CaucasiaDate: Megathread [MT/IC/Storefront Apps Only]

[North Caucasian Emirates]

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Preface

Upon answering "yes" or any other affirmative to the final question in your matchmaking application—and having a match assigned to you—in the CaucasiaDate storefront thread (HERE), you will be redirected to this thread to roleplay out a potential and developing relationship with your match; the latter of whom will be played by me, for simplicity's sake. Thus, the storefront is the application thread—and I am considering whether or not to create an OOC thread for the purpose of discussing this roleplay, should there be more traffic than expected for the concept of the storefront—while also doubling as a business.

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Roleplaying

There are a few motifs and themes that you—as a CaucasiaDate user—should be familiar with. These motifs reflect the best and the worst of what CaucasiaDate—and dating sites in the real world—have to offer, but with added safety, as this is just a roleplay, and not the real deal.

Risks: In the real world, dating sites have their risks, and the setting of CaucasiaDate is no exception. Although I generally will not go out of my way to mess with your character, I may—on the odd occasion—make your match a catfish, or even a scammer; in which case, I will drop hints throughout the roleplay that all is not what it seems. I will not reveal them here, but Google is your friend for when it comes to looking out for the signs pertaining to those sorts of shady types; all the more challenging! If you do end up suspecting that your match is a catfish—you are more than welcome to OOC on the thread to ask whether or not your match is a catfish or scammer, and why you think so. I will answer truthfully with my own OOC with a "yes" or "no" answer. From then on, ICly, you are free to continue the correspondence with the user in question or—if I have answered with a "yes" answer—report the user with the report form on the storefront thread. I would say report the user here, but the storefront—for the time being, or until there is enough demand for this new concept of roleplay—doubles as the OOC and sign-up thread. Alternately, you could also fall hook-line-and-sinker for a scammer's demands, and a story could be borne out of that, too; or, you could report a suspected scammer or catfish on the storefront thread, without doing an OOC first on this thread and, if you are correct in your suspicions—or the evidence presented is convincing enough—then I will take IC action against the profile in question.

Turning The Tables: If you wish to play as a scammer or catfish of your own—and I, a legitimate user, or a scammer myself—do as a typical catfish or scammer would do, and copy what I do; that is, dropping hints that all is not what it seems, and then answering me with a "yes" or "no". Alternately, I could report your profile, and—should I, or a potential non-playing future co-OP I might end up appointing, believe that there is convincing enough evidence—action could be taken anyway.

Online v. Offline Interaction: Although the setting of this roleplay is a dating site, hopefully that's not all your character ends up doing throughout the duration of corresponding with their match; they've got to eat, wash, sleep, go to work, go to college, and more! If your character has recently developed feelings for their match and the latter reciprocates, they could have a more healthy appetite, groom and dress to impress more often, sleep better, or perform better at work or college. Alternately, if your match is a catfish or scammer, your character can see stress-eating or weight loss, sleep disturbances, daily hygiene rituals being disrupted, decreased performance at work or college. Both instances will often see the character noticed by others to be glued to their phone, tablet, computer, or other device when it comes to interacting online with their match, and potentially telling their real-world friends about their match. Unless, of course, your character lives in their parents' basement, and spends all day on the computer; but that's no fun a concept!

Hope: Despite all the catfishing and scamming running around, the vast majority of matches will be real, but lonely people, who reflect the best of what the North Caucasian Emirates has to offer. They want your love, they want a better life, they want a family, but—on both our parts—there should be realistic factors that vary on a case-by-case basis as to what nature of road-blocks come up throughout the duration of the correspondence. In order to have a relationship last and become successful, road-blocks need to be worked upon by both parties and resolved. If not, then the relationship will begin to deteriorate—and interactions are encouraged to reflect such—which is a warning sign of an impending break-up, or indication to move on.

The Endgame: Most every legitimate user of CaucasiaDate hopes to—one day—bridge the distance between themselves and their online soulmate. Feelings can get in the way of a lot of rational thought and planning for the future and, as such, proper planning for the future—with all factors and obstacles weighed on—may or may not happen until after the "honeymoon" period has ended, or neared its end. Additionally, all said factors and obstacles—from scheduling sufficient extended leave from work or education; to purchasing a plane ticket; to emigration and immigration; to finally meeting a soulmate in person, only to find that the reality is too different from the online impression to be successfully reconciled, and thus the relationship sadly ends—have their own unique difficulties, and not all of them can simply be overcome; some should not have had the opportunity become a problem, too. But for those relationships that do work out successfully, the happy ending is enough to become an example for future couples to follow in their footsteps.

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Rules

1. Follow the NationStates Rules at all times;
2. Please make sure that you have filled out an application in the storefront—and been accepted through the assignment of a match—before posting here;
3. For custom profile photos, use PicResize or any other free image resizing website—make sure the image is no wider than 150px, and no taller than 200px—and upload the image to Imgur before embedding it in your post;
4. When your post begins to steer in the general direction of breaking the PG-13 rule, simply *fade to black* instead;
5. Follow the IC "Terms of Service" as listed in the below post;
6. Failure to follow the IC "Terms of Service" or these OOC "Rules" may result in warnings, or being asked to leave the thread altogether;
7. If I tell you to leave the thread—leave immediately and do not come back under alternate accounts;
8. Above all, "don't be a d*ck";

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Terms of Service

1. Inciting racial, religious, social, and sexual hatred, or promoting physical harm to any individual or group;
2. Harassment towards and individual, or incitement thereof;
3. Abusive, threatening, obscene, defamatory, or libelous conduct, or promotions thereof;
4. Posting, linking to, or sending content that infringes on copyright, such as pirated programs and media;
5. Publicly displaying inappropriate or obscene content;
6. Providing instruction for or advocating illegal activities;
7. Soliciting passwords or any other personally-identifiable information (PII) for commercial or unlawful reasons;
8. Engaging in commercial activities such as advertising and sales without the approval of CaucasiaDate staff;
9. Spamming, sending chain letters, or junk mail;
10. Catfishing or creating a fake profile;
11. Running automated bot profiles;
12. Being below the age of eighteen (18) years of age;
13. Impersonating staff members;

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Moderation Log

Reserved for future expansion.

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[North Caucasian Emirates]

Reserved for future expansion.

[North Caucasian Emirates]

OOC: Paging Odinburgh . . .

"Sokha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!", rang a shrill voice from a few floors aboveground, as the sound of footsteps coming up the flight of stairs became audible. "Dinner is ready! Hopefully you aren't coming home alone... again!"

After yet another long Friday at work—dealing with mismarked cosmetics shipments; wardrobe malfunctions on-stage during the performance of The Power of Darkness, Act I; and the resident diva complaining about how her stage makeup was done—Sokhatai was in no mood to respond substantively to her mother's endless fussing as she climbed the stairs to the fifth floor; this was made more difficult, on account of the fact she had fallen down the flight of stairs to the metro station, and the fresh plaster she put on her knee that morning was really starting to itch.

"My little girl, you are home!", cooed her mother as the younger Nikishina—huffing and puffing—walked in the door and nodded in acknowledgement, forcing a smile despite her exhaustion and the itch gnawing up her leg. And, putting down her heavy satchel, some of the few rational words—straight from the resident diva—soon echoed within her mind:

"You know, Sokha Punch, you're an entire decade older than me and still don't have a boyfriend, which is really sad, girlie! And ow! That's my hair you're pulling with that brush! [...] You know what you should do, though? Check out an online dating site—there's, like, loads of them that make matches between us beautiful girls, and those wealthy, loaded businessmen from other countries, whose names I can't even pronounce, let alone spell—a shy, pretty girl like you would be perfect for those! They don't cost too much, either. Just, like, make an account on somewhere like, uh, I dunno—CaucasiaDate? Yeah, CaucasiaDate! One of my girlfriends, who is so cute, but so shy—shyer than you probably—found a beautiful, hot, young, rich guy from some weird foreign nation... I dunno where it is or how to pronounce its name—Losh-wings, perhaps? Anyway, it's a few nations over, and I can easily buy an airline ticket at one of the Babyflots for cheap-cheap, and visit her, her husband, and their baby gal, anytime I want! I'm pretty sure..."

Such words continued to echo throughout her mind as she ate her dinner—which consisted of mutton sausages, fish-head soup, gooey cheese imported from some Francophone nation, and biscuits with cream and snap-frozen blueberries—in silence, before retreating to her room, and opening her laptop. So, it looks like CaucasiaDate is making rounds again. She thought to herself silently, as she signed up for an account which—for the first time in years—wasn't for video gaming, or even remotely relevant to such; she shuddered at the thought of many near-misses, where she narrowly avoided being banned under the "solicitation" rules in regards to relationships on such sites, as laid down by many of the MMORPGs she had once played.

Now, what photo of myself am I going to put up as my profile picture? She thought to herself as she plugged her phone into her laptop's USB port, looking through her camera roll before finding a good enough photo that complemented her mixed heritage relatively well, at least compared to the others in her gallery. Having completed the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory and selected her result from the drop-down menu—while skipping out inputting her credit card details, frugal as she was—she pressed the "Make Me A Match!" button, awaiting the fireworks, or lack thereof, as the site's beach ball of death continued spinning for minutes at a time.

✧✧✧

After what seemed like an eternity, the beach ball stopped spinning, and the details of a handsome, confident, tall, Western man—accompanied by an equally-handsome photograph—appeared on her screen. Shaking her head and blinking—as if it were too good to be true—she opened the man's photograph in a new tab to get a better look; and when she saw him, she was filled with a certain joy, but also trepidation. She opened her inbox to compose a letter—not completely sure of what to write, but she was going to do it anyway—curiouser and curiouser:

"Hello, Liam Palmgren. My name is Sokhatai Nikishina, and I come from Kalmykia. I have never been on a real dating site before—or had much in the way of a real relationship before—and the matchmaking algorithms matched us up to each other. Pretty cool, I'm sure of it. I am a bit shy, you see, and I hope that—when you are available, or if you are willing—that we can talk. It would be very nice to get to know you, I think; I've never met a person from Canada before, or really anyone from outside of my hometown in Kalmykia. I hope that we can be friends, though.

She was... awkward, or at least she felt like it and—after spending half an hour fussing over how the letter might end up coming off, while continually editing it over and over—she decided to cut it short and press the send button. If he replied, he replied. Otherwise, she was going to just try again in the morning—as the night was growing old—and, if that didn't work out, give up altogether. She had faced the facts a long time ago, that a shy girl—no matter how beautiful and talented—wasn't going to get married. Ever. Or, at least not with the help of a matchmaker, who often had a long line of elderly widowers waiting for a young, attractive girl to be sent their way.

[Odinburgh]

OOC: Paging Odinburgh . . .

"Sokha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!", rang a shrill voice from a few floors aboveground, as the sound of footsteps coming up the flight of stairs became audible. "Dinner is ready! Hopefully you aren't coming home alone... again!"

After yet another long Friday at work—dealing with mismarked cosmetics shipments; wardrobe malfunctions on-stage during the performance of The Power of Darkness, Act I; and the resident diva complaining about how her stage makeup was done—Sokhatai was in no mood to respond substantively to her mother's endless fussing as she climbed the stairs to the fifth floor; this was made more difficult, on account of the fact she had fallen down the flight of stairs to the metro station, and the fresh plaster she put on her knee that morning was really starting to itch.

"My little girl, you are home!", cooed her mother as the younger Nikishina—huffing and puffing—walked in the door and nodded in acknowledgement, forcing a smile despite her exhaustion and the itch gnawing up her leg. And, putting down her heavy satchel, some of the few rational words—straight from the resident diva—soon echoed within her mind:

"You know, Sokha Punch, you're an entire decade older than me and still don't have a boyfriend, which is really sad, girlie! And ow! That's my hair you're pulling with that brush! [...] You know what you should do, though? Check out an online dating site—there's, like, loads of them that make matches between us beautiful girls, and those wealthy, loaded businessmen from other countries, whose names I can't even pronounce, let alone spell—a shy, pretty girl like you would be perfect for those! They don't cost too much, either. Just, like, make an account on somewhere like, uh, I dunno—CaucasiaDate? Yeah, CaucasiaDate! One of my girlfriends, who is so cute, but so shy—shyer than you probably—found a beautiful, hot, young, rich guy from some weird foreign nation... I dunno where it is or how to pronounce its name—Losh-wings, perhaps? Anyway, it's a few nations over, and I can easily buy an airline ticket at one of the Babyflots for cheap-cheap, and visit her, her husband, and their baby gal, anytime I want! I'm pretty sure..."

Such words continued to echo throughout her mind as she ate her dinner—which consisted of mutton sausages, fish-head soup, gooey cheese imported from some Francophone nation, and biscuits with cream and snap-frozen blueberries—in silence, before retreating to her room, and opening her laptop. So, it looks like CaucasiaDate is making rounds again. She thought to herself silently, as she signed up for an account which—for the first time in years—wasn't for video gaming, or even remotely relevant to such; she shuddered at the thought of many near-misses, where she narrowly avoided being banned under the "solicitation" rules in regards to relationships on such sites, as laid down by many of the MMORPGs she had once played.

Now, what photo of myself am I going to put up as my profile picture? She thought to herself as she plugged her phone into her laptop's USB port, looking through her camera roll before finding a good enough photo that complemented her mixed heritage relatively well, at least compared to the others in her gallery. Having completed the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory and selected her result from the drop-down menu—while skipping out inputting her credit card details, frugal as she was—she pressed the "Make Me A Match!" button, awaiting the fireworks, or lack thereof, as the site's beach ball of death continued spinning for minutes at a time.

✧✧✧

After what seemed like an eternity, the beach ball stopped spinning, and the details of a handsome, confident, tall, Western man—accompanied by an equally-handsome photograph—appeared on her screen. Shaking her head and blinking—as if it were too good to be true—she opened the man's photograph in a new tab to get a better look; and when she saw him, she was filled with a certain joy, but also trepidation. She opened her inbox to compose a letter—not completely sure of what to write, but she was going to do it anyway—curiouser and curiouser:

"Hello, Liam Palmgren. My name is Sokhatai Nikishina, and I come from Kalmykia. I have never been on a real dating site before—or had much in the way of a real relationship before—and the matchmaking algorithms matched us up to each other. Pretty cool, I'm sure of it. I am a bit shy, you see, and I hope that—when you are available, or if you are willing—that we can talk. It would be very nice to get to know you, I think; I've never met a person from Canada before, or really anyone from outside of my hometown in Kalmykia. I hope that we can be friends, though.

She was... awkward, or at least she felt like it and—after spending half an hour fussing over how the letter might end up coming off, while continually editing it over and over—she decided to cut it short and press the send button. If he replied, he replied. Otherwise, she was going to just try again in the morning—as the night was growing old—and, if that didn't work out, give up altogether. She had faced the facts a long time ago, that a shy girl—no matter how beautiful and talented—wasn't going to get married. Ever. Or, at least not with the help of a matchmaker, who often had a long line of elderly widowers waiting for a young, attractive girl to be sent their way.

Liam picked up the phone. Nervous as he was more jittery when he heard a girls voice on the other end. "Hi Sohka. This is Liam. Never met anyone from Kalmykia before. Sure we can be friends. Hope that break comes that I make it big in Hollywood. So far I have taken bit roles but I'm waiting word on one movie. After years of struggle perhaps my luck has struck gold."

[North Caucasian Emirates]

Liam picked up the phone. Nervous as he was more jittery when he heard a girls voice on the other end. "Hi Sohka. This is Liam. Never met anyone from Kalmykia before. Sure we can be friends. Hope that break comes that I make it big in Hollywood. So far I have taken bit roles but I'm waiting word on one movie. After years of struggle perhaps my luck has struck gold."

*buzz buzz* Sokhatai was fast asleep when she heard her phone going off, but not with the usual sound, strangely enough.

The buzzing continued for a few minutes, until she realised it was the CaucasiaDate app that the resident diva had invited her to download onto her phone, and she had accepted. "Ugh", groaned Sokhatai, "it's literally midnight where I am, and this match better be worth his weight on gold", and she opened her phone...

"Wow! A movie star in... Hollywood...? Is that the place where most of the movies shown in our local cinemas come from? If so, then they are pretty good, but I feel they should have more than just subtitles, as not everyone here speaks foreign languages. Speaking of which, how is my English? I am a bit, uh, rusty when it comes to languages—other than Russian, Arabic, and Kalmyk, of course—but nobody except for university students and expatriates speak English or any other foreign language to each other while we walk by. I hope you can understand me, because I can understand you. How different is movie acting to theatre acting? I work at a theatre doing makeup and costuming, but the finished effect looks so much more different in both stage and movies, though I would assume that the preparation and rehearsals are similar enough. What's the time in Canada, right now? It's midnight here, and I'm so very glad it's the weekend, where I get to sleep in the next morning. I, uh, also am not a Premium Member, so this voice call times out in about... 7-and-a-half minutes...? I haven't been in a phone call with anyone outside of my family and work for years, do you want to text chat instead?

She spoke every word with difficulty and a strong accent, hoping Liam could understand her; her written English was far better.

[North Caucasian Emirates]

OOC: Paging Flamell

"Hey, Yeller!" shouted a burly, middle-aged man in a pair of weathered blue overalls, sitting among a group of other men like him in a dimly-lit corner of the local pub. "Come on over, you're late; the black label's halfway gone... down our gullets I mean! It's the good stuff, we last got a bottle of the stuff, ehh... a few months ago, for, uh, Oleg's—yes Oleg's—thirty-fifth birthday! By the way, girl, what's that in the bag you got there?"

Yelena—upon hearing her signature nickname among her drinking buddies called—rushed over to the usual table they sat at every evening after work, at the Pub Lisya Nora. As she arrived, she opened the brown paper bag she was carrying, and—much to the delight of her friends—she took out a couple boxes of foreign-made cigarettes. After letting the lads take their picks first while she took a quaff of the black label vodka they offered her—straight from the bottle, no less—she lit a cigarette and began:

"Well, I can't say I didn't try to be on time; had a customer who was a total c*ckhead just as I was about ten minutes off from clocking out for the evening. Couldn't get a word in edgeways as he was complaining about how we charged extra for perforations in the car's body—and don't ask me how that happened, it's none of my business, but it looked like an icepick had done the deed... in the middle of summer. F*cking hell, lads, the boss didn't pay me extra because the extra time I'd been at work dealing with said c*ckhead didn't add up to an hour as of yet. A-a-a-a-anyway, enough about me; what have you lot been up to lately? I hope you enjoy the coffin nails, straight from GUM's gift shop, they are. They charge an arm, a leg, a spleen, and your soul, but I know the old girl who lives next door to me who works there, so... I got a discount! Maxboro full-flavour Reds, these nails are; good stuff, and normally only get these as a treat for events like weddings, or twentieths."

The lads roared with approval, and began to tell their own stories—from their wives complaining that they're out too late, to difficult co-workers and bosses, to the local, toy-free steelworks' "bring-your-child-to-work day" being a total pain in the neck—but suddenly, Oleg took the bottle off the lad next to him, heartily quaffed the remainder, and told his own tale, given he was the last one in line:

"Alright lads—don't laugh, I know this is a bit funny and strange for you guys—but listen up! So, I got a girlfriend at last. She lives in some sorta country nearby-ish—Losh-wings, I think it is; sorry, too drunk to think of where that country might be, but I know it's close by, with the added question of how to spell its name—and she's amazing! She's in the growing punk rock scene, short-and-spiky hair, but honest-to-God and an amazing chef. She can also take a bottle of sorghum vodka and not collapse! I met her on CaucasiaDate while looking for foreign women; not every day you can find a woman who drinks a helluva lot like you, Yeller, or who even likes the stuff I do!"

After the other lads were done laughing at and thorning poor Oleg—along with about an hour's worth of banter afterwards—it was time for everyone to go home. Yelena was a bit buzzed after her share of the vodka and, despite the law being the law, she opted to drive home anyway. She was lucky to have drinking buddies allowing women like her to join them, but her dating prospects were bleak; basically—save for her buddies—the local men preferred girly-girls or geeky-girls; not strong, coarse, manly, or practical women like her. Not women who can hold just as much alcohol as them, or women who have no qualms about swearing like a sailor, much to their delight when men do it. And due to the many "mangirl!" comments she got while out for years, she reluctantly grew her flaxen-blonde hair to her shoulders and beyond.

When she arrived home, her parents and younger brother were fast asleep, so she slowly tiptoed into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and helped herself to last bit of vodka from a few weeks ago that—as per the lads' round-robins system—was determined to be hers, as it was her turn to bring home the leftovers; the rest of the night's cigarettes were divided between Oleg and his brother, Boris. Drinking the vodka, and feeling a wave of inebriation come across her, she decided to check out this CaucasiaDate site and see what it was all about; no regrets in the morning, right? Especially not when it comes to downloading the application on her phone, or inputting her credit card details and buying a few months' worth of Premium Membership with it, right? Not in a blue moon.

Laughing at her handiwork, she decided to pass out on the floor and wait for the matching algorithms to do their work...

✧✧✧

She was awoken by a loud buzzing right next to her ear a few hours later. With a bitter taste in her mouth and an aching head, she opened her phone to find that her assigned match—a certain Gustave Belmont—had sent her a message...

[Yohannes]

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“People. Please!” It was hot. The sun was shining, the planes flying and the crowds chanting.

Or, hating.

“This is my African Bigtopian right here!” The man said. His hair blond, hands small, and eyes glimmering. Glimmering with opportunity. Just like an insurance salesman.

“Please Sir. Thank you. Thank you. The inner cities are calling!”

“There are two hundred thousand non-Occidentals and Mexcitani coming here at the rate of infrastructure growth we have today. That is. Just. Let me tell you. A disgrace!”

YES, the crowd chanted after him.

“Yohannes has the second lowest home ownership rates since the days of the Founding Monarchs. We need one point six million houses here alone, and all Alice the fiscal lady can free up is a couple of big parks and a zoo — to build one point six million houses in. That is just. A disgrace!”

YES, the crowd chanted after him.

“And look over up at Parliament House. We have a corporate Raider woman and fraudster as Minister of Economy, Industry and Trade, who should be locked up in jai — ”

LOCK HER UP!

LOCK HER UP!

“Thank you, people. My good African Bigtopian friend here agrees with me. Let me touch you, Sir.”

“Thank you!”

The phone ringing, and he was down the stairs, not a minute too soon. The crowds still singing in the background: the National Anthem. And Country and Heartland.

“I don’t care H-O-W she can come. But I want my Trelanie to come here. N-O-W!”

“Mr Parliamentarian, the call centre of CaucasiaDate is not yet open today. They will be ope —

“Then I want you to grab them by T-H-E P-U-S-S-Y. I don’t care how. I don’t care why. I want her in. Now.”

“Ye—yes, Mr Parliamentarian.”

“Are you W-I-T-H me, Kuschlek?”

“Ye—yes, Mr Parliamentarian.”

“Say the pledge. I want you to S-A-Y it like my African Bigtopian friend.”

“I— I pledge my allegiance to Jesus Christ, the Bible, and Ronald Chump of New Cleyra.”

“Thank you. Now bring my Trenalie. N-O-W.”

[North Caucasian Emirates]

OOC: Paging Dominara

Sitting at her computer desk at home on her weekend—with its two 22-in monitors, side by side—Yevgenia sighed as she saw the latest notice on the Admin Control Panel: 6 new reports. "Jesus Christ", she grumbled, cursing as she opened up the Control Panel, and read each report, only to find a certain Culprit Numero Uno—as the moderation and administrative team nicknamed him—at it again. She went to the public announcements forum—having consulted with the rest of the team briefly—and prepared the most frightening, most absolute, most damning ultimatum in the history of the forums, since her hiring onto the site administrative team two years ago:

Everyone—

CYCL0N3_5W0RD is hereby indefinitely banned from the requiemby.nce website, and all threads made by CYCL0N3_5W0RD will be locked and archived. I am sure this will surprise no-one. This was surprising to none of us. But—when you are given nth chance after nth chance to reform your problematic behaviour—we expect all users on our site to adhere to the site rules, as well as our forum host's Terms and Conditions.

What CYCL0N3_5W0RD has done was not only repeatedly violate the site rules AND Terms of Service, but also show flagrant disregard for the many warnings both moderation and administration handed out to him; "reforming" only for long enough that any warnings tacked to his record expired, before continuing his misbehaviour. This is a very smart tactic, but [caine] are smarter, and kept his entire warning record logged externally; this ensured accessibility, even after the warnings given to him on this site had expired, and with them, the records of his many, countless infractions.

We are not obtuse to how so many of our users—past and present—have threatened the site staff with: "Either CYCL0N3_5W0RD leaves or I leave" ultimatums over the past year.

We know this case took literal ages for us to put the ultimate end to it. And we duly apologise for having put our members through such an ordeal.

We gave numerous—and we say too many—opportunities for CYCL0N3_5W0RD to prove us wrong. Instead, he proved us right.

No further information other than what is publicly available in the soon-to-be-created CYCL0N3_5W0RD Archives will be provided.

Signed,
[caine] ; [zillah] ; [enoch] ; [lilith] ; [irad]

After spending hours going over and over the post—hoping to God that there were no weaknesses in the statement that could be used against the team—she finally pressed the "post" button, before logging off for the evening; the fireworks could be dealt with in the morning.

But just as she was doing so, an advertisement for CaucasiaDate popped up, on what was otherwise a premium server where there were meant to be no advertisements. This time around, however, they were advertising foreign men for a change; foreign men portrayed as dashing, handsome, modern, and willing to roll their sleeves up to help a woman out with her work. CaucasiaDate had been advertising for months across many sites Yevgenia had frequented—and she was too lazy to get AdBlock on her browser—so, she decided internally, why not check it out for a change? Might be worth it for a change. She thought, annoyed by the many unintelligent, uncouth young men she saw at university, especially in her sausage party of an Information Systems and Technologies degree course.

Following the prompts, she registered an account—uploading a random photo she had on her camera roll; to her it didn't matter which one, and she was too aggravated after dealing with CYCL0N3_5W0RD's little sh*tfest to take a new one—while skimping on inputting her credit card details, for the safety of both herself and her bank account.

Now it was time for the matchmaking algorithm to work its magic...

✧✧✧

And work its magic it did: a certain Jake Newman from a faraway country named "Dominara" was brought up, and assigned to her; she wondered at exactly what the exact algorithms were that determined such a match with someone who seemed to take computers as seriously as she did...

[Flamell]

It was the hell of a day, that was in the positive meaning for once.
They had done the nearly impossible, again and the satisfied customer had paid them all a nice bonus for their good work. It was not Gustaves best project to be honest, too overdone, too much bling bling, but the customer would take great care of his baby and this was the thing that was most important to the Flamellian.
Cars always had been his babies. He had cared for them since middle school and even when his parents have scolded him for it he went back to the scrapyard to improve the models there.

It was out of the question what we would do once he had finished his education and at first, he had been happy nay excited to be part of the Design Team for the new Horch Wolve. In his enthusiasm, he couldn't imagine that his ideas were way too radical.
He wasn't happy there at all and never completed the final training there before going to Tesla.
This was the best decision of his life for sure, Tesla was his home, his soul and his family.
Sadly his own family had other ideas.

Not one family dinner without the same question. " When will you settle down ?" At the very least they expected a presentable girlfriend, hopefully, a wife in a few years and god forbid children! He was not this family material for heaven's sake and most of the Flamellian Singles were just boring. Highly educated snobs who sneezed on everyone with a real job and real handwork.
He had given up on a happy romantic live years ago until he had seen a commercial. "Every 7 Minutes someone finds the right one on CaucasiaDate !"

He had debated about this for a week until he had created his profile. That had been one month ago and so far only the stereotypical 'entertainer for hire' had contacted him.
He arrived at his small home, a condo apartment in the downtown of Nikosia, not fancy, not big but it had his own touch. Blinky greeted him as usual, the crazy black furball probably had waited for him at least an hour as he was rather late today. He passed the pictures of his most beautiful babies and stepped into the common room.

" Nikolai, status report."
As usual, the home service system he had doubted 'Nikolai' began the daily report. "You have missed 6 Phone Calls, 4 of them marked as 'important', there are 69 E-Mails in your account, 50 of them marked as spam. Furthermore the most important news..."
The Flamellian went to the desktop PC, putting him out of sleeper mode. The E-Mails were shown at the right bottom of the screen, the first 6 interesting advertisement that was work-related, the seventh a coupon for some event he wouldn't visit. The eight one caught his eye.

" Congratulation you have been matched." It was Caucasian date, with a frown he logged into his account, not trusting the E-Mail link as usual.
Indeed the matched screen announced 'match completed' showing the picture of a blonde woman probably a few years younger than him. It could be a chance.
Going on impulse he hit the 'contact' button.
Now he had this nervous blinking black bar and he had no idea what to write.
Finally, he got a grip on himself.


" Hello, Yelena Pavlovskaya.
God this is awkward, I don't do this regularly. I'm Gustave from Nikosia, right that should be a good starting point. Never truly went to eastern Europe before, just work related for a convention fair or two.
I'm a designer, especially for Cars so maybe that was the reason the algorithm put us together. Yeah if you are interested to leave me a message. Maybe we can see if this can work out."

It was total crap and he knew it, he had some relationships in college and university but that was years ago and Flamellian Women, well most of them were casual daters, more for the curiosity than anything else.
Hopefully, he hadn't botched this up before it really started.

[North Caucasian Emirates]

OOC: Paging Yohannes

Like all relationship failures, this... s*cked. And on CaucasiaDate no less. In the midst of a flame war with her now-ex lady flame, Maniya was sick of it:

"You know, Nà, I was hoping that you would back down from all those unwarranted and repeated put-downs. I'm, frankly, very disappointed, and I thought things were going to work out, in spite of all that. But no, it's not going to work if you treat me like that. What's wrong with plastic surgery? The lip and cheek fillers enhance my appearance all the more; there's nothing wrong if I can afford it, and have them done in moderation. And my tan makes me look like my skin is dirty? Girl, this is what all beach-goers sport! Summertime happiness was what I felt when we met; now all I am left with is summertime sadness. I've had enough of you, and of toxic female cliques in general. Goodbye."

Signing off with a final "f*ck you" as she pressed the "block" button, she decided to try the matchmaking algorithm once again. Singing to herself—"Matchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a match... Find me a find, catch me a catch..."—an old song from a foreign movie she once watched in her Architectural History lecture, she was aghast when she saw the matchmaker reveal the fruits of its algorithmic magicks: "Your match is: Ronald Chump from New Cleyra, Yohannes."

"A politician?!" she cried, hardly able to believe her own eyes or that of her phone's screen, "...and a billionaire, too!" she continued, taking a deep breath, before looking at his date of birth, with even more shock as she looked at his date of birth, and then his photo, then back at his date of birth, then back at him: "He is... seventy-one years old, and still so young!? A match made in Heaven, I'm sure!"

Determined not to allow anyone else to steal her soon-to-be-man, she composed a letter, reading:

"Dzień dobry! Privyet! Здравствуйте (Zdravstvuyte)! I can speak four languages: Arabic, Polish, Russian, German, and English; only one more than the head honchos at the modelling agency I am signed with. I have no idea how CaucasiaDate's matchmaking system works, but it's magic, that's for sure! I'm sure it says on your notifications, too, but we are officially matches; so, yay! I hope we can be friends, or—better yet—be Mr. and Mrs. Chump... one day, in a future not too far away, of course! Sorry, I dream too much. But introduction time: the name's Knyeziva. Maniya Knyeziva."

Pressing send as she switched off her phone—having finished her photo-shoot session for the day—and headed to the agency's car-park. She got into her shiny, black Mercedes, and drove home to her penthouse, before having a shot of honey-raspberry półtorak to relax. She checked her phone one last time before bed, but left it switched on for the night, eager as she was to get a response from her match.

[Odinburgh]

Liam picked up the phone. Nervous as he was more jittery when he heard a girls voice on the other end. "Hi Sohka. This is Liam. Never met anyone from Kalmykia before. Sure we can be friends. Hope that break comes that I make it big in Hollywood. So far I have taken bit roles but I'm waiting word on one movie. After years of struggle perhaps my luck has struck gold."

*buzz buzz* Sokhatai was fast asleep when she heard her phone going off, but not with the usual sound, strangely enough.

The buzzing continued for a few minutes, until she realised it was the CaucasiaDate app that the resident diva had invited her to download onto her phone, and she had accepted. "Ugh", groaned Sokhatai, "it's literally midnight where I am, and this match better be worth his weight on gold", and she opened her phone...

"Wow! A movie star in... Hollywood...? Is that the place where most of the movies shown in our local cinemas come from? If so, then they are pretty good, but I feel they should have more than just subtitles, as not everyone here speaks foreign languages. Speaking of which, how is my English? I am a bit, uh, rusty when it comes to languages—other than Russian, Arabic, and Kalmyk, of course—but nobody except for university students and expatriates speak English or any other foreign language to each other while we walk by. I hope you can understand me, because I can understand you. How different is movie acting to theatre acting? I work at a theatre doing makeup and costuming, but the finished effect looks so much more different in both stage and movies, though I would assume that the preparation and rehearsals are similar enough. What's the time in Canada, right now? It's midnight here, and I'm so very glad it's the weekend, where I get to sleep in the next morning. I, uh, also am not a Premium Member, so this voice call times out in about... 7-and-a-half minutes...? I haven't been in a phone call with anyone outside of my family and work for years, do you want to text chat instead?

She spoke every word with difficulty and a strong accent, hoping Liam could understand her; her written English was far better.

" 6.p.m. in Calgary, Alberta Canada. Yes but I am a struggling actor. Last movie I was in was Marvel's The Avengers as one of the Chitauri Warriors, played a First Order Trooper in Star Wars The Force Awakens and also a tourist in Jurassic World. My next upcoming movie is doing voice work for a toy plastic soldier in Disney's Toy Story 4 due out in 2019. Your English is good by the way. Movie acting is more of a challenge than theatre acting. What 7 and half minutes....upgrade your membership! Let's text or whatever. You fascinate me. Tell me more about you.", as Liam spoke clearly. "My mom and dad died in a car crash when I was 10 and raised by my aunt in Calgary. My parents are of Swedish decent. They fled the holocaust along with my mom's sister Elise Akerman during World War 2 to Calgary, Alberta Canada."

[North Caucasian Emirates]

It was the hell of a day, that was in the positive meaning for once.
They had done the nearly impossible, again and the satisfied customer had paid them all a nice bonus for their good work. It was not Gustaves best project to be honest, too overdone, too much bling bling, but the customer would take great care of his baby and this was the thing that was most important to the Flamellian.
Cars always had been his babies. He had cared for them since middle school and even when his parents have scolded him for it he went back to the scrapyard to improve the models there.

It was out of the question what we would do once he had finished his education and at first, he had been happy nay excited to be part of the Design Team for the new Horch Wolve. In his enthusiasm, he couldn't imagine that his ideas were way too radical.
He wasn't happy there at all and never completed the final training there before going to Tesla.
This was the best decision of his life for sure, Tesla was his home, his soul and his family.
Sadly his own family had other ideas.

Not one family dinner without the same question. " When will you settle down ?" At the very least they expected a presentable girlfriend, hopefully, a wife in a few years and god forbid children! He was not this family material for heaven's sake and most of the Flamellian Singles were just boring. Highly educated snobs who sneezed on everyone with a real job and real handwork.
He had given up on a happy romantic live years ago until he had seen a commercial. "Every 7 Minutes someone finds the right one on CaucasiaDate !"

He had debated about this for a week until he had created his profile. That had been one month ago and so far only the stereotypical 'entertainer for hire' had contacted him.
He arrived at his small home, a condo apartment in the downtown of Nikosia, not fancy, not big but it had his own touch. Blinky greeted him as usual, the crazy black furball probably had waited for him at least an hour as he was rather late today. He passed the pictures of his most beautiful babies and stepped into the common room.

" Nikolai, status report."
As usual, the home service system he had doubted 'Nikolai' began the daily report. "You have missed 6 Phone Calls, 4 of them marked as 'important', there are 69 E-Mails in your account, 50 of them marked as spam. Furthermore the most important news..."
The Flamellian went to the desktop PC, putting him out of sleeper mode. The E-Mails were shown at the right bottom of the screen, the first 6 interesting advertisement that was work-related, the seventh a coupon for some event he wouldn't visit. The eight one caught his eye.

" Congratulation you have been matched." It was Caucasian date, with a frown he logged into his account, not trusting the E-Mail link as usual.
Indeed the matched screen announced 'match completed' showing the picture of a blonde woman probably a few years younger than him. It could be a chance.
Going on impulse he hit the 'contact' button.
Now he had this nervous blinking black bar and he had no idea what to write.
Finally, he got a grip on himself.


" Hello, Yelena Pavlovskaya.
God this is awkward, I don't do this regularly. I'm Gustave from Nikosia, right that should be a good starting point. Never truly went to eastern Europe before, just work related for a convention fair or two.
I'm a designer, especially for Cars so maybe that was the reason the algorithm put us together. Yeah if you are interested to leave me a message. Maybe we can see if this can work out."

It was total crap and he knew it, he had some relationships in college and university but that was years ago and Flamellian Women, well most of them were casual daters, more for the curiosity than anything else.
Hopefully, he hadn't botched this up before it really started.

*buzz buzz* Yelena's phone was going off but—as she was pretty damn wiped in the dead of night, not to mention half-asleep—she put it on silent.

*buzz buzz* Turns out, the CaucasiaDate app bypassed silent mode on phones. Annoyed, she checked her phone... only to find a car designer's million-dollar smile staring back at her, and a letter from him. "Oh God", she yawned loudly, trying to keep her eyes open, and wash away the bitter taste in her mouth, "this has literally got to be the best f*cking drunk-posting I have ever done!"

Going to the bathroom, she switched on the light and looked in the mirror, her dishevelled self staring back at her as she splashed her face with cold water, while grabbing a random comb on the shelf—probably her father's, but she was too f*ck-eyed to care—and running it through her flaxen-blonde hair. Flamell is probably on the other side of the world. She thought, crudely cleaning the hairs out of the comb. But oh well, at least self-care is good practice for when going out on dates.

She returned to her bedroom—refreshed by the cold water, and exhilarated by the fluke—and opened her phone, typing a reply:

"Oh my God! Never thought I'd see the day where there's another guy as interested in cars as I am! Don't feel awkward—imagine how I feel—I was drunk when I made my profile LOL! I can't afford more than one car—and it's my family's car to boot, so sadly I can't work any of the magic I do at work for my more... daring clients—but I work as an auto mechanic, which I'm sure is an odd job for a chick. I often upgrade people's cars with custom-made bells and whistles upon request; the junkyard just outside Sochi has so much treasure—and the owner is so chill, in that he lets anyone hang out there—and it's where I get most of the base parts to then refurbish and use to pimp people's cars with. Sadly, I can't repair any of those old bombs; they're more or less write-offs, and you only get—at most—a few different parts from one car. I see on your profile that you're a social drinker; do you like black label vodka? As for social smoking, I recommend Maxboro full-flavour Reds! I dunno how much they cost up your neck of the woods, but here we buy them as a treat or gift because they're so expensive LOL! Anyway, I'm a bit of a talker—especially as I'm a bit drunk right now—so I'll try not to talk the milk out a bull, and cut it short, for now. It's so cool to be able to meet you; and man, CaucasiaDate has some sick-*ss algorithms! By the way, my buddies call me Yeller, so feel free to call me that."

Yelena laughed internally, and sent the letter; this was going to be one heck of a ride, for sure! And tonight, sleep would be for the weak, and the working week; being Friday, she had got to get down to the business of chilling.

[North Caucasian Emirates]

" 6.p.m. in Calgary, Alberta Canada. Yes but I am a struggling actor. Last movie I was in was Marvel's The Avengers as one of the Chitauri Warriors, played a First Order Trooper in Star Wars The Force Awakens and also a tourist in Jurassic World. My next upcoming movie is doing voice work for a toy plastic soldier in Disney's Toy Story 4 due out in 2019. Your English is good by the way. Movie acting is more of a challenge than theatre acting. What 7 and half minutes....upgrade your membership! Let's text or whatever. You fascinate me. Tell me more about you.", as Liam spoke clearly. "My mom and dad died in a car crash when I was 10 and raised by my aunt in Calgary. My parents are of Swedish decent. They fled the holocaust along with my mom's sister Elise Akerman during World War 2 to Calgary, Alberta Canada."

Sokhatai—fascinated by Liam—continued talking for the next seven minutes on the voice call:

"My God! I think I saw you in Jurassic World! That was a good movie, in my opinion, and I remember a lot of people were packed into Rodina Cinemas. The line was so long, too, and I just managed to be squeezed in; the person behind me was told to wait for the next showing, and I think I saw her as I was leaving the cinemas, at the front of the line! Jurassic World was definitely worth the wait, and I am so hyped for the sequel—"Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom"—and literally cannot wait for the next month to come; they said "Fallen Kingdom" was going to come out in late-June, and it's already mid-May! And hooray for live text-chat; I'll upgrade my membership later, just for you."

She turned off the voice call, and moved to live text-chat, eager to talk more, and for longer:

"Whoa! You're Jewish? I'm a Buddhist, and my mother is as well, plus an ethnic Kalmyk. My father was Russian, and an Orthodox Christian who converted to Buddhism, but he died a few years ago from cirrhosis of the liver, sadly. Too much vodka, see; mama and I don't drink or smoke, but papa did both... heavily. He wasn't a violent or abusive drunk, but rather, really goofy and fun. I miss him a lot, and mama and I pray to him every morning and night, while leaving a glass of his favourite vodka in front of his portrait at the beginning of each month. I have met some of your brothers and sisters—Mountain Jews, from the Caucasus Mountains—who had come up here from down south, to visit the other Emirates, as retirees do; come to Kalmykia they say, we have chess competitions they say! And we do indeed; do you like chess? I am not a very good player, but there was a chess club at my local technical college that someone had set up, so I joined and had fun. I work at a theatre—where there are plays hosted on a stage; just the other day we were showing "Power of Darkness, Act I", and we'll be showing the second act next week—and I do the stage makeup, while helping with costuming here and there. I love my job, and I'm very lucky to have gotten work in one of the more up-scale theatres.

Sokhatai was having a lot of fun—and this weekend was sure to be interesting—and continued her endless intrigue and chat with Liam; he was so down-to-earth despite being a movie star, and seemed so interested and understanding!

[Odinburgh]

" 6.p.m. in Calgary, Alberta Canada. Yes but I am a struggling actor. Last movie I was in was Marvel's The Avengers as one of the Chitauri Warriors, played a First Order Trooper in Star Wars The Force Awakens and also a tourist in Jurassic World. My next upcoming movie is doing voice work for a toy plastic soldier in Disney's Toy Story 4 due out in 2019. Your English is good by the way. Movie acting is more of a challenge than theatre acting. What 7 and half minutes....upgrade your membership! Let's text or whatever. You fascinate me. Tell me more about you.", as Liam spoke clearly. "My mom and dad died in a car crash when I was 10 and raised by my aunt in Calgary. My parents are of Swedish decent. They fled the holocaust along with my mom's sister Elise Akerman during World War 2 to Calgary, Alberta Canada."

Sokhatai—fascinated by Liam—continued talking for the next seven minutes on the voice call:

"My God! I think I saw you in Jurassic World! That was a good movie, in my opinion, and I remember a lot of people were packed into Rodina Cinemas. The line was so long, too, and I just managed to be squeezed in; the person behind me was told to wait for the next showing, and I think I saw her as I was leaving the cinemas, at the front of the line! Jurassic World was definitely worth the wait, and I am so hyped for the sequel—"Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom"—and literally cannot wait for the next month to come; they said "Fallen Kingdom" was going to come out in late-June, and it's already mid-May! And hooray for live text-chat; I'll upgrade my membership later, just for you."

She turned off the voice call, and moved to live text-chat, eager to talk more, and for longer:

"Whoa! You're Jewish? I'm a Buddhist, and my mother is as well, plus an ethnic Kalmyk. My father was Russian, and an Orthodox Christian who converted to Buddhism, but he died a few years ago from cirrhosis of the liver, sadly. Too much vodka, see; mama and I don't drink or smoke, but papa did both... heavily. He wasn't a violent or abusive drunk, but rather, really goofy and fun. I miss him a lot, and mama and I pray to him every morning and night, while leaving a glass of his favourite vodka in front of his portrait at the beginning of each month. I have met some of your brothers and sisters—Mountain Jews, from the Caucasus Mountains—who had come up here from down south, to visit the other Emirates, as retirees do; come to Kalmykia they say, we have chess competitions they say! And we do indeed; do you like chess? I am not a very good player, but there was a chess club at my local technical college that someone had set up, so I joined and had fun. I work at a theatre—where there are plays hosted on a stage; just the other day we were showing "Power of Darkness, Act I", and we'll be showing the second act next week—and I do the stage makeup, while helping with costuming here and there. I love my job, and I'm very lucky to have gotten work in one of the more up-scale theatres.

Sokhatai was having a lot of fun—and this weekend was sure to be interesting—and continued her endless intrigue and chat with Liam; he was so down-to-earth despite being a movie star, and seemed so interested and understanding!

"Hi! Yes I am Jewish! I have heard of the Mountain Jews but I have no idea how they originated there. I do humanitarian work with George Clooney and plans to do work in Kalmykia perhaps early next week. He is been there before but I haven't. Anyways I plan to come along. I bought a surprise gift that should be headed your way. Oh by the way here is photo of me. Everyone says I look like actor Ryan Reynolds. I do not look like anything like the guy."


Sends picture thru live text chat:



"So please be honest. Do I look like Ryan Reynolds?"

[North Caucasian Emirates]

"Hi! Yes I am Jewish! I have heard of the Mountain Jews but I have no idea how they originated there. I do humanitarian work with George Clooney and plans to do work in Kalmykia perhaps early next week. He is been there before but I haven't. Anyways I plan to come along. I bought a surprise gift that should be headed your way. Oh by the way here is photo of me. Everyone says I look like actor Ryan Reynolds. I do not look like anything like the guy."


Sends picture thru live text chat:

(Image)

"So please be honest. Do I look like Ryan Reynolds?"

Sokhatai—surprised all of a sudden at such a kind, generous gesture—was moved to a smile, despite it being the dead of night for her. She was not particularly well-off, but she vowed one day that she was going to return the favour:

"The Jewish people are very smart, and the Mountain Jews came to the North Caucasus from Persia, having lived in and around the mountains of Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia—for those within the Emirates—and others have been in neighbouring Azerbaijan... for over 1600 years! They are famous for their mastery of tactics and warfare, and also riding horses, at least down south. They are good people, and best friends with the peoples of the Northeast Caucasus—particularly the Chechens—for centuries, if not for all of the time they have been living here in the North Caucasian Emirates, before they were even a thing.

[...]

"I would not suggest Googling "Mountain Jew" in the singular—at least not at work, at school, or in public—as foreign internet trolls have done their sub-par intellectual work there, and it makes me sad as the retirees who came to visit Elista for our chess tournaments were very kindly and gentle folks. With you being Jewish, I worry about how your fellow countrymen and women treat you; if the Mountain Jews are harmed, the Chechen communities (and occasional gangs) scattered throughout the Emirates will, ahem, "make sure" it doesn't happen again. But—having seen the Mountain Jew "memes" that foreign internet trolls have made—I hope that the retirees who come to visit us every spring don't travel to foreign countries, where I feel they won't be as safe as they are here in the Emirates; and I'm sure there are enough things to see in the Emirates! You live in a foreign country, so you probably know better than I do, but has anyone been derisive or threatening towards you because of you being Jewish?

[...]

"And you... you bought a gift for me? Thank you, truly; that is very kind and thoughtful of you. I have not provided my address on CaucasiaDate as there is no option to do so, but it says on the gifting policy that the gifts are picked up at the nearest post office within the next five days of being sent. Knowing how bad the internet is at knowing approximate locations, there will probably be a phone call from a post office on the other side of Elista. Hahaha! One day, I'll get you something back, I promise!

[...]

"When you come over, the Chess Palace is just outside of town—but it's not in use most of the time, because no chess tournaments during the week due to work and school obligations—and it's so beautiful, though I wish that the previous Emir spent more on improving the life for the ordinary people, rather than pouring in a lot of funds for a tourist attraction. If it's alright with you, I'll bring a friend with me, and we'll show you all around Elista; so much delicious food and drink to be had! I think I remember George Clooney coming over here when I was very young; I was in elementary school back then, and he was passing by our school in a shiny black car. I remember all of the kids in the schoolyard were so excited, the teachers couldn't stop them sitting on the fence to wave as son as they saw him!

[...]

"You look so handsome; and yes, you look just like Ryan Reynolds! He is a handsome man, though you look even more handsome, I have to say honestly. You sure you not his long-lost twin brother? That probably would explain why and how you got into acting."

Sokhatai and Liam spoke for so long, that she was losing track of how fast time had flown through the night. Feeling a wave of tiredness wash over her, she wished Liam a goodnight—and that she would speak to him tomorrow—feeling a faint sensation of butterflies and warmth in her heart as she switched off her phone, and went to sleep peacefully.

[North Caucasian Emirates]

OOC: Paging Samudera Darussalam

Despite the summer heat, the sun was setting fast in Derbent, and—being a Friday—Saidat was relieved as she clocked out early, as was typical of the last day of the week. She was eager not to be late to catching up with her work bestie after their shifts had closed; they were both first-year nursing graduates, and had met in nursing school, only to eventually find jobs at the same hospital together.

Walking to the bus stop in the midst of rush hour, she managed to squeeze in line with her bestie, Maryam, who had reserved a spot for her when she herself had clocked out; unlike Saidat, Maryam was a runner in the literal and—at least until she got beaten up by a cabbie she tried to make a quick getaway from without paying him, learning her lesson the hard way by having no choice but to eat through a straw for the rest of the month—the figurative senses. While waiting with Maryam for the bus to arrive, she noticed a billboard advertisement for a certain CaucasiaDate company, and its corresponding site: "Every seven minutes, a match fit for an Emir is made between a fair maiden of the North Caucasus and a handsome man from a faraway land on CaucasiaDate!"

"Hm", wondered Saidat sarcastically, "I wonder if a foreign man would be attracted to a girl who hasn't even finished high school..." Nevertheless, she would have pondered a bit more, but the bus had arrived, and—with sharp elbows readied—she and Maryam subtly elbowed past the throngs of office drones and factory workers alike, only to find that all the seats were taken anyway. But Maryam was a natural improviser, immediately sitting on the steps of the bus, and gesturing for Saidat to sit on her lap! Laughing, Saidat gave it a shot, and hoped she wouldn't squish Maryam; to her relief, she didn't.

Being a talker, Saidat would usually talk with the normally-shy Maryam loudly throughout the bus ride—often garnering stares from other, more stickling members of the general public—but Saidat was silent tonight; having seen the billboard, she decided to check out CaucasiaDate on her phone, registering an account, and just uploading a random photo of herself from her camera roll because she didn't give a f*ck. Maryam, naturally, took notice of this, and asked her bestie: "Hey, Saidat. You seem awful silent tonight; everything alright?"

Nodding as she showed Maryam her phone screen, she responded without batting an eye:

"Oh yeah, Maryam, I'm all good, thanks for asking! Just saw an ad on a billboard at the bus stop tonight for this CaucasiaDate website and decided to give it a shot. I mean, none of the boys from high school will talk to me anymore now ever since I dropped out and went to nursing school, and the only prospects the local matchmaker brought up are older men and widowers who want someone to take care of them as they grow old and die. I mean, I don't have that much issue with it, but that's not meant to be the be-all end-all of marriage. I'm not saying that CaucasiaDate will bring up much, either, but it's worth a shot. Oh sh*t! The bus stop's coming up! Let's go-go-go!"

Hurrying, the two girls quickly got off the bus—and thanked the driver—before going their separate ways for the night; conveniently enough, they lived in apartment complexes on the opposite sides of the road, so it wasn't going to be all that separate, so to speak. Sadly, for Saidat, she had to check on the matchmaking progress once she had finished ascending the stairwell; she wasn't going to check her phone while walking after dark, for safety's sake.

✧✧✧

Having got home, had dinner with her family, and settled down, she opened up her laptop to find a match that—for the first time in years—wasn't an old man or widower: a certain 18-year-old boy from Samudera Darussalam, named Adnan Hakim. "This is going to be so good!" she whispered to herself, and started composing a letter:

"Hey there, Adnan! I'm Saidat Isinbayeva from Dagestan, it's a pleasure to meet you; the matchmaking system is pretty neat, eh? It's my first day on CaucasiaDate so I'm reading up on all the guides as we speak; but I'm a first-year nurse who graduated from nursing school last year, and I work at a pretty good hospital in Derbent, so I guess I got that going for me, which is good. However, here in Dagestan, not many people have a high opinion of nurses—or people who haven't completed high school, even if they went to something like a technical college afterwards—so that part sorta sucks for me. I'm half-Tabasaran on my father's side, and half-Lezgin on my mother's side, and I can speak Russian, Arabic, and English fluently because I learned them all in school. My Lezgin is better than my Tabarasan—because daddy works long hours, and so I haven't spoken to him as much as I have mummy over the years—but I can speak both conversationally! Anyway, enough about me, and more about you; I have never met someone from Samudera Darussalam before—but I have heard of that place before—and I'm so excited!

The letters flowed off and glowed with her natural confidence, tinged with excitement and anticipation; she had no male friends her own age ever since she dropped out of high school. But in any case, it was getting late, and she needed to rest after a long week, so she turned off her laptop while keeping her phone on, eager for a reply, and headed to bed.

[North Caucasian Emirates]

OOC: Paging A m e n r i a

*begin transmission*

"Dodgy tradies... in Kalmykia!" spoke an older, yet still slick male voice—in clear-as-day definition—as it resonated in the form of a voiceover.

"Oi!" shouted a churlish, bearded man, pushing past a stocky, broad-shouldered woman of twenty-five years carrying a 4K-definition camera on her shoulders, as she focused on adjusting its filters. "Get that f*cking camera out of here!" he continued.

The woman's companion—an older city-slicker of a reporter—pushed a tiny button on his ear-mounted headset, and resumed the voiceover: "Unlicensed and unqualified... but they know how to bike to Decorado!" He then pushed another button, and turned to the tradie in question, and asked, pointedly: "Where did you go to for vocational college, Yosaphat?"

"Stop f*cking pestering me!" was the answer—albeit rude, even by his standards—from Yosaphat, who elbowed past the two of them.

Undeterred, the city-slicker of a reporter continued, this time with a voiceover: "They'll rip you off!" and gestured to the young woman, addressing her in a hushed whisper as Baira.

Baira then pressed a button on the camera, and live-broadcasted a previously-filmed piece of footage; this time, of an older librarian and her bookshelf: "Now, I got him to give me a hand with some of those shelves you can see up on the wall there—for the new Vance Armstorm fiction books—but he's just done a sh*t-*ss job." And, while on-air, one of the shelves collapsed, much to the dismay of the librarian, who commented off-hand: "Well, there goes my afternoon."

Baira pressed the button again to switch to another previously-filmed piece of footage, but not before her companion did another voiceover: "Handed over by one of his apprentices."

The recording was that of a young and fresh-faced, albeit tanned woman, named Havryila, who spoke in no uncertain terms: Well, just one day, I tried to call in sick with a cold, but he just put his hands on my back, thumped it a little, and thought he treated me, then told me to get the f*ck back to work."

With the push of a button to pan back to Yosaphat, Baira, and her companion, the latter posed another loaded question: "What have your apprentices been saying about you, Yosaphat?"

Infuriated, Yosaphat glowered, and exploded: "Havry!? I f*cking knew that b*tch would betray me!" before reaching his illegally-parked hoverbike and making a quick getaway, much faster than Baira and her companion could follow on foot.

*end transmission*

With but a gesture from her companion, Baira got the message to "cut" and ended the filming. Just as well, because it was getting dark—not that anyone could tell from the filter used on her camera—and her shift would be over by the time she got back to the studio; just in time to clock out. Though many still looked down upon those who did so, Baira let her car do the driving while she checked her phone, ignoring the stink-eye from her companion: "Come on, Anatoliy" she told him softly, and shrugged while continuing, "it's very safe to text while not-really-driving self-driving cars. I mean, they're called self-driving for a reason."

Anatoliy—once again, put on the spot by his anachronisms—said nothing, except for a polite farewell as she clocked out, while he remained behind to prepare the next evening's segment. Baira got into her own self-driving car, as parked in the underground carpark, and—once again—checked her phone, this time finding a pesky advertisement having slipped through the net of her seemingly-foolproof AdBlock++. "Caucasiadate..." she muttered, intrigued and astonished at the levels of personalisation that the pop-up was displaying, from knowing her dating preferences, to even knowing possible compatibilities that she would not—in a million years—dream of! And so, without a second thought—even as her car was backing into her garage, completely parallel to to the structure's walls—she signed up for an account, and input her credit card details to purchase Premium Membership; as a professional who had paid off her university debt and who even had her own place, she could more than afford a few months of Premium.

While waiting for the matchmaking algorithms to work themselves out, she decided to make a late-evening meal of pasta and mutton soup, with some re-heated biscuits and thawed berries to taste; she was absolutely starving after having worked through her lunch break, and she was a stocky woman, too, and thus she needed more food.

Upon finishing her meal and putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, she received a notification on her phone of a match: a certain "Kim Sungjae" from a land called Amenria. Like her, he also worked in journalism, only he was an actual journalist, and not the third gear she was as a camerawoman. But she was intrigued to get to know him, at least beyond the letter he had sent her...

[Samudera Darussalam]

OOC: Paging Samudera Darussalam

Despite the summer heat, the sun was setting fast in Derbent, and—being a Friday—Saidat was relieved as she clocked out early, as was typical of the last day of the week. She was eager not to be late to catching up with her work bestie after their shifts had closed; they were both first-year nursing graduates, and had met in nursing school, only to eventually find jobs at the same hospital together.

Walking to the bus stop in the midst of rush hour, she managed to squeeze in line with her bestie, Maryam, who had reserved a spot for her when she herself had clocked out; unlike Saidat, Maryam was a runner in the literal and—at least until she got beaten up by a cabbie she tried to make a quick getaway from without paying him, learning her lesson the hard way by having no choice but to eat through a straw for the rest of the month—the figurative senses. While waiting with Maryam for the bus to arrive, she noticed a billboard advertisement for a certain CaucasiaDate company, and its corresponding site: "Every seven minutes, a match fit for an Emir is made between a fair maiden of the North Caucasus and a handsome man from a faraway land on CaucasiaDate!"

"Hm", wondered Saidat sarcastically, "I wonder if a foreign man would be attracted to a girl who hasn't even finished high school..." Nevertheless, she would have pondered a bit more, but the bus had arrived, and—with sharp elbows readied—she and Maryam subtly elbowed past the throngs of office drones and factory workers alike, only to find that all the seats were taken anyway. But Maryam was a natural improviser, immediately sitting on the steps of the bus, and gesturing for Saidat to sit on her lap! Laughing, Saidat gave it a shot, and hoped she wouldn't squish Maryam; to her relief, she didn't.

Being a talker, Saidat would usually talk with the normally-shy Maryam loudly throughout the bus ride—often garnering stares from other, more stickling members of the general public—but Saidat was silent tonight; having seen the billboard, she decided to check out CaucasiaDate on her phone, registering an account, and just uploading a random photo of herself from her camera roll because she didn't give a f*ck. Maryam, naturally, took notice of this, and asked her bestie: "Hey, Saidat. You seem awful silent tonight; everything alright?"

Nodding as she showed Maryam her phone screen, she responded without batting an eye:

"Oh yeah, Maryam, I'm all good, thanks for asking! Just saw an ad on a billboard at the bus stop tonight for this CaucasiaDate website and decided to give it a shot. I mean, none of the boys from high school will talk to me anymore now ever since I dropped out and went to nursing school, and the only prospects the local matchmaker brought up are older men and widowers who want someone to take care of them as they grow old and die. I mean, I don't have that much issue with it, but that's not meant to be the be-all end-all of marriage. I'm not saying that CaucasiaDate will bring up much, either, but it's worth a shot. Oh sh*t! The bus stop's coming up! Let's go-go-go!"

Hurrying, the two girls quickly got off the bus—and thanked the driver—before going their separate ways for the night; conveniently enough, they lived in apartment complexes on the opposite sides of the road, so it wasn't going to be all that separate, so to speak. Sadly, for Saidat, she had to check on the matchmaking progress once she had finished ascending the stairwell; she wasn't going to check her phone while walking after dark, for safety's sake.

???

Having got home, had dinner with her family, and settled down, she opened up her laptop to find a match that—for the first time in years—wasn't an old man or widower: a certain 18-year-old boy from Samudera Darussalam, named Adnan Hakim. "This is going to be so good!" she whispered to herself, and started composing a letter:

"Hey there, Adnan! I'm Saidat Isinbayeva from Dagestan, it's a pleasure to meet you; the matchmaking system is pretty neat, eh? It's my first day on CaucasiaDate so I'm reading up on all the guides as we speak; but I'm a first-year nurse who graduated from nursing school last year, and I work at a pretty good hospital in Derbent, so I guess I got that going for me, which is good. However, here in Dagestan, not many people have a high opinion of nurses—or people who haven't completed high school, even if they went to something like a technical college afterwards—so that part sorta sucks for me. I'm half-Tabasaran on my father's side, and half-Lezgin on my mother's side, and I can speak Russian, Arabic, and English fluently because I learned them all in school. My Lezgin is better than my Tabarasan—because daddy works long hours, and so I haven't spoken to him as much as I have mummy over the years—but I can speak both conversationally! Anyway, enough about me, and more about you; I have never met someone from Samudera Darussalam before—but I have heard of that place before—and I'm so excited!

The letters flowed off and glowed with her natural confidence, tinged with excitement and anticipation; she had no male friends her own age ever since she dropped out of high school. But in any case, it was getting late, and she needed to rest after a long week, so she turned off her laptop while keeping her phone on, eager for a reply, and headed to bed.

Listening to a music from a headphone dangling around his neck, Adnan Hakim bent down, his hands loaded various books from his rucksack. There are the Compilations of Math Theory From Grade X-XII, Understanding Chemistry For High School Student, Learning High School Physic in 15 Minutes, and other books that he arranged neatly on a side he had previously prepared on his studying table. He sighed when he put the last book on the table, no doubt relieved because the task was done. All the pain suffered by his back - due to having to walk across 3 blocks to his cousin's house to borrow the books - was finally paid off! He chuckled when he remembered the expression on his father's face when he came home with a very big rucksack.

"In the name of...right, whatever. I've warned you many times previously to not bring heavy things on your shoulder frequently, or you will get a grandpa's back! You've grown up already."

Still tried unsuccessfully to stifle his chuckle, Adnan looking down at the hill of books at the side of his studying table. A wave of uneasiness pass through him as he looked at them, making something in his stomach twisted. He didn't particularly like to spend his weekend studying asymptote, relativity or Brønsted–Lowry, not after he suffered lack of sleep because he studied all night to understand them when he was in high school, but something in his mind insisted to keep him studying. He sighed, muttering several times silently that it's only as a precaution if he didn't pass the university entrance exam. Studying these things again and again won't do me any hurt anyway, he thought as he settled down at his desk and take the nearest book that he can grab. It's a Physic book.

PING!

He opened the first page, reading with all the concentration that he could muster at the words before him. Relativity. Einstein's E = MC2. Twins in space. The changing shape of a plane according to other's perspective. Yadda, yadda, yadda...
But he still have to study it, no matter what he was feeling currently.

PING! PING! PING!

Damn it, Bima. What did he want this time... Adnan cursed silently before grabbing his handphone, one of those touchscreen type favored by many lately. He touched his thumb at the screen to open the key lock and see the messages that most likely are sent by his annoying former schoolmate, Bima. The boy keep asking him to hanging out together like they were used to do often back at high school roughly a week ago after they finished the entrance examination, but Adnan always decline his requests.

"Hi dude," He read the chat. "You busy? Have you check the CaucasiaDate? How is the result?" "Tell me, do you really get matched with beautiful girls?"

Adnan blushed. This is not what I expected. He began to type the answer: "No, I haven't."

Bima sure responded pretty fast.

"C'mon, check it now. Don't make me waste my time looking for a dating website for you!"

Bima is the one who found and told him about this dating site after he found out that Adnan never date a single girl. He was also the one who pressured him into it, bugging him endlessly whenever they bumped into each other. "Don't be such a boring man Ad," he often said when they hanging out together. "Live a little!"

Still blushing, Adnan typed back.
"Fine, I'll check it out."

✧✧✧

After turning his laptop on, Adnan opened the dating site. As the site finished loading, Adnan sat in silence when he saw the result: a certain girl named Saidat Isinbayeva from the North Caucasian Emirates.

He laughed nervously when he saw that the girl also sent him a letter.
Ah, how will I respond to it? This is Bima's fault, I never get a letter from a girl before. Much less a foreign one!
Despite the big social anxiety that he felt, Adnan decided to open her letter. While he reading the well-written letter, the boy has to admit, somehow, that he is interested in the girl's life. But how can he tell her that? Is that even okay to tell her that he is interesting in her life story? Adnan stroke his hair in frustration. But anyway, I have to reply her letter as fast as I can. It wouldn't be nice to just left it there when she sent a....personal letter like that, The boy blushed furiously at the thought.

He forced a smile when he began to type his reply. Hope I don't mess this one.

"Hi Miss Saidat Isinbayeva! It's also nice to meet you too. It's also my first day on CaucasiaDate, and I'm also still reading the guides. You're right, this stuff did its job neatly; truth is, I was startled and a bit nervous when I see our result. I'm not used to talk to a girl, much less a foreign one. I hope I don't disappoint you Miss, with my lack of experience.
You sure have an amazing life here Miss. I can't imagine what courage you have to drop out from your high school, to continue your studying in a nursing school and then working as a nurse in a hospital, all with the way people think about your choice....believe me Miss, you're wonderful. Don't listen to what they said.
So you come from a multi-ethnic family? That's interesting. If it's okay with you Miss, may I learn some native languages of your country from you someday?

As for me, I'm just graduated from a local high school here, in Padang. Padang is the provincial and largest capital in Minangkabau, where I lives. Last week I'm just finished the university entrance examinations, and I sincerely hope that I can pass the test. I'm planning to take architecture, if not biology department.
I'm from the Minangkabau ethnic group in Sumatra. Father come from Bukittinggi, a city located on a plateau relatively far from Padang, and mother was born and raised here. The only thing prevented me from being a full-blooded Minangkabau is because mother has a partial Javanese blood from her mother's side. I also have a little sister....her name is Selina. She is a student at a local middle school.

At home, I usually speak Malay or Minangkabau. It's nothing compared to you Miss, since those languages are actually closely related. I can also speak English, because it's one of the official languages here, and I learnt some German when I was at middle school.

Really? Thanks. I also have read about your hometown from a book. From what is written here, Derbent seems to be a place with rich history.

Sincerely,
Adnan

Still blushing, Adnan clicked the SEND button. He nervously biting his nails, wondering what the girl on the other side would thought on him. Damn, he was going to curse Bima when he meet that boy again!

[A m e n r i a]

Tag

[North Caucasian Emirates]

OOC: Paging Strala

"Hello there, Serezha!" cooed a woman dressed in teal scrubs—her long hair tightly tied into a bun—as she gently roused a small boy recently woken from general anaesthesia in the day procedure unit. "It's all done! The doctors found nothing wrong with your guts—except for a few little growths that they took out, so that they won't cause you any more problems—but you have to stay here and either play video games or watch movies for the next two hours while you wake up completely from the anaesthetic."

Upon hearing the word "video games", Serezha's eyes opened wide, and he beamed widely. "Video games!?" he gasped, "do you have Grand Theft Tricycle on the MaxBox One?" he asked, the anesthesia wearing off somewhat quicker than expected. "What about Maxemon or Guilds of Battle III: The Nightmare of Shadow Ops Faction, Dr. Otryadyn?"

"Now, now, Serezha..." teased Dr. Otryadyn, waggling her finger. "Yes, we have all those games on the MaxBox One and Nintensoft MX consoles; but you're three years too young to play Guilds of Battle III: The Nightmare of Shadow Ops Faction and Grand Theft Tricycle, at least according to what the ratings on their boxes say. You're ten years old, and both of those games say that you have to be at least thirteen."

Serezha frowned, and began to sulk. "But, Dr. Otryadyn, I want to pay Guilds of War III and Grand Theft Tricycle! I'm only ten years old, but my friends at school say I act like I'm thirteen, so that's good enough, I bet."

Dr. Otryadyn was about to try and calm Serezha down, but the boy's paediatrician—an older man named Dr. Erdnyev—overruled her, with a wink and nod, waggling his finger:

"Giyaba, it's alright, my dear. As Serezha's family specialist, if I say that he can play Guilds of War III and Grand Theft Tricycle for as long as he likes, then he can play Guild of Wars III and Grand Theft Tricycle for as long as he likes; I cleared it with Mr. Semenov and his wife, and they agree with my assessment that he's mature enough to play games marketed towards thirteen-year-olds. So, you don't have to worry about them. As for the nurses in the children's ward, I spoke to them beforehand about letting Serezha have a very special treat for being such a good and patient boy after waiting an entire four hours in the waiting room, with only celebrity magazines and Rupert Bear reruns on the telly to entertain him."

"Oh, Savr!" laughed Giyaba, although mostly at her own misfortune of being wrong, "you sure know how to spoil your little ones absolutely rotten!" Giyaba nodded at a now-smiling and giggling Serezha, while struggling to keep a straight face herself: "Alright, Dr. Erdnyev said you can play Guild of Wars III and Grand Theft Tricycle for however long you like. He's right, you've been very good ever since arriving at hospital, and so I guess you can have a little treat."

After checking in on Serezha for the next two hours as he played on one of the donated Maxbox One consoles—and working with the nurses to monitor his status—it was time to call his parents over and show him their son; happy, healthy, and playing violent video games. Strangely enough, the mother looked foreign and Asiatic; not that she herself or the other Kalmyks in in the city didn't look Asiatic, no, but rather, Mrs. Semenova looked... different. And so Giyaba decided to ask her, as they were leaving with their son: "Mrs. Semenova, I don't mean to be intrusive, but you don't look like you're from around here; what nation are you originally from?"

Mrs. Semenova answered—slowly, with a thick accent—and smiled:

"My dear Dr. Otryadyn, I come from a nation nearby, named Lozcwngz! My amazing husband and I met on CaucasiaDate, which is a website connecting foreigners with the beautiful people of this fine nation of the North Caucasian Emirates! Even if you don't find Mr. Right, you can still make quite the close friendships, there; I still talk to some people on CaucasiaDate every now and again, who got matched with me, but no sparks flew. But that doesn't matter; I have Oka as my husband, my Prince Charming, and a beautiful little Serezha as my son!"

Giyaba wished the family farewell, but remained curious as to what this CaucasiaDate site was all about; it sounded like fun in and of itself, by the name alone! But, as she had overstayed her shift to look after Serezha, left her car at home—and the last bus back to her place left an hour ago, back at the tail end of rush hour—she was left having to spend the night at the hospital, but not before checking out CaucasiaDate on her phone while she searched for a place to sleep; she had the money to take a cab home, but she wasn't going to risk a shady c*nt of a cabbie fleecing her, or going around in literal circles for hours because he didn't make enough money during the day.

Settling on a vacant—at least until morning—hospital check-up bed, she took off her shoes and reclined on the bed, and registered for an account on CaucasiaDate. When prompted to upload a photo as a profile picture, she picked out the photo she had professionally taken as part of her Miss Kalmykia auditions, which she sadly failed to make the cut for. "And why not a few months of Premium Membership?" she pondered, inputting her credit card details. Then she pressed the "register" button on her phone, and downloaded the free app. And now it was time to wait for a match, but Giyaba was drifting off to sleep, and passed out on the check-up bed, exhausted from her early start as was typical of Fridays.

✧✧✧

*buzz* A couple of hours later, she was awoken by two notifications on her phone: one of a match to a certain "Christopher Liu" from Strala; and one of a letter sent to her, from him. Yawning, she woke up and read the notifications, and was surprised to see herself matched to an orthopaedic surgeon: "The algorithms sure are magical", she thought, opening the letter he sent her...

[Strala]

OOC: Paging Strala

"Hello there, Serezha!" cooed a woman dressed in teal scrubs—her long hair tightly tied into a bun—as she gently roused a small boy recently woken from general anaesthesia in the day procedure unit. "It's all done! The doctors found nothing wrong with your guts—except for a few little growths that they took out, so that they won't cause you any more problems—but you have to stay here and either play video games or watch movies for the next two hours while you wake up completely from the anaesthetic."

Upon hearing the word "video games", Serezha's eyes opened wide, and he beamed widely. "Video games!?" he gasped, "do you have Grand Theft Tricycle on the MaxBox One?" he asked, the anesthesia wearing off somewhat quicker than expected. "What about Maxemon or Guilds of Battle III: The Nightmare of Shadow Ops Faction, Dr. Otryadyn?"

"Now, now, Serezha..." teased Dr. Otryadyn, waggling her finger. "Yes, we have all those games on the MaxBox One and Nintensoft MX consoles; but you're three years too young to play Guilds of Battle III: The Nightmare of Shadow Ops Faction and Grand Theft Tricycle, at least according to what the ratings on their boxes say. You're ten years old, and both of those games say that you have to be at least thirteen."

Serezha frowned, and began to sulk. "But, Dr. Otryadyn, I want to pay Guilds of War III and Grand Theft Tricycle! I'm only ten years old, but my friends at school say I act like I'm thirteen, so that's good enough, I bet."

Dr. Otryadyn was about to try and calm Serezha down, but the boy's paediatrician—an older man named Dr. Erdnyev—overruled her, with a wink and nod, waggling his finger:

"Giyaba, it's alright, my dear. As Serezha's family specialist, if I say that he can play Guilds of War III and Grand Theft Tricycle for as long as he likes, then he can play Guild of Wars III and Grand Theft Tricycle for as long as he likes; I cleared it with Mr. Semenov and his wife, and they agree with my assessment that he's mature enough to play games marketed towards thirteen-year-olds. So, you don't have to worry about them. As for the nurses in the children's ward, I spoke to them beforehand about letting Serezha have a very special treat for being such a good and patient boy after waiting an entire four hours in the waiting room, with only celebrity magazines and Rupert Bear reruns on the telly to entertain him."

"Oh, Savr!" laughed Giyaba, although mostly at her own misfortune of being wrong, "you sure know how to spoil your little ones absolutely rotten!" Giyaba nodded at a now-smiling and giggling Serezha, while struggling to keep a straight face herself: "Alright, Dr. Erdnyev said you can play Guild of Wars III and Grand Theft Tricycle for however long you like. He's right, you've been very good ever since arriving at hospital, and so I guess you can have a little treat."

After checking in on Serezha for the next two hours as he played on one of the donated Maxbox One consoles—and working with the nurses to monitor his status—it was time to call his parents over and show him their son; happy, healthy, and playing violent video games. Strangely enough, the mother looked foreign and Asiatic; not that she herself or the other Kalmyks in in the city didn't look Asiatic, no, but rather, Mrs. Semenova looked... different. And so Giyaba decided to ask her, as they were leaving with their son: "Mrs. Semenova, I don't mean to be intrusive, but you don't look like you're from around here; what nation are you originally from?"

Mrs. Semenova answered—slowly, with a thick accent—and smiled:

"My dear Dr. Otryadyn, I come from a nation nearby, named Lozcwngz! My amazing husband and I met on CaucasiaDate, which is a website connecting foreigners with the beautiful people of this fine nation of the North Caucasian Emirates! Even if you don't find Mr. Right, you can still make quite the close friendships, there; I still talk to some people on CaucasiaDate every now and again, who got matched with me, but no sparks flew. But that doesn't matter; I have Oka as my husband, my Prince Charming, and a beautiful little Serezha as my son!"

Giyaba wished the family farewell, but remained curious as to what this CaucasiaDate site was all about; it sounded like fun in and of itself, by the name alone! But, as she had overstayed her shift to look after Serezha, left her car at home—and the last bus back to her place left an hour ago, back at the tail end of rush hour—she was left having to spend the night at the hospital, but not before checking out CaucasiaDate on her phone while she searched for a place to sleep; she had the money to take a cab home, but she wasn't going to risk a shady c*nt of a cabbie fleecing her, or going around in literal circles for hours because he didn't make enough money during the day.

Settling on a vacant—at least until morning—hospital check-up bed, she took off her shoes and reclined on the bed, and registered for an account on CaucasiaDate. When prompted to upload a photo as a profile picture, she picked out the photo she had professionally taken as part of her Miss Kalmykia auditions, which she sadly failed to make the cut for. "And why not a few months of Premium Membership?" she pondered, inputting her credit card details. Then she pressed the "register" button on her phone, and downloaded the free app. And now it was time to wait for a match, but Giyaba was drifting off to sleep, and passed out on the check-up bed, exhausted from her early start as was typical of Fridays.

✧✧✧

*buzz* A couple of hours later, she was awoken by two notifications on her phone: one of a match to a certain "Christopher Liu" from Strala; and one of a letter sent to her, from him. Yawning, she woke up and read the notifications, and was surprised to see herself matched to an orthopaedic surgeon: "The algorithms sure are magical", she thought, opening the letter he sent her...

Christopher was in the staff room getting a cup of water, before returning to helping one of his patients. The workload had increased in the past week and he hardly had any time to take a break. It wasn't that Strala was short on doctors or Orthopedic Surgeons. It was just that people flock to the best and well the Manefisition Hospital was one of the best in Strala. It was located in the Capital of Strala and it was also a medical school for Manefistion University, one of the top Medical Universities in Strala. At least he wasn't a family doctor or a dentist. Christopher shuddered at that thought before he was told to enter room B-2. Before he entered the room he was told about the patient's name and the information that he needed.

Inside the room, he found his twelve-year-old patient and his mother. The patient was sitting in a wheelchair and his mother was sitting right next to him. They were talking to each other, and they didn't realize he was there until he coughed into his hands. "Well, then Jeffrey, tell me where it hurts." Jeffrey timidly points down towards his right ankle. "Well then all I'm going to do now and press down on your ankle and you tell me where it hurts. He slowly moved his hands around Jeffrey's right foot. Whenever he got close to the ankle, Christopher was told that it hurts so he stopped. The Xiao family's family doctor told him that there was a crack on Jeffrey's Fibula, but before he could proceed he had to get X-rays done on Jeffrey's right foot.

"Jeffrey now before we proceed any farther I need to have X-ray images on your right foot." Jeffrey responded "Alright." As Jeffrey finished responding one of the nurses came and pushed him towards the X-ray room. Soon the pictures were finished and were sent to his Mac.

As he stared his face turned into a slight frown before returning back to normal again. He had to act professionally in front of his patient and scowling was definitely not professional "Mrs. Xiao, I would like you to come over here and look at the picture."

He moved over and pointed towards the thin but long crack on Jeffrey's fibula. "Jeffrey was lucky that it landed on his Fibula and not his Tibia, but at this stage, it is hard to tell if the bone is going to get fixed properly so Surgery might be required."

Mrs. Xiao responded in an accented voice "Doctor is there any way that Jeffrey won't need surgery, see this year I bought the high deductible for insurance." "Ma'am I'm not saying that Surgery will be needed but it is certainly will be an option if Jeffrey's bones don't heal properly, and trust me I know how you feel. I don't like paying for Surgery more than you do, but if it is needed it is for helping your son and it's a scam for me to get rich." He knows how Mrs. Xiao feels and thinks after all his parents were also immigrants to Strala and well one general misconception is that Doctors make up things to get more money. Christopher didn't want them to think that. Doctors are here to help them not make them suffer more.

"Alright, so Mrs. Xiao, since I don't know if your son needs Surgery or not, at this point, we're going to get Jeffrey a splint and in two days I want you to meet me at 15:00. I should by then determine if Jeffrey needs Surgery or not. I hope to see you then." As he finished two nurses took them to another room. When he checked the time again it was 20:53 and the ER was going to close soon, so he gathered his stuff, and today he ended relatively early.

When he finally got home it 21:53 and he didn't feel like making dinner, so he got the leftovers that he made yesterday. As he was eating he was wondering how wonderful it would be to have a wife to return to every day. As a plus, he could take a break since he wouldn't have to make dinner. His parents were always telling him to get a wife. He was 29 and still single which his parents didn't like.

When he finished his meal he went to his living room, and just sat on one of his couches and was just was looking at random things before and dating site ad popped up. It was called Caucasiadate and it seemed interesting enough. He had used several dating websites before but never seemed to work. Christopher wasn't that hopeful, but it was worth a shot. He quickly registered for an account and he uploaded a picture as a profile picture, he picked the one that he took while on his trip to Repitilsyia. It had a sunset in the background and that was the reason he chose it. As he was about to hit register he saw a Premium Membership option. "Eh why not what harm can it do." he typed in his credit card detail, before clicking register.

Around twenty minutes later his phone buzzed and a notification popped up. The app had matched him with a someone named Giyaba Otryadyn. As he stared at her he couldn't help but blush. He had several crushes when he was younger and well none of them looked as breathtaking as her before. When he finally broke free of his trance he started typing a letter to her. He had never written a letter to a girl before so he didn't know what to write.
Hello Miss Giyaba Otryadyn! I don't really know what to write about, lol but anyways it is great to be paired up with you. This is my first time on this app and I'm still trying to get the hang of things. This would be my first time that I well I guess got paired with a girl for more than 10 minutes. Here are some random facts about me, I enjoy cats and I have a cat named Reppy at my apartment, I enjoy eating chocolate, and I enjoy being around children. A part of me I feel like I haven't really grown up. My father is from Itracul a former colony of Strala and my Mother is from Repitilysia. I'm a second generation Chinese Stralian, and I'm also the first in my family to enter the medical field

I really find it cool that we both are in the medical profession. I mean while we majored in different things we could still help each other right, um this might be random but are you busy currently. I don't mind if you don't respond to my message instantly if you are, after all, I came back from my workplace about twenty to forty minutes ago. I wouldn't want to interrupt anything important that's happening. I would love to learn more about you and well that's really all I have to say. I told you I have no clue what I'm doing lol. I hope you responded as soon as you can.

From,
Christopher Liu
Christopher was blushing when he submitted the letter. He hoped that the girl wouldn't judge him on what he wrote. A part of him felt proud while the other part felt like an idiot. He wrote a really short letter to a girl confessing that he didn't know what to do. He hoped that the girl wouldn't judge him too much when she received the letter.

[North Caucasian Emirates]

Listening to a music from a headphone dangling around his neck, Adnan Hakim bent down, his hands loaded various books from his rucksack. There are the Compilations of Math Theory From Grade X-XII, Understanding Chemistry For High School Student, Learning High School Physic in 15 Minutes, and other books that he arranged neatly on a side he had previously prepared on his studying table. He sighed when he put the last book on the table, no doubt relieved because the task was done. All the pain suffered by his back - due to having to walk across 3 blocks to his cousin's house to borrow the books - was finally paid off! He chuckled when he remembered the expression on his father's face when he came home with a very big rucksack.

"In the name of...right, whatever. I've warned you many times previously to not bring heavy things on your shoulder frequently, or you will get a grandpa's back! You've grown up already."

Still tried unsuccessfully to stifle his chuckle, Adnan looking down at the hill of books at the side of his studying table. A wave of uneasiness pass through him as he looked at them, making something in his stomach twisted. He didn't particularly like to spend his weekend studying asymptote, relativity or Brønsted–Lowry, not after he suffered lack of sleep because he studied all night to understand them when he was in high school, but something in his mind insisted to keep him studying. He sighed, muttering several times silently that it's only as a precaution if he didn't pass the university entrance exam. Studying these things again and again won't do me any hurt anyway, he thought as he settled down at his desk and take the nearest book that he can grab. It's a Physic book.

PING!

He opened the first page, reading with all the concentration that he could muster at the words before him. Relativity. Einstein's E = MC2. Twins in space. The changing shape of a plane according to other's perspective. Yadda, yadda, yadda...
But he still have to study it, no matter what he was feeling currently.

PING! PING! PING!

Damn it, Bima. What did he want this time... Adnan cursed silently before grabbing his handphone, one of those touchscreen type favored by many lately. He touched his thumb at the screen to open the key lock and see the messages that most likely are sent by his annoying former schoolmate, Bima. The boy keep asking him to hanging out together like they were used to do often back at high school roughly a week ago after they finished the entrance examination, but Adnan always decline his requests.

"Hi dude," He read the chat. "You busy? Have you check the CaucasiaDate? How is the result?" "Tell me, do you really get matched with beautiful girls?"

Adnan blushed. This is not what I expected. He began to type the answer: "No, I haven't."

Bima sure responded pretty fast.

"C'mon, check it now. Don't make me waste my time looking for a dating website for you!"

Bima is the one who found and told him about this dating site after he found out that Adnan never date a single girl. He was also the one who pressured him into it, bugging him endlessly whenever they bumped into each other. "Don't be such a boring man Ad," he often said when they hanging out together. "Live a little!"

Still blushing, Adnan typed back.
"Fine, I'll check it out."

✧✧✧

After turning his laptop on, Adnan opened the dating site. As the site finished loading, Adnan sat in silence when he saw the result: a certain girl named Saidat Isinbayeva from the North Caucasian Emirates.

He laughed nervously when he saw that the girl also sent him a letter.
Ah, how will I respond to it? This is Bima's fault, I never get a letter from a girl before. Much less a foreign one!
Despite the big social anxiety that he felt, Adnan decided to open her letter. While he reading the well-written letter, the boy has to admit, somehow, that he is interested in the girl's life. But how can he tell her that? Is that even okay to tell her that he is interesting in her life story? Adnan stroke his hair in frustration. But anyway, I have to reply her letter as fast as I can. It wouldn't be nice to just left it there when she sent a....personal letter like that, The boy blushed furiously at the thought.

He forced a smile when he began to type his reply. Hope I don't mess this one.

"Hi Miss Saidat Isinbayeva! It's also nice to meet you too. It's also my first day on CaucasiaDate, and I'm also still reading the guides. You're right, this stuff did its job neatly; truth is, I was startled and a bit nervous when I see our result. I'm not used to talk to a girl, much less a foreign one. I hope I don't disappoint you Miss, with my lack of experience.
You sure have an amazing life here Miss. I can't imagine what courage you have to drop out from your high school, to continue your studying in a nursing school and then working as a nurse in a hospital, all with the way people think about your choice....believe me Miss, you're wonderful. Don't listen to what they said.
So you come from a multi-ethnic family? That's interesting. If it's okay with you Miss, may I learn some native languages of your country from you someday?

As for me, I'm just graduated from a local high school here, in Padang. Padang is the provincial and largest capital in Minangkabau, where I lives. Last week I'm just finished the university entrance examinations, and I sincerely hope that I can pass the test. I'm planning to take architecture, if not biology department.
I'm from the Minangkabau ethnic group in Sumatra. Father come from Bukittinggi, a city located on a plateau relatively far from Padang, and mother was born and raised here. The only thing prevented me from being a full-blooded Minangkabau is because mother has a partial Javanese blood from her mother's side. I also have a little sister....her name is Selina. She is a student at a local middle school.

At home, I usually speak Malay or Minangkabau. It's nothing compared to you Miss, since those languages are actually closely related. I can also speak English, because it's one of the official languages here, and I learnt some German when I was at middle school.

Really? Thanks. I also have read about your hometown from a book. From what is written here, Derbent seems to be a place with rich history.

Sincerely,
Adnan

Still blushing, Adnan clicked the SEND button. He nervously biting his nails, wondering what the girl on the other side would thought on him. Damn, he was going to curse Bima when he meet that boy again!

*buzz* Saidat's phone was going off, just before midnight; she was so glad she didn't have to work on the weekends. *buzz* The buzzing continued because she didn't check it quick enough, as she fumbled in the dark for her phone. Opening, she smiled when she saw what the notification was for: the younger lad had replied, and he was so cute, even though he was a bit shy. And the best part? He didn't judge her sh*t-per-hour and exhausting job, or her status as a high school drop-out. Saidat excitedly composed a reply:

"Hey there, Adnan! Awe... don't be nervous, please; it's both of our first days here, and we both haven't really had friends of the opposite gender, as well! For me, the boys at school won't talk to me ever since I dropped out of high school with my bestie, Maryam, to go to nursing school and boys here rarely out of school—unless their daddy died and they had to become the breadwinner of the house, or they decided to become a tradie, such as a plumber or electrician, which earn up to six figures—and even fewer become nurse, because being a nurse is a dirty, physically-exhausting job that pays sh*t-per-hour compared to other jobs that are dirty and physically-exhausting. But I love my job and I can handle filth very well; my immune system is also pretty strong, and I haven't had the flu in literal years. But you are too kind with your compliments, Adnan; those are very nice words that you have said to me, and I really appreciate them!

[...]

"Here in Dagestan, women and men work—at least until they have children, but even then they start work once again when the children are old enough—and they are both breadwinners; women also prepare most of the food, but men help out in the kitchen and around the house. Though, if you have seen some of the meals that we prepare for guests, it's an entire smörgåsbord; you can only rarely finish it all, and doggy-bagging the food by taking it away in cardboard, plastic, or foam boxes is a thing at the end of really large meals where there are guests.

[...]

"Ah, I wouldn't quite say my family is "multi-ethnic"—as Tabasarans and Lezgins are two closely-related ethnic groups—but Dagestan itself is very, very diverse: lots and lots of ethnic groups, several dozen in total! And I am more than happy to teach you the languages of my homeland, though—as I said previously—my Tabasaran and Lezgin may be a bit lacking LOL! Arabic and Russian are the lingua franca here, and both languages are taught in all levels of school, alongside the local minority languages; there are too many of them to name LMAO! Also, English is hot right now; everyone wants to learn it, even the people who don't want to learn it! It's what the nerdier people call the "New Latin", and I agree one-hundred percent! As for Tabasaran and Lezgin, those two languages are actually pretty closely related, though Russian, Arabic and English... not so much! However, I would totally love to learn Malay and Minangkabau from you, one day myself!

[...]

"OMG! Congratulations on completing high school; I'm sure you did well in your entrance exam, so chin up, and turn that frown upside down! You seem pretty intelligent—judging by how you've written—so I'm sure you'd do well enough to get into both architecture and biology! If you're looking into architecture in particular, I hear that—far up north in Adygea—that Maykop is a swinging hotspot, and could do with some more architects to complete its goal of modernising itself into a city fit to be the capital that it is now, ever since Her Grand Highness, Iryna Tchemerzine, First of Her Name, was elected; as she is Adyghe, her Emirate's capital was named the capital of the entire nation. Adygea has, historically, been very poor, but their apples are the best!

[...]

"I've actually heard of Padang in passing—when Maryam and I were reading an atlas in the local library after school last year—and the atlas showed such beautiful, glossy photos; Padang certainly looks like an island paradise! The atlas also mentioned the Minangkabau peoples—with their strength, cleverness, courage, and diligence—but the costumes, they are the prettiest; there was even a photo of a wedding couple! Sadly, I don't see any of your peoples around these parts—too far!—but hopefully some can come to visit Dagestan; we have lots of Muslims—and many Mountain Jews, too—so I'm pretty sure we can get along! As for Derbent, people from surrounding areas love to come and see our Persian fortress—the last of its kind left in this world—and marvel at the fine architecture, while also maintaining its structure; it is fast-approaching its 1600th year since it was built so long ago, and we need to keep it alive for future generations to behold. Persians have held Derbent, then it moved to the Russians, and then the Jewish Zolanvari dynasty—who watches over all of us as if we were their children, to this day—declared independence alongside most of the other Emirates we have now in our nation, after OctoberGate in 1917; naturally, we were granted it, for we are stiff-necked and proud peoples.

[...]

"Anyway, it's getting late—and I've had a hard day at work today—but you've made my night; I'll talk to you when I wake up in the morning, if you're still there! It's a pleasure to meet you, you sure are a very interesting lad, with an equally-interesting life!

[...]

"Hugs and stuff from Saidat"

Signing off and switching off her phone for the night, she returned to sleep, so excited and happy to have finally met a boy (around) her age, and who didn't judge her! Adnan... now, what sort of nickname could she give him? Addy, like the material of adamantine? She smiled as she fell asleep, with the fan on in the summer heat.

[Samudera Darussalam]

*buzz* Saidat's phone was going off, just before midnight; she was so glad she didn't have to work on the weekends. *buzz* The buzzing continued because she didn't check it quick enough, as she fumbled in the dark for her phone. Opening, she smiled when she saw what the notification was for: the younger lad had replied, and he was so cute, even though he was a bit shy. And the best part? He didn't judge her sh*t-per-hour and exhausting job, or her status as a high school drop-out. Saidat excitedly composed a reply:

"Hey there, Adnan! Awe... don't be nervous, please; it's both of our first days here, and we both haven't really had friends of the opposite gender, as well! For me, the boys at school won't talk to me ever since I dropped out of high school with my bestie, Maryam, to go to nursing school and boys here rarely out of school—unless their daddy died and they had to become the breadwinner of the house, or they decided to become a tradie, such as a plumber or electrician, which earn up to six figures—and even fewer become nurse, because being a nurse is a dirty, physically-exhausting job that pays sh*t-per-hour compared to other jobs that are dirty and physically-exhausting. But I love my job and I can handle filth very well; my immune system is also pretty strong, and I haven't had the flu in literal years. But you are too kind with your compliments, Adnan; those are very nice words that you have said to me, and I really appreciate them!

[...]

"Here in Dagestan, women and men work—at least until they have children, but even then they start work once again when the children are old enough—and they are both breadwinners; women also prepare most of the food, but men help out in the kitchen and around the house. Though, if you have seen some of the meals that we prepare for guests, it's an entire smörgåsbord; you can only rarely finish it all, and doggy-bagging the food by taking it away in cardboard, plastic, or foam boxes is a thing at the end of really large meals where there are guests.

[...]

"Ah, I wouldn't quite say my family is "multi-ethnic"—as Tabasarans and Lezgins are two closely-related ethnic groups—but Dagestan itself is very, very diverse: lots and lots of ethnic groups, several dozen in total! And I am more than happy to teach you the languages of my homeland, though—as I said previously—my Tabasaran and Lezgin may be a bit lacking LOL! Arabic and Russian are the lingua franca here, and both languages are taught in all levels of school, alongside the local minority languages; there are too many of them to name LMAO! Also, English is hot right now; everyone wants to learn it, even the people who don't want to learn it! It's what the nerdier people call the "New Latin", and I agree one-hundred percent! As for Tabasaran and Lezgin, those two languages are actually pretty closely related, though Russian, Arabic and English... not so much! However, I would totally love to learn Malay and Minangkabau from you, one day myself!

[...]

"OMG! Congratulations on completing high school; I'm sure you did well in your entrance exam, so chin up, and turn that frown upside down! You seem pretty intelligent—judging by how you've written—so I'm sure you'd do well enough to get into both architecture and biology! If you're looking into architecture in particular, I hear that—far up north in Adygea—that Maykop is a swinging hotspot, and could do with some more architects to complete its goal of modernising itself into a city fit to be the capital that it is now, ever since Her Grand Highness, Iryna Tchemerzine, First of Her Name, was elected; as she is Adyghe, her Emirate's capital was named the capital of the entire nation. Adygea has, historically, been very poor, but their apples are the best!

[...]

"I've actually heard of Padang in passing—when Maryam and I were reading an atlas in the local library after school last year—and the atlas showed such beautiful, glossy photos; Padang certainly looks like an island paradise! The atlas also mentioned the Minangkabau peoples—with their strength, cleverness, courage, and diligence—but the costumes, they are the prettiest; there was even a photo of a wedding couple! Sadly, I don't see any of your peoples around these parts—too far!—but hopefully some can come to visit Dagestan; we have lots of Muslims—and many Mountain Jews, too—so I'm pretty sure we can get along! As for Derbent, people from surrounding areas love to come and see our Persian fortress—the last of its kind left in this world—and marvel at the fine architecture, while also maintaining its structure; it is fast-approaching its 1600th year since it was built so long ago, and we need to keep it alive for future generations to behold. Persians have held Derbent, then it moved to the Russians, and then the Jewish Zolanvari dynasty—who watches over all of us as if we were their children, to this day—declared independence alongside most of the other Emirates we have now in our nation, after OctoberGate in 1917; naturally, we were granted it, for we are stiff-necked and proud peoples.

[...]

"Anyway, it's getting late—and I've had a hard day at work today—but you've made my night; I'll talk to you when I wake up in the morning, if you're still there! It's a pleasure to meet you, you sure are a very interesting lad, with an equally-interesting life!

[...]

"Hugs and stuff from Saidat"

Signing off and switching off her phone for the night, she returned to sleep, so excited and happy to have finally met a boy (around) her age, and who didn't judge her! Adnan... now, what sort of nickname could she give him? Addy, like the material of adamantine? She smiled as she fell asleep, with the fan on in the summer heat.

Amid the darkening sky of Padang, the moon has appeared. Round and white as a pearl can be, albeit slightly dull, the moon began to rise to its usual place at the sky, accompanied by stars with ever fading glow due to the brightness emitted from the bustling city below.
Adnan walked by himself in the quiet neighborhood, most of the occupants are still in or around the mosques. It's Ramadan after all, so people are most likely to spend their time more in the mosques to pray or reciting the Qur'an. Well, most people. As he walked, Adnan could hear faint noises, laughter, and the sound of televisions from several houses that he passed. As the night breeze began to give a chilling sensation to his nape, Adnan began to walk faster.

He only managed to land a few steps on the street leading to his home when a single male voice distracted him.
"Hi, Hakim, wait!"
Adnan turned to see a boy around his age, still wearing a peci, waving and beaming at him from atop the bike that he rode. Still smiling, the boy with peci hopped down from his bike and leading it to where Adnan stood. Clumsily, Adnan waved back.
"Hi, Yusril. You startled me."
Yusril chuckled. "Still preferring to walk alone, eh, Hakim? C'mon, let's walk together. Our houses are not that far."
Adnan just shrugged. "It's been a week since I last saw you, Yus. Where have you been?"
"Ah, you know, I was enlisted in the Police Academy at Bukit Limau. Father's been driving me nuts, he seems really eager to see someone continuing the 'police tradition' in the family. Do you still remember when he dressed us in police uniforms for the school festival back at elementary? Both of us looked really ridiculous..."
Yusril then made a mocking gesture of a typical Samuderan police salute, inciting a laughter from his usually silent companion.
The boys were still laughing when they arrived in front of Adnan's house.
"Bye Yus." "Bye Hakim."
Using one hand to wipe the tears from his eyes, Adnan turned to open the gate of his house.

✧✧✧

Having changed into the usual T-shirt he wore for sleeping, Adnan sat at the side of his bed, checking his handphone for new notifications and messages. There is one from Bima, who sent him meme pictures as always before he went to sleep (this time about the American President, Drump), and there is another one from.....
CaucasiaDate!
Feeling that the heat began to rise to his cheeks, Adnan quickly pressed the notification. His eyes widened as he saw that the older girl had replied to his letter. V-very fast, indeed.
"Gulp"
Licking his lips, Adnan opened the letter uncertainly. After all, he hoped that he didn't disappoint her with his previous letter.
Quite contrary to his previous expectations, the girl had replied merrily. She didn't seem to be annoyed by the rather...formal styled-letter that he sent. Rather, she thanked him for the "kind words" that he had written in his reply to her previous letter. She even took the chance to tease him, judging from the final words "Hugs and stuff". Wait, hugs and stuff?
Adnan quickly dropped his handphone to his bed, his hands covered his face in disbelieve. This...this is too much for him. Although he feels sure that his hormones were surely messing up with his rather lack-of-experience mind, and no matter how stupid he feels about his reaction, still...he need to regain some of his common sense somehow. He sighed several times, letting the blood in his cheeks to go down, before he took his hands down and decided to reply. After several minutes of silence, he began to write:

"Hi Miss Saidat Isinbayeva,
Thanks for your kind words, Miss. It's a little bit reassuring for me, at least, to know that I'm not the only one who lack any experience dealing with opposite gender. I'm happy to meet a kind girl like you.
Really, you think so? Thanks, again. It's just....I just write down my immediate thoughts into the letter after I read your story. You really deserve the words, Miss. So, I don't really feel that the words are nice or anything. It's just because it suit you well, in my opinion.

Eh, really? Dagestan is really interesting. Here, in Minangkabau, the custom is that women hold a privileged position in the society. They are reserved the rights to rule the household and even the rights of inheritance, while men are usually left to support themselves. They are basically the ones who do most of the work, though that doesn't mean that the women there don't help. That was the reason why father and mother have been teaching me how to basically...taking care of myself since I was at elementary, even though the custom is not really practiced in major cities anymore, as people began to realize the importance of equal share of responsibility in doing the house chores. At occasions I was the one charged with cooking responsibility, even though I'm not really talented in cooking, like, you know. However, lately my parents said that my cooking skills are improving, somehow.
We also have the tendency to cook too many meals, sometimes even more than 7 kind of foods, even though probably not as frequent as yours, Miss, only on special occasions such as the Eid. However, when we serve our guests, they also usually bring some of the meals home.

Ah, that's okay Miss. It's better to learn a language from its own native speaker, as my father said. And of course, I would be happy to teach Malay and Minangkabau to you also, someday. The reference to English as the 'New Latin' is quite accurate, though. Miss, may I ask you something? Are the people in your homeland write in Latin or Cyrillic? Or maybe both? Because in here, we have to learn two different alphabets; the Jawi and Latin. In the case of Java, they have to learn even more; three. The Jawi, Latin, and native Javanese script they often refer to as the Ha na ca ra ka.

Ah, thank you very much Miss, but you're exaggerating. I'm not that intelligent, but thanks. And Ameen to that. From the way you describe Maykop, Adyghea, that place seems really interesting. Maybe, if I managed to get into architecture and finished my degree, I would be interested to work in the city. And best apples? You only add more to my curiosities, Miss.

Wow, you think so? Thank you very much Miss. I have also heard that from many people. But truth is, Padang is not quite the paradise. We live under constant danger of earthquakes and tsunamis from the fault just below the strait that separated us with the Mentawai Isles. But otherwise than that, I'm quite content to live in this city, primarily because it's not really crowded like other major cities in Samudera Darussalam, and partly because this is the home of some of the most delicious food in the Federal Kingdom. The Minangkabau are indeed known throughout the entire country from the traits that you have mentioned, Miss. If you travel throughout our country, you can find at least one Minang restaurant in every city, town, and village. It's even part of our stereotype, as the owners of restaurants that you can find basically everywhere in this country and even aboard. And yeah, our traditional costume is quite...dazzling, but you see Miss, it's also quite intricate. The suntiang, the crown-like-accessory that the brides wore on their head during the wedding, is made of pure gold and can weight at least several kilograms. Actually, I often feel pity for those poor brides, for the heavy thing they wore on their head. That thing must be giving them severe headache.

From your story, your homeland is quite interesting, Miss, really. And it also have a quite interesting history. Maybe someday I would like to take a vacation there, but I don't know if there is any direct flight from Padang to Derbent or Maykop. Maybe there are some from Jakarta or Singapore, but it'll be really costly.
Thanks, do you think so? I also hope that we can get along.

It's also getting late here, so good bye Miss. See you later.

Regards,
Adnan

Adnan quickly sent the message before turned his handphone off. He sighed as he laying down on his back, facing the ceiling. When the boy turned to look into the plain colored wall in front of his eyes, he still can feel his face blushing.

[A m e n r i a]

Imperial Council Building, Mutiara, Empire of Amenria

A man in blue exits the Amenrian parliament building with cameras flashing before him and microphones pointed at him. Swarms of people surrounded him, including a bespectacled man wearing a green shirt. "Your Grace, do you agree on His Majesty's views on implementing communism by 2050?" Asked the besplectacled man, preparing to record the noble in blue. "Unfortunately, I do." Replied the government official. "Like he said, communism is a system too perfect for our civilization in the near future. It takes an ideal government to pull it off, even more ideal than the current one. We will stick to socialism for the next five years. Next question, please." The noble continued to address the journalists.

After a while, the noble went away and the crowd dissipated. The green shirted man took his phone out from his pocket. He smiles and sighes a breath of relief. It appears he now has a match in CaucasiaDate, a woman who goes by the name of Baira Losolyn. A good-looking woman indeed, though she was a bit too plump for his tastes. Nevertheless, he proceeded to type a message to her anyways, a simple greeting of "Hello, I'm Sungjae. A pleasure to meet you." He proceeded to go to the nearest bus stop and take a drone bus back home to his flat.

Residence Quarters, Mutiara, Empire of Amenria

Sungjae walked from a nearby station to a structure that looks like concrete blocks with large windows stacked atop each other, with fenced gardens on the roof of each one. He entered the complex through a gate with Chinese-style architecture. Once inside, he called an elevator and waited for it with one other person, a young woman carrying her baby boy. She had the ears and tail of a fix, and a calming presence around her. The baby looked at Sungjae, and Sungjae responded by smiling and waving at him. The baby smiled in response, and let out a few chuckles. Seeing this, the woman smiled at Sungjae as well, nodding in approval. "How old?" He asked, gesturing at the baby. "8 months" the mother answered. "What's his name?" "Ken." A ringing sound was heard, and the elevator doors opened, allowing them to enter it.

Soon, the young journalist was in front of a room numbered 138. He swiped his key card on the electronic lock. The locked turned green and he opened the door. As soon as he stepped in, he was greeted by an orange cat, who meowed at him whilst running towards him. "Hyuna, come here, girl!" Sungjae bent over and stretched his arms, and the cat ran straight to his chest, rubbing her head at him. Sungjae laughed as he hugged his pet and stood up, carrying her on his shoulder. He walked to his room, put Hyuna on the floor and laid on his bed. Anxious for a reply, he took out his phone again.

[North Caucasian Emirates]

Christopher was in the staff room getting a cup of water, before returning to helping one of his patients. The workload had increased in the past week and he hardly had any time to take a break. It wasn't that Strala was short on doctors or Orthopedic Surgeons. It was just that people flock to the best and well the Manefisition Hospital was one of the best in Strala. It was located in the Capital of Strala and it was also a medical school for Manefistion University, one of the top Medical Universities in Strala. At least he wasn't a family doctor or a dentist. Christopher shuddered at that thought before he was told to enter room B-2. Before he entered the room he was told about the patient's name and the information that he needed.

Inside the room, he found his twelve-year-old patient and his mother. The patient was sitting in a wheelchair and his mother was sitting right next to him. They were talking to each other, and they didn't realize he was there until he coughed into his hands. "Well, then Jeffrey, tell me where it hurts." Jeffrey timidly points down towards his right ankle. "Well then all I'm going to do now and press down on your ankle and you tell me where it hurts. He slowly moved his hands around Jeffrey's right foot. Whenever he got close to the ankle, Christopher was told that it hurts so he stopped. The Xiao family's family doctor told him that there was a crack on Jeffrey's Fibula, but before he could proceed he had to get X-rays done on Jeffrey's right foot.

"Jeffrey now before we proceed any farther I need to have X-ray images on your right foot." Jeffrey responded "Alright." As Jeffrey finished responding one of the nurses came and pushed him towards the X-ray room. Soon the pictures were finished and were sent to his Mac.

As he stared his face turned into a slight frown before returning back to normal again. He had to act professionally in front of his patient and scowling was definitely not professional "Mrs. Xiao, I would like you to come over here and look at the picture."

He moved over and pointed towards the thin but long crack on Jeffrey's fibula. "Jeffrey was lucky that it landed on his Fibula and not his Tibia, but at this stage, it is hard to tell if the bone is going to get fixed properly so Surgery might be required."

Mrs. Xiao responded in an accented voice "Doctor is there any way that Jeffrey won't need surgery, see this year I bought the high deductible for insurance." "Ma'am I'm not saying that Surgery will be needed but it is certainly will be an option if Jeffrey's bones don't heal properly, and trust me I know how you feel. I don't like paying for Surgery more than you do, but if it is needed it is for helping your son and it's a scam for me to get rich." He knows how Mrs. Xiao feels and thinks after all his parents were also immigrants to Strala and well one general misconception is that Doctors make up things to get more money. Christopher didn't want them to think that. Doctors are here to help them not make them suffer more.

"Alright, so Mrs. Xiao, since I don't know if your son needs Surgery or not, at this point, we're going to get Jeffrey a splint and in two days I want you to meet me at 15:00. I should by then determine if Jeffrey needs Surgery or not. I hope to see you then." As he finished two nurses took them to another room. When he checked the time again it was 20:53 and the ER was going to close soon, so he gathered his stuff, and today he ended relatively early.

When he finally got home it 21:53 and he didn't feel like making dinner, so he got the leftovers that he made yesterday. As he was eating he was wondering how wonderful it would be to have a wife to return to every day. As a plus, he could take a break since he wouldn't have to make dinner. His parents were always telling him to get a wife. He was 29 and still single which his parents didn't like.

When he finished his meal he went to his living room, and just sat on one of his couches and was just was looking at random things before and dating site ad popped up. It was called Caucasiadate and it seemed interesting enough. He had used several dating websites before but never seemed to work. Christopher wasn't that hopeful, but it was worth a shot. He quickly registered for an account and he uploaded a picture as a profile picture, he picked the one that he took while on his trip to Repitilsyia. It had a sunset in the background and that was the reason he chose it. As he was about to hit register he saw a Premium Membership option. "Eh why not what harm can it do." he typed in his credit card detail, before clicking register.

Around twenty minutes later his phone buzzed and a notification popped up. The app had matched him with a someone named Giyaba Otryadyn. As he stared at her he couldn't help but blush. He had several crushes when he was younger and well none of them looked as breathtaking as her before. When he finally broke free of his trance he started typing a letter to her. He had never written a letter to a girl before so he didn't know what to write.
Hello Miss Giyaba Otryadyn! I don't really know what to write about, lol but anyways it is great to be paired up with you. This is my first time on this app and I'm still trying to get the hang of things. This would be my first time that I well I guess got paired with a girl for more than 10 minutes. Here are some random facts about me, I enjoy cats and I have a cat named Reppy at my apartment, I enjoy eating chocolate, and I enjoy being around children. A part of me I feel like I haven't really grown up. My father is from Itracul a former colony of Strala and my Mother is from Repitilysia. I'm a second generation Chinese Stralian, and I'm also the first in my family to enter the medical field

I really find it cool that we both are in the medical profession. I mean while we majored in different things we could still help each other right, um this might be random but are you busy currently. I don't mind if you don't respond to my message instantly if you are, after all, I came back from my workplace about twenty to forty minutes ago. I wouldn't want to interrupt anything important that's happening. I would love to learn more about you and well that's really all I have to say. I told you I have no clue what I'm doing lol. I hope you responded as soon as you can.

From,
Christopher Liu
Christopher was blushing when he submitted the letter. He hoped that the girl wouldn't judge him on what he wrote. A part of him felt proud while the other part felt like an idiot. He wrote a really short letter to a girl confessing that he didn't know what to do. He hoped that the girl wouldn't judge him too much when she received the letter.

Giyaba, slowly opening her eyes—which smarted from her phone's light in the pitch-black room—read the message that Christopher had sent her, and what she saw made her smile, even internally joyous. Could this be the one? She thought, feeling a warmth within her that ran counter to the industrial-grade air-conditioning of the check-up room she had set up shop in for the night. Excited, she began to compose a letter back to Christopher, and eager to make a good impression:

"Hello there, Christopher! Just to let you know, I received your message and I've been sleeping on a check-up bed in the hospital for the night. But not to worry, I have no work to do tomorrow morning because weekend—woo!—and I'm only here because I left my car at home, and because the last bus home left an hour before my shift closed; I overstayed, you see. I like check-up beds, they're pretty damn ergonomic and good for the posture, even comfy. Also, you are not the only one new to the CaucasiaDate app; a foreign lady whose son I sedated for a bit and supervised told me she met her now-husband there, and suggested I give it a shot!

[...]

"Cats are beautiful creatures, and very clean, too! My family used to have a cat—Aslan was his name, after the lion of Narnia, and he was a ginger-coloured Manx with a stub for a tail—but we had to put him to sleep after he got an inoperable squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in his cheek, and it grew so big that he couldn't eat or breathe without assistance; we originally got him because our apartment block had a rat problem back in the day, until the landlord brought in an exterminator about twenty years ago from now. We only had him for fifteen years, but that was my whole life back then; I cried for days the day after we had him put to sleep, and I still feel my heart aching whenever I think of him. We got another cat several years later—a Russian Blue named Lilit—and we still have her. She's coming up seven years in a few months, and still going strong!

[...]

"Chocolate is alright, but I prefer sweets; my favourite is fruit leather, which grandma still makes every Tsagan Sar—or White Month, as it is called outside of Kalmykia, which is a celebration of the springtime's wake from the winter's rest—and they are amazing! Does Strala import Emirati fruit leather? And my ancestors have lived in Kalmykia for as long as anyone can remember, as we are ethnic Kalmyks of Oirat Mongol stock, and follow the Tibetan branch of Buddhism, with some indigenous Mongol influences; most notably, the veneration of Sagaan Ubgen, the guardian of life in Mongolia, who is shown as a bald old man with a long, white beard and dressed all in white. My family came from the countryside to the city of Elista—after years of nomadic life—and my parents were the first in their families to get past high school, or even complete high school, for that matter. Dad works in human resources for a food processing plant, and Mum is a schoolteacher. My parents wanted me to be a solicitor, but I decided for myself that I wanted to help people, and that an anesthetist paid about the same amount; also, law school demands that you read lots and lots of boring papers! I love medicine, though the anatomy courses often freaked the students out!

"Anyway, I need to sleep LOL! Been a busy evening tonight, and also a dear little patient being allowed by his paediatrician to play violent video games such as Grand Theft Tricycle, which my parents would never allow, were that game around when I was ten years old! But your message really made my day (night?) I have to say, and I hope we can talk more soon! Goodnight Christopher, and have a good one, best wishes from Giyaba."

Giyaba pressed "send" and switched off her phone, falling asleep on the check-up bed with a smile on her face, and anticipating the coming weekend; hopefully Christopher would have the weekend off, too!

Now, to catch the 5:00am bus before rush hour, or to get some extra shut-eye and catch the rush-hour bus at 7:00? That was the question on her mind as she began to take the first steps on her early morning journey into la-la-land...