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Casey
Weird question, but did a guy talk to you at the café tonight?
Yes, why?
Did I blow off one of your friends by mistake?
There was a pause, and then Casey sent another message, along with a picture.
Casey
No, not my friend. Was it this guy?
I recognized him immediately. He was even wearing the same clothes from earlier as he sat behind a desk, a microphone to the side—he was on a stream. I tapped my nails on myphone screen, unsure of how to respond. How did Casey know he talked to me? I didn’t say anything to her.
Yeah… why?
Casey
OMG. Ems, do you know who that is?
Should I? He did look sort of familiar.
Casey answered with a link to a video and I immediately opened it. The video loaded and most of the screen was taken up by a paused tournament video. In the bottom right corner there was a face cam of the guy from the café in front of his gaming setup, talking to the camera.
“Hey, if my mystery girl from the gaming café is somehow watching this, you should reach out to me?—”
As the video played, I scrolled to see who the guy was. When I saw his gaming handle my hand flew to my mouth and I bit into my knuckle.
MnstrX.
I didn’t follow the esports scene but even I knew who that was—only the best Carry player in North America. I had no idea what he looked like; no wonder I didn’t recognize him. I had probably seen him in a commercial or something. He was one of the faces of gaming and NLA.
I blinked, processing what I had just heard. A shiver ran down my spine. That was MnstrX. He was calling me his mystery girl and offering to coach me on his stream. He said I was pretty cool too. He wasn’t just tall, lean, and good with his hands. He was the best there is with his hands—when it came to playing NLA, of course. And he had been thinking about me all night? Tosay that I was blushing was an understatement. My cheeks felt like they were on fire and I had to press my cool fingers against them.
Another message from Casey popped up.
Casey
See?! You should totally message him! The guy is serious; he’s injured and can’t play for months. He needs something to do.
And what better way to celebrate Masters than getting one-on-one lessons by one of the GOATs of NLA.
I considered it for a moment, then typed back.
IDK, Casey. You really think he means what he said? He could’ve been just playing it up for the stream.
I found his last stream and watched the clips his viewers had recorded from it. I watched a few where he talked about meeting me at the café, mentioning how stupid it was that I was harassed in-game. He even beat himself up for being awkward when he talked to me and joked about having never talked to a girl before. I took a deep breath and opened a private message chat with him. I was going to shoot my shot, I guess.
Hey, I’m the mystery girl from the café. My name is Emma, BTW. I saw your stream and wanted to thank you for the offer. I would love to talk more about it if you actually meant it and weren’t playing it up for the stream. If you were, that's totally cool as well.
P.S. I don’t really follow esports so I had no idea what you looked like. My friend was watching your stream and showed me the clip. Don’t feel foolish for assuming I would know who you were; I honestly feel embarrassed that I didn’t.
I re-read the message five times before I hit send and immediately felt a wave of anxiety wash over me. I checked the time, it was late and I had to be up early for work. I sighed, setting my phone aside and lying back on the bed. My mind kept me awake for a long while afterward.
Finally I forced myself to close my eyes and tried to relax. Despite my best efforts sleep eluded me for a while. But eventually exhaustion took over and I drifted off.
Chapter 4
