Choi Do-yun / Doyoon_JGL (2)
Jin Gyeo-wool's first priority was getting out of that unpleasant hug.
"Let go of me first, then talk."
"Ah. Yes."
Crap. Guess the sudden hug was way over the line.
Choi Do-yun bit down on his lip and stepped back.
"Just so we're clear — don't go hugging me out of nowhere like that again. It makes me uncomfortable."
She still needed him as a teammate, so she'd softened the edges as much as she could. Don't do that, it bothers me — that was the idea.
But in front of Choi Do-yun, whose marriage circuits had already spun up and locked in, even that got twisted into something else entirely.
Ah. A Confucian girl. Her parents must be strict.
Half the young women in Korea were Confucian girls, so it wasn't a wrong assumption — but the rose-tinted glasses were already welded firmly over Choi Do-yun's eyes.
"Anyway. You're joining the team, right?"
Jin Gyeo-wool felt the artificial tears still clinging to the corners of her eyes and hurriedly wiped them away with the back of her hand.
Choi Do-yun decided she was fighting to hide her emotions. He was deeply moved. She was pretending nothing was wrong, refusing to let her true feelings show. Probably because she hated looking weak.
"Yes. I'll do it. Same team!"
"No take-backs."
"I won't. A man keeps his word once he's given it."
Was that not what a man with a burning heart was supposed to say?
Even if the whole world turned against him — a real man kept the promise he'd made to the woman who would one day be his.
Jin Gyeo-wool watched him and let out a quiet snort of laughter. It was ancient history now, but there had been a time when he'd been just as pumped full of that same swagger.
Back then I really thought I could do anything.
A sudden wistfulness washed over her. If he hadn't wasted himself on pointless bravado back then — if he hadn't clung to an impossible dream all the way to twenty-four, thrashing and clawing the whole way —
Maybe his life would have turned out a little differently.
Jin Gyeo-wool lowered her head, a melancholy look settling over her face.
Is she okay…? But she told me not to touch her…
Choi Do-yun fretted in place, completely at a loss. While he hovered uselessly in front of her, Jin Gyeo-wool finished sorting through the old memories and lifted her head.
"Good. I'll walk you through the plan going forward."
A plan? She already has a detailed marriage plan mapped out?
Just how serious is this noona about getting married…?
They were both still kids. It would be years before either of them was a legal adult, and she was already talking marriage plans.
But maybe it was that very thoroughness that did it — Choi Do-yun's delusion began to fuse more and more seamlessly with reality. The gulf of misunderstanding was only getting deeper.
"By May, I'm going to recruit the rest of the roster."
"Yeah, recruit teammates… wait, huh?"
"What? You can't enter an amateur tournament with just two people. You need a full five-man roster to compete."
Choi Do-yun's fantasy didn't last long.
Reality's door slammed open all at once. Everything he'd just done alone in his own head flashed past him like a humiliating highlight reel, and an embarrassment beyond imagination came crashing down on top of him.
"Ah… so when you said we should be a team, that's what you meant?"
"Of course that's what I meant. What else would it mean?"
Her patience was starting to fray; the tail end of Jin Gyeo-wool's sentences climbed higher. She'd thought his reactions had been weird for a while now.
Realizing Choi Do-yun had been operating under some kind of misunderstanding, she snapped at him bluntly.
"I'm the top laner. You're the jungler. So now we find a mid, an ADC, and a support, and we enter amateur tournaments."
Jin Gyeo-wool was working hard to tamp down the fury trying to burst out of Hon Gyeo-wool.
"Ah… ahhh."
At last, the full truth landed on Choi Do-yun. He rolled his eyes around looking for somewhere safe to put them, then chose the classic escape route — the bathroom.
"Bathroom! Just a second!"
Watching his back vanish at full speed, Jin Gyeo-wool let out a long, heavy sigh. Seriously, what had he been thinking all by himself? Time was tight, and he kept burning through it.
Ugh, I just want to play already.
Right now, the only thing on his mind was getting into a game.
"You son of a bitch. You wanna die?"
"Who are you calling a son of a bitch, you little shit? I'm your hyung."
"Interest? What interest?! All she said was we should make an amateur team together!"
On the other end of the line, Choi Go-yun dug through his memory. When Jin Gyeo-wool had asked about Choi Do-yun, she had asked whether he was interested in an amateur team.
But he'd figured it wasn't important and brushed right past it.
"Yeah? I knew that part too."
"If you knew, you should've told me, you psycho!"
"Didn't think it mattered. And the part about her being into you is still true."
"Haa… my fault for believing you. I'm hanging up."
"Hey. I'm serious. You can pitch an amateur team online. Why would she go out of her way to meet you in person? She's got other feelings too, right?"
"…"
Choi Do-yun had sworn he would never believe another word out of Choi Go-yun's mouth — and then that last line hooked him all over again. The kid had ears like a weather vane.
"Hmm… you think so?"
"Dude, bluntly speaking — a girl like Gyeo-wool gets approached just walking down the street. Why would someone like that go out of her way to meet you? There's a reason."
That… actually made sense. Choi Do-yun nodded along vigorously.
"The amateur team might just be an excuse. Girls aren't great at saying that kind of thing straight out. It could be her roundabout way of saying she wants to keep hanging out with you."
"Y-you think so?"
As if, you idiot little brother. Choi Go-yun was having way too much fun messing with him. He was barely holding back the laughter trying to burst out of his throat.
"So stick around and keep checking. I sat through a whole lecture on the female heart — I'll give you a few interest signals to watch for. Verify them yourself."
One. She makes frequent eye contact and looks at you a lot.
Two. When you suggest plans, they fall into place easily, the way you asked.
Three. She reacts well and laughs a lot.
Four. She asks the person she likes a lot of questions.
…
Listening to the list, he realized several of them were already beyond doubt.
So splitting the bill was a sign of interest. Choi Do-yun had never heard that in his life.
So that's why noona bought the drinks…
And earlier, when she'd asked him to join the team, she'd leaned in toward him and grabbed his hand without hesitation. No matter how he looked at it, that was a perfect green light.
"…Hyung. I underestimated you."
"I don't have the field experience, but academically? I'm locked in. Starting to see how great this hyung of yours is?"
"Yeah. There's ice cream hidden under the ice tray in the freezer. You can have it."
"For real? You little shit, hiding it there of all places. I'll enjoy it!"
Choi Do-yun ended the call and took a deep breath, steadying himself.
Plenty of good signals. All that was left was to go straight in.
Like hyung said, the amateur team could just be a stepping stone to the next stage. A Confucian girl wouldn't be used to laying her feelings bare — that tracked.
From Jin Gyeo-wool's perspective, even grabbing his hand earlier had taken enormous courage. That was why she'd teared up the second he turned her down. And the blunt way she'd snapped at him afterward? Clearly a defensive reflex — trying to cover up that her true feelings had been exposed.
Suddenly in a great mood, Choi Do-yun hummed under his breath as he headed back to the table. Jin Gyeo-wool had been reading something on her phone; the moment he returned, she set it down and turned toward him.
Female interest signal number eleven: she doesn't look at her phone during the hangout. Bullseye.
"So. Done thinking it over?"
"Yes. I've sorted everything out."
Even from Jin Gyeo-wool's side, Choi Do-yun finally seemed to have calmed down. The restless energy that had been all over his face since they first met had settled into something gentler.
"Like you said, noona — let's build a team. An amateur team!"
"…You mean it?"
"Of course. Men don't lie."
Talk was cheap. Jin Gyeo-wool snorted a quiet laugh and asked her next question. She'd expected becoming a pro gamer as a girl to be hard — but at this rate, maybe she'd already cleared the first real hurdle without much trouble.
"You know there's a regional qualifier in August, right?"
"Yes."
"We need to fill the three open spots before then. Anyone you already know?"
The moment the conversation turned properly to the amateur team, Choi Do-yun launched into a surprisingly professional rundown.
"There's this ADC kid I know — IGN MJLow."
"Is he good?"
"I've played with him a few times. Objectively speaking, he's better than either of us right now."
"Grandmaster tier, then."
"Yeah."
Having an existing connection was a good sign. But there was something she needed to clear up first.
"Would he be weird about playing with a girl?"
Choi Do-yun had more or less rolled with it, but most male gamers still flinched at the idea of being on a team with a woman.
Back when he was Bae Do-hyun, he'd heard that line more times than he could count — and said it himself plenty of times too. Which was exactly why he was being careful about it now.
"Mm… I'd have to ask him, but he's not the type to discriminate just because someone's a girl. If anything, I think he actually likes queuing with girls… He's good enough that he's done collab streams with popular streamers a few times."
Unlike plain old Choi Do-yun, this one's got a face on him, huh. Jin Gyeo-wool nodded and steered the conversation toward mid and support.
"ADC's covered, then. What about support and mid?"
"Hmm… open tryouts seem like the way to go for those."
But it was still early in the season, he added — he wasn't sure anyone would even show up if they posted a recruitment now.
"Yeah… some teams don't even start forming until around July."
But to win the regional qualifier and make it into the President's Cup amateur tournament, they needed at least two months of practice together. Jin Gyeo-wool would have preferred even longer, but with May as the recruitment deadline still up in the air, she'd already cut the timeline down.
"Alright. I'll look for mid and support candidates. You get in touch with that ADC kid and see if he wants in."
"Yes ma'am. And just in case, I'll throw a post up on the Mangseng community board too. It'll mostly be garbage replies, but you never know."
"Yeah. Appreciate it."
The conversation finally wrapped up, and Jin Gyeo-wool had achieved everything she'd set out to do today.
Satisfaction rolled in a beat late. She decided it would be a shame to just send Choi Do-yun home after he'd already started being this useful.
Not sure he quite measures up to Lee Yeong-bin, but this kid's got a good personality too.
It had always been like that. Back when he was Bae Do-hyun, he'd cracked open his own precious living expenses to buy meals for the younger players he cared about.
Thanks to that, he'd maintained a decent reputation for a long time. His self-esteem had been too wrecked for him to have any real friends he could open up to — but even so, whenever he asked someone younger to hang out, nobody turned him down. At least, not until Jang Jae-hong suddenly crashed into the group.
"We're done talking for today. Stay for dinner."
"Ah. Sh-should I?"
"My treat. What do you want?"
At those words, Choi Do-yun's heart — which had finally settled — started hammering all over again.
Female interest signal number six: she suggests a second round first.
And now it was happening in real life.
"Ah… n-no, I mean. How much money does a student even have! Let's just split it!"
"Nope. I'm buying. Just eat what I get you."
Absolute force of will. Choi Do-yun felt a staggering amount of swagger radiating from Jin Gyeo-wool's gaze. She was serious. Turning this down would be a failure of manhood.
"Yes… yes. I'll eat."
"Good. What should we get? Samgyeopsal? Burgers? Pizza?"
"Uh, o-one second — give me a minute to think."
A meal bought by a girl who was into him. He'd never had anything like this. What menu choice would make him look sweet enough to earn praise?
Choi Go-yun was always muttering at home about what you were supposed to eat when you went out with a girl — so of course, the one time it actually mattered, none of it would come to him. Even dog shit was nowhere to be found when you needed it for medicine. Dog-shit hyung.
"If you can't decide, I'll just pick."
"No! First — first let's play a game, then decide!"
"Yeah? Alright, I'm queuing up then."
"Yes. I'll figure something out while we play."
Finally — game time.
Jin Gyeo-wool stretched long and hard, like she'd been waiting forever, and the second the queue popped she locked in a champion without hesitation.
— Have a drink!
The moment he saw the pick, Choi Do-yun asked in open alarm,
"You're really playing that?"
"Win rate's been solid lately, and it's fun."
The champion Jin Gyeo-wool had locked was Singed — the kind of pick people called "disgusting," the one that used blistering movement speed to close the gap, fling enemies back into the allied line, and choke them out with poison gas.
"And I'm playing aggressive. If you're thinking of top-side ganks, pick a jungler with easy kill angles."
"Uhh… in that case…"
The rest of the allied lineup hadn't been revealed yet, so Choi Do-yun had to first-pick jungle on the returning blue side second pick. But as a duo queue, the difficulty was naturally lower than solo queue.
"Our mid's locking Zed, so I'll go AP jungle. Evelynn it is."
"Not bad. I'll set the angles — you show up on time. Like yesterday."
"Ah. Yesterday. That was actually really fun."
No matter how much of a lovestruck girl Jin Gyeo-wool supposedly was — no matter how much her face alone could topple a nation — the second she sat down to play, she was dead serious.
Choi Do-yun knew that, so for the duration of the game he decided to focus on the match, not on her.
He'd felt it on voice chat yesterday too: even with that calm voice of hers, the moment they won she let the pure happiness pour out with zero filter.
Watching her today confirmed it — she's definitely not someone who smiles a lot.
Jin Gyeo-wool didn't laugh often. But when she did, she smiled like a sunflower. If he could just keep seeing that — what wouldn't Choi Do-yun do?
He was the type who preferred hitting the surrender vote the second a game looked lost. But from now on, in every game he played with Jin Gyeo-wool, he swore he would never give up until the nexus went down.