I Love You Most ~ ~

"Hey there everybody, I'm America and this is Five Nights at Freddy's 2! Are you ready to piss your pants, because I know I am! The first game in the series was seriously the scariest thing I ever played in my life, I couldn't sleep without my teddy for like a month afterwards! I know I always say that, but this time I mean it! Alright, I've had a LOT of requests to play this one, so let's jump right in!"

With a sweep of his mouse, Alfred pressed 'play', excited and terrified to see what lay ahead. Instead of launching him into an office of horror, however, the screen went bright blue, the sudden change in light making him flinch.

"Aaaaahhhhhh!" he groaned "Blue screen of death! AAAHHHH!"

With a deep sigh, he gave the camera a weary look and turned it off. God dammit, he'd really been looking forward to playing this. Maybe he could fix it himself? He tried a few of the tricks Kiku had taught him, but even turning it off and on again didn't work. Bugger. He stretched as he stood, plodding across his office to pick his phone off the other desk. Hopefully those guys weren't in the middle of recording.

"Hello?" Kiku said, picking up after a few rings.

"Hey man, it's Al!" he greeted.

"Good afternoon, Alfred. How are you?"

"Actually man, not so good." Alfred admitted, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly with is free hand "I got blue screened again."

Kiku audibly groaned on the other end of the phone, making Alfred feel guilty.

"Did you remember to defrag your hard-drive like I showed you?" he asked.

"Yes!" Alfred swore.

"Did you?"

"Yes!"

"Did you?"

"Yes!"

"Did you?"

"No."

"Uh-huh."

Kiku sighed again, and Alfred could hear him fiddling about with something on the other end of the phone.

"Arthur and I are about to film another episode of 'Cooking Mama.'" he reported "But if you want to come over after, I can take a look at it while he's editing."

"Thank you soooo much!" Alfred gushed "I'll totally pay you back! How about I pick up dinner and some snackage on the way over?"

"Alright, but none of those bacon things this time."

"Bahaha, yeah, not after what happened! Hey, while I'm over, why don't we see if we can't work on that crossover idea? See if it can't get it up for Christmas?"

"Sounds good. See you soon."

The two hung up. He was going to get it in the ear when he got there – he had sworn blind last time that he wasn't going to need them to fix his computer again, but here he was. He really, really needed to learn how to do it himself, but that would take away from his precious recording time. Mentally apologising to his fans for the delay, he unhooked his tower unit and put it on the kitchen table, groaning when he remembered he had to put on trousers in order to leave the house. Hopefully Kiku could fix it quickly with those magic disks of his, and he could pull an all-nighter to get the video up on time. (Although an all-nighter of Five Nights at Freddy's didn't sound like a great idea. He did want to sleep again at some point in his life!)

Tucking his computer securely in the front seat of his car, held in place by the seatbelt, he dropped by the supermarket on the way over, picking up crisps, dip and fizzy drink, and a few bits he could throw in the oven for dinner. Mind preoccupied with plans for their crossover, he arrived at his friends place before he realised it, hoping they weren't still filming as he rung the bell.

A second later his phone rang, and oddly enough it was Kiku. Instead of speaking, however, the second Alfred answered he was assailed by the sounds of screaming and yelling.

"FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING BITCH, I FOLLOWED THE FUCKING RECIPE EXACTLY, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!"

"Stop crying, it's just a game!"

"WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!"

Alfred just laughed, hanging up. Getting the message, he put the phone back in his pocket, placing his computer carefully on the step, well away from the door, and took a seat on the concrete, pulling his notebook out of his bag to brainstorm ideas. About half an hour later, the door to the building creaked open, Kiku popping his head out.

"Sorry to make you wait." he greeted.

"That's okay." Alfred said, putting his stuff away before standing "I got some good work done. You?"

"Yes, we got a few episodes of material out of this one."

"Your Cooking Mama series is pretty popular, isn't it?"

"Yes, people like seeing that vein on Arthur's head pop. Come on up."

Up on the fifth floor of the building, the flat was neat as always, the tripod still set up, cameraless, in front of the television. At the back of the large living room/kitchen, Arthur was already at his computer, loading their footage into the editing program, as the kettle on the hob started to whistle.

"Alfred is here." Kiku reported as they came in.

"Did he bring cigarettes?" Arthur grumbled.

"You're trying to quit." Alfred reminded him "Don't let Cooking Mama break you down, man."

Arthur just grumbled again, legs twitching as his craving for nicotine went unsatisfied. Alfred dropped his shopping in the kitchen counter, putting the cold stuff in the fridge as Kiku took the kettle off the stove, letting the water cool a bit before making the tea.

"When are you guys gonna buy a coffee maker?" Alfred laughed "Who even has stove-top kettles anymore?"

"There's nothing wrong with my kettle." Arthur grumbled "I refuse to make tea in the microwave like a savage!"

Alfred just laughed again. Kiku made the tea, picking up the pair of glasses that lay discarded on the side. He put the mug on the table in front of Arthur, popping the glasses on his head.

"Wear these." he ordered in a tone of voice the suggested he had said the same thing many times before "You're the one who'll be complaining when your eyes hurt later."

"Thanks, mum."

"Don't let Mama get to you." Kiku chuckled.

"I'll beat that bitch next time."

Arthur picked up his tea, finally turning to face Alfred, who was tipping the crisps into a large bowl.

"So, I heard you hit 3 million subs." he said "Excited?"

"You bet!" Alfred enthused "I can't believe I got so many in just 18 months! I'm totally stoked!"

Arthur smiled, taking a sip of his tea before answering.

"Well, you pump out enough videos." he said "How did Five Nights at Freddy's go?"

"Didn't." Al admitted "I got blue-screened again."

Arthur let out an exasperated sigh, similar to the one Kiku had given earlier.

"Al, you've got to take better care of your equipment!" he lectured "The tower is customer built, how much do you think it would cost you to get it fixed in a shop? We won't always have time to do it for you, you know."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry!" he swore "I'll totally take care of it."

Arthur didn't look convinced, giving Alfred the look as Kiku hooked up the tower to his own monitor.

"I've said it before." Kiku mentioned "I can set the tasks to happen automatically. It's not a problem."

"Yeah, but then I can't use my gear until it's finished." Alfred pointed out "That'd suck!"

Arthur grumbled again, taking a big gulp of his tea before turning back to his monitor, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"I don't have time to babysit you." he told him "I've got our editing to do, plus Sakura sent me a bunch, so I'm going to be up all night as it is."

"Sakura? Name rings a bell, but what's wrong with her computer?"

"... Nothing..."

"He's sweet on her." Kiku teased "Have you ever seen 'Cooking with Cat'?"

"Oh!" Alfred recalled "Yeah, that really cute girl with the kimono! You know her personally?"

"He cameoed on one of the episodes." he continued to tease "It was sweet, he was blushing the whooole time. 'Yes, Sakura.' 'Let me get that for you, Sakura.' 'Do you need anything else, Sakura?'"

"Shut up!"

His friends just laughed at him, Kiku pulling out his magic disks as he started up Alfred's computer.

"This may take a while." he confessed "Do you have something to keep you amused?"

"Yeah, I got stuff to do." he admitted "Can I borrow your laptop? May as well do some PR while I have some time."

"Don't forget to log off your Facebook this time."

"I won't."

Kiku passed Alfred his laptop before getting to work, and Al set himself up on the sofa, chips on one side of him and glass of coke on the other. Arthur plugged his headphones in so his constant repetition of sound clips wouldn't bother the other two, and for about twenty minutes the three of them worked in silence, Alfred checking his emails before logging onto his youtube account.

"Aw, man!" he cried, startling Kiku a little "Norway beat me to it!"

Leaning back on his office chair, Kiku watched over Alfred's shoulder as he hit play on the video.

"Hey, this is Norway. Today we're playing Five Nights at Freddy's 2. Let's do this."

"I both love and hate his voice." Kiku admitted, turning back to his desk "Don't watch that, you'll ruin the game for yourself."

"Yeah, you're right." Alfred supposed "I'll watch it later. Don't want to spoil the surprises!"

Flipping down his subscription list, he started to pout when he saw that quite a few people had already started posting videos about the game. It was to be expected, he guessed – the first game had been super popular – but it made him even more impatient for his computer to be fixed so he could play it himself. He'd have to really put his all in to make his video original.

"Russia's video has half a million likes?" he grumbled to himself, habitually biting the nail on his thumb "How does he do it? Every time there's a horror game..."

"It's the accent." Kiku swore "He and Arthur, every other comment is about the accent."

Alfred laughed – he could well believe it. Speaking of comments, he had yet to read the ones from his last video. It was impossible to read all the comments on every video, of course, but he liked to read as many as he could. It gave him a warm glow in his heart when he recognised the same names coming up over and over again, when his subscribers would leave him compliments and talk to each other and form friendships. He had a pretty good fanbase, luckily, even if there was the occasional troll.

He scrolled through the comments, leaning back on the sofa with the laptop on his legs. Oh, there was happykitty714 again: she (he felt like they were a she) was always one on the first to comment on his videos. There was markimoo, d3ada1r, koalajoe (complaining again, Joe?), all the usuals, along with a bunch of names he didn't recognise. Skimming through the text, one comment in particular caught his eye.

'Eagle2: who's that girl at 4:23?'

Girl? Damn, had he missed something again? He often got so engrossed in the game that he ended up missing the little details. Nothing got past his viewers, though! He better step up his game!

'softtkityy: did America get a girlfriend?'

Ha ha, very funny.

'Dreamscape: hey, she's cute! America, what's her name? Is she a let's player too? What's her channel?'

Ha?

'Eagle2: check it out, you can see her in the back of these videos too!'

Following the comment was a list of about six links to recent videos of his, ending with the times at which the girl could be seen. Confused, and to be honest, a little freaked out (since they were all different games), he scrolled the timer on the video to 4 minutes and pressed play, paying close attention to the game. No girl appeared in the game footage. He rewound it, watching it again to make sure. What were they talking about?

His eyes wandered up to the top left of the screen to his reaction cam. He could never quite get the angle right, in his opinion. Either his headphones were in the way, the light was on his glasses or it made it look like he had a double chin. At least his hair looked good. On this occasion, the back of his office could be seen, the open door to the hallway just visible to the side. C'mon, Al, you can do better than that!

Just as he was going to pay attention to the game footage again, he saw what the comments were talking about. At four minutes and twenty three seconds, a woman walked past the open door, her features hidden by the darkness of the hallway. She stopped at the door, taking a good look at Alfred filming for thirty seconds, then moved on down the hall.

Alfred froze. His heart stopped beating, throat going dry.

He lived alone.