sugarrush-77

Yena entered a state of certain death when playing TFT. Dead in multiple ways. The way her eyes were glazed over, dead. The way she was hardstuck in Emerald IV, 37 LP, never deviating more than 30 LP from it over the course of the entire season, dead. The way her she couldn’t hear Janice until she was literally screaming into her ear, also dead.

“WHAT!”

“Jeez. It’s like you’re dead when you’re playing that game. When you could have more fun with me!”

Yena didn’t respond. She was rerolling like crazy, click, click, click on the virtual slot machine Riot Games had created to keep her in the game, hoping that she would win this one, and the next, and maybe another one. That one day she would become Challenger, just like the cool people. Champion profiles flashed as they were replaced by others, creating pairs, pairs of pairs, pairs of pairs of pairs. She had some success. But not enough.

The next battle, her fluffy, white Poro King was slain by a hail of blades unleashed by an Irelia chibi. Before her screen went gray, Janice got a glimpse of the other player’s name. “ILOVEARMPITS”

“Ew. Is your name in this game I love armp—”

Yena slammed the table with a tiny fist, and immediately withdrew her hand to her face, blowing profusely.

“Now that you’re dead, we can do something! It’ll be great Yena!”

“Shaddup.”

Yena queued again with trembling fingers.

“I’m going to pee. If I get matched, press accept for me.”

Janice began to count. She was so focused she didn’t hear the sound of a match being found. Yena opened the door. Janice held out her fingers.

“Five. It took you sixty-five seconds to pee. You were holding that in for a long time, huh? You should take more bathroom breaks—”

“FUCK YOU!”

Yena tried to push Janice aside as she stomped to the computer, queueing again.

“You can’t even press accept for me. You’re useless. Get OUT!”

Janice pouted. Then stopped pouting. She jumped onto Yena’s bed, hands behind her head.

“Hahhh, I love this bed.”

She turned over, buried her face in what used to be white pillow, now lightly yellow, darker yellow around the edges. No pillowcase. Breathed in deep, like a vacuum, attempting to suck every molecule of air from within the pillow.

“Ohhh fuckkk…”

Janice moaned, and took a desperate, deeper breath, like she was trying to suffocate herself. One man’s trash is another’s treasure, and in this case, the pillow definitely needed to be put in the trash due to how it looked and smelled, but to Janice it was treasure. If you put it into the dumpster, Janice would sift through heaps of trash to find it again.

Yena wouldn’t have cared if she knew, and she definitely didn’t care now. TFT was on the menu. Janice sidled up to Yena, and began to trace the contours of Yena’s arm with her nose, breathing in as she went, eyes closed. She nudged Yena.

“How long haven’t you showered for?”

“Stop bothering me.”

“How long?”

“Go away.”

“Two days?”

“Four.”

“Pay attention to me, not that stupid game.”

Silence.

“If I play this game, will you play with me?”

“No. You’re bad.”

“You could teach me.”

Janice sighed. She only had one option left. The nuclear option. She didn’t like to exercise it as of late, because when she dressed up, cosplayed as Kasane Teto, it felt like Yena was staring at her, but not at her. She was staring at the cosplay. Janice got into the outfit even though she didn’t really want to.

“Look.”

“Look.”

“Look.”

Yena finally looked. And smiled for the first time in hours. Tousled the red, fake hair styled into pointed drills at either side of Janice’s head, mouth agape. The game was still on, but Yena wasn’t playing anymore. Janice cried. She took the wig off and threw it on the floor. Yena looked at the wig, then at Janice again. A confused look on her face. Janice stumbled out of Yena’s dorm room, vision clouded by tears. Yena looked at the wig, then at the open door. Yena looked at her bed. Janice had left her bag on it.

Yena jumped on her bed and looked up at the ceiling. She pulled a handful of hair onto her nose and inhaled. Crinkled nose, coughing. She turned over, sniffed the pillow. It was worse. She didn’t understand.