Chapter 2: Coin Tosses, Leg Pics, and Meme Wars

The season was about to end, and Priya and I still hadn’t even sniffed Ace rank—we were stuck at Diamond IV. Ace rank, yaar! It felt like our Everest. Every time we got close, some toxic random would throw, or lag would strike just as we clutched the last teamfight. Meanwhile, society aunties downstairs yelled for us to come have chai, their voices echoing up as we pretended not to hear—busy girls, big gaming dreams.

So we made a plan: just pick random top players from the Indian server leaderboard to be our emotionless duo-queue boosters.

We did a coin toss with a battered ten-rupee coin, the kind you find stuck behind sofa cushions, and giggled like it was a matter of national importance. Priya, ever impulsive, almost picked the top guy with a cringe anime DP before we both burst out laughing.

She chose Indian server Arjun, and seeing me hesitate for half an hour, she clicked her tongue and picked Indian server Kabir for me.

“Better to find two from the same squad, share the luck, and eat the drama together.”

Classic Priya logic: if we succeed, we celebrate; if we crash and burn, at least we’ll have matching fails to gossip about.

Profile update time.

Ding You Ding Doesn’t Understand: [Very shy, doesn’t voice chat, mute, cpdd Arjun bro?]

Attached: photo of her left leg. (Leg pics were the new trend—some meme page said it was “lowkey sus but highkey cute,” so obviously we had to try.)

Xie You Xie Can’t: [Circle is clean, only plays with besties except for CP, cpdd Kabir bro?]

Attached: photo of my right leg.

We both cringed for a full minute, faces buried in cushions.

After editing, we felt a bit shy. Priya looked at me, trying to play it cool, but her ears went red. I quickly stole one of her Britannia Marie biscuits to hide my own awkwardness.

“You send for me, I’ll send for you.”

“Deal.”

Barely two minutes after sending, both of us got a reply at the same time—[OK.]

We shrieked, and Priya flung a pillow at me. Our hearts hammered like the Mumbai local at rush hour, but we pretended to be chill.

At first, it was perfect. Sometimes I played Kabir, dashing around the map; sometimes Priya played Kabir, riding Arjun like a roller coaster. Late nights, Maggi noodles, and that unbeatable teamwork vibe.

We made silly inside jokes, spammed ‘Jai Mata Di’ in chat before every ranked match, and sang Bollywood songs when we wiped the enemy team. Priya would do her infamous Arjun impression—"Arjun, tumse na ho payega!"—and I’d nearly drop my phone laughing. Sometimes I’d reply, "Kabir Singh ke baad, ab toh bas gaming hi pyaar hai, yaar!"

We soared to Ace rank.

But as the season drew to a close, our top players suddenly got serious. The fun gave way to silent tension. Even our emote spam got ignored; chat shifted from ‘lol’ to ‘focus’ and ‘push lane’.

We still won, but it wasn’t the same.

One night, Priya called me, furious. I could practically see her fuming through the phone, her breathing so loud I half-expected her to appear at my window, shaking her fist like a saas-bahu vamp caught red-handed.

“I want to unbind—right now.”

I asked, "What happened?"

She vented, “Arrey yaar, what kind of teammate charges in as Kabir, dives into a crowd, then ditches me and runs, leaving me to get beaten up inside?”

She paced the room, flinging her dupatta onto the bed, her face scrunched like she’d bitten into a raw mirchi.

“Twenty times! He left me there twenty times this week. So many flashes and ultimates flying, I didn’t even know who was hitting me.”

I could practically see her ticking off deaths on her fingers. For Priya, who loves to keep score, this was personal.

“I want to break up. Kabir, are you breaking up or not?”

My mouth moved before my brain: “Whatever you want, I’m fine with it.”

But the moment I said it, I hesitated.

My heart did a little summersault. For all my talk, I really did like playing with Kabir. He was weird, but sweet in a totally filmy hero kind of way.

Actually, the Indian server Kabir was pretty good to me…

Except he had a tendency to trip over his words.

The first time we played ranked together, he boldly declared in public chat:

[I’m the other side’s boss.]

[No... the foot-point boss of the other side...]

[*** teach the other side to be human]

He was forever mixing up English and Hindi, typing out half-mangled phrases that made me snort with laughter. Kabir once typed, “I am your baap’s baap,” and another time, “Main tera chacha lagta hoon kya?” The whole team lost it in chat.

Other than that, he had no bad habits.

He especially loved buying me coupons, which was awesome. I was about to collect all the limited edition skins!

He basically turned a competitive game into a lucky draw for me.

But…

Who is Priya? My best friend—my ride-or-die, the one who has 3GB of my ugliest photos. No matter how great a top player is, my best friend comes first.

Break up. It had to be done.

So, with a dramatic sigh and a little filmi background music in my head, I prepared to end my brief but memorable Kabir chapter.

The WhatsApp pinged again—plot twist incoming.