Give Me Back My LP (3)
“·····”
Park Jimin froze for a moment.
It was Yu Dahye—the same Yu Dahye he had just been playing with. And the nickname floating in Discord wasn't new to him either.
But the stream was off now.
He didn't need to overthink the details to know that this was different from a moment ago.
Gulp.
Jimin swallowed hard, so tense that even his spit wouldn't come.
He was more nervous now than he had been the first time he joined her Discord, back when he'd been terrified of what she might say to him.
“Ah·····”
To Jimin, Dahye was someone impossible to predict. She always did the unexpected—and somehow, it always turned out in a direction that wasn't bad for him.
“·····”
She was the one saying thank you first. But that didn't erase what he'd done wrong.
He didn't know what to say. No—he knew the truth perfectly well. He was only hesitating because whatever came out of his mouth might be a mistake, the wrong answer.
With the stream off, he laid it out again—honestly, and as clearly as he could, the way he understood his own fault.
He was still scared she might end up hating him for no good reason, but some bridges still had to be crossed.
“·····”
Dahye was one of the few people who made it easy for him to be honest.
She kept doubting him.
It didn't bother him. His friends had already told him he was way too good for someone who'd only just started SOL.
The real reason Jimin still had such a vague sense of solo queue tiers was that even his friends couldn't pin down his ceiling. They simply couldn't say, with any clarity, what level he actually was—or where the wall would finally show up.
“Ah!”
At the words that she believed him, Jimin smiled.
He meant it. He was genuinely grateful.
At the same time, it felt like he was making her do work for him, and that left him less than comfortable.
If she said so, then that was that.
Dahye—the version of her that laughed so much in chat—vanished from the window.
“Hoo·····”
He was so tense he was sweating.
For once, it felt less like talking to a streamer and more like talking to just a person named Yu Dahye.
There was a flutter of excitement in it, but for someone as awkward as Jimin when it came to talking with girls, it still counted as a serious mission.
“·····”
Should I play more?
He considered queuing up alone for a bit, then simply lay back down again.
For a moment the urge to understand SOL better surged up in him—but he set it aside for now.
He had plans with his friends tomorrow, and other things he needed to do.
“Oh, damn.”
“Gwen's solid too. That movement is clean.”
“Gwen's fun, right? She gets stupid strong late, so she's even better.”
“Yeah.”
Everyone was gathered at the PC bang except Lee Jonghyun. After locking down the enemy top Ornn on Gwen, Jimin smiled. His friends had said she was good into tanks, and they were right.
More fun than Renekton.
He was playing with more energy than before.
He was running normals instead of ranked so he could learn the champion, and maybe because the tension was lower, the whole thing felt strangely comfortable.
SOL was the game that had, almost by accident, thrown him into real competition with other people and drawn gasps of admiration from his friends. For a while Jimin had cared more about the recognition and reactions around him than about the game itself—but little by little, even if a bit late, he was starting to grow a pure love for SOL of his own.
What should I try next?
He wanted to try a lot of champions that were fast and strong.
“Oh, that's sick.”
“Hm?”
Jimin glanced at Yoon Sangcheol's screen next to him.
It was definitely SOL, but the camera work was a chaotic mess—definitely a pro match.
“Why are you watching SPL?”
Go Yuseok, sitting on the right, called over to Sangcheol.
“I mean, honestly, SPL's fun though.”
Sangcheol took real pride in SCK, but he still kept up with the Chinese SPL teams he was interested in.
“Sangcheol really loves SOL, huh.”
“Yeah.”
Of all of them, Sangcheol was almost certainly the one with the broadest knowledge and deepest interest in the game. Jimin found that kind of passion pretty amazing.
“I catch GGG matches sometimes too.”
“GGG?”
Even Jeon Jaeyeong, their support player, chimed in about an SPL team.
“Besides Durandal, I don't know if GGG is even that good.”
“You watch because of Durandal.”
“Aigoo, P1 fanboy out here only loving ex-P1 players.”
“It's not that. He's a full carry-type support.”
Durandal—the support for the Chinese SPL team GGG. He'd come up through P1 Academy, never quite locked down a real spot as a substitute on the first team, then crossed over to Chinese SPL and written a success story.
“Come to think of it, there were rumors Durandal's coming back to P1 next year?”
Yuseok, who didn't care much about SPL but cared a great deal about Korea's SCK and P1, said.
“Nah, that's fake. A Durandal would go to an even stronger team in China. He's already been first team at GGG twice.”
“Still, P1 might actually bounce back next year.”
“I wish P1 would swap everyone except jungle.”
“Facts. Wonder if anyone's coming in mid next year.”
Yuseok and Jaeyeong bickered nonstop in bot lane when they played together, but the second P1 came up, they were of one heart and one mind.
“P1 used to be all about the youth pipeline, and now they're just shopping every other day?”
Sangcheol showed off his knowledge again.
“The team's not clicking, so they have to force results somehow.”
“P1 doesn't get to 'rebuild.' They're supposed to be good, always.”
“I don't even know when it started going wrong.”
After Maker's retirement, and after the members who'd written legends had scattered, P1 still hadn't clawed back their old glory.
“·····”
I have no idea what any of this means.
To Jimin, of course, it all sounded like a foreign language. But everyone else was arguing with such serious faces that he couldn't help getting a little curious.
Maybe he should ask them to watch a match together sometime.
“You here?”
Sangcheol turned and looked behind them.
“Yeah, I'm here.”
It was Jonghyun.
Something was hanging from his right hand.
“Jimin. Here.”
“Oh—oh!”
“What's that?”
“It's a thing. Don't worry about it.”
Sangcheol didn't look especially interested.
Inside was a headset—crudely packaged, but you could tell someone had tried.
“Thanks. I'll use it for a bit and give it back.”
“Nah. It was one I already used. I just never threw it out, just in case.”
“Huh? Still, though—”
“Just use it.”
“Yeah····· thanks.”
Jimin had asked Jonghyun about finding a cheap headset, and Jonghyun had simply said he'd lend him one—so Jimin had taken it without thinking. He hadn't expected to just be given the thing outright.
“But why the sudden need? You meeting weirdos online or something?”
“It's not that·····”
Jimin hesitated. Even if it was a used item, accepting it like this and then hiding the reason felt wrong—but he still couldn't bring himself to mention Dahye.
Sangcheol didn't even know he'd been on her stream, and bringing it up now felt like overdoing it.
“Anyway, it's out of my hands now, so whatever. Let's just order something.”
“Sounds good.”
“I already ordered a while ago.”
“Jimin, what do you want?”
“Huh? I·····”
“Jeyuk-deopbap, then?”
“Uh—yeah.”
While Jimin was still fretting, Jonghyun just locked in the menu for him.
This life of freeloading at the PC bang, with no end date in sight.
After Dahye had casually brought up wiring him money last night, something about money had been needling at him even more.
Money·····
He wished he had some.
He wanted to be the one treating his friends at the PC bang instead, wanted to buy his mom good food, wanted to throw donations on Dahye's stream like everyone else.
“Jimin, it's been a while—wanna run some five-man customs?”
“Yeah.”
For now, enjoying the game with his friends came first.
He had plans later, which only made this stretch of time with them feel that much better.
“Hi everyone, good to see you.”
Dahye turned on her stream, camera included, and waved. She was tucked into the bottom-right corner, of course, with the SOL client filling the center of the screen.
“Ahem.”
Dahye was typing on a screen the viewers couldn't see.
“Oh, he really came right away?”
Through Discord, she called over Jimin, who'd already been home waiting for her.
“Ooh.”
That level of preparedness made Dahye smile.
“Ah! Ah! Can you hear me?”
“Hm?”
Dahye started to laugh, then covered her mouth. She didn't want it to look like she was mocking him.
Not that it mattered—he was too focused to be watching the stream anyway.
“Ah! Ah! Can you hear me? Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you! I can hear you! I can hear you! How many times do I have to say it.”
“·····”
“Ah—sorry, my bad.”
“Ah, haha.”
After snapping at him for a second, Dahye laughed under her breath—heh, heh.
It was clearly the mid-low voice of a guy past puberty. But the slightly dazed way he talked…
Even a short conversation was enough to make her want to mess with him.