The Bad Boys' Soft Boys' Lonely Hearts Club - The Full Package

The Safe Space Invasion

This is my safe space. Sure, it is small and cramped, and with entirely too many feet magazines — because apparently, they are a thing for something only Satan knows — but it is my safe space. I can be myself here, my real self, not the objectified man-hunk you think I am. I can do dumb shit, be gay, do crimes, and eat the rich. Haven't eaten too many rich people as of late, but if I wanted to, I know I will have a place to do it, god dangit! For this SoCal himbo surfer fuck to bring the enemy into these hallowed grounds is as if he's spitting in my face, and not in the hot, "yes, daddy" way.

And to rub salt into a wound, he brings Leila and Leeland with him. Laila? Honestly, I don't even remember how it goes. Those two, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Thot. And those are just the first ones to enter. Billiam, Gisangela, Minnesota, Dakota, Carolina, Alaska, and other girls with similar state names and manic pixie girl personalities all enter one after the other like a parade of freaks and mildly annoying main characters of lesser stories.

"UwU, what's this?" says a pink-haired anime protagonist with a black cat on her shoulder. Why is fantasy trying to chase me down? "This place is so kawaii, Fluffy-kun!"

Yes, it hurt me to write that as well. Let's get over it.

"Such azure colors could only be seen in the bowels of such a Faustian place," says another girl, which I can only assume was the same one I stumbled into way back when I had to take that mondo shit. Remember that? Cause I sure as hell would love to forget about it. But some idiot put it into a fanfic hellsite for everyone to read. Such a dick.

Speaking of dick, one is coming towards me with a beer in hand. It's a Corona. Gross.

"Hey, former best friend!" says the human toilet puck that is Billiam. Wait, former?

"What do you mean, former?" I ask.

"He puts his hands around the greaser, putting him closer to him. Both of them feel the tension rising from the interaction," says/whispers a girl sitting on the couch, slowly caressing the anime cat. What.

"Bro, brother, brosef, broseidon!" says Billiam, drunk out of his mind, even though he has been here for a whole nine paragraphs. "You're old news. We have a new 'Mysterious New Kid' bad boy. So mysterious!"

"I heard his mother was the CEO of One Direction!" says one of the State-named girls.

"I heard he once surfed with Will Smith, and he told him he was hawt!" says another, maybe Gisangela.

"Ohmygosh, his cheekbones look like two sharks battling against a plump, kissable seal," says Leila/Laila. "I wanna get mauled by them and be crippled for life ugh."

I shall not say what Leeland said, because it is both vile and an affront to the Catholic Church, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and perhaps Jane Fonda, depending on her views on peanut butter in the hoo-haa.

"Wait, but I'm the new kid bad boy!" I say? Why? I should love that! I'm no longer the target of whatever the hell these heathens are all about. I'm free!

Then, why do I feel like shit?

I mean, don't get me wrong, I've been the new kid bad boy all my life. Year after year of bumping into conspiracies, totally average boys/girls, Deathnotes — seriously, I have a library full of those — and I wouldn't wish that stress on my worst enemy. I should be elated that, for once, I don't have to carry this burden. In theory, this should be it, right? There can't be two new kid bad boys. I'm no longer burdened by this curse. But that's it. I've always been marked by it, molded by it. Some people merely adopted the bad boy life, but I was born in it.

Without being the new kid bad boy, who was I? Who is Ayden Gomez, but the protagonist of a bad boy story? Oh, god, I've never been asked that question. Who am I? What am I? Why am I?