Chapter Text
1; boredom and… bread?
Hanni was bored. Bored of everything. She had just graduated from high school, all of her friends were busy with their own post-graduate life, and there was nothing good on TV.
She leaned back in her chair, the worn leather creaking beneath her. She took one last bite from a bag of chips sitting by her keyboard and wiped off the crumbs on her hoodie. Then, as usual, she opened Mobile Legends. None of her friends played, so it was always solo queue.
Her username was @notyourmuse, a little hint to her behavior—she will never be your muse. Without thinking much about anything, she cleared all the red dots first, ones that appeared whenever there were new notifications from the game—new events, patch notes, free spins, and many mores.
After clearing all those annoying red dots, she pressed the ‘rank’ button and immediately went in a lobby. She scrolled through her friend list searching for anyone that was online to play together but most of her friends weren’t online and a few were already in-match.
Hanni sighed loudly, “Solo it is then.”
It didn’t take her long to get into match. She watched as her random teammates picked their own heroes and when it was time for her to pick, she took a quick look through her available heroes. She locked in her main: Lylia. It was a safe pick, her comfort zone.
She didn’t expect much. Just a quick solo game to pass the time. But that’s the thing about boredom—it always finds a way to escalate.
The match started, and everything was going fine, maybe even a bit too boring. Her team was already ahead—judging the way enemies in each lane kept recalling back to their base. But there was one thing that always caught her attention: low-hp enemies. Hanni had this one habit: if someone was too slow to get the kill, she never hesitated to swoop in. Blame it on boredom, or maybe she just liked the rush.
On instinct, Hanni darted towards a low-health enemy, lobbing a flameshot that secured the kill just as her team’s hyper was about to finish off. The notification popped up; first blood. She got the kill and her poor hyper got an assist for his hard work instead.
Hanni didn’t stop. In fact, she got a little thrill from it. She did it again—timing her skills perfectly, she stole another kill.
And another.
By the time she realised, her KDA was an impressive 9-0-3, while the hyper carry’s was 3-0-9.
She grinned to herself. Not bad.
Then a text appeared in her team chat;
@breadboi_97 (Ling): stop ks or i will troll.
Hanni read the message in the chat, brows furrowed together. Then her fingers hovering over the keypad on her phone, she wasn’t about to back down.
@notyourmuse (Lylia): not my fault ur slow.
She leaned back in her chair, watching the rest of the match play out. Her teammates pushed and hit enemy’s base nonstop, wasn’t long until the enemy’s base crushed—signalling victory for her team. She earned MVP and the game ended with her feeling oddly accomplished.
But then, something unexpected happened.
@breadboi_97 followed you.
Hanni frowned. The very player who had been complaining about her KS’ing, suddenly followed her account.
A few seconds later, an invite popped up.
Curious, Hanni clicked to accept, her mind already racing. She didn’t know what to expect. Was he going to rant at her? Start a flame war?
But no.
@breadboi_97 didn’t type a word. He just started a new ranked match and pressed the ‘ready’ button without missing a beat.
Confused, but feeling a little intrigued, Hanni decided to press the ‘ready’ button too and decided to play along. Just as they were in draft pick mode, she opened the chat to see if the person will type anything but nothing came. No scolding, no nasty comments. Just… a new game? Hanni didn’t understand.
Not wanting to dwell on it further, she then picked Lylia again and @breadboi_97 picked Aamon. She didn’t think much of it, just decided to focus on playing.
But as the game went on, something unexpected happened. Just as she was about to kill the enemy—at the perfect moment when the health bar dropped low enough and she was about to flameshot—@breadboi_97 swooped in. A quick ultimate of Aamon, just one hit, and bam. The kill was his.
Hanni blinked, her fingers pausing for just a moment. “Did he…?” she muttered under her breath, letting out a loud gasp as her jaw dropped.
A few minutes later, she was at it again. Another enemy’s HP dropped low because of her skills, ready for her to finish off, and just as she was about to press flame-shot—he appeared.
@breadboi_97 stole the kill.
Furious, Hanni typed quickly in the chat;
@notyourmuse (Lylia): excuse me??
@breadboi_97 (Aamon): not my fault ur slow :)
Hanni laughed in disbelief, utterly shocked as she got KS-ed many times in row when she never got KS-ed before, “Oh you’re on.”
And that’s the start of everything; it suddenly became a pattern. Every time Hanni line up her skills to secure and finish off the enemy, @breadboi_97 would time it perfectly and steal the kill.
@breadboi_97 stopped right in front of Hanni’s of hero and spammed the recall button, flashing his ‘Seal of Anvils’ effect. A glowing rune appeared beneath him, crackling with blue light as a loud boom and electric buzz echoed. Classic provoke move. And Hanni was provoked.
@notyourmuse (Lylia): i hope all of your breads stock are expired
@breadboi_97 (Aamon): ohhh so u want a real war??
The match ended in victory, and this time, she wasn’t the MVP. It was @breadboi_97.
Impatient, Hanni quickly pressed the ‘return to lobby’ button and waited for @breadboi_97 to return since it was his lobby. When he did return, again, he started the match without saying anything, so did Hanni. They both were eager to play again.
And so they did.
After five matches in a row—and five MVPs stolen between them—Hanni found herself actually smiling at her screen. No hard feelings, no real hate—just a competition to see who could get the most kills and who would get MVP while bickering with each other like teammates who’d known each other for weeks. It wasn’t exactly friendly, but it wasn’t nasty either. It was like a game within a game, a weird mix of competitiveness and weird camaraderie.
After several matches and win-streaks, @breadboi_97 suddenly left the lobby. Hanni stared at the screen for a while. She was about to invite him again when suddenly, his status went offline.
She frowned. A small knot formed in her chest.
She couldn’t quite explain why, but she felt oddly disappointed. She logged off, but for the next few hours, she found herself repeatedly checking her MLBB account.
Lately, everything felt like it was in a weird pause—her friends were busy, the days blurred together, and even scrolling through her phone didn’t feel the same. Maybe that’s why this silly in-game rivalry felt like something. At least it made her feel awake.
But Hanni didn’t understand it. It was just a game, right? But no one had ever matched her tempo like this. Not even real-life friends.
Not only that, they were also just messing around. So why was she hoping he would come back? Why did her chest feel tight when he went offline? It wasn’t like she even knew him. He could be some middle-aged uncle for all she knew.
And yet, here she was, watching her screen like a fool.
The next day, @breadboi_97 was online again. The moment she saw his status, her heart skipped a beat. Just as she was about to process the whole thing, an invitation suddenly popped up.
It was from him.
Hanni immediately pressed ‘join’. Maybe it was stupid to feel relieved over a random stranger in a game. But still—he was here. And he stayed.
And just like that, the routine began. He invited her to join his lobby, no ‘hey’, no explanation, no buildup. They were back to it again: ranked games, kill steals, playful bickering in the team chat, and spamming recall or emotes at each other.
Whenever @breadboi_97 missed his retribution and enemy got the turtle instead, Hanni would typed something like;
@notyourmuse (Lylia): wow bread
@notyourmuse (Lylia): u should change ur username to breadgrandpa after this fr
And Bread—as what Hanni called him—would provoked her back;
@breadboi_97 (Gusion): shut up
@breadboi_97 (Gusion): play jungle next game and we’ll see if u can hit retri or not
The word ‘next game’ got Hanni smiling, knowing that they will still play again after this. It wasn’t just the thrill of the game anymore. It wasn’t just the kills. It was something else. They had their little dynamic, their own rhythm. And it was becoming more and more obvious that neither of them was going to back down.
Just earlier, her room had felt dull—quiet, stale air, no sound but the occasional car outside. But now, her heart beat a little faster, her fingers drumming on the desk as the next match loaded. Who knew kill-stealing could be this thrilling?
From that point on, it became a thing. Every game, they would compete. Every game, they would try to outdo each other. The kill steals, the MVP fights, the constant bickering in chat—it was just the beginning.
And neither of them could quite explain why they were doing it.