Mine in Chat

Chapter Two - Grim

I sit at my desk with my legs crossed beneath me, my oversized shirt swallowing my frame and pooling over my thighs, keeping the chill off my skin. It’s one of Mars’s promo shirts from our team stock. We sell more merchandise than I ever expected when Meta first took off, and thankfully they always send me the test samples. Soft fabric. Broken in. Easy to forget I’m wearing anything at all.

The room is dim except for the glow of my monitors. Fairy lights loop the walls and shelves, pulsing softly, slow and steady like they’re breathing with me. One screen runs a VOD from earlier today, paused mid fight as I scrub back and forth through the footage, breaking down my plays in Crown Accent. Cooldowns. Rotations. A missed opportunity that still bothers me, even though we won.

On the other monitor, I have him. Jyx.

He’s the kind of streamer who never stays in one place for long. Different games. Different genres. Constant collaborations. He moves between them with the confidence of someone who knows people will follow no matter what he queues into.

I watch a lot of streamers. It comes with the territory. Studying movement, decision making, adaptation under pressure is part of staying sharp, and keeping an eye on the competition never hurts. A few streamers even recognize the name Grim when it pops up in their viewer list.

But Jyx has been different.

Even when he isn’t playing my game. Even when he’s buried in shooters and chaos and ego and noise, I stay. I’ve never really grown tired of his streams. Sometimes I watch properly. Sometimes he’s just there in the background while I review footage or wind down. Either way, I almost always tune in.

I’m not entirely sure why.

Yes, he’s attractive. That part isn’t lost on me. But there are plenty of streamers who are just as good looking, just as popular, just as polished. Jyx doesn’t polish himself. He doesn’t soften his edges for chat or perform likability. He shows up exactly as he is, even when that means slumped over his desk, groaning into the mic as he confesses to being hungover and swears it’ll never happen again.

It never lasts.

Still, there’s something refreshing about that honesty. I’ve never watched a pro streamer be so openly himself before, and maybe that’s why I keep coming back. Sitting quietly on the other side of the screen, where I don’t have to be anything at all.

There’s a comfort in it. Being somewhere no one knows me. Where no one asks who I really am. No fans demanding answers. No speculation threads. No clipped moments pulled apart frame by frame.

Here, I’m not CovenMind.

I’m just Grim.

A name in chat. A familiar presence. Someone who gets to watch without being watched back. It’s peaceful in a way my real life never is.

My thoughts drift back to earlier, to the way the stream shifted when Crown Accent came up. The subtle change in Jyx’s tone when I mentioned a bad matchup, curiosity slipping through his usual cold front. Chat noticed immediately. They always do. Chat sees more than anyone wants them to and builds entire narratives out of half sentences and timing.

I don’t know why I told him it had been a long day. That kind of honesty is usually off limits for me. Too personal. Too close. And yet, somehow, it felt natural in the moment.

I might have been put off from my game prior because Crown Accent isn’t just a game. It’s built on control and pressure. Three lanes. Four players. One jungler roaming between them like a predator waiting for mistakes. Each lane is a battlefield, but the real game lives in movement. Timing. Knowing when to leave your lane and when to hold it like everything depends on it.

I main mid. Always have.

The middle lane gives me reach. Vision. Influence. I can respond where my team needs me without abandoning my own space, stabilize a losing lane, or press an advantage before the enemy realizes they’ve already lost. It’s where strategy matters most.

The ranked ladder reflects that philosophy too. It weeds people out slowly.

Ironbound sits at the bottom. Entry tier. New players still learning mechanics, still figuring out roles, still running headfirst into mistakes they don’t yet know how to see coming.

Silvercrest comes next, where game sense starts to form. Players understand lanes, teamwork, and the idea that this isn’t a solo experience, even if they pretend it is.

Goldward follows, where consistency matters. Strong fundamentals. Solid map awareness. Fewer flashy mistakes, more quiet wins. Ascendant comes after that, and that’s where the game sharpens. High skill. Drafts matter. Macro decisions decide matches before the first turret even falls.

And then there’s Crownfall.

Elite level. The top percentage of players in the world. Pros. Semi pros. Legends of the game. Every tier splits further into five sub divisions, I through V, and climbing each one feels like dragging yourself uphill with weights strapped to your back.

I’m ranked tenth in Crownfall.

Final tier.

This is where I’ve lived for a long time now. Faceless. Untouchable.

CovenMind.

A name people whisper in ranked lobbies and argue about on forums. A problem on the map. A mid laner who doesn’t miss rotations and doesn’t make excuses. What they don’t know is that CovenMind is twenty two, survives on far too much Red Bull and forgets to eat when scrims run long. That she sleeps in oversized team shirts and falls asleep at her desk more often than she’ll admit. That she chews on her thumb when she’s thinking and swears under her breath when a plan goes wrong.

They don't know that she laughs too loud when she’s tired. Or that she hates public attention more than losing a match. They don’t know she lives with her teammates, or that she paces the kitchen at three in the morning replaying drafts in her head, or that she still gets nervous before every ranked queue like it might finally be the game where everything slips.

They only know the results.

And that’s exactly how I want it.

I don’t do meet and greets. I don’t do appearances. Pro events get polite declines or carefully worded excuses. I stream game feed only, never face cam, never voice if I can avoid it. My manager, Lia, hates it. Calls me a branding nightmare. Says mystery only works until people get impatient.

I don’t care. Anonymity keeps me sharp, and my teammates are loud enough to make up for my silence anyway.

I glance back to the VOD and wince as our jungler sprints headfirst into a four man collapse for the third time that match. A feeder. No awareness. No patience. Nearly cost us the game.

We need a better jungler.

Team Meta has the rest covered. Carter holds top lane under the tag Mars, calm and impossible to tilt. Matt anchors bottom as Monstx, aggressive and fearless, always pushing the edge of what he can get away with. I’m constantly yelling at him for overextending. Both of them sit comfortably in Crownfall.

Matt and Carter are also secretly dating. The gaming community can be vicious, so they’ve kept it quiet for three years now. I smile at the thought anyway. They pretend nothing’s different on comms, but they sync perfectly every time. Calls overlap. Cooldowns line up without being asked. One of them moves and the other’s already there, like the decision was made before it ever hit the mic. It’s subtle, easy to miss if you don’t know what you’re listening for, but once you hear it you can’t unhear it. It’s comfort. Trust. The kind of rhythm you only get when you care about someone enough to learn them by heart.

Adorable.

I know because I’m their teammate and we don’t keep secrets. And because I live with them. A team share house where personal space is more of a suggestion than a rule. I’ve walked into the kitchen more than once and immediately backed out again. Shirts half on. Someone pressed against the counter while the kettle screamed itself to death. Hands lingering where they definitely didn’t need to be, soft laughter cut short the moment they realized they weren’t alone.

There are things you don’t unsee. Things you don’t bring up later. You just quietly back away, mentally bleach your brain, and file it away for future use. Leverage is leverage, after all, and they know better than to question my calls when I remind them I’ve seen things.

It’s embarrassing. It’s inconvenient. And it explains exactly why they play like they’re impossible to pull apart.

My attention drifts back to Jyx’s stream, his voice steady in my headphones, confident and sharp, completely at ease in the space that comes with an audience. He’d joked about jumping back into Crown Accent next stream, about seeing just how rusty he’d be after so long away.

I lean back in my chair, fabric shifting softly as I tug the shirt tighter around me, eyes never leaving the screen. It’s been a long time since he’s played. Long enough that tomorrow could get ugly. I can already picture the missed rotations, the late engages, the kind of feeding that turns chat feral and unforgiving.

A quiet sound escapes me, something between a sigh and a laugh.

I should probably bite my tongue when it happens. Let chat have their fun. Let him figure it out on his own.

But I know myself too well.

Calling people out has never been something I’ve been good at not doing, especially when the mistakes are obvious and the solution is right there. Curiosity curls low in my chest, sharp and restless, already wondering how long it’ll take before he notices.

Because once he queues in, I won’t just be watching.

I’ll be paying attention.

The thought lingers as I turn slightly in my chair and catch my reflection in the mirror beside my desk. Curled up in my gaming chair. Headphones pressing down on my messy bun. Black hair that would normally fall to my waist if I let it. Smaller, softer features than most people expect. A light scatter of freckles across my nose. Big green eyes that give too much away if I’m not careful.

Five foot six. Not tall. Not imposing.

I know exactly how that would play online. A small, petite gamer doesn’t get room to exist quietly. She gets picked apart. Turned into content. Reduced to something that isn’t skill or strategy or hours of work.

That’s why I stay unseen.

I turn back to the stream and watch Jyx do something I could never afford to. Be himself. Publicly. Unfiltered. No hesitation. No armor. Just him, exactly as he is, in front of thousands.

He dies mid push, frustration snapping sharp enough that his jaw clenches hard, the muscle jumping beneath his skin. The camera catches it as he leans back, arms flexing without him even realizing it, irritation written plainly across his body.

Chat loses its mind instantly.

Chat: JYX ARMS HELLO

Chat: WHY IS HE BUILT LIKE THAT

Chat: SIR PUT THOSE AWAY

I roll my eyes, lips twitching despite myself. Like no one’s ever seen a pair of biceps before.

Though, to be fair, he does wear shirts that make a point of showing them off.

I tilt my head slightly, studying him through the screen, watching the way he settles back in, already refocusing, already moving on.

I wonder if it’s on purpose.