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“So, I actually started off playing a lot of Support. It’s my favorite role but everyone always thought less of me for playing it. They said I wasn’t good enough for the more 'challenging' roles. That’s why I started playing everything.” She spoke so fast that she ran out of breath. Then looked at me expectantly.
I raised an eyebrow. “Really? At higher levels of play, we’re starved for willing Support players. It’s one of the most sought-after roles. You can find matches in seconds if you queue up Support. You must know Ryan, PangoMango?”
“Of course I know who PangoMango is!” Her voice rose an octave but it sounded more offended than excited. “You two are,like, the most iconic duo. Is it true you’re a package deal? That you won’t sign with a team unless they take both of you?”
I laughed. She was definitely a fangirl—just not of me. Ryan was going to have a field day when I told him about this. “No, we’re not a package deal but most teams like to keep us together. Why fix what isn’t broken, right?” I chuckled. “The reason I mentioned him is because he’s the one who taught me how to play Support. And now I’m going to teach you how to play Support like him.”
Her eyes narrowed again. “Really? But how am I supposed to climb to Challenger? It feels impossible to make any impact when I play Support at my rank.”
“That’s not true. You have plenty of impact, you just don’t close out games as easily as other roles, which is why it feels that way. As a Support your job isn’t to close out the games, really, it’s to set up your Carry to close them out for you. If you like playing Support, we should stick with it. The only other role I could coach you on is Carry, and I’ve watched your games, you’re not great at it. Sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be sorry!” she laughed. “I know I’m god-awful at it. Whenever I get auto-filled as Carry, I consider dodging the game and eating the wait timer.”
Her laugh caught me by surprise. It was there one moment and gone the next, leaving me to wonder if I’d imagined it. Her face was blank again.
She paused, thinking it over. Emma swallowed hard and set her jaw. “Fine. So you want to coach me to climb to Challenger in a month as a Support? You know your chat will think you’ve lost your mind, right? The internet will rip you apart. And that’s without considering I’m a woman. Even if you tried climbing as Support no one would believe it’s possible.”
“So you don’t think you can do it?” I challenged.
She shifted in her seat. “Wait, you think I can?”
It was as if I had snuffed all the fire in her. The confident and almost annoyed woman that had sat in front of me this whole time had a deer-in-headlights look on her face, her shoulders dropping for the first time today.
“Oh, I do,” I said. “If you show up every night and actually try to learn what I’m teaching you then I’ll prove my chat, the internet, and most importantly, you, wrong. You’ll be Challenger before you know it.”
I could see the gears turning in her mind. Her expression shifted and then suddenly her face went blank again. She opened her mouth as if to say something but then stopped herself. “Fine. I’ll do it,” she finally said, rolling her eyes. “Where do I sign?”
“I know you meant that as a joke but you will have to sign something, just not tonight,” I explained. “Here’s the plan: we’ll head back to my place and do the stream tonight. If it goes well, I’ll make the big announcement at the end and my org will draw up the papers tomorrow. We’ll agree on the terms tonight after the stream. How does that sound?”
“What if it doesn’t work out down the line?” She asked. “A month is a long time for things to go wrong.”
“If it doesn’t work out we can always call it off. But what if it does work out?” I shot back with a grin.
Several emotions flashed across her face in a matter of seconds: doubt, curiosity, determination. “You’ve really thought this through, huh? I guess it can’t hurt to try.”
I sighed, relieved. I took a look at my watch. "Great. Let’s get going then. We have half an hour until we have to go live. Let me show you the way to my place, it’s only a short walk from here.”
Emma followed me out of the café, walking a step behind me. The cool, September air was a welcome distraction, clearing myhead as we made our way to my apartment. As we walked she kept asking questions, and I kept answering them.
The more she talked, the more I realized she was growing on me and I couldn’t deny she was actually really cute in person. Long brown hair that seemed to bounce as she walked, dark brown eyes that seemed to almost sparkle when she got excited talking about NLA. She was even cute-sized—she was short, she didn't even come up to my shoulder kind of short— and her voice was smooth. I wondered if she could sing. I had noted earlier that she was wearing an old NLA hoodie so I decided to ask her about it.
“Where did you get the hoodie from? It’s pretty rare,” I asked her once I got the chance.
“Oh. Ah, well, it was my ex-boyfriend’s. He forgot it at my place and never took it back. He was a pretty hardcore player. He was never any good but he had been playing the game since launch. He had gone to all major tournaments, as a viewer of course. He collected a lot of merchandise,” she explained.
“I don’t fault you for keeping it. It’s a cool hoodie. I don’t even have one. I started playing later on and missed that whole era with the collectibles.”
Emma nodded along, and silence filled the air once more. My mind was racing, trying to piece together who her ex might have been. Maybe he wasn’t anyone that I knew if he really was just a passionate fan. What crossed my mind, though, was that he might be watching the stream tonight.
I had to drag my old gaming chair out of the closet. I was getting everything ready for the stream. Emma was fidgeting with her nails as she sat on the edge of my bed where I had instructed her tostay while I sorted everything out. She was a guest and I wasn’t going to take her help, no matter how many times she offered it.
When I finally set everything up, I invited her to sit in the gaming chair in front of the desk and I sat in the one to her right. I booted up my streaming program and clicked ‘go live’ before Emma could change her mind. We were live, no turning back now.
She was quite surprised I had gone live immediately and shot me a dirty look before putting on a pleasant smile. As the viewers poured in, Emma kept looking between me and the monitor. I, on the other hand, was looking at the chat.
FlakeN
Who’s that?
