Quite a while has passed since that murder incident at Chen's. Life had settled back into its weird rhythm of school, club meetings, YouTube uploads.
Today was about gaming.
I'd been planning the GTA Vice City playthrough for weeks. My subscribers had been asking for it non-stop—showing up in comment sections, filling chat during livestreams, basically manifesting the game into existence through sheer demand. So when I did my first live stream and asked what people wanted to see, the chat went absolutely mental. Vice City everywhere. Posts, community tab, messages—everyone wanted it.
I'd made an announcement, and the response was huge. People went back and commented on it in my older videos, specifically boosting the chances of me playing Vice City and also alerting new subscribers about it which kept flooding in. It was genuinely exciting.
Now I was recording the first episode. The plan was solid—open on the iconic neon-soaked Vice City docks, establish the vibe, maybe do a quick tutorial mission, and then let chaos take over. The beauty of Vice City was that you could spend thirty minutes just causing mayhem, and people loved it.
I was three minutes into recording, when I decided my first priority was stealing a car. A bright blue one, naturally. Then a little light ultraviolence with a baseball bat on some random NPC.
That's when I caught movement in the corner of my eye.
Mitchell stood in my doorway, watching silently. We had a deal—when I was recording, neither of my dads would make noise or distract me. They'd saved their lectures for after. Mitchell had agreed to this, mostly because I had guilt tripped Cam once after he had ruined one of my videos in the past so much so that he nagged Mitchell about it for 2-3 days after that incident hence the deal .
But his face right now suggested he was reconsidering the deal.
He didn't say anything. Just stood there, watching me beat a virtual civilian with increasing intensity, his expression getting progressively more constipated. His eyes widened with each car I hijacked. When I knocked over an entire fruit stand just for fun, his left eye twitched.
I kept recording, trying not to laugh. I could feel his judgment radiating across the room like heat from a furnace.
After about five more minutes of me committing various digital crimes with cheerful narration ("And here's where I beat down the blue-shirt guy for no reason"), Mitchell gave up. He made this tiny sound—halfway between a sigh and a small death—and left the room.
I wrapped up the recording twenty minutes later, uploaded it to my editing software, and went to find him.
Both my dads were in the living room. Mitchell was sitting on the couch looking like someone had asked him to explain why his child had become a supervillain. Cam was making tea, completely unbothered.
"Alright," Mitchell started, not bothering with preamble. "What I just witnessed—"
"Was a video game," I said calmly, sitting down. "A very popular video game ."
"—involved you hijacking multiple vehicles, beating civilians with sports equipment, and committing property damage on a frankly alarming scale."
"Also in the video game," I added.
"We raised a thief," Mitchell said, mostly to himself. "We're raising a criminal. Cam, did you see? He's going to grow up and become an actual car thief. I've failed as a parent."
Cam handed me tea. "Oh Mitchell, plenty of people play violent video games. It doesn't mean anything."
"He looked like he was enjoying it!"
"Because it's fun?" I offered.
"It shouldn't be fun to steal cars!" Mitchell threw his hands up. "Car stealing should not be enjoyable!"
"But it's not real," I said, trying to use reason. "I know it's not real. Everyone watching knows it's not real. It's literally the entire point of video games—doing things you can't or shouldn't do in real life."
Mitchell opened his mouth to argue, closed it, then opened it again like a particularly dramatic goldfish. "That's... that's not helping your case."
"You know what?" I said, pulling out my phone. "Let me call Gramps. He'll back me up on this."
It was a snicky trick, and I knew it. But sometimes you need reinforcements.
Jay picked up on the second ring. "What's up, kid?"
"Mitchell's having a moral crisis about my gaming content," I explained, putting it on speaker. "Can you tell him it's fine?"
There was a pause. Then: "He's worried you're becoming a car thief?"
"Apparently."
"Jesus, Mitchell. It's a video game." Jay's voice came through clear and exasperated. "I've played real games where we beat up kids he is at least doing it in a video game ."
"That's exactly what I said!" Cam interjected.
"But he looked so natural doing it," Mitchell protested weakly.
"That's because he's good at it," Jay said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. "Kid's got talent. Let him do his thing."
"Dad—"
"What? You want him to keep playing the same old games he wants to try something new whats the harm in it , besides he is smart enough to tell the difference between real and a video game and even if he does hijack one in the future he is smart enough to not get caught "
Mitchell still looked unconvinced, but before he could keep arguing, Gloria's voice came through the phone in the background.
"Is this about the video game?" she asked, taking the phone from Jay. "Ryan, mijo, what game are you playing?"
"Grand Theft Auto: Vice City."
Gloria sounded delighted. "That sounds wonderful! What all happens in it? "
I explained the game while trying not to smile. Little did I know I'd just created a future problem for Jay.
She enjoyed the details and said . "When you record next episode, you tell me? I want to watch."
Mitchell made another strangled noise.
"It's just a game, Mitchell," Gloria continued, her voice taking on that maternal tone she'd perfected over the past few years. "Let him play. Ryan is smart, responsible, and he understands the difference between entertainment and reality. You have to trust him with his passion. We both know how important that is."
Jay's voice came back on. 'She's right. The kid's fine. Let him be.'
After that we hung up, Mitchell was quiet for a long moment. Cam squeezed his shoulder, giving me a sympathetic look that basically said "he'll come around."
"We're still going to talk about this later," Mitchell finally said, but his heart wasn't in it anymore.
"I know," I replied.
Mitchell sighed. "Fine we will talk later".
That's when Jay called back. Like, within two minutes.
"Also," he said when I picked up, "Gloria and I were thinking about taking a family trip. Switzerland. Post-honeymoon thing. We already talked to Phil and Claire, and we're asking you guys too."
"Switzerland?" Cam practically screamed from across the room. "Oh my god, Switzerland! Mitchell, did you hear? Switzerland!"
Mitchell looked like he was having multiple emotions at once. "When?"
"Summer break. A few weeks. Claire's already interested, and honestly, it'll be good for everyone. Gloria wants to visit there, and I want to show her around before the weather gets too cold."
"That sounds amazing," Cam said, already mentally planning outfits.
After we hung up, the living room was quiet except for Cam humming what might have been the Swiss national anthem while scrolling through hotels on his phone.
"Well," Mitchell said slowly, "that's something."
"You don't sound excited," Cam observed.
"I am. I'm just processing, beside I also need to talk to my boss about taking time off. I'll need to give advance notice"
Cam was already texting Phil about Switzerland, planning what sounded like coordinated outfits and a detailed itinerary. Mitchell was pretending to read a case file but kept glancing at me, like he wanted to say something else about the Vice City thing but had decided to pick his battles.
I went back to my room and started the editing process, cutting clips, adding commentary, building the narrative of my first Vice City adventure. By the time I was done, I had about fifteen minutes of solid content. The comments were already flooding in on my community post—people hyped for the upload, asking when it would go live, sharing their own Vice City stories.
One comment caught my eye: "If this turns into a full series, I'm so here for it."
I grinned. Maybe it would. Maybe Vice City would become a whole thing, like the Pokemon series had been. Maybe Cam and I would end up playing it together, and Gloria would actually show up to watch at some point.
And maybe, just maybe, Switzerland would be amazing.
But first, I had a video to finish editing.
Mitchell came into my room around nine o'clock, knocked on the doorframe in that specific way he did when he wanted to be serious but also kind about it.
"Can we talk?" he asked.
"About the video game thing?"
"About everything." He sat on the edge of my bed. "I'm sorry I overreacted. It was stupid. You're allowed to play whatever games you want. I just... sometimes it hits me that you're growing up, and you're doing things I don't fully understand, and I get weird about it."
"I know," I said. "That's kind of your thing."
He smiled slightly. "Yeah. It is." He paused. "Switzerland is in two months. That means we need to start planning. Flights, hotels, time off. It's a lot. But I want you to know I'm looking forward to it."
"Even though we'll be spending time with Grandpa Jay and Gloria?"
"Especially because of that," Mitchell said. "You know what? It'll be good. Weird, but good."
After he left, I sat at my desk and checked my subscriber count. We'd hit 850K. Not bad for a day's work—people clearly liked the Vice City video.
I opened a new document and started planning future content. Vice City could run for a while. Maybe I'd interweave some chess analysis videos, keep people guessing. And somewhere in all of this—between the uploads and the family drama and the Switzerland trip.
But for now, I just had an upload to finish and a family to figure out.
One step at a time.
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Mikhail Tal – Intermediate (3,500 / 25,000)
Kazuma Satou – Advanced (8,500 / 25,000)
Patrick Jane – Intermediate (4,650 / 30,000)
Subscriber Count -850K