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17 Years Old
*****
If there was one word Lux never thought would describe her, ‘gamer’ would be up near the top of the list. But lately, well… it’s been catching on.
Her fingertips fly across the keyboard, jittering both from excitement and the struggle of keeping up with the game. Half a dozen voices chatter over each other in her headset, a glitter-covered pink and blue affair Jinx got Lux for her sweet sixteenth. It’s one of Lux’s prized possessions.
(In fact, Lux adores it so much she felt terrible about what she got Jinx in return at first. Their birthdays are only a couple weeks apart, so she’d already sent the package off and went into a mild panic over whether her present would seem thoughtless in comparison. She needn’t have worried, of course. The morning of Jinx’s birthday she woke up to a picture of Jinx posing in the studded skirt and a mile-long chain of all-caps texts. 'LUX. LUXIE. SUNSHINE. I FCKN LUV IT. I LOOK SO SMEXY.' That picture is her lockscreen now.)
Lux races her avatar through the game, shooting at NPCs and missing most of them. Growing to enjoy video games does not automatically mean she’s any good at them, but as long as it allows her to reach across the world to spend time with her people, she’ll keep at it.
Right on cue, a long string of swears fills her headset - Jinx just got sniped. Once upon a time her unabashed talent for profanity would have made Lux blush. Now she just giggles while Ekko jeers. “And that’s what you get for putting all your stats into ordinance and not defense! I told you to upgrade your shields!”
“Fuck you and fuck your shields too, Little Man!” Jinx raves, but there’s nothing but humor in it. Hard as she took the breakup, Jinx refused to let her friendship with Ekko fall through, in large part thanks to all of the support from her friends and family. Lux is glad they pulled through. The undefined, unlabeled, but still deeply intimate relationship they share now is good for Jinx. She doesn’t stress about doing things a certain way - doing things ‘right’ - as much anymore. Lux, who only ever wants what’s best for her, is happy for her.
And, though she despises how selfish it makes her feel, maybe she’s just a little bit glad for herself too. Now she has one less reason to try and squash the hopeless crush she’s got on Jinx.
She’s done trying to deny that’s what it is. It’s not admiration or curiosity like she told herself at the concert. It’s not jealousy of her freedom to be herself like she guessed after finally admitting (again, to herself - she still hasn’t worked up the courage to tell anyone, not even Ezreal or Jinx) that she’s gay. Lux is just hopelessly, completely, utterly head over heels for her best friend.
Said best friend crows in triumph, having respawned, as she delivers the objective to their team’s base. “Eat shit, losers!”
“Winning doesn’t make you not a loser, Jinx,” Zeri grumbles, but Lux can hear her smile. “Anyways, I gotta bounce, bozos. Jinx… good luck.”
One by one, similar goodbyes sound in her headset until it’s just her and Jinx. Faint static hums over the headset, until eventually Lux gives up on Jinx breaking the silence first.
“You okay?”
A sharp sigh. “Yeah, I - yeah. Fine. I guess. Just don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna say t’ her.”
Attempting lightness, Lux says, “I can’t believe I missed her by just a few weeks.”
Getting dragged along to conferences and investor meetings in Piltover has gone from something Lux dreads weeks ahead of time to the thing she looks forward to more than anything in her life. She and Ezreal get into plenty of escapades at school, of course, and her roommate Sona has become a quiet but constant companion whom Lux is eternally grateful for, but having all of her closest friends in one place is just… different. Not to mention putting physical distance between herself and the rigorous expectations weighing on her at home makes it so much easier to actually enjoy being with them. Being herself, without feeling like she has eyes on her back every hour of the day.
This time is different. Even if she had managed to stay in Zaun for a month longer, she wouldn’t be there to fu - to mess around. Just to support Jinx.
“What time is Vi being released, again?”
“Silco ‘n Vander just went to pick her up. Isha went with ‘em. She’s crazy excited.”
Doing some quick mental math, Lux guesses that Isha would have been coming up on three when Vi was arrested five years ago. Jinx has explained that she remembers Vi, but that those memories are unsurprisingly spotty. She’s practically meeting her oldest sister for the first time.
Jinx hasn’t said outright that she’s jealous, but Lux knows her well enough to tell. For five years now she’s been Isha’s closest companion, her best friend, and her protector. Lux can hear in her voice that she isn’t ready to share that mantel with someone else… even the person who was, for most of her life, all of those same things to her and more.
Cautiously, Lux broaches, “are you excited, too?” She hopes she’s not overstepping. Jinx has complicated feelings about Vi, but Lux aslo knows she probably won’t talk to anyone about them if not to her.
Sure enough, Jinx huffs. “Hell yeah, suuuuper excited to share my dads’ attention with their favorite child.”
“Not true,” Lux jumps in, “you’re definitely Mr. Silco’s favorite child.”
“Ewwww, do not call him that. ‘Mister’ is for parasites in suits, thank you very much. But, heh, yeah I am.”
The jovial tone quickly fades, however. “I… I want her back, blondie. Really. I’ve wanted her back ever since they took her away, I just - I feel like she shouldn’t get to just walk back into our life like nothing’s fucking changed. Like me and Isha didn’t grow up without her because she had to go and be a big fat hero.”
Lux’s heart twists at the brokenness hidden in Jinx’s bite. It always does that when Jinx is upset, because of course it does, it’s Jinx - her best friend, the girl she likes so badly it hurts. But this time the ache in her chest is reminiscent of a weight she’s carried for a long time as well. Lux was barely ten when her older brother Garen signed on with the Demacian army and left home, and she held the most bitter grudge against him for it. Suddenly, she was without her playmate, her closest friend, the only thing that broke her out of the mold of a perfect little Crownguard. How could he just leave her like that?
That pain has faded over time, but it still makes itself known when Garen is home from his deployments, reminding Lux of the way things used to be. And, she now understands, she’s a little envious of him. Envious that he gets to see the world, to discover himself among his chosen peers, and envious of the fact that being a Crownguard always seems to come naturally to him. Lux may be a golden child in her own right, but the pressure of performance doesn’t seem to affect Garen the way it does her. In the eyes of their family and country, he’s something of a ‘big fat hero’ himself.
So she understands, more than anyone else in their group, Jinx’s qualms about reconnecting with Vi. But, unlike Jinx, she’s also been on the other side. She thinks about Garen tossing his beret aside to sweep her up in a bear hug, the postcards and little gifts he sends from wherever he’s stationed, and how he always seems to call her right when everything starts to become too much, like some brotherly instinct is still connecting him to her.
She lays all of that out to Jinx. Her friend, in the uncharacteristic fashion she only displays with Lux, listens quietly, until she finally finishes, “so, I know how you feel, but don’t jump the gun, Jinx. And don’t worry - you’ll always be Isha’s ‘big fat hero.’ I can tell.”
Jinx clears her throat, like she’s blinking back tears. “T-thanks, sunshine. You’re… you’re my big fat hero, you know.”
Well, now Lux is blinking away tears… and fighting a painful spark in her chest. She hates that she can’t just be grateful for what she and Jinx have, hates that she wants something else. Even if Jinx feels the same way, how can it ever happen? Being so far away from her is already hard enough. How long would they last before not being able to hear her voice from a room away, not being able to hold her, grew too much for Lux? And if her parents ever found out…
Sometimes she thinks it wouldn’t be all that bad. In fact there have been times when she’s come seconds away from just blurting it out because Crownguards or no, she’s their daughter. Surely they’ll at least try to understand.
Most of the time, though, she doesn’t want to find out what they’d say.
None of that stops her from wanting Jinx anyway.
Lux swallows thickly and replies, “thanks Jinx. Want to play something together until they get back? My family isn’t coming to get me for another couple of hours.”
“Bring it on, blondie.”
They teasingly argue back and forth for a little while before deciding on a more laid-back game, one of those farm-building ones with plenty of its own capacity for chaos. Ninety minutes later Lux’s character has been divorced twice and Jinx has burned half her fields as a sacrifice to the pig goddess. Their laughter and the brightness in Lux’s chest ticks the time away… but eventually, the clock does run out. She knows when she hears Jinx pause, as if listening to something her sound system doesn’t pick up - a door opening and closing, maybe. A deep breath whistles from the other girl’s mouth.
“I gotta go.”
Lux nods even though Jinx can’t see it. “Yeah, um - me too. If I’m late my parents will skin me alive.”
Jinx snickers, probably immensely proud that Lux is adopting her penchant for gory imagery. “Can’t let them know the real Lux is a troublemaking punk. Later, sunlight.”
“Bye, Jinx.”
She signs off first. Something tells her Jinx won’t be able to.
For a few minutes she just sits there in the sudden silence, the dorm room feeling painfully empty without Jinx’s presence in her headset. Can’t let them know the real Lux, indeed.
Eventually, she sighs, picks up her duffel bag, and heads out the door.
Lux’s parents don’t come to get her on Saturdays themselves, naturally. They have a driver who’s worked for them ever since Lux can remember. She waits for him by the front gate with Ezreal, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Luxanna Crownguard, straight A student, Demacian prima donna, getting up at five A.M. to play video games because she had to go and make friends with people on the other end of an eight-hour time gap. She regrets nothing. That doesn’t stop her from shooting a cranky glare at Ezreal, who also joined the call from the boys’ dorm and somehow still has perfect hair and a skip in his step.
“Why are you like this?” she grumbles.
“Like what?” he asks, then takes an enormous swig of a Nitro Monster, answering her question.
He chatters about his ancient architecture class while she listens with half her attention. The other half is fixated on checking her phone every two minutes. There’s never an update from Jinx. That either means things with Vi are going really well… or really, really not well.
“She’s not going anywhere, you know.”
Lux’s spine straightens abruptly. Ezreal is wearing a sly smirk. “Huh?”
“Jinx,” he says, nodding at her phone. “You’ll survive without her for an hour.”
Then he waggles his eyebrows. “Or wiiiillll you?”
Lux's heart races. She can’t tell if it’s from fear or something akin to hope. He can’t know - she hasn’t told him - is she really that obvious? “I don’t know what you mean.”
Her friend’s expression softens. He lays a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. I get it.”
A second later though, the teasing expression is back. “You of all people know I do.”
She bumps his shoulder. “Because I outed you on a plane, yeah yeah, how many times do I have to apologize for that?”
“You didn’t out me,” he laughs, “it was just so Lux of you.”
She raises a sharp eyebrow at him. “Go on.”
“You know! Straightforward, investigative - "
“One social faux paus after another?”
He holds up his hands. “Your words, not mine.”
They chortel together, Lux all of a sudden feeling like she could burst. It shouldn’t feel like relief to be seen as though through a pane of glass, but here, with him, it does. Her chest floods with it, threatening to pour out of her in the form of unshed tears. Can it really be this easy?
She rides that flood the rest of the day: when the driver finally arrives, the entire ride to the Crownguard estate, until that afternoon, in their sitting room obligatorily participating in one of her parents’ social calls. She hardly even realizes when she stops checking her phone.
But she snaps back to it immediately when it finally rings. Lux takes one look at the caller ID and shoots to her feet. She mumbles some excuse to her parents and their friends, then makes her way into the next room. Her heart’s pounding again, though she’s not quite sure why. Maybe it’s because of what changed between her and Ezreal today, but something is telling her that if she picks up, things are going to change again. Perhaps for good.
Lux presses ‘answer’ and brings the phone to her ear.
“Jinx?”