Honey Stewed Squid

“What are you wanting to do?” He was very clear on the answer, but still he asked.

Tong Nian grew panicked, her eyes flitting left and right. “I just want… to clarify the misunderstanding with everyone.”

“Misunderstanding?”

“Just to explain that I’m actually not your girlfriend,” she quietly reported her idea. “Letting them continue to be mistaken about us is really not good. Even though I…” She cut herself off, stuck for words.

“Even though you like me? But you don’t want to cause me any troubles either?”

“……”

With his eyes, he motioned in the direction where everyone from K&K was. “Go ahead.”

“Mm.”

It’s okay, Tong Nian. Add oil!

She took a deep breath and cheered herself on.

Gun suddenly added, “Clear up everything within one minute. Do not affect their compet.i.tion mindset.”

“One minute?”

“What’s wrong? Can’t do it?”

“……”

How was it possible to clarify everything in one minute? And on top of that, not let them even ask questions or think in the wrong direction at all…

“If you can’t do it, then wait until the compet.i.tion has ended before you say anything.” Gun’s gaze moved back to the screen of his mobile phone to confirm the time. “Let’s go.”

Stating that, he tossed all the various odds and ends into the backpack by his feet, closed up the zipper, and stood.

Not only was his throat sore, his shoulders and neck did not feel right either, likely as a result of pulling an all-nighter last night. Consequently, after he stood, he very naturally began to move his neck from side to side and knead his own shoulder. Then, he motioned with a tilt of his head at all the K&K members who were looking at him. The meaning behind that: we’re going into the arena.

All the team members of K&K immediately pulled out their own mice and keyboards, but after seeing that Sister-In-Law and Sister-In-Law’s girlfriend were keeping close with Leader’s large strides, they wisely first fell far back and then entered the official compet.i.tion site.

In that long corridor, he strode at the very front, and hugging her bag, she followed behind his every step.

Such a nice physique…

As she gazed up silently at his tall and slender back, she even felt that his somewhat indolent way of walking was so very cool… All the while as she watched, she kept her head bowed and could not help clasping her backpack tight to herself.

It felt like there was a current buzzing and zooming around inside her heart, and she was unable to hold back a silly grin.

So happy… She was actually going to go with him to watch the compet.i.tion together…

This was an enclosed stadium.

The first ten rows in front of the compet.i.tion stage were reserved for the staff and players from the various eSports organizations and clubs. K&K was the last to enter the arena, and the team members walked in, one at a time, entirely under the gazes of every person in the stadium as well as members of the other eSports organizations. Tong Nian followed behind Gun, her ears completely filled with the electronic music that was being used as the pre-event warm-up. She cast a glance up onto the stage. Two computers sat up there, one on each the right and left sides, and the s.p.a.ces in front of each them were empty and unmanned.

Based on her experience from last time, in the next while, the matches would be taking place up there?

“Your Highness, Your Highness.” The person beside her who had been thin air for a long time already—Blueberry—finally opened her mouth to quietly remind her, “Remember to help me get an autograph, okay?” She was very astute and knew that, in a moment, Little Squidie would be sitting beside Gun again. Now was her prime time for whispering any private little messages to her, and if she did not say them now, it would be too late.

“Huh? No, I can’t.” Tong Nian instantly became tense, and acting like a thief, she whispered back, “I’m scared he’ll get mad and kick us out…”

“Huh? Are you a maso [m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t] or what?!” Blueberry was once again about to faint. “What’s wrong with asking your man to give an autograph?!”

“He’s not… ah.” She really could not make herself say the words, “my man,” and after being stuck for words for a long while, she secretly and very, very quietly explained the situation. “I like him. He… does not like me.”

“Wha?” Blueberry could not make herself believe this. 120 times I can’t believe that, aaaah!!

Fish Playing in Sealed Chambers was pursuing a man! This was simply… a picture that was not even conceivable.

From when she first met Little Squidie, she had only ever seen fans professing their love for her. In Tieba, male fans would even write love letters that were tens of thousands of words long and make videos… All the wooing methods that you might see, she had seen already, but this girl, who was always half a beat slow, had showed absolutely no reaction to them. Just now, she had even been musing over what sort of methods her hubby’s male G.o.d had used to win her heart in just a couple of times…

But! Turns out! SHE pursued him?!

AND, the key point was… what did she mean by “not like”?! She hadn’t caught him??

……

Blueberry stared intently at her expression. The girl had a look of sincerity covering her face, and her ears glowed bright red. Indeed … she did not seem to be lying…

Blueberry felt as if her brain was not usable and could not process. She needed to digest all this.

And in this way, she dazedly forgot about her mission of getting an autograph for her hubby. Without any prompting, she took a seat behind those two and began to silently ponder on whether those things Tong Nian had said were the truth…

If this was just a one-sided lovesickness, what was G.o.d Gun’s intention right now for doing this?

Playing hard to get[1]?

……

Gun was sitting in a seat affixed with a slip of paper that said “K&K” on it. To his left was a one-person-wide aisle. On the other side of the aisle were the people belonging to SP eSports Club. As she sat directly beside him, Tong Nian discovered that, over on the SP side, there were all sorts of burning gazes looking in their direction. In particular… she even noticed that pretty woman with short hair who had kindly extended a hand earlier on to steady her.

When that other party’s eyes turned toward her, she smiled awkwardly in return to the pretty woman.

Unexpectedly, the man beside her also tilted his head and looked at her.

Huh?

She lifted her head. What was the matter?

“You know her?”

Her? Oh… “No.” She truthfully told him, “Just now, when we were outside, I was jostled past the human wall of security guards by all the people. She helped steady me.”

Was there some sort of problem?

Why did he seem… very displeased?

Oh, right. How could she have forgotten? SP and K&K were archrivals, ah. Silently, she repented of her wrong.

That pair of extremely black eyes was watching the stage. After several seconds, he suddenly asked, “Do you know who she is?”

Huh? She shook her head. “No, I don’t know…”

“SP’s appledog. Ten years ago, the sniper on the CS [Counter-Strike] championship-winning roster and currently, the team captain of SP’s parent team [lead team, number one line-up].” But after he said this, he felt that he had just wasted his breath saying a bunch of useless words. The girl next to him did not know anything about pro gaming at all.

Oh G.o.d. appledog?!

She suddenly grew anxious.

This was the girl he had liked for ten years?

Ten years…

So… he was purposely letting her know…

… to warn her that he already had someone whom he liked? …

She lowered her eyes and inspected her own shoes, her heart all of a sudden feeling hollow. Her little feelings of jubilation and excitement had all vanished. She only felt now as if she was sitting on pins and needles and did not know how she should respond… Get up and quietly leave? He had already spoken so straightforwardly. But… the emcee was already beginning to speak. If she just up and left, would it bring about negative attention? …

The more she thought, the more downcast she became. After struggling inside herself for a long time, she still made her decision. “Should I… leave while things still haven’t officially started?”

This question suddenly popped out from her.

Gun was somewhat baffled. “Leave?”

“Mm-hmm.” She continued staring fixedly at her own shoes. The entire view of her peripheral vision was filled with him. All him. Possibly… this would be the last time she could be so close to him. “If I sit here, I’m worried she might misunderstand.”

“Misunderstand?”

She’ll definitely misunderstand… Tong Nian became ever the more miserable.

He was increasingly unable to make heads and tails of this. “Misunderstand what?”

“Misunderstand and think that I’m your girlfriend. If she misunderstands, she’ll definitely get mad. Then you’ll have… a problem.”

Then, your purpose of establishing K&K to win her back will be even harder to fulfill…

……

He finally understood.

He understood what connotation she was trying to express.

She thought there was some sort of relationship between him and appledog? Or maybe, she thought he was secretly in love with appledog?

What kind of joke was that?

For a moment, he was rather amused. Seriously, even if you’re lying down, you can still be struck by a stray bullet[2][brought into trouble that should have nothing to do with you]. “Whether she gets mad or not has nothing to do with me. But—”

Huh?

Wait…

Nothing to do with him? He said “nothing to do with him”?

To prevent random people from hearing anything, Gun used a near-whisper by her ear to laughingly mock, “Little girl, the intelligence information you received is far off the mark. Didn’t you say you like me? How could you not even know that I’m single and, moreover, uninterested in women?”

“I…”

“Oh, right.” He added, “Not just women. I’m not really interested in men either.”

……

……

And hence, the K&K members, who were all sitting in the third row, as well as the people present from the other teams all got a close-up view of a silent show of “flirtingly toying with someone and someone being flirtingly toyed with”: how, leaning his head in to whisper only a single sentence in his girlfriend’s ear, K&K’s big boss, Gun, successfully managed, in one second, to cause that ridiculously cutie of a girl to blush furiously from her cheeks to her ears. With both hands covering her mouth, she stared into his eyes for a full ten seconds before suddenly burying her face on her backpack…

This is…

… the supposed guy who stays away from the female gender?

You’ve got to be kidding me!

This is obviously someone who’s a master in the field of flirting and hitting on girls, aaaaah…