Neverland Pride

Day 5

"Listen to Darcy," Can said to the other players in the voice chat. "He's got the strats."

In the in-game chat, the other players were debating whether Darcy34 was a smurf account of a pro player or a streamer, that he could be duo queuing with Tangmo and be made shot caller on barely level 50.

Can couldn't blame them, while he glanced sideways at Tin sitting in front of his laptop next to him. It was almost unbelievable that Tin hadn't known the first thing about Blood Hunt until yesterday.

Sure, he had chosen to play a vampire long-distance healer, that didn't need any aim and relied on smart positioning more than evasion, but still... for a guy who so obviously didn't know anything about video games, Tin was almost a natural.

Can couldn't deny it.

He envied him.

He had struggled for months to memorise the different maps and learn to play different heroes – and Tin had only needed a few hours of training to get the basics down, and a few dry rounds in a custom game to walk through and explore the maps to see how to make use of them.

Sure, they were playing in a much lower tier than Can usually played, given Tin's beginner's SR, but they had been mostly winning all afternoon, and Tin had become a crazily efficient shot caller.

Maybe this was due to his business prowess... shot calling was as much about strategies as it was being able to take quick and determined decisions in a fraction of a second. Tin certainly had this down, and his voice oozed enough confidence and authority for the other players to naturally fall behind his leadership.

Ah... Can needed to concentrate on the game now, and on entertaining his viewers... though Tin had helped him with that, too. He had started to translate some of their conversations into English, and answering questions in English.

Even though this was only the second day that they had been doing this, the influx of international viewers was noticeable.

Can should be thankful to Tin for helping him expand his viewer base.

But... ah, something about Tin just... made Can insecure. He felt small and unsophisticated next to him.

Tin was more handsome than him, more ribbed, he was obviously also richer, and he had been able to get into an utterly foreign medium for him in just a few hours. Not to mention that he spoke fluent English, like a native speaker... while Can stumbled over his accent in the occasions where he actually knew what he wanted to say.

Tin was damn near perfect, Can thought and sighed audibly.

"What is it, Tangmo?"

"Oh, nothing," Can said, waving his hands. "Just distracted. Let's get into it."

"Remember: go after their healers," Tin said, as if he had been playing the game for ages.

Contrary to Tin, who liked to stay back, heal his teammates, mitigate damage, and direct the game like a general from the backlines, Can loved to be in the thick of it. His favourite heroes to play were fast-moving glass cannons, that dealt a lot of damage, as long as he went in and out of the fray quickly, avoided getting hit, and had a reliable healer.

Like Tin.

Can hated that Tin had snuck into his dreams last night, too.

Or no... he hadn't hated it. That was the problem.

It had been... strangely hot.

It was probably inevitable, if you spent all your time so close to someone... that they would appear in your dreams. Can shouldn't be disconcerted.