"GOD DAMMIT."
The word cracked through his room like a gunshot. The defeat screen bled across his monitor in mocking neon red.
Emerald II — 40 LP.
A week ago, he'd been one win from Diamond. One game. One promo. One Yasuo-shaped disaster.
And since then? Loss after loss after loss — each one dragging him lower, like a stone sucked down a drain.
Raxian slumped forward, burying his face in his hands. The headset slipped loose around his neck, the faint buzz of static filling the silence.
It might've been funny. If it didn't feel like his entire world was caving in.
---
By Monday morning, the whole group knew Rax had been grinding himself raw.
Friday night, Jake had dropped his usual "get off your ass, let's go out" in the group chat. Normally, Rax would at least shoot back a snarky "busy" or some excuse Jake could batter down until he agreed. This time? Nothing. Radio silence.
Even Tess — who had an essay tracker color-coded for everyone — had started nagging him about the assignment due this week. No response there either. Just: queue, queue, queue.
Now he slumped into the booth like roadkill in a hoodie, dark circles practically branded under his eyes.
"You look like hell," Tess said, deadpan, sliding into her seat with a latte. "Worse than usual."
"Thanks," Rax muttered.
Jake pounced immediately, grin sharp. "Rough night?"
"Try rough week," Marcus said without looking up from his phone. "Lost track of how many L's he's eaten."
Bruce gave Raxian a pitying look. "Man's living on caffeine and spite."
"And flunking his essay if he's not careful," Ava added, pen tapping against her notebook.
"Shut up," Rax mumbled.
"Define shut up," Logan said, adjusting his headphones.
Jake leaned across the table, eyes gleaming. "C'mon, just admit it. You're Emerald II, forty LP. It's public info, dude. I checked your match history this morning."
"Of course you did," Rax shot back, voice flat.
"Historic collapse!" Jake cackled. "Our prodigy, tanking demotions harder than the economy. What's next, Iron IV?"
The glare Rax leveled at him could've cut glass. For once, Jake actually leaned back.
The table went still for a beat.
Then Marcus smirked faintly. "Funny, coming from someone who's also been taking L's."
Jake blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, you know." Tess didn't look up from her drink. "Sable."
Jake's grin faltered. "What about her?"
Ava raised a brow. "She's been ignoring you all week."
"She's not ignoring me," Jake said too quickly.
Logan hummed. "She literally walked out while you were talking to her."
Bruce nodded sagely. "That was brutal, bro."
"Shut up! She's just—" Jake threw his hands up. "She's shy, alright? It's all part of the challenge."
"The challenge you're losing," Marcus said smoothly.
Jake scowled. "Not losing. Warming up. No one resists the Jake-meister forever."
"Except her," Tess said.
"Especially her," Ava added.
The group cracked up, even Bruce snorting into his cup. Jake slumped dramatically in his seat, muttering under his breath.
Across the table, Raxian dragged a hand through his hair, dead-eyed. "Can you people roast literally anyone else for once?"
"Sure," Logan murmured. "Back to you then."
Tess finally slid the rag off the counter with a soft clink of glass, straightening up like she'd just declared the conversation over. "Alright, enough. Both of you are circling the drain — Rax with EGO, Jake with… whatever that is."
"Romance," Jake corrected.
"Delusion," Tess shot back without missing a beat.
She leaned in, eyes sweeping the table. "Point is, that essay's due Friday. And I'm not watching half this group bomb it because you two can't focus. So—we're doing a study session."
Rax groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "Pass."
"Not optional," Tess said, voice firm as steel.
Bruce perked up. "Where at?"
"Marcus's, obviously," Tess said. "Big house, no siblings, decent Wi-Fi. And space for Jake to pretend he's working while the rest of us actually do it."
Marcus gave a little shrug, already resigned. "Fine. Just don't trash the place this time."
Jake spread his arms wide. "Perfect. Study, snacks, teamwork. And maybe, just maybe—" he shot Rax a grin— "we'll keep him from tilting off the planet before finals."
"Or before Diamond," Logan muttered.
Rax buried his face in his hands.
---
The classroom air was heavy with the low drone of the teacher and the scratch of pens.
Jake, of course, wasn't writing a single thing.
He was twisted sideways in his chair, chin propped in his hand, staring at Sable like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
Same beanie. Same loose tie. Same calm, distant expression. A week since she'd transferred in, and she hadn't said more than five words to anyone. She arrived, sat through class, and vanished at the bell like smoke through cracks. No lunchroom. No courtyard. No nothing.
Jake whispered to Marcus without looking away. "It's not natural."
Marcus barely glanced up from his phone. "What isn't?"
"She just—" Jake flicked his pencil toward her. "She disappears. No cafeteria. No bathroom line. I checked. Poof. Gone."
"Creepy," Marcus muttered.
"Unacceptable," Jake corrected.
Tess didn't even look up from her notes. "Maybe she just doesn't like you."
Jake scowled. "Impossible. Everyone likes me. I'm the fun one. The glue. The Jake-meister."
"Self-titled nicknames don't count," Tess said flatly.
"Earned," Jake shot back. Then, louder — just enough for Sable to hear: "You know, if I was a prodigy everyone whispered about, I'd at least say hi to the guy who carried ACA's last EGO tourney."
The words lingered like bait.
Sable blinked once, slow. Her gaze slid to Jake, held for a half-second — unreadable, steady — then drifted right past him as if he was a chair.
Jake's grin twitched, then faltered. "…Okay. She's still shy. That's fine. Ice queens melt slow."
"Or never," Tess said dryly.
Marcus smirked. "You're down bad, man."
Jake stabbed his pencil into his notebook. "This isn't 'down bad.' It's persistence. Principles."
Across the room, Sable didn't move an inch.
To Jake, it was a challenge.To Raxian, it was an insult.
Prodigy. That's what everyone called her. Supposedly brilliant. Supposedly untouchable. Yet she didn't talk, didn't explain, didn't even try. She just sat there like the rest of them weren't worth her time.
Was that it? Did she think she was too good for them? For him?
Raxian's pen pressed hard against the paper, carving grooves. Smoke, he thought bitterly. That's all she was. Always there, never reachable.
And the worst part was… even when he looked away, he could still feel her presence hanging in the room.
---
Lunch buzzed with the usual cafeteria chaos — trays clattering, voices bouncing off the glass walls — when Jake leaned in across the table, elbows on the surface and eyes gleaming like trouble.
"Alright," he announced. "New plan."
Raxian didn't look up from his untouched food. "No."
"You don't even know what I was gonna say."
"It's you," Raxian muttered. "It's either loud or stupid."
Jake grinned. "Both. Dueling me. After school. Old times' sake."
That made Raxian pause. Barely.
They used to do it all the time — back when they were younger, when every win felt like rewriting the world. Hours spent locked in 1v1s until sunrise, chasing the high of outplaying each other.
"I'm not in the mood," Raxian said.
"Exactly," Jake shot back. "That's the point. Shake the rust off."
"Hard pass."
Jake tilted his head, grin sharpening. "Or are you just scared I'll win?"
That got him. It always got him.
Raxian exhaled, setting his fork down. "…Fine."
"Absolutely not," Tess cut in before Jake could gloat. She snapped her lunchbox shut with the finality of a gavel. "Study session first. Dueling later. If at all."
Jake blinked. "What—no, this is the study session. Mental training. Cognitive speed, reflex work—"
"Stop dressing your procrastination up as science," Tess said flatly.
Ava didn't look up from her tablet. "If you want to fall behind, be my guest. Just don't drag the rest of us with you."
Bruce, on the other hand, looked almost amused. "Honestly? Could be good for him. Rax hasn't looked this dead in a week. Might shake something loose."
Marcus leaned back in his chair, lazy smirk tugging at his mouth. "We're at my place anyway. Big room, good Wi-Fi. I don't care. Just don't fry my router."
Jake spread his arms wide, victorious. "See? Democracy at work. Majority rules. The duel lives."
"Democracy didn't happen," Tess said, voice dry as sand.
"Bruce agreed. Marcus agreed. That's fifty percent. Add me and—boom—landslide victory."
"That's not how math works," Ava murmured, flicking her stylus.
"Math is subjective," Jake declared.
"No," three voices said at once.
Raxian pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't know if he was more annoyed at Jake for baiting him into a duel… or at himself for taking the bait.
But either way, it was happening.
---
Marcus's house was practically another planet.
Past the gated drive and manicured hedges, it opened into three floors of glass and pale stone, echoing with quiet like a museum. The kind of place where art wasn't decoration — it was probably insured.
They always gathered here for game nights and "study sessions" — mostly because Marcus's parents were never home, and the entire basement had been converted into a lounge-studio hybrid: couches circling a massive screen, desks lining the walls, and enough space for everyone to spread out their laptops without tripping over cables.
Tonight was no different. Ava and Logan had already claimed the long marble counter, laptops and notebooks fanned out like a war room. Logan had his hood up, pencil tapping idly, while Ava typed with surgical precision, earbuds in. Tess sat cross-legged on the rug, already sorting through a pile of handouts like a drill sergeant prepping for battle.
Bruce had taken the corner couch, soda in hand, looking way too comfortable for someone about to write an essay.
Jake, of course, wasn't working at all. He cracked his knuckles dramatically as he set up his laptop on the main table. "Alright, ladies and gentlemen, you're about to witness greatness."
"You're about to embarrass yourself," Marcus said mildly, cueing up the big projector screen so everyone could watch.
"Please. I've been cooking," Jake said, smirking. "Rax is the one crumbling like a stale muffin."
"Fearsome trash talk," Tess muttered.
Raxian didn't rise to it. Headset on, eyes narrowed, he looked like he was trying to will himself into focus. Ekko's splash art flared on his monitor, violet-blue streaks painting his face like war paint.
"Best of three?" Jake asked, already locking in Sett with a cocky grin.
Raxian just clicked. No banter.
The duel kicked off sharp — minions crashing, cooldowns dancing. But it didn't stay sharp. Jake was relentless. Every Sett punch landed heavy, every trade timed clean. Meanwhile, Rax's rhythm — normally razor precise — kept slipping. A missed CS here. A mistimed dash there. An overextended dive that should've been free, but wasn't.
The first death came fast. Then another. By the third gray screen and that hollow 'You have been slain' toll in his ears, the basement had gone quiet.
Jake's grin faltered. "C'mon, man. This isn't you. Where's the fire?"
Raxian slammed his laptop shut, the sound cracking like a whip. The table rattled.
Everyone froze.
Without a word, he shoved his bag onto his shoulder and strode toward the stairs.
"Rax—" Bruce started gently.
But he was gone before anyone could stop him.
The room stayed quiet except for the soft lo-fi humming from Logan's earbuds.
"…So," Tess said finally, breaking the silence, "who's going to check if he rage-quit life?"
"Not it," Marcus said instantly, raising his hands.
Bruce sighed, setting his soda down. "He'll be fine. Just needs to cool off."
Jake stared at the empty stairs, grin gone. He hated winning like this.
"Guess it's back to the essay then," Ava said, already flipping to a fresh page. "Some of us would like to graduate."
"Ugh." Jake slumped dramatically, pulling a bag of chips toward himself. "Fine. But when he comes back, I'm rematching him. With Trynda this time."
"No," five voices said at once.
Tess pushed her hair back with both hands and exhaled hard. "Alright. Let's split the work. Sources, outline, draft. Snacks in the middle, no crumbs on the desk."
Marcus smirked faintly. "That's what the rug's for."
"Marcus."
He shrugged, unbothered, and passed Bruce another soda.
The keys started clattering, pens scratching, the smell of chips and chocolate filling the room. It wasn't perfect focus — not with Jake sneaking comments every two minutes and Tess threatening to mute him permanently — but it was progress.
"Hey, Logan," Jake said suddenly, leaning over the counter. "You're, like, a genius, right?"
Logan didn't even look up, pencil still moving. "Define genius."
"You got the highest score on the last test."
Logan's pencil paused. "…And?"
"So you should definitely do my part. You know, for the good of the group. Team morale and all that."
Ava finally glanced up, unimpressed. "You mean so you can eat chips and contribute nothing."
Jake grinned, unfazed. "Exactly. I see you understand."
"Do your own outline," she said, turning back to her notes.
"C'mon, Ava. You love outlines. It's, like, your whole thing. Let me take the… moral support role."
"Moral support doesn't graduate," Tess said flatly.
Bruce chuckled into his soda. Marcus just shook his head.
Jake threw his hands up, dramatic as ever. "Unbelievable. Surrounded by geniuses, and not a single one will carry me. Rax would've backed me up."
"Rax would've told you to shut up," Logan murmured, still writing.
Jake blinked. "…Okay, true."
---
Raxian walked.
Nowhere in particular. Just… forward.
The city bled past him in fragments — holographic billboards buzzing overhead, streetcars rattling the rails, neon lights shivering across puddles at his feet. Groups of students passed in bursts of laughter, their voices warped and distant, like sound traveling through water.
He barely heard any of it.
Jake's laughter. The gray screen. The quiet thought gnawing at him: maybe he wasn't good enough after all. It all tangled in his head like static.
Before he even realized it, his phone was in his hand.
[Raxian]: hey. you free?He stared, thumb hovering, then typed again:need to talk.
The dots appeared almost immediately.
[Raze]: when and where?
No follow-up questions. No judgment. Just that.
Raxian's chest tightened. The city lights seemed harsher all of a sudden, the noise pressing in.
[Raxian]: vending machine by the skatepark[Raze]: omw.
He exhaled, a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
He slid the phone back into his pocket and kept walking, shoulders hunched against the glow of the city.
He didn't know what he was hoping for. Only that if anyone could quiet the noise in his head—even for five minutes—it was Raze.
---
The sky was bruised orange when Raxian finally slowed down. He couldn't even remember how long he'd been walking — just the dull rhythm of sneakers on pavement, Jake's voice still gnawing at his skull.
The vending machine stood at the edge of the skatepark, humming faintly. The same one Raze used to lean on like a throne, back when he was teaching Raxian how to push off a board without eating concrete.
The park was nearly empty now. Halfpipes stretched like cold steel shadows.
Raxian shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at nothing.
"Didn't think you'd actually beat me here."
Raxian looked up.
Raze wandered into view, paint still smudged along his forearm, layered in his usual art-student chaos — a splattered button-down over a black turtleneck, sleeves shoved up, satchel hanging loose. His dark blue hair was a little messy, neon streak catching what was left of the sun. He looked older in the eyes. Tired. Steady.
He tugged a can from the machine, cracked it open, and leaned against the metal like the world moved at his pace. No rush. No judgment.
Raxian swallowed, eyes on the ground. "Been losing."
One brow lifted. He waited.
"A lot," Raxian added, voice dropping. "Down to Emerald II now. Forty LP. It's… pathetic."
The words hung there. He almost wanted Raze to laugh. To jab him for it.
Instead, Raze took a slow sip and said, "EGO's a rollercoaster. Some days you're climbing. Some days it eats you alive."
Silence pressed in. The vending machine hummed.
"You've been grinding since, what, elementary school?" Raze went on. "You really think one nosedive means you forgot how to fly?"
Raxian frowned at the phrasing but didn't argue.
"You're burnt out, kid. Not broken. Big difference."
"…Feels the same."
"Trust me. It's not."
There was weight behind it. Enough that Raxian finally glanced up.
Raze caught it, smirking faintly. "When I got kicked out, remember? Sixteen. Thought my life was done. Couch-hopping, drinking too much, the whole spiral. Your mom let me crash when I had nowhere else. I was a wreck."
"Yeah." Raxian remembered waking up in the dark to see him sketching in silence, rebuilding himself line by line.
"Point is," Raze said, flicking the tab of his can, "I came back from it. Everyone crashes. Just don't let the crash make you forget the climb."
Raxian exhaled through his nose, jaw tight.
"…You always gotta make this sound like a life lesson."
Raze grinned, lazy and sharp. "Because it is, dumbass."
The laugh caught him off guard — short, rough, but real. And for the first time in days, the coil in his chest loosened.