Page 56 of Don't Hate the Player
BobTheeQ: We are in parking lot C. Jake and I can bring our stuff in. Muddy, help the girls, we’ll meet in the green room.
shineedancer: soon to be . . . ?the blue room
BobTheeQ: How are we feeling today? We’re rested, we ate?
MUDD: they put free red bulls in our room. i’ve had three so far
MUDD: is it bad that i’m perceiving minutes as colors
ElementalP: this wouldn’t happen if you behaved yourself
BobTheeQ: Ki, can you please get Muddy a croissant on your way in?
shineedancer: no i want to find out what color right now is
MUDD: kind of mustard-y
MUDD: wait now it’s black
shineedancer: one croissant coming up
ElementalP: is Jake still with you?
BobTheeQ: I’m not letting him out of my sight.
ElementalP: . . . ok?
BobTheeQ: Just get to the green room as soon as Muddy shows up to help you. We need to be on time today.
BobTheeQ: There’s something I have to tell you before the matches start. Today could change everything.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Emilia, Saturday, Round 2
SOMETHING IS DIFFERENTabout Byunki this morning, and I don’t care. On any other day his transformation from a walking rage comic into the chipper, positively bubbly dude standing in front of the Team Fury green room’s whiteboard would be a welcome and delightful mystery. Not so much today. All I can think about is Jake.
While Byunki is chattering about Team Chronic, I’m seeing Jake death marching to Bob’s car with barely a backward look at me. Jake’s face through the window, mouthing, “I’m sorry.” Jake being in trouble with his friends because I was selfish enough to take up time he didn’t have, Jake immediately changing from the funny, sleepy boy who doesn’t need me to explain anything about myself into the competitor whose teammates see me as a viper waiting to strike. Jake’s smile when he saw I rememberedKnights of Darknessafter all these years.
“KNOX, are you getting this?”
Byunki, Team Fury, andGuardians League Online. These are the things I need to be thinking about. I blink to refocus my eyes and look up at the whiteboard.
“I am,” I lie, and try my hardest to match Ivan’s, Han-Jun’s, and Erik’s contemplative expressions. Byunki must have had a double shot in his coffee this morning—he’s scribbling rapid-fire notes across the bottom three quarters of the board and not even noticing that his sleeve is rubbing half of the letters off every time he moves to draw a new diagram.
Consequently, almost none of what he’s writing makes sense to anyone but him, but I studied Chronic well enough to fill in the blanks with my own knowledge.
“Who do you think Ivan should prep as his secondary character in case he has to swap?” Byunki directs the question at me again. This morning may have been sheer interpersonal hell, but my heart rate picks up at the thought that Byunki is in a good enough mood to ask for my opinion on strategy. That, or the sugar bomb waiting in the bottom of the coffee Jake “stirred” has finally hit my bloodstream.
And I’m thinking about Jake again. Right when Byunki needs me to literally get my head in the game.
“Um, if Ivan gets the swap slot, and he should totally get the swap spot, he should prep, um . . .”
That thing I do every day, the clean mind-sweep that pushes my real life away when I’m playingGLOand vice versa, is nonoperational this morning. I’m trying to restart it by key smashing every trigger in my brain, but instead of a blissful, focused reboot, I keep seeing and hearing the human error message that is Jake.
This is my fault, I think, when I should be thinking about how Chronic is a particularly tough nut to crack. Who should get the swap spot? Come on, think.
I should have let him hate me after the ice cream. He still wouldn’t have told. Why did I have to make sure he didn’t hate me?Each team gets one character swap after the clock goes off. The swap slot must be preassigned before the countdown and should in most circumstances go to the most versatile DPS. That means Ivan in this case. We’ll have to match his character to whatever tank Chronic is most likely to play.
