FOG [e-sports]

Yu Sui glanced at the team uniform jacket that was left beside the bed. It was basically confirmation that Shi Luo was the one who’d gone to turn on the central heating early that morning.

Their training workload was getting heavier and heavier as time went on. Generally, when everyone gets off their computers at two or three o’clock in the morning to head back to their dorm room, they’d already be so sleepy, they could hardly keep their eyes open. In order to get to bed as soon as possible, they’ve basically developed some of optimized routines. They start to take off their clothes as soon as they enter their room and then throw them all in the dirty clothes hamper. After taking a shower, they come out and change into pajamas or T-shirts and boxers. With two more steps, they lie down on the bed with their eyes closed and fall asleep.

The clothes he changed out of before going to bed were put in the dirty clothes hamper by the door. At this moment, there was a clean team jacket on the bed, so he must have gone out again sometime after going in.

Yu Sui walked to stand beside Shi Luo’s bed. After looking for a moment, he didn’t touch Shi Luo’s bed but instead gently pulled the chair over to Shi Luo’s bedside and sat down.

Shi Luo had been worried that Yu Sui would feel uncomfortable from the cold and set the temperature of the central heating a little higher. This temperature was the most comfortable for Yu Sui but it was a bit hot for Shi Luo.

The heat made Shi Luo’s face flushed, adding a touch of childishness and making him look like he was a few years younger.

He wasn’t that old in the first place but he was pretty reliable when taking care of his boyfriend.

He even knew to turn on the central heating.

Yu Sui took out his mobile phone and sat on the chair, quietly looking at Shi Luo, feeling a little pulling kind of ache in his heart.

It wasn’t anything serious, but it was a continuous kind of ache.

It might be that between lovers, some emotions were contagious. Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo. He looked at his boyfriend, who was so good he couldn’t be any better and wondered how he could show his care for him.

The club had just been formed this season. They had frequent matches, the competition was fierce and they had to do a lot of training. Despite this, they still went ahead and got together at this time.

Since their mutual confession up to the present, let alone do what normal couples would do, like dating and watching movies, even time alone together was very limited.

Yu Sui has been trying his best to create more opportunities to be around Shi Luo but he still feels that it’s not enough, far from enough.

Yu Sui also paid attention to Shi Luo’s emotions. He’d utilized every spare minute to whisper sweet nothings to him, he made every second count to create some time alone with him. He tried his best to do what a boyfriend should do but thinking back on it now...

Although Yu Sui had no dating experience before Shi Luo, it still felt to him like he and Shi Luo were in some sort of online relationship.

They were wasting the fact that they lived in the same base.

The day he confessed, he asked Shi Luo what he wanted. Shi Luo didn’t want to make it public and he didn’t want it to affect either of their training. Yu Sui has always followed along with whatever Shi Luo wanted but at this moment, Yu Sui didn’t feel like indulging him any longer.

They should at least get to sleep in the same room when the temperature drops.

How much could that affect their training, really?

But he was still going to ask his little boyfriend for his opinion. Yu Sui turned the phone to mute, leaned back on the chair and played with his phone. He thought about how he’ll be gentle when Shi Luo wakes up in a bit and he’ll discuss this over with Shi Luo using kind words.

Not to mention, that Shi Luo had bid up the price. That had been a proper auction. He’d been listed for 100,000 yuan an hour. His little boyfriend wasn’t making full use of his purchase.

He’d basically given him that amount for nothing. He didn’t cherish his purchase and even avoided doing anything that might arouse suspicion.

For professional players, playing mobile games was basically like chopping veggies. Yu Sui didn’t have to allocate any brain power to abuse his opponents. Shi Luo still filled his heart and thoughts.

Yu Sui played mobile games for a while. He closed his eyes and dozed for a while. When he checked the time, it was half past eleven.

It was probably due to the rainy day. Outside the window, it was still dark and foggy. There was no movement in the entire base. Only the pitter patter of rain could be heard. Yu Sui’s phone buzzed. There was activity in Free’s group chat. Zhou Huo had sent a message.

[Manager·Zhou]: [You’ve all been working hard these days and finally the weather’s just right for a sleep in. Training has been pushed back for today. Everyone catch up on sleep. ]

[Coach·Old Qiao]: [The truth is that the rain is getting heavier and heavier. Auntie can’t go out to buy ingredients. The vegetables I ordered are still stuck on the road and cannot be delivered temporarily. You’ll have nothing to eat when you get up. ]

[Manager·Zhou]: [...You didn’t have to say that. I really do think everyone deserves to sleep in for a few more hours on this a rainy day for all their hard work. Didn’t you also say they could rest? ]

[Manager·Zhou]: [Speaking of. Which angel turned on the central heating yesterday? I was half asleep and half awake, freezing to death when suddenly i came alive with the coming of spring’s evening breeze. ]

[Coach·Old Qiao]: [They’re all still asleep. Ask them again tonight. I’m going to go back to sleep...]

[Manager·Zhou]: [Sleep, sleep, sleep. @Everyone, no breakfast today. When you wake up, order your own takeaway. The team will reimburse you. ]

Good timing. This was just perfect with what Yu Sui had in mind.

Yu Sui waited another quarter of an hour, Shi Luo still showed no signs of waking up.

Yu Sui picked up the phone that Shi Luo had placed by his bedside. The music player was displayed on the lock screen and it was paused.

Thinking of that piece of audio with the garbled title from last night, Yu Sui’s lips slightly ticked up.

Switching songs didn’t require one to unlock the phone.

Shi Luo was a restless sleeper. His tossing and turning had dislodged an earphone onto the pillow. Yu Sui picked it up and put it on his ear. Using Shi Luo’s mobile phone, he kept switching songs and after skipping thought more than forty songs, it finally displayed that piece of audio with the garbled title.

Yu Sui pressed the play button. Holding back a smile, he waited for Shi Luo to wake up.

Yu Sui looked at Shi Luo’s lock screen in surprise. This garbled-titled audio was twenty-six minutes long.

Yu Sui laughed, Shi Luo’s time was quite long.

The noise on the audio file was a bit heavy with the first 30 seconds just filled with loud white noise.

After half a minute, there was a click in the audio, like the sound of someone connecting a microphone.

Yu Sui had no interest in the synthesized lewd audio that starred himself. He was just about to take it off and to wait and see Shi Luo’s reaction when he was startled.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

“...I don’t sound like a kid? I...my voice changed early.”

“I...I...Ah yes, I’m secretly playing behind my parents’ backs.”

“I watched your live broadcast. Your name is Shi Luo, right?”

“Shi Ge, please take me flying.”

“I’m not very good at playing medic. Really, really, really... Tsk, why won’t you believe me?”

The smile on Yu Sui’s face gradually faded.

It was indeed his own voice coming through the earphone, but it wasn’t some synthesized gasps.

It would have been impossible for the fans to have edited this.

These were things he himself had said to Shi Luo in the beginning. The fans wouldn’t have been able to get their hands on it.

The audio was very long and was still going on. The audio was filled with his own chatter.

“Shhh...”

“My voice was too low? I – my parents were by my side just now and I couldn’t answer the voice chat.”

“Shi Ge, can you play tonight? I already skipped class.”

“They confiscated a lot of money for that class that I skipped specially for you. If you don’t come, I’m going to lose so much money for nothing. Please reply back when you hear this message.”

“Schools don’t confiscate money? Oh, our school’s pretty weird, en, they’re all f*cking beasts. They deduct 20,000 yuan if you’re ten minutes late.”

“I didn’t lie...”

“I might lie to other people but I wouldn’t think of lying to you, really.”

“I...really, I do regret it a bit.”

Shi Luo had slept very late and he still showed no signs of waking up. Yu Sui no longer wanted him to wake up at this moment. Yu Sui took a deep breath, quickly lowered the volume and continued to listen.

“Luo Ge, I have something to talk over with you...I’ll play well today and take you flying. In return, you have to promise me that no matter what happens in the future, we won’t be angry, OK?”

“It’s nothing. Promise me first.”

“Remember, you promised already.”

“Come on, let’s start.”

Yu Sui recalled what he said before he came clean to Shi Luo back then.

Listening back to it now, he was a jerk.

The audio continued on. It sounded like something from after he came clean.

“Sorry, I lied.”

“I’m a professional player.”

“Have you heard of FS Club?”

“Sorry, I don’t know how it came to this.”

“Luo Luo, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

The audio has only been playing for less than three minutes. It wasn’t over yet but his voice gradually disappeared, replaced with white noise. Yu Sui let out a pained breath.

Recalling what he’d seen of the backend record last night, this piece of audio had been played 999+ times.

Based on that fact that he’d had to skip through so many songs to get to this piece of audio, it meant that Shi Luo hadn’t listened to this recently. Once could well imagine when he must have listened to this to get to 999 times.

Yu Sui had been paying attention to Shi Luo’s development during his two years in Sacred Sword. While he can’t say he’s watched every one of Shi Luo’s matches, he practically has.

Before the game started and after the game ended, Shi Luo occasionally seemed to be in a bad mood. When the camera swept over, Shi Luo usually had his headphones on.

There was no way to ascertain if this was the one he’d been listening to, but 999+ times didn’t just accumulate out of nowhere.

When Yu Sui had just returned to China, the first time he met Shi Luo was in a stadium corridor, waiting for the match to start.

Shi Luo was wearing headphones at the time.

Later, during the several times they ran into each other, whenever Shi Luo was feeling emotional, he would usually wear headphones afterwards.

Yu Sui took note of it once or twice, but later, he found nothing and Shi Luo no longer had this problem and so he forgot about it.

The audio continued. After a burst of white noise, Yu Sui’s voice came through once again. An audio track 26-minutes long but the last twenty minutes was Yu Sui simply repeating the same sentence.

“Promise me that no matter what happens in the future, we won’t be angry, OK?”

“Promise me that no matter what happens in the future, we won’t be angry, OK?”

“Promise me that no matter what happens in the future, we won’t be angry, OK?”

...

Yu Sui took off his earphone. His throat was completely blocked.

In hindsight, he finally solved the case and understood why Shi Luo always wore headphones.

Young Master Shi hadn’t truly lost his bad temper.

He had been able to endure through two whole years by listening to his repeated apology.

On the bed, Shi Luo frowned and was about to wake up.

His eyes opened but the sky outside was still dark. He couldn’t tell what time it was. Shi Luo rubbed his eyes. Before he could grab his phone to check the time, he was suddenly enveloped tightly in someone’s embrace.

Shi Luo woke up immediately and said in confusion, “You, why’re you...”

Shi Luo felt Yu Sui hugging him very tightly. He listened as Yu Sui said into his ear, “...I’m cold. Came to you to warm up.”

Shi Luo was about to ask how he could still be cold in this heat when he realized that Yu Sui sounded a bit unnatural. He frowned and said in a low voice, “Are you freezing? Did you take some medicine?”

Shi Luo couldn’t feel the coldness from Yu Sui’s body at all. It was a bit embarrassing to be held by him like this. Before Shi Luo could ask again, Yu Sui said something even more embarrassing:

“Baobei, originally, I wanted to discuss it over with you... but now I don’t feel like doing that. So, I’m telling you instead that from now of, if we don’t have any matches, I’ll be sleeping here with you.”

Shi Luo was stunned. Before he could speak, Yu Sui whispered again, “I just found out...”

“That you might like having company.”

If he didn’t like his company, how could he have possibly listened to his voice so many times?

Shi Luo instinctively wanted to guard the team and protect Yu Sui, “If others see...”

“I’ll handle it.” Yu Sui interrupted Shi Luo, “So, do you agree?”

Shi Luo stayed dazed for a moment. His ears turned slightly red and he whispered, “...Of course, I agree.”