Lack of Creativity (Patreon)

Story by Sophiie93 & Leena

“What do you mean it’s my year?” Violet said into her phone.

"Yeah! It's the year of the rabbit! You didn't know?" Leena said on the other end.

"Oh, is it?" Violet giggled nervously. "I didn't. But, what does that have to do with me?" She looked around, making sure she wasn’t being spied on.

“Duh, your character, you know, in the MMO we play? She’s a rabbit girl.”

Violet sighed and clutched her chest. "Ah, yeah, right. I guess it's my year then."

“Soooo, I was wondering. Since it’s your year and all maybe we can celebrate? Maybe hangout, you know, in meatspace?”

"Leena, you know I don't go outside."

"I know, I know. You’re so anxious,” Leena’s voice came through exhausted. “You won’t even tell me what your mutation is. But come on! We've known each other for almost two years now. We live unbelievably close, you know I'm also a mutant, plus you’ve seen me before on TikTok and Twitch, and even the new Lab livestream that Karin thinks is such a good idea. You know I wouldn't judge you. Plus, I could introduce you to the lab girls if you want."

"No no, I don’t think I could handle that! Anxiety would kill me!" Violet said, raising a hand in protest as if Leena was in the room.

Leena laughed on the other end of the phone. "So you’d be OK with meeting just me then?"

Violet was silent for several seconds. She was socially anxious her whole life. She mutated at twenty and the people around her were not particularly nice about it. She kind of became a shut in after that, spending most of her life playing video games and getting everything via delivery.

"Violet?" Leena said, snapping her out of her long distance stare. She almost droped her phone. "Y-Yeah, yes," she replied without thinking.

"Perfect! Maybe a movie?"

"W-What, I..." Violet said in a bit of a panic.

"I know you only watch Anime movies, but the big cineplex down at the pier screens new imports every week. I bet they even have some you haven’t heard of!"

“Leena, I don’t know…”

“Please, for me?” Leena begged. “You know I also have problems getting out of the house and this would give me a reason other than work to get out.”

Violet walked in circles for a long while before stopping, sighing, closing her eyes, and trying to calm down. “OK, OK I’ll do it.” She said.

“GREAT! I’ll see you there. I need to catch a shower first. Meet me at the Portside Mall train station at 5? OK?” Leena said excited.

“OK,” Violet said meekly.

Violet dropped her phone on her bed and head her head, pacing back and forth. “What have I done!? I shouldn’t have said yes! I haven’t gone out in months, god years! This is such a bad idea”

She continued to pace around her room in circles, practically wearing a groove into the carpet before she stopped, closed her eyes, put a hand on her chest, and took a deep breath. “OK, calm down. I said yes. I have to do it now.”

She tried to let momentum carry her, running to the bathroom, taking a shower, drying her hair, putting on a nice casual outfit with a shirt and denim shorts and jacket. She paused looking at herself in the mirror.

This was the image Leena would see. A mutant. Four arms, three legs, and two long rabbit ears on her head. Her hair was short, purple, with little white details, a small lock hung longer to one side. It also looked perpetually messy, as if it was giving away her secret, that she never left the house.

“I… I look fine right,” she said to herself. “I look fine?”

She turned back to look at her PC. “I could just stay in a play games… I mean… I’ve flaked on Leena before. She would understand.”

It was just then her cell phone beeped, causing her to jump in surprise. She opened it to find a text message from Leena.

[Leena] Hey Violet. About now I’m sure you are thinking of flaking again and just staying inside to play video games. Well remember when we shared our Steam libraries with each other. You had to give me your password. So, just to be sure we meet up, I changed it. Now you gotta meet up if you want your password back. Sorry, not sorry! See you there.

“WHAT!?!” Violet screamed as she rushed to her computer to check. She tried to sign in. Sure enough her password was wrong. She tried again. Nope.

“That BITCH!” Violet screamed as she grabbed her keys without thinking of it and rushed off to the mall.

Violet was so angry she didn’t think of anyone on the train to the station near the mall. She just kept tapping the heel of her high heels nervously, anxiously, on a single mission to get her password back.

As she pulled into the stop she saw Leena standing there, dressed in a t-shirt and leather jacket. She practically leaped off the train and stomped toward her menacingly. “Give it back!” she shouted.

“What, woah, Violet is that you?” Leena said with a smile.

“GIVE IT BACK!” She shouted again and threw her hands in weak flailing slaps at Leena’s chest.

Leena effortlessly put her hands up to block, laughing. “Violet, hey come on come on, calm down.”

“How dare you change my password! I gave that to you in confidence I-”

“I didn’t,” Leena said still blocking Violet’s flailing hands.

“W-what? But I couldn’t sign in.” Violet said, her cheeks going pale.

“You changed it last night, remember? You got that reminder from Steam to change your password every so often and told me to remind you? All I did was tell a little white lie. I had a feeling you wouldn’t stop to think before you came out to see me.”

Violet’s cheeks went from white to red. She looked around. She felt like everyone was staring at her. Maybe they were judging her for her outburst. Maybe they were judging her for her mutation. She thought back to last night and did remember changing her password! She was such a fool. She was making an ass out of herself. She wanted to run back to the train and head back home when Leena grabbed her wrist and stopped her.

“Hey! You look really good,” she said. “I dig the messy hair look, Honestly I don’t know what you were worried about. You look fine.”

“Leena,” she shivers. “I need to get out of here. This was a mistake.”

“Nonsense! Come on,” Leena said pulling Violet in to a multi-armed hug. “We have a movie we are going to see.”

“Leena please. I’m really bad at going outside I need to-”

“Shhhhhhhh relax,” Leena said placing a three fingered claw on Violet’s chest. “Breathe in. Breathe out. Slowly. It’s just you and me here. No one else matters.”

Violet curled into her arms and chest shivering a lot.

“Everything will be OK. Look, we are just gonna go to the food court and get something to eat. Do you think you can do that?”

Violet shivered and nodded a bit. She didn’t want to be here but she was too scared to go home and she felt stuck. She walked, hand in hand with Leena to the food court and blushed heavily as Leena got them some food.

“So, a rabbit mutation huh?” Leena said bringing a bowl of ramen over for her and a bowl of salad for Violet. “I should have known.”

“W-why’s that?” asked Violet.

“Well, I mean your character in the game,” Leena said slurping a mouthful of noodles. “She looks just like you.” She laughed a bit to herself. “Don’t you think that’s a little boring?”

“It’s not boring!” Violet said with a small shout.

“I mean, you also named her Violet. You know it’s like super dangerous to name your characters after yourself. People can doxx you that way,” Leena said swirling her noodles in the broth with her chopsticks.

“I just, like my name,” she said.

“Heh, I get it, I like it too,” Leena said with a warm smile.

“B-besides, my character doesn’t have four arms, or three legs!” Violet said defensively.

“That’s because they haven’t added that feature to character creation yet,” Leena said grinning.

“Hey, if they did that doesn’t mean I would!” Violet protested.

Both friends sat in silence for a bit, Leena stifling giggles.

“OK, OK, I would,” she said with a small laugh.

“You look better in real life than the game anyway,” Leena said with a mouth full of noodles, “And you don’t take as many resources to render.”

“Yeah, the ray-tracing is pretty good in real life,” Violet laughed. “OK, that may have just maxed my nerd meter.”

“So,” Leena said. “Feeling better.”

“Y-yeah,” Violet said. “I guess being out isn’t so bad.”

“Great, now we have about twenty minutes until the movie. I choose “I was reincarnated as queen of the monsters” because I know you like a good isekai and the reviews were good. You gonna be ok?”

“Yeah, I think I can be OK,” Violet said.

Leena reached out a claw to Violet. “Great, let’s go. And maybe later I can introduce you to some of my other mutant friends.”

“Let’s take things one step at a time, OK?” Violet said.

“OK,” Leena said.

And the two of them walked to the theater together.