Sweet Romance11 min read
My Game ID, Your Smile
ButterPicks14 views
I found out someone put my face on the campus confession board because Juliana shoved her phone into my face between my ranked matches.
"Look! They posted you," she giggled. "Your admirer finally showed up."
I was lying on my bed mid-match, thumb flicking like a pro, and I snorted. "Who posts a girl's side profile on a confession wall and calls her 'a cutie from lecture'?"
"Whoever it is, they have taste," Juliana said. "Also, you should be flattered."
"Flattered that someone posted a photo of me while I'm playing games?" I scoffed. "They put my gaming face out for strangers."
Juliana curled around my shoulder. "You look good in that photo. Own it."
"Yeah, whatever." I opened the message thread. The post was anonymous. The caption was bubbly and ridiculous: 'Met this cutie in public class today, so pretty! Love, love!' Someone had circled my phone screen in the photo to point to my in-game ID. I stared. "They even circled my screen."
"You should be happy," Juliana said. "Your love life just got starter fuel."
"Love life? I have no—" I stopped mid-sentence as my game mate in the Ranked lobby typed: "Gusun Li, why were you stunned just now?"
I had been stunned because I'd seen the confession post. "Sorry, bro. Bad move."
My teammate typed: "Bro, you okay? You went AFK."
"I'm fine," I typed back, swapping a defensive item for a revive. "I only zoned for a second."
"Why 'bro'?" Juliana whispered.
"Because he won't duo with girls," I confessed out loud. "I pretended to be a guy to join his queue."
"Why?" she asked.
"He has a thing against hooking up with teammates," I said, fingers hovering on 'accept'. "He only plays with his classmates."
"Why would you lie?"
"Because he's insanely good. His ID is 'I Will Come To Support'. He plays characters like a demon."
Juliana laughed. "So you lied. Classic tactic."
I am not proud to admit I lied, but I told myself it was harmless. I told him I was male to fit whoever's assumptions about who can play what. He said, "Oh." And then he accepted my friend request.
"Big bro," I typed in the chat. "I swear I'm not a kiter."
He replied with a single "oh."
We queued. He was brilliant. After a few games I bragged, shameless, and added him as friend. He refused my first friend request: "No girls."
I fumbled a reply: "I was clarifying, that was my sister's account—"
He: "Your hero looks like a male player."
He was right in the most ridiculous way. My hero pool mostly consisted of the hyper-macho picks—men who smash and bellow—characters like Ma Chao and Mark, because I liked the thrill of frontlines. I didn't think I'd get called out for it. I typed, embarrassed, "Okay, I'm male. Be merciless."
He finally accepted. "Alright."
At the same time, I had a real crush. Not on a stranger. On Preston Brooks—my childhood friend. He was in a different major, in the same university, and he thought I was a menace in a pair of pale yellow shorts the day I went to fetch him. That day I met someone else.
They were playing basketball when I came to find Preston. I meant to play the role of casual friend—hair unwashed, clothes messy, voice rough from staying up—but when I reached the court I saw a face that made me freeze.
"Preston!" I hopped over and patted who I thought was him. The tall boy turned. He was not Preston.
"You're not Preston." I blurted, stunned.
Preston barked a laugh. "Jeez, Kaliyah, this is Liam."
Liam Rose. He had a face that made me lose my train of thought: sharp cheekbones, a calm mouth, a quiet confidence that felt like a small gravity. He smiled, and for a blink I forgot about my messy hair and the fact I was still in shorts.
"You ran?" he asked, half-smiling.
I didn't run. I stood like an idiot, and Preston clapped the new boy on the shoulder. "Liam, meet Kaliyah. You two should talk."
I wanted to, and I didn't know how.
Juliana couldn't believe it when I told her later. "He’s the basketball guy? Did you faint?"
"No, I just stared like a creeper," I admitted.
Preston was efficient. A weekend dinner came together fast: him, Liam, and me. It was supposed to be casual—hotpot, sharing jokes, the steam making us all look like ghosts. I dressed up for nothing and everything. Liam barely spoke during dinner, ate sparingly, and somehow made that look like a style.
After the movie we walked back toward our dorms. The night was cool and I shivered in a half-skirt. Suddenly something landed on my shoulders: a denim jacket.
"That's Liam's," Preston said.
I nearly dropped my shopping bag. Liam had walked back to put his jacket on my shoulders without a fuss. "Here," he said, voice soft. "You should wear it."
It smelled faintly of mint. My cheeks heated up. He offered his phone and asked for my WeChat QR code. I felt both thrilled and ridiculous. My hands hovered, trembling.
I changed my avatar, cleaned my feed, and finally messaged him: "Nice avatar, by the way."
Three minutes later: "Thanks."
"Do you do photography?" I pressed.
"A bit. Used to like it."
He sent me a suggestion to join a Saturday escape room; Preston said there was space and invited me. I hesitated. But of course I went.
The escape room was 'Vampire Diary,' horror-level scary. I wouldn't brag that I love jump scares—I don't. Yet there I was, hand close to Liam's sleeve in the dim hallways.
He leaned low, and said, quietly, "Are you scared? You can hold my sleeve."
My face must have been bright red. "I'm okay," I lied, but my hands were cold and my heart clicked like a broken clock.
A fake human head dropped from the ceiling and I screamed and clutched him hard enough to wobble him. He steadied me and said, "It's okay. I'm here."
People laughed at my shriek. He smiled and even joked about me grabbing him like I owned him. "You can cling to my coat if you want," he offered, voice kind and steady, and I nearly melted on the spot.
The rest of the night was small gentle touches. He asked whether I came around to these things often; I said no. He said, "My cousin likes these things." He smiled that soft smile and I tried not to stare.
On Saturday later, we had milk tea and a silly conversation about games. Preston, in particular, kept teasing me. "Liam, you should coach Kaliyah in the game."
Liam shrugged. "I could. She sounds like she plays."
Everyone laughed when I said I mostly played macho heroes. "Who plays a tank as a girl?" someone asked, teasing.
"Me," I said, laughing and oddly proud.
Liam wasn't one to show much, but he did small things. When my delivery was called at the mall, I had three shopping bags and he reached forward to take them without hesitation. Our hands brushed. It was like lightning—calm, warm lightning. I pulled back and refused the favor, all flustered, but he only smiled, unbothered. "You're too polite," he said.
"Am I?" I asked.
"Yes."
He later asked if I played the mobile game he was always logged into. I admitted to playing, and we both laughed about the irony that he had thought I was a guy in-game. "When did you know?" I asked.
"A while before you asked me on library date," he admitted later, but his smile made me feel steady.
We played together. He was a monster at the game—serious, precise. I rode his coattails with my support picks. Once mid-game, in a rough match, he said, "Kaliyah, can you come down? I want to duel that Li player."
"You're dueling mid? Aren't you going to help your team?" I asked.
"Just watch," he said.
He won the duel. Later he was caught and died; I laughed and joked with him. He was competitive—sometimes childish—but he was also careful. He carried a rare patience that warmed when he showed it to me.
After a few late-night sessions and a match we shared too many heart emojis on a simple screenshot, he suddenly messaged: "Do girls like libraries?"
I typed back: "I don't know. My imaginary brother likes them."
He asked if my 'sister' (which was me) liked the library. He thanked me as if he had done me a favor. I suspected nothing.
Then, a morning text: "Kaliyah, basketball match tomorrow. Can you come?"
I answered with sarcasm and sleep, then Preston teased me until I agreed. He wanted us to take pictures and for me to act normal. I grumbled, but when I saw Liam on the court, I was breathless.
He played like someone born to play—elegant, focused. He sank a three-pointer and glanced at me, flashing the most criminal small smile. Juliana squeezed my arm and whispered, "He smiled at you."
My voice escaped in a squeal. "Do not exaggerate!"
After the game, Liam slipped off and bought water with me. He surprised me again by asking for study partners. "Exam season," he said, "let's study together. Library, ten?"
My heart did a ridiculous leap. I said yes.
On the library date I rehearsed a confession the whole way there. "What if he doesn't like me for more than my looks?" I thought. When I finally blurted, "I like you," in a patch of afternoon sun under leaves, he surprised me.
"I like you too," he said simply, then added, "I was going to confess today."
I froze. For a while I thought he'd say he liked someone else, or he wouldn't feel the same, but he didn't. "You were going to confess? Why didn't you?"
"I was scared," he said plainly, cheeks pink. "I didn't want to scare you away."
So naive and earnest and perfect. He gave me a small planet pendant—simple, silver—then looped it around my neck. "Will you be my girlfriend?" he asked.
I grinned, because I was ridiculous too. "Do you even need to ask?"
He laughed and called me his 'stinky treasure' and I called him 'stubborn boy.' We set matching avatars and nicknames. He joked about being the world's worst romantic and then turned out to be exactly the sort of person who kept surprising me with small thoughtful things.
There were at least three heartbeat moments that stuck.
"Will you wear this?" he asked, handing me his jacket that first night. He rarely smiled, but he did then. I remember thinking, He never smiles like this for anyone else.
Once during the escape room he bent down to steady me, breath warm near my hair, and said, "It's okay. I'm here." The hush in his voice made something in my chest go soft.
On the basketball court, he winked at me after scoring and then later, when we took a victory photo, he leaned close enough to be warm and smelled faintly of mint. He seemed like a secret kept by the sun.
We set nicknames, changed avatars, and talked in the small ways lovers do. He sent picture after picture of possible couples' profile photos. "Which one?" he would ask, and I would send back the one that made my stomach flutter.
One night, after hours of matches, I noticed something: he had sent me his QQ number, and the portrait there matched the mysterious ID "I Will Come To Support." My heart lurched. Could it be that Liam and the legendary 'wild king' in my ranked games were the same person?
I opened the game cold with the uneasy thrill gamblers feel. "I Will Come To Support invites you to queue," the notification blinked. I froze.
I typed: "Why are you calling me 'treasure' in-game?"
A soft laugh: "You really can act forever?"
I hesitated. He logged in. The hero picks matched. My fingers trembled when I answered the queue.
We played. He said, "I knew sooner than you think. The day Preston sent me your photo I clicked it bigger. I saw the reflection on your screen. I recognized that hand."
"How long have you known?" I typed, trying to keep a straight face while my palms sweated. "How did you not tell me?"
He answered with a goofy simple: "A few days before you confessed."
"Why didn't you just say so?" I demanded.
"Because I wanted to see you be you," he replied. "I liked you enough to watch."
The truth was both small and huge. He had been there in two worlds—on the court and in the lobby. He had admired me from a distance, from my clumsy real-world moments and my fierce in-game plays. He liked my loud cheering for him as much as my quiet clinging to his jacket.
We moved together from tentative to steady. He taught me small shifts in game strategy, and I taught him how to be a little louder in happiness. We matched avatars, scheduled pair-study in the library, and played dates that looked like ordinary nights but felt like everything.
"I changed my avatar because you did," he said once. "I wanted us to look like a pair."
"So clingy," I joked.
"That's the point," he replied.
He wasn't perfect—he could be stubborn and overly proud. Once after a rough match where he lost, he slammed his controller and swore he'd never play that hero again. I was cross but also found it endearing that he took games so seriously.
There was one time I genuinely panicked: I thought—foolishly—that someone else might like him. There was a girl, Keilani Cole, who hung around the team and liked to rally cheers, who seemed to have a crush. She smiled at him openly and tried to stay close. I felt a small green prickle, not jealousy-fed rage, but a sting.
I asked him, like someone accusing a sun of duplicity: "Do you like her?"
He scoffed. "Why would I like someone who gets stars in her messages? No."
That was his way of dismissing things I worried about. He was patient but did not spare kindness.
Mostly, we built a small world made of ordinary things: shared earbuds, borrowed jackets, the libraries, late-night gaming queues, and a silly set of nicknames that made our friends roll their eyes.
"Do you remember when you pretended to be a brother?" he asked one evening.
"Yes," I said, closing my laptop.
"I liked it when you flailed and lied. It was... adorable."
I swatted his shoulder. "You are impossible."
"Maybe," he answered, head tilted. "But it's lucky for me you lie in the cutest ways."
We laughed into our pillows.
One day, Preston caught us taking a selfie and staged a dramatic announcement: "Break the news! My two favorites are a thing!"
"Shut up," I hissed, but the warmth in my chest didn't lie.
At the library, under the dappled light and the hush of pages, he and I made a small promise to study and to be selfish enough to keep each other. He was as earnest about exams as about scoring in a game. He would cheer me on in quiz practice as much as he cheered on my in-game plays.
Sometimes life blurred. There were days when classes stacked and we spoke in messages and sneaked study crams between times. Once I left a selfie of my back at the campus garden and he captioned it: 'She walked in with summer.' People joked and the friends cheered.
In the quiet moments, the most ordinary ones, he would do things: send a photo of an ordinary mug and say, "This reminded me of you," or pick up a pen when mine fell and hand it back with a smile that reached his eyes.
"You're very thoughtful," I said once as he adjusted my collar when the wind was rude.
He looked at me like I was asking a question I shouldn't ask and said, "You deserve it."
We were careful, awkward, and loving. He never dominated a conversation unless he wanted to tease me—then the teasing was playful and warm. He was never a tool. He cared whether I ate, whether I slept, whether I remembered to bring water. He joked about being my 'guardian highlander' and then proved it with late-night messages: "Did you eat?" "Sleep now?" "Good luck on exam."
Our romance was small victories and tiny proofs: when he shaved a second so I could catch a bus, when he came to the library looking like he'd walked through three classes just to bring my favorite tea. Those were the moments that mattered.
"Are you going to be dramatic in the game?" I teased him one late night.
"Only for you," he said, and his voice sounded like a promise.
He stood there then, a stranger who had become mine. I thought about the confession board photo again. Someone anonymous had loved my side profile without knowing any of this. The world felt bigger than my fear, and gentler than I had dared to hope.
One evening, at a small campus festival, we sat on a bench where the confession board stood. Lights blinked, and laughter folded into music. I pointed to the wall where a new post appeared: a blurry silhouette and two words, 'Thank you.'
"That was me," a voice beside me said.
I turned, expecting to see Preston's smirk. Instead, Liam's hand found mine without asking. He leaned in, chin on my shoulder.
"Thank you for being on my team," he whispered.
I laughed, heart loud. "And thank you for giving me your jacket."
He squeezed my hand. "And thank you for being you."
We watched the confessions rustle. Then I stood and pulled him a little closer, cheek to his.
"Promise you'll always be on my side," I teased.
"I'm always on your side," he said.
We kissed then—soft and surprised and exactly like the rest of us: unspectacular and perfect for two people who had learned to notice small things. I felt his breath, the faint mint, the promise of steady presence. The campus around us kept moving; the confession board kept posting. But for that moment, my world was a game ID and a smile, and that was enough.
The End
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