Starting Position Race (2)
"Minhyeok. Changmin. What the hell is this dive around the nine-minute mark?"
"Sorry."
"Did the calls cross?"
"At the time, it looked like we could get the kill and get out."
A dive against the enemy Jax. That failure was the first crack—the moment the snowball stopped rolling.
"It's always like this. You get impatient, force a play that isn't there, and the whole thing collapses. That wasn't a plan. That was a tantrum."
Unfounded, "whatever, just go" plays—the kind Head Coach Jang Yaohwan of P1 hated more than anything. Top laner Changmin and jungler Minhyeok had nothing left to say.
"Seunghyeon and Sangjin…" Yaohwan trailed off with a sigh.
It was true they'd been crushed by the enemy bot lane for the entire second game, but he had never really expected those two to win lane cleanly against Dexter and Ice. The plan had always been to play through the top side and draft bot-lane champions who could still scale into the late game.
"You get bullied like this and it doesn't just go away, you know that? Later on—if we meet them at Worlds—you'll freeze up just looking at Maehwa."
Terrifying words. But the players had no answer.
"…"
A quiet swallow.
Park Jimin and Kang Jun, who hadn't even played, were sitting through the same review. Jimin looked like he wanted to crawl under the table. Yaohwan's feedback kept coming in waves. Coach Song Hochang preferred to speak to people one by one; Yaohwan talked as if he expected the entire room to absorb every word. It made Jimin a little scared.
"…"
But only for a moment. Watching his teammates, Jimin's mind drifted to Maehwa.
This team is really… unpleasant to face.
If he had to play against them, he wasn't sure he'd even want to queue up. Almost no mistakes. Rock-solid play. And that absurd ADC sitting in the back line—a team you couldn't imagine beating once the game went late. As terrifying as Dexter himself was the team's defense. Neither the top laner nor the mid laner cracked easily, and the jungler's pathing was so creative and airtight that every dive just bounced off.
Still. First things first.
He wanted to play. Whether he could beat that team or not—he wanted to throw himself at them once.
Jimin pulled off his headset.
"Hahh…"
Brutal practice. But he was grateful just to be able to scrim with the team like this.
Still…
He glanced around. A helpless loss to Maehwa—and yet the room's atmosphere didn't look bad.
Is it always like this?
Back in Challengers, there had never been a team that felt like a wall; they'd won smoothly enough. First-team life was still brand new. His teammates' faces weren't dark, though. They were just working hard.
"…"
If one person was different, it was Shim Changmin—the man competing with him for the starting top lane spot. Even to Jimin's eyes he was grinding seriously, but the last defeat seemed to sit heavy on him; his expression was a little grim.
"The day after tomorrow's match…"
Jimin swallowed. After dinner, Yaohwan had gathered the players. Jimin's heart was pounding. Something felt different this time.
"We're running it back."
"…"
Huh?
"If we lose to C-Plus, that's one win and two losses. Too many early-season Ls. You need real urgency this time."
Yaohwan spoke sternly. None of it quite registered in Jimin's head.
"Huh?"
Late into the night. Jimin had stepped out for a glass of water and caught Kang Jun heading outside.
"What are you doing up?"
"Huh?"
The path led to the rooftop. Jimin found him easily.
"I'm in a shit mood."
"…Haha."
Jimin laughed at that.
"Dexter took a solo Worlds cup on Genji, went to China, won again there, then came back and joined a rival team."
"So?"
"Should I just do that too?"
"What?"
Jimin answered like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Neither of them had even debuted on the first team yet, and this guy was already drafting some grand epic arc.
"What about the money you'd get in China, and your wife, Jaebalga?"
"Come back to Korea for a year, eat everyone alive, then go back."
"I see."
He couldn't tell how serious Kang Jun was being, so he kept trading jokes.
"It's not that I don't get it. We've already got synergy, and their salaries are way higher than ours."
"Yeah."
So he does understand.
"But just because I understand doesn't mean I have to accept it. Ugh. Not like I can flip the board anyway."
"…"
It was common sense to Jimin, but in the current SOL scene, a player confronting a coach over a starting-role dispute was treated as nearly the worst thing you could do. Even worse was weaponizing org politics—if that ever came out, fans wouldn't wait for the full story. One wrong move and team discipline could shatter, and the whole roster could fall apart. Sensitive territory.
"Let's go sleep. Early night."
"…"
Jimin took the lead.
He's not wrong.
Understanding something in your head and actually accepting it—ideally those were the same, but sometimes it just felt unfair. Sometimes Jimin even envied people like Kang Jun, who could spit out what was sitting in their chest. For someone whose habit was always weighing the other person's position and the proper reasoning behind whatever happened to him, today… was not easy.
"Whaaaaat is this?!"
"Himmel was so composed just now."
"Haa…"
"…"
Beside him, Yaohwan clutched his head and bowed it.
This just got hard.
Game three between P1 and C-Plus Dia. All day long, C-Plus's bot lane had been smothering P1's.
"Hold on—GP has no oranges!"
"AAAAAAAGH!"
Gangplank's body split in half under Camel's kick. C-Plus Dia's top laner Sai had just solo-killed P1's top laner, Blur.
"Ohhh!"
"Himmel is ruthless!"
C-Plus's Himmel–Juno bot duo on Kalista–Renata in game three. They were completely dominating lane, and even Oz's Sejuani—sent down to relieve pressure—was getting stuck in the mud.
Game one was incredible, though.
P1 had won game one easily on the strength of their top side. Nobody rooting for P1 could have imagined being pushed into a corner like this afterward.
"WOOOOAH!"
"Kalista has no intention of dying!"
The final teamfight. Borrowing the power of Renata's bomb necklace, Kalista kited forward and tore through P1's champions.
"GG!"
"C-Plus Dia!"
"What a beautiful series against P1."
"Hmm."
"…"
Leaving the coach and head coach looking like they had a lot to say, Jimin simply marveled.
Incredible.
C-Plus Dia was a stylish team, and the reason that was even possible was clearly that monster ADC, Himmel. The team sat in fourth, but he'd still earned a spot on the Spring All-Pro Second Team as a marksman—proof he was an ADC who could stand against Dexter.
Jimin glanced sideways. Kang Jun looked just as impressed by Himmel.
Two losses in a row.
Even Head Coach Yaohwan had clearly been invested in this series. The result was still a loss.
"Ahem. Can you all hear me?"
In P1's streaming room, Jimin fired up the broadcast.
Chat flew past. The camera caught Jimin smiling.
"Thank you for the 1,000-won donation."
Jimin let out a small laugh. The article that had dropped that afternoon had drawn a lot of fan attention.
"Will have their chance"—a phrasing that was just a little vague. But nobody had any real doubt that P1 was finally unlocking the two gems they'd been keeping in the jewelry box.
"Thank you for the 10,000-won donation. Thank you—I'll show you something good."
Jimin kept smiling.
Finally.
The chance that hadn't come even when he climbed solo queue and dominated scrims. This time was different. He was going to walk onto the P1 first-team stage for real.
Jimin watched the manager-seat chat from other streamers.
But…
All kinds of people were showing up—just not the streamers who'd been his tournament teammates. Since he'd come back to streaming, none of them had appeared in chat. He thought about reaching out, but wouldn't a sudden Discord message just throw them off?
Nah.
They were all busy people anyway. He felt a little disappointed, but decided to focus on what was in front of him.
"…"
Last time he'd been a little careless. He needed to focus on the stream—not get completely distracted by Dahye.
Still. I like it.
Even so, her messages kept pulling a smile out of him. Viewers would probably chalk it up to debut-day joy. Jimin glanced at his phone just once, then went back to talking with chat.
"GG!"
"A wounded P1! They take game one with a near-perfect performance."
"Ahem."
I'm nervous.
He'd thought he'd gotten used to this back in Challengers—but maybe sitting in the waiting room watching match after match without playing had worn that down. Jimin was tense.
—Slap.
"Huh?"
Hochang smacked him on the back.
"Relax. Just go out there and wreck them like you do in scrims."
"…Yes, sir."
Jimin grinned and left the waiting room.
"WAAAAAAAH!"
"…"
For a second the roar startled him. The sound of live fans seemed to fill every corner of Sol Park. After game one, the ad break ended. The cue music for the broadcast's return rolled through the arena.
"P1 has a substitution, right?"
"Yes—Blur is out and Jimin is in. Spoon is out and Rapid is in."
Jimin and Rapid appeared on screen, introduced with their short careers. The most striking line of all: both players were making their first-team professional debuts.
"Yes—both players are debuting together."
"How many people have been watching them ahead of this season?"
Huh?
"…"
Mostly done with his setup, Jimin looked up at the stands. Young women holding cheer sticks.
You've been waiting?
Challengers was one thing, but this was the first team—and it was his debut. As far as he could tell, women made up almost none of his regular viewers. A woman typing that kind of chat? Hard to picture.
Huh?
Still watching the crowd, Jimin noticed the broadcast camera had locked onto him.
"Yes—hahahahaha."
The casters and the crowd burst out laughing at the blank, then smiling Jimin.
Kang Jun cleared his throat.
"…"
"Two players taking their historic first steps. Game two ban-pick begins now!"