Trio Queue
"Haaahm……."
When I opened my eyes again, it was past eleven in the morning. A DM from Limit had come in while I slept.
I answered still lying in bed.
A reply came within seconds.
I climbed out of bed and roughly pinned my hair up with the white claw clip I'd bought yesterday.
……White really might suit me better than black. So Limit's eye wasn't a complete lost cause.
I washed up and came out to find the DiscoChat server buried in notifications.
The CSAT was over, and I was still getting roll-called…….
Limit turned up soon after.
……I couldn't even argue. I had been playing a lot lately.
A little past eight in the evening, I logged into the server. Far more people were on than usual. I switched my mic off and stepped into the voice channel, and Mumyeong greeted me.
"Oh, Sayu's here. Hey, hey."
Characters were sprinting all over the plaza, and both the chat and the voice channel were a racket. The second I connected, I headed for the chest I'd set in front of my house. When I got there, the lid was open.
"What."
"Just looking."
There was bread in Nammisae's hand.
"This? It was mine."
"Dunno. And I'm telling you, it's mine."
Thud. Nammisae flung a single loaf onto the ground.
……He'd walked off with a whole stack and returned exactly one.
"Beat it. Beat it."
That was when Limit, who'd been watching from the side, smacked Nammisae with a sword.
"Ow—why the hell are you hitting me."
"Unreal."
Thwack. Limit hit him again.
"Ugh, fine, take it. It's nasty anyway."
A moment later the bread came pouring down, and I picked the loaves up one by one.
"Heh……."
A laugh slipped out of me for no real reason. In the meantime Mumyeong called everyone to the front of the main building.
"A few of you hit the Nether and gather quartz. Everyone else, glass and stone."
Limit started toward the portal first. Off to mine quartz in the Nether, then.
I followed without thinking much of it. We hadn't agreed to pair up, and yet it didn't feel strange. Once we reached the Nether, we mined quartz a short distance apart and barely spoke.
After a while I noticed Limit set down the diamond pickaxe they always used and pull out an iron one. I walked closer and tossed them the spare diamond pick from my inventory.
Limit's character stopped for a second.
We kept mining quartz after that, with hardly another word. I'd just come back to the main building with a full inventory when a join alert popped up.
A moment later Star entered the voice channel. They appeared in the plaza, looked the main building over, spotted Limit, and called out at once.
"Hey, Limit."
The hand that had been pulling out blocks paused.
"You've got my diamonds."
"Hand them over."
"Oh, come on."
Star answered at once.
"Oh, you didn't know, Sayu. Limit and I go way back."
"Did I mention it?"
That was the end of it. Star said they'd met CaffeineAddict and Nammisae offline, too. Limit, it seemed, had been one of them.
Well. People could be close.
Work on the main building started up again. Star was scrupulously polite with me, and slipped into casual speech with Limit like it was nothing.
"Sayu, got any spare quartz stairs?"
"Thank you."
Then, to Limit standing right beside them:
"Hey, bring that over too."
"Hurry up."
The gap in how they talked was so blatant it looped around to being funny.
Around eleven at night, the Cheongram Academy main building was finally finished. Mumyeong gathered everyone in the plaza.
"Everyone get over here. Commemorative screenshot."
"Be right there. Hang on."
I watched people line up before the front steps, then took a spot beside Limit. Star came running from the other side and claimed the place next to me. Limit, me, Star—the three of us stood in a row. The shutter clicked, and the screenshot went up in the photo channel.
Now that I thought about it, there were far more people than when I'd first joined the server. Gaming here had started to feel like a matter of course.
"……This is nice."
The next morning, I opened DiscoChat the second my eyes did. The message wasn't even ten minutes old.
"……."
I hadn't even pushed the covers back.
Apex was short for Apex Legends, a battle-royale FPS where a team of three tries to be the last ones standing. I used to play now and then, then let it sit for a long while. Not long ago Limit and Star had asked to queue together, so I'd gone and reinstalled it.
The moment I entered the lobby, Limit's invite arrived, and Star connected not long after. Three people were in the DiscoChat voice channel. Only one of them was talking.
"Hello!"
"Are you two seriously not turning your mics on?"
"I seem like some weirdo talking to myself."
A short silence fell.
"Sayu, I feel like you've been really harsh with me lately."
"You are, though."
"Hey, you turn yours on."
"Why?"
……Polite with me, and always casual with Limit. Limit, for their part, gave everyone the same clipped answers.
The first match started, and we were wiped the instant we landed where Star had pinged. Star pushed in first and went down, and I died too going after the banner. Limit, left alone, didn't last much longer. Back in the lobby, Star sounded personally wronged.
"Why am I always the first to die?"
"Why are you both like this to me?"
From the second match on, it went a little better. Star called enemy positions out loud, and Limit and I moved off pings. The constant voice was dizzying at first, but once we were playing I got used to it fast. If anything, having someone say the necessary things right away was convenient.
A few more matches in, Limit stepped away.
"Go on."
A moment later Star called me first.
"Sayu."
"You and Limit have been gaming a lot lately, right?"
"They game a ton, don't they."
"I'm normal, for the record."
"They said that?"
Star laughed.
"Look at them. There is nothing normal about that."
"Please leave me out of it."
I turned the character idling in the lobby this way and that, then asked something I'd been wondering.
"Me and Limit?"
"Mm…… we've just known each other since way back."
"Long enough."
They didn't seem interested in a long explanation. No real reason to pry.
"Hey, we talked shit about you while you were gone."
"That reaction is actually so boring."
"God, annoying."
We queued again. This match went almost suspiciously well. We wiped two squads the moment we dropped, and though a few spots in the middle got dangerous, all three of us were still alive at the end. Three squads remained.
We took a tall building first and waited, and gunfire broke out below.
"Should we go now?"
All three of us leapt down at once. Of the two squads that had been fighting, one was already wiped. Tat-tat-tat—! I knocked one immediately, and Limit took the second. In that same instant, bullets came in from the side.
"They're on the side!"
Before I could even turn, Star went down first.
"Sorry—you got this!"
Limit pushed forward and was downed with them a moment later. That left me. They must have revived a teammate in the meantime; two of them were still up.
"Sayu, one of them is basically one hit."
I started a shield battery, then canceled it. Better to just push. I came around the wall and fired the shotgun into the enemy stepping out.
Bang! Bang!
One down. The last one sprinted at me from inside the building. My shield was nearly gone, and there wasn't much left in the magazine.
Click.
The instant the reload finished, I leaned back out. The enemy's head slid into the center of my sights.
BANG—!!
The last bullet hit, and they dropped where they stood. The enemy squad was eliminated, and huge text flared in the middle of the screen.
"Waaaaah!"
Star screamed.
"Sayu, I love you!"
The hand I'd had on the results screen stopped.
"No—in the game. You were seriously incredible just now."
"You two, quit fighting."
Star wouldn't stop laughing. A moment later, they posted a picture in the general channel.
A red arrow had even been drawn in over my character.
Star sent one more message.
On the monitor, the three characters stood side by side. It was good, having people to play with. It was good that someone had started reaching out to me first, every day.
……I hoped it could keep on like this.