Page 66 of Lethal in Pink

I slide into the deep leather gaming chair, set the stolen Pepero box next to my mousepad, and reach for the headset hanging from the stand.

I pull the cushions over my ears. The hum of the house vanishes. Outside my window, Seoul keeps moving, but inside, the world goes completely still.

The primary display casts a stark blue glow across my face. My fingers find the mechanical keys on pure muscle memory—WASD, thumb resting on the spacebar, index finger hovering over the mouse button.

The lobby music thrums through the headset—a low, pulsing synth beat.

Amiyah is already waiting in the party lobby. Her avatar—a Horizon wearing the custom skin I watched her unlock piece by piece over the summer—stands locked in, the gold weapon skin gleaming on her back in the pre-match light.

I open the voice channel. “You alive over there, Lane?”

A beat passes. The rapid clack of her keyboard comes through the mic, followed by her voice, cool and dry. “I’m optimizing. Some of us like to warm up with an actual plan, Jae.”

“Some of us like to shoot without analyzing the map geometry for five full minutes.”

“Some of us have win rates that justify the geometry.”

I fight off a smile. Her banter has grown sharp over the summer—delivered with the calm, terrifying certainty of someone who views mercy as a tactical error.

“Your win rate is three percent higher than mine,” I say.

“Four point two,” she corrects instantly. “As of Tuesday. I keep records.”

“Of course you do.”

We load into the Firing Range for our usual warm-up duels before queuing into Battle Royale matches. Our avatars spawn at opposite ends of the red dirt arena, weapon racks gleaming under the artificial sky.

I slide out from behind the middle barrier, bringing my Sentinel up in a smooth arc. The 2x-4x scope centers on her Horizon moving along the high ledge. I hold my breath, tracking her movement, and pull the trigger.

Crack.

An orange hit-marker flashes on my HUD—a clean ninety-eight damage. Blue armor cracks.

“Ledge, tagged ninety-eight,” I say, already chambering the next round.

“Noted,” her voice comes back, smooth and completely unfazed.

Before my bolt cycles, the low, pressurized WHOOSH of a gravity lift echoes through my headset. She launches off the ledge, arcing over the gap between the rock pillars in a filthy, high-speed flank that cuts off my line of sight.

I swing my mouse left, trying to track her mid-air, but she’s already behind me.

Rat-tat-tat-tat.

A ruthless, laser-tight burst from her Flatline shreds through my health before I can even turn my character around. My screen turns gray, the death sound chiming loud in my ears as my avatar collapses into the dust.

Killed by: PinkPrecision.

“Nice,” I say, leaning back in my chair, my voice dripping with deadpan sarcasm.

“Naturally.” No gloating. Just a calm statement of fact.

“Nah, that was a cheap-ass kill,” I mutter, watching her avatar crouch-spam over my deathbox on screen. “You abused the lift momentum.”

“Cry about it,” she replies without missing a beat.

This is our rhythm. Ever since she got back from Europe three weeks ago, we’ve been logging on at least twice a week—the same game, the same headset pressed to my ears, while sixteen hours and eight thousand miles sit between us.

In just those few weeks, I’ve had to relearn her gameplay—the subtle pause before she pushes a room, the slight breath she holds when she spots an ambush, the aggressive angle she takes when she knows she has the upper hand.