7 Game On

Chapter 7: Game On

The morning came as the sunlight slipped through the rented bedroom window. Ajax had opened the window in the middle of the night as the air conditioner of his bedroom was not working and there were no fans in sight. He was feeling hot and when he welcomed the cold from outside through the window, he could finally sleep in comfortably. However, he did not think of the consequences when morning came.

Upon feeling the warmth caressing his face, he let out a small groan, trying to shied away from the sun. In a matter of minutes, he decided to get up as the whole bed was burning hot from the sun rays and it had prevented him from sleeping more. His small lidded eyes glared at the sun, as if it had purposely bothered him awake. If only he could, he would definitely kick the sun far away from the face of the earth.

A yawn made its way out of his lips before the urge to stretch his body came as a second in nature. He then rubbed his eyes before checking the time on the clock that was mounted on the wall. It read "9:40am". It was too early for breakfast but he was too hungry by then as he did not consume anything after being discharged from the hospital.

He contemplated for a moment before he got off the bed and walked over to the closet, opening its door as he retrieved his clothes. He then went to take a quick shower before dressing up neatly. He did not bother to comb his messy wet hair as he realised it looked good on him. Afterwards, he grabbed the bag that was lying beside the safe box, letting it rest around his shoulders, as well as the bedroom keys. As he walked out of the bedroom, he made sure to lock the door shut before leaving his premises. He headed down to the receptionist, just to find Mary eating her breakfast.

"Morning, Mary," greeted Ajax politely and Mary immediately swallowed down her noodle before wiping the leftover soup around her mouth with a tissue.

"Hi, hi. Morning. Is there anything I can do for you?" She sniffed as her nose was built up with mucus. Ajax looked over to the bowl she was eating in. The noodles were originally yellow and since it was combined with the soup, it turned to red. The soup itself was darker in colour and he could smell a distinctive spice in them.

He tilted his head towards the bowl, as if he was pointing towards it, "What are you eating? It seems spicy."

Mary nodded her head, "Yup. It's spicy. It's one of the best dishes in town. If you want, I could buy it for you. It's just across the road."

Ajax nearly gave her a funny look. Eating spicy food early in the morning was a bad combination, especially when he was certain that his body could not handle such raw fire power. He would probably encounter a bad stomach ache and force himself to stay in the washroom for half an hour, due to unbearable diarrhoea.

Ajax swiftly declined with a smile, "Nah, I'm good, Mary. Say… The room's AC was broken and there were no fans for me to use. I got hot pretty quickly at night. Could you possibly get it fixed by the end of the day? If not, spare fans will do."

Mary gasped upon hearing the terrible experience Ajax had countered during his stay, "Oh my. I'm really sorry. I'll see what I can do and if it can't be fixed, I'll get you a spare fan."

Ajax thanked her before handing her the bedroom keys, which she had accepted with her hands as she typed something into the monitor, "Also, do you know a place where I could use a computer for research purposes?"

Mary paused momentarily as she thought for a moment and Ajax thought the word "computer" was unfamiliar to her. He was about to change the subject and said something else when Mary spoke out, "If you're looking for it in a library, you won't find it around here. However, there is an internet cafe about 10 minutes walk from here. Just turn left from here and walk straight out. You'll see the signs. Also, do note it'll be noisy during the lunch hour as there'll be students coming to play games."

"Yeah, okay. Thanks for the directions, Mary. See you later."

They bid each other goodbye and Ajax walked out, sighing in relief. For a moment, he felt his heart beat fast in anxiety. If Mary did not understand him, he was worried he would be doomed without an internet in this life. Before he made his way to the internet cafe, he made a stop at a nearby convenience store to get himself food and drink for breakfast. Instead of eating there, he chose to pack it up and headed straight for the internet cafe. He would just eat there while using the computer.

When he arrived, the building was huge and there were two floors. He pushed open the door and there was a ding sound, alerting the workers that a customer had entered. The interior designs on the walls were neat and each computer station was separated by colours. There were different kinds of logos found on the wall. It seemed they were the logos of different Esports' companies.

He looked around in silent awe before he got to the counter. A man around his age stood behind the counter with a lazy look drawn on his face. His ginger hair was messy and his face was kept uncleaned. Ajax could tell the man before him was a fighter due to the bulging size of his arm muscles. He was taller than Ajax as well.

"Is there anything you need?" He asked curtly and Ajax did not want to waste time with the man before him as he fished out a few cash from one of the bound rolls, "2 hours, how much?"

"$60," came the immediate response and Ajax paid for it. The man cashed in the amount before he handed Ajax a blue coloured pass.

"At the back, red coloured walls section, PC30," he directed and Ajax nodded as a way of saying thanks. He got to the location without encountering any difficulties and occupied the seat with the labelled "PC30" attached onto the computer's monitor. His bag was placed on the floor and his breakfast was on the table.

He took his time eating and drinking whilst working on the computer. He used the blue pass that was given to him and signed in as a guest account. He surfed through the internet, learning about the current world he was residing in. The history of this world and the world he was originally born in was different yet similar. It was as if he had been transported into a parallel universe. Other than that, as he did an in-depth research, he found out men like him had the ability to become pregnant, though the chances were slim. Thus, it explained why he had been seeing a lot of male-to-male couples on almost every occasion. On the other hand, women were still able to be conceived, nonetheless, a few had developed a male productive glands in their bodies, making it possible for female-to-female couples to exist. Back in his world, homoerotic couples would be shunned if they were to be seen together in public and there were some cases that would they would be involved in emotional, mental and physical abuse. Society found it impossible for same-sexuality couples to be together and Ajax was somewhat glad to find out this world had proved them wrong. 'If only they knew…'

Ajax continued his research regarding the world and unbeknownst to him, time flew by fast. In a matter of two hours, the whole place was crowded and Ajax was snapped back to reality when his surroundings were occupied with people, especially a group of loud teenagers just seated right next to him. By then, his food was long finished and only his drinks were left mid-full. He looked over the time and it was almost noon. Mary had warned him about the place being loud and overcrowded before. He looked over to the taskbar and realised he had 10 minutes left before the computer automatically shut down. He decided to use the time to rest his mind from exploring too much. He stretched out his aching limbs to the point where his bones gave out a good couple sound cracks before leaning back onto his moveable seat.

As he closed his eyes to rest and possibly took a short nap, he had found it difficult to do so. The sound of rapid clicking on the mouse and the keyboard being harassed as their fingers slammed the keys repeatedly was not the only thing that annoyed him. His neighbouring seats were being loud and they seemed to be arguing with each other as they cursed each other never endingly. Unfortunately for Ajax, he had forgotten to purchase earbuds and he could not block out the noise. Thinking he had enough rest, Ajax was about to get up and retrieve his bag when suddenly, an arm jolted harshly in his way and it had knocked his plastic drink harshly. The sweet drink content was then spilled onto his clothes and Ajax cursed silently as his predicament. He annoyedly glared at the ignorant teenager who was furiously shouting and spamming the keyboard keys. He had his headphones on and so, he could not hear Ajax at all.

Ajax tapped the teenager on his shoulder to get his attention but his hand was angrily shoved away by the teenager. He tried again and the response was the same. Feeling irritated, Ajax did not think twice but to turn off the monitor screen manually. This had immediately caught the teenager's attention as well as the others who seemed to be his friends. The teenager glared at him in rage.

"Hey! What was that for?! Can't you see I was hitting the highest difficulty dungeon?!" The teenager stood up and vented as he took off his headset and harshly placed them onto the table, in which Ajax rolled his eyes before pointing at his wet clothes, "And, can't you see you spilled a bottle on me? Now I'm wet. What are you going to do?"

He was standing as tall as Ajax and unlike Ajax's skinny body, he had lean muscles. His hair was dyed black, though his eyebrows had a subtle of white. For a moment, Ajax had thought the person before him was an old man disguised to be a teenager. However, his young face was telling him otherwise.

Ajax shot him back and this time, the teenager rolled his eyes, "Crazy old man."

He uttered loud enough for Ajax to hear and before the said teenager could sit back down and ignore Ajax completely, Ajax had slammed his fist on the table hard enough for the others, including the teenager himself, to jolt in shock.

"Is that what you all have to say? No apology or something?" It was getting on his nerves on how rude the teenager was being towards him, despite the fact that Ajax was clearly older than the teenager.

The teenager scoffed before manually turning the computer back on. Ajax stood there in silence, watching him playing his game without a care in the world before an idea struck in Ajax's head. A dark look appeared on his face as his lips tilted into a small smirk. 'Let's see how you'll like this.'

"You really suck at this. You can't even break the ice."

"Why do you need to use potion when your health is not even at 5%?"

"Geez. You died again? How noob."

"Did you learn to play from your grandparents or something? Cuz I'm sure you have the slowest typing speed ever."

Ajax purposely commented aloud beside him as he watched the teenager struggle from time to time. His friends who had been listening to Ajax could not help but to stifle their laughter before they immediately shut themselves up when the said teenager glared darkly at them. Upon another failed dungeon quest, he quitted playing and stood up, facing Ajax head-to-head.

"What the heck do you want? Stop bothering me and buzz off," he pushed Ajax by both of his shoulders but Ajax did not move an inch, despite being a smaller build.

"I won't buzz off. I want you to apologise to me first for spilling my drink on me," stated Ajax without showing an ounce of fear.

The teenager tsked in annoyance, "Apologise? What for? It's clearly your fault for placing it there in the first place!"

Ajax refused to back down from this argument, even though he knew it sounded childish, "The plastic cup was clearly far away from you, but you just had to get so serious over the game till you knocked it off my table and it spilled on me. So, it's clearly your fault."

Ajax had never once argued with someone over small futile things. However, this teenager was getting on his nerves and he was so close to tearing the teenager's head off before feeding it to the wild wolves in the forest. Never in his life he had to face a hard-headed teenager such as him. This was his first time encountering this arrogant teenager.

The two of them were found glaring at each other and those who witnessed the argument between the two, could have sworn they saw lightning flashed between the two. At any given moment, they would have seriously punched each other's face and injured one another.

Before they could lash out onto each other, someone amongst the teenager's friends spoke out, "Hey. Stop arguing. Let's decide over the game."

Ajax raised his eyebrow in question, "A game? What game?"

Another one clicked his tongue, "Yeah, a game. The game you've been watching and calling him 'noob' and more."

"You sound like a pro. So, why not play one-on-one with Zane?" another one chirped mischievously and Ajax knew it was a trap.

The teenager he was arguing with, named Zane, smirked, "I agree. Let's do a one-on-one battle; PVP Arena. If an old man like you can beat me in this game, I shall humbly apologise to you. However, if you turn out to be a sore loser, you can get out of here."

He settled himself back in his seat before looking at Ajax who were still standing.

"Why? Scared to lose? You're free to go. No one's stopping you," mocked the latter.

Ajax knew he should not take the teenager's words seriously. Nonetheless, he felt his pride swelled and it had been a long time since someone had taunted him in a challenge. The only thing he could do was to accept it and make them choke on their words.

With a deadly smile plastered on his face, he spoke out in a sweet death voice, "Bring it on."

'I will make you regret it, brat.'