Chapter Text
The Creator Clash tournament had been marketed for two weeks as the biggest Counter-Strike event Twitch had seen all spring, which was probably an exaggeration, but not by much. Forty streamers had been invited, eight captains had been selected by a mix of audience vote and recent performance, and each of them would draft a five-person team before entering a single-elimination bracket. Lose once and you were out. Win all the way through and every person on the final roster got 200 gifted subs.
Two hundred gifted subs each.
Not total. Each.
Which was an absurd amount of money.
Not life-changing money, maybe, but definitely enough to make people sweat a little harder in warmups and pretend they were not staring at the bracket like it held the secrets of the universe.
Satoru’s stream title read:
blindfoldbuff: creator clash tonight. free money. easy bracket.
His chat had been clowning him for the last ten minutes.
yuji_justatefingers: last time you said easy you got knifed in spawn
nobarahammersyou: somebody humble him before the server does
megumi_is_tired: i love when he lies to himself like this
Satoru Gojo ignored all of them with the confidence of a man who had never once in his life benefited from introspection. He sat back in his chair, headset slightly crooked, white hair a mess because he had spent the last half hour running both hands through it while talking big. Pretty enough to get away with arrogance, charming enough to make it entertaining, and just stupid enough to keep believing his own propaganda, he looked straight at the camera and said, “You guys are being weird. This is literally Counter-Strike. I’m built for games like this.”
His rank, visible in the corner of the screen, suggested otherwise.
Warmup started.
Satoru swung too wide around catwalk, missed his first three shots, and got flattened before he could even get a grenade out.
His entire chat erupted instantly.
yuji_justatefingers: “built for games like this” LMFAOOOO
sukunasburner42: mechanically gifted at dying
megumi_is_tired: warmup isnt even over and hes already in spectator
nobarahammersyou: counter-strike was built to punish men like you specifically
“That did not count,” he said after clicking his tongue and respawning. “I was checking ping.”
No one believed him. Honestly, they never did. People still watched anyway because Satoru had managed to build an empire off the back of being ridiculous and occasionally, almost offensively, lucky. He was a giant nerd disguised as a menace, the kind of streamer who could whiff an easy spray transfer and then spend the next five minutes explaining why it had actually been an advanced psychological fake-out. He was also, according to his chat and half the internet, painfully virginal in a way that had somehow become part of his brand.
Satoru claimed not to know why that rumor existed.
His chat claimed it was because of everything about him, from the way he got flustered over nothing to the fact that he somehow made flirting sound like a foreign language he had only read about in textbooks.
The official tournament broadcast went live on his second monitor, cycling through the eight captains while the casters went over the format again. Eight teams of five. Quarterfinals. Semifinals. Finals. One map each until the championship set, where the last two teams standing would play for the subs and the bragging rights and, more importantly, the clips.
Satoru already knew most of the captains. Some were friends, some were rivals, some were people he only tolerated because they made good content when they got tilted.
Then his attention snagged on a username he did not recognize.
pixelmoth
He frowned. “Who’s that?”
The tournament intro reel answered him almost immediately.
Your player clip came up on stream, and Satoru stopped moving.
There were no gimmicks and no overedited nonsense. Just clean Counter-Strike. You cleared angles like you had already imagined every idiot who might be standing there. Your crosshair barely drifted. Your movement was smooth, measured, and efficient. The montage showed a 1v3 post-plant clutch, then a fast mid hold, then a nasty little Deagle shot that made one of the commentators shout, “Oh… that was absolutely disgusting.”
Satoru sat up straighter.
Then your facecam appeared in the corner.
And that was where the situation worsened.
Because apparently you were not just cracked. You were gorgeous, too, in a way that felt deeply unreasonable. You looked calm and focused and a little amused, even. It was as if you were already aware you were better than most of the lobby and had no particular need to announce it.
Satoru kept staring a second too long.
The worst part about being chronically online on Twitch is the way in which chat noticed his second-too-long stare immediately.
yuji_justatefingers: there it is
peachsoda89: oh he likes her bad
nobarahammersyou: posture changed and everything… this man is lowkey whipped
megumi_is_tired: bro just found religion
Satoru blinked hard, like that might reset him somehow, then leaned back a little too quickly. “Okay,” he said, and immediately had to clear his throat. “Relax. I’m evaluating the competition.”
It would have landed better if his ears were not starting to turn pink.
Chat, predictably, only got worse.
yuji_justatefingers: evaluating with heart eyes
nobarahammersyou: he cant even look at the monitor normal anymore
megumi_is_tired: the throat clear LMFAOOO
peachsoda89: oh my god hes embarrassed
smokinghotdr: satoru stand up
Satoru made a face and dragged one hand over his mouth, pretending to think. “You guys are so annoying,” he muttered, still not looking directly at chat for more than half a second. “She had one good clip. Maybe two.”
The denial hung in the air for all of two seconds before chat tore it apart.
The captain draft started a few minutes later.
Eight captains, one by one, choosing from the remaining pool of streamers while the casters speculated and chat yelled about bad picks. Satoru, despite everything, drafted well. He knew who kept their head under pressure, who had good utility usage, who could actually listen to comms instead of turning every round into a solo montage. He picked deliberately, confidently, and with enough sense that even his chat had to begrudgingly admit he was cooking.
You drafted like someone who had done all the same math faster.
The camera kept catching you at different points in the draft, and you never looked rattled. One of your early picks got stolen, you smiled like it was almost funny, and then you adapted without missing a beat.
Satoru hated that he found that attractive.
He hated even more that, almost immediately, he wanted your team on the other side of the bracket. This was not because he thought that would make things easier. If anything, it meant putting off a matchup he wasn’t sure he could win. But if you ran into each other too early, one of you would be out before finals, and for reasons he did not feel like examining too closely, that suddenly felt like a waste.
Quarterfinals started, and the lobby split into four matches. Lose once and you were done. There was no second chance, no lower bracket, no redemption arc, just a quick handshake and a long spectator ride while everyone else kept playing.
Satoru’s team won their first game ugly.
Not badly. Ugly.
They clawed through it with messy site takes, one ridiculous eco, and a completely unnecessary hero play from Satoru that should not have worked but did because apparently the universe occasionally rewarded stupidity out of pity. His chat spent the entire match alternating between calling him washed and calling him blessed.
Your team, meanwhile, dismantled your quarterfinal opponent with surgical efficiency.
By the time the broadcast rolled the highlight reel between rounds, it was getting embarrassing for everyone else. Your plays looked calmer, tighter, and way more controlled than anything the other teams had put up.
Semifinals narrowed the field from four teams to two.
Satoru’s team had to grind for that one.
They lost pistol, recovered, almost threw a man-advantage post-plant, then got dragged across the finish line by a combination of actual teamwork and Satoru somehow remembering how to shoot the moment he absolutely had to. He was flushed by the end of it, hair sticking up, grinning at his own camera like he had personally conquered Counter-Strike.
“Told you,” he said, breathing a little harder than he wanted to. “We made it to finals. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”
yuji_justatefingers: easy he says after almost collapsing on live television
nobarahammersyou: i need everyone to appreciate how hard his team carried him emotionally…. it was lowkey sad as hell
toji_justhere4money: he was one bad spray away from unemployment
Then the official bracket updated.
On one side: blindfoldbuff and his team.
On the other: pixelmoth and yours.
The championship match banner stretched across the stream in bright, stupid colors while both chats lost their minds.
Satoru looked at the screen and exhaled once through his nose.
“So it’s her,” he said.
Your semifinal had ended only a few minutes earlier, but your team looked barely winded in the post-game cams. You were smiling at something offscreen, probably your chat, and then the main stream caught you glancing up at the finals banner.
At your finals opponent.
At him.
Satoru had no way of knowing whether that tiny smile on your face meant anything, but it still made his pulse jump hard enough for chat to notice the exact second he went quiet.
yuji_justatefingers: not him getting nervous now
blindfoldbabygirl: the final boss is a hot girl with perfect aim
nobarahammersyou: he is so cooked
toji_justhere4money: put him in the oven at 400
nanami_overtime: imagine losing 200 gifted subs and your dignity in one series
Satoru rolled his shoulders and adjusted his headset again, forcing himself to look relaxed. “Okay,” he said. “Listen carefully. She’s good. Obviously. But I'm not an idiot, I know my smoke and molly line-ups. This isn’t even going to be hard”
That was debatable.
Still, he was right about one thing. He was not dumb. He knew exactly how dangerous you were, which was why he spent the break studying your tendencies from the observer clips, pretending he was not also watching the tiny square of your facecam whenever it appeared.
Finals loaded onto Mirage.
Different voice channels. Opposite teams. No direct talking.
Just five players on each side, a live audience, and all-chat sitting there in the corner of the screen like a loaded weapon.
Satoru typed first, because he had to.
blindfoldbuff: gl hf
There was a pause.
Then your reply appeared.
pixelmoth: you too :)
pixelmoth: try not to embarrass yourself in front of me
Satoru froze.
His whole chat exploded instantly.
yuji_justatefingers: OH MY GOD
nobarahammersyou: she’s already on his ass and the game hasnt started
megumi_is_tired: mentally down 0-1 already
nanami_overtime: not ideal
Satoru stared at the message, then at the buy menu as pistol round began, as if that would somehow help him recover. “Okay,” he said, trying for light and missing by a little. “That’s fine. Cute. Whatever.” He bought armor, checked spawn, adjusted his grip on the mouse. His ears were already pink, which chat definitely noticed, but he ignored them and tried to settle into the game.
He did not settle.
You opened pistol round with a fast mid take and caught him on the rotate before he could even really process what angle you’d come from. One clean shot, then another, and he was gone. Spectator screen with the round over not long after.
Satoru leaned back and blinked at his monitor. “Alright,” he said. “That was pistol. Pistol is fake, it’s literally not even a real round.”
yuji_justatefingers: the most important fake round in the game
nobarahammersyou: first blooded by the girl hes obsessed with i would log off
toji_justhere4money: solid start if your goal was humiliation
The second round went worse, mostly because he was annoyed now. Not tilted yet, not fully, but definitely irritated in that specific way where he started peeking a little too fast and committing to fights he did not need to take. He bought into a force, tried to make up the difference with confidence, and got caught by you again before the round even settled. This time it was near window. He did a jiggle peak and had barely seen your model before the headshot came through.
All-chat blinked.
pixelmoth: aw
pixelmoth: bought for me?
Satoru’s mouth fell open a little. He shut it immediately and dragged a hand over his face. “She types too much,” he muttered, though the bigger issue was that he kept dying long enough for you to do it.
By round three he was trying to play smarter. A bit slower and more disciplined. He held an angle instead of swinging it, let his teammate take first contact, and told himself he was done reacting to you. He was not going to let a few all-chat messages throw him off in grand finals like some kind of idiot.
Then you wide-swung into his crosshair, baited the shot, and deleted him while he was still correcting.
Satoru sat up straight immediately, his palms meeting his desk. “No! That one was bullshit.”
His chat loved that.
yuji_justatefingers: he says after every single death
nobarahammersyou: she is making him look stupid on main
toji_justhere4money: because he is
blindfoldbabygirl: hes getting farmed im so sick
It got worse because you clearly realized almost immediately that he was paying attention to the chat. Not your own team, not the map, not even the economy. You. The little messages you dropped between rounds and after kills. The fact that he kept reading them no matter how much he told himself not to.
After another round where you caught him trying to cross to short, all-chat lit up again.
pixelmoth: you always run right into me
pixelmoth: kinda starting to think it’s on purpose! :0
Satoru actually laughed once, short and disbelieving, because what the hell was he supposed to do with that. “It’s not on purpose,” he said to no one who could hear him. Then, after half a second, “Obviously.”
He typed back before he could stop himself.
blindfoldbuff: maybe stop standing where im looking
Your answer came so fast it made him feel set up.
pixelmoth: then keep looking :)
The sound that came out of him was somewhere between a scoff and a choke. He glanced at chat, immediately regretted it, and found exactly what he deserved.
yuji_justatefingers: OH HES DONE
nobarahammersyou: she just reeled him in with one line
For about two rounds after that, he actually managed to lock in. He stopped typing, stopped glancing at chat, stopped thinking about you long enough to hit a clean entry and help his team convert. It steadied him a little and he even won a decent duel against one of your teammates on A and sat back with a small, smug smile like the universe had finally corrected itself.
Then the next gun round started, and he ran into you in connector.
It wasn’t even dramatic. That was the most irritating part. He checked one angle, then the next, then the next, and you still killed him so quickly it almost felt pre-planned. His body hit the ground before his teammate finished throwing util.
All-chat blinked again.
pixelmoth: hi pretty boy
pixelmoth: i missed you :c
Satoru just stared. Not at the killfeed this time, but the chat box with his jaw tight and face getting hotter by the second. “Why do you keep doing that?” he muttered, but there was no real heat behind it. Mostly frustration and a lot of embarrassment. Something else he did not want to name.
By the end of the half, he had started to notice a pattern he absolutely hated. It was not just that you were winning more duels. It was that you seemed to be there for almost every important death. He would lose a fight and see your name. He would try a different route and still see your name. He would finally think, okay, good, not her, and then the round would collapse twenty seconds later because you had rotated in and cleaned up the rest. It got to the point where he was genuinely beginning to feel like ninety percent of the server was just you in different positions with different guns.
And chat noticed that too.
yuji_justatefingers: does he know there are other players in the lobby
nobarahammersyou: every death is to her im crying
nanami_overtime: he does appear uniquely affected
Satoru took a breath at halftime and leaned back, rubbing both hands over his face before sitting forward again. He looked annoyed now in a way he rarely let himself be on stream. Less theatrical and less funny. He wanted this. He wanted to win, obviously, but he also wanted at least one clean round against you where he didn’t end up on the floor while your chat probably lost their minds!
Second-half pistol started, and this time he told himself he was going to take the duel properly. He was going to go in with no hesitation, no overthinking, no reading into every stupid message you sent in all-chat. He was going to win through pure mechanics.
Then, right before the barrier dropped, you typed:
pixelmoth: don’t get shy on me now
pixelmoth: i liked how eager you were earlier
Satoru froze for one fatal second and felt the bottom of his stomach stir.
“Why would you say that right now?” he said, half to himself, already smiling a little from sheer disbelief even as he hated it.
The round began and despite your message, he swung anyway.
You were waiting.
Headshot.
He dropped back in his chair so hard it squeaked. “No, fuck! That one’s evil.”
His chat was unreadable for a second because it moved too fast.
yuji_justatefingers: HE FELL FOR IT AGAIN LMFAOOO I FUCKING CANT
nobarahammersyou: she baited him in chat and then one tapped him im sick
toji_justhere4money: textbook execution
nanami_overtime: he is not learning
That was when the frustration really started creeping in. Not enough to make him slam his desk or start snapping at his team, but enough that every round felt worse than the last. If he played fast, you were already there. If he slowed it down, you still caught him. Even when he did everything right, it somehow ended the same way, with your name in the killfeed and his jaw tightening a little more.
You kept typing too, which only made it worse.
After catching him on an A push he should not have made, you dropped another line into all-chat.
pixelmoth: c’mon
pixelmoth: you were talking so big earlier
A couple rounds later, after he lost a duel in jungle that made him visibly wince, you wrote:
pixelmoth: you gonna make me do all the work?
pixelmoth: thought you wanted finals
And when he finally, finally landed a decent shot onto one of your teammates and looked like he might build some momentum from it, you swung out from short and erased him before the round could stabilize.
pixelmoth: there you are <3
pixelmoth: that’s my good boy
Satoru made a genuinely miserable sound at that one and tipped his head back toward the ceiling. “I hate this,” he said, which only made chat louder because he very obviously did not mean the whole thing.
The worst part was that you weren’t even forcing it. That was what made it so brutal. You were just better. You had better aim, better positioning, better timing, better reads. The flirtation only made it easier for you because once you realized how hard he was reacting, you didn’t even need to do much. A smiley face here, a little teasing there, one message at freeze time, and suddenly Satoru was second-guessing everything. You, meanwhile, looked completely unbothered on the player cam, like ruining his evening was not taking any extra effort at all.
By the late game, he was quiet enough that chat had mostly stopped joking and started observing.
yuji_justatefingers: wait hes actually frustrated
nobarahammersyou: no yeah shes deadass in his head now
megumi_is_tired: got stripped for parts on stream
They were right. He knew they were right. He was chasing you now, sometimes literally. He would see your name in the killfeed and start adjusting toward wherever he thought you might be. He’d hear a step and wonder if it was you. Half the time he died before confirming it, and when the scoreboard came up he kept seeing the same thing over and over. Your stats. Your kills. Your neat, disgusting consistency. His own numbers were fine against the rest of your team, maybe even good, but against you specifically he was getting handled so badly it bordered on personal.
The final stretch of the map was almost cruel. He tried to lurk B and got caught by you on the rotate. He tried to fight mid and got one-tapped through the tiniest timing gap he’d seen all game. He then tried to wait you out on A, only for you to flash through smoke and take his head off before he even fully turned. By then he was so frustrated he looked genuinely close to tears, not because he was actually going to cry, but because his face had gone flushed and tight in that helpless way people got when nothing they tried seemed to work anymore.
Then, after another instant death, all-chat flashed one last time.
pixelmoth: you keep peeking me like you miss me
pixelmoth: should i be flattered?
Satoru laughed, but there was no humor in it this time, just disbelief and a kind of exhausted surrender. “You know what…” he said, staring at the screen, “maybe a little.”
That got him killed in the next round too, because apparently the universe had decided humiliation was funniest in layers.
When the match finally ended, your team had won cleanly. It wasn’t exactly a stomp, but decisive enough that nobody could pretend otherwise. Satoru sat there for a second after the loss screen came up, one hand over his mouth, shoulders slumped, eyes fixed on the scoreboard like he was trying to personally litigate it. Then his gaze found your name again. Top fragging, of course. And there it was, the thing he’d been thinking for the last fifteen rounds finally settling into something undeniable.
You had killed him. Constantly. Relentlessly. To the point where it felt less like he had lost a match and more like he had spent the last thirty minutes queueing directly into you.
His chat came back to life the second they saw his face.
yuji_justatefingers: he looks SICK
nobarahammersyou: she just fucked him up in every possible way
toji_justhere4money: brutal watch
megumi_is_tired: a difficult learning experience
Satoru rubbed at his eyes, exhaled slowly, and looked back at the scoreboard one more time. “I think,” he said at last, voice thin with disbelief, “I think she killed me every round.”
Then all-chat lit up one final time.
pixelmoth: ggs pretty boy
pixelmoth: you were really fun to bully <3
This time, he did not even try to answer.
You know you’ve got him before the scoreboard says it out loud.
Not the match, because that still needs to be played properly, and Satoru’s team is good enough that getting lazy would be stupid. But him? You’ve got him. You can feel it in the little pauses now, in the way he hesitates just a fraction too long after you type, in the way he starts taking fights like he has something to prove specifically to you.
That is what makes it so fun.
Your team is talking through the buy time, calm and focused, and you’re listening, you are, you really are, but part of your attention is still on the all-chat in the corner. You can practically see the shape of his reaction through the monitor. He acts bigger than he is when he’s confident. Talks more. Grins more. Plays looser. But the second you start pressing on the right part of him, he goes a little quieter. His shoulders get tighter. His swings get greedier. He starts chasing something he can’t actually name.
And because you are not above enjoying yourself, you keep going.
You catch him again on force, right as he tries to make up for the pistol round with confidence. It is almost cute, how predictable it is. He tries to take the fight fast, probably thinking speed will save him, and you put him down before the round has even settled. The kill lands clean. Your chat blows up. His probably does too.
You type while the rest of the round plays out.
pixelmoth: aw
pixelmoth: bought for me?
Your teammate laughs in your ear. “You’re evil.”
You smile a little. “He keeps giving me opportunities.”
“He keeps giving you content.”
“That too.”
The next few rounds tell you everything you need to know. Satoru starts trying to fix it. That’s the part you like best. First he plays slower, trying to discipline himself back into the game and then he tries holding instead of swinging. Then he swings anyway because patience is clearly not his strongest quality and because, if you’re honest, you’ve started making him impatient on purpose.
You watch him miss one shot and die for it. Then you lean back in your chair, glance toward chat, and bite back a smile.
pixelmoth: you always run right into me
pixelmoth: kinda starting to think it’s on purpose! :0
That one gets him.
You know it does because he actually types back. Not immediately, but fast enough to tell on himself.
blindfoldbuff: maybe stop standing where im looking
You laugh out loud this time, turning your head just enough away from the mic that it doesn’t spike too badly. Your chat, of course, catches it anyway.
cursedsideeye: GIRL
ctrlaltelite: he replied he replied he replied
smokesandroses: he wants your attention so bad
laggylotus: not the sexual tension in all chat at grand finals
You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling when you type back.
pixelmoth: then keep looking :)
The little thrill that runs through you afterward is embarrassing enough that you immediately pretend it isn’t there. You refocus on the round, rotate, trade out one of his teammates, and let the game settle back into something familiar. Mirage still feels like Mirage under your hands. Angles, timing, utility, footsteps, all of it slots neatly into place. That’s the thing you trust most, more than banter, more than momentum, more than the weird little buzz under your skin every time his name flashes on your screen.
You trust your game.
Which is why, when you run into him again in connector and kill him before his teammate’s utility even blooms, the satisfaction is immediate and uncomplicated.
Right up until you decide to make it complicated.
pixelmoth: hi pretty boy
pixelmoth: i missed you :c
Your teammate goes silent for a beat.
Then, very carefully, “Are you flirting with him mid-finals?”
“No,” you say, a smile tugging at your lips, still watching the round.
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m multitasking.”
“Hey, you didn’t deny it!”
You ignore him. Your chat doesn’t.
cursedsideeye: oh she is down horrendous
smokesandroses: “i missed you” is insane work
ctrlaltelite: he’s never recovering from this
laggylotus: you better close this out now because if you lose after calling him pretty boy i’ll never let you live it down
You don’t lose.
That possibility never feels especially real, not after the shape the game takes. Satoru’s team still fights for space, still has good rounds, still punishes mistakes when they can, but Satoru himself keeps gravitating toward you like he can’t help it. At first it’s just pattern recognition. Then it becomes something a little more obvious. He hears footsteps and tilts toward them. He sees your name in the killfeed and starts adjusting. He starts looking for you in ways that make him worse against everyone else.
You do not point this out to comms because that would sound conceited.
You do, however, notice it.
And once you notice it, you start feeding it.
By halftime, your stream is in full meltdown.
ctrlaltelite: this man is in heat
laggylotus: every time you type he loses another 10 IQ
smokesandroses: i need his pov immediately
cursedsideeye: you know hes blushing over there
That last one makes you glance at the player cams on the official stream. Satoru is smaller over there, shoved into one corner of the layout, but still clear enough to read. Headset on. Hair a mess now. Mouth pressed thin. Face flushed in a way that is either frustration or embarrassment or both.
You stare a second too long.
Then you clear your throat and tab back.
“Focus,” you tell yourself, quiet enough that your mic barely catches it.
Your chat catches that too.
Second-half pistol starts, and you decide to test something.
Not in the server as you already know how that part goes. You mean him. You want to see if he’ll still bite when it matters, if he’s actually as easy to bait as he’s starting to seem. So right before the round begins, you type:
pixelmoth: don’t get shy on me now
pixelmoth: i liked how eager you were earlier
Then you wait.
Sure enough, there he is.
He swings.
You kill him instantly.
This time you laugh so hard you have to mute for a second.
Your teammate sounds personally offended. “I’m fucking crying. That is foul.”
“You saw that too?”
“I saw you set him up like a cartoon character.”
The thing is, you almost feel bad.
Almost.
Because now it’s obvious. Satoru isn’t just getting out-aimed. He’s getting dragged around by the nose. Every adjustment he makes feels half a second too late because some part of his attention is still sitting with you in that chat box, replaying whatever you said last and trying to decide whether it meant anything.
Which, to be fair, is kind of adorable.
You type again after catching him on A.
pixelmoth: c’mon
pixelmoth: you were talking so big earlier
A few rounds later, he loses another duel in jungle. You don’t even have to think about it this time.
pixelmoth: you gonna make me do all the work?
pixelmoth: thought you wanted finals
Your chat is moving too fast to read properly, but every now and then a message sticks long enough for you to catch it.
laggylotus: THIS IS CYBERBULLYING
ctrlaltelite: no this is foreplay
smokesandroses: HELLO????
cursedsideeye: she said what she said
You shake your head, still smiling despite yourself. “You guys are disgusting.”
That is when Satoru finally gets something going. He lands a nice shot onto one of your teammates, and for half a second it looks like he might actually build a round off it. You see the movement on radar, the slight shift in how his team starts to take space, the little possibility of momentum.
Then you swing out from short and put him down before it can become anything.
The round steadies instantly.
You glance at the killfeed, then at his name, and type before you can overthink it.
pixelmoth: there you are <3
pixelmoth: that’s my good boy
The call erupts.
Not your chat. Your actual teammates.
“What the fuck?”
“Oh my god.”
“You cannot say that to him in grand finals.”
You are laughing now, shoulders shaking, mouse still in your hand. “I just did.”
One of them mutters, “That poor bastard,” which only makes you laugh harder.
The weirdest part is that once you start, it gets easier. The teasing slips into the game like it belongs there. It’s not because the match stops mattering, I mean, it still matters. You’re still calling, still rotating, still checking angles, still playing your life properly when the round asks for it. But there’s a rhythm to this now, one you enjoy maybe more than you should. He dies. You type. He gets flustered. He swings too early or too wide or too desperate. You punish it. Repeat.
By late game, it’s almost unfair.
You can tell he’s genuinely frustrated now, and if he were anyone else, maybe that would make you back off a little. But Satoru is not pouting or raging or making excuses. He’s just trying harder and failing in increasingly obvious ways, which somehow makes the whole thing cuter. He wants to beat you so badly. He wants one clean, undeniable round where he gets the better of you and can finally breathe again.
You do not give it to him.
Instead you keep appearing where he least wants you. Rotating B just in time to catch him lurking. Holding mid on a timing that makes him look stupid. Flashing through smoke on A and finding his head before he can even fully turn. Every time it happens, there is the same brief, vicious satisfaction. Not because it is him exactly, though that helps, but because there is something intoxicating about knowing you are fully inside another player’s decision-making. You know what he wants. You know what he’s hoping for. You know when he’s about to break discipline and try to force it.
So you meet him there every single time.
Your chat is beyond saving at this point.
ctrlaltelite: this is so personal
smokesandroses: he’s gonna think about you for months
laggylotus: girl youve killed him like six times in a row
cursedsideeye: and yet somehow the sexual tension keeps getting worse
You pretend not to read that last one.
Then Satoru peeks you again.
At this point, it’s almost automatic. Crosshair where it should be. Click. Headshot. Body down.
You exhale through your nose and type one more time.
pixelmoth: you keep peeking me like you miss me
pixelmoth: should i be flattered?
That one makes your teammates lose it again. One of them is laughing so hard he has to stop talking for a second. Another just keeps repeating, “No way, no way, no way.”
You bite back a grin and keep playing.
The map closes cleanly after that. It’s not a stomp, but close enough that nobody with eyes could argue about who controlled it. When the final screen comes up, your team starts celebrating in your ear, your alerts start going insane, and your chat becomes one giant screaming block of text. You lean back in your chair for the first time in what feels like forever and let yourself breathe.
Then you look at the scoreboard.
Top fragging.
And there he is on the other side, with a decent enough line against everyone else but a very obvious problem where you are concerned. You can practically see the story of the whole map inside the numbers. Every time he tried to get comfortable, you were there. Every time he started to recover, you cut it off. By the end, it probably did feel to him like ninety percent of his deaths came from you.
Which is, frankly, a little flattering.
You type one last time before the lobby closes.
pixelmoth: ggs pretty boy
pixelmoth: you were really fun to bully <3
Then you wait.
Nothing.
No answer.
You blink once.
“Huh.”
Your chat jumps on it immediately.
ctrlaltelite: YOU BROKE HIM!!!!
laggylotus: he is staring at his monitor in silence right now
smokesandroses: go open his stream
cursedsideeye: do ittttttt
You probably shouldn’t.
So naturally, you do.
His stream is still live, a little delayed on your second monitor, and the second it loads you have to press your lips together to stop yourself from smiling like an idiot. Satoru looks wrecked. Not in a dramatic way. He just has one hand over his mouth and that blank, stunned look people get when reality has not fully caught up yet. He keeps staring at the scoreboard like there might be some clerical error hidden in it.
Then he speaks.
“I think,” he says slowly, voice thin with disbelief, “I think she killed me every round.”
You actually laugh.
Not loudly, but just enough that your chat sees it and loses their minds all over again.
The worst part is that now, with the game over and the pressure gone, you can admit something to yourself that you were mostly avoiding before. He’s cute like this. Stupidly cute, actually. All flushed and frustrated and trying not to sound affected when he so obviously is. You’ve spent the last map teasing him because it was funny, because it worked, because his reactions were impossible not to chase once you figured them out. But somewhere in the middle of all that, between the one-taps and the all-chat and the way he kept looking for you no matter how badly it went, the whole thing stopped feeling like a joke you were running on a random streamer.
It started feeling a little personal.
Your teammate’s voice cuts in again. “You’re smiling at your monitor.”
You don’t look away from Satoru’s stream. “No, I’m not.”
“You literally are.”
“It’s post-tournament joy.”
“Sure.”
Your chat, predictably, agrees with him.
laggylotus: oh shes gone
ctrlaltelite: this is enemies to lovers and i dont make the rules
smokesandroses: go type in his chat
cursedsideeye: DO IT
You laugh and shake your head. “Absolutely not.”
But your hand is already on the mouse.
And when Satoru, still staring at his chat, mutters, “She was typing too much,” in that slightly wrecked, slightly defensive voice that tells on him more than anything else could, you feel something warm and mean and delighted curl low in your stomach.
You click into his chat before you can talk yourself out of it.
The cursor blinks.
You type something, delete it.
Type something else, delete that too.
“You’re nervous,” your teammate says immediately.
“I am not nervous.”
“You’ve erased like three messages.”
“I’m curating.”
“For what, his wedding vows?”
“Shut up.”
That gets another full-body laugh out of you. You shake your head once, inhale, and type.
pixelmoth: next time clear jungle faster
You hit send.
For a second, nothing happens.
Then Satoru’s eyes flick toward chat.
Stop.
He leans forward just slightly, like he thinks he might have read it wrong. Then his hand comes up over his mouth again, and even through the monitor, even delayed, you can tell he’s flustered all over.
Your pulse jumps for no good reason.
His chat explodes. Yours does too.
Satoru looks into his camera, then away from it, then back down to chat with the expression of someone rapidly realizing dignity has left the building. Finally he types back.
blindfoldbuff: next time stop being in jungle then
That does it. You laugh, soft and helpless, resting your chin on your hand as you watch him on the other monitor.
So he is alive.
Good.
Because now that the match is over, the trophy screen is gone, and the pressure’s off, he still came back with one more line, and that tells you more than it probably should.
This isn't over.
Not even close.