The esports genius "Nightingale," whom I had been a fan of for three years, vanished without a trace at the peak of his career.
Three years later, I transferred to a new school. The solitary, cold genius at the top of our class always wore black gloves, and his voice sounded exactly like Nightingale's.
No one knew he was my only comfort in the dead of night, the one I looked up to as an article of faith.
So I hid all my admiration and used the strategies he had taught everyone to carefully make my way toward him, one step at a time.
"Why do you keep looking at my hands?" he demanded, blocking my path, his gaze fierce.
I answered calmly, "Because it's a shame."
A shame that such beautiful hands were always hidden away.
He froze. Those were the very words that had flooded the screen with fans' messages on the day he retired.
What he didn't know was that I had been one of the people posting them.
