“Thanks, Rodney,” he says, just barely above a whisper.
I wink at him before turning towards Rin. I nod for him to start this whole thing.
“So,” Rin says, scooting to sit at the head of the coffee table. The laptop sits in front of him, ready to call Azaad. Gayle and I sit next to each other on the floor across from the couch while Maki, Kei, and Sullivan share the couch. “For those of you who are new,” he says, looking at Maki, Sullivan, and Gayle. “Every year I host a giant fundraiser.”
Gayle nods his head. “I always try to tune in,” he admits softly. “Last year was super cool.”
Kei chuckles and nods his head. “Last year we did a twenty-four hour sing-a-thon. We basically karaoke’d our way through as many songs as we could while having special guests show up periodically.”
“I remember that,” Gayle says excitedly. “Didn’t you guys manage to get that band to cameo last year? The Devastated? That was so cool!”
“We have a contract with them,” Sullivan says with a grin. “They produce music especially for our team because the lead singer is from around here.”
“Gods, they’re so cool,” I say, remembering how awesome it was to meet them. “We auctioned off the masks they wore to the stream.”
“Oh,” Sullivan says excitedly. “We could totally do something like that! I’d have to talk to a few people but it would be awesome if we auctioned off a signed volleyball or something!”
Maki nods his head.
“Wait, let me bring Azaad into this,” Rin says quickly, connecting the call. It only rings for a moment before the screen changes, showing a man sitting at his desk, smiling at the camera. Azaad lives a few towns away so it’s usually easier to have him here via video call rather than asking him to come all this way. Azaad waves, his headphones featuring adorable pink cat ears on top of them.
“Hi, everyone! It’s so good to see you guys!” He squints at the screen. “Where’s Rin?”
“I’m right here,” Rin says, sliding over to Gayle so he’s in the shot as well. “Nice to see you again, Azaad!”
Azaad picks up a pen that has a giant fuzzy ball at the end. He adjusts his glasses which have a pink beaded cord around them so he can wear them around his neck, reminding me of a librarian. He’s adorable and always so prepared. I wish I could adult like him but alas, I’ll save such things for the experts.
“Big group today. Let’s start hearing your ideas,” he says, clicking his pen and starting to write things down.
“Sullivan just had a great idea. He thought maybe the Ninjas could contribute something for the auction. A signed volleyball from their team.”
“Oh,” Azaad says, “I love that.”
“I’m not sure what the theme should be this year,” Rin admits softly. “We had the live auction one year. Last year was all about songs and music. But this year I’m kinda coming up blank.”
Kei hums. “What about community? Our charity of choice this year is the children’s research hospital, so it might be interesting if our theme was just ‘community’.”
Azaad makes a noise. “Expound on that.”
“We could do another twenty-four hour stream,” I start to say, the idea building in my mind. “And we could all take a chunk of time to be in charge of. During our chunk, we get to be in charge of planning what to do. We could host it here and make it super cozy.”
“Instead of our usual set up, we could hook everything up in here and make the couch the main focal point,” Rin says, nodding his head.
“I like that,” Azaad says. “How do we bring community into it though?”
“I think each person’s section will have to determine that,” I say, rubbing my chin. “I think having another advice show would do really well but instead of it just being me and Kei, it could be a whole group of us taking turns answering donated questions.”
Azaad writes something down, the sound of his pen on paper loud in the otherwise quiet room.
“We could do some classic trends,” Rin says, unsure. “Like the hot chip challenge?”
Azaad is shaking his head. “No torture this year,” he decides. “We need all three of you up and going the entire time. Nothing that’ll put you down or stuck in the bathroom.”
Maki holds up his hand and Rin gets the most love-sick smile on his face at the gesture.
“Yeah, Maki?”
“We could host a volleyball game, streamers verses professionals.”
