Love foolish

"I know you're locked in with the EVO streams," Momo said, watching you from the doorway with the patient expression of someone who had been watching you be locked into things for the entire duration of their relationship, "but we need to go, Kamina."

You looked up from your setup — three different reveal trailers paused across two monitors, a notepad with frame data scribbled in the margins — and then looked at her.

"Okay," you said. "I'm ready."

Momo smiled. You got up and followed her to the car.

"I don't like the way fighting games suck you in," she said as you pulled out of the parking spot. "They put you on edge."

You considered this for barely a second. "Momo."

"Mm?"

"I have personally heard you call people things on Wild Rift that would get you permanently banned from three different platforms, and canceled internationally. You do this while playing with Tzuyu, who I'm pretty sure has learned new vocabulary from you specifically."

Momo's mouth curved mischievously. "That's different."

"How."

"It just is." Her tone was entirely unrepentant and a little bit proud. You smiled and let it go.

The drive was easy, the city moving around you in the particular unhurried way it did on weekend afternoons. After a few minutes, you turned to her.

"So — question."

"Yes, my love?" she said, in the voice that came with the raised chin and the faint suggestion of a villain's smile.

You clocked the expression, filed it, and stayed on topic. "I know this is a fashion thing. I understand why you're going. What I don't entirely understand is why you need me so close by."

Momo looked at you like you'd asked something charmingly stupid. "Because I need my emotional support boyfriend for when people inevitably spend twenty minutes telling me how pretty I am and how lucky you are, instead of talking about anything interesting."

"I mean," you said. "I am lucky, though."

She stopped at a red light and turned to look at you with one eyebrow raised. "Who beat up those guys who were stalking me outside the convenience store while they were holding onigiri?"

A pause. "...Me."

"So you're not lucky. You're just good." The light changed, and she turned back to the road, satisfied. "There's a difference."

You thought about that. "I still feel like an outsider sometimes. At these things."

"I know." Her voice shifted — still light, but something more honest underneath it. "But that's part of why I like having you there. You keep me grounded. Or at least weird enough that I feel normal."

"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Don't push it."

You smiled. She did too, though she kept her eyes on the road.

A few minutes later, she pulled up alongside a venue and nodded toward the entrance. "Okay. I'm dropping you here. There's a local running next door — you're going to go compete until it's time to leave, or until I decide to come get you."

"What does 'until I decide to come get you' mean exactly?"

"It means I may need a thirty-minute break from being perceived, and I'll come find you."

"Fair enough," you said.

She put the car in park and watched you gather your bag. Then: "Do you have your leverless?"

You held it up.

"Water bottle?"

You lifted the stickered bottle.

"Winning attitude?"

You laughed and gave her a thumbs up as you pushed the door open.

"Make me proud," she said.

You looked back at her — the easy confidence, the slight smile, the way she watched you like she already knew how this went — and said, "I will."

She was still smiling as you walked in.

On the other side of the venue, Eunbi pulled up to the same entrance at almost the same moment.

The conversation she and Dairyu had just finished had covered roughly the same ground in a completely different register his tendency to disappear into game footage, her entirely reasonable opinion that this was a personality flaw, a brief detour into whether her cooking show opinions counted as competitive behavior (they did), and a genuine and unresolved debate about Project 2XKO tier lists that had been tabled, not settled.

"Make me proud," she said, as he climbed out.

He smiled back at her unhurried, certain, the smile of someone who meant what they said before they said it. "I will certainly do so."

She watched him until the door closed behind him.

Inside, check-in was quick. You scanned the bracket sheet and found your first round matchup.

King Dragon.

You looked around the venue until you spotted him at one of the warm-up stations tall, built like furniture, running Yasuo and Ahri with the relaxed focus of someone who wasn't nervous about anything. You watched him for a few seconds, clocked his neutral game, filed it away, and went to find your own warm-up matches.

You spent the next twenty minutes getting your hands loose, running a few casual sets with whoever was available, staying in rhythm. By the time the tournament bracket opened you were ready or as ready as you got, which was a specific kind of calm that Momo called your about to do something face and you called just existing.

You found your station. King Dragon was already there.