in her to take care of others but sometimes she wonders who will take care of her?” the boy looks around, into the eyes of everyone in the audience. There is no noise, even the traffic outside seems to be hushed down. Everyone pays such close attention to the boy. And to think! They hated him two minutes ago. 

“Jem is a BTS fan and always has a million story ideas in her head. But sometimes, she’s just too lazy to write them down.”

“Then why doesn’t she write more books about those ideas?” a girl with red highlights in her hair asks. And everyone else yells their agreement. 

“Sometimes,” the boy speaks and the crowd becomes silent. “When that happens, she uses the excuse that she needs to come up with more details. So what she does, is that every time she’s alone or feeling bored, she’ll imagine herself as the main character and go through the story slowly as if she’s in a movie.” 

“What do most people not know about her?” someone new asks.

“That she craves physical affection. And that she cares for everybody. Even if she doesn’t know them. For example; if someone were to kidnap her and 30 other random people from the street and offer them the choice of one person taking the punishment for all of them...her hand would be the first one up.” murmurs rise in the crowd and a sense of pride takes hold of the boy’s eyes. 

“What does she not like being called?” 

“I can’t answer that,” a chorus of boos rises again. The boy opens his mouth and everyone shuts up, knowing that he’s not done talking yet. They all itch to learn more about their favourite author. “Because she hides her emotions from me as well. You could call her anything and she could laugh it off so easily but inside, she could be breaking into pieces, thinking, ‘do people really think of me that way?’ so she won’t say anything, and most of the time she’ll brush it off. But if there’s a repeat of the same words, then she’ll really start to wonder.” then the boy looks at everyone, narrowing his eyes. 

“And that’s why it’s dangerous to leave her alone. She’ll overthink everything and fall into depression and won’t get out of bed the next morning.”

Then, almost as if you completely imagine it, you hear him say, “That’s what happened this morning. And why she’s not here. ”

“What is she most proud of?” someone close to you asks him. The boy looks at the person and his eyes draw towards you and he smiles softly and you see his eyes scrunch up a little, disappearing into his pale skin. 

“She’s proud of all the books that she’s managed to publish. And she’s proud of you all, because you are here for her, and she can rely on that. Because at the end, when she doesn’t want to write anymore, she knows that you’re out here, waiting for her. And that is what motivates her every day to get up, open her laptop and write word after word, page after page...until the book is finished and it's ready for you all to read. And then she sits down and waits. 

“And then once the comments start coming in, she takes them in, and she’ll bounce around the house, so happy and she’ll tell me all day that she’s so happy because of you guys and the way you reacted to her story.” he looks up at the rest of the crowd, away from you and you realize that some people are sniffling. His words touched everyone here so deeply, and you wouldn’t even realize that she felt this way. The feeling of importance to their favourite author makes everyone in the crowd happy.

“You know who else she’s proud of?” someone says into another mic and everyone turns towards the middle of the crowd, where there’s a ring of people surrounding a young woman. She has a beanie settled on her head and dark sunglasses cover half of her face. She beams at the boy and he grins back at her. 

“Who else?” the boy asks her. 

She walks forward, purpose laced into her stride and reaches the stage and stands in front of the boy. “She’s proud of you, Ace. You know why?”

“Why?” he asks, twirling a lock of her hair on his finger. 

“Because you are the one who reminded her that there were people out there waiting for her. You were the one who took care of her when she refused to do it herself. You were the one who helped her when she was stuck. She owes most of it to you, Ace.” the woman says. The boy, Ace hops down and stands in front of her. 

“When are you going to show them your face, J?” he asks, reaching out to take her glasses off. She lets him do so and everyone looks at the face of Jem Ignis, their beloved author who was supposed to be absent today. “They’ve been waiting for you. I only kept them entertained by spilling your secrets.” he winks at her and helps her up on the stage as the crowd behind them erupts into cheers. 

“I’ll question you about that later, Ace. Because right now, there are people waiting for me.“ she tells him. He smirks at her and begins to walk back towards the stairs leading off the stage. 

She turns to the crowd and says, “Everybody, can I have a round of applause for Ace, my best mate who managed to keep you entertained for an hour?” 

The crowd ejects loud cheering and bursts of applause and Ace bows and leaves the stage.