Falling Into Your Smile: K

Interview: English Version

English Version:

After the game, I walked over to the MVP interview and saw the lady ready to interview me, rows and rows of cameras ready to capture my every move, and so many reporters ready to write controversial articles about me. This long-lost feeling makes me feel extremely uneasy. Even if there were a steel wall between me and the cameras, I would be shaking.

After I adjusted my breathing and made sure I wouldn't pass out, I stood beside the young lady obediently. After a few words of greetings exchanged between us, she started to ask me questions that would get my name sent straight to the headlines if I said one wrong word. Fortunately, I came prepared. Every time one of us is interviewed, we end up on headlines, so if it must be on headlines, it must only be a topic that I allow.

The lady asked me with a teasing tone, "So, this time, Mr. K arrived in time when you needed help... Is there really no conflict between the two of you?"

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry. Deep down, I'm rolling my eyes. This whole thing is pointless; even the good things said here at this interview would be maliciously interpreted by those reporters. After thinking about it for a while, I answered her question seriously: "Our team is quite harmonious. Even if there were an actual conflict one day, we wouldn't lose the game on purpose. After all, we keep our private lives separate from work."

"In that case, between you..." She paused, as if to think of a new question that would offend people no matter how I answered it.I interrupted her: "My relationship with Lao K is not one that's particularly amazing, after all, I was hired with the sole purpose of replacing his best friend. You can't expect him to love me for that. But even so, we are teammates now. He wouldn't hold a grudge against me...I don't think...even if...he didn't let it affect his gameplay. The game still has to be played seriously."

She bowed her head and smiled, and just this small, simple gesture made my legs turn to jelly. My answer echoed in my head...Why can't I word anything properly? Woolen cloth? (I decided to keep this in. I have no clue what made the translator fuck up like this, but it's funny)

For a split second, she looked as if she was trying to hold in a laugh, but she soon returned to her original seriousness. She said, "Let's talk about a different topic. As the first ever female professional e-sports player in China, are you shocked at all to see a second female professional player now?"

The new question reminded me of myself a few years back, back when I was helpless and unable to defend myself in the face of countless questioning voices. The answer to this question was quite literally handed to me, but that perfunctory answer...I didn't want it coming out of my mouth.

I thought for a while and started to answer. I didn't think about the first sentence, so I just used the answer they wrote for me: "Of course I'm a little surprised."...

I didn't want to read the rest of it. It was a stupid answer that would get me by so they wouldn't write articles saying me and TongYao were beefing.

"I'm surprised that after so many years, there is still only one girl in the e-sports circle besides me...I'm surprised that a girl has to suffer so much grievance, questioning, and pressure in the e-sports circle...I'm surprised that after seeing so much maliciousness, there are still people who can stand there and say that the sexism that's thriving in the e-sports world is gone?"

After saying this, I breathed a sigh of relief. However, as soon as I looked up and saw the stunned crowd, the grievances of that year suddenly came to my mind for some unknown reason. Suddenly, it seemed as if I had to finish what was on my mind."But I can't say I'm too surprised. When I first entered the e-sports business, a lot of people on my first team told me that they couldn't tell from my ID whether I was a male or a female. I didn't think much of these conversations at first. One word: Bai. You simply can't tell my gender. Plus, before I joined them, I didn't have a camera or microphone on my livestreams, so I didn't think it was strange. They really had no way of knowing my gender. After chatting with them, I found out they meant that if they had found out earlier that I was a girl, they wouldn't have let me on their team. They wouldn't even have considered it."