by Alice Oseman
“What?” I said.
“I’m Radio,” he said. “I’m Radio Silence. I make Universe City.”
And I just stood there.
And we said nothing.
A gust of wind whipped round us. A group of girls laughed from a nearby pub. A car alarm was going off.
Aled looked away, as if there were someone standing next to us that he could see but I couldn’t.
Then he looked back, put a hand on my shoulder, leaned in, and asked, quite genuinely, “Are you all right?”
“It’s … er …” But I didn’t quite know how to say that I’d been obsessed for two years with a podcast show on YouTube about the adventures of an agender science fiction university student who always wears gloves and uses special powers and detective skills to solve mysteries around a city, the name of which is the stupidest pun I’d ever heard in my life, and I had thirty-seven sketchbooks in my room with drawings that I’d done of this specific show, and I’d never met anyone else in real life who’d even heard of it, and I’d never told any of my friends, and just now, outside Johnny R’s on the last school day before study leave, I’d found out that a person whose twin sister had been my temporary best friend and who’d lived opposite me my entire life, a person who never said anything when he was sober, was the person who had made it.
This tiny blond seventeen-year-old who never said anything, standing on a high street.
“I’ll listen,” said Aled, with a blurry smile. He was so drunk – did he know what he was talking about?
“It’d take hours to explain,” I said.
“I’d listen to you for hours,” he said.
1. SUMMER TERM (b)
ALED LAST IN MY BED
I don’t like other people inside my room because I’m terrified they’re going to uncover one of my secrets, like my fan art habits or my Internet history or the fact that I one hundred per cent still sleep with a teddy bear.
I particularly do not like other people in my bed, not since I was twelve and I had that nightmare about a Tamagotchi that spoke in a really deep voice while a friend was sleeping over. I punched her in the face and she got a nosebleed and cried. An accurate metaphor for most of my past friendships.
Despite this, that night, I ended up with Aled Last in my bed.
Haha.
No. Not like that.
When Aled and I got off the train – or in Aled’s case, fell off the train – and walked down the stone steps that joined the station to our countryside village, Aled announced that Daniel Jun had his keys, because Daniel was wearing his jacket, which had his keys inside them, and he couldn’t wake his mum up because she would “literally chop his head off”. The way he said it was pretty convincing, and his mum’s one of the Academy’s parent governors, so for a few seconds I actually believed him. I’ve always found Aled’s mum intimidating, like with one word she could probably shatter my self-esteem and feed it to her dog. Not that that’s very hard.
Anyway, yeah. So I was like, “What, d’you wanna sleep at mine or something?” obviously joking, but then he leaned all his weight on my shoulder and was like, “Well …” and I let out this laugh like I’d seen this coming from the moment Aled had crouched down in the middle of the road.
So I just said, “Fine. Fine.” He’d fall asleep straight away anyway, and I wasn’t one of those weird forty-year-olds who thought that boys and girls couldn’t platonically share a bed.
Aled came into my house and fell on to my bed without saying anything and when I came back from the bathroom where I’d changed into pyjamas, he was asleep, facing away from me, his chest moving slowly up and down. I turned off the light.
I wished I was a bit more drunk too, because it took me a good two hours to fall asleep, like it always does, and for the whole two hours, when I wasn’t playing games on my phone or scrolling through Tumblr, I had to stare at the back of his head in the soft blue light of my bedroom. The last time somebody had slept in my big double bed with me was Carys, when I was fifteen, a few nights before she ran away, and if I squinted a little, I could almost pretend that it was her, with the same blonde hair and elf ears. But when I opened my eyes again, it was quite clearly Aled, and not Carys, who was in my bed. For some reason I found that kind of reassuring. I don’t know.
Aled needed to cut his hair, and his jumper, I suddenly realised, belonged to Daniel.
I KNOW, RIGHT
I woke up first, at eleven-ish. Aled didn’t seem to have moved for the entire night, so I checked quickly to see whether he’d died (he hadn’t) before getting out of bed. I briefly went over last night’s decisions. They all seemed to match up to my expectations of myself – pushover, will put self in awkward positions to guarantee the safety of people I barely know, will ask awkward questions and deeply regret them later … Aled Last being in my bed really was a classic Frances thing to happen. What exactly was I going to say to him when he woke up?
Hey there, Aled. You’re in my bed. You probably don’t remember why. I promise I didn’t bring you here by force. By the way, you know that weird podcast thing you make for YouTube? Yeah, basically I’ve been obsessed with it for years.
I immediately went downstairs. Better break the news to my mum before she found him and assumed that her daughter had gained a small, blond, apologetic boyfriend without telling her about it first.
Mum was in the lounge in her unicorn onesie watching Game of Thrones. She looked up as I entered the room and slumped down next to her on the sofa.
“Hello there,” she said. She had a packet of dry Shreddies in one hand. She popped one into her mouth. “You look a bit sleepy.”
“Well,” I said, but wasn’t quite sure where to go from there.
“Did you have fun at the disco?” she asked, but she was grinning. Mum pretended to be clueless about anything twenty-first-century teenagers did. Along with being sarcastic to teachers, this was another thing she enjoyed. “Did you get down? Did you turn up?”
“Oh, yeah, we were jiving and everything,” I said, and did a little rendition of a jive.
“Good, good. That’ll get you laid.”
I laughed loudly, mostly at the idea of me ever ‘getting laid’ in any situation ever, but then with exaggerated slowness she pressed pause on the TV remote, cast aside the pack of Shreddies and stared into my eyes, linking her fingers together on her lap as a head teacher might do over their desk.
“Speaking of which,” she continued, “I was just wondering who exactly the lovely young chap sleeping in your bed is.”
Oh. Okay.
“Yeah,” I said with a laugh. “Yes. That lovely young chap.”
“I came into your room to get some washing and there he was.” Mum spread out her hands as if reliving the scene. “At first I thought he was some sort of giant teddy bear. Or one of those Japanese cartoon pillows that you were showing me on the Internet.”
“Yeah … no. He’s real. A real boy.”
“He was wearing clothes so I’m assuming there wasn’t any hanky-panky.”
“Mum, even when you use the phrase ‘hanky-panky’ ironically, it still makes me want to plug my ears with superglue.”
Mum didn’t say anything for a moment, and neither did I, and then we both heard a loud crash come from upstairs.
“It’s Aled Last,” I said. “Carys’s twin brother?”
“Your friend’s brother?” Mum cackled. “Oh, wow, we’re turning into a bit of a romantic comedy here, aren’t we?”
It was funny, but I didn’t laugh, and Mum’s expression turned serious.
“What’s going on, Frances? I thought you were going to stay out later with your friends. God knows you deserve some kind of end-of-term celebration before you get stuck into your exam revision.”
She looked at me sympathetically. Mum had always thought I cared too much about schoolwork. Mum was generally the opposite of what you’d expect any normal parent to be, but somehow she managed to be amazing anyway.
“Aled was
drunk so I had to take him home. He forgot his keys and his mum’s a bit of a dickhead, apparently.”
“Oh, yes, Carol Last.” Mum pursed her lips. She gazed off, reliving a memory. “She always tries to talk to me at the post office.”
Another thump sounded from my room. Mum frowned and looked up. “You haven’t seriously wounded him, have you?”
“I think I’d better go check on him.”
“Yes, go and check on your man. He’s probably clambering out the window.”
“Come on now, Mother, my romantic partners wouldn’t ever want to clamber out of the window.”
She smiled that warm smile of hers that always made me think she knew something I didn’t. I stood up to leave.
“Don’t let him escape!” said Mum. “This could be your only chance at securing a spouse!”
Then I remembered the other thing that Mum should probably know about.
“Oh, by the way,” I said, turning in the doorway, “you know Universe City?”
Mum’s laugh dropped into an expression of confusion. “Er, yes?”
“Yeah, so, Aled made it.”
I realised then that Aled probably wasn’t going to remember having told me that he was the creator of Universe City. Great. Another awkward situation I was going to have to deal with.
“What?” said Mum. “What d’you mean?”
“He sent me that Twitter message. He’s the creator of Universe City. I found out yesterday.”
Mum just stared.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know, right.”
WEIRD
I walked back into my room to find Aled crouching next to the bed, holding a coat hanger like it was a machete. As I entered he spun round to face me, his eyes all wild and his hair – too long – sticking out in all directions from where he’d slept. I guess he looked sort of … well … petrified. Fair enough.
It took me a few seconds to decide what to say.
“Were you … planning to decapitate me with a coat hanger?”
He blinked once, and then lowered his weapon and stood up straight, his terror subsiding a little. I gave him a once-over – of course, he was still in the same outfit as last night, Daniel’s burgundy jumper, and dark jeans, but for the first time I noticed that he was wearing these really excellent lime green plimsolls with fluorescent purple laces and I really wanted to ask him where he’d got them.
“Oh. Frances Janvier,” he said. And he still pronounced my surname correctly.
Then he let a long breath out and sat down on my bed.
It was like I was seeing an entirely different person. Now that I knew he was the Creator, the voice of Radio Silence, he didn’t even look like Aled Last any more – not the Aled Last I knew. Not Daniel Jun’s silent shadow, not the boy who didn’t even seem to have a personality at all. Not the boy who just smiled and agreed with you whatever you said to him and generally, to be honest, seemed to be the most boring, basic individual in the known universe.
He was Radio Silence. He’d been making a YouTube show for over two years. A beautiful, limitless, explosion of a story.
I was on the verge of having a fangirl meltdown, for Christ’s sake. How embarrassing is that?
“Jesus Christ,” he said. His voice was so quiet now he was sober, it was like he wasn’t quite used to normal conversation or something, like he had to force himself to speak out loud. “I thought I’d been kidnapped.” Then he put his face in his hands, elbows on his knees.
He stayed like that for quite a while. I stayed standing awkwardly in the doorway.
“Er … sorry,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what I was apologising for. “You, like, you did ask. I didn’t just lure you into my house. I didn’t have any ulterior motives.” He looked up at me, eyes wide again, and I groaned. “Oh, yeah, sounds like something someone with ulterior motives would say.”
“This is really awkward,” he said, his mouth twisting into a sort of half-smile. “I’m the one who should be apologising.”
“Yeah, this is really awkward.”
“Do you want me to just leave?”
“Er …” I paused. “Well, I’m not gonna, like, stop you from leaving. I’m seriously not a kidnapper.”
Aled gave me a long look.
“Wait,” he said. “We didn’t … did we, like, hook up?”
The idea sounded so completely idiotic that I actually let out a laugh. In hindsight, I think that might have been a bit rude.
“Oh, no. No. You’re good.”
“Okay,” he said. He looked down and I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking. “Yeah. That’d be really weird.”
There was a pause again. I needed to say something about Universe City before he went. He clearly didn’t remember anything about that. I’m a rubbish liar, and I can’t keep secrets either.
He finally put down the coat hanger that he’d been clutching in one hand.
“You have a really cool room, by the way,” he said shyly. He nodded towards my Welcome to Night Vale poster. “I love Welcome to Night Vale.”
Of course he did. Welcome to Night Vale was another Internet podcast show that I adored, just like I did Universe City. I preferred Universe City though – I liked the characters more.
“I didn’t know you were into stuff like that,” he continued.
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this. “Well, yeah.”
“I just thought you … you know … liked studying and … erm … being head girl, and … yeah.”
“Oh, right.” I let out an awkward laugh. School was my life and soul and everything about me. So I guess he was right. “Well, yeah … my grades are pretty important, and being head girl and stuff … like, I’m applying to Cambridge, so I need to— I have to study quite a lot, so … yeah.”
He watched me as I spoke, nodding slowly, and said, “Ah, yeah, fair enough,” but it didn’t sound like he cared half as much about that as he had about my Welcome to Night Vale poster. He then realised he was staring, so he looked down and said, “Sorry, I’m making this even weirder.” He stood up, flattening his hair with one hand. “I’ll just leave. It’s not like we’re gonna see each other much any more.”
“What?”
“Because I’ve left school and stuff.”
“Oh.”
“Haha.”
We stared at each other. It was so awkward. My pyjama bottoms had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on them.
“You told me you make Universe City,” I said so quickly that I was immediately scared he hadn’t heard me. My reasoning was that since there was no easy way to bring this up, I might as well just blurt it out. This is how I get through most of my life.
Aled said nothing, but his face dropped and he actually stepped backwards a little.
“I told you …” he said, but his voice drifted into silence.
“I don’t know how much you remember, but, like, I’m literally …” I stopped myself before I said something that made me sound truly insane. “I really, really love your show. I’ve been listening to it since it started.”
“What?” he said, and he sounded genuinely surprised. “But that’s, like, over two years …”
“Yeah.” I laughed. “How weird is that?”
“That’s really …” His voice got a little louder. “That’s really cool.”
“Yeah, I seriously love it, like, I don’t know, the characters are all just so well-rounded and relatable. Especially Radio, the whole agender thing is literal genius, like, when the girl voice first appeared I listened to the episode, like, twenty times. But it’s so good when you’re not sure whether it’s a boy voice or a girl voice, those are amazing. I mean … none of the voices are girl or boy voices, are they? Radio doesn’t have a gender. Anyway, yeah, the sidekicks are all so brilliant as well, but there’s not all the Doctor Who sexual tension, they’re just their own people, and it’s so good how they’re not always BFFs with Radio, sometimes they’re enemies. And every single story is so hilarious b
ut you really can’t guess what’s going to happen, but all the ongoing plots are good too, like, I still have no idea why Radio can’t take their gloves off or what’s being kept in the Dark Blue Building or whether Radio’s ever going to meet Vulpes, and I’m not even gonna bother asking you about the February Friday conspiracy because, like, that would ruin the whole thing. Yeah, it’s just … it’s so good, I can’t explain how much I love it. Seriously.”
Throughout this, Aled’s eyes got wider and wider. Halfway through, he sat back down on to my bed. Near the end, he covered his hands with his sleeves. When I’d finished, I instantly regretted everything.
“I’ve never met a fan of the show before,” he said, his voice quiet again, almost inaudible. And then he laughed. He brought his hand up to cover his mouth like he had last night, and I wondered, not for the first time, why he did that.
I glanced to one side.
“Also …” I continued, thinking that was when I was going to tell him that I was Toulouse, the fan artist that he contacted on Twitter. It flashed through my head, me telling him, him freaking out, me showing him my thirty-seven sketchbooks, him freaking out even more, him calling me weird, him running away, me never seeing him ever again.
I shook my head. “Erm, I forgot what I was about to say.”
Aled lowered his hand. “Okay.”
“You should have seen my face yesterday when you told me,” I said, with a forced laugh.
He smiled, but he looked nervous.
I looked down. “So … yeah. Anyway. Erm. You can go home now, if you want. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” he said, in that whispery voice.
It took quite a lot of effort not to say sorry for saying sorry.
He stood up, but didn’t go to walk out of the door. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know which words to choose.
“Or … I could get you some breakfast? If you want? No pressure, you don’t have to …”
“Ah … I’d feel bad,” he said, but he was smiling faintly and for the first time I felt like I knew what he was thinking.