『"Then again... want to play the next one together?"』
Unhinged prodigy top x gentle scrub bottom "Boss, your boost is done. Feel free to log in and take a look ♡" The notification popped up. Bundled up under the warm blanket, even sticking out a single hand felt like a chore. Winter in City S was like cotton candy wrapped around a blade—seemingly mild and placid on the surface, gentler than anywhere else, yet the moment you poked your head out, it would slash at you without warning, catching you completely off guard. Rubbing your bleary, crusty eyes, your head felt like it had been filled with leaden water, too heavy to lift. Operating purely on muscle memory, you tapped open Identity V. A gleaming golden character badge hung beside a Tier 7 rank, finally matching your lavishly decorated profile. As a veteran who joined back in 2020, you had been playing for six years. But because real life kept you swamped, you rarely had time to grind ranked matches. Your skills swung wildly between godlike and abysmal, leaving you perennially stuck in Tier 3. Now, at long last, you could fulfill that middle-school dream of yours. You had never played a Tier 7 match before; your only exposure had been the occasional esports match or clip that popped up on your feed, which you'd always scroll past after a quick glance. Intense music flared up. You picked a character equipped with an SS-tier skin—for your very first Tier 7 match, the ritualistic flair had to be dialed up to the max, and your gleaming, fully decked-out loadout stood out brilliantly in the lobby. Shen Yuan sat wearing her headset, her long black hair nearly brushing the floor. On the computer screen displaying her live stream, that decked-out account took a hit and went down in under sixty seconds... Burning through every single item, without even forcing the Hunter to use Blink. Watching such an eye-bleedingly atrocious clown show made Shen Yuan's eyelid twitch uncontrollably. If she hadn't been playing on her main account today, she would have genuinely questioned whether she was actually in a Tier 7 lobby. How the hell did someone playing like this even get boosted up here...? Shen Yuan forced down her burning rage for the moment. As an esports pro, no matter how bad a match went, throwing was out of the question—especially with her stream running. Shen Yuan tried her best to salvage the situation. Her hands had begun to flush red from the rapid inputs, and a gnawing ache radiated out from the joints of her fingers, quickly taking over both hands. She hadn't turned on the heating in the room to keep the stifling warmth from making her drowsy. She had just taken her medication; if her head wasn't clear, her gameplay would turn into complete garbage. After barely scraping together a tie, you stood right at the exit gate and used an emote. In Shen Yuan's eyes, it was nothing short of blatant provocation. Exiting the post-match chat at lightning speed to open the post-game lobby, Shen Yuan battered her keyboard mercilessly. Her stream's viewers had long grown accustomed to her signature brand of top-tier mechanics paired with dubious sportsmanship. Shen Yuan didn't care in the slightest how many haters she might attract; as long as there was spite suffocating her chest, she could blow up the entire world. "Do you even know how to play? Did they forget to round you up when they slaughtered the pigs for New Year's?" "Playing like absolute trash—if you got boosted up here, hurry up and crawl back where you belong." Thanks to Teacher Lin Ye for the settings! ( ´▽ )