Because I forgot to switch to my burner account while tipping my favorite male streamer. I was forced to drop my mask in front of a live audience of millions. When the guy I was crushing on read the donation alert out loud: "Thanks to the actress, Chloe Vance, for gifting 100 Tier 3 subs." The chat exploded: "HOLY SH*T, REAL OR FAKE??!!" "What kind of Hollywood x Esports crossover is this!!!" "Turns out our girl is a simp for a pretty face too!" "A new weird ship has sailed." I went numb. Just like that, my cover was blown. Five minutes later, my manager arrived on the battlefield. Thank you all. I passed away peacefully. 1 Shine was the undisputed king of the pro gaming league. He had the skills, the looks, and the attitude. The absolute ceiling for an ADC (Marksman), a five-time champion, and a notoriously handsome guy with a toxic mouth—these were the labels plastered all over him. I was his fan. Well, actually, not just a fan. Because, in my humble reality, I am currently a very famous, A-list actress. Plus, I liked him long before he even became an esports player. But ever since he went pro, I finally had a legitimate excuse to watch him openly. My burner account was his top donator. I had been there since his early streaming days when he barely had an audience. Lately, though, with his tournament schedule packed, he streamed less and less. And he never announced his schedule. Catching a stream was pure luck. Half a month ago, I finally managed to catch one of Shine’s streams. When I clicked in, he was already in the middle of a high-ranked match. Out of pure muscle memory, I blindly gifted a massive string of 100-sub bombs. A whole wall of premium gifts flooded the screen, and he didn't even flinch. It wasn't until his teammate sitting next to him nudged him that he slowly looked up at his monitor and casually read the alert: "Thanks to the actress, Chloe Vance, for gifting 100 Tier 3 subs." Then, he seemed to realize something was off. His character, who was in the middle of fighting the boss monster, completely froze. He spaced out. Caught off guard, the enemy jungler and bot lane immediately ganked and killed him. While waiting to respawn, he looked back at the screen. The chat was moving at the speed of light. "WTF WTF WTF IS THIS REAL??!!" "A few subs literally made Shine AFK, lmao." "Is this the Chloe Vance I’m thinking of?!" "What kind of Hollywood x Esports crossover is this!!!" "I just checked her profile, IT'S HER VERIFIED ACCOUNT!" "She's a simp for a pretty face too!" "A new weird ship has sailed." I realized what I'd done way too late. I was paralyzed. I f*cking forgot to switch to my burner account! I didn't even get to watch the rest of the stream before my manager’s call blasted through my phone. She proceeded to give me a 45-minute lecture filled with "tough love." The TL;DR: Stay off the internet and stop touching social media. By the time I snuck back into Shine’s stream, he was already offline. Why was he so short today?! I had to settle for the VOD. I never expected those subs to have such a massive ripple effect. That same day, they launched me straight to the #1 trending spot on Twitter. Thinking back to whenever I had a movie coming out, my PR team had to bleed money just to get me trending. And now? A few gifted subs had Chloe and Shine’s names glued to the top three trending topics. My manager told me not to respond. I buried my head in the sand like an ostrich. I figured once the hype died down, I could just go back to my burner account, donate, and watch him in peace. But barely two weeks later, my manager enthusiastically walked up to me. "Got a gig for you! I booked you on a variety show." "I'm a movie actress, I don't do reality TV. No way." "It's the Hollywood winter right now. You're turning down work? Made enough money and want to retire early?" Retire? I wouldn't dare. I still needed to make money to buy subs for Shine. "You'll be filming it with Shine. You in? If not, I'll pass it to one of my other clients." Oh my god? Was it a dating show? A crossover romance between an A-list actress and an esports star? I admit, my heart skipped a beat. "I'm in! I'm in! I'll do it!" Only after I arrived did I realize I’d been scammed. My imagined dating show? Didn't exist. I was there to be a glorified intern for his team. Fine. Even if it wasn't romantic, it still counted as a crossover. 2 It wasn't until I stood in the lobby of the YKG gaming house that I realized I was actually here to film at Shine's base. The show, Star Assistants, was an experiential reality show. The gimmick was taking celebrities and dropping them into ordinary, grueling assistant jobs across different industries to experience life outside the glamorous Hollywood bubble. Other actors went to be paralegals, dental assistants, or farmhands. And me? I just happened to be sent to Shine’s team as an esports team assistant. "The team assistant's job is very tedious. It includes—but isn't limited to—packing gear for the players during tournaments, managing their schedules, accompanying them to brand events, monitoring their streams, observing their mental health and reporting to management... oh, and waking them up," Riley, the actual YKG team assistant, explained as she gave me a tour. "Waking them up?" I was terrible at waking up myself. "Yep. They practice late. You have to wake them up before noon every day for lunch." Noon. Okay, that wasn't too bad. "Oh, and some of the guys get really cranky in the morning, so be careful," Riley added. "They're in the second-floor training room reviewing a match right now. Let's go say hi." In the training room, a group of young guys in team jerseys was watching a replay. The moment I pushed the door open, all eyes locked onto me. Look, I know I'm a gorgeous actress, but being stared at like this made me shy. Right, I forgot. I had a whole camera crew trailing behind me. "Hi everyone, I'm Chloe. I'm the team's new assistant. Just call me Chloe," I said, pulling out my signature, approachable red-carpet smile. "Hey, what's up." "Hi, nice to meet you." "Wow, Chloe is even prettier in real life than on screen." Everyone greeted me warmly. Except Shine. He sat alone in the corner. Even though he was quiet, his aura and looks made him impossible to ignore. After greeting everyone, I walked right up to him. "Hi, I'm Chloe. I'll be your assistant for a while. Hope we get along!" "Hi, I'm Shine. First time meeting you, nice to work with you." He stood up and gave me a painfully polite, official greeting. First time meeting me my ass. Did he completely forget me? Then again, back in high school, we barely interacted. It was probably normal that he didn't remember. He was a lot taller than he was five years ago. The red and white team jersey made his skin look pale and flawless. His short, dyed-black hair made him look sharp and cold. He used to rock this stubborn, ash-grey hair forever; he probably dyed it black just for the TV cameras. I stood there, zoning out as I looked at him, remembering the first time we met. Back then, he wasn't Shine. He was Asher Hayes. It was after school during my sophomore year. In the alley behind Westbridge High, I ran into Asher for the first time. Even though school had only started two months ago, his reputation preceded him. When I saw him, he was leaning against a brick wall, casually smoking a cigarette and joking around with some punk kids. In the crowd, he stood out entirely. His height made the sloppy school uniform look like a fashion statement. His skin was pale, and his features were aggressively handsome. Who knew the school's notorious bad boy was this hot? But I always steered clear of guys like him. Being robbed was my biggest fear. I cast a quick glance his way, lowered my head, and tried to speed-walk past them. One of the punks noticed me anyway. He smirked and catcalled, "Hey, check out the body on that one." My face flushed bright red. I just wanted to escape. Asher took a drag of his cigarette, glanced at me indifferently, and then kicked the punk right in the shin—not too hard, not too soft. "Keep your mouth clean." That simple rescue made me notice him from that day on. I unconsciously started collecting stories about him around school. Like how he got into a fight today and beat someone up. Like how he skipped class to play games at the internet cafe and got caught. Like how some fearless girl confessed to him, and he rejected her. My entire high school life was basically spent harboring a massive secret crush on him. Of course I thought about confessing, but by the time I finished my acting auditions and came back to school senior year, he was gone. Rumor had it he was expelled for fighting. Then, during my freshman year of college, I found out through a high school group chat that he had become a pro gamer. I remembered he used to skip class to game, and he was insanely good at it. I started following him again, watching him go from a nobody rookie to a superstar on the main stage. But all of that was completely shattered by his polite "First time meeting you." I suddenly felt the urge to cry. A crush really is just a one-person war. He had caused a hurricane in my world. But in his story, I was just a background character who didn't even deserve a name. My heart felt like someone had crushed a dozen lemons over it—sour and suffocating. I swallowed my emotions, flashed a bright smile, and forced my slightly raspy voice to sound steady: "For me, it’s not our first time meeting." 3 Because of that sentence, every single eye and camera lens in the room snapped to us. Asher’s eyes suddenly burned a little hotter. I quickly laughed and explained, "I watch your matches all the time." Editor, please loop this in the teaser trailer. I wasn't stupid. I wasn't going to drop my mask that easily again. I absolutely could not let everyone know we went to high school together. The room let out a collective breath of relief. Asher’s shoulders relaxed slightly. "I watch your movies a lot, too." No need to be polite, bro. I literally heard you say on stream: I don't follow celebrities, I don't watch movies. No time. Assistants didn't actually have to live in the gaming house. Riley clocked out and went home shortly after. But for the sake of gathering footage, the producers made me stay in the dorms. A single room at the end of the fourth-floor hallway. Right next to Asher’s room. I suspected they wanted to push a romance angle between us. Honestly, I wanted to, too. But I had no opening. He constantly had this "do not approach" aura around him. After dinner, I went back to my room to unpack. The crew then cued me to go downstairs and watch the players stream. It was the end of the month, so grinding out stream hours was their usual post-dinner routine. When I got to the streaming room, the support player, Finn, was already interacting with his chat. I said hi to him and sat quietly in a chair off-camera, watching him play. Suddenly, his chat was flooded. "We want to see Chloe!" "Alright guys, give me a sec. Let me ask if Chloe wants to duo," Finn said. He was a sweet, soft-spoken guy. He turned to me. "Chloe, want to play a round?" "Sure." Just as Finn added me and we were about to start our happy duo queue... Asher strolled into the room with a cup of coffee. "Huh? Captain, didn't you finish your stream hours for the month? Why are you live again?" "You ate lunch today, didn't you? Didn't you still eat two bowls of rice for dinner?" ... The chat erupted in "LMAOOOO". He took a sip of his coffee and booted up the PC right next to mine. "Can't I just miss my fans?" Asher rolled his eyes at Finn. "Captain, wanna trio with us?" Finn, completely ignoring the eye roll, craned his neck to ask. "Sure." Finn was too stunned that he agreed so fast to realize how rare it was to get the Captain to queue with him. I saw the true power of reality TV right there. I swear, this was the closest I had ever been to Asher. I was sitting right between his and Finn’s setups. A straight-line distance of less than a foot. If he just leaned casually in my direction, my heart skipped a few beats. Since my account rank was low, they both hopped on their smurfs. "What do you play? I'll grab it for you," Asher asked, turning his head during the ban phase. "I'll play Mid." Honestly, I didn't have many heroes I was good at. Besides mages, I only played support, and all the good supports were banned. I had to lock in a mage. Who knew that in the first few minutes, I’d get ganked by the enemy Jungler and Mid laner over and over? I burned my flash and still fed two kills. Our Jungler typed in all-chat: "Mid, do you know how to play? Can you just hide under the tower?" Me: "Okay, okay." I turtled under my tower to clear minion waves. Asher: "Finn, go help Mid." "Don't panic Chloe, I'm coming." I died twice early, my farm was stolen by our Jungler, and I was the poorest player in the game. Even with Finn's help, it was miserable. Our Jungler was clearly duo-queued with the Top laner and only ganked top. He ignored mid completely, then typed in chat to flame me: "Mid didn't even help me defend my blue buff. What a waste of space." ... Asher won a 1v2 in his lane, took the first tower, and immediately rotated to Mid to gank. He killed the enemy Mid and pushed down the tier-1 tower. Then his fingers flew across his keyboard, typing in all-chat: "Jungler, stop rotating to help Mid. Are you on maternity leave in the jungle?" Pfft. Hahahaha. The stream chat went wild. The Jungler, currently farming a camp, fell dead silent. Led by Asher, we pushed all the way to the enemy base. They defended hard, and we couldn't crack the high-ground towers. The boss monster spawned. Our Jungler confidently went to solo it. Halfway through, the enemy Jungler ambushed him. Our Jungler died, and the boss was stolen. While the enemy Jungler was recalling, the four of us shattered their high ground and pushed the core. As we hit the core, Asher dropped another sarcastic bomb in all-chat: "Next time, teach me how to play the game with just your mouth. You farmed so badly I feel sorry for the jungle camps." The next second, the core exploded. Victory. Flawless execution. Didn't even leave the guy a chance to reply. If I were that Jungler, I’d be coughing up blood. The Toxic King of Esports. He lived up to the hype. Before the next match started. "Chloe." "Yeah?" It was the first time Asher had said my name. Why did those two syllables sound so incredibly good coming from him? "Play ADC next game. I'll support you." I looked into Asher’s ink-black eyes and couldn't find a single trace of a joke. Huh? The best Marksman in the league wanted to play Support for me? Finn: Did the sun just rise in the west? 4 Because the show was filmed and aired concurrently, I only stayed at the house for two nights during the first block. Future schedules would adjust based on audience feedback. The next day, Asher streamed for a solid 7 hours. After dinner, he played high-tier ranked games until midnight, then pushed his main account ranking. Fans kept saying he changed; he was suddenly so eager to stream. He just replied flatly, "When am I not eager? I just want to spend more time with you guys." If I wasn't sitting right there, I would've thought he was whispering sweet nothings to some girl on the phone. The moment he said that, the chat went feral. Gifts flooded the screen. If he wasn't sleeping, I didn't dare slack off either. Everyone else went to bed. I just sat by his computer with him, all the way until 2 AM. After he logged off. The crew took off our mics and packed up the cameras. He stood up, cracked his neck, and stretched. I secretly peeked as the hem of his white t-shirt lifted, exposing a razor-sharp V-line. Lord have mercy. "Thanks for the hard work, staying up with me to practice." "No problem." Happy to do it again. By the time I showered and got back to my room, it was past 2:30 AM. A knock sounded at the door. "You awake?" ! Asher! In the middle of the night... Coming to my room... Could it be... Stop it. My brain was full of trash. How could that be? "Not yet, what's up?" I quickly got up and opened the door. A fresh wave of citrus body wash hit me. Asher stood in my doorway in his pajamas. He looked like he just stepped out of the shower, his hair still dripping wet. "My hairdryer broke. Did you bring yours? Can I borrow it?" "I did, let me get it." Because I was leaving the next day, I had packed all my stuff into my suitcase. I had to open my luggage and dig around to find it. "Want to come in first? It might take me a second." There was too much stuff in there. "Is it convenient?" "Yeah, come in." He walked in and sat on the chair opposite my bed, waiting. "Here, finally found it." "Can I just use it here? Do you mind?" "No, not at all, go ahead." So, he took the hairdryer and slowly started drying his hair. The whirring filled the room. I sat on the edge of the bed, secretly watching him under the warm light. The way his hand casually ran through his hair was ridiculously attractive. His knuckles were defined, his fingers long and strong, veins popping on the back of his hand. Not too delicate, not too rough. They say hands are a man's second face, and they aren't wrong. Looking back at the past two days, it felt surreal yet entirely natural. Was it because I was already so familiar with him in my head? Even though we had only hung out for two days, I felt like I had gotten very close to him. Like an old friend. The next morning at 9 AM, I had to catch a flight. My manager and a driver came to pick me up. A few team members specifically woke up early to see me off. In the group, I didn't see Asher's silhouette. "Where's Captain? Why isn't he up yet?" Finn asked. "He streamed until the middle of the night. Probably catching up on sleep. Let's not wait for him," Caleb, the Top laner, said. "Alright, I'll get going then. See you guys in a few days," I said, hiding my slight disappointment with a smile. The driver loaded my suitcase into the van. I stood by the door, looking around one last time. Still no Asher. Just as I turned to get in the car, a voice called out from the distance. "Chloe." I whipped my head around. Asher came jogging over from down the street, holding a paper bag. "Bought you breakfast. Eat it on the way." He was slightly out of breath. "Thank you! You shouldn't have!" "Safe travels. See you in a few days." "See you." Once in the car, I opened the bag. A cup of hot soy milk and a warm, loaded breakfast burrito. In a daze, I realized that to maintain my weight for the cameras, it had been a long time since I ate such a high-calorie breakfast. I took my phone out and snapped a picture of it. Today was a day worth remembering. Back in the team lobby. Finn: "Captain, where did you go? Chloe already left, why are you just getting back?" Asher, breaking his usual habit, didn't roast him. He just smiled and went upstairs to sleep. Finn: Did the sun really just rise in the west? 5 A couple of days after I got home, the rough-cut trailer for the show dropped. Because the concept was so fresh, it got a huge wave of attention. Asher—wait, I mean Shine—trended on Twitter. A bunch of girls who didn't even watch esports were drooling over his face. Everyone was saying his toxic mouth was the price he paid for those looks. The Toxic King of Esports was brutally funny. The shippers for Shine and Finn started celebrating too. "This toxic top / soft bottom dynamic is PERFECT!" "I'm eating this up!" "I'm dying, I love them!" Both of their personal follower counts spiked along with the official show account. A few days later, the producers contacted my team. Producer: "Chloe, did you see the trailer?" "I did, the reception is pretty good." "It is, but Chloe, your interactions with Shine in episode one were a bit sparse. We're hoping you can interact with him more in the upcoming shoots. But it wasn't really your fault; the first recording didn't have any structured activities. Everyone was just practicing or streaming. We'll set up better scenarios next time." "Okay, got it." A week later, I was notified it was time to shoot again. This time, we were filming two episodes back-to-back. I had to live at the base for five days. My manager had to compress my schedule to an insane degree. Right before my flight, I was still in a studio shooting a fashion magazine cover. I practically sprinted to the airport rocking heavy smoky makeup and a messy, avant-garde hairstyle. People stared at me like a zoo animal... By the time I arrived at the team base, it was 1 AM. The driver unloaded my luggage and left after my manager gave me a few warnings. As I dragged my massive 32-inch suitcase down the dark path toward the front door, a dark shadow suddenly sprinted past me. !!! I panicked and forced myself to look. It was Asher. He was wearing a black tracksuit and running shoes, basically blending into the night. "Oh, it's you. Scared me to death," I sighed in relief. "Why are you so late?" "I had to cram all my work together to clear the next few days. It was a tight squeeze. Why are you out here so late?" "Night run." "Oh, keeping in shape. Nice." "Yeah." He smoothly grabbed my suitcase handle and walked into the base ahead of me. Inside, Finn and the Jungler were chatting in the lobby. They watched Asher walk in dragging my pink suitcase. Finn spoke up. "Captain, you're finally back? I thought you went to run a marathon. It's been almost three hours." Three hours? Insane stamina! "Oh, Chloe, you're back too?" "Yeah, flight just landed." "Captain, go shower and sleep. We waited forever for you. We have scrims tomorrow." "I didn't ask you to wait." "Bro, you're a delicate, beautiful man. Running around in the dark for hours? What if some creep targeted you? You never know." That comment earned Finn a massive eye roll from Asher. "Chloe, get some rest. We're going to sleep too, scrims tomorrow." "Okay, goodnight guys." Asher dragged my suitcase all the way to my door. "Get some rest." "I will. Thanks for the help, goodnight." "Goodnight." I went to the bathroom to wash up. When I looked in the mirror, I jumped. I thought Asher was a creep in the dark? Looking at my crazy fashion-shoot makeup, I looked like the ghost. I washed up and laid in bed, eager for tomorrow. Thinking about how my path and Asher's had crossed from parallel lines in our youth to this. My chest filled with a sweet, bubbly emotion. A room I had only slept in twice already felt warmly familiar. Maybe I was just exhausted, but I fell asleep quickly. The next day, I got ready, and the crew mic'd me up. When I got downstairs, I saw the other players waiting for lunch, including Riley, who I hadn't seen in a while. I quickly went over and said hi. "It's almost time to eat, where's Shine?" the Coach asked. "Caleb, go wake him up." Caleb, the Jungler, had been on the team forever and was the same age as Shine. "Hell no. He has Tier-1 morning crankiness. I'm not getting punched." The others immediately pretended to take phone calls or ran to the bathroom. Basically, everyone adopted an "I'm just passing through, don't ask me" attitude. "I'll go! I'll go!" Riley volunteered enthusiastically, standing up to head upstairs. But she was stopped. The producer held up a cue card behind the camera: Please have Chloe wake up Shine. Seeing this, the Coach had no choice. "Chloe, you go wake up Shine." I looked around. Everyone's face said the exact same thing: May God have mercy on your soul. ... Is this the "forced interaction" the producers wanted?
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