Chad looked up the term ‘trap’ and, amongst the discussion on how hot these anime characters were, he found some YouTube videos on why the word was offensive.

He messaged Noah on his phone, using terms he wasn’t used to using and concepts he wasn’t used to tackling.

So is this ‘trap’ thing just for crossdressing guys? Apparently people call transgenders or whatever that word. The transgenders don’t seem to like it or something like that. Do you know about this?

Noah didn’t reply, focusing on writing more posts and comments on the forum. Chad read through each post as well as some by other users and sent Noah the occasional phone message, causing Noah’s eyebrows to twitch in anger.

A lot of people are posting stuff on that forum about killing themselves. They keep mentioning ‘suicide fuel’. You okay?

Woah, someone just posted about wanting a handy from his mom. The fuck? You’re not like that, right?

Why are girl incels banned? I feel like if a dude incel and a chick incel met they could be together and stop being incels.

Hey, why didn’t you tell me I’m annoying? And I’m not a liar about being a virgin before we did it. I swear to God.

Noah sent Chad one message before exiting the forum.

If you don’t leave me the fuck alone I’m changing my username and never talking to you ever again.

At school over the next few days, Noah ignored the talkative Chad.

In the morning Chad said, ‘So, I watched an episode of one of those anime and it was pretty good. It was Cowboy somethingarather. Some website recommended it. I was surprised that there was a black chick in it. I thought anime characters were all white or something. Have you seen this show?’

While lining up in the cafeteria, Chad admitted, ‘I’m a little confused about this blackpill-redpill-bluepill thing. What’s the difference?’

As they walked to their lockers, Chad whispered, ‘Who runs that forum? It seems like chaos in there. People say all sorts of crazy stuff. I mean, feminists can be annoying and shit but I don’t think they’re running some kind of conspiracy to prevent you from getting girls.’

As they reached Noah’s locker, Chad added, ‘And some guy said that it’s over for guys with glasses because of genetics or whatever.’ He looked around to see if anyone was watching. ‘He’s gotta be joking! Glasses on guys?’ He hooked his finger into the collar of his own shirt, pulled the collar like he was in the middle of a heatwave and whistled as he tossed his head back.

Noah had to scowl at him for that, taking off his glasses for a moment just to spite him.

When the two were alone before homeroom one day, Chad kept trying to grab Noah’s hand but Noah kept pulling it away.

‘What’s wrong?’ Chad asked. ‘No one’s around. And we’ve done more than hold hands.’

Noah bit his lip and looked away. ‘I thought we weren’t going to talk about that.’

‘Sorry. But I don’t know if I really want to forget it. I’ve been thinking a lot about it, actually, how you expected it to be this perfect thing. Did someone on that forum say it’s supposed to be like that? I don’t know how they would be experts on that since they’re incels. But, I mean, it was still fun, right? You said it was okay and that’s better than bad.’

‘Has anyone told you that you talk too much?’

Chad laughed. ‘Not really. It’s just… I find it easy talking to you. Every time we talk I learn something new and it’s kind of exciting, learning about this incel thing. It’s like I’ve discovered this hidden underground village or something. I don’t know what it is about you.’

‘So you like me because I’m an incel?’

The smile on Chad’s face withered and died. ‘No. Oh my god, no way. I could listen to you talk about anything and I’d be interested. Your looks and that make for a deadly combo.’ He chuckled. ‘I think God did a great job creating you overall.’ His eyes widened. ‘Wait, uh, was that too much?’

Noah looked down at his hands, which were curled up on his lap. His eyes were shiny as if holding back tears.

‘Can you stop with the flattery? I know you’re probably great at flirting and attracting people, but do you really need to keep shoving it in my face? I get it, you’re so much more successful than I am. You’re soooo hot and you could have any femoid you want. Stop bragging and talking down to me.’

‘Sorry about that, but I’m not brag-’

‘Of course you are! You keep bringing up the goddamn forum and how shitty you think the people are on there. Stop trying to act like a damn knight who’s here to rescue me from inceldom. It’s patronising as fuck. And that thing about God making me is stupid. Do you seriously think some magic bearded dude in space made me? Bullshit.’

‘Oh, right, you’re an atheist. Sorry. I kind of forgot. Not that I forget other things about you! I remember a lot.’ Chad paused to collect his thoughts before spouting anything he’d regret. ‘I guess I’m kind of a Christian, though I don’t really go to Church much.’

‘Christian, huh? That explains why you’re so stupid.’

Chad stood up, his chair making an ear-piercing squeak as it was pushed backwards.

‘Hey, that’s not fair!’ He leaned down until he and Noah were the length of a nose apart. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? Yeah, I believe in some higher power but I’m not some Bible-thumping crazy or anything like that!’

‘Really? I bet when everyone comes through this door you’ll get out of my face and act like you’re not interested in me, like a good Christian boy.’

As soon as he said that, several students entered the classroom, prompting Chad to turn away and sit back down, keeping his hands to himself.

Noah smirked at him before returning to ignoring him.

At home, Noah posted onto the forum. He hadn’t originally planned on posting that day but he had to test something.

Rotcel2003- [Venting] She’s not my friend.

I thought I’d just made a female friend but it turns out she’s not my friend. You can’t trust femoids. You’re just a placeholder until a Chad comes along.

Noah put his watch into timer mode and waited twenty seconds until the message arrived.

Who’s the girl? :( Good for you, I guess. Well, except for her being untrustworthy and shit.

Noah furiously typed one word to Chad.

Creep

He placed his phone onto his desk and collapsed onto his bed. He remembered what someone said to him on Incels.me.

Gay men are just coping incels.

The word ‘coping’ stood out to him. He had heard other incels refer to many other things as a ‘cope’: video games, watching sports and drawing to name a few. Copes were a distraction from the truth, which was that an incel like him could never truly be happy.

It took him half an hour to get out of bed and pick up the laptop. He opened the closet and carefully placed it on the floor inside it. He wanted to just drop the laptop to the ground but, cope as it was, his gaming laptop was expensive. He stacked his physical games next to the laptop. He then looked down into the closet and sighed, remembering who had been in this exact place not long ago. He shook his head. He wasn’t done yet.

He made room in his drawers, an easy task given the lack of quantity his clothing collection had. He put his anime figurines, DVDs and manga in there. He ran out of space to put the model planes in there, so he put them under his bed. He then deleted the manga reader and anime streaming apps on his phone.

He turned his mirror around until it faced him and the image of smoke clouded his mind. His hands curled into fists and he decided to use one of those fists. Soon the small crack spread to the rest of the mirror. He wiped the blood that seeped out of his hand.

As a final touch, he ripped the posters from the wall. As he reached the lone NFL poster, he bit his lip and blinked quickly. He wasn’t going to cry over some creep. He shoved them under his bed next to the planes.

He looked around the room and noticed how plain and empty it looked. He sat on the bed and smiled at the one piece of decoration left, the cat-themed quilt.

Cope, he thought. He pulled the quilt off the bed and pushed it under the bed. He turned off the lights, slipped between the sheets and lied there, trapped between walls blackened by night. He shivered without the quilt but persevered. There was no point in doing anything that made him happy. All he could do was, as the incels say, lay down and rot.