Falling Into Your Smile

Tong Yao pulled her phone from her bag as she heard it chiming. She opened her WeChat to see a text from her best friend Jinyang. “Yao Yao, I broke up with Ai Jia” She couldn’t believe what she was reading. Jinyang and her boyfriend were perfect for each other. She was taken aback by the text. For comfort she picked up a cracker from her desk and brought it up to her mouth before taking a bite. She kept telling herself to think about what she was replying before she said it. “Why?” She typed back and hit send. “He’s somewhere beyond my reach.” Jinyang replied instantaneously. The words stared back at her causing ice to run through her veins. She could only let out a small sigh as she realized that her friend would not see or hear her reaction. Ai Jia, who was Jinyang’s boyfriend, was a professional E-Sports player. He played League of Legends and had thousands upon thousands of fans. Ever since the Chinese government recognised E-Sports as a sporting event the status of E-Sports players had gone up. In essence most of the professional players were simple minded teenagers who were addicted to the internet. Most players would be happy to live their lives in a room with nothing but a computer. Tong Yao couldn’t help but think that if you dated an E-Sports player it would be similar to dating a celebrity. “I said it from the beginning, you shouldn’t have agree to date a teenager addicted to the internet.” Tong Yao placed another cracker into her mouth before biting down. She was trying to reply to her friend without angering her. She decided that it was better for her to cool down and clicked on the League of Legend icon on her computer. All of the text immediately turned to Korean. Yao Yao had recently started to play against the Korean players and on the Korean servers because they had more experience and more mature E-Sports landscapes. Professional players from all over the world played on these Korean Servers and she thought that was the best way to sharpen her skills because she had encountered the professional several times.  She was waiting for the match to start when a chat window burst onto her screen. She started to try and read the ID but it was in English. Her eyes squinted waiting for the message to arrive but before she could say anything she realised that he was being very forward and direct. “Hello, friend, would you like to come to China play game?” Tong Yao dropped the cracker that was in her mouth as she laughed. “Is he using Google translate?” She asked herself before typing out her reply. “I am Chinese.” The other side of the conversation fell silent for a few seconds. “HAHAHAHAHAHA” The messages flooded in “You play well. How old are you? Do you want to come and play professionally? I am a part of China’s ZGDX team.” She stared at the four letters for quite a while before letting out a loud scream. Her mother, who was cleaning fish in the kitchen, came darting through to her room with a cleaver still clenched in her hands.  “What’s the matter?” She asked with concern all over her face. “Is there a cockroach?” “Mom” Yao Yao exclaimed. “Someone is inviting me to play games professionally!!!” Yao Yao pointed at her screen. “It’s a famous team, they are sponsored by China Telecom, they’re headquarters are in Shanghai.” Her mum looked at her with understanding but her demeanour hadn’t changed.  “Last week” She started. “Someone called to tell me that I had won a Rolls-Royce from the nearby supermarket.” Tong Yao stood in disbelief. “How can you be so gullible? Play professionally? What about school?” Her mother took a deep breath before continuing. “Playing these lousy computer games has gone straight to your head. Have you even finished your summer homework?” “I’m a college freshman” Tong Yao responded. “I don’t have summer homework anymore.” She spoke to her mother while faced to the side, keeping her eyes on the computer screen and as she saw the next screen pop up, it broke her from the trance that she was in and her eyes widened in shock. “They make 600,000 RMB a year, that doesn’t include any award money from the tournaments. If you are still not satisfied by that, then we can talk.” “........” Her mother stayed quiet for a long moment. “Give him your contact information.” She responded. “Didn’t you say it was a scam?” Yao Yao asked. “Would a scammer claim to pay someone 600,000 RMB?” Her mother asked her. “Maybe he’s smarter and doesn’t want to over exaggerate.” “Give him your phone number” Her mother told her. “It couldn’t hurt.” Yao Yao couldn’t help but look at her mother with confusion.  “Didn’t you say I need to finish school first?” She asked timidly. “Take leave” Her mother encouraged. “After you have earned 600,000RMB, then you can go back.” Her mother deftly told her and waved around her cleaver. “Just give him your number.” It seemed that if Yao Yao was to say no now the cleaver was going to through her skull. Tong Yao shook her head and turned back to her computer. She sat and thought it through for a moment before typing out her response.  “I am sorry, I am girl. I can’t play LPL.” She hit enter. LPL is China’s top League of Legends League. It composed of 12 teams. ZGDX is one of the better teams in the league. It has many star players, who each have thousands of fans both in China and internationally. Jinyang’s ex-boyfriend’s team YQCB were not as good. Tong Yao was a huge fan of ZGDX following them whenever they competed. She couldn’t believe that someone from ZGDX was contacting her to play, she was ecstatic but there was only one problem. She was a girl. She had only ever seen one girl play in the league.  Last year at the North American Regional’s, the only girl on a team made her way onto the stage and it made huge earthquakes in the League of Legends community.  Tong Yao wiped her face as she watched for a response, which didn’t seem to be coming. She figured that whoever had messaged her probably wouldn’t message her again. She couldn’t tell if she felt disappointment or if it was something else. Either way she lost any interest in playing the match. As she brought the cursor to close the chat the response she was waiting for with baited breath popped up. “Girls are okay.” He responded. “Xiao JieJie, let’s make a big splash in the news!” Tong Yao couldn’t help but think that even using Google translate the messages were still a little cute. Even if he was pulling her leg she was happy enough to try it and with that she posted her number into the chat and logged off.  As she reached for her phone, she discovered that her WeChat had been bombarded with messages from Jinyang. “All he knows how to do is play his damn game. What about his girlfriend? I told him one day that I was in a bad mood. Guess what he said? I lost my game; I am not in a good mood either.” Tong Yao continued to scroll down all of the messages. “I told him that I wanted to see him. He said, sure, tonight’s he is going to stream with his web cam, so I can watch him and give him some tips. I told him I am tired from classes. He told me he’s tired from playing games.” Tong Yao couldn’t help but roll her eyes as read her friend’s ramblings. “Dammit all, I am so angry. Where are you? Come back and respond now! Yesterday I saw him wearing a t-shirt that I’d never seen before. It looked so nice on him but the moment I saw it, I could tell it wasn’t something he would ever buy himself. “I asked where it had come from. He told me that it was a present from a fan. Can I say that it looked good? I hadto say it didn’t look good on him.What did he say? The fan had sent it to him, to support him, so he had to wear it at leastonce to showhis appreciation. Damn him, he appreciates his fans but treats me like s**t!” Tong Yao could feel her friend’s anger through the messages and it made her feel sorry for Ai Jia. “I’ve had enough of this i***t. My heart can’t take it anymore!”Just as Tong Yao was about to reply another flurry of messages surfaced. “Finally, he’s on break and doesn’t have to train. He doesn’t even want to go out with me for dinner...... He has the gall to stay at his base to self-train. If he practices so much, why hasn’t he won a championship yet? Fate’s just playing a sick joke on him isn’t it? He loved that keyboard more than me. Hell I’m the one who gave him the f*****g keyboard. Even when we’re dating, we’re just playing games. Then he has the balls to criticize how badly I play. PLEASE! All a girl has to do is play cute. If there’s such a creature that’s cute and can play games well, then there’d be no need for pro gamers like him! It has just pissed me off” Tong Yao couldn’t help but roar with laughter as she read the messages, but she couldn’t help but feel guilty as she typed her reply.  “Look at the bright side; I’ll buy you a big dinner.” Before she could hit send another message popped up from Jinyang.  “Yao Yao, if it’s you, how would you go about dating a professional gamer?” Tong Yao stopped typing her message and began to think about her response before deleting the message. After a moment of reverie silence she knew what her response was going to be and her smile faded away into the distance. Tong Yao looked down at her phone with all seriousness and replied. “If it was me I wouldn’t date a professional gamer. If I had that kind of patience then I might as well use it to get into Tsinghua or Beijing University.”