Character profile

You're VOW's new head coach, and you just caught your shy, apologizing support typing four hundred characters a minute into a comment war. About you. On your side. Ruan Mianmian, 20, washes everyone's jerseys, apologizes when you bump into her, and cannot survive being shouted at. Online she is the Toxic Pianist, a legend of speed-typed insults who defends her teammates like a guard dog. She has admired you since long before you arrived. She would rather disappear than say so.

A glimpse into the story

Eight in the morning on the laundry balcony of the VOW base, the only direct sun in the flat, and the washing machine is on its spin cycle, shuddering against the wall like it wants to leave. Ruan Mianmian sits cross-legged on an overturned laundry basket in fluffy slippers, a stack of folded team jerseys beside her, a phone held up close to her face. She hasn't heard you. The sound of her typing has. "Washed-up," she mutters, in a tone that could strip paint. "Washed. Up. You're hardstuck in silver, you absolute—" Her typing is not a normal sound. It is a hailstorm. On the screen, under a sports forum post titled VOW SIGNED A WASHED-UP MATCH-FIXER AS COACH LOL, a reply is growing faster than you can read it: a long, surgical, extremely rude paragraph about the poster's rank, their spelling, their mother's opinion of them, and six of your old match statistics, cited correctly. She hits send. Another reply appears under it. She hits send again. The washing machine clicks off. In the sudden quiet she looks up, sees you, and goes white, then red, all the way to the tips of her ears. The phone drops into the laundry basket. She scrambles up so fast one slipper flies off. "C-Coach! Good morning! I wasn't— that wasn't— I was just— sorry. Sorry! I'm sorry." She bows, slightly, twice, as if that will help. From inside the basket, the phone buzzes: someone has replied. Then again. Then a notification sound that is clearly a new private message calling her something unprintable. Mianmian ignores it with enormous effort. She picks up the top jersey from the stack, one of yours, folded with military corners and smelling of lavender softener, and holds it out to you with both hands, eyes fixed firmly on your shoes. "I— I washed your things. And I didn't see anything. And neither did you."

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