The night passed so insanely slowly. Not that I wasn’t accustomed to rolling around in bed, unable to sleep. I’d missed dozens of hours of sleep I should have gotten during the last few months.

  Tonight in my dark hotel room was different though. Only a small part of my restlessness came from me crushing on Veyra. I was still worried about how she felt about tomorrow, but most of my nervousness came from the upcoming match itself.

  We weren’t small-time assassins of the wilderness anymore. The tournament organizers had moved our match to the biggest stage in the biggest venue. Sure, our match was only the opening event for the guild PvP matches, but top players were still studying our fights, as Zenith Protocol had proved.

  I stared at my phone, looking at the statistics for our match against SoulShadow earlier. The livestream, it turned out, had peaked at 588,285 concurrent viewers, and the highlights video of the match had over two million views already. The three versus three event was way more popular than I’d anticipated.

  The guild battle between Syntrix and Celestial Order peaked at over four million viewers watching live, which was completely insane, and Dragrath versus Annath on the 1v1 stage had over five million live viewers. We weren’t at that level yet.

  But half a million was still complete nonsense for my dumb ass, even if the majority of those views came from SoulShadow’s fans.

  My Wonderwind inbox was flooded with offers as well. 24-Energy Co, an energy drink company, was the first to write me a formal message offering to discuss deals regarding a sponsorship. There were six other offers from companies I didn’t recognize that wanted me to slap their logo onto my clothing.

  I lay on the soft hotel bed with the lights off, staring at my phone. I sighed and opened my texts.

  Assassin: “Am I the only one getting all these sponsorship offers? -.-”

  The clock read two am right now. I doubted Veyra was awake. I regretted sending the message right away. Now I’d just wait for her response, and it wouldn’t come until morning.

  Except, her status went from grey to green, and my heart skipped a beat as the text chat read, Veyra is typing…

  Veyra: “Yeah, I got two lol. Whatever, I’ll check them out after Worlds.”

  Assassin: “Most of these are probably rip-offs. I’ve never seen anyone accept a sponsorship from El Ganar taco sauces.”

  Veyra: “xD they messaged you as well? I’ll take it if they offer me 100k to test their slop.”

  Assassin: “Yeah, no reason to take the first desperate offer. We’ll probably get approached by some larger companies. Not sure if I want a sponsorship even then. I kinda like my independence.”

  Veyra: “Same *-* ”

  She continued writing, though she took her time, with the “Veyra is typing…” text closing and coming back many times.

  Why was my heart racing? I already had a date confirmed with her. Veyra wouldn’t be going anywhere. Regardless, I found my face pressed against my pillow, eyes peeking over the edge as I waited for her message.

  Veyra: “Looks like neither of us can sleep…”

  That was it? Was I reading too much into this?

  Assassin: “Lol the finals would be too easy if we got a full night of sleep.”

  Once again, she took her time. Veyra is typing…

  Veyra: “Do you want to talk for a bit?”

  I blinked. No way. Was she really asking that?

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Oh my god, yes.

  Assassin: “Like voice call? Yeah, let’s go.”

  She responded with a nodding emoji, and I nervously pressed the call button. She picked up and awkwardly said, “Hey…”

  Her voice was soft and quiet, slightly muffled by the low-quality phone microphone. The opposite of how she usually sounded in Wonderwind.

  “Hello?” she repeated. “Is this working?”

  “Um, hey,” I said. “Sorry. I got flustered.”

  A quick, cute laugh came from the phone. “Flustered? Why?”

  “Uh… I would tell you, but I’ve been banned from flirting with you.”

  There was a pause. “What if I lift the ban?”

  “Your voice is way too cute right now,” I said with an awkward laugh. “I’ll melt.”

  She chuckled. “What, I’m just being quiet. Aree is sleeping in the other room.”

  Way too cute… I thought. I couldn’t believe she wanted to call me. I mean, we’d talked pretty much every day, but something about hearing from her own words that she actually wanted to talk to me just felt way too nice.

  “Aiden?”

  “Sorry, I’m still flustered,” I said. “I’m just happy you called me.”

  “Mm…” she said through the phone. Whatever that meant. “I wanted to show you a few memes. Look at this one.”

  She sent me an image. It took a while to load. The caption read, “Average Veyra and Assassin A tournament experience.” The image wasn’t really a meme as much as it was just a picture of me hugging Veyra in our match against Annath, after Veyra had blasted Annath with [Time Freeze].

  I heard her silly giggling through the phone.

  I shared the laugh, trying not to freeze up. “That combo has to be one of the best ultimates ever.”

  She said nothing, merely continuing to chuckle as she sent another image. This one read, “Top players after a match: Match review, more practice, no breaks. Veyra and Assassin A after a match:”

  The image was me kissing her on the forehead.

  “Those two look like they’d maybe like to go on a date tomorrow,” I said.

  She let out a girly laugh that I could only describe the best thing in the world.

  “It feels good to sleep in the same country,” she said. “I can imagine you looking at the same sky.”

  “It really does,” I said.

  We were silent for a moment. Somehow, speaking over the phone made me way more nervous. Maybe it was because she couldn’t see me, which let me hide all the awkwardness that I normally suppressed in person. She could definitely hear it from my voice.

  “I saved a few memes as well,” I said, and I sent her another image of the exact same kind, this time with our signatures, because of course someone had also posted those on the forums.

  We giggled at that like total idiots, and we continued sending memes. It didn’t take long for the chat to turn into total brainrot. The same guy that had created “Oblibeaver” had now posted “SoulSeagull.” The image had the grumpiest seagull I’d ever seen with stick-arms drawn with MS Paint. The hands were annoyedly crossed, holding SoulShadow’s daggers, and with a bronze medal hanging on his neck.

  Something about the middle of the night just made memes appear way funnier than they should have. She could have sent me a picture of a brick, and I would have laughed.

  Until she suddenly sent me a meme with the caption, “These gaming terms make no sense. You’re carrying me? What’s next? Will you tuck me into bed? Give me cuddles? Kiss me good night? Is that our strategy?”

  She giggled, suddenly much more awkwardly. That faded, and she said, “Sorry, uh is that too much?”

  I considered my next words. I really wanted to ask what was in my mind, but something just stopped, and the laughing fit was suddenly replaced with unease. “No, that’s not too much,” I said. “Actually… I’m wondering if it’s too much for me to ask if I can come over there right now.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Yeah, um… I wanted to ask…”

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “Do you, like—” She paused, every word uncertain. “—actually want to snuggle up and sleep together? With me?”

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh my god, yes.

  My lips were frozen in place, while I tried to think of how I could convey my thoughts without sounding like a weirdo. Quickly, the pause was getting too awkward. I had to say something.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I’m just waiting for the right moment to ask. Maybe it’s weird, but I would absolutely cuddle with you.”

  “Mm,” she said in her soft, quiet voice. “Okay. Good to know.”

  The phone fell silent, and I lay still, shocked, and wondering what her response even meant.

  “Maybe tomorrow?” Veyra asked. “After the match? If I’m feeling good?”

  “Yeah. Sounds good.”

  We hung around in awkward silence, until I said. “Let’s win. I’m feeling good about our chances.”

  “Yeah, if we get some sleep,” she said. “I’ll try again now. Thanks for the call. See you tomorrow.”

  “See you.”

  The call ended, and I was back alone in my dark hotel room. I kept staring at my phone screen, mouth open in awe. I breathed in.

  Then I pressed my face into my pillow, hugging it.

  We have to win tomorrow, I thought. We absolutely had to. If Veyra’s mood would be affected by our results, we had to win. I had to pop off. I had to break limits.

  I still barely got any sleep, but I woke up with the most determination so far. We had to win.

  I’d received a message at seven in the morning from my sister. She wrote, “Congrats! Mom is speechless. Do your best!” She attached a picture of her eating mashed potatoes in a dark room, lit by LEDs. It looked like she was already at the event. Did she really plan on camping front row seats?

  I sent her a picture of the cup noodles I ate for breakfast, along with a salute emoji, and departed to the arena.