Love the keyboard More Than Love Hailey
"Hailey, Aidan and I broke up."
The message from her friend Jasmine popped up on Discord. Hailey Lane froze for a solid three seconds, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. She grabbed a cookie from the bag on her desk and stuffed it in her mouth, chewing hard as if that could somehow help her process the words. Finally, she typed back.
"Why'd you break up?"
"He's out of my league."
The four words stared back at her, cold and final. Hailey just looked at them, then let out a soft "oh" to her empty room, immediately realizing that Jasmine couldn't hear her.
Jasmine's boyfriend, well, *ex*-boyfriend now, was Aidan Jensen, a professional *League of Legends* player. An e-sports athlete, as they called them now. Years ago, the government had officially recognized e-sports as a legitimate sport, which meant guys like Aidan saw their paychecks and public profiles skyrocket.
In reality, though, most of them were just internet-addicted teens who could happily survive on a diet of instant noodles as long as they had a computer. Dating one, Hailey figured, probably wasn't much different from dating a celebrity, just with less glamour and more LAN parties.
*I told you not to get with that terminally online teenager,* she thought, grabbing another cookie. Unsure of how to reply to her friend, who was probably still fuming, she just clicked on the *League of Legends* icon on her desktop instead.
The client loaded in Korean. She'd been playing on the Korea server recently, since their e-sports industry was way more developed. It meant more pros were on the server, which in turn drew in players from all over the world looking for a real challenge. Hailey had even run into a few of them.
After logging in, before she could even start queuing for a match, a chat box popped up in the corner. The user ID was in English, and the message was... direct.
'HI, friend. want: to: come: play: pro: in: the: US?'
The broken English was so comically blunt that Hailey laughed out loud, a spray of cookie crumbs hitting her monitor.
She typed back a casual reply.
'I am American.'
The other side was silent for three seconds.
Then a long string of "hahahahahah" filled the chat.
'You play really well. How old are you? Do you want to come play professionally? I'm from the Verizon team.'
Hailey stared at the words, her mind going blank. It took a long moment for their meaning to finally sink in, and when it did, she let out a sharp, piercing shriek. "Ah!"
A second later, her mother burst in from the kitchen, brandishing a cleaver still slick from cleaning fish. "What's wrong? Is there a cockroach?!"
"Mom, someone wants me to play professionally!" Hailey yelled, pointing at the screen. "It's a really famous team, sponsored by Verizon! Their headquarters are in Los Angeles!"
Her mother just gave her an unimpressed "Oh." Then she said, "Last week, I got a call saying I won a Rolls-Royce because I bought fish at the supermarket."
Hailey was speechless.
"How can you be so gullible?" her mother sighed. "Play professionally? What about your studies? Getting good at some video game has gone to your head. Did you finish your summer assignments?"
"I'm a college freshman, Mom, I don't have summer homework," Hailey muttered, turning back to the screen. "They said the annual salary is ninety thousand dollars, and that's not even counting prize money from tournaments. They also said if I'm not satisfied, we can still negotiate."
The room went quiet. Her mother slowly lowered the cleaver. "Give him your contact information."
"What? Didn't you just say it was a scam?"
"A scammer would promise nine hundred thousand dollars."
"Maybe this is just a low-budget scammer."
"It's not like giving them your phone number is going to kill you."
"But what about college? I thought we agreed I had to study."
"Take a semester off! Make your ninety thousand dollars and then go back to school," her mother said, waving the cleaver for emphasis. "Give him the phone number."
The way she was holding that thing, it felt less like a suggestion and more like a threat. Hailey could practically feel the cold steel against her forehead. Shaking her head, she turned back to her computer, thought for a moment, and started to type.
