When in Toronto... (Extended)

"And that's it! That's it! It's over!" the commentator babbled into their headset. "The match goes to Klutz! I can't believe it!!"

The cheering in the stadium was deafening, and yet still Kenneth Lutz couldn't hear much. He was too busy coming back to reality and focusing on the fact that he needed to breathe.

For seven years Ken had worked his ass off to get to where he was now. Where he belonged. He had finally achieved his life's dream -- sitting on a stage, hearing people chant his name. For one glowing moment in his life, however long it would last, he was the biggest name in eSports.

Ken wasn't thoroughly stupid. He knew that people saw him, at best, as a guy who was really good at a video game. He knew that being good at pushing buttons in a fighting game and narrowly beating other people who were basically as good at pushing buttons wouldn't get him far. He'd have to go back home to his uncle, who was sweet but didn't believe that eSports was a "real job." He knew he would have to enjoy this moment while it lasted. In this moment, he had everything he had ever wanted -- demonstrated skill, people literally chanting his name, power, and, odds are, money.

Of course, he didn't have a girlfriend yet, but he was still working on that.

After taking his award, Ken said a few words to the crowd that were well-rehearsed and yet he never expected himself to be saying them, then quickly left the stage to reunite with his coach and his manager.

At first he was grinning when he saw the duo. Trophy in hand, he upgraded his walk to a light jog, a sparkle in his eyes. Perhaps even a fire, eager for more. Unfortunately, his manager's job always seemed to be the firefighter.

"Kenneth," Christopher, his manager, began. Ken's smile faded. His manager called him by his gamertag, Klutz, when he was proud of him. It seemed like the more awards he won, the less his manager graced him with the name he had earned.

The trio walked out of the stadium hall into a slightly more private hallway. "You were faced with just about the biggest moment of your career," Christopher continued in his monotone voice. "Your ending speech could have really solidified your brand. And the speech you went with..."

Ken wasn't even going to bother staying on-topic. After all, the speech he gave was the one his manager made him memorize. "Sorry, did you miss the part where I won the tournament?!" Ken replied, anger boiling through his voice yet the smile returning to his face. He was panting in disbelief. "Right now, I don't give a shit about brand, but the winne-"

"Well, that's just it, Kenneth. You don't care about your brand." Christopher continued. "You do understand that the contract you signed states that..."

Ken tuned him out and turned to his coach, DisRupt. "Can you believe this guy?" Ken asked him, still panting.

DisRupt's face was turned into a sorrowful grimace as he shrugged. "He actually kinda has a point, man." he begrudgingly replied. "It's not going to get any easier from here to keep your brand going. We talked about this -- you kind of have to play the villain card here, man. Hype people up. Make sure that your next t-"

"Are you serious?!" Ken's smile was now gone. "Okay, no, shut up. One, this was the speech I was given. If you two are seriously going to crawl up my as for following orders, you can blame yourselves for it going sour. Not me. If it even did go sour. Two, okay, two, like... I won! Can you give me a day without worrying about branding?! I expected this shit from you, Christopher. Like, I hoped not, but I still expected it. But..." Ken turned to face DisRupt. "Come on, man."

Christopher was unmoved. "After your performance here today, you're going to really need to try harder in the next few tournaments."

"Try harder?! Am I invisible here? I won! I was the best. Yeah, I'll try harder, but that's to defend my title, and I just earned it. And by the way, I just earned it."

Christopher sighed loudly. "Kenneth, your job is not to win tournaments."

"Ex-cuse me?!"

"Your job is to get the name of Klutz to reach the people. Do you know what the Twitch demographics were like during the final match? This was the last watched final match in-"

"Yeah, you know, believe it or not, I wasn't looking at the Twitch numbers when I was onstage proving myself to the world." Ken countered. "I'm making a living, aren't I? I'm keeping you two in it. Hell, I probably just got you guys your biggest paycheck yet."

"With the way you could have extended the brand, and didn't, I'd say you came closer to robbing us tonight, Kenneth." Christopher replied sharply. "We have missed out on a great opportunity, and we're going to need to take some steps to cover the ground we've now lost."

Ken's look turned incredulous. He just won. His friends should be happy for him. This almost seemed cartoonish. Not only were they this obsessed with numbers and money and marketing, but they were obsessed this quickly? They couldn't let him have just ten seconds to gloat? This wasn't fair. He turned to DisRupt, who was eyeing the floor.

This wasn't the first time Ken had to deal with his manager and coach acting like this; they had always been the more business-oriented types. He had just hoped that the duo had put that whole shtick in the past, or at least wouldn't have whipped it out tonight. Unfortunately, as the two were demonstrating, he was dead wrong.

"Okay," Ken's voice got smaller, knowing he really only had moral ground on which to argue, which wouldn't exactly get him far with Christopher, who had a mind of money and legalities. "So what happens now?"

"I'm thinking Klutz gets involved in a lot more local tournaments." Christopher clicked a pen and wrote something down in his notebook. "It works with your backstory. You are from around here."

"I'm from St. Catherine's." Ken objected dryly.

"To an international crowd, that's basically Toronto. Anyway, I want you to let loose at these tournaments. Yell a little more, see if you can get into a shouting match with one of your fellow fighters. What's that one guy, YelloJello?" Christopher turned to DisRupt, who nodded. "I think he'd be good for that. If we can push the narrative that you're cracking after an international win, then all eyes will be on you."

"Not happening. John and I are friends." Ken stood his ground. "It's fucking creepy and, um, kinda manipulative to orchestrate a meltdown. Besides, the only local tournament in this city is happening in two weeks, and regis-"

"You're already registered." Christopher interrupted, not looking up from his notebook.

"What?"

"You're already registered." Christopher repeated, no change in his monotone voice.

"But that's February 17th. I have plans with my uncle that day. We -- we planned this like a month in advance. Why did I not hear about this?" Ken protested, feeling his blood run a little cold.

"I registered for you ahead of time. If you placed poorly here, dropping out of a later tournament dramatically would have been good optics."

"Making me look like a crying child is good opti-"

"And if you won, like you did here, we wanted to keep the momentum going." Christopher sighed annoyedly. "Of course, we were hoping you'd have come out of this tournament having performed better, but-"

"I'm going to be with my uncle that day. I promised him. Going to be with him means a lot to me." Ken stood his ground.

"Bro..." DisRupt clearly interjected, sensing the tension building.

"Shut up." Ken sharply retaliated. "This is important to me."

"Sorry, but you're not." Christopher replied. "If I need to remind you, it's in your contract plain as day that I am able to sign you up for any event I deem impo-"

"It's in my fucking contract that you can override my social life with video game tournaments I don't want to enter, where you guilt me into pretending to fight with one of the nicest eSports players I've ever met?!" Ken asked in disbelief.

"I'm not asking you to pretend." Christopher clarified. "I want him to believe it too. If this ends up on his Twitter, there's going to be a lot of people from his audience looking at you. There's not a lot of cross-traffic coming from his circle, and-"

"You want people that don't know me finding out about me as the guy that yelled at him for no reason?!" Ken was now shouting. "You guys are like, cartoon bad guys here! I'm not fucking doing this!"

"Bro, come on, we're doing this for you. We want Klutz to keep on living, and sometimes..." DisRupt trailed off, gesturing with his hand.

"Brands don't last forever on their own. We have to do this, if you want a future in eSports." Christopher added.

"I'm not a brand! I'm a human being!" Ken shouted.

"Bro-"

"Shut the fuck up! I'm not your bro, I'm not your puppet, and I'm not coming to your damn tournament or picking a fight with nobody that doesn't deserve it!" Before he knew it, Ken was marching right for the nearest door. Above it, the exit sign.

Ken would have liked to say he was cool in these situations, but the same passion that brought him his victory also got him into trouble more often than not. Before leaving, he turned back around to face the two, and just started shouting, venting out his frustrations in a very immature and public manner.

"Fucking enough!"

"Go to fucking hell! Both of you!"

"Fuck you both! Fuck this place!! Fuck it all!!"

One might have expected the duo to follow after Ken, but both DisRupt and Christopher had worked with eSports players before. They knew about the hissyfits, and they knew that, just like with children, they didn't want to prove to Ken that his tactics could work. "You still haven't collected your prize money yet." Christopher pointed out. "And there will be people that want interviews. Remember th-"

"Collect it for me." Ken replied, his shouting tone wavering. He knew that if he stayed much longer, it would turn to quivering.

Before he knew it, Ken -- no, Klutz, the newest eSports superstar, had exited the building, no doubt turning a few heads on his way out. As soon as he was out of the building though, he was no longer Klutz. The man facing the chill of the early February air was Ken Lutz, 24, kind of geeky looking (go figure), and possibly unemployed, depending on how well his manager would have taken the fit he'd thrown.

As soon as he was out of Roy Thomson Hall, he just started walking. If this was the life for an aspiring eSports player, then he didn't really want to be one. He wanted to be just Ken. He kept walking until he reached a familiar sight -- a simple convenience store. He'd come here every so often for energy drinks or something like that whenever he was in the area, but ever since he came to Toronto for the tournament, something else about this place was on his mind.

He walked through the front door, a beep signalling to the cashier that he was entering. His eyes crept up from the floor to the cashier's desk to confirm that she was working tonight.

Ken had no clue what her name was. He just knew he wanted to know. She was definitely older than him by a bit -- he would have guessed around 28, 29 -- but she looked that kind of older where you didn't care. She wasn't noticeably mature or anything, she was just... exciting. That kind of peppy where she probably had a super-serious childhood and wanted to make up for it or something. Ken couldn't quite make out her figure from behind the counter, but he could tell from what little he saw that she was that kind of 'skinny curvy' that a lot of guys found attractive. And the most attractive thing of all, she remembered him.

"Hey," she instantly said, breaking into a smile when she saw him walk in. "So did the tournament just end or something? How'd you do?"

They'd been talking here and there over the past few days. She was the type of woman that seemed to genuinely care about people and their lives. They instantly clicked when Ken actually answered her. Judging by the way she instantly engaged, he seemed to be the only one to actually respond.

Ken chuckled nervously in response, shrugging nonchalantly and daring to actually look her in her eyes. They were hazel, and very warm. "Who cares?" he found himself saying.

The cashier gave him a knowing smile. "Ah, so you lost, huh?"

"Something like that." Ken replied. "I sure don't feel like a winner."

"Oh yeah, eh? Well, you'll get 'em next... year? Is this a yearly thing?"

"What's your name?" Ken asked out of nowhere.

It was the cashier's turn to chuckle nervously. "Lauren," she eventually said. Her shy smile complimented her hazel eyes. "My name is Lauren. What's yours?"

"Ken," Ken muttered. A few hours ago, he might have added his gamertag to his introduction, and seen if he could push his luck there. Not only would that clearly have not worked with Lauren, but he felt... changed. Reborn. He wasn't Klutz anymore, and he was pretty sure he liked that.

"Ken." Lauren repeated him, then gave a sweet smile. "It's nice to meet you. Formally, I mean."

Ken would have continued but an intrusive cough and the dark, cold stare of a balding man from a door behind the counter caught his gaze. It wasn't staring at him, but Lauren didn't need to turn around to know who or what it was.

"Anyway, if you're not going to buy something, you need to leave," Lauren continued, using this authoritative tone that she clearly didn't put a lot of work into. Her face communicated what she really meant, and Ken scrambled to make it look like he was at least interested in buying something so he wouldn't face the stare too. Eventually, he settled on an energy drink and went up to the counter to pay for it.

Lauren rang it up. "They say these things are really bad for you," she casually observed.

"Some things are," Ken replied, looking off towards the now-closed door. "Is everything...? Like, are you okay here?"

Lauren gave a warm chuckle. "I'm fine. Things are just a little... tightly run here. That'll be three thirty six."

"Debit. Do you smoke?"

"Sorry?" The sound of the debit machine beeping filled the beat.

"Like, do you get smoke breaks?" Ken asked, gesturing out the front door. A few hours ago he wouldn't have dared to be so bold.

Lauren followed his gaze outside, then gave a 'fuck it, why not' grin. "Give me a few minutes," she whispered, then added in a slightly loud tone, "What happens on the job isn't really your business. Is that everything?"

"Yeah," Ken said softly, leaving promptly. He exited the store, popping open his drink, the caffeine probably not helping his nervous jitters. A few minutes, which felt closer to half an hour, fluttered by when finally, Lauren exited the store.

Ken's assertion wasn't off at all. Lauren had one of those bodies that no one would notice unless they were looking at her, but as soon as you noticed, you couldn't see anything other than how attractive she was. She had that 'stealth hotness' that shy girls always seemed to have. An impressive bust size that hung nicely over a tight waist, a shirt that complimented every curve it gave, and a tight pair of jeans that complimented a nice set of hips to boot. Ken quickly exhaled in excitement at the sight of her body, but tried to cover it up quickly. Lauren seemed to not notice, and gave him a small smile.

"Hey," she quietly said.

"Hey." Ken chuckled. "So you do smoke."

"Not really," Lauren replied, pulling out a packet of cigarettes and sticking one in her mouth. "It's just nice to get the time off."

"Then why..."

Lauren winked at him, the cigarette remaining in his mouth, unlit. Ken smiled in understanding.

"So you like to break the rules?" Ken asked her.

"Only when the rules are stupid," she answered. "Honestly? The place isn't good. If the till doesn't match the exact amount I report, they take it out of my cheque. I get in trouble if I lean against the counter, so I need to stand perfectly still for eight hours. People think being a cashier is easy, but there's like a million things you need to always be keeping in mind, and a billion that need to get done. If you forget one thing in your shift, or if you're not always working, you get yelled at. It's like clockwork." She exhaled loudly, with Ken nodding at her words. "What about you, what do you do?"

"I'm probably unemployed."

"Probably?" Lauren looked at him in confusion. "What does that mean?"

"It means I think I was in a position kind of like yours, and then I just said 'fuck it' and decided to be spontaneous and give 'em the finger," Ken answered. "Life's kinda fun when you're being spontaneous. You should try it sometime."

"How?" Lauren gave a sassy smile to Ken, keen to see where he'd go with this.

"You hate this job, right? Quit it. Find a better one. You could do better."

"Aw, Ken, that's sweet." Lauren smiled warmly. "I already put in my two weeks notice though. I'm ahead of ya." She winked at him. "Now I just have to ride it out."

"Or you could just quit now. You don't have to give your two weeks notice. That's just a technicality, isn't it?"

"I'd love to, but I can't." Lauren said.

"Why? Are you planning to become the manager?"

"Well, no, but it's the right thing to do. The guy back there is already angry at me for quitting as it is. And I need to give two weeks if I want to put him as a reference on my resume."

Ken thought to himself for a second. "But..." he began slowly. "You just said he's angry at you as it is for quitting. And he gets upset at you for doing one small thing wrong on the job, like leaning. He probably won't forget that as soon as you quit. It doesn't look like he'll say many nice things about you anyway, and you can put this place on a resume as a past place-of-work without listing him as a reference. Why don't you just do that?"

Lauren stared at him for a few seconds, her eyebrows performing the world's slowest dance. "...Huh," she finally mumbled aloud. She stared him down a bit longer, processing what he said, and finally spoke again. "Being spontaneous, huh?"

"That's what I said."

Lauren narrowed her eyes at him as a small smile crept onto her face. "Would you... by any chance would you want to be spontaneous together?"

Ken's heart leapt up about a foot, but he tried to maintain a calm collected face. "I've got nowhere to be, so if you want..."

"Okay. Huh. Okay." Lauren took the cigarette out of her mouth and threw it in the trash. "Give me a sec. Stay out here." She went back into the store, and Ken waited, nervously, for her to come back out.

She took a long time. Just when Ken was worried that she lied to him and just went back to her shift, she re-emerged, face flushed.

"Are you okay?" was the only thing Ken could think to say.

"I have... never actually let loose on somebody like that before." Lauren breathed.

"And how'd that feel?"

Lauren still wasn't even looking at him. "It felt... good." she admitted. "I want to continue feeling good." She finally looked him in the eye and sported a smile. A smile full of relief.

"What, like tell him off again?" Ken asked as a joke.

Lauren gave a sympathy giggle. "No. I'm not working there anymore. I'm talking about... you know, spontaneity. I liked that, like a lot. What were you thinking of when you talked about being spontaneous?"

"I didn't have a plan." Ken shrugged. "You know, if you plan being spontaneous, you kind of suck at it."

"Oh yeah, eh? If you plan it..." Lauren chewed on his words. "Let's go to the LCBO."

The LCBO was the place to be in Ontario if you wanted to shop for alcohol. Ken gave a chuckle in surprise. "The LCBO, huh? Okay. Sure."

"Sorry, do you drink?" Lauren's confidence waned.

"Hey, hey, no questions. Just spontaneity," Ken soothed her. Lauren smiled and nodded, and the two went off in search of the nearest LCBO. Thanks to Toronto being a big city, and Lauren's phone GPS, it didn't take long at all to find one, and soon the pair were inside, comparing their favorite drinks.