The arena loads around us in fragments—stone walls rising from digital nothing, torchlight flickering into existence along the perimeter, a roaring crowd materializing in tiered seats that stretch toward a bruised purple sky.
The game's tournament circuit doesn't believe in subtlety. Every match feels like gladiators preparing to die for entertainment, which isn't far from the truth.
SimonTheGreat spawns beside me, and I have to force myself not to stare.
His avatar is him turned up to eleven—taller, broader, every muscle defined like a sculptor's fever dream. The game's male costume philosophy matches its female one: fitted shorts that showcase his powerful thighs, nothing else.
No shirt, no armor—just skin and confidence and the kind of build that makes me grateful the neural feedback doesn't transmit elevated heart rates.
"You ready for this?" His voice comes through the headset, familiar and warm, and I remind myself to respond as Kira. Not as the friend who's memorized every line of his real body at the gym.
"Born ready," I say, and the irony of throwing his own phrase back at him makes me smile beneath the headset. Through Kira's face, it looks like confidence.
"Hey, that's my line." He grins, rolling his shoulders. "Okay, so—energy volleyball. We've practiced this. I'll take the front position, you cover behind me."
A holographic display materializes above the arena, outlining the rules in burning text. The match is simple in concept, brutal in execution: a crackling sphere of energy hurled between halves, deflected only by fists and force.
Miss the deflection, and it detonates on your side. First team to five explosions loses. First team to lose forfeits their tournament lives—avatars deleted, progress erased, everything gone.
No respawns, no second chances—the game draws its inspiration from survival spectacles, and it doesn't pretend otherwise.
Our opponents materialize across the divide—a towering woman with electric-blue hair and a compact man whose avatar practically vibrates with nervous energy.
They look experienced, coordinated, the kind of team that's been playing together long enough to communicate in glances.
"Hey." Simon's hand brushes my arm, the neural feedback sending a whisper of warmth across my real skin. "Whatever happens, we've got each other's backs. Right?"
"Right," I say. "Always."
The countdown begins. Three. Two. One.
The first serve comes from the blue-haired woman—a screaming comet of energy that tears across the arena faster than I expected.
Simon lunges for it, misjudges the speed, and takes the hit directly to his chest. The impact sends him sprawling, his avatar flickering with damage indicators as the detonation rocks our half of the field.
"Shit!" He scrambles upright, shaking off the hit. "Okay, that was faster than practice. Way faster."
"You're positioning too far back." My mind shifts into tactical mode, analyzing angles and trajectories through Kira's eyes. "Move closer to the edge of our half. Use your height and reach—you've got longer arms than either of them. I'll cover the gaps from behind."
"You sure? That leaves you exposed if I miss."
"You won't miss. Trust me."
He hesitates for a fraction of a second, then nods. "Okay. Your call."
He repositions, and something clicks into place. The next serve comes, and Simon's long arms intercept it before I even have to move. He deflects it hard, sending it rocketing back toward our opponents. The compact man barely gets a fist on it in time.
"Nice!" I call out. "Keep that position. I've got your six."
The rally continues, and we find our rhythm. Simon handles the power shots, his reach turning would-be disasters into controlled deflections.
I cover the angles his size makes clumsy—darting left when they try to catch him off-guard, sliding into gaps before he even realizes they're open. We move like extensions of the same mind.
The score climbs. 2-2. Then 3-2, their favor. Simon takes a hit he shouldn't have tried to block, and I hear his frustrated growl through the headset.
"I had it," he mutters.
"You didn't. Let me take the edge shots. You focus on the center."
"Since when are you the strategist?"
"Since I started winning us matches. Move."
He moves. The next serve comes at an angle designed to exploit exactly the weakness I just covered, and I'm already there, deflecting it with a satisfying crack of energy against my avatar's fist. Simon whoops.
"Okay, that was hot. In a purely tactical way."
"Focus," I say, but I'm smiling.
We take the next two points in quick succession. 4-3, our favor. One more and we've won—our tournament lives intact, our partnership proven. The blue-haired woman serves with desperate force, and Simon meets it with everything he has.
The rally that follows feels endless, volleys flying back and forth until my real hands are shaking beneath the haptic gloves. Finally, their compact teammate misjudges a return, and the sphere detonates on their side in a cascade of light and sound.
Victory.
The crowd roars. The arena floods with golden particles, celebration effects designed to make winners feel like gods. I'm breathing hard beneath the headset, adrenaline singing through veins that exist in two places at once—my gaming chair and Kira's triumphant body.
Simon turns to me, and his expression shifts. The competitive fire fades into something softer, more uncertain. He opens his mouth, closes it, tries again.
"Kira, I..." He stops. Laughs nervously. "I don't know why this is so hard to say. We've been playing together for weeks, and I just… I wanted to tell you that…"
I've never seen Simon struggle for words. In three years of friendship, I've watched him talk his way into and out of everything with that easy charm.
But right now, shyness is making him stumble, and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed.
I don't let him finish.
Kira closes the distance between us in two steps, cups his face with both hands, and kisses him—brief, deliberate, undeniable. His lips are warm even through the simulation, the neural feedback translating the contact into something that lights up nerve endings I didn't know I had.
Then I pull back and log out before he can respond.
The fantasy dissolves. My gaming room materializes around me—dark walls, blackout curtains, the faint hum of electronics. I pull off the headset and sit there in the silence, breathing.
I'm smiling. Genuinely smiling, the kind that aches from disuse, the kind that feels foreign on my face.
For one perfect moment, Simon looked at me like I was everything he wanted. Touched me like I mattered. Wanted to tell me something that made him nervous and vulnerable and real.
The moment shatters when Lily pounds on my locked door.
"Gordon, dinner! Dad's been waiting for ten minutes and he's starting to get that disappointed look."
I shove the headset onto its dock and run a hand through my hair, trying to compose myself. "Coming."
The family table is its own kind of performance. Dad sits at the head, already plating food, while Lily takes her usual spot across from my empty chair. She watches me settle in with those sharp eyes that see too much.
"Let us pray," Dad says, reaching for our hands.
We bow our heads. The words wash over me and I mouth along without feeling them. Lily's hand is limp in mine. Neither of us believes in this ritual anymore, but Dad needs it, so we endure.
"Amen."
"Amen," Lily and I echo, and the performance ends.
Forks scrape plates. Dad asks about our days, and we give him the sanitized versions. Work was fine, school was fine. Everything is always fine in this house, because fine is the only acceptable answer.
Then Lily strikes.
"So, Gordon." She spears a piece of chicken, voice casual. "You've been spending a lot of time in your room lately playing that game. Did you finally find yourself a girlfriend in there?"
My fork freezes halfway to my mouth.
"What? No. It's just… it's a tournament. You have to practice."
"Uh-huh." She tilts her head, and I can see her cataloging my reaction. "It's just funny, you know? You never date anyone in real life. The family was starting to wonder if maybe you were gay or something."
The joke lands like a knife slipping between my ribs, everything goes cold. Dad chuckles uncomfortably, oblivious to the shrapnel now lodged in my chest, and Lily watches me with an expression I can't read.
"Shut up." The words come out too sharp, too fast. My denial tastes like blood. "That's not funny, Lily. Just drop it."
Her eyes narrow. For a moment I think she's going to push, going to keep digging until she hits something real. But then she shrugs, returns to her food.
"Relax. It was a joke."
The silence that follows tastes like a held breath. Dad clears his throat and asks about the weather. I push food around my plate without eating, appetite gone, smile gone, everything gone except the echo of her words.
Starting to wonder if you were gay.
I wonder if I'll ever be brave enough to say anything at all, or if I'll spend my whole life performing a version of myself that fits into acceptable boxes while the real me stays locked in a dark room, wearing someone else's face, kissing the man I love through a body he's allowed to want.
Dinner ends. I escape to my room without meeting anyone's eyes.
The headset sits on its dock, glowing faintly. A notification pulses—message from SimonTheGreat:
That kiss... Can we talk about it?
I don't respond. I just sit there in the dark, caught between two versions of myself, and I don't know which one is the lie anymore.
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