“Hey dude, are you wearing mascara or something?” Jacob threw me a complete curveball of a question. I stared at him, knowing that he was gonna get a free kill out of it.

“Excuse me, what? Why the fuck would I wear mascara? Where did that even come from?” I demanded, letting my focus return to the game as I spawned back in.

“Well I mean your eyelashes are super obvious today and I couldn’t think of another reason for that to be true? I mean, I’ve never noticed my attention being brought to your eyes previously. If you’re not wearing anything, I gotta say my sister would absolutely kill for those lashes. Sorry if that’s a weird thing to notice. I definitely didn’t hold onto that question to distract you into dying at the right moment I swear” he replied, chuckling as he dodged through my opening salvo of blows. “Maybe if you flutter them at me and ask nicely I’ll let you get your first win.”

“Oh no, not you too. It’s bad enough that Mel teases me for tiny details like that incessantly, I don’t think I can take both of you together.” I retorted, managing to spike Jacob off the stage to his second death, evening the life count. As I waited for him to spawn back in, I felt my anxiety spiking at his line of questioning. Could it have something to do with that spell Mel had cast yesterday? She had done enough things that shouldn’t have been possible that I had to believe what she said about magic, but the idea that it could cause changes to my body was…hair-raising to say the least. I could feel my heart beating even faster than it normally did when I played games against my friend. He was better than me and we both knew it, but I still gave it my all when I was playing against him. Even then I usually didn’t get this worked up though. While I was distracted by my thoughts, he managed to land a few solid hits on me and shook my head, trying to reapply my focus back on the match before he kicked my ass too badly.

“Take us both huh? Was that a Freudian slip I just heard? I didn’t realize you felt that way about us; much less that you had such high ambitions as both of us at once. I regret to inform you that you’re just not my type sadly. You know that when it comes to guys I’m only into buff gym bros. And I think you’d need to make a pretty big announcement to get both of us through the girl path. Alas! This is just gonna make living together so much more awkward now” he taunted back as I tried desperately to focus on the screen and not glaring at him. I lost my third life despite my best attempts and gave him the full force of my glare as his victory was announced. He collapsed into laughter as he looked over. “Listen I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re not gonna win any extra rounds by staring a hole through my soul. I promise.”

“Not like I’m gonna win any rounds either way.” I grumbled. “You’re still way better than me. You can play random and still kick my ass when I’m playing my best character. You complimenting my eyes outta nowhere and teasing me to throw me off just makes it even more uneven. You know that it makes me uncomfortable when people do that. Don’t need people pretending I look better than a sack of potatoes. We all know it’s my tongue that gets me girls and not my looks.” I made my final statement by sticking the offending appendage out at him.

"Christ, phrasing! Do you really have to always come up with the worst way to say things like that? And you're better than most people, no need to put yourself down. It's not my fault I've got hundreds more hours than you in it. I mean - I guess technically it is. Point being, you're being too hard on yourself. Both about the game and in the looks department. We gotta work on that self deprecation one of these days. That being said, believe me, making small comments about your appearance is definitely not me teasing you. You wouldn’t get a single kill if I were actually trying that. This round you’re going down even without that though, so guess it’ll be another day we work on that ego of yours!" Jacob chortled as he received one of his favorite characters and prepared to toy with me.

I didn’t even manage a single kill on him before losing the round and proceeded to go on a streak of getting no more than one kill over the next 5 rounds until Amanda threw herself from the hallway sideways onto the worn armchair on the left wall. “Hey boys, anything new in the realm of Nate getting his ass handed to him? Or has a new age finally begun where we can actually be shocked occasionally?” At my frown and refusal to meet her eyes, she continued “Seriously Nate, I know that you’ve been a bit extra spiky recently, but you don’t need to punish yourself on our account. I heard our resident goth already managed that yesterday.” I could hear the smile in her voice as I continued focusing on the game. “Though I am dying to know what she did since she’s just been smirking mysteriously whenever I’ve asked. It’s absolutely infuriating! Luckily we all know you’ve got much looser lips so what happened?”

I could tell she was baiting me, but couldn’t resist taking her up on it. “Bite me Mandy; we both know you can’t play worth shit. So you shouldn’t be throwing insults around when we both know opposable thumbs are wasted on you. It’s a wonder you can take such detailed notes. And from what I've heard, my lips aren’t the ones that have been let loose o-” I was cut off by a sharp jab in my side as Jacob used his elbow to stop me from making even more of an ass of myself than usual.

"Wow. Thanks. Glad to know someone still believes in slut shaming. Guess the punishment couldn't have been that bad if you're still acting like…well you I guess. I was gonna bake some cookies for everyone but now." Amanda sighed just a tiny bit too dramatically for it to be completely serious, but I still felt absolutely awful. As she spoke, I started feeling a little nauseous and the world around me seemed to go in and out of focus oddly. I blinked a few times with no effect. Squeezing my eyes shut for a few moments seemed to do the trick though. "I'm still gonna make them but you only get one. But only if you're good for the rest of the night." As Amanda finished, she fixed me with a stare to which I nodded meekly. Jacob and I tried to play another couple rounds but it was pretty obvious neither of us were invested any more. 

“Alright this obviously isn’t gonna work for tonight.” I got up a bit too quickly as Jacob started talking and stumbled into the table, letting out a string of curses as I stubbed my toe. “Ooh, that looks like it hurt. Guess karma agrees with Amanda. What say we get the others together and try reinstating Friday Night Movie Night? I can go check with Amanda to see how much time she needs for baking while you grab the other two? Plan on starting in 15 minutes or so?” As I regained my balance, I checked the phone that had distracted me into my clumsiness to see if there was anything that could interfere with those plans. I had one message, which was from Mel asking if we could chat from a couple minutes ago.

“Sure I’m down, any chance you can grab Rich if he hasn’t come out by the time you’re done talking to Amanda? Mel wants to talk with me about something so I figure I should jump on that to avoid having both the girls mad at me tonight” I responded, letting a bit more of my apprehension creep into my voice than I may have wanted. Jacob simply chuckled and nodded as he walked off towards the kitchen. I strode down the opposite hallway, stopping to knock a five beat tune on the first door on my left “Hey Richie, you down to restart the fantastically named tradition of Friday Night Movie Night? Meet up in the living room in 15! And I know you’re in there so don’t pretend like you didn’t know!” I heard a grumble on the other side of the door and figured that was enough for me to continue down the hallway. I stopped in front of Melisssa’s door, taking a deep breath as I held my hand up to knock. As I let it out, I wrapped three times and waited a moment before she opened the door and beckoned me in. The first thing I noticed was that she looked a little paler than usual. “Um so I don’t know if you heard me tell Rich, but movie night tonight if you’re feeling up to it?” The second thing I noticed was that she looked abnormally distracted.

“That honestly sounds really nice; might help relieve some of the stress from this week. Hopefully it’ll keep you from saying any more offensive shit for a few hours too. I have no idea what you said or did a few minutes ago but you might not want to repeat anything like that too often while you’ve got this spell on you. Making a higher quality spell might have been a good idea just for magic efficiency. I think I might have underestimated just how much magic this curse was gonna use. Hell I’m sure even you might have felt something with how strong that felt, maybe a strong itch or a loss of balance? Might need to rework the spell if you didn’t say anything too bad though. So what happened?” She fixed me with a piercing gaze that allowed for no argument. I looked at my feet in shame as I explained. After hearing me out, she took a moment before giving me a sarcastic golf clap. “Congrats Nate, you really did revert a year or three. That’s definitely worse than you normally are. Did something happen today or something, you ok?”

Getting compassion from her after what I had done stunned me and as I stared at her, I could feel a wave of guilt crash over me. Who was I to have friends that looked past my major flaws and still cared about me? Here was someone that was currently punishing me for being an asshole, and yet she still felt the need to check in on me. I shook my head to free myself of those thoughts before I could start to spiral and hung my head with a sigh. “No, nothing happened today really. I mean hell I’d argue it was pretty good as far as days go. Got a test back that I thought I failed; turns out I got a B- on it. I guess I had weird dreams, but that’s not really negative? Those were probably your doing, now that I think about it? Otherwise my day was pretty boring? Shouldn’t I be the one worrying about you though? You’re like 2 shades paler than normal. I don’t know how I feel about you being able to practically blend in with the walls.” She giggled briefly at my joke, before regaining her normal cool demeanor.

“Well if you say so. I’m still convinced there’s a reason you’ve been such a dick recently considering you’re generally pretty nice. And my spell shouldn’t cause dreams, just physical changes. So unless you want to tell me about these strange dreams, let’s get out there and watch this movie.” At the shake of my head, we made our way towards the living room as she continued. ”If it’s another rom-com like last time though, I'm moving out I swear.”

Luckily it was not, in fact, another rom com. Furthermore, it was to be a ‘classic’ movie that was more just an excuse for a drinking game. Unluckily for me however, an additional set of rules had been added specifically for me as a condition for Amanda joining us. As a way for me to repent for my earlier comments, I was to take a shot every time someone was sexist or slut shamed. While I hadn’t seen the movie previously, from the conspiratorial looks Amanda and Jacob kept trading, I was in for a long night. Richard had taken the time before we started the movie to mix drinks for everyone who didn’t enjoy beer, AKA myself and Melissa. The hard look he gave me told me that I wasn’t going to be getting any help in staying sober from him, much to my chagrin. I dropped myself into the armchair as the others finished getting ready. As I was reaching for my drink, Mel hopped in my way and slapped my hand away. “Ah ah ah, oh no you don’t. You’re not avoiding the couch like usual. We all know there’s enough space."

"What, why? I like it over here though. It's um. Nice and…roomy?" I tried to argue back, letting a bit of a whine enter my voice. She frowned past me and I suddenly found myself looking up at Richard holding a tipped over chair with one arm and three spare beers in the other. "This is bullying. I don't have to stand for this" I sassed as I sat up."Well it's a good thing you're not standing then, isn't it?" Richard rumbled in his gravelly voice. He offered me a hand but I pointedly ignored it, standing up on my own. As I did so, Richard chuckled and slid into the chair, accurately predicting my plan. I glared at him and grumpily sunk into my gaming corner of the couch, grumbling unintelligibly about rights and revenge. I was quickly pinned in by Melissa and Jacob sitting down, followed by Amanda flopping down across us. Only then did Richard stand up and take his place on the opposite side of the couch from me. “Good thinking there Mads, I could see his little hamster wheel turning with grand plans of seat reclamation. Hopefully he’ll get drunk enough to forget his grand plans soon enough.”

With everyone settled in with drinks and back up drinks, we started the movie. I could already tell that not only was it going to be full of cliches and sass, but also I had severely overestimated my chances of making it through the movie as anything less than trashed. I would just have to hope my friends took pity on me eventually. 5 minutes in, I was already 3 shots in and had finished my first drink. The choice to count guys just for being creepy may have felt like the right thing to do, but it was definitely a bad idea that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with. If that weren’t bad enough, my housemates kept making jokes about how I could learn a thing or two from certain characters or how I would fare in certain situations and other similar jabs. I could only hope the next hour of the movie would be better. I was proven wrong by the midpoint of the movie. I was definitely drunk and at least 10 shots and 3 drinks in. Luckily it calmed down in the second half, but by the time a girl got hit by a bus an hour in, I found myself spending as much time leaning my head on Melissa as I spent holding it up successfully. I want to say I made it through the whole movie since I remembered getting in bed, but I could only remember bits and pieces of the last quarter of the movie. I could remember that the main character had got hers so to speak, but not how or why the party she’d thrown caused it. Now for that matter could I remember how she fixed it and got her friends back at the end. I think I also remembered someone petting my head but that was probably my imagination.