Immediately, fingers clicked on the mini-controller and buttons, rushing and searching. Jinah hadn’t touched the controller and everyone was moving and clicking. She looked at the screens and searched for one that wasn’t moving – there, middle of the bottom left corner team screen was hers. She tried out the controls – they worked. She moved, turned her scope on and off, jumped, ducked, changed views, and shot to test her gun out.

           Boom.

        Something exploded. There was a big explosion and suddenly, a few dots from the map blinked and disappeared. Jinah stared at the screen – what just happened? Then, as if to answer her question, Suho’s, Sehun’s, and Chen’s screen read: YOU DIED.

        “Whoa, Jinah!” Chanyeol exclaimed “A triple kill? How’d you do that?!”

        “She shot a default barrel,” D.O said, grinning. He saw her do it. “Sniffed out three enemies – good job, Jinah.”

        “Did I just kill the three of you?” she asked. She was simply testing her gun out.

        Suho laughed in disbelief and pleasant surprise. He always had weird mixtures of emotions in his voice and face. “Guess you did.”

        She just blinked at the screen, but Kris nudged her, snapping her out of her daze. “Keep moving, no time for gloating – look at your map, Kai’s coming your way!”

        Jinah carelessly moved away from her current spot. She passed the broken metal detectors in the scenery and slowly walked past the empty stands. Occasionally, she’d check behind her on the screen. She thought about a view change, but it made her feel uncomfortable. Just then, a large window next to her shattered with a loud gunshot. She checked the map and saw a blue light near her yellow one. It was either Kai or Luhan, but if Kris said it was Kai, it was Kai.

        She sped down the broken escalator only to be hit by a bullet. Her health bar shrunk a bit. The ends of her individual screen were colored red – was it blood? She managed to turn around, fumbling clumsily with the controls, to face Kai. She somehow dodged two bullets from the merciless Kai. She shot multiple times but he evaded them by ducking and jumping and swaying to the side. In the meantime, she thought of one attack – time bomb. Bomb must be big, right? Limit of five, she remembered. She didn’t think she would survive long enough to use all five.

        She clicked the left button and planted the bomb. She didn’t know how long it would take until it exploded, so she had to buy time. She needed to be at a safe distance from the bomb but keep Kai near it. The question was – how? The bomb was put on the escalator. Kai was advancing towards her so she shot by instinct. He stopped and took a few steps back and dodged skillfully. It triggered a thought – if she shot, he backed up. If she didn’t, he came forward. This was it! She could buy time this way. But how would she know when to get out of the bomb’s explosion range? She remembered reading about bombs in a book, somewhere – immense destruction power, highly dangerous, usually sensitive and structured by complicated wires…no, she shook her head. She wasn’t trying to disassemble the bomb. She was trying to activate it. She highly doubted a simple video game like this could allow her to dismantle the bomb.

        She shot and shot until he was at the end of the escalator. By that time, she realized he was too far from the bomb’s location. So she started to run for it, and surely enough, Kai followed her…and he passed the bomb! Oh, why wouldn’t it explode? She shot again and again and strangely, he didn’t back up. His health bar decreased and decreased – and stopped. Frantically, she clicked the shoot button but it didn’t work. “What? It’s not working!” she exclaimed as Kai shot and her health bar shrunk. Kris was having a showdown with Baekhyun, shooting rapidly at an intense pace. Chanyeol quickly pointed at the middle of her screen as he continued to flee from whatever – the reload bar. The green was moving so slowly that Jinah was practically aging. Then she remembered that slow reload was one disadvantage of the sniper. She shouldn’t have been so stubborn.

        Jinah moved aside and got off the escalator. She hid behind a stand and waited. Come on, come on! Kai was quick to follow her. He was nearing her hiding place – her reload bar was sure taking its sweet time to recover. Just before Kai came too close, she revealed herself and threw a grenade and disappeared behind the stand once more. Kai’s eyes widened as he ran away from her but the grenade exploded within two seconds, the way it was supposed to. Kai’s and Jinah’s screens out as two words appeared: YOU DIED.

        Jinah took deep breaths. Their points went up. She killed Kai…and herself. She didn’t know how to feel or react, but Kai did. “You killed me,” he said with a hint of amusement and absolute disbelief.

        She nodded numbly. “I did.”

        “What? Jinah killed Kai?!” Kris said as he shot multiple times at Baekhyun, showing no mercy, who was hiding behind a weak wall, waiting for his reload. “That’s sick!”

        “Woo!” Suho clapped her back. “Damn, Jinah! That’s what I’m talking about! The barrel shot that gave you a triple kill may have been a really lucky accident – but accidents don’t happen with Kai! Sehun was just too eager to kill me…but wow!”

        “How’d you do it?” Chen asked, just as surprised as everyone else.

        “She sacrificed herself,” Kai said with a half-grin. He looked surprised and now, clearly amused. His teeth were slightly apart so it was a positive type of surprise and amusement, or so according to Minjung. Jinah’s heart clenched when she thought of her best friend’s name. I’m going to visit soon, she told herself. “She planted a grenade and it killed us both,” Kai continued. “I wasn’t expecting her to kill herself just to get me out of the way. Damn, I underestimated you.”

        “Both of you got killed by Jinah?” Luhan scoffed with a grin to his dead teammates. “Unbelievable.”

        “Wait, that means…” Chanyeol frowned. “Kris, we’re winning! Luhan’s the only blue, Bakehyun’s the only red…we’re winning!”

        Kris’s jaw dropped. They were either last or second. On top of that, the win-streak blue team hadn’t lost a single game, and only once out of the countless times they played tonight had they lose one teammate – but they lost two teammates this round! Feeling extra brave, Kris turned around the block to meet Baekhyun’s avatar. He shot dozens of times and Baekhyun was too shocked to do anything, he couldn’t do anything. But just when his health bar was about to end, Kris ran out of ammo. Eyes wide, he ran past the metal detectors and stands and rushed down the elevator. He was going to pay the price now. Smirking, Baekhyun chased after him, shooting in Kris’s direction, past the metal detectors and stands, and down he went on the escalator, and then –

        Boom. Another something exploded. Kris’s and Baekhyun’s screens out just like how Jinah’s and Kai’s did – YOU DIED. Neither of them moved. That was totally unexpected. Kris glanced at Luhan’s individual screen Luhan was tracking Chanyeol down, and the latter was running away, waiting for reload. So what exploded?

        Baekhyun frowned at the screen too, unable to comprehend their death. “How did we die?”

        Then Jinah remembered. “That…probably was my time-bomb.”

        Baekhyun and Kris turned to face her. “Time-bomb?”

        Jinah nodded awkwardly. “Yeah…I planted one to get Kai but the thing wouldn’t explode.”

        “So that’s why you kept running back and forth on the escalator…oh!” Baekhyun finally realized. “Escalator! We died on the escalator! That makes sense…”

        Kris laughed and messed up Jinah’s hair. “You’re a good player – killed Suho, Chen, Sehun, Kai, Baekhyun and me. Six experienced players at first shot. For next time, try to protect your team too.”

        “It’s was beginner’s luck. I swear I’ll probably end up killing myself the next time we play,” Jinah said truthfully.

        “You already did that,” Kai stated. “You blew yourself up when you killed me, remember?”

        Jinah did. “Oh.”

        They laughed at her slow realization. Then, Kris slapped Chanyeol’s back painfully. “Go down, get down! Duck, now!”

        “I can’t I’m running!”

        Luhan was chasing Chanyeol, and he was in the same area as him now. Chanyeol had forgotten to look at the map while he was running – he was only thinking of reaching the landed plane. Luhan shot and it hit Chanyeol somewhere, his already-low health bar decreased. Chanyeol ran into the bridge of the plane and hid behind the seats, waiting for Luhan, but Luhan was prepared. He checked Chanyeol and the map to confirm Chanyeol’s location. He hid on the opposite side of the seat that Chanyeol was hiding, and the latter knew that. Luhan aimed the gun behind the seat just to make Chanyeol flinch. He smirked as he jumped up and shot. Chanyeol’s screen turned black as the two words appeared again. In the meantime, Luhan’s Head-Shot Kill! sign was pushed aside with “YOU WON”. Points flew to the blue team’s number as it enlarged and glowed. The whole TV screen turned black with no separating lines. “TEAM BLUE WINS” it read. Luhan took a deep breath, still grinning, as he high-fived Sehun and Kai.

        Kris slapped the dumbfounded Chanyeol’s back again. “You idiot, that was our best shot!”

        “I tried!”

        Lay, who was done with the dishes, came over, shaking his head while laughing mildly. Even if he was washing the dishes and he couldn’t hear their conversations very well from the water, he could hear Chanyeol’s shouts, Suho’s cheers, Kris’s loud warnings, and see the large screen. “And, of course, the winning team is blue,” Lay said, clapping his hands somewhat mockingly. But no hard feelings, none at all. “Good job, boys. I mean, people.” He winked at Jinah who gave him a half-smile.

        She stretched her arms. “One more round?”

        Baekhyun raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a girl interested in violent video games before,” he said.

        “You haven’t even talked to enough girls to make that judgment,” Jinah countered as she clicked random buttons as a warm-up. Slowly, they were becoming familiar to her. It still felt weird how one button could set off a bomb or shoot a gun, but it felt like power within her fingers. It felt risky and dangerous, but not to her or anyone in real life. It was all a game, in pixels, made-up, and fake. Revival was possible. Quitting was possible. Pausing was possible. Of course she wanted to play. “So one more round?”

        And like that, they spent the next hour or so gaming. It wasn’t until about four o’ clock in the morning did they finally realize that it was too late. Most were tired, but people like Chanyeol were wide-awake, who still hadn’t achieved his satisfying revenge. “Tomorrow!” he promised, but no one took him seriously, much to his frustration, which turned to laughter. In the end, it was a good night, a good first day for the gang and their new Prix, Jinah. She could feel the family-like aura emitting from the gang. They had a real bond. She could tell just by spending one day with them. No matter how much they argued or mocked, it was a joke, and they knew that.

        Jinah washed up and brushed her teeth, and combed her hair. It was a habit Miss Kim rammed into her - to brush her hair before going to sleep. She almost felt – whatever feeling this was – again, but she shook it off. I’m going to visit soon. She wiped her face with a towel. Instead of her camouflage-patterned pants and gray tee shirt, she changed into her white one, blue shorts, and wore an indigo hoodie on top. She slipped into the honey- and wood-scented bed and snuggled in it. She fell asleep instantly, despite the coverless white pillow and the overly-thick blanket. It didn’t matter. Not now anyway.

        But it did the next morning.

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HAHAHA CAN YOU GUYS GUESS WHAT HAPPENS THE NEXT MORNING .. I hope that was suspenseful enough >:)

/in the meantime working hard on the side-story collection.. > < oh! if you guys are craving for some one-shots, leave a comment here! It's my EXO One-Shot Collection. Read the previous ones too if you'd like~ constantly advertising my own stories.. must be annoying.. sry > < and these longass A/N's.. LOOL

i forgot to mention: I reached 100+ subs and 2000+ views! Thank you guys soso much.. On top of that [call me lame but] I woke up to 6 new comments. 6. I was so happy hehe. tysm :') AND, a big hug to the upvoters! Gosh, this story is in its early stages, and already I have 16 upvotes. To me, that's a lot. Others story have like, 700+ or whatever, but 16 is more than enough. So thank you ^_^ OF COURSE, I am equally thankful and appreciative of the commenters and subscribers. Thanks for the support and motivation >3<

-Seohee