Thoughts Cross Paths, It Seems
That weekend.
The three men Jin Gyeo-wool had tricked into joining the team held a little get-together.
More precisely, it was a vetting session—Choi Do-yun and Yu Min-jae sizing up this Gong Je-hyeon character before the real team activities began.
"Hey!"
"Hello."
"Hello."
The three of them sat around a convenience-store table, exchanging light greetings. In front of each of them sat a freshly cracked can of soda.
If Jin Gyeo-wool had been there, the meeting would have been at a decent restaurant or café—but three guys getting together weren't exactly hunting for coffee.
Jin Gyeo-wool was already the team's de facto captain, yet Choi Do-yun seemed determined to play the leader role himself and broke the ice first.
"Mind giving us a quick intro?"
Gong Je-hyeon launched into his pitch like he'd been waiting for the cue.
"Name's Gong Je-hyeon, same age as Jin Gyeo-wool—eighteen. Grandmaster, mid laner. Main champs for the '18 season are Syndra and Taliyah. Of course I can play Galio, Azir, the whole package."
Once again he pulled out a prepped highlight reel and showed it off.
Clearly this wasn't the first or second time he'd sold himself this way.
"I'm only Grandmaster for now, but I'm waiting for the day I hit Challenger and make my pro debut."
There were plenty of reasons Gong Je-hyeon had been completely overwhelmed by Jin Gyeo-wool, but a big chunk of it was probably this very arrogance.
Except Gyeo-wool was even more arrogant—and radiated far more authority.
After meeting an empress like that, of course his spirit had been crushed.
"We're gonna be a team anyway, so drop the formalities. Just call me hyung."
"Ah, yes. I'm Choi Do-yun. Same rank, Grandmaster, jungler. I can play every meta pick that's popular right now too."
Gong Je-hyeon shook hands with Choi Do-yun first, then it was Yu Min-jae's turn.
"Yu Min-jae. ADC. Also Grandmaster. Same as Do-yun—I handle every meta pick well, but I prefer aggressive carry champs."
"Oh yeah? Kid, you and I are gonna click."
Yu Min-jae watched the footage for a long moment, then said,
"Looks like it. You play ridiculously aggressive."
"Hey, hey. I told you, talk casual. C'mon. If we're gonna be one team, we can't have any distance between us."
Do we really need to force that from the very first meeting? And he was laying the buddy-buddy act on way too thick.
Even thinking that, Yu Min-jae decided to go along with it for now.
After all, this was a teammate Jin Gyeo-wool had personally vetted and brought in, wasn't it?
And so the three of them started talking.
Looking at the other two, Gong Je-hyeon found himself puzzled.
First, the jungler Choi Do-yun.
The guy didn't have much charcoal in him—he was a total yes-man who obeyed whatever Jin Gyeo-wool said.
"Hey, did you like, owe Jin Gyeo-wool money or something? Every time she opens her mouth it's 'I'll do anything for Noona Gyeo-wool!'"
Choi Do-yun answered,
"W-well… we promised each other a future together, so…"
"…?"
Gong Je-hyeon's eyebrow slanted in pure bewilderment.
Promised a future.
Normally that meant marriage, becoming spouses—but no matter how hard he wrung his brain, Jin Gyeo-wool was not the type of person who would ever say something like that.
Promised a future… so that's it.
In the end, Gong Je-hyeon's thoughts settled on this conclusion.
People tend to interpret others by projecting their own circumstances and environment onto them.
Did this guy get promised a career high or something?
Lucky bastard.
All Jin Gyeo-wool had told Gong Je-hyeon was not to pick a fight with her—she'd never said a word about carrying him all the way to the summit of the pro scene.
Maybe it was a special privilege for being the first teammate she'd brought on.
"Hmm… yeah. If it's that, I get why you'd be a yes-man."
"Right? Right?"
"Kinda jealous. I want a promise too…"
"What?"
Choi Do-yun's body gave a startled jolt.
Yu Min-jae alone had already been enough to worry about—and now an even better-looking Gong Je-hyeon had shown up.
Objectively speaking, among the three of them, Choi Do-yun had zero chance of appealing to Jin Gyeo-wool with looks alone.
"N-no. We already promised each other a future, okay? There's no room for you to cut in… hyung."
His skyrocketing wariness made the honorifics slip out on their own.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Jin Gyeo-wool didn't look like she had any interest in that anyway."
He said it, but Gong Je-hyeon still hadn't given up the seat beside her.
If he showed growth and development and became the mid laner she absolutely needed, then surely even Jin Gyeo-wool wouldn't be able to resist making him an offer.
What would she say? Je-hyeon, please—let's stay on the same team for a long time. Something like that?
Hearing a request like that come out of that arrogant mouth—Gong Je-hyeon would not sleep a wink that night.
"Haa…"
Choi Do-yun exhaled in relief.
With those words, Gong Je-hyeon had been removed from the threat list as well.
He really did have to trust the woman who would be his wife.
She had made the best possible recruit for the sake of turning this team into the absolute best.
A brief silence settled, then Gong Je-hyeon's questions turned toward Yu Min-jae.
"Yu Min-jae, what about you? Did you already know Gyeo-wool, or did you also get a promise about the future like Do-yun?"
Choi Do-yun nearly jumped out of his skin at that, but Gong Je-hyeon paid him no mind.
"I didn't get any promise about the future or anything…"
ADC Yu Min-jae was a man with a solid backbone, yet he still showed the will to do anything if Jin Gyeo-wool asked. As if they'd known each other for a long time—or as if there was some reason he simply had to help her.
"I overheard her unfortunate circumstances. Couldn't help it."
"Unfortunate circumstances?"
Jin Gyeo-wool having unfortunate circumstances? Gong Je-hyeon had never heard anything like that.
"What are they?"
Gong Je-hyeon couldn't contain his curiosity and asked, but Yu Min-jae had no intention of casually revealing Jin Gyeo-wool's secret.
I'm fine with it… but if the others heard, they'd definitely get unsettled.
Even when every teammate entered a tournament in perfect condition, you never knew how things would go.
If everyone knew Jin Gyeo-wool was terminally ill, and then midway through she started looking like she was struggling?
Not a single teammate would be able to keep their composure and play the game.
Except for Yu Min-jae, who was skilled at emotional control—that was exactly what would happen.
So Yu Min-jae kept his silence.
"It's nothing major. It's Noona's personal business, so I can't talk about it."
Hearing that, Choi Do-yun decided he would have to ask Jin Gyeo-wool about it soon.
If they were going to spend their whole lives together, then even personal problems ought to be shared and solved side by side.
That was a true husband's duty.
Gong Je-hyeon, on the other hand, tilted his head.
Well… if it's personal, I guess he doesn't have to say… but it must be pretty pitiful, huh?
All sorts of possibilities floated up in his mind.
Bad family situation, parents divorced, grew up in an orphanage… and so on.
If someone as strong-willed as Yu Min-jae had been persuaded, it had to be pretty bad.
On top of that, the way Lee Do-jin had gone out of his way to look after Jin Gyeo-wool during the Hwasong High School tournament recently only reinforced Gong Je-hyeon's line of thinking.
Parents died in an accident… or a friend died in an accident… something like that, maybe.
It was pure luck—stumbling backward onto a rat—but astonishingly, Gong Je-hyeon, the most recent arrival, had come closest to the core of who Jin Gyeo-wool really was.
A few more questions and he would reach the truth.
Eh. I'll figure it out eventually. Once team practice starts, I'll learn whether I want to or not.
And once they started preparing for tournaments in earnest, nobody would have the energy left to babysit anyone's personal circumstances anyway.
Having roughly finished sizing up his teammates, Gong Je-hyeon flashed a bright smile and thrust his fist toward them.
"Alright then. Let's do this. Once we find one support, the whole roster's complete, right?"
"Right."
Whatever their individual reasons for following Jin Gyeo-wool, having the entire team move systematically under the unified will that was Jin Gyeo-wool was no bad thing.
Among the factors that decided victory and defeat in pro matches, individual form and team cohesion could never be left out of the conversation.
"Your goal—Presidential Cup champions?"
Yu Min-jae answered Gong Je-hyeon's question with solemn gravity, and beside him Choi Do-yun piled on playfully.
"Nope. Win the Presidential Cup, win the amateur international tournament, and go straight into a pro debut."
"Double or nothing—!"
Exactly what he'd been hoping for. Gong Je-hyeon roared with energy.
"Hell yeah! We run our asses off until we hit that goal! Got it?!"
"Obviously."
"Let's gooo—!"
Whether it was a good thing for Jin Gyeo-wool or a bad one—
Even after the three of them confirmed one another's positions, the misunderstandings remained completely unresolved.
April 2018.
The final stretch of the 2018 CCK Spring season—[HSU] Hyeonseong Universe versus [KC] KC Rollercoaster.
KC took the first set, seizing the series lead at 1–0.
But CCK league matches were best of three.
If HSU regrouped and came out swinging, snatching sets two and three for a reverse sweep was hardly impossible.
Yet the moment Odin—widely regarded as the strongest top laner alive—began tearing up the Rift, HSU never even got to flex their strength properly, losing skirmish after skirmish.
Completely crushed in momentum, HSU.
The front line had already been pushed back to their Tier 2 towers, and KC rode that wave into a simultaneous Peacock bait and try.
— Is KC going to finish the Peacock~?
— Ah, they don't finish it—they convert straight into a fight!
HSU, recognizing the Peacock try, began creeping forward—but KC had locked down vision of the upper river jungle long ago.
Odin's Camille, lurking in the river brush above mid, engaged at a ruler-measured angle and locked down the feet of HSU Ontara's Jax, who had drifted away from his team.
— Odin! He dives in! Going in—!
— Odin snaps him up right away. Hyeonseong's fight positioning is terrible right now!
— Ontara, Ontara—Bolf eats the damage for him, he lives, but—but—!
— Now Black is in danger! And—aaaah—!!
KC Spawn is on a rampage!
KC Spawn ▶ HSU Bolf
— That's Bolf's sacrifice…
— A sacrifice, except they get nothing out of it.
— Nothing happens! KC takes it!
— Two thousand, a thousand—they got it!
The blue team has slain the Council Duke!
KC Scone ▶ Council Duke
Without mounting any real resistance, HSU handed the Peacock over to KC.
The casters began hammering home the problems with the draft and the in-game play.
— The concept just isn't coming online for HSU. Jax, Sejuani, Ryze, Sivir, Tahm Kench. Compare them to KC's champions on the same lanes—there's nothing they can do! Sejuani is maybe a little better than Ornn? But what does that even mean? This isn't the kind of composition they drafted to play the game this way!
Jax to dominate Camille in lane.
Ryze likewise picked to answer Azir.
Both champions were meant to go even or better and blow the game open from laning phase.
But HSU's plan shattered the moment top collapsed.
The four kills Odin manufactured top side with his jungler—that was what dragged the entire game decisively into KC's hands.
— Ah… Elder is spawning—
— No! You cannot go in right now?! HSU?
— This is a slaughter! You cannot take this fight! HSU!! They don't even have Jax!!
A completely lost setup.
HSU gave up the Elder, then threw an incomprehensible fight in a 4v5, and got utterly demolished.
— Top was Camille versus Jax. And KC won that matchup!
— Wow!!
— They create the victory in-game exactly according to their own intent and concept—KC!!
— And just like that they lock down first place, KC!!
— "GG—!!"
It wasn't as if Hyeonseong had never held any initiative at all.
But a game that started crumbling from the top lane rolled all the way into a situation beyond anyone's control.
The MVP of sets one and two was top laner Odin—Jang Jae-hong.
When he took the interview seat, he did what he always did: he held nothing back with barbs and provocations aimed at the opposition.
But his venom concentrated especially hard on Lee Do-jin.
As if he had debuted for the sole purpose of sniping him.
"Player Plum should probably start preparing for retirement soon."
In the League of Council scene, Hyeonseong Universe commanded the largest fandom—and within that, Lee Do-jin's fandom was the biggest of all.
For months now, Jang Jae-hong had been single-handedly tanking that fandom's aggro while delivering high-intensity provocations.
"Ooooh. You sure about that? Player Plum's fans are going to lose their minds again!"
"No—I'm saying this because I'm genuinely worried."
The expression on his face as he said it was completely serious.
As if this was not something he was saying out of petty emotion.
"I know perfectly well that his form has been in freefall since last fall, and I know the reason for it far too well."
The wish that Lee Do-jin would stop this grueling struggle.
The wish that he would leave the stage while the applause was still going and enjoy the rest of his life.
Bitter words spoken because he knew full well that Lee Do-jin would never quit the pro scene unless someone went this far.
All of it was Jang Jae-hong's sincere truth.
"So how about calling it here, Player Plum?"
But no matter what hidden meaning lay beneath Jang Jae-hong's words, the fandom would once again split into Lee Do-jin and Jang Jae-hong camps and set the internet on fire.
He may have meant every word from the heart—but the way he expressed it was a nuclear bomb dropped squarely on Lee Do-jin's fans.