AllFreeNovel
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“See? It’s not so bad,” he said. He took my phone and extended his arm in order to take a picture of us in front of his streaming setup.
He then urged me to post the picture of the two of us on Instagram, tag him, and then link the stream. Then to do the same thing on Twitter. In a matter of seconds, he shared my posts on his own accounts and my phone started buzzing with notifications as his fans started finding my account. The constant pings were so fucking irritating so Alex showed me how to silence my notifications.
“Just let me know when you get hungry and we can order some delivery,” he said as we moved to his desk.
I set down my can of Red Bull on the side of the desk, away from the electronics, and I stretched my hands above my head to release the tension from my long shift and get into the zone. My muscles loosened as I settled into the seat and tucked my feet under myself. It wasn’t the most proper way to sit, but it was the only position that didn’t make my muscles scream.
Then not even a minute later, we went live.
I struggled to read the constant stream of chat messages, butfrom what I could gather from all the emotes that accompanied them, his viewers seemed hyped.
“I told you I didn’t scare her off, chat, chill,” Alex joked. “Today, we will be teaching Miss OracleMyth how to win games by roaming.”
I shrugged. “You think you can teach me all about it in one day?”
“All of that depends on how fast you learn,” he smirked. “Knowing when and where to move around the map isn’t the most complicated thing in the world.”
He was mocking me, but in a playful and lighthearted kind of way. Roaming was objectively the most difficult aspect of the game.
“Oh, bring it on.” I narrowed my eyes at him before entering into my first match. The adrenaline surged as I locked in my champion, ready for whatever Alex and the game were going to throw at me. I was ready to prove myself.
As I was concentrating on my game and Alex’s directions, I hadn’t felt the pressure building up in my throat and accidentally let out a loud burp when I tried to say something to Alex. He tried to keep a straight face but failed, letting a faint laugh slip out.
“Sorry!” I said, feeling my face heating up and praying for the Earth to swallow me. “You should know by now I’m not very proper or ladylike. But this was low, even for me.”
The chat exploded with laughing emotes and I could see it scrolling by with my peripheral vision. I was so embarrassed my face was burning up. But I couldn’t really concentrate on my embarrassment as I played game after game and had to listen to Alex and try to change my bad habits as he pointed them out.
The hours flew by unnoticeably as I kept winning. Alex was more of a coach than the previous night and kept asking mequestions about the decisions I was making on the fly. By the end of the night I understood what he was doing— He was teaching me the questions I should be asking myself before making a decision in-game. At some point the image of Alex as some ancient, wise master, like a frail, old sensei in a cheesy kung fu movie, guiding me on the path of not completely sucking at my favorite game popped up in my mind and made me crack up.
During a quiet moment between games, as I was waiting in the matchmaking queue, my stomach let out a loud rumble that was even picked up by the mic. I saw a message in chat that said that Alex was starving me and couldn’t help but laugh.
Alex eyed me for a second, suppressing a smile. “I guess I’ll order the pizza now.”
I laughed again. “I swear I’m not that hungry. Sorry about that! Sorry about everything!”
Why couldn’t my body be quiet today? I felt like it was trying to embarrass me on purpose. I was so tired that every awkward moment, and especially these bodily mishaps were sending me into momentary panics.
When we paused for dinner once the pizza arrived, Alex decided to let the chat ask us questions. We were going to answer them while we ate. As he was sorting that out, I reached for my Red Bull can and downed the last few sips left.
“So, here’s the first question,” Alex said, pointing at the screen. “What does your username OracleMyth mean?”
“Oracle comes from a nickname I had in school. I was kinda good at predicting all kinds of stuff. And Myth just felt right to slap on to it. It doesn’t really have a deep meaning. Does your username have any meaning behind it?” I turned the question back on him.
“No meaning,” Alex replied. “I wanted the username Monster,but it was always taken. Instead I decided to drop all the vowels and then added X from Alex and ta-da, you have MnstrX.”
He had practiced that explanation it seemed. I wondered how many times he had been asked about it over the years.
Without missing a beat, Alex continued on to the next question, which was addressed to him, asking him about the meta of the patch, which characters were strong, which items were reworked. He got carried away and went on a tangent about the game map changing and I couldn’t help but hang on to his every word. I noticed that when we were streaming or talking about NLA, he was different. The anxious energy that radiated from him melted away. He was in his element.
The next question was directed at me again.
“When did you start playing?” Alex read out loud.
“Three and a half years ago. It took me a while to get good. I have three thousand and something hours.”
“Three thousand hours in three years and some change? And you were telling me you just played casually. That’s a lot of hours in a relatively short amount of time for a casual,” he noted, giving me a sideways look that made something in my stomach flutter.
The only thing I could do to squash the feeling was to inhale the rest of my pizza. I then played two more games on stream, both of which were losses. After the last one, Alex decided it was time to call it a night. I was tired and playing sloppily. Our energy was dropping and we were getting a bit too comfortable in front of the camera.
