Winston learned how little Luca respected him in the middle of Da Hood, with strangers watching and his rare gift still sitting in his inventory.
He had spent hours earning it.
Not because he needed it.
Because she had once said she wanted something like it, and Winston still believed love meant remembering the smallest things someone said.
For almost a year, Luca had been sweet only when she needed something.
When she wanted help with a boss, Winston came.
When she wanted Robux, he saved.
When she wanted a rare drop, he farmed until his fingers hurt.
When he wanted time with her, she was suddenly busy.
He told himself she was tired.
He told himself her other friends were demanding.
He told himself a lot of things, because the truth was too embarrassing to hold.
Then he found her standing beside Coy.
Coy had the kind of avatar that made people assume he mattered. Expensive clothes. Perfect hair. Gear that made a little crowd orbit him wherever he stood.
Luca fit right in beside him.
When Winston approached, her whole voice sharpened.
“Go away,” she said.
He asked what he had done wrong.
That was when Coy noticed him.
“Why is there a bacon here?”
The word landed the way it always did, like people could see a default avatar and decide the person behind it was default too.
Winston waited for Luca to explain.
She did.
Just not the way he expected.
“I don’t know him,” she said. “He follows me around. He makes things up.”
Winston stared at the screen.
He had heard insults before.
This was different.
This was the person who had taken his gifts, accepted his attention, and let him believe they were something real.
“Luca,” he typed, “we have been together for almost a year.”
Her reply came fast.
“Why would I date an ugly poor bacon like you?”
The group laughed.
Luca kept going because cruelty is easier when an audience rewards it.
“Kick that ugly bacon out,” she told them, “or I’ll say he’s been harassing me.”
Winston did not expose her.
He had messages.
He had proof.
He had every little thank-you she had sent when she wanted another item.
But in that moment, he felt too tired to fight for a place beside someone who was ashamed of him.
So he left.
The next morning, the Halloween challenge appeared across Roblox like a dare.
Three stages.
One random reward.
A chance to change your life.
Winston almost laughed at the last line.
His life felt too small to change because of a game event.
Still, he joined.
There was nothing else to do.
That was when he met Kylie.
He bumped into her so hard in the lobby that he started apologizing before she even reacted.
She laughed and told him she was fine.
Then she did something Winston was not used to anymore.
She treated him like he was normal.
Not poor.
Not embarrassing.
Not a backup player to message when everyone else was busy.
Normal.
“Want to run the challenge together?” she asked.
Winston said yes before he could talk himself out of it.
The first stage transported them into Tower of Hell.
The course looked ordinary for about six seconds.
Then the ground shook.
A boulder crashed across the path where Kylie had been standing.
Winston shouted for her to jump, and she landed on the platform with one pixel of space under her feet.
After that, they moved like a team.
Kylie spotted patterns in the falling rocks.
Winston timed the jumps.
They failed twice, laughed three times, and cleared the tower on the fourth attempt.
The second stage sent them into Da Hood.
Weapons appeared in their hands.
At first, the monsters were manageable.
Then the boss dropped from the sky.
It was huge, red-eyed, and built like the game had decided to embarrass everyone at once.
Kylie ran out of ammo at the worst possible time.
The laser came straight at her.
Winston stepped in front.
He did not think about Luca.
He did not think about being a bacon.
He just protected the only person who had spoken to him with kindness that week.
The boss fell after one last shaking blast.
Kylie typed, “You saved me.”
Winston typed, “That’s what friends do.”
She answered, “Then I picked a good friend.”
The final stage should have been easy.
It was not.
The challenge host told them to sing.
In public.
Kylie immediately said she could not do it.
“If I sing,” she said, “the game will add three more stages just to punish us.”
So Winston sang.
Badly.
So badly that Kylie’s promise not to laugh lasted less than five seconds.
But there was no cruelty in it.
She laughed like the moment belonged to both of them.
For the first time since Luca humiliated him, Winston forgot to feel small.
When the reward boxes arrived, Kylie’s opened first.
She received a rare bundle that made her shout loud enough for Alyssa, her best friend, to join the call and demand answers.
Then Winston’s box opened.
The screen flashed gold.
The badge appeared.
Congratulations, CEO of Roblox.
Nobody moved.
Alyssa was the first to speak.
“Did your bacon avatar just become the richest person here?”
Kylie whispered, “Winston, is that real?”
It was.
Somehow, the Halloween event had given him the one badge nobody could buy.
Not an outfit.
Not Robux.
A title.
A power shift.
The server changed around him almost instantly.
Players who had ignored him sent friend requests.
People who had laughed at bacon avatars asked if he remembered them.
Strangers begged for gifts.
Kylie did none of that.
She helped him choose a new look, but she never tried to change the person under it.
She picked a black hoodie because he said it felt comfortable.
She picked clean sneakers because Alyssa said every CEO needed shoes that did not look like they had survived a boss fight.
She teased him about the singing until he threatened to mute her.
He never did.
One day, while Alyssa complained that they were flirting in front of her, Winston stopped pretending he was only joking.
He asked Kylie if she would give him a chance.
She said yes.
It should have been the happy part.
Luca ruined it because Luca could smell status from across a server.
The first time she saw Winston’s new avatar in MM2, she did not recognize him.
She called him handsome.
He told her his name.
Her silence was almost louder than her old laughter.
“Winston?” she said. “The bacon?”
He told her his life had changed.
He told her he had a girlfriend now.
Then Kylie arrived.
Luca’s sweetness curdled into something sharper.
The next day, she found Kylie alone.
She did not start with an apology.
She started with poison.
“Did he tell you he used to chase me everywhere?” Luca asked.
Kylie said his past did not matter.
Luca smiled harder.
“He gave me gifts all the time. Looks like he liked me more than he likes you.”
Kylie tried not to show it, but the words found a soft place.
That is what Luca was good at.
She did not need truth.
She only needed insecurity.
Winston noticed Kylie getting quieter.
He asked what was wrong.
She said she was fine.
That was the first lie she had ever told him, and he hated that Luca had put it there.
He should have sat her down and told her everything.
He should have shown the old messages.
He should have said, clearly, that Luca was not a memory he wanted back.
Instead, he tried to handle Luca by ignoring her.
That gave Luca time to build a scene.
She followed Winston into Da Hood and cornered him near the bank.
He told her to leave.
She stepped closer.
He stepped back.
She laughed and said he was only pretending not to like her.
Then Kylie arrived with Alyssa.
From their angle, all they saw was Luca close to Winston and Winston looking guilty.
Luca struck fast.
“See?” she said. “He still wants me.”
Winston denied it.
But shock is loud, and explanations are quiet.
Kylie asked him if she had been a replacement.
Winston said no.
Luca said yes.
Kylie left before he could reach her.
Alyssa stayed just long enough to tell Winston he had made a mess, then ran after her best friend.
Luca waited until they were gone.
Then she laughed.
“She’ll get over it,” she said. “You and I can finally stop pretending.”
Winston looked at the screen and understood something.
Luca had not come back because she missed him.
She had come back because the badge made him useful again.
That night, Luca messaged him.
If you want her to forgive you, meet me alone.
Winston almost went.
Not because he trusted Luca.
Because panic makes bad ideas look like doors.
Then Alyssa messaged first.
Do not meet that girl alone.
She sent screenshots.
Luca demanding Robux from Coy.
Luca snapping that Coy did not have enough.
Luca telling her group she was about to change her life.
Luca telling Kylie that Winston had only picked her because Luca was unavailable.
Alyssa had also found Coy.
Coy did not want to believe it.
Nobody likes finding out they were chosen as a wallet with better hair.
But Selena, one of Luca’s own friends, told him the truth he had avoided.
“She betrayed Winston to be with you,” Selena said. “Why are you shocked she would betray you for someone richer?”
The next day, they set the trap.
Winston hated calling it that.
Alyssa called it “letting Luca perform for the correct audience.”
Winston went to the Da Hood alley near the bank.
Luca arrived almost immediately.
She had dressed her avatar like she was walking into a victory photo.
“You can stop ignoring me now,” she said.
Winston asked about Coy.
Luca laughed.
“Why are you bringing that idiot up? He does not have as much Robux as you. I can dump him anytime.”
Behind the wall, Coy stopped moving.
Winston saw the edge of Kylie’s avatar beside Alyssa.
He kept his voice steady.
“So if I date you, you will leave him?”
“Of course,” Luca said. “I would do anything for you now.”
Now.
That one word did the work of a confession.
Kylie stepped out first.
Coy followed.
Selena and the others came behind him.
Luca turned so fast her avatar bumped the wall.
For once, she had no audience on her side.
Coy asked, “Was I a joke to you?”
Luca tried to blame Winston.
She tried to blame Kylie.
She tried to say everyone had misunderstood.
But Alyssa had screenshots, and Luca had just said enough out loud.
There was no speech that could clean it up.
Winston expected to feel happy.
He did not.
Revenge looked smaller up close.
Luca lost Coy.
She lost the group.
She lost the version of the story where she was wanted by everyone and responsible for nothing.
But Winston still had to face Kylie.
He turned to her and said the thing he should have said earlier.
“I should have told you everything.”
Kylie did not forgive him instantly.
That mattered.
Real trust does not respawn just because someone says sorry.
She asked him why he had let Luca get close enough to hurt them.
Winston said he had been embarrassed.
Embarrassed that he had loved someone who used him.
Embarrassed that he had been fooled.
Embarrassed that if Kylie saw all of it, maybe she would see him the way Luca had.
Kylie was quiet for a long moment.
Then she said, “I never liked you because of the badge.”
Winston believed her because she had met him before it appeared.
Alyssa broke the silence by announcing that everyone was too emotionally exhausted and needed to go play MM2 like normal people with terrible coping skills.
Kylie laughed first.
Then Winston.
Then even Coy, who had just been humiliated, admitted that sounded better than standing in an alley with Luca pretending she was the victim.
Luca tried one last message.
Winston, please. You know me.
He looked at it for a while.
Then he blocked her.
Not because he was angry.
Because he was done giving her doors back into his life.
The final twist came a week later, when Roblox asked Winston to choose his first community event as CEO.
Everyone expected him to make something expensive.
A rich-player challenge.
A rare outfit drop.
A flex item people could fight over.
Instead, Winston created a starter event for every new bacon avatar.
No payment.
No begging.
No one had to prove they were worth seeing.
The reward was simple: a small shield badge that stopped players from kicking someone out of a public challenge just because of their avatar.
He called it the First Friend badge.
Kylie designed the colors.
Alyssa wrote the warning message that appeared when someone tried to bully a new player.
Coy, trying to rebuild his pride, volunteered to help moderate.
And Luca saw the announcement from outside the group, wearing an expensive outfit nobody cared about anymore.
Winston did not post about her.
He did not expose more screenshots.
He did not turn the whole server against her by force.
He just built a place where the next quiet kid in a default avatar would not have to earn kindness by handing over gifts.
That was the part Luca never understood.
Power is not proved by making people crawl.
Sometimes power is proved by refusing to become the person who made you feel small.
Winston still played Da Hood.
He still lost in MM2 more often than he admitted.
Kylie still teased him about the singing.
And every time a new bacon avatar joined their lobby, Winston sent the first friend request before anyone else could laugh.