I Just Wanted to Play Games Together (1)
"Still stomping even in Diamond, huh."
"Honestly, I was already running into Diamond players back in Emerald."
Park Jimin sat there with a shiny new Diamond 4 border, riding high as he queued into his first solo queue game of the tier, his friends gathered around to watch. It was time to head home, but there was no way they were leaving without seeing his first Diamond solo queue match through.
"Huh?"
The teamfight that broke out in what should have been a free game turned out tighter than anyone expected.
DOMINATING!
"Whew."
"We won."
"We took Baron, so this should be over, right?"
"We've got a Kog-Lulu bot."
Blue side—Jimin's team—was short on tanks. Even so, Jimin hung on with the best control he could manage and managed to open angles for his carries.
"Five-versus-fives are still rough," Jimin said, his face a little too serious for a game that was going their way.
One-versus-one he could handle. Even one-versus-two. But a full five-man teamfight, skills flying from every direction—that was still a nightmare for a beginner.
"You'll get used to it if you keep playing."
"Yeah. When I was at your level my brain just went blank."
"Doesn't it still?"
"Then I wouldn't be playing ADC, would I?"
Even though they weren't the ones in game, the Emerald bot-lane duo—Go Yuseok and Jeon Jaeyeong—kept grumbling from the sidelines. Watching Sol through Jimin's first-person screen put them in a weird headspace where every regular player suddenly looked terrible by comparison.
"We won!"
"Diamond's nothing special either."
Jimin's Renekton had dismantled the enemy Gangplank from the early game onward and carried them to the win. For someone who had half-deleted the opposing top laner from the match, it had still been a grind.
"That guy's gotta be so tilted right now, hahaha."
"For real. Under normal circumstances, their side wins that."
Put another way, the only reason it went this way was because a monster had been sitting in the enemy top lane. Childish as it was, the secondhand thrill of watching it unfold had his friends grinning ear to ear. Yoon Sangcheol—the jungler who lost his mind over Sol streams—looked ready to drop a few donations if this had been a streamer.
"So now that you're Diamond, you wanna climb higher?"
"Huh?"
It was time to go home. As they shut the game down, Lee Jonghyun asked from beside him.
"Climbing more…"
Jimin scratched the back of his head. He had worked to reach Diamond so he could be in the same tier as Yu Dahye, and he had gotten there faster than expected. He just hadn't really thought about keeping the solo queue grind going after that.
"Nah, I'm just asking. A lot of people who play Sol say Diamond is their goal, you know?"
"Ah…"
"You want to go higher than that?"
"Do I want to climb higher?"
Jimin couldn't answer right away. Unless you had some concrete goal you were chasing through Sol, or you were ridiculously young, Diamond was the realistic ceiling most people could actually reach. Absurd win streaks were hard enough for most players, and most simply didn't have the skill, the time, or the mental fortitude for it. Anyone who knew the game understood how impressive Diamond really was—you couldn't underrate it—so a lot of people climbed that far and then just played casually after that.
So Diamond really means you're good.
Of course, for Jimin it was a different story. He felt more like a little kid who had just taken the first bite of some fascinating new toy.
"I don't really have any urge to climb higher. It's just fun."
A slightly vague answer—but it was the truth. He was still at the stage of finding it interesting and fun. He wasn't the type to stake his life on a rank the way other people did. The reason for that was fairly clear, though…
Weird.
Jonghyun, listening in, was surprised. Jimin had always been a bit of a simple soul, but the competitive fire everyone else felt just… wasn't there. Especially not for someone who played Sol. Then again, they had only ever meant for him to play casually for fun, and then their friend turned out to be absurdly good and dragged them all the way here.
I never thought it'd be this fast, though.
Even so, he never would have imagined Jimin punching through to Diamond this quickly. Jonghyun had figured that once they hit Emerald, pure mechanical stomping would start to matter less because of the skill gap—but to Jimin, whether the opponent was Bronze, Iron, or Emerald barely seemed to make a difference. The friends coaching from the side had patched up the strategic holes, of course, but still.
"If you climb past Diamond, you're in rare air in Sol."
"The next one up is Master, right?"
"Yeah. From Master on, it's a completely different dimension."
Even within Diamond, Diamond 1 felt different—but if rank didn't mean much to this guy, Master was basically right in front of him. Master was a tier even pro players aimed for. It was where Sol stopped being a hobby.
"At Jimin's level, couldn't he go pro?"
"Totally possible. He just started, too."
His friends' eyes lit up with excitement beside him.
"Pro gamer?"
"Yeah. If you seriously went for it, there might actually be a shot."
"Come on, no way."
Jimin figured they were just being dramatic. He knew who the pros were. There was no way he was on that level.
"Hmm…"
Back home, Jimin installed Sol on his computer and launched it. Home definitely didn't have the gear a PC bang did. The monitor was smaller, and the keyboard and mouse had this weird sticky feel to them.
"…"
Suddenly he was grinning like an idiot all by himself. Now that he was Diamond too, he could finally queue into games with Yu Dahye. Watching his friends light up and freak out next to him while he played was already fun—how amazing would it be if a nuna that pretty actually paid attention to him?
It wasn't like he had never been interested in girls before. Jimin was a healthy teenage boy. He just never had the courage to walk up and talk to one. But Yu Dahye was beautiful and magnetic, and the screen stood between them. Being able to hide his face made it easier to approach her, and that was exactly why he liked it.
Sniping, they called it, right?
The word was a little aggressive, but as far as he could tell, it just meant viewers who wanted to play with Dahye queued up at the same time she did. Whether they landed on her team or against her, everyone tried their hardest. He still didn't really get why it was called sniping—he just wanted to try it himself.
"ADC's been feeling good lately, so I'm sticking with it."
Gulp.
Watching the stream on his phone, Jimin hit the solo rank queue button at the exact same time as the streamer.
"Aigoo, everyone's so nice today."
"…"
Unlike Dahye, who was having a great time, Jimin couldn't join in the fun.
Didn't get her.
He had failed to land in the same game as Dahye. Not on her team, not against her. Just nine strangers.
Still. I should try hard.
He hadn't gotten what he came for, but that didn't mean he was going to half-ass it.
"I fight for a brighter tomorrow."
He locked in Jayce—the champion he had played the most—and strode confidently into the top lane.
I don't really know Yasuo.
He had seen Yasuo on his own team or the enemy team before, but this was the first time someone had picked it into him top. It was a little less common now, but Yasuo had once been one of those champions beginners locked in knowing nothing and got flamed for. Jimin tilted his head, unfamiliar with the matchup, but decided to give it his best anyway.
"Whew."
He still hadn't fully figured out Yasuo's distinctive engage and whirlwind patterns, and it gave him a hard time—but in the end his superior mechanics secured the solo kill. Nearly trading at the end, though… that was something he needed to reflect on.
A clean win. Without his friends around to help, he got chewed out by his teammates a few times for being frustrating to play with—but stomping top meant Jimin had still done the work of at least two players.
"First game win!"
"Thank you for the twenty-thousand-won donation!"
Dahye, in a great mood after the first-game win, kept smiling to herself. She didn't bother with the snarky chat. When the games were going her way, she was more generous than anyone.
"…"
I want to play with her too.
At least he had finished his own game first. That was something.
"Hmm-hmm, hmm."
Dahye hummed a little tune as she queued up solo rank again, and for a moment Jimin just sat there blankly, admiring his pretty nuna's face. After staring at the brutal champions of the game, looking at her felt like his eyes were being purified.
Ah…
Jimin sighed, looking between the stream and his own monitor.
Missed her again!
Two whiffs in a row, and he felt his whole body slump.
"…"
"I will grant you a silent end!"
A game was still a game, though. He locked in Aatrox and got ready to start.
Once again, Jimin was carrying the game.
Ugh, I still don't get it.
Syncing up with his teammates' movements was hard. Jonghyun's advice still held, though—if an ally pings, just follow it for now.
But once he ripped the enemy Yone to shreds in the most vulgar sense of the phrase and even snagged the jungler who tried to gank him, his teammates found the rest of the game easy.
Back-to-back demolitions of the brother champions, and a clean second-game win. He checked his phone immediately.
"Carry!"
Dahye was practically bouncing with joy. When she stood up in her seat, delighted, Jimin's eyes drifted to her pale lower body for a second—then he turned his head away, embarrassed.
"Aigoo, if my tier goes too high the queues stop popping."
Dahye couldn't hide her triumphant smile.
"…"
Please. This time.
Jimin queued for his third game, praying hard. He couldn't explain it, but a strange anxiety crept in—if he didn't find her now, maybe he never would.
"Huh?"
A match popped. And the screen on the stream was unmistakably identical to the one on his monitor. Same bans, too…
"Ugh, what do I pick this time."
"Time to show them what I can really do."
Dahye's Ezreal was clearly sitting in the enemy first pick.
"…"
Jimin took one deep breath, then calmly locked in his champion. If anyone dodged, the match would fall apart—and he prayed nobody would do anything that stupid.
"Ahh…"
Jimin was overwhelmed. The game had started.
The enemy Ezreal's nickname was unmistakably Dahye's—Don'tPingPlease. And right below it sat his own: MomBeHappy.
The moment he had been waiting for had finally arrived.
"Ah!"
Except…
He would have preferred to be on her team.
He shook his head. Ally or enemy—he was going to show nuna how good he was.