Dreams of Genius scholar

Games and Gravities

I never really mentioned it before, but Ryan Cole wasn’t just another casual League of Legends junkie killing time in low-rank queues. Nope, the guy was a bona fide Challenger. Top three hundred in North America. That’s the kind of leaderboard where every match feels like a street brawl in downtown Brooklyn, slippery, brutal, and full of people out for blood.

For him, carrying me, Leo Archer, the guy who barely scraped into Diamond, was child’s play. Like a Sunday stroll through Central Park while everyone else was still gasping halfway up the hill.

Over the last couple of years, Ryan had even turned his gaming obsession into a small business, coaching other players for cash. He could break down champion combos and micro-strategies like a pro analyst. Meanwhile, I felt like I’d been drifting, starting and abandoning half-baked coding projects that went nowhere. I dabbled in Python, flirted with JavaScript, but every idea eventually died in the graveyard of my own procrastination.

We were standing in line at the grocery store, the kind of place that smelled faintly of overripe bananas and floor cleaner, when Ryan glanced at me with that teasing smirk.

“Hey, Leo,” he said, “what’s with that thousand-yard stare? You look like you just realized life’s one big midterm you forgot to study for.”

I sighed, brushing a stray strand of hair out of my face.

“Just thinking,” I muttered. “About exams, about how fast time’s slipping away. Feels like I’ve been wasting too much of it. No games today. Just pure grind, books, math, caffeine.”

Ryan chuckled, the kind of laugh that said he didn’t take a word I said seriously. “Speak for yourself. I’m headed for the big leagues, man. I’ve got tryouts coming up.” He paused, tilting his head at me. “Didn’t you say you were building that Django blog or something?”

Ah yes, the blog. My brilliant idea to chronicle the thrilling mediocrity of my everyday life, a humanities student trudging through the gray fog of adulthood. At the time, it felt deep. In hindsight? It sounded like a sleep aid. No one in their right mind would care about that. What I really wanted was to master Django, the Python framework everyone in tech was drooling over. The dream was to code something real, something that mattered.

When we got back to our cramped apartment, Lucas Bennett was already there, our resident novelist and part-time philosopher. He was a few years older and always looked like he was locked in a duel with his own imagination. His sketchpad was open, his pencil moving furiously, his expression somewhere between genius and madness.

Ryan kicked off his shoes and turned to me with that familiar gleam in his eyes.

“Come on, Leo. Just one game. I’ll even let you pick the lane. Gimme five minutes to change.”

I didn’t even look up. “Not today, man. I’ll watch if you want, but I need to focus. Exams don’t ace themselves.”

From the couch, Lucas piped up without missing a beat. “Hold up, Leo Archer voluntarily reading a book? Now that’s news. What kind of book? Comic? Cookbook?”

“It’s Precalculus,” I said dryly, pulling the battered textbook from my bag. “Gotta prep for the SAT. You could try minding your own business for once.”

Lucas raised an eyebrow, smirked, and went back to sketching, clearly amused.

Give me a break, I thought. Just one evening without being the punchline.

I buried myself in formulas and geometric nightmares, pushing through the chaos until finally, something clicked. That moment when confusion folds into clarity? Pure magic. Suddenly, the numbers made sense, and for once, I wasn’t completely lost in the math jungle.

It didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Time warped, stretched, softened, like I’d slipped into a different rhythm. Ryan’s game sounds blurred into the background while my brain synced perfectly with the problems on the page.

Then, right on cue, his victory voice cut through the silence.

“Yo, Leo, you won’t believe what just happened,” he said, practically glowing.

I glanced up, half-amused. “Alright, hit me.”

“So, we’re losing, right? Our mid-laner rage-quits because of lag, total disaster. But I’m not giving up. We fight near Dragon pit, I’m on Yasuo, and boom, I land this perfect ult, knock their whole team into the air. Jungler dives in and steals the Dragon. Absolute chaos. It was beautiful.”

“Damn,” I said, laughing. “That’s actually insane.”

“Oh, it gets better,” he said, eyes bright. “Our Annie drops Tibbers right after that. Stuns everyone. Team wipe. We march mid, take two towers, grab Baron, and it’s game over. Clean sweep.”

I shook my head, smiling despite myself. “You live for that stuff, huh?”

“You know it. Come on, one quick game. You can’t study forever.”

“Nope,” I said, standing firm. “Tonight’s all about math. But hey, good game.”

Ryan groaned theatrically and grabbed his jacket. “Fine. I’m outta cola anyway. Back in ten.”

“That stuff’s going to rot your insides,” I muttered.

He just laughed on his way out.

When the door clicked shut, the apartment finally fell quiet. I dove into one last set of brutal problems, the kind that separate the nerds from the legends.

One question in particular had me hooked:

“Given a sequence defined by a recurrence relation, determine if it converges, and if so, find its limit.”

It sounded simple, but it wasn’t. Thirty minutes later, my brain felt like it had run a marathon. Two potential limits stared back at me, but after a bit of stubborn logic and trial, I nailed it. One clean, final answer. The kind of small, private victory that makes all the frustration worth it.

By the time I looked up, it was nine. My stomach growled. I raided the kitchen for leftovers, a few sausages and stale bread Lucas had left behind. Not gourmet, but it did the job.

That’s when my ancient Motorola buzzed. Its ringtone, a shrill, metallic nightmare, cut through the calm like a fire alarm.

Maya Rivers:

Hey, didn’t know you were my age! You’re taking the SAT too? I thought you were doing the Math Olympiad or something.

Me:

Nah, humanities major here. Just tackling the SAT.

Maya:

Humanities? Seriously?

Me:

Yeah, didn’t exactly have the grades to choose. Ended up here.

Maya:

Haha, fair enough. Want to study at the library tomorrow? I’m free after 2.

Me:

Sure, but we’ve gotta keep it quiet. The librarian hates me already.

Maya:

LOL, deal. See you then.

I couldn’t help smiling at the screen, which, of course, didn’t escape Ryan when he came back.

“Who’s that? Maya?” he teased, shaking the soda bottle at me.

“Nope,” I said way too fast.

“Uh-huh. Right. By the way, Chloe was totally checking you out today.”

I didn’t even process that one, just grunted, flipped a page, and buried myself in the safety of trigonometric functions.

Eventually, exhaustion caught up with me. I changed into my black pajamas, slid under the covers, and the world blurred out.

That night, I dreamed of a comet tearing through the sky, blazing, wild, unstoppable. It painted the heavens in streaks of fire and color, like a promise whispered by the universe itself.