"And our best scorer for our 2019 SPM batch...LOW YI KIAN!"

The crowd in the hall clapped expecting Kian to come on stage to receive his award.

"Unfortunately for us, Low Yi Kian is not available to receive his award. His mother, Mrs. Low Jun Lee will receive it in his place."

The crowd clapped as Kian's mother goes onto the stage to collect the award. The principal and her posed for pictures, though it looked very awkward since he was so much shorter compared to her.

"Madam, where is Kian?" The principal whispered while posing.

Mrs. Low just bowed her head and smiled at the principal. "Following his dreams."

The cybercafé was filled with hard bass music as 10 players were sat on a stage at the front of the café. There was a huge gap splitting the players in half. Kian was seated within the right-hand team with two other players on his left and two more on his right.

"Guys I have ult."

The small crowd erupted into a cheer as the commentators hyped up the play being made by Kian's team. In a few minutes, the game ended and Kian's team members were jumping hugging each other. All of them came to the front of the stage and lifted the small, silver trophy. Kian had one of his dreams come true. To win a tournament, even though this was only a small local one. The glory and excitement of his first ever tournament win is one he will definitely remember.

Kian was packing up his equipment when he suddenly felt a light tap on his shoulder. He turned to find a member of the opposing team beside him. A big burly guy wearing a cap.

"Nice games bro. You really are that ranked demon I heard about."

Kian shrugged. "I do my best, man."

"Say...if you think you want to go pro. You could try hitting up our team." The guy gave him a name card with the team's name LOGOZ printed on the back.

Kian smiled. "Sure, man. I'll give you guys a call."

"Nice, look forward to seeing you in scrims maybe."

This was it. This was the opening he was waiting for. He wanted to be a professional gamer so badly and maybe, with just one call, he could finally do it.

I told you mummy.

▶

The gaming club room was a little crowded today with all four rows of ten computers having a few members of the club. Kian was in a ranked game as was his usual after-class activity in the club room.

"I swear they're doing it on purpose at this point," Goh threw her hands up in the air. "How can you not answer any emails for the past month?"

"Well from what I've heard, they've been training a lot. There's a tournament coming up in November," Meng took a sip from his coffee cup and put it next to the monitor he was facing. "Oh, and also. This Alexis girl is a real cold one. Heard she had a student suspended all because he looked at her."

Goh scoffed and adjusted her glasses. "I could care less. It's the fact she doesn't have any responsibility. As if reading an email would have taken up all their practice time. It's already week eight of the semester and we're running out of time for holding an event."

Meng shrugged. "They have lives Goh, they're not like us. What can we do?"

"Kris!" Goh rolled her chair backwards to look at Kian, finishing a game. "You don't have anything to say? We could be gone by November you know?"

"I do, actually," Kian stood up to stretch a little. His red t-shirt matched the LED lights lighting up the room at the time. "We just wait. Those guys don't want to work with us. So be it."

"Yea, about that..." Goh awkwardly said. "We need to actually participate in an event, not just be in charge of prizes."

All three of them looked at each other, not knowing what to say.

Meng suddenly stands up. "Well, why not we ask our members about this."

He went to the entrance and did a finger whistle which startled nearly everybody in the room.

"GUYS. ANY OF YOU HAVE AN IDEA FOR AN EVENT?" Meng shouted. Everybody looked at each other. Some decided to just continue playing while others just shrugged and shook their heads. Meng hung his head in defeat while walking back to Kian and Goh.

"At least they know who the vice president is now," Goh nudged Meng a little, giggling. "Kris, you got any ideas for an event?"

"I...do have one I guess," He sat back down in his chair and started another matchmaking queue. "But it's not like they would listen to my idea anyway."

There was suddenly silence from Meng and Goh. Kian felt something was wrong and turned towards them meeting two pairs of glaring eyes.

"Kris, you had an idea all this time?" Meng asked in a serious tone. Kian suddenly felt like he was being hunted by two Warwicks. Did he see a fist too?

"Y-yea...?" Kian timidly said. The two of them surrounded him.

"And why didn't you say anything for the past month?" Goh said sarcastically, gripping the head of Kian's chair. If Kian wasn't careful with his next few words, mutiny will happen.

"Guys...hear me out okay," Kian brought his hands up. "You saw what they did to your email, what do you think would happen if I said something? W-Why don't one of you do it?"

"Kris," Meng tapped Kian's head. "You're the bloody president, dude. You even have Alexis' contact. If one of us were to contact her we would be fried chicken by now."

"I- "Kian looked around nervously. "I don't know how to text her, ok?"

All of them suddenly went silent for a while as Goh and Meng tried to process what just came out of Kian's mouth. Only the chatter around the club room could be heard.

The matchmaking queue suddenly popped and Kian immediately accepted it. "I'll...see what I can do."

"You better." Goh poked Kian's shoulder drawing a wince from him.

Kian stayed on in the club room, playing into the night as the others left him alone. This was the norm for him. Sometimes he would even sleep in the room when he was too lazy to go back to the hostel or after a very hard gaming session. The club room was now empty leaving only Kian in the dark grinding away. Tomorrow would be the last day of ranked gameplay and all the professionals were willing themselves on to get as high as they could on the leaderboard, including Kian.

Kian sighed. "Why lah these guys cannot read the map." He says to himself disappointedly.

His monitor showed a defeat symbol, his twelfth of the day, third in a row. That may not seem like much but for a professional, it was like handing out free candy to kids and he cannot afford to mess it up on the last day of the ranking period. He got up from his seat and took off his headset rolling his neck. He felt stiff, tired and definitely tilted. Well, at least the queue times are long. He initiates another queue and goes out of the computer lab.

I need some air.

▶

The computer science faculty was placed towards the outer areas of the university grounds, segregated mostly from the other faculties (just like their students). Ironically, it was placed next to the sports complex, football field and courts. The computer science students have complained for over three years about the distance of the faculty from their hostels and have requested that maybe the chemical or mathematics faculty move here instead, but the university have always given the same excuse. We already built the faculty for you guys, why would we move you? It wasn't a problem for Kian though since this is the most exercise he would ever get in a day. He came out of the stairwell and headed towards the faculty lobby where the vending machines were located.

Vending machines shone brightly in the dimly lit lobby, their low gentle hums beckoning Kian. He walks up to the drink machine to get his favourite, Grape Fizz xtra. He takes some change out from his wallet and scans the machine when he notices the red words "Sold out" written under the drink. Gosh damn it. He removed his glasses and massaged his eyes.

"You gonna cry, gamer?" Kian jumped. The voice was rough with a feminine touch to it. He turned around to find Alexis leaning against the wall, the last Grape Fizz xtra in her hand. Kian put his glasses back on. He could barely make out what she was wearing in the dim light, a red hoodie the same colour of his t-shirt and dark leggings.

"Alexis? What are you doing here? And no, I wasn't going to cry."

Alexis shrugged. "Practice went late today. Thought I'd get a drink."

"There are vending machines around the courts. Why didn't you get a drink from those?"

"They didn't have this." She lifted the can and shook it a little which made Kian have that jolting feeling through his body again, heat swelling up in his body. Alexis seemed to have read Kian's aura.

"Relax, I didn't know this was the last can either."

Kian took a deep breath, held it for five seconds and exhaled, a technique he learned while he was gaming to calm himself down. He turns back to the vending machine scanning the options he has. "I'm going to have to get another dri-"

"About the fundraising," Alexis takes a sip from the can. "My club has come to a conclusion. We decided we don't need your club to do anything. We'll just handle the event ourselves. You guys can handle the prizes or something."

"We can't do that. We need to be involved in the event." Kian said still browsing the drinks.

Alexis took another sip of the drink. "Well, seeing as you guys weren't really active and didn't contact us for any discussion, there wasn't much involvement anyway. So, we are going to take matters into our own hands."

What in the world is she on about? Kian turned towards her. "Um, sorry. I'm confused. We e-mailed you girls and didn't get any response for a month."

"We changed our e-mail address a week after the meeting," She shrugged. "You guys didn't enquire about anything."

Kian felt like his face was burning. "You...you should have told us then."

"I did," She finished the drink and threw the can into the bin near her. "Through you."

Kian suddenly felt a chill down his spine. He took out his phone and scrolled through the hundreds of messages he barely reads. One of them was from Alex:

We changed our e-mail: netballc&[email protected] :p

He stares at the phone, frozen. Fuck. Kian screwed up. A month wasted. His club potentially shutting down. And this is all because he couldn't check his damn messages. All because he didn't have the courage to text her. What were Goh and Meng going to say if he told them what happened? What kind of president was he?

"So much for 'making sure presidents can talk to each other', right?" She gives a smug grin. "My club will submit the proposal papers by next Friday."

She walked towards the main doors and opened one of them. Kian quickly dashed to the door and held the handle, almost bumping Alexis and catching her a little by surprise. She gave a push on the door but Kian pulled back. The dim light above them suddenly felt like a spotlight on an empty stage.

"You can't do this." Kian begged. "My club will die because of this. Please." Kian met her eyes which were level with his.

They continued staring at each other, seconds seeming like minutes. Kian started to feel light headed, as if he was holding his breath under the ocean and he finally let go of the door. He quickly stepped back and hung his head. Alexis looked at him for a while before she shook her head and walked out.

He sighs. "Fucking hell, I'm getting suspended."

GAME OVER: CHAPTER THREE