Ningning tsks with annoyance, pushes off from the edge of the table causing the gaming chair to slide back until eventually sticks its wheels into the end of the bed. She has a small room, or rather, half of the originally quite big room, which, thank the goddesses, was separated from the other part by a horrible curtain originally intended for the bathroom. Not that great, of course, but welcoming what she has, it's not that bad either. It's not that Minjeong bothers her a lot (it's just a vice versa situation to tell the truth, and Ningning admires her roommate, to be honest. Very much. It must be unbearable to fall asleep with a " ye-eah" and wake up with "oh, "), but personal space is always good, even if it is so flimsy and outlined with a curtain with moronic cartoon fish that doesn't really look that fishy... More like fish-ish, huh. Someday Ningning will definitely replace this curtain with something decent, or better – she'll move out to a separate apartment. In the meantime, it's not bad.

The headphone wires in length are enough exactly for the distance from the table to the bed, plus leaning the chair's back – by a long stretch of the imagination. The wire is stretched when she lifts her arms up to stretch her back. Her back crunches. Chair's back's crunching in unison. Ningning winces at the rustle of a cheap headset right in her poor ears.

Playing without a pre-assembled team is just terrible, to be honest. She wants to throw the controller against the wall from time to time — for example, right now, when huge letters of evidence of a fatal defeat soundly float up on the screen. For whatever time in a row this evening she loses with a bang. It's not even her fault, if you analyze the moves, the idiot who, despite everyone's requests, didn't change the ranged weapon to a cold one, stupidly screwed up the whole game. Sometimes Ningning really regrets that she never made friends who would also be fond of online games, because playing with random teammates who obviously do not reach her level... Well, this is just her own personal brand of cyberbullying, seriously.

Of course, there is always an option to play solo, but that's not it. It's all wrong, because playing in a team is the whole meaning of playing in general. To tell the truth, she's just been trying to find a permanent partner for whole this time, because it's cool — it's cool to play with friends. That's what games are really fun by.

Ningning moves back to the table with awkward pushes of her legs to check if she has been assigned to a new team yet. Socks slide on the floor.

One player joined the team so far.

Playing with voice chat is so stupid. It's convenient, yes, but all the questions really ed up. And all these wannabe-professional players who, in fact, do not represent anything, thinking that if she is a girl —her voice is still pretty recognizable, no matter how low it seems through the microphone — then they need to either insult, or hit on her, or first hit on and then insult — after refusal.

 

Ningning corrects the microphone, placing it in front of — at least, she tries, it is attached to the headphones very badly, so constantly moves lower than necessary, from which the sound deteriorates even more than it usually happens in conversations with mom on WhatsApp.

"I need to win at least one round today, so I hope you're ready to get all sweaty," she says instead of greeting.

Ningning waits for an answer, and then finally squints at the translucent chat window that has appeared in the corner of the screen.

 

megaladonteethsharp

Same

The message is in English. It's not that she doesn't understand English, but it's a bit strange – Chinese guys come across usually. Anyway, chat? It's all ing awesome, but maybe voice, please?.. The last time she played with chat, it ended up badly — as all the rounds always end, when people spend more time on letters than on the game. Moreover, looking at the chat with one eye, and at the movements of other players with the other, distracts and exhausts as hell. Okay, the main thing is to have fun, right? Well, then she'll try to do it at any cost.

When three more players finally join the team, and the opponent is displayed on the screen, there is no longer any business to think. Ningning pushes the buttons into the controller, trying to swear quieter (not without threats from behind the curtain, of course), so as not to distract Minjeong from her study tasks. Ningning feels so sorry for Minjeong because of her wild obsession with academic performance. It would be utter swinishness not to let her prepare her homework with some stupid discontent. Therefore, after another shot in the wrong direction, Ningning whispers a quiet threat directly into the microphone and, to be sure that she was heard clearly enough, writes to the chat:

 

swifty

once again and you're dead

 

megaladonteethsharp

Oh, how scary

 

swifty

it concerns you too

 

She does it quickly while the character is hiding behind a concealment — this time she was lucky with the map, it fits her character perfectly, which can't be said about Megalodon with an "a"'s character though. Ningning fundamentally doesn't respect players with typos in nicknames, seriously, if a person hasn't learned to write, then they also hardly know how to play. How they even managed not to die in the first minute is not clear at all (Ningning honestly believes that this is a cheater. This is a cheater for sure, because it's just unbelievable to play along with constantly writing all these messages in the chat). Megalodon with an "a" writes to the chat as if they don't even play at the same time but eat a piece of cake with the tea their grandma made for them. To count the messages per second, well... Ningning would joke about who needs a about this (they say it costs ten minutes of silence, then please proofs-) but as long as they win the second round in a row, she lets them have fun, the complaint book will wait for a while.

 

megaladonteethsharp

One more time?

 

Ningning grins, singing the hit me, baby, one more time. She agrees, of course, it's a sin not to agree if the team game finally began to seem like a team one, and not like "everyone was killed in the first minutes, so I drag everything stupidly alone." Therefore, she offers to play together a bit more. Therefore, in the next round, they smash the opposing team with a bang.

 

megaladonteethsharp

Add friends

 

Megalodon with an "a" sends in the chat. Ningning pokes a button on their profile. Megalodon with an "a" adds her in a friend list, too. After all, reciprocity is wonderful. Ningning looks at the personal rating, which soared in just one evening, before disconnecting from the game. This is cool — because now she can stop looking for a partner, and just wait until they appear online again.







 

megaladonteethsharp

Then just start streaming lol

"No, it's not about me." Broken English is gradually turning into a little less broken (so mom could be proud of the fact that her daughter, it turns out, knows how to self-educate wow). So many joint games have passed that Ningning is already beginning to allow herself to complain — about her hard-hard life and the fact that she just physically does not have enough time to earn extra money after university. And humorous messages like "If we win again let's go on a date :))" from Megalodon with an "a", let them not get bored — because it's always funny, like heroically exposing yourself to enemy's fire because they just can, and then pretending that this is a titanic act of Jack or something like that. But the dates — even if she wanted to go on them or something, – definitely don't fit into her schedule. Since, because of one failure in the economics, she flew off the discount, nothing at all fits into the schedule, to be completely honest. Games are sacred, games always fit into it. She justifies herself by saying that her heart belongs exclusively to Rin Okumura and Taylor Swift. It makes Megalodon with an "a" laugh (and even if they laugh with letters, it still makes her happy somehow).

 

megaladonteethsharp

Why not, maybe you'll make some money on it

 

Ningning wants to laugh, to laugh bitterly with a taste of soy chocolate parody of Kinder Surprise. She looks at the time, the time on the computer screen is wrong and tells more than four hours behind. Judging by it, she has plenty of time. Although, in fact, before the supposed awakening there is still, well... — Ningning cautiously lifts the phone, lying with its' screen down, from one side — five hours. In a good way, she needs to leave and go to bed so that tomorrow she doesn't feel worse than usual. Where exactly is this going to become worse than usual, if there is nowhere to go to anymore, as it seems — this is the whole another question.

Maybe she really should try, after all, trying is not a torture, they say.

And it's not that she's shy, it's just... it's just weird (a wild guess). No, it's not for her. For her is running around with a rifle or going through all the variants of the plot endings of Detroit, or the, damn it, Mario Kart, seriously — anything that doesn't make her show her face. She has been used to showing her voice for a long time, this is not a problem, it was a problem when at the very first game she was merged by her own team because she was a girl, and playing with girls is somehow ew, it's somehow even humiliating. But the video... The video is different.

 

megaladonteethsharp

I'll be your first subscriber, seriously

 

Ningning buys a webcam next week, and when they play again, this time in some new MMORPG game that has recently entered the market, she says:

"I'm thinking of trying to stream, you know."

 

And the chat blows up with

megaladonteethsharp

Consider that I'm already subscribed!







 

And it turns out to be almost the best decision in her life, it seems. A lot of people – surprisingly – think her streams are catchy. It happens not on the first time, not on the second too — the first video is watched by three people literally and only one comments (she even knows who exactly thanks to a familiar sense of humor.). Megalodon with an "a" has a completely different nickname now, but it is simply impossible not to recognize this manner of communication, especially taking into account the number of local jokes. Compared to all her previous endeavors (selling beaded items? — failure. translating texts? — also no), this is the most successful. It raises the morale state so much — to do what you like and receive, albeit insignificant, but donations, which in principle are enough for coffee and going to the university by taxi once a week.




 

"He-ello everyone, the Swifty is with you right now, and what is on the agenda today- Oh, damn, it talks, woah."

Reviewing games turned out to be quite fun to do. Last time, after finishing a series of detective games, she finally got the opportunity to buy a normal headset, and now the microphone shouldn't even be wrapped in the right position with duct tape. This is a true victory, seriously. And while business is going uphill, chat messages are going uphill along it. Horror games always attract more attention than any other, especially if no one has managed to take a normal review on them yet.

"You're giving me a hint, darling? Welp, why do you sound so weird, huh," the background character from the screen mumbles nonsense, in the comments they constantly laugh at how Ningning is constantly trying to see in games something that really can't be found there. "No, wait, that is, we move this thing here and... nothing happens. Ahem, good, fine. Try again."

Talking to the screen is still unusual, but when wasn't it that way? Especially considering that for the last couple of months, she has been doing nothing else but playing with a person who doesn't use voice chat at all.

Ningning twitches when a screamer abruptly flies out on the screen. Cheap techniques, but they still work flawlessly. And when the image returns to normal, a woman is seen on the floor

"Ok, you're lying, yeah, either it's resting face... or dead. Are you alive, baby?"

 

gisellethebelle

Woman: lying on the floor, in a pool of blood, with no obvious signs of life.

Swifty: are you alive, baby?

 

"Man, you the smartest or what? Maybe she's faking it, how do you know." Ningning looks through the chat, carefully moving around the virtual space. Her heart probably won't stand another sudden movement on the screen.

The message gradually floats up, as new comments are added to the chat, and when Ningning finally pays attention to the accumulated messages in it and responds to more or less interesting ones, she stumbles upon the

 

gisellethebelle

wo*man lol

 

"Guys, smoke break!"

 

Dissatisfied comments are pouring into the chat, but this is not very important. They'll come to the next one anyway, she'll apologize and come up with something funny to justify herself. Ningning ends the stream too early, it's only been forty minutes at most, but is she smart? Great, Megalodon is a girl, now she's seen everything. Well, yes, you could have guessed by the nickname... it doesn't matter, the existential crisis about this will wait until night. And now she needs a drink and rethink all the correspondence before.







 

"What now?" Minjeong is distracted from her undoubtedly important business when Ningning's head pokes out from behind the curtain. Now the curtain has a more attractive look, it is plain, so it can be said that it looks very stylish. Ningning should probably kiss Minjeong's feet for still putting up with her.

Minjeong was ready for this even earlier, when Ningning suddenly said goodbye to the audience and suspiciously quieted down. Sometimes Minjeong feels like she's a mother — if it's quiet, then something has happened. There is no other way with Ningning: either she is loud, or something is wrong with her.

"Would you like to have a drink together today?"

Minjeong sighs as she closes the book but agrees. Ningning really should start thinking about how hard she should thank her for this.







 

"Well does it bother you like... that it's not a guy?"

 

Ningning shakes her head. She's not sure, she's sure of quite anything. In general, why did she decide that it had to be a guy? In terms of, it's, of course, wonderful that because of the Megalodon with an "a" her faith in the male part of the world's population has revived a little – well, a quarter to a half, but it's kind of sad. It's a shame to find out such things after six months of communication. Maybe this is not exactly the kind of communication that her mother would approve of, but her mother stayed in her hometown, and Ningning is a big girl, and like a big girl she went to Beijing. Ningning hardly feels like a big girl, to be honest.

 

"Well... no?"

 

"Well... what's the problem?"

 

"I like h-er, - Ningning hesitantly stretches out the "er", — I like her. Maybe. For a long time, eh.

 

"Is that a problem?"  Minjeong raises both eyebrows, because raising one is for some mutants. Apparently, understanding feelings is also a thing for mutants, because Ningning definitely does not know how to understand them.

 

It's not a problem.

 

It's not a problem — Ningning've already guessed it wouldn't be a problem, but it's still weird and a little scary. Because Megalodon with an "a" is probably advanced not only in games, as it happens with English-speaking guys. They are so open, much more open than she is. And if the Megalodon with an "a" is also from America — Ningning presumes that it's true, because she speaks English like a real native speaker – then she, the Ningning, has nothing to do with her.




 

Minjeong shoves her in the shoulder, pulling her out of her overthinking. Ningning is grateful to her for that, honestly. Ningning suddenly feels like she's terribly sleepy. At night Ningning turns on the podcast louder to hear her own thoughts less.





 

No, it's not a problem, otherwise why would s-he – she, she, let's get used to the idea that you're biual not only for Taylor Swift – joke so much about dating and compliment her voice, and then write admiring comments and in general- In general, why not? Why ing not.






 

megaladonteethsharp

Yo

megaladonteethsharp

Long time no see

megaladonteethsharp

Something happened?

 

Ningning directs the sight at a player from the opposing team. There have been no streams for a week — because there was no mood. The next player is eliminated when Megalodon with an "a" connects to the attack jumping out from behind his back.

 

"I've been thinking," Ningning answers in monosyllables, tries not to be distracted, but it's so, so difficult.

 

They are silent for the rest of the round, only exchanging curses about the unsuccessful map.

 

"Use your voice."

 

megaladonteethsharp

I have a ty mic

 

Ningning curls her lips in something extremely alike to offence. She presses the button on the controller harder than necessary. She's angry, yes. She's ing angry.

 

megaladonteethsharp

Gimme a sec

 

One more time. Again, and again. Such games cause aggression — they say on TV (which is why mom says so too, starting each call not with "how are you", but with lectures). These games only, of course. Ningning feels her teeth clench and-

 

"Um, hi?"

 

Ningning is silent, letting the attack into her character. The Megalodon with an "a" has a slightly sleepy voice, it's a bit hoarse. Beautiful – Ningning thinks. (Ningning already anticipates Minjeong's mockery about this.)

 

Megalodon with an "a" shoots the last player of the enemy team with a series of shots, while Ningning's character stupidly stays in one place not moving a bit.

 

The screen displays "You win" and the overall rating for the game in a list of small letters.

 

"I'm Aeri," Aeri says, and Ningning thinks the name suits her like hell — as beautiful as the voice and, she's sure, everything else. "We won again, so... How about a date?"

 

 

 

 

 

a/n:

had fun with searching for a joke about a blowjow that'd fit into the story, cus you english guys simply don't have similar joke as we have in my native lang ;(