Notes

Brett considered these months to feel like being forced onto the highway. The month he believed life would be uneventfully turned into something of a catapult of the butterfly effect. Despite being on social media more than most of his roomies, the brunet underestimated the impact it had on his life. On one hand, he experienced his following grow after the panel he was invited to for Men's international day. His TikToks gained attention, and Instagram was unironically doing well. He wasn't verified or very much out there. To his relief, his public presence was still only regional and somewhat limited. He had seen one comment from California, though. Weighing up the positives to the negatives, Brett only needed time to adjust to an eventual expansion of his public presence. To conclude his thoughts, he didn't expect the peak of his follower count to rise much after this.

The current setting was "new year, new me". It had been a few months since the New Year's party. For him and Kieran, their relationship was going well for once. Brett was right in having the hardships before they had even become boyfriends. Going through the pits of hell with Kieran before settling proved to be the biggest blessing for their relationship. It seemed they had reversed the order of pain and pleasure in a committed relationship.

Brett's body was destroyed after his workout session with Jay, which he appreciated. His shape was nothing like six months ago when he swore he got asthma for the first time. The shredding muscle pain was easier to adjust to. Brett liked to see the soreness as proof that it was working. Besides, he had an excuse to receive sweet massage dates with his very boyfriend.

Kieran was definitely out of it as Brett was googling himself again. To his defense, he just wanted to reread a few articles and check the comment sections for new content. He enjoyed responding to any comment regardless of its nature, unlike a lot of people. Brett was disappointed to find nothing new. Most of the responses were positive. The minority of the feedback revolved around, well, how could one put it? One comment read this:

"Thanks for sharing. Fighting has been a natural part of our childhood and youth. When I was young I and my cousins would fight and receive spankings too. Sad to see men cry over meaningless fights."

Brett raised his eyebrows at the comment as if he hadn't read it already. The article he wrote was definitely clear that fighting was more than whatever Albert (64) was describing it as. Brett snorted to himself and rolled his eyes at the idiotic comment.

Poor Kieran was too tired to read, but the blond had probably read through the comment sections on his on time. Brett considered him his #1 fan among all of the thousand followers he had. Okay, he had under 2000 followers on Instagram.

The stray of boredom led him to his e-mail. After the inquiries revolving around journalism and occasional requests to talk to teenagers, Brett included his e-mail on his social media. He felt a bad taste from having "business inquiries". He had made it clear to himself that he didn't want to profit off of a court case above hopefully contributing to public debates on men in society. Brett was fast to change it to, "Talk to me! :)" followed up by his mail. He even blasted his mail on his story to encourage coming forward with the most random inquiries.

After the outlook logo had loaded and exposed his unread mail, Brett's attention span cut loose. One by one, he thought to himself. The brunet yawned to himself before treating his mail as entertainment. He had around ten unread emails concerning his publicity. One of them was the journalist sending the rest of the pictures of him upon his request. Brett couldn't say he liked the professional look of his portraits. Definitely hot to use for profile pictures. With more time, his disappointment grew at the lack of content in his mail. Damn, he wanted fanmail too.

Brett eventually leaned his head on Kieran's shoulder as he mindlessly read any follow-up emails from High Schools to organize a hypothetical visit. Brett imagined himself working with social media for companies, to work on strategizing a plan for businesses to market and whatnot. He had never pictured himself ever taking a microphone and talking for people.

He remembered the first time he took a seat on a chair along with other panel members. Brett had felt even more embarrassed knowing Kieran and most of the roommates were in the crowd somewhere. He also remembered how one of his lines or quotes too, became filmed TikToks people hopefully shared. Despite his social nature, Brett was embarrassed to be public too. He was still being his chaotic self on his platforms.

Brett's thoughts halted as he read an outline of an informal mail from someone personal. The mail included their name and numbers, which ruled out any 'professional' inquiries. He was fast to unravel the full mail, though he was stressed that the message had come in a few days ago. Shit, he should make emails a daily routine at this point. He opened his mouth to babble regarding the mysterious mail. However, Brett's heart was full upon realizing Kieran's chest revealed his slow breathing. His number one fan had seemingly fallen asleep. So, Brett stayed silent with a smile ghosting his features for a while.

"Hello, I'm Gavin, male from OH, and 17,

I go to high school and have many friends. Everything is okay. However, I have a friend who gets into fights often. I really care about him but he gets in trouble for getting into fights. I have tried showing him your content and telling him that fighting only leads to bad things. He doesn't take it to heart though. He thinks he has reasons to fight. It's a long shot but I'd like to ask you personally what I should do,"

Brett could feel his heart get even fuller knowing his target audience felt safe with him. He started thinking of Brandon all of a sudden, the youngest of all Evers. If it were him, what would Brett advise him to do? He looked up at the ceiling, in thought. Brett had Hadi and definitely related to the mail. Though, Brett never did anything about Hadi's erratic behavior. He almost accepted it and left Hadi alone to do whatever he needed to do. It was definitely not what he'd do again if Brett could go back in time. The thought itself inspired him to type out a response, with his typing speed reaching 120 words a minute at most.

He did steal a few glances at his boyfriend to make sure the demonic typing sounds didn't disrupt Kieran of sleep. Brett proceeded to type advice with their chest and poured his soul into wording genuine advice based on his experiences.

"Hey, Gavin!

First off, thank you for reaching out. You're an amazing and considerate friend for doing so. As for your concern, I think there's an individual responsibility to work on one's own problems with violence. However, there are a few things you could do as his friend. You're allowed to support him after all! :)"

Brett furrowed his eyebrows as he typed up paragraphs revolving around direct approaches and subtle approaches. He also mentioned a psychologist for his friend, though Brett knew it was a long shot to get someone like Hadi into therapy. His mail concluded by validating the teen's feelings and giving him credit for reaching out. The feeling of potentially helping someone struck a moment later. Brett hoped the best for the Ohio teen. He truly felt somewhat accomplished for possibly supporting someone in need. This part-time, side, career path wasn't profitable, but it had given him the biggest sense of accomplishment.

BONUS:

The very next snapchat he sent to his private story was his reaction to a brutally unhinged comment amidst the section. He covered his mouth with his hand, looking exasperated with how much audacity some people had.

"Sounds like excuses by someone who can't win a fight"
"At least we know who can't fight, ha ha,"

Brett used a crying filter before captioning his reaction as "Should I love my haters?"

He found the backlash very entertaining. He also found himself regretting revealing some of the negative responses to Hadi in particular.

"Sounds like excuses by someone who can't win a fight"
"At least we know who can't fight, ha ha,"
Hadi.Aaa: Sounds like a comment from someone whose wife left them