One More
“Behind you, behind you, BEHIND YOU!”
Amy’s voice screeched through my headset.
I spun my character around just in time to dodge the incoming ultimate ability. My fingers flew over the keyboard, muscle memory taking over.
“Relax, I saw him. Kael never misses.”
“Kael never misses because you never miss,” George corrected, his own character, a bulky tank named Ox, charging forward to body-block for me. “Some of us aren’t obsessed with our pixel boyfriend.”
“Excuse you!” I didn’t bother to explain myself. I was busy chasing after my kills.
On screen, my Kael, all six-foot-something of silver-haired, ice-wielding perfection, unleashed his signature frost lance combo. The enemy team’s health bars evaporated.
“PENTAKILL!”
“THAT’S MY GIRL!” Amy screamed so loud I had to yank my headset off.
George and I both let out matching groans like we had just been stabbed in the ears. With that scream? We might as well have been.
“Amy, please. My eardrums might burst.” George’s dry voice was barely audible over Amy’s continued celebration.
“George, if you spent half as much time complimenting Amy as you do complaining, maybe you two would finally...”
“VICTORY” flashed across my screen, cutting me off.
“Finally what?” Amy asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Finally... stop making me third wheel,” I finished lamely. “You two play together more than a married couple.”
“That’s because you’re always off in Kael-land, fantasizing about your frozen prince,” George shot back.
“At least my pixel crush has good hair. Unlike some people who think a backwards baseball cap counts as styling.”
Amy giggled.
George made a strangled noise of protest, a curt "GG" then disconnected from voice chat. Sheesh, rude.
“You know he actually does try with his hair before our duo sessions, right?” Amy said quietly.
“And you know he only wears that baseball cap because you once said you liked guys in caps, right?”
“Yuna!”
I could practically hear Amy blushing through the mic. I bit my lower lip and smiled to myself.
“God... Goodnight! See you tomorrow!” she squeaked, then disconnected too.
I leaned back in my gaming chair, the victory screen still glowing with Kael’s post-game animation. That subtle smirk he did when players won, the kind that suggested that he barely even had tried to put in any effort on winning the match.
Cocky bastard.
I smiled despite the thought, then leaned forward, resting my elbow on the desk and my chin on my palm. His deep, dark blue eyes stared back from the screen, smouldering under messy strands of hair, his chiseled jawline unfairly perfect.
I caught myself biting my lower lip, wondering what it’d even feel like to kiss someone real like him... and then immediately shook my head, scoffing under my breath.
“Get a fucking grip,” I muttered, half-chiding, half-laughing at myself. “Guys like that doesn't exist.”
The animation was stupidly detailed for a game. The way his silver hair moved in an invisible wind, how his deep ice-blue eyes seemed to look through the screen rather than at it. The developers had given him this particular stance, one hand resting on the pommel of his frost blade, the other casually at his side.
So hot, and so cool.
Unreasonably attractive for a collection of pixels and code.
I read his lore again, just so I can imagine myself in it later before I go to bed. The character lore said he was protecting his younger brother who had been cursed by dark magic, that underneath the cold and distant exterior was someone who cared deeply but couldn’t show it.
In the game’s story mode, there was this one cinematic where Kael stayed up all night researching curse-breaking spells, his face illuminated by candlelight, exhaustion evident in every line of his expression. And when his brother Kieran asked why he bothered, Kael had just looked away and said, “Someone has to.”
God, I was pathetic.
Getting emotional over a character backstory.
My phone buzzed, rescuing me from my spiral of self-awareness. A notification from the school’s main chat group.
Jackson Miller leads team to regional finals.
There was a photo attached. Jackson, mid-action, hair sweaty, face determined, everything about him alive and real and present. Well, he is my actual, real-world crush. With his warm brown eyes and sun-kissed skin from all those outdoor practices.
Where Kael was winter, Jackson was summer. And just as unreachable.
I clicked on the photo, zooming in like the creep I was. Jackson was smiling in this one, the kind of genuine grin that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. He was surrounded by his teammates, all of them celebrating. In the background, I could just make out a flash of blonde hair.
Scarlett.
Of course.
I sighed, plugging my phone back to the charger and logged off my com, the victory high from the game already evaporating. My room suddenly felt a lot smaller now, more... intimate.
Posters of various game characters lined my walls. Not just from Eternal Battleground, but from all my favorites over the years. My bookshelf was crammed with strategy guides, art books, and novels. My desk was a organized chaos of homework and sketches (mostly of Kael, embarrassingly enough).
This was my kingdom. This was where I made sense.
Out there, in the hallways of Northwood High, I was just... background noise. Not quite invisible, but not worth noticing either. I wasn’t bullied... well, not by most people. I wasn’t friendless. Amy and George have been my bestest friends since middle school.
But I wasn’t seen.
Not the way Scarlett was seen when she catwalks the hallway with her bitchy posse. Not the way Jackson was seen when he scores the winning point for the school.
I flopped onto my bed, staring at the ceiling. The glow-in-the-dark stars I had put up in middle school were still there, arranged in constellations I invented.
I called it the Kael. Jesus.
The thing about fictional crushes was that they felt safe. Kael would never reject me because Kael wasn’t real. He would never choose someone else, never find me boring, never realize I was ordinary.
In the game, I controlled him. I made him powerful. I made him win.
In real life, I controlled nothing.
My phone dinged, a Discord notification.
FrostPrince47: gg tonight
I frowned. FrostPrince47. They were on the enemy team, playing as Kieran, Kael’s cursed brother. They were actually really good, which made our victory even sweeter.
Ironically, we ended up adding each other after a few matches. We hardly talk, so I’m not even sure how we became Discord friendly. But hey, as long as they’re human, it’s fine right?
Me: thanks! you too
Me: that combo you pulled mid-lane was nasty
FrostPrince47: learned from the best
FrostPrince47: you’re like rank 3 Kael in the region right?
My heart did a little flutter. In here, people noticed.
Me: rank 2 actually
Me: got bumped up last week
FrostPrince47: damn
FrostPrince47: any tips? trying to climb with Kieran but keep getting countered
We chatted for another twenty minutes about builds and strategies, about the upcoming patch notes and which characters were getting nerfed.
FrostPrince47 was funny, self-deprecating in a way that felt genuine rather than fishing for compliments. They made jokes about how they kept accidentally ulting walls instead of enemies, how they once flashed into the enemy fountain because they panicked.
It was easy. Natural. The way conversation should be.
FrostPrince47: anyway i should sleep
FrostPrince47: got school tomorrow
Me: same
Me: thanks for the chat
FrostPrince47: anytime
FrostPrince47: maybe we can duo queue sometime?
FrostPrince47: Kael and Kieran synergy is broken if played right
Me: yeah that could be fun
FrostPrince47: cool
FrostPrince47: night, rank 2
Me: night
I smiled at my screen, then immediately felt silly for smiling. This was how I become the person George and Amy teased. But it’s weird, isn’t it?
How someone you’ve never met can still feel... familiar. Like you’ve built this quiet little bridge between two screens. You don’t know them, not really, but somehow you kind of do.
It’s not love or anything that beyond dramatic. Just this small, irrational bond that makes your brain go, hey, they get it.
And then the hey, maybe they like you?
Meh.
No way anyone would like me.
I sighed and opened Instagram out of habit. Jackson’s profile popped up on top of my feed (I added him ages ago, back when it didn’t feel like a big deal).
Curiosity won, so I tapped on his story. There he was, grinning with the team at some diner, milkshake in hand, celebrating another win. And right beside him, leaning in just close enough for the camera, was Scarlett.
I groaned and turned my phone face-down and pulled my blanket over my head.
Tomorrow I would deal with reality. Tomorrow, I would sit in AP Bio and try not to stare at the back of Jackson’s head. Tomorrow, I would navigate the hallways and hope Scarlett was in a good enough mood to ignore me.
Tomorrow, I would be regular me. The girl who was good at school but not great, who had friends but not popularity, who existed in that strange middle ground of high school social hierarchy.
But... tonight?
Tonight I just pulled off a pentakill. Tonight I was rank 2 in the region. Tonight I was someone who mattered, even if only in a game.
I bit my lower lip and stared at my computer at the side. I got off my bed, reached out and tapped my keyboard, bringing my monitor back to life.
The Eternal Battleground menu screen glowed in the darkness. Kael stood in the center, his signature pose, his impossible silver hair, his eyes that seemed to know secrets the rest of us could never understand.
“Just one more game,” I whispered to the empty room.
I queued up solo, and within seconds found a match.
And for the next forty minutes, I was exactly who I wanted to be.
