01,

The clatter of Blue Switch mechanical keys echoed sharply, piercing through the stagnant silence of the vintage wooden house. Flickering RGB LEDs from the PC tower splashed neon reds, blues, and purples against the faded 90s floral wallpaper, creating a scene so mismatched it was almost laughable.

"God dammit! Jungle! You blind or what? I’ve been ganked three times while you’re busy farming birds? For real, is your Lee Sin walking on crutches?!"

Toby Jinure shrieked into the high-end mic pointed at her face.

She sat perched on a moth-eaten velvet sofa, one leg propped up on an oak coffee table that had been shoved aside to make room for her massive curved monitor setup.

Dressed in an oversized, faded grey tank top and baggy pants with frayed hems, Toby looked exactly like some street-smart punk from the Chicago slums who had just swiped a top-tier gaming rig.

Her short, jagged tomboy hair was slicked back with some cheap pomade, revealing a stubborn forehead and a baby face that still looked like it belonged in middle school. Between her flat-as-a-pancake chest and her slouching, "don’t-give-a-damn" posture, the "FEMALE" gender on her birth certificate felt like a long-running cosmic joke.

The second monitor on the left was a blur of activity. The livestream chat was cascading like a waterfall.

[User_Doraemon_Fat: Damnnnn Toby’s swearing is fire today. You on a losing streak bro? :)))]

[ILoveToby99: New stream spot? Looks like my grandma’s living room lol]

[Mup_Rumble: Yo that floral sofa does NOT go with your cat-ear headset Toby \=))]

[Tien_Nghiep_Chuong: (Donate $5) - Hey kid, why you in the living room lookin like a refugee instead of your bedroom?]

Toby glanced at the chat while waiting to respawn. The dry, robotic text-to-speech voice read out the $5 donation.

She clicked her tongue, grabbed a half-finished Red Bull, took a massive swig, and let out a thunderous burp right into the mic.

"Refugee my @ss! I moved. This morning! I’m eighteen now, and the old folks said 'This house don't host useless ducks,' so I packed my sh*t and bounced! Living with them was a total drag. 1+1\=2, if it don't work, we part ways. Why waste energy arguing?"

Toby rambled on, her fingers never stopping as she clicked through the item shop.

"This house? It’s a roommate deal. Owned by a sweet old lady named Martha. Said her husband passed and the place was too big to keep empty. I’m tellin’ y’all, this place is huge! Just one floor but wide as hell, porch, swings, the whole deal. But for some damn reason, the room I rented didn't have a desk! She cleared it out. So I dragged my rig to the living room. It’s a common area, she told me to make myself at home."

She wrinkled her nose with pride at the camera.

"And you know the best part? Two blocks away, five-minute walk, there’s this Asian seafood stir-fry joint! Man, that place is my soulmate! I can survive as long as there’s noodles. Rent’s dirt cheap and food’s close. Total steal, so I dropped a six-month deposit on the spot!"

[Chat_No1: Careful of scams dude. Big house, cheap rent in Chicago? Sounds haunted af!]

[Lol_Master_69: Roommates? Anyone else live there?]

"Yeah, the landlady said some guy’s been here for two years. A math teacher or some crap. Said he’s real prickly, apparently the last few tenants lasted two weeks before running off. Who cares about him though! I ain’t botherin’ him. I stay in my corner, he stays in his. We don't cross paths, get it? I ain’t scared of nobody!"

She stopped yapping, eyes glued back to the screen.

"A-ha! The enemy jungle showed his face! Watch me solo kill this loser! Ult! Flash! DIE MOTHERF***ER!!"

Toby leaned forward, screaming at the top of her lungs. The keyboard rattled like a machine gun.

Completely immersed in the virtual world, her noise-canceling headphones were cranked to the max, making her totally oblivious to the real world around her.

The sound of a key sliding into the lock. Click.

The turn of the deadbolt. Clack.

The wooden hinges let out a faint, rhythmic groan.

Then, footsteps. Steady, firm, echoing on the hardwood floor.

Toby was still howling:

"You see that chat? See the Yasuo God carrying the team? Who called me a noob? Step up! I’m 1v3ing! 1v3ing right now! That dash just now... I’m tellin’ you, even Faker would be calling me for tips!"

In the chat, the text paused for a split second, then exploded at ten times the normal speed.

[Ahri_Is_Waifu: YO YO YO TOBY!]

[Game_Over_Boi: Holy crap look behind you!]

[Lily_Flower: OMG! WHO'S THAT HOTTIE!!!]

[Toby_Fanclub: Behind you Toby! Someone’s in the house!]

[Hater_Toby_123: Ur screwed. Landlord’s gonna kick your @ss.]

[Meow_Meow: Total daddy vibes omg! Look at those silver frames!!!]

Toby was busy spamming Ctrl+3 to taunt the corpse of her opponent, but her eyes caught words like "behind you," "hot guy," and "someone" in the chat.

She pouted, still refusing to turn around. Her voice shrilled through the mic:

"Stop lying to me. There’s nobody here. I locked the front door... wait, did I... did I lock it?"

Toby froze. A sudden chill crawled up the back of her neck. This wasn't "in-game" killing intent. This was real, so real the hair on her arms started to stand up.

A deep, cold voice, monotone and devoid of even a trace of emotion, vibrated through the air. The sound cut right through the thick padding of her expensive headset, hitting her eardrums like a gavel.

"What. Exactly. Are you doing. In my living room?"

.

.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE.

(about the "LEAKING DUCK" PARADOX.)

To my international readers, you might find the phrase "This house doesn't host useless ducks" a bit peculiar. Allow me to offer a small cultural window into Toby’s background.

In many traditional Asian households including Toby’s family, there's an old, rather biting idiom: "Con gái là vịt trời" (Daughters are like leaking ducks).

The logic (as flawed as it may be) is that raising a daughter is like feeding a neighbor's duck; she eats your rice, but once she’s grown, she flies away to someone else’s house (her husband’s family). Therefore, investing in a daughter is often seen as a "loss."

Even though Toby grew up in Texas, the shadows of these old-school, patriarchal values followed her. To her parents, an 18-year-old girl with no degree and a "useless" gaming hobby is the ultimate "leaking duck."

Thanks for your time.

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