Internet-Degenerate

Fun fact: You don't want to read this chapter in public.

Also, I know I'm asking a lot, but if you haven't already, could you maybe give this story a rating? Absolutely no pressure though. Totally okay if you don't want to. If you'd rather turn me into roadkill, that's cool. I'm sorry for asking. Are you mad at me?

The descendants of Seraph's family line (on his mother's side) all have one thing in common: they are extremities when compared to the general population. Without fail, children will become extremely fixated on something, or, in the case of Seraph's mother, become extremely addicted to something. There is no in-between. The battle of addiction versus fixation has plagued the bloodline for generations, and the outcome is always determined by their upbringing and current circumstances. His mother became addicted to illicit drugs. His aunt he didn't know existed however, became fixated on marine wildlife conservation. And also sharks. 

For Seraph, the battle between fixation and addiction had not yet concluded. Seraph had never found something he was truly passionate about, so he never had a reason to fixate on something. He also knew from personal experience how devastating addiction can be, so he stayed well away from substances that could lead him down that road. He was smart enough to consciously avoid such health detriments, but there was a flaw in his thinking. He thought that drugs, alcohol and gambling, were the only causes of addiction. It never occurred to him that people could become addicted to things outside of those three.

Seraph retreated into his room and collapsed on his bed. He lied there, staring up at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity. He tried to keep his mind empty and rid himself of any thought, but he couldn't. So he thought about other things. He tried to recite pi for as much as he could remember, but he only made it to the 23rd digit. He thought about going to the recreation room to play piano, but he was too ashamed to step foot out of his room. He tried to calculate prime numbers in his head, but he couldn't make it passed 17. He tried scare himself by reading 'The Dunwich Horror' from his memory, but he couldn't even remember the first word. Despite his constant efforts to keep the incident out of his mind, he always found himself inadvertently thinking back to it. Back to when he saw the girls changing. For the first time in his life, Seraph was inflamed with sexual desire. Up until now, he was far too busy working to make it to the next day that he never stopped to think of what normal boys his age think about, which is mainly sexy stuff. 

Now that he was thinking about it, he hated it. And he hated himself for feeling lustful, too. He was lusting after girls he knew - girls who would undoubtedly be disgusted if they knew they were being thought of that way. At this rate, Seraph would not be able to stop himself from having a wet dream. If he did have one, it would certainly be about Chloe or Sapphire. Worst case scenario, he'd dream about both of them at the same time. He knew the best chance he'd have of preventing the occurrence of a wet dream was to masturbate, but if he did so now, he'd be thinking of the girls he knew. Seraph was growing increasingly frustrated and disgusted with himself with every passing second he spent thinking about this topic. 

Seraph sat up in his bed and stared at his own personal laptop. His birthday was five days ago, and he bought the laptop to celebrate suffering through another year of life. Students weren't allowed off campus, but mail orders were allowed if they were approved by the school. It just came in two days ago, and he set it up with Chelsea's help. She said that the computers at school had connection to the internet, but most some sites that were considered harmful or distracting were blocked by the school. That's why she suggested Seraph get a virtual private network on his laptop. Apparently, it could give him access to every website and keep his search history a secret. At first, Seraph was clueless as to why Chelsea gave him a knowing wink when she told him this, but now he had good idea as to why. It was because he would have access to pornography, and no one would be any wiser to it.

He locked his bedroom door. He was appalled with what he was about to do, but he was desperate. He plugged in his earphones, made sure he was connected to a VPN, and opened his web browser. Ctrl Shift N, just to be extra safe. He didn't exactly know what to put in the search bar, but he felt that just the word 'porn' would be enough. He typed the word, but didn't search. He just stared at the screen, deliberating if this was really okay. He was having second thoughts. It wasn't too late to back out now, but desperation for sexual gratification currently outweighed his morals. He took in a deep breath, steadied his breathing, and hit Enter. 

Monday, April 25th, 2021. At approximately 1700 hours and 6 minutes, Seraph clicked the top link of the search results. This one action was the point in his life where the battle between fixation and addiction came to an end. Addiction had prevailed. 

Ew, what the fuck?! Seraph thought to himself as he looked over the homepage of a website called pornhub.com. 'White stepfather fucks and cums in his ebony stepdaughters.' Excuse me, what? 'Step mom is Stuck and fucked on the Balcony?' Then fucking HELP HER! What's with the shitty capitalization in that title, anyway!? 'CHEATING on my GIRLFRIEND with her SISTER while she SLEEPS next to us!' '16 Year Old-' NOPE! Is there anything normal on this site? …Step family, anal, cheating, choking... ERGH, GROSS! THAT GIRL IS GETTING FISTED UP TO THE ELBOW!

'Cutiey waching hentai I use her ass cheeks to cum...' Okay, firstly, the grammar is atrocious. Secondly, what is hentai?

And so, Seraph conducted another quick google search and ended up on a website called hentaihaven.com So... it's cartoon porn? Growing more curious, Seraph clicked on the first video he saw. Underneath the video player he noticed a group of tags, which seemed to give a quick insight into what the video contained. Let's see... loli? What is that? …Anal, ugly bastard? …RAPE?! MIND CONTROL?! GOOD LORD, THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE! 

Seraph spent the next few minutes trying to find something normal and found nothing. He came across some unfamiliar terms, such as 'loli' and 'ntr,' so he did a bit of research. He was no pleased with his findings - especially with the fact that terms like 'loli' and 'shota' were being used on such a site. He decided to bleach his eyes and his mind after what he had seen.

Not with literal bleach, of course.

But he had considered it.

He considered it deeply. 

Maybe I'll just watch some Youtube, he decided. He didn't have an account, so he spent the next hour binge watching trash content in the recommended section, trying to find something that interested him. Nothing really seemed to resonate with him. Not until he saw someone was live streaming.

'[英語勉強] Studying English!! I want to become able to speak English!!'

…huh?

Seraph was both confused and intrigued. Confused, because he didn't know Youtube doubled as a livestreaming platform, and intrigued because of the thumbnail. What does an anime girl have to do with studying English? He clicked onto the livestream, unaware of the massive repercussions this one action would have on the rest of his lifestyle and way of thinking. On the livestream, he was greeted with a loading screen. Occupying most of the screen was a headshot drawing of the anime girl from the thumbnail. Light blue hair tied into a ponytail and dark blue eyes. The words 'NOW LOADING...' were bouncing up and down in the bottom left of the screen.

Started streaming two minutes ago... Seems like I just made it. Seraph decided to stick around and watch a bit of the livestream. After 30 or so seconds passed, the loading screen faded, and what awaited him was something beyond his imagination. The Duolingo screen appeared. In the top left of the screen was the live chat, just zooming upwards. Under the chat, was the girl that was on the loading screen, except her hair was let down and she wore black rimmed glasses. 

Then the anime girl blinked. Seraph was stunned. The girl blinked some more and even moved her head a bit. It looked like she was trying to fight off sleepiness. Isn't this live? Seraph wondered. How does this work? The girl opened and closed her mouth, as if she was trying to speak.

"Ohayo..." A tired voice came out of the cartoon's mouth, but it was clear that she was trying to wake herself up by pretending to be lively. Is that a real person behind that? How does any of this work? "Eh... Konbanwa, uh," The sleepy girl greeted her viewers and introduced herself. For the sake of my (the author's) ease, I'm translating it from Japanese into English. "It's your shooting star, your diamond in the rough! I'm the idol VTuber Hoshimachi Suisei!"

W... What is this?

He watched the entire two stream and unexpectedly loved every second of it. He created an account just to subscribe to this channel. He discovered Youtube membership, and immediately signed up for this channels membership. But he didn't stop there. He threw himself down the VTuber rabbit hole, learning about the technology behind it and the people who create content with it. The more he learned about it, the more he loved it. In the course of a few hours, he signed up for a total of 20 memberships for $5/month after consuming  dozens upon dozens of VTuber clips. As he was watching a stream of a rabbit girl committing war crimes in Minecraft while laughing manically, sunlight cut a swathe across his laptop's screen. He looked to his window and opened up the blinds. It was already morning.

Oh no...

He still had classes he needed to attend to. Thinking it would be best to nap for an hour or two to have some energy to take on the day...

Anyway.

He gave no shits and continued watching. He still had a few hours before the school day starts.