Wizard of Oz || Zuo Hang✓

Twenty-Two

Vicky pressed her finger on the doorbell that Saturday and waited for someone to open the door. No one would have been surprised by her visit, she was Zuo's one and only friend when he moved back to the town.

The door opened a short moment later and she was met by Zuo's petit mother. She gave Vicky a large smile.

'Hi Vicky, Zuo didn't tell us you're visiting today.' She said, still maintaining her smile.

'Oh yeah, I hope I'm not interrupting any family activities,' she answered curtly. 'Is Zuo home?'

'Yeah of course, he doesn't really seem to go outside anyway.' Her mother said as a side-complaint. 'Anyway, come in.'

'Thank you.' Vicky walked inside the house.

Zuo's mother was about to go up the stairs to get Zuo for Vicky, but she was surprised when she saw Vicky walking up the stairs on her own. She wanted to say something, but she let it go. They were probably close friends who were used to barging into each other's rooms, she would never understand millennials.

Vicky was particularly curious to find out what was keeping Zuo busy. On most weekends, he would text her and tell her that he's playing the latest game and has probably beat a high score, or that his father is "holding him captive" until he learns a certain code. But for the past weeks, he hadn't been communicating with her at all.

Vicky was not going to knock, she needed to see what he was always busy with. Hopefully, she wouldn't find him dressing up or something, but it was far too late in the afternoon for him to be doing that.

Vicky stood in front of his door for a moment, took a deep breath and opened it. Once she had stood in the doorway, her eyes landed on Zuo who was at his desk. When he saw her, he immediately shut his laptop.

Vicky was a bit taken aback, there was nothing private on Zuo's laptop. In fact they always used it when they were working together. She narrowed her eyes and moved closer to him. 'What are you doing?'

'Nothing.' Zuo said quickly.

'Nothing?' Vicky questioned him then her eyes widened in realization. 'Oh, you're watching...?'

'What!? No!' Zuo immediately cried, already knowing what she was thinking.

'Then what is it?' She attempted to open his laptop.

'It's nothing,' he immediately slammed it back closed.

'Come on, show me. I'm your best friend remember? Come on Zuo...I just want to know what's keeping you busy.'

'No, it's really nothing though.' Zuo sighed and gave her a smile. 'So what brings you here without announcement?' he put his hands together to exaggerate his serious tone.

Vicky chuckled. 'I'm here to hang out, that's all.'

'Okay, that's cool.' Zuo stood up from his desk. 'Let's get this out of the way.' He grabbed his laptop and put it underneath his pillow.

Vicky secretly watched the laptop, she wanted to get her hands on it as soon as possible just to find out what Zuo was hiding. But he obviously wasn't letting her get her hands on it, but she was too curious to know what he was hiding.

She decided to concentrate on him, making sure to avoid any topic that made her seem like she was interested in the laptop. She needed to seem like she had let it go even though she hadn't.

Some long minutes later, the two of them both heard Zuo's mother calling him down the stairs.

'Gosh I wonder what she wants now,' Zuo complained as he got up from his desk. He walked out sluggishly and went down the stairs. 'What is it?' he asked her once he was on the last stair.

'Sit down Zuo, I think you and your friend are becoming too comfortable with each other. How could she just walk into your room like that?'

'That's not my fault though.' Zuo defended himself.

Meanwhile, Vicky found this a good opportunity to check what was on Zuo's laptop. Quickly, she took the laptop from underneath the pillow. She put it on her lap then opened it, frowning at the fact that he now had a password on it.

'Seriously Zuo? Since when?' she said to herself. This secret must have been big if he had to put a password to keep people from figuring it out. She couldn't guess his password: she tried the names of his favorite shows two times and now she was scared she would lock it if she made too many fails.

She finally tried something crazy: Yanni. Surprisingly, it worked. She was a mixture of anger and happiness at the fact that Yanni's name was actually his password.

But she decided to ignore that and deal with what she had currently. Fortunately for her, the screen was still at Zuo's conversation with Yanni. Vicky tried to understand the situation, she knew this method of software development but she didn't understand why Yanni was communicating with Zuo, were they perhaps testing the idea?

Vicky scrolled up, slowly beginning to understand that Yanni was conversing with Zuo as a chatbot...but Zuo wasn't a chatbot.

When Zuo walked back in the room, Vicky didn't even bother to remove the laptop from her lap. Instead, she looked at Zuo with a shocked face.

'Nooo! Vicky, I told you not to touch that!' Zuo cried and walked over to her, snatching the laptop from her immediately. 'Why would you do this?'

'Why would you pretend to be a chatbot?' Vicky shot back. 'That is just wrong Zuo.'

'You don't get it.' Zuo sighed and closed the program. 'Just stop talking.'

'Yeah, and I'm gonna tell her.' Vicky put her hands on her waist.

'No! Please don't!'

'For crying out loud Zuo, the girl could be telling you her secrets or something not knowing that it's you. It's just completely rude and an invasion of privacy. Why would you do this?'

'Because...this was the only way she could talk to me. She wouldn't talk to me as myself.'

Vicky was doing her best to disguise her jealousy, thankfully it was already disguised by her shock. 'You didn't have to do this. I know you like her but this was too much.'

'Just...don't tell her anything. Please.' Zuo begged and sat down on his bed. 'I just don't want her to know yet.'

'Well...I'm your friend so I won't tell her. But this has got to stop. Please.' Vicky told him, sitting next to him.

'Ye...yeah.' Zuo stammered. He knew he was lying, he wasn't going to stop communicating with Yanni. At least not now, he just wasn't ready to.