15. Jae
Chapter fifteen
Jae
I open the door and my brain does a full system reboot.
Amiyah stands in the hallway with a pink canvas tote bag slung over one shoulder and a secondary, smaller pink purse clutched in her opposite hand.
She’s wearing an oversized black hoodie, gray joggers with pink piping down the sides, and—this is the part that breaks me—bright pink fuzzy socks tucked into what I can only describe as adult-sized slippers shaped like cartoon cats.
The ears wobble when she shifts her weight.
“Hey,” she says, like showing up to a stranger’s apartment in cat slippers is the most normal thing in the world.
I blink. “Hi.”
She walks past me without waiting for an invitation, the cat ears bouncing with each step.
My apartment is flooded with the low amber glow of the city skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I spent an hour making sure the place was spotless—the dark hardwood floors swept, the sleek minimalist kitchen counters wiped down, and the modern leather couch cleared off.
Because Apex Legends doesn't support split-screen, I spent forty minutes hauling my 55-inch OLED TV and secondary console out of my bedroom, dragging a small side table over, and placing it side-by-side with my main living room setup.
Two monitors, two consoles, two controllers, two Ethernet cables running parallel along the baseboard.
Amiyah drops onto the couch like it owes her money.
She lands directly on the left cushion, legs folding underneath her, and starts unpacking her tote bag with the efficiency of someone executing a well-rehearsed ritual.
Out comes a family-sized bag of salt and vinegar chips, a party-size container of Oreos, a six-pack of sparkling water, and a glass Tupperware container of homemade popcorn, seasoned with something that smells aggressively of garlic and chili.
She arranges everything on the coffee table with the precision of a bomb technician.
“I brought snacks,” she says, which is like announcing that the ocean contains water.
I’m still standing by the door with my hand on the doorknob.
My brain is catching up in fragments. Pink slippers.
Garlic popcorn. The way she’s already claimed my throw pillow and positioned it behind her lower back without looking at it, like the pillow received telepathic instructions and complied.
“You really came prepared,” I say, walking over.
She looks up at me, one eyebrow arched. “You said gaming. Gaming requires fuel. This is fuel.” She pats the chip bag. “Also, I don’t trust your snack judgment. No offense.”
“None taken. I was planning to order pizza.”
“That’s acceptable as a secondary measure.”
I grab the second Wireless Controller from the charging dock hooked up to the secondary rig and hand it to her.
Our fingers brush during the transfer, and the contact sends a small, inconvenient jolt up my forearm that I pretend not to notice.
She doesn’t react, just takes the controller and examines it with the focused scrutiny of someone checking a weapon for defects.
“Stick drift?” she asks.
“No. It's practically fresh out of the box.”
“Good. I hate stick drift. It’s disrespectful.”
The lobby menu loads on both screens, glowing blue against the dark glass of the windows behind us.
I take my seat on the right side of the couch, leaving what feels like a respectful distance between us.
Amiyah immediately closes half of it by leaning forward, elbows on knees, controller balanced between her palms.
Character select pops up.
She locks in Horizon instantly. Since Apex locks out duplicate Legends on the same squad, I hover for a second and pick Octane to keep up with her hyper-aggressive playstyle.
I side-eye her. She doesn’t side-eye back. She’s already scanning the drop zone on her display with the calm focus of someone about to commit several digital murders.
We drop. The map—World's Edge—rushes up to meet us, all red rock and industrial sprawl. My thumbs find the joysticks, settling into the grooves they’ve worn over years of play.
Beside me, Amiyah’s thumbs move with the same practiced ease, but there’s something different about it—a precision in the pressure, an economy of movement that makes my own button-mashing feel vaguely amateur.
The first firefight happens at a supply bin near the edge of Fragment West. I get the first shot off. She gets the first kill.
“Nice,” I say, genuinely.
“Thanks,” she says. Before I’ve even finished looting the bin I just opened, she slides down a ruined slope, throws Horizon's gravity lift directly at her feet, and shoots straight up into the air, landing cleanly on a third-story rooftop.
Ten minutes in, the squad tracker at the top right of the HUD tells a story I’m not prepared for. My kill count: two. Hers: seven.
The disparity grows with each engagement. She moves through the map like she built it herself, anticipating rotations, positioning with a sense of spatial awareness that makes my own gameplay feel like I’m driving with the parking brake on.
“You play like someone’s dad,” she says, not looking away from her screen.
Her voice is sweet, conversational, the same tone someone might use to compliment a homecooked meal.
I miss a shot with my Wingman. Entirely. The heavy bullet goes wide by approximately the width of a small continent.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Very responsible positioning. Very methodical. Very…” She pauses, sliding under an enemy’s line of fire and headshotting them with a Sentinel sniper rifle from a distance that shouldn’t be physically possible. “…dad-like.”
My face goes rigid, the heat of competitive indignation spreading from my sternum to the back of my neck.
“That’s rich coming from someone who probably color-codes her kill streaks,” I fire back.
She doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t even flinch. Just keeps playing, her expression maintaining that pleasant, slightly amused neutrality that is, objectively, the most infuriating thing I have encountered all week.
“I use a gradient system,” she says smoothly. “Purple for snipes, blue for close-range, yellow for environmental kills. Pink for when I’m feeling particularly vindictive.”
I exhale sharply through my nose.
The next engagement goes poorly. I push too aggressively into a building, get pinched between two squads, and go down.
I watch my screen turn gray as Amiyah calmly wipes the remaining duo, grabs my banner card from my deathbox, and sprint-slides toward the nearest Respawn Beacon to call me back into the fight.
She finishes the match with fourteen kills. I finish with three.
The screens flash in brilliant gold letters: YOU ARE THE APEX CHAMPIONS.
She sets her controller down on the cushion beside her, and pops a handful of garlic popcorn into her mouth without breaking eye contact with the match summary.
“Good first match,” she says. “You warmed up now?”
I am, in fact, not warmed up. I am the opposite of warmed up.
I am a man whose entire understanding of his own competence has just been publicly dismantled by a woman in cat slippers who is currently eating garlic popcorn with the serene confidence of someone who has never once questioned whether she belongs exactly where she is.
I sit up straighter. Adjust my grip on the controller. The plastic is warm from my palms.
“Again.”
She smiles. It’s not a mean smile. It’s worse than a mean smile. It’s the smile of someone who has already calculated the outcome of the next match and is politely waiting for me to catch up.
She produces wet wipes from her bag and wipes down her hands before picking the controller back up.
The lobby loads. My thumbs find the sticks. The countdown begins.
The blue light from the screens catches the edge of Amiyah’s profile—the curve of her cheek, the slight part of her lips as she concentrates, the way one strand of her golden hair has fallen across her forehead and she hasn’t bothered to push it back.
I lose track of the countdown. The match starts. I’m still looking at her.
She notices without turning. “Eyes on your drop, Jae.”
We drop. The map rushes up again, and this time I’m ready.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself.
My thumbs find the rhythm they’ve been hunting for since the first drop.
The controller settles into my palms like something that belongs there.
The drop zone materializes—Olympus, this time, all sleek white architecture and open sightlines—and I pick a spot two buildings over from Amiyah’s chosen landing. Not too close. Close enough.
The first engagement happens at a supply bin. I get the weapon first. A Peacekeeper.
I round the corner and find an enemy looting. Two quick pumps close-range. The kill notification pops, and something hot and satisfied uncurls in my chest.
“That’s one,” I say, my voice coming out sharper than I meant it to.
Amiyah says nothing. Her Horizon glides past my position on a gravity lift, executes a perfect slide into cover, and dispatches someone on a distant balcony with a sniper shot so clean it barely registers as effort.
The second engagement goes better. I flank a squad pushing through the central plaza, catch the last one retreating, and drop him with a Wingman headshot that makes the controller vibrate with the particular pleasure of a perfect connection.
“Two,” I say, and this time there’s an edge to it.
“Mm,” she replies.
The third kill comes from a thermite toss into a choke point where I’d seen movement. The fire lights up the screen, and the squad tracker updates.
“Three.” My English has shifted, the syllables coming out cleaner.“You going to actually shoot back this round?”
She doesn’t answer. Her eyes haven’t left her screen. Her thumbs move with the same unhurried precision, but there’s something different about it now—a stillness, a focus that makes the air between us feel charged.