I Just Wanted to Play Together (4)
“Ah······”
Stream has ended.
Yu Dahye's sudden stream shutdown left her viewers sprawled in the wreckage of a dopamine wave that had just crashed over them.
“No way······”
Jimin slowly started scrubbing through the VOD that had just gone up.
She'd sat there blank for a few minutes, muttered those words, and cut the stream on the spot. The Dahye reflected in Jimin's eyes looked utterly crushed.
A heavy, hollow ache settled in his chest. To him, Sol had always been joy — something he thought he could share with her. And yet it had come to this.
“······”
The stimulation-chasers had filtered out, leaving a chatroom dense with regulars after the stream ended. Jimin was still there among them.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Jimin nodded to himself. At least it seemed like today's incident wouldn't leave any lasting damage going forward.
“Haa.”
On the monitor, the hollow traces of a hard-carry still lingered. He didn't bother saving the replay — just shut the computer off cold.
It was a machine provided as part of a local government support program. Specs barely capable of running a long-outdated Sol client, but Jimin had never once complained about that.
If he had a complaint, it was about what had happened today.
Why do I keep landing on the enemy team.
Just in case, he typed it into the search bar. The answer came back: random. The heavens themselves were using his skill to make Dahye miserable.
“This isn't it.”
This wasn't what he had wanted. He wanted to land on the same team, show her something cool, earn her praise — and if they ever met as enemies, simply give it everything he had. Not this. Not hunting her down as the opponent over and over.
“······”
He hesitated for just a moment. Should he simply stop queueing at the same time as Dahye? Maybe that was the right thing to do.
He stood up from the chair, lay down on the bed, and picked up his phone.
“······”
She's beautiful.
It was from a day she'd gone on a win streak. Watching her laugh so happily, completely absorbed in the game, a smile rose to his face on its own. So the word lovely wasn't something that only existed in song lyrics after all.
“······”
But Jimin's expression hardened. He absolutely could not stop. He wanted to be tangled up with her, even a little.
“Haa.”
The image of her face right before she'd ended the stream flickered back. If he ever made Dahye wear that expression again, he might not have the courage to keep going.
But really — what were the odds of landing on the enemy team three times in a row again, like today?
“Hey everyone, good to see you. Sorry about yesterday.”
Dahye fired up the stream with one of her favorite songs playing.
“Please······”
Jimin queued up alongside Dahye, praying. Today — please, just today — let him land on her team, and let them win.
“Huh?”
The game locked in. Same screen on the phone in his hand. Jimin slowly began selecting a champion.
I fight for the future.
“······”
First-pick timing, so he locked Jayce for now —
“Ah, what the hell!”
“······”
He'd known, really. He'd just been trying hard to deny it. But reality was reality.
Jimin closed the stream. He'd already confirmed what he needed — no reason to keep watching.
Why is this happening.
Four in a row. Landing on one side four times straight in a coin-flip wasn't statistically impossible, but for Jimin it was pure agony.
“······”
One thought surfaced. Playing poorly himself was out of the question — you always give a game your best. So then? What if he tried hard, played well… and his team still lost?
“······”
He shook his head hard. Once five people were a team, the only thing you were allowed to think about was winning. Hoping to play well yourself and still lose — that kind of garbage wasn't even worth teaching in a middle-school ethics class.
The moment Jimin's Jayce took down Aetrox twice, the team's morale skyrocketed. His teammates started supporting the calmly carrying top laner in all kinds of ways.
With Jimin completely dismantling his opponent top, Brando grew fat off the entire upper jungle with free rein.
Barely twenty minutes in, and jungle Brando — a one-trick with over three thousand games — was lighting up the map with artisan-level skillshots. Add Jayce and Xerath's poking on top of that, and the raw firepower was overwhelming. The lack of a real tank never even became an issue.
“Huh?”
A fast-tempo Diamond ranked game. The tension Jimin had been holding onto suddenly drained away.
The enemy team has agreed to surrender by a vote of 4 to 0!
“······”
ClassicDoughMintChoco has left the lobby.
Jimin turned down the one-trick Brando's advances. The guy had real skill, but climbing the ladder wasn't Jimin's goal right now.
“······”
He smiled for a moment at his teammates' praise, then crashed back to reality. And he still couldn't bring himself to open her stream. He needed to watch the stream to queue with her, but······
“Ah, seriously, stop it.”
His face was rigid. But as a streamer herself, she queued again anyway. Now certain he was matching his queues to her stream, Dahye issued a warning.
Dahye's eyes shifted.
“I'll handle the chat.”
zwwew has been removed from the stream.
AnkleSpinner has been removed from the stream.
Teammates bickering for a full twenty minutes. A sniper showing off carry power yet again. Dahye didn't bother hiding her irritation — it was written all over her face and every movement.
“······”
Jimin watched the stream on mute, unable to bear turning the sound on. Her face alone told him everything he needed to know, so he just closed the chat window too.
Please please please please.
The moment the queue popped, Jimin begged and begged. A chance to put her smile back in her hands with his own!
“Ah what the hell, why am I top?”
Dahye's brow furrowed even harder than before. She'd queued as ADC jungle and gotten stuck on the top lane. She wasn't bad at top, but she hadn't been finding it fun lately, so she wasn't thrilled. When things went wrong, they really found every possible way to go wrong.
“Hmm······”
Dahye thought it over. Her hand feel had been solid since yesterday, so maybe she should try a high-carry champion?
“Should I try Akeli?”
The words were barely out of her mouth before she locked in the AP assassin Akeli.
High carry potential, high difficulty — that was Akeli. But Dahye was confident in her mastery. And the champion's performance was genuinely strong right now.
“Huh?”
Dahye, watching to see what champion would come out of the enemy top, froze in surprise.
“Yeah, come top with that.”
Dahye waited for the game to start with murder in her eyes.
“······Huh?”
And then she checked the enemy username. Her eyes squeezed shut on pure instinct.
Allied support Kalista first-picked. An Ezreal hypersensitive about his support's champion started picking fights left and right, throwing around dodge threats until the team chemistry completely shattered — and Jimin cleaned it up by offering the swap.
Everyone held LP sacred, after all.
“Haa······”
Of course, Jimin was simply despairing over the fact that he'd landed on Dahye's enemy team for the fifth time in a row.