Chapter Seven
THE HALLWAY CROWD parts around them like a school of fish around a pair of sexy-ass sharks.
Up close they’re even more perfect than I could tell from the cheap seats in the theater earlier.
Jake’s shy smile is genuine, more charming, so is the way Emilia chats people up like a princess going down a line of well-wishers at a royal wedding.
They are fantastically compatible, and it shows.
All it takes is two seconds of watching Jake put his hand on Emilia’s lower back to move her out of someone’s way, or Emilia tossing her curls to look up at Jake’s cute face to see they are madly and charismatically in love with each other.
It’s simply coincidence that their love sells tickets.
And merch. And gets Wizzard some clutch partnerships from companies that wouldn’t have touched esports with a ten-foot pole if there wasn’t a legit streaming teen romance holding the league together at its core.
That kind of power is intoxicating to witness.
All I want right now is to find out how I can generate some of that on my own.
If being memorable is what it takes to succeed this summer, I don’t want to be remembered as a screwup.
I don’t know exactly what I do want to be remembered for, but I want it to look more like the way Jake and Emilia move through the world.
Confident, admired. A true dynamic duo. Except without having to worry about relying on anyone else, because that’s stupid. I need to be one of one, a dynamic uno.
“Oh my god, hi!” Trieu confidently waves the two superstars over as if they were old friends. Which, to be fair, they might be. I haven’t asked. It’s entirely possible everyone in the Wizzard esports community knows each other except for me and Cass.
“Sorry we’re late,” Jake says.
“You’re really not,” Trieu responds.
“That’s just how he says hello,” Emilia clarifies. “We can’t stay for long, though.”
“All good. How’s Bob?” Trieu asks.
“Still in love with you,” Emilia blurts out before Jake gently nudges her in the ribs. “What? He totally is.”
For the first time since I met him, Trieu looks a little bit bashful. I can’t tell if his blush is genuine or excellently blended makeup, which I think he would appreciate if I told him.
“Well, you know how it goes with these kind of things … ,” Trieu begins, then seemingly finds himself at a loss regarding how to end that thought.
“Can we meet your friends?” Jake asks, successfully pivoting away from a potential awkward silence.
“Oh, right. Duh.” Trieu turns around and gestures to Kavi and myself.
“I’m Kavi Khurana.” Kavi’s smile is so wide it looks about to split her face in half. “Super great to meet you; we should talk about collabing sometime.”
“And this—” Trieu grabs my elbow to drag me a little closer into the group.
“Is Zora,” Emilia finishes for him. “The mystery knight. I’m Emilia. You guys mind if we talk to Zora for a second?”
That was directed to Kavi and Trieu, who bow out of the conversation without so much as a “catch ya later.” I’m so shocked that Emilia and Jake want to talk to me alone that I forget to hate Ivan for a second and peek over to check if he sees this is happening too.
Except I can’t, because he’s gone. Totally vanished even though he was only a few yards away a moment ago.
“Hi?” I reply. “I mean—yeah, I’m Zora, and I know who you are, of course. Both of you, I mean; you’re legendary. It’s an honor to meet you.” Is that too familiar? Too groveling?
Emilia rolls her eyes, but I get the sense that she’s not doing it because of me. “You single-handedly got fifty live streams taken down by Brian Juno’s own content filter and forced him to temporarily rewrite the rules of the academy on your first day. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“Seriously, good job,” Jake adds. It feels like I’m missing something here.
“Wait, I’m confused,” I say. “You think it’s a good thing that Brian hates me?”
Emilia and Jake laugh in tandem.
“Trust me,” Emilia says. “Brian does not hate you.”
“The only things he hates are the ESRB and bad investments,” Jake adds.
“You got his attention,” Emilia continues. Hearing them talk feels like talking to one person spread across two very different bodies. “That’s all that matters.”
“To think,” I say sarcastically, “coming in today I thought being a good player was all that matters.”
A shadow passes over Emilia’s face, just a hint of discomfort that I don’t think most people would pick up on. It’s the shadow that comes when someone says something rude and true, and you don’t want anyone to know about the true part. I often see that look on other people’s faces when I talk.
“Yeah,” Emilia replies. “A lot of people think that.”
“I just didn’t think I signed up for all of this.” I gesture to the whole room. “I’m completely out of my depth.” It feels weird to admit that to someone I just met, but something tells me Emilia knows she has that effect on people. I think it’s why she wanted to talk to me in the first place.
“Looks like it, yeah,” Jake agrees. His bluntness surprises me.
Is he trying to make me feel better or not?
Another commotion rises from the sitting area across the lounge, where a crowd of people are gathered around the TV.
One of the Smash Bros. players has apparently ceded his controller to someone whose skills have a handful of the most prominent gamers in the country completely enraptured.
It must be down to the wire, because someone immediately shushes the crowd to allow the players sitting all the way forward on the couch to focus harder on their combos.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any advice, would you?” I ask Emilia and Jake. “On how to recover from this whole ‘enemy of the people’ vibe? Almost everyone in this room acts like screwing up is contagious.”
“Let me think about that for a second,” Emilia says.
Another cheer floats over from the Smash match, and a player stands up to take a victorious bow.
When the crowd parts briefly, I see what I should have already guessed.
It’s Ivan, of course it is, with his toothpaste-white smile and floppy hair intermittently illuminated by camera flashes and the glow of recording screens.
Even without the extra light, there’s something shiny about him when he’s playing to a crowd.
He looks taller, more relaxed, and friendly in the same way that Emilia and Jake look when the spotlight is on them.
It’s an obvious front, but an effective one.
Regardless of who I know he really is, Ivan Hunt has the look of a hero.
“Got it,” Emilia says suddenly, shaking me out of a reverie I never consciously consented to experiencing.
“Got what?” I ask.
“Advice,” Jake clarifies for her.
“Right!” I did ask for advice. Less than ten seconds ago. I remember doing that, before Ivan … Never mind Ivan. I pointedly drag my eyes away from his victory celebration and try very hard to concentrate back on the literal celebrity wasting her valuable time on me right now.
“Why are you here?” Emilia asks me.
“I—What? That’s a question, not advice.”
“It’s relevant,” Jake replies. He’s looking at Emilia lovingly, probably reading her mind again. What is it about a guy in love with a woman who could kick his ass that makes me trust him implicitly?
“I … uh.” I look around the room again. Everyone within earshot is pretending not to listen, but they are.
“I want to make games. Write games, Wizzard games. And I have ideas for Guardians League Royale. Like, good ideas, or at least I think so. I’m here to make sure everyone at Wizzard knows who I am so I can work there in a few years.
I want the Juno mentorship. I don’t know, it’s stupid. ”
“Don’t say it’s stupid,” Jake says.
“It’s actually perfect,” Emilia adds. “You want to tell stories?”
“Yeah,” I say. Then, with more of the confidence I’m borrowing from her presence, “Yes, I do.”
“Then tell a different one,” Emilia says. “Like, yeah, the end result of today was kind of bad for you, but it’s not the ending. Do something totally different tomorrow, be unpredictable, don’t be defined by one event.”
“Become ungovernable, fight the mailman, run with scissors,” Jake adds.
That’s a thought. “Okay, but what about everyone else here? I’m in last place in half of a popularity contest, and no one will even talk to me.”
“But they’re talking about you,” Emilia points out. “Again, the hard part is done. Keep their attention, just for something else. Take it from me.” Emilia gives me a knowing stare. “People around here have very short memories.”
I know where she’s about to look before she does it. Emilia narrows her eyes at the corner of the common room where Ivan is sitting. For a second, I have an overwhelming desire to ask for her side of the story on the Ivan thing—I’m sure she has all kinds of tea on him and how much he sucks.
That, however, is one of those topics that only appears as a conversational option when Sims are Good Friends. I’m not there yet with anyone at this party, let alone Emilia and Jake of “Emilia and Jake” fame.
A blue-eyed boy with a jawline I’d describe as “intense” half steps between Emilia and me, holding his phone up like he’s trying to sell it.
“Hey, I’m Chaz. Can I get a picture?” he asks Emilia, ignoring the surprised “um” noise I make when he almost steps on me. I decide in that moment that if I have a choice between being disliked or being invisible, I might actually choose disliked.
“No.” Emilia holds her hand up. “I’m talking to my friend here.”
Friend? I peek quizzically at Jake, who winks at me behind his thick-framed glasses.
“You know Zora, right?” Emilia asks. She makes it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, that this random boy should know me. Chaz steps back, as if Emilia’s acknowledgment of my existence made me magically appear in his peripheral vision.
“Hi.” I give Chaz a little wave. “We haven’t met.”
“We were just talking about how messed up it was that Brian just, like, shoved cameras in everyone’s faces without any warning,” Jake lies. He makes it sound like that read on the situation is the obvious, universal reaction everyone had to the events of this afternoon.
“Oh, for sure, for sure, super messed up, yeah,” says Chaz, nodding furiously. I knew being popular was probably fun, but I didn’t know it conveyed the power of rewriting reality! It’s giving Alan Wake, and I love it. How exciting. I wonder what they’ll say next.
Nothing. Emilia and Jake say nothing next. Oh! Am I supposed to talk here? It’s my turn, okay. Write a new story. Say something unexpected.
“Yeah, like …” I peer wildly around the room until my eyes fall on Kavi.
She told me earlier I did everyone a favor by getting the footage flagged.
I gave them a dress rehearsal. That’s not a bad angle.
“I’m just kind of big on boundaries, you know?
And I don’t know about you, but I was not camera ready when they surprised us like that. ”
“For sure, for sure,” Chaz says again. I get the distinct impression that pulling on the cord in this guy’s back results in his speaking one of two totally boring phrases. “Do I know you, from streaming or something? What’s your channel name?”
The only WiTch account I have is the one Wizzard made for me this morning and somehow hooked up to my desk setup—how did they do that, by the way?
Is it possible that Wizzard has a back door into our accounts and can remotely port everyone’s characters?
How did I miss that before? Something to consider for later.
“I, um. I don’t … have one,” I admit sheepishly.
“Oh,” Chaz says, his interest waning more with every word I say. “Cool. I gotta go do …” He trails off. Now that he knows I’m not actually popular, it seems he’s over getting to know me, which is rude. What kind of nickname is Chaz anyway? Your mother named you Charles, stop fronting.
“Well,” Jake sighs. “It’s a start.”
“Yeah.” It’s time for me to cut these cool kids loose before I almost put a dent in their shine. “Thanks for the advice. I got it from here, though.”
I pretend not to hear Emilia stifle a laugh, because I know it was involuntary and she means it in the nicest way possible.
Also she’s right. It is laughable that I can convince anyone, let alone Brian Juno, forty-six teenagers, and an entire niche internet micro-celeb fandom ecosystem that I belong here.
“Sorry, that laugh wasn’t at you,” Emilia clarifies. Oh. Never mind, I’m fine. “I just looked over your shoulder and saw Ivan, like, sprint down the hallway and run into someone’s room.”
All the questions I had about Ivan before come rushing to the front of my mind, but they’re just as rude now as they were before.
I want to ask Emilia how exactly Ivan’s team screwed her over at the championships.
I want to know if she knew what happened to him when he disappeared.
I’d ask her if she thinks he’s run into someone’s room to avoid her specifically, how she makes him do that, and if it’s a skill anyone can learn.
Wait. Ivan ran away and went into someone’s room. On the girls’ floor. Without a key. And my door is still unlocked from when Cassius was in there.
That motherf—He’s in my room!
“Excuse me,” I say to both Emilia and Jake. “Thank you both so much for talking to me and the advice and …” I peek down the hall. No sign of Ivan coming out of my room. He’s still in there.
“No problem,” Jake says.
“And for telling that guy you knew me, even if he didn’t totally believe you, but I have to … I gotta—”
“Go,” Emilia says with a smile. “And forget that guy. Who actively chooses the nickname Chaz, anyway?”
“I know, right? Thank you!” I enthusiastically agree, then give them both an awkward military-adjacent salute before I peel off from the party and jog back down the hall with my heart racing.
Maybe I was wrong before. Someone else could have left their door open. Ivan could be in their room, not mine.