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Song Qiying was still slightly breathless from sprinting. Even though the rest of him was stationary, his eyes continued chasing Team Demeter’s Ninja.
“Kid,” God Ye said, not rudely, “you have much to improve upon, too.”
“I’ll do my best,” Song Qiying agreed, gaze shifting quickly to Ye Xiu, “but he…”
Despite himself, Song Qiying’s attention drifted back to that same seat behind Ye Xiu’s shoulder.
“He’ll also do his best. I look forward to your next match against one another,” Ye Xiu smiled. A polite indication of their conversation’s conclusion — time for Song Qiying’s return to Tyranny’s player bench. Time for him to let this go.
A somewhat younger Song Qiying might have missed that cue. That Song Qiying, yet to live and work with the Four Generals… he would have chased Mo Fan offstage, and closer to his seat, too.
“Thank you, senior, for your guidance.”
Since it was the right thing to do, Song Qiying bowed.
“Ah, there’s no need for that…”
The venue erupted into jeering.
Song Qiying disregarded the noise. Upon standing up, however, he noticed the expression on Mo Fan’s face. Mo Fan still appeared deeply puzzled.
Had Song Qiying’s questions been so confusing?
Had he pursued them the wrong way?
Mo Fan looked away when Song Qiying tried to catch his eyes, the Ninja’s hand swiftly reaching behind his head for the hood he wouldn’t find there.
Tyranny’s young player felt a pang of sympathy. Not caring about the audience’s misguided shouting didn’t mean he’d never felt the need to hide. Also, he’d seen Su Mucheng backstage before the match, urging Demeter’s Ninja to quickly remove the oversized hoodie he’d been wearing over his team jacket.
Song Qiying didn’t notice Su Mucheng watching him with interest while he was preoccupied with watching Mo Fan.
“Look…” Ye Xiu said, gesturing toward the booing Tyranny supporters with his chin. “That’s why I didn’t want you to do that!”
Song Qiying thought it might be nice if people wouldn’t insist upon assuming his lack of understanding. Knowing the audience could object to his actions wasn’t sufficient reason not to make right choices.
“It was deserved,” Song Qiying insisted.
Behind his captain, Mo Fan was studying the floor and frowning.
Song Qiying turned toward Tyranny’s bench.
“Ah Mo Fan, Mo Fan,” God Su said smoothly. Song Qiying felt her words were being intentionally projected, as though calling Mo Fan’s name while really speaking to Song Qiying. “You’re lucky this isn’t All Star-Weekend. I think he’d have sat by your side if it was. We might have had to take him all the way to dinner, he was chasing you so nicely.”
Song Qiying did not care about the audience’s protesting, but his brow was furrowed deeply by the ambiguity of Su Mucheng’s clear tone.
“What happened?” Vice-Captain Zhang asked. “What did Ye Xiu say to you?”
“Don’t take anything that guy says to heart; it’s all trash talk, got it?” Zhang Jiale said, his expression serious.
“He only said that I had much to improve on,” Song Qiying explained.
“Huh? How come it sounds so… nice?” Zhang Jiale glanced over at Team Demeter. Ye Xiu smiled in return, waving happily in their direction.
Zhang Jiale scowled. “Try not to interact with him, alright? Look how sly his smile is.”
“Forget him,” Captain Han interrupted fiercely. “Why is Mucheng smiling so scarily?”
“What?” Zhang Jiale, originally prepared to interrupt Han Wenqing in turn, glanced back to Demeter’s bench. “Oh, shit,” he said. “She really is.” He looked intensely at Song Qiying. “Little teammate, what did you do?”
Song Qiying was feeling somewhat intimidated by hearing Captain Han describe anything as scary, let alone someone so small and approachable as Su Mucheng; nevertheless, he did his best to summarize his actions concisely, only ending with a helpless shrug regarding God Su’s “scary” smiling.
“Better not to think about it,” Zhang Jiale advised with great sincerity. He shifted slightly in his seat, somehow sprawling in a way designed to highlight his prettiness while radiating calm. (Song Qiying had yet to comprehend how, precisely, Zhang Jiale achieved this; however, he had been able to detect a clear correlation between an obvious rise in Zhang Jiale’s negative emotions and Zhang Jiale choosing to adopt this position.)
Was God Su truly so frightening…?
Lin Jingyan pressed a reassuring hand to Zhang Jiale’s knee. “Better not to over-think it,” the Brawler corrected, his words directed at Song Qiying while his attention stayed upon Zhang Jiale.
Team Captain Han grunted, “PK the kid and call it practice.”
Song Qiying appreciated this suggestion greatly. Not only was it clearly achievable, it had also returned to the core of Song Qiying’s mental disarray.
“Sit down and rest,” Vice-Captain Zhang interjected, firmly overriding everyone. “Don’t worry too much about your loss, or Team Demeter’s players.”
Song Qiying nodded. He obediently returned to his seat, yet his mind was unwilling to obediently return to the present.
How come Mo Fan absolutely had to use such a tempo? How come Mo Fan had looked at Song Qiying with such confusion?
Song Qiying internalized very little of Zhang Jiale’s match against Su Mucheng.
Mo Fan, he noted, did not look at Tyranny’s player bench the entire time.
Upon returning to Tyranny’s home base, Song Qiying found himself unable to follow Zhang Jiale or Lin Jingyan’s advice. Therefore, he elected to do his best to succeed at Captain Han’s.
Unfortunately, “PK the kid and call it practice” turned out rather less achievable than Song Qiying had expected.
First, Song Qiying requested to be added by Deception as an in game friend. Deception’s friend list was not full; Song Qiying checked. Since there was the possibility of mistakenly pressing “reject” when “accept” had been intended, however, Song Qiying sent this same request some days in a row.
Song Qiying also sent some messages to Mo Fan within the world chat. This resulted in a great number of unhelpful responses, but not, as it happened, the one Song Qiying had wanted.
Soon, Song Qiying found himself reaching for the internet. Sogou, he discovered, seemed intent upon teaching him about some character from a cultivation novel, while searching for “Deception” sent him lurching from debates about song lyrics to forum post after forum post bemoaning the scrap-picker’s infamously talented in game skills.
He lost an entire lunch break scrolling through Deme-Cybercafé’s Weibo after discovering the lady boss had posted a significant number of team photographs during their time in the Challenger’s League. It took a certain kind of perseverance to find those few photographs Mo Fan had not managed to step partially out of.
Vice-Captain Zhang expressed his displeasure strongly; not least regarding Song Qiying’s uneaten pancakes.
Song Qiying only thought to reach out in the Glory Pro Players group chat as a final resort. @Deception, he pinged, @Deception; until Zhang Jiale leaned over and begged him to stop embarrassing himself.
“I’m not embarrassed?” Song Qiying said because he wasn’t.
“Heavens save me from the ‘tism,” Zhang Jiale pleaded, hands clasped dramatically together. Song Qiying only rolled his eyes; everyone knew Tyranny’s Spitfire had his own brain weasels and, besides, it was clearly said in jest.
In any event: if Song Qiying could so easily shake the desire to understand Mo Fan, would he even be Song Qiying?
He needed to know how come Mo Fan had to play like that.
Mo Fan had said he had no choice. Fine; Song Qiying accepted it. Acceptance, however, did not equal understanding.
Song Qiying lived for understanding.
“The thing is,” Lin Jingyan said one evening, while balancing extra pickled cabbage on the edge of Song Qiying’s bowl, “that Ninja will block you if you keep chasing him this way.”
Zhang Jiale snickered. “You don’t find it telling that he hasn’t blocked him already?” Zhang Jiale poked Song Qiying’s arm. “He hasn’t, right?”
Song Qiying shook his head.
“Maybe he deletes the app from his phone whenever he’s tired of it,” Captain Han said.
“Not everyone’s like you, Old Han.” Zhang Jiale flopped against Captain Han’s shoulder as though the mere idea overwhelmed him.
When Captain Han’s fingers drifted up to pet Zhang Jiale’s hair, Song Qiying frowned at his bowl. He found himself possessed by the image of Mo Fan, back then, reaching for the hoodie he wasn’t wearing.
When Song Qiying remembered to look up, Qin Muyun was looking curiously at him.
“You could try… asking Jiang You…” Qin Muyun slowly suggested, his tone enigmatic. “There’s probably information the guild didn’t bother giving the team. Less about the player, more about… where he’s frequently seen in game…?”
Lin Jingyan dropped his chopsticks with a clutter, hand flying up to flap scoldingly in Qin Muyun’s direction. “Muyun! Don’t you start giving tips to level-up his stalking!”
Song Qiying missed his bedtime, mistakenly remaining in the recreation room reading all the extra notes Jiang You had dutifully sent over.
Zhang Xinjie, upon discovering him during dorm rounds, unexpectedly banned him from playing around in the game for a month.
« I think it’s very cute :) » God Su messaged one morning. « But if you really want him, you’ll need to work much smarter than this. Haven’t you heard what it took for our team to woo him? How much harder for one person courting all on his own? :) :) »
Song Qiying was excellent at typing. He wrote a response in no time at all, very politely expressing some objection to God Su’s language choices. What “woo”? What “court”?
Then, his little finger stopped to hover above the enter key.
All of a sudden, Song Qiying realized some things.
He thought of the VODs he’d watched and the forum posts he’d read. He contemplated Captain Han’s complicated expression upon finding Song Qiying peering intently at a certain photograph, and Lin Jingyan’s heaving sigh the third time he’d caught Song Qiying requesting Deception’s in game friendship.
He remembered the pang he’d felt when Mo Fan had tried to hide in plain sight, and how confused Mo Fan had been by someone simply trying to stop and understand him.
Song Qiying moved his finger carefully to the backspace key. He held it down with a great and sudden understanding.
Starting over, Song Qiying wrote:
« Apologies in advance for inconveniencing you, senior. I would greatly appreciate any advice you’re willing to offer. »