You ever meet someone who just can’t stand losing?
I’m not talking about your run-of-the-mill sore loser who gets grumpy for five minutes and then moves on.
No, I’m talking about the kind of person who turns every friendly competition into a war zone, where losing means the end of their world?
That’s Kevin.
And if you’ve ever crossed paths with someone like him, you know the type—always trying to prove they’re better, smarter, faster.
Me?
I’m Emma. I play for fun.
Sure, I like to win, but I’m not out here to ruin anyone’s day over a game of Super Smash Bros. or Call of Duty. Still, somehow, that’s what gets under Kevin’s skin the most.
It’s not the fact that I beat him—although that happens more than he’d care to admit—it’s that I do it without trying so hard.
And that drives him absolutely nuts.
You see, Kevin is the self-appointed king of our apartment complex’s weekly game nights. He’s got the best gear, the fastest reflexes (according to him), and, most importantly, the biggest ego.
And when he loses?
Let’s just say he’s the kind of guy who can’t help but throw in a “you got lucky” or “lag did me dirty” excuse every time.
But last week was the worst.
I beat him in Street Fighter, of all things. I’m not even *good* at that game.
And that’s what set everything in motion—Kevin’s petty, little ego couldn’t handle it.
I should’ve seen it coming, really.
How It Started
The night after I won, Kevin was sulking like a kid who had his toy taken away.
He didn’t say much, but I could feel it. Every time I’d walk past him in the courtyard or catch him in the lobby, he’d give me this tight-lipped smile that never quite reached his eyes.
I knew he was plotting something.
That’s Kevin’s style.
Losing isn’t just losing for him—it’s an offense, a challenge to his fragile status as “the best.”
And I’ll admit, I expected something.
Maybe a bit of trash talk before the next game night. Maybe he’d pick a game I wasn’t good at to try and embarrass me in front of everyone.
What I didn’t expect was the lengths he’d go to.
He didn’t just want to win—he wanted to humiliate me.
Kevin, being the tech geek he was, knew his way around computers. He wasn’t some mastermind hacker or anything, but he knew enough to get dangerous when it came to messing with gaming setups.
So, after that last loss, he came up with a plan—a plan so small-minded and pathetic that it could only come from someone obsessed with proving a point that didn’t matter to anyone but him.
You see, I had been practicing for the next tournament—a big one.
Our whole complex was buzzing about it. Every few months, we held an all-day event with brackets, prizes, the works.
It wasn’t serious, but everyone took part, and the winner got eternal bragging rights… at least until the next one.
Kevin couldn’t stand the idea of me winning. He’d already had to endure enough ribbing from the others about “Emma, the accidental champion.”
So, he decided to play dirty.
A day before the tournament, Kevin got access to my gaming setup.
Don’t ask me how—I’m guessing he sweet-talked one of the neighbors, or maybe bribed the landlord with a six-pack to get into my apartment.
Whatever he did, he managed to sneak into my place while I was at work, and that’s when he made his move.
He installed a small, hidden program designed to mess with my system’s performance during the tournament. Nothing too obvious, just enough to slow me down.
A bit of lag here, a glitch there. Enough to make it look like I wasn’t as good as everyone thought, to make me fumble in front of the whole complex.
Kevin must have been giddy, imagining me struggling, sweating, looking helpless as my character glitched out on-screen.
He’d be watching from across the room, knowing that every awkward misstep I took was his doing. I could see the smug grin he’d wear when I lost, knowing he was the one who engineered it all.
Except… there was one tiny problem with his plan.
He Made a Mistake
Here’s the thing about Kevin. He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.
He’s always been like that—always assuming he’s one step ahead, that he’s pulling the strings while the rest of us dance to his tune.
But in his rush to sabotage me, Kevin forgot one key detail: I had a tech-savvy friend, too.
Let’s call him Nate. Nate’s not part of our game nights, but he knows his way around computers better than anyone I’ve ever met.
And just by chance, he’d been helping me update my system for the tournament a few days before Kevins’s little act of sabotage.
While he was poking around, he must’ve noticed something odd, some out-of-place code.
At first, we thought it was just a minor bug. But Nate, being Nate, didn’t leave it alone.
“I think someone’s messing with your system,” he told me. “This looks like a performance mod, probably something to induce lag.”
I blinked at him. “Who would do that?”
Nate just shrugged, but we both knew the answer. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who had the most to gain from me crashing and burning at the tournament.
Kevin had made no secret of his desperation to beat me in front of everyone.
“Want me to remove it?” Nate asked, his fingers already hovering over the keyboard.
But I shook my head. “No, leave it.”
Nate raised an eyebrow at that. “You sure? I can wipe it clean and beef up your system security so this doesn’t happen again.”
I smiled at the screen, an idea forming in the back of my mind.
Kevin was good at pulling sneaky little moves behind people’s backs. What he didn’t know was that I was about to turn his own plan against him.
“Actually,” I said, “can you do me a favor?”
Nate listened as I laid out my counter-move.
Instead of removing the program, I wanted to tweak it. Nate would leave the mod in place, but with a little adjustment—a subtle redirect so that the lag and glitches Kevin had planned for me would affect his system instead.
He’d set the trap, but when the time came, he’d be the one caught in it.
And the best part?
He’d never see it coming.
By the time tournament day rolled around, my system was running perfectly.
Kevin? Well, let’s just say he was in for one big surprise.
Now, the real game was about to begin.
Unintended Consequences
The day of the tournament had arrived, and the apartment complex was buzzing with excitement.
Our small gaming community had gathered in the shared rec room, the smell of snacks and pizza in the air, controllers ready, and everyone eager to see who would walk away with bragging rights this time.
Kevin was in rare form.
He strutted into the room like he owned the place, his high-end controller gleaming in the fluorescent light. You could see it in his posture—the confidence, the arrogance.
He was already imagining his victory, probably preparing a few witty one-liners to drop when I “mysteriously” fell apart during the match. It took everything in me not to laugh.
We all gathered around the big screen as the brackets were announced.
The game of choice?
Rocket League. Fast-paced, skill-heavy, and no room for error.
Kevin’s personal favorite, of course.
He had been bragging for weeks about how no one in the complex could touch him in that game. He’d even claimed, more than once, that this was the one game where I wouldn’t stand a chance.
But I knew something Kevin didn’t.
As the first match started, I could already feel the anticipation building. Kevin and I were in separate brackets to start, which meant we wouldn’t face each other until later rounds—if we both made it through.
And Kevin? He was going to have a harder time than he realized.
The first few matches went smoothly.
Kevin cruised through his early games, though I could tell something was off. He wasn’t as sharp as usual.
A few missed shots here, a mistimed boost there. He was still good—don’t get me wrong—but there was this growing sense of frustration bubbling under his surface confidence.
And then, it was time for my match against him.
The room fell into a hushed silence, the kind that buzzes with tension.
It was the showdown everyone had been waiting for: the reigning king against the quiet challenger. Only Kevin didn’t know he’d already lost.
The game started, and right out of the gate, I could feel the difference.
My setup was running like a dream, smooth as butter, while Kevin’s was… not. His first few moves were sluggish, his car jerking awkwardly across the field.
At first, it wasn’t too obvious, and he managed to keep up, but within minutes, the cracks began to show.
His car hesitated during critical moments.
Lag spikes hit just as he lined up for shots. He over-corrected his steering again and again, sending his car smashing into the walls instead of launching the ball toward the goal.
I kept my cool, focusing on the game, but every time Kevin’s car glitched, I had to fight the urge to laugh.
The irony was almost too perfect.
From across the room, I saw his face change.
First, confusion—he couldn’t figure out what was going wrong. Then, frustration, his eyes narrowing as he mashed the buttons harder, thinking somehow brute force would fix the problem.
And finally, desperation.
Kevin, the self-proclaimed king of Rocket League, was falling apart in front of everyone, and he had no idea why.
By the time the match ended, the score was a landslide.
I’d won. Clean.
Kevin, on the other hand, was sitting there, staring at the screen as though he’d just seen a ghost.
“That was… lucky,” he mumbled, too stunned to even form a coherent excuse. “My system was acting up.”
Someone from the crowd muttered, “Sure, Kevin, sure.”
I just smiled and shrugged. “Good game.”
Realizing What Happened
The room started to clear out as the tournament wrapped up, everyone chatting about the day’s games and congratulating me on the win.
Kevin, however, sat there like he’d been glued to his seat. I could feel his frustration bubbling over, but there was nothing he could say.
After all, he had set up this game, he had sabotaged my system, and he was the one who had lost—spectacularly.
And while he stewed in his own failure, I couldn’t resist one last twist of the knife.
I casually walked over to him, picking up my controller from the table.
“Hey Kevin,” I said, with just the right amount of friendly curiosity. “You said your system was glitching? Weird. That didn’t happen to me.”
Kevin shot me a glare, his face still red from embarrassment. “Yeah, well, something must’ve messed up my connection.”
I nodded, trying to keep a straight face. “Oh, maybe you should check for any… unusual programs on your system. You know, just in case someone’s been messing with it.”
For a split second, his eyes flickered with realization.
It was brief, but I caught it. He knew.
He understood, in that moment, that his plan had backfired spectacularly. But there was nothing he could do about it.
As I walked out of the room, my tournament trophy in hand, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of satisfaction.
The thing about playing dirty is that it always comes back to bite you.