#mmkm

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

You know the best part about games? They allow you to indulge in activities that would seem unreasonable, or rather, impossible in reality. A lot of people view games as an escape from reality. A coping mechanism, of sorts. There's that too, of course.

For something that meant so much to so many people around the world, it was worth understanding how these games were developed and how they functioned. I still remember the time I opted for game development as my elective, clear as day. I wonder what things would be like had I chosen a different elective.

Life Itself probably wouldn't have existed.

Nor would have Guy.

Worst of all, I wouldn't have met Keys.

"Millie?" Keys asked, spinning his swivel chair around to face me.

"Yup?" I said, pulling down my headphones.

"Well, I have good news and bad news." Keys sighed.

I blinked at him, looking into his eyes. His eyes twinkled, accompanied by what seemed to me like a faint smile that gently tugged on the corners of his lips.

Mouser snorted in his sleep, ruining the moment. Keys cleared his throat and diverted his attention back to what he originally intended to say.

"The good news is that our unique visitors have gone up by 87% since last month."

"That's great!"

"Umm… the bad news is that not all of them created Free Life accounts. Our servers are running out of space and uh- that's making the game laggy for some users. Bad user experience."

Keys turned back to his laptop and drew up some statistics. I furrowed my eyebrows as I looked at him.

"We're running on GCP right now?"

"Yeah," Keys answered. "I think it might be time to switch to AWS."

"But that'd mean shutting the game down while we moved to AWS. We could lose players, Keys." I frowned.

"If we continued with GCP, players would eventually leave anyway because of the lag, Mills."

"Yeah, but- but, we have only just started out. We don't have any godfathers in the gaming industry."

"It's better that we don't. We had one, and I think both of us know how that turned out."

Keys furrowed his eyebrows. A tense silence lingered in the air.

"Where would we arrange the funds from? I don't want to commercialise a game we made with so much love..."

"Neither do I. We'll figure something out. Maybe we'll try our luck at a convention or something- wait a minute, the IGC San Francisco is coming up!" His face lit up in excitement.

I walked over to the couch, collapsing onto it. This was a bad idea. If we were to leave, our game wouldn't make the cut. I hugged my knees to my chest.

"In the time that we were gone, the game could collapse on itself, Keys." I croaked.

Keys looked at me sadly.

"If we want our game to survive in the long run, we have to take a risk now, Mills." He sighed. "Anyway, chuck that. We'll talk about it later."

I pressed my palms to my face. This was terrible. We had just started Free Life a month ago. We couldn't shut it down already. Who knows, the move might even reset Guy. And I really didn't want to lose him. Keys had poured his heart out into making him. I wanted to treasure Guy as a souvenir of Keys' cute, subtle, innocent confession, and my dumb, obscure self.

"You know," Keys chuckled. "I am flattered that you find my love letter cute."

I could feel my cheeks heating up to a billion degrees.

"I said that out loud, didn't I?" I pursed my lips, bringing the long sleeves of my turtleneck up to my mouth.

He simply smiled at me, his eyes skimming my face. From the Keys who couldn't even bring himself to smile at me without shying away, to the Keys who now boldly held my gaze, it's been one hell of a transformation. Locking my eyes with his, I walked over to him and settled on his thigh. Almost instinctively, he wrapped his arms around me, as if to keep us from toppling off the swivel chair.

I'm not kidding, that has happened before, and Mouser had quite the laugh back then.

"You know, Keys?" I said softly. "Maybe I'm not a loser after all."

"You never were, Mills."

"I won my lawsuit against Antwan, I've got a lovely game up and running," I tilted my head and smiled as I fixed my eyes on the framed photograph from the Seattle Indie Game Convention. "And, I've got the sweetest best friend-slash-partner-slash-boyfriend in the whole freaking world."

The last part brought a wide smile on Keys' face.

"You know, you're cute when you brag." He grinned sheepishly.

I laughed.

"You really wanna switch roles, huh?" I took his glasses off and set them down on the desk beside us. He looked at me, his hand resting carefully on my shoulder, as my fingers gently combed through his hair.

"Oh, my. You need to drop your haircare routine. Now."

Keys laughed before his lips met mine. We kissed for a long, long time.

"Mills, I think you should attend this year's Indie Game Convention in San Francisco. It'll be a great place to strike up some sponsorship deals. AWS is going to be expensive for a game like ours. We don't have that kind of money on us."

So much for talking about it later.

I looked at him briefly before I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"The IGC was where we sold off our game to Antwan. I don't want to make a mistake like that one again."

"Antwan was an asshole. Forget him. There will be a lot of other sponsors. You'll do great."

"I'm still a little worr- wait, what do you mean by 'you'll do great'? You're not coming?"

Keys smiled gently, before pursing his lips sadly.

"Someone needs to keep the game up and running. Like you said, the game could collapse on itself while we were gone." Keys said.

I frowned. Keys should have tagged along. I knew how much he loved attending such conventions. It wasn't fair.

"I think you should go. I'll stay."

"No, Mills. I can't speak well enough to convince investors. You'd do that better." He paused and smiled. "You've always been better than me. At that, especially. I know why you want me to go. Trust me, I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" I asked him, cupping his cheek with my palm.

"I'll be fine." He rested his hand on mine and smiled before placing a little kiss on my cheek.

"Millie, take Maya with you," Mouser said nonchalantly from his spot on the couch, holding a box of strawberries.

Instinctively, I got off Keys' lap and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. Keys straightened his shirt.

"Maya who?" Keys asked.

"My girlfriend. She has worked as an AWS Cloud Engineer in the past. Now, she works as a backend supervisor in Epic Games. She can help out." Mouser walked over to us.

Keys and I blinked at him. Rather too blankly.

"Questions?"

"She will?" I asked. "Won't Epic Games have a problem with that?"

"Nope. Don't worry about that." He said, popping a strawberry in his mouth. "Keys, questions?"

"Since when do you have a girlfriend?"

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

note: GCP and AWS are cloud computing platforms that provide storage, servers and other services to individuals/companies. Such platforms are also employed by game developers to host their games for the global audience.

Author’s note: Second episode in the Miss Me? Keys Mi series! Hope you guys like it! ♡

Written by: @highratedkudi

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Millie. An outspoken, incredibly talented programmer, who scared half our batch out of their wits. And, I'm not just talking about any college here, I'm talking about MIT. Millie had always been an overachiever, enough to make Hermione Granger proud; yet oddly jealous at the same time.

And then there's me - a diffident crab with occasional attacks of imposter syndrome. I don't blame anyone else for that, though. It's easy to feel this way when everyone around you is better at your job than you are.

Millie says I'm smarter than her, and that I simply lack the confidence to admit it. I disagree. Honestly, I feel she tries too hard to make me feel better about my own, miserable self.

The sound of footsteps and mild arguments intensified outside my bedroom.

"-exactly what Antwan did," Millie told Mouser, before turning to look at me. "You alright, Keys?"

I looked up at her. She furrowed her brows at me, causing Mouser to stop speaking once he realised that he no longer held Millie's attention.

"I'm… uh- fine. I just needed a moment." I said, shifting my gaze away from her. It was hard enough for me to make eye contact as it was, and Millie's gentle, inquisitive look made me even more conscious than I already was.

"Very unlikely of you, bud," Mouser said. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need me. This rabbit needs some nachos."

"Pretty sure rabbits don't eat nachos." Millie laughed.

"Well, at least you know who not to blame when your snack drawers hit rock bottom tomorrow morning." He chuckled before banging the door shut behind him.

I found myself trying to suppress the smile that threatened to escape my lips. Mouser can be hilarious at times.

"I'll never understand that guy." Millie yawned before she took a seat next to me, on my bed. "What are you smiling about?"

"The last few days have been pretty… eventful." I looked at her.

"You signed up for such days the day you chose engineering." She laughed, punching my arm playfully.

"Not that, Mills. I- I don't know what to feel right now."

She raised a brow at me, the laughter draining from her face.

"Do you think we rushed into this?" She asked quietly. "Is it about us?"

"No, no! Not at all!" I defended myself. "I um… confronted my boss, got fired, almost messed things up with you before we finally ended up together. We nearly lost our game, Mills. I'm experiencing a flurry of emotions, to be honest. It all seems so unbelievable and-"

"You think too much, Keys."

"I don't…" I looked away. Millie meant the world to me but, I just couldn't muster enough courage to look at her properly.

Things were different before the two of us started dating. We were best friends, and we understood each other better than we understood ourselves. I'd hear her out on her rants and rumblings while she'd try to comfort me against my insecurities. Millie was the reason I made it through college. I'm not sure what she expects from me now that we're together, and neither am I sure I'd be able to live up to her expectations. I just... I don't want to lose the equation we had.

Millie took my hand in hers.

"You know, you have never been a good liar, Keys." She whispered. "I can hear the gears in your head turning."

"Mills, I was just uh thinking." I looked at her. "What do you expect from me?"

"Huh?" She looked at me, her hazel eyes twinkling.

"I mean, you fell for Guy because of his looks, his nature, his tastes; said he was the first non-toxic guy you'd met in forever." I winced at the last statement, internally. "I just want to know what you expect from me so that I-"

"Keys, I don't expect anything from you."

"But-"

"Because Guy was a reflection of you, Keys. Everything I liked about him was everything I liked about you. If anything, I was too dumb to realise it back then." She interweaved her fingers with mine and looked up at me with a smile.

I don't know how, but Millie always knew just what to say. This moment that we were having right now, didn't seem very different from our earlier times together. Maybe, she didn't need me to change after all. Maybe, I was panicking for no reason at all.

"I love you for who you are, Keys. You're super smart, super talented, super cute, sensitive to others' feelings, and the best thing about you," She paused as a drop of tear rolled down her cheek. "I know I can count on you, because you're always there for me, whenever I need you."

With that, she wrapped her arms around me. I smiled and reciprocated her hug. There is nowhere else I'd rather be, than with her. This was home. Millie was home.

Millie's chuckle broke my train of thought.

"Is now a good time to mention that Guy is technically your digital son, Keys?"

"Oh, no." I suppressed a laugh. "Way to ruin it, Mills."

"Hey, I had to get back at you!" She fell back on the bed, laughing. Her palms made their way to her face, in an attempt to stop herself from laughing her lungs out. I looked at her- the carefree Millie Rusk I knew from MIT was back. My Millie was back.

Millie met my eye and I'm pretty sure she caught me looking at her. Immediately, I looked away and cleared my throat. It'll take me some time to get used to this new phase in our lives.

"Mouser has been suspiciously quiet for a while. I'd better go check on him."

I got up to leave when I felt her hand grasp my wrist, pulling me back. I furrowed my brows as I looked at her. She cupped my face with her hands before bringing her lips up to mine. And we kissed. For a long long time.

"There wasn't a button for that." I laughed, pulling back.

"Oh, I found the button." Millie chuckled.

"And I still haven't found WHERE YOU KEEP YOUR SALSA!" Mouser yelled from the door, holding a bag of nachos in his hand.

Both of us instinctively turned to look at him.

"Mouser," I began. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Oh, long enough to watch two MIT nerds kiss. It was cute and all, but can we please focus on finding the salsa now?" Mouser walked up to us and pulled me up by my shoulder. "Let's go, Mr L'Oréal."

Behind me, I heard Millie giggle at Mouser's clever usage of the shampoo company.

"He's a keeper," Mouser whispered to her. "At least for his hair."

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Author's note: Here's the first episode in the Miss Me? Keys Mi series. Turns out, I hadn't entirely figured out the schedule-a-post system in Tumblr, and so, I apologise for the delay. Hope you guys like it! ♡

Written by: @highratedkudi