We Have to Win (1)
“Lee Seungho!”
Someone was calling my name. I turned toward the voice and saw Shin Ayoung sprinting for the front gate.
What was the rush? At that speed, she was going to wipe out on the pavement.
“Sorry—am I a little late?”
Ugh… that guy wasted so much of my time.
Something must have gone down at club practice. I didn’t even need to read her mind to guess the gist.
“Ayoung, hi~”
Lee Sol, standing next to me, waved at her in greeting.
“Huh?”
Shin Ayoung’s eyes widened just a fraction when she saw her.
“Sol’s here too? You’re coming with us?”
“Yeah. Thought it might be nice to play a game for once.”
Honestly, Sol joining us had been as much of a surprise to me as it was to Ayoung. I’d only asked her along out of politeness—I never expected her to say yes.
“You’re not too lazy for this?”
Ayoung looked genuinely baffled. Same. I was curious myself.
“…What exactly do you think I am?”
Sol’s mouth tugged sideways into a pout.
“You don’t actually think of me as some person pickled in pure laziness, do you?”
She was sulking a little, clearly not a fan of the implication.
And yet—
…Wasn’t that exactly what she was?
Wasn’t that exactly what she was?
Ayoung’s thoughts lined up with mine in perfect sync. So she’d been thinking the same thing.
Anyway.
“…Shall we get going?”
I started walking first. Lingering at the front gate forever felt weird, and people were already starting to stare. With those two around, attention was inevitable. Better to move while we still could.
Didn’t think Sol would come too… but whatever. More people, more fun.
Ayoung accepted Sol’s last-minute join with zero fuss. That, at least, was a relief. I’d brought Sol along knowing it would probably be fine—her thoughts had told me as much—but people’s feelings had a way of shifting on you.
Yeah. Not bad.
Shin Ayoung studied her reflection in the first-floor entrance mirror of the PC café and allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. Cap pulled low, mask covering the lower half of her face—no one would recognize her like this.
And she wasn’t the only one covering up.
“Sol, want to borrow a hat?”
Ayoung adjusted her mask as she asked.
“I’m good on the hat, but do you have a spare mask?”
“One sec… ah, I’ve got one left.”
Luckily, exactly one spare sat in her bag. Good thing she’d packed extras.
Watching them, Lee Seungho made a faintly blank face.
“…Do you really need all that?”
“Way more people try to talk to us than you think.”
Especially somewhere like a PC café, where the male-to-female ratio tilted hard. Strangers kept striking up conversation until concentrating on a game became impossible. Ayoung had been through it plenty of times—and so had Sol, being a model. Covering their faces was simply easier.
“…Is that so.”
Seungho sounded almost impressed. The corner of Ayoung’s mouth curled up. A mischievous impulse flickered through her; she closed the distance between them and gave his arm a light poke, smiling.
“Starting to feel who you’re hanging out with yet?”
“What are you even saying.”
Seungho huffed a quiet laugh and headed into the café first.
…Not the reaction she’d been going for. He looked completely unfazed. That kind of rankled.
“I’m gonna go top up our time.”
He powered on a PC, then walked off toward the auto-charger. Ayoung used the opening to order from the menu with practiced ease—iced tea, her usual. Three cups today.
“Here—”
She set two of the iced teas the staff had brought down in front of Seungho’s station.
“What’s this?”
He gave her a questioning look.
“My treat. One of them’s Sol’s.”
“Out of nowhere?”
Not out of nowhere. She was thanking him for the call earlier—without it, escaping club practice might have been a lot messier. Leaving Sol out while buying only for him would have felt weird, so she’d gotten three.
She didn’t say any of that out loud.
“If you don’t want it, forget it.”
“I never said I didn’t want it.”
Seungho accepted the iced tea without hesitation.
“Thanks. Digging in.”
“Me too~”
As she logged in, Ayoung peeked over Seungho’s shoulder. He had the middle seat; Sol sat on the far side of him.
“Sol, you ever played Rule?”
“A little, a while back? I think I did one ranked game and quit.”
“Then we don’t need the tutorial.”
Good news. No time wasted on the basics.
“Three of us—flex rank?”
Seungho answered Ayoung’s question.
“Yeah, flex. You’re mid, right?”
“Yeah.”
Last time she’d gone bot, but mid was her real role. She’d fed hard that game. Today she planned to show what she could actually do. She’d even watched Arin’s coaching videos on NewTube before coming out.
“Then I’ll take her bot.”
Seungho headed for the bottom lane with Sol in tow. A practical call. Sol was a beginner; support was the least painful place to park her, if you had to pick something.
About three minutes into the match, the image training seemed to pay off. Lane trading felt locked in today.
“…Nice. That trade was disgusting.”
No kill, but the enemy’s health was already in kill range. Forced to recall, crying into their fountain. Free advantage.
“Mid gap already showing…!”
Flush with confidence, Ayoung twisted toward Seungho.
“Hey, can you look at this for a sec—”
“Ah, I whiffed the skill.”
“Oof. Not great. Just poke and back off a little.”
“Okay.”
He was locked in; barely any reaction.
“….”
Busy, then. She couldn’t keep glancing that way. Ayoung dragged her eyes back to her own screen and hammered the keys, settling into another trade.
And still—something. A faint, weird sense of being left out. The two of them were a bot duo; mid felt a little stranded.
“Let’s chip their health down with trades. Go for one.”
“Okay, I’m going in now.”
Conversation flowed between the two of them while she sat there silent, glued to her lane. It bothered her more than it should have.
…No. She was getting weird about something that didn’t even matter.
“…Ahem.”
Ayoung cleared her throat lightly, resetting the mood. Done. No more useless thoughts—
“Shin Ayoung. Can you roam right now?”
She flinched.
“Huh? Uh, yeah, I can. Give me a sec?”
The sudden call startled her. She shoved her wave first, then beat the enemy mid to bot lane.
“I’m going in!”
The enemy bot duo hadn’t expected her and tried to peel off late—far too late.
Linked up with Seungho, she cleaned them up. Two kills settled sweetly into her mouth.
“Oh…! Ayoung-ssi, what the hell…?!”
“Nice roam.”
He said it flat, almost offhand—then immediately snapped at Sol.
“Hey! Stop eating CS!”
“Ah. Sorry.”
He got properly fiery about Sol touching minions. Completely locked into the game.
“Can mid join a fight right now?”
“Not really, not this second.”
After that, Seungho kept calling her name.
“….”
Coincidence? It felt like coincidence—until it didn’t. He was talking to her even when he didn’t need to. Like he was deliberately keeping her in the loop on purpose.
Did he notice I was sulking?
No. Probably not. She’d wondered if the left-out feeling had shown on her face, but his eyes never left the monitor. He wouldn’t have had a second to check her expression.
“….”
Still—his instincts were weirdly sharp. Always had been. He had a way of steering around things that made her uncomfortable, of not pushing too hard, of never blindly agreeing with everything she said. Just… like a regular friend.
Maybe that was why being around him felt easier than being around most people.
While she drifted through those thoughts, the clock slipped past thirty minutes.
“It’s close—we need to nail the Baron fight.”
Late game. One teamfight could still flip everything.
And then—
“Ah.”
A short, tiny cry, and Sol’s champion crumbled into ash and vanished. She’d walked too deep for vision and died without landing a thing.
“Huh?”
Ayoung followed a beat later, already sensing something was wrong—but once she was sucked into the fight, her death was a formality.
“…We’re screwed.”
Seungho was right. No one left alive. The enemy team marched mid. It was over in a blink—the Nexus health bar vanished in chunks—
The screen flooded red.
A short silence pressed the air heavy.
“Um…”
Sol rolled her eyes around, reading the room.
“…Sorry.”
She said it small. All crumpled and deflated in her chair.
“It’s fine. Happens.”
It was only the first game. And Ayoung hadn’t been fully focused from mid-game on either. She patted Sol’s shoulder and told her it was okay.
…Of course, saying it was fine didn’t mean there wasn’t a problem. Sol wasn’t just bad—she was catastrophically bad. They’d only made it to mid-game because mid and ADC had been ahead enough to carry the slack. Keep this up and they’d be on a losing streak like last time. Guaranteed.
“….”
“….”
Ayoung’s eyes met Seungho’s across the gap. No words passed between them, but they both felt the agreement click into place. They needed a plan.
“Want to swap roles? I’ll go ADC.”
Ayoung decided she’d babysit Sol herself. He’d be better in jungle anyway.
“Then I’ll jungle, and… Sol, you…”
Seungho locked in a champion for her.
“You know this one?”
“…A cat?”
A mage cat filled the screen.
Yuming.
The champion that effectively sealed Sol’s mouse. With a kit built around attaching to teammates, it almost suited her personality a little too well.
Next game began.
“Slurp! Slurp!”
Auto, W, E, Q—take a sip. Sol diligently executed Yuming’s combo like a model student.
We have to win…!
Clack-clack-clack-clack!
Ayoung clenched her jaw and hammered the mouse with Yuming riding her back, while Seungho ran a pure bot-side camp strategy. Whether that was what did it or not, the game slowly, stubbornly tilted their way.
“Got them!”
Past the thirty-minute mark, a fed Ayoung cut down the enemy ADC and support. From that moment, the path to victory opened. A teamfight win at the enemy base was more than enough to detonate the game.
“Nexus, go go gooo!”
They shoved mid and smashed the Nexus to pieces.
“Haaah…!”
“We won…!”
Only one game, and they were completely drained. Ayoung and Seungho went limp in their chairs, bodies melting into the seats.
“…Oh.”
Sol stared at the victory text on screen and made a small sound of wonder.
“This game’s fun.”
And that was the moment an Iron Yuming one-trick first appeared in Rule ranked.
“Bathroom. Be right back.”
Urgent. I’d been so locked in I hadn’t even noticed how bad I needed to go. I hurried for the restroom.
“Hoo…”
Relief. I washed my hands thoroughly, gave the snack rack a quick scan for anything worth buying, and was about to head back to our seats when—
Ding-a-ling~
“Man, why a PC café all of a sudden.”
The door chime rang, and a familiar-looking group started filing in through the entrance.
“All the girls left. What’s the point of hanging around karaoke with just guys.”
“Yeah, fair, but…”
“Not much we can do. Let’s just queue some ranked here.”
School uniforms—our school. And the faces… I’d seen them somewhere.
“….”
“….”
As I passed, my eyes brushed against one of them.
…Ah.
I remembered.
That guy. Wasn’t he Shin Ayoung’s club senior?