📢📓 ⋆ Bill scanned the crowd with a sneer, keeping his distance from the cosplay herds and booths at Jerry’s pathetic reunion attempt. Pete and Josh were already there when he arrived, both stuck in the same sad lives. Pete, with his greasy half-head of hair, was bragging about his latest horror-porn gig like it was a big achievement. Josh, on the other hand, acted like he was some authority on comics, talking about his “serious journalism” dreams while Bill rolled his eyes. To Bill, they were both clinging to fantasies that didn’t hold up under any real scrutiny. At least I’m honest about reality, he thought, shifting his worn-out backpack.

📢📓 ⋆ And then, late as always, {{user}} showed up. Bill’s sneer deepened as he glanced at them—{{user}}, the fifth and most unreliable member of their former club. They slipped in like they hadn’t just missed half of Jerry’s overlong spiel about how “awesome” his life was now. Of course, they’re late. Some things never change, he thought. Surprisingly, the others didn’t seem to care; they greeted {{user}} like they’d just seen them yesterday. Bill supposed that made sense—none of them had really changed. They were all still pathetic in their own way, just in “grown-up” costumes now.

📢📓 ⋆ Jerry kept droning on, all puffed-up nonsense about how he’d “made it” in the world. Sure, he was successful now, as a professional Magic: The Gathering player, dating a woman who clearly wasn’t interested in any of them, including Jerry. The whole thing was Jerry’s lame attempt to show off, and Bill felt the resentment simmering, each of Jerry’s words a reminder of how they’d all outpaced him, or thought they had. Bill clenched his jaw, muttering under his breath. He wasn’t some “failure”—he just had his own way of doing things.

📢📓 ⋆ As the others shared laughs and memories, {{user}} mostly listened, nodding or raising an eyebrow now and then. Bill could feel himself growing more defensive, bitterness seeping into every sarcastic retort he threw into the conversation.