The 2023 Platform Exhibition Final: Youngest and Oldest vs. Sprout Patrol
Glass shattered.
"You goddamn piece of shit!!"
The crash and the roar arrived together. The voice was Pilleulo's.
He was the BJ carrying AFS's representative squad in the Platform Exhibition—the team's ace, a streamer whose stock had only climbed as he dragged them all the way to the final. And yet.
Right now he was backed to the very edge of the cliff.
"The customer you are calling is not answering—"
"Fuck!"
Something else hit the floor, and another shout came with it. This time the thing in his hand had been his phone, so nothing broke.
"Haa... shit. I am going to end you."
The one refusing to pick up was someone he had known since the first year of high school. A friend. No—an errand boy.
To Pilleulo the kid had never been more than a toy. Slip him a little pocket money and play with him. He had not imagined the boy would put a knife in his back.
"Shit. If you were gonna screw me, you should've done it sooner. Why the hell now..."
In truth, even a full exposé was never going to ruin him. His image had been the worst from the very beginning. The problem was the timing—right before the final, and of all hours, while he had been asleep. He had not even managed a proper response.
"Ha..."
It was already 1:20. Forty minutes until the final. He ought to be slipping into the team's Discord channel, and still he could not make himself do it. The post had been sitting on hot boards across community after community for a long while now. His teammates had surely heard.
But every player on the roster had to be in the channel by 1:30. He squeezed his eyes shut and clicked join. Show up late on top of this, and there would be no walking it back.
A soft chime.
The coach and the starters were already there—five of them—and not one voice came through. Maybe they had gone quiet the moment he entered.
"H-hello?"
"Pilleu..."
It was the BJ wearing the captain's title. The voice sounded tangled. It also sounded angry. This once, even Pilleulo had nothing to say. He really had lied and gone out. They really had eaten a forfeit because of it.
"Hyungs, I... uh..."
Discomfort sat thick in the captain's voice. It sounded like we talk after the final. And that was, more or less, exactly what he meant.
"...Yeah."
For now, letting it pass in silence was better than any excuse. The bastard who had stabbed him in the back—tell Dad, and Dad would handle it. In the end, the only way out of the pit was to win the final. Not just win it. Crush them.
"Yeah. This is better."
Easier to throw them a few of the flashy plays they wanted than to spend a hundred words he had no desire to say on an explanation. That was how it had always gone. Show these idiots a highlight or two and they would be sucking up to him as if none of it had happened. Dazzling play, the kind that hooked people—that was the trick that had let Pilleulo survive one incident and one scandal after another.
"Good afternoon, viewers. We'll be with you for the last match of the 2023 Kwitch & AFS Cup Platform Exhibition—the final you've been waiting for."
"Viewers, you've run with us for two weeks. Today, among the four great platforms, we decide the strongest Project A platform of 2023."
"That's right. Of every team that entered, these two stood out the most in both the level of their play and the show they put on. I imagine most of you predicted this matchup—and you've been waiting for it."
"So, without dragging it out, let us introduce the two teams taking the stage."
"You already know them, of course, but this is the final, so we ought to take our time with every player. Here is AFS's representative side—Team Sprout Patrol!"
AFS split the livestreaming world with Kwitch. Every platform's audience had its tastes, but AFS viewers wanted their broadcasts sharp, loud, and glittering, and that hunger had sanded the BJs who streamed there down to a single style. Most of the players they had sent to the exhibition were entry players—BJs who lived on raw mechanics. That was the AFS team.
"And last, Sprout Patrol's youngest and their ace, main entry Pilleulo!"
"There is certainly a lot of talk around this player. He really does carry controversy with him wherever he goes."
"How should I put it—a superstar? The kind who drives both the stans and the haters completely out of their minds. Hahaha."
On the last broadcast, Pilleulo had taken a sudden shot at several members of the Kwitch roster. The casters were all but polishing him as they said it, and yet superstar, in a sense, was true. Plays that looked one slip from disaster. A pure high-risk, high-return style. It was more than enough to hook people.
"With Pilleulo, you can feel it. He is a player packed full of confidence."
"Yes! I think that's exactly the right way to put it. A player brimming with confidence."
High-risk, high-return. That was the whole of his style.
"Whether he can show us that same face in the final—I'm looking forward to it!"
"Then we should introduce the other side as well. Kwitch's representatives, the roster of Team Youngest and Oldest!"
They had come through the group stage at 3–0, a perfect run. Calling it a truly perfect run was a stretch—the third win had arrived as a forfeit—
—but what they had shown on stage, and what they were showing in scrims, was so overwhelming that people were treating them as undefeated anyway.
"First, Youngest and Oldest's captain, Zzangdol!"
Zzangdol. A Project A specialist streaming on Kwitch, a player whose pool was almost entirely Controller.
"From Spax's seat—he's the coach of Youngest and Oldest—Zzangdol's mastery on controller has to be a gift. Among everyone in this exhibition, his proficiency is the closest thing to perfect."
"Look at the numbers and his fighting dips a little, but given the way this team is built, he is a controller they simply cannot do without."
Of every broadcaster in the exhibition, Zzangdol was the only one whose main role was controller. One of the entry conditions was a certain level of fame, and fame came easier if you played something viewers loved to watch—an entry, a role with spectacle. Zzangdol had succeeded as a streamer anyway, parked on controllers, and under the title of smoke-agent craftsman he had grown even larger than the broadcasters who made their living on entry.
"Next, Oldboy. He holds the title of the oldest player ever to compete in the exhibition, doesn't he?"
Oldboy. In an FPS where reaction speed was everything, a streamer in his thirties who still held a place in the highest tier by sheer work.
"The 'oldest' label can sound like a punch line, but say it another way: he reached this stage at an age that counts as old for an FPS player. His thirties."
Of course he lost the aim duel. He had also been here since Project A's earliest days, and in ability usage Oldboy stood out sharply.
"Next, Pola. He doesn't flash, and he doesn't fall behind. He does a fine job as the team's secret ingredient."
Pola. A former pro from another, smaller FPS. He had not been playing Project A for long.
"If you look at the numbers, his fighting isn't bad, you know? He just has a few too many moments where the ability usage lets you down."
"Not only the abilities—there were a few decisions that left something to be desired as well. Considering how recently he started Project A, I think that's unavoidable."
New as he was, the holes in his ability usage were hard to miss. But—
"His aim alone is good enough that no one would object to ranking him among the top of this field."
A former FPS pro, and it showed. The aim was semi-pro. Set him beside Oldboy and he was the exact opposite case.
Zzangdol, Oldboy, Pola—all three were good players, and all three had a strength, a weakness, and a gap you could see. And yet if those three simply did their jobs, Kwitch could post an undefeated record. The reason was simple.
"Fourth, one of the team's aces—Nebula!"
Because the roster had an ace who could fill every one of those gaps and still have room left over.
"He's really being evaluated as an unbalanced player in this exhibition. The calling is absurd, and the fighting is absurd in its own right..."
"I think all-rounder is the right name for him. A lot of people hear that word and assume it means no standout strength. If every category is a perfect ten, what else would you call an all-rounder?"
"Every category a ten. That's a precise way to put it."
And not one player like that. Two.
"Then, the last player on Youngest and Oldest. The team's main entry, and their other ace—Eunha!"
"Alongside Nebula, Eunha is seventeen—the youngest player ever to compete in the exhibition."
"As an entry she shows an aggressive streak every bit as sharp as Sprout Patrol's Pilleulo, but..."
If Pilleulo loved gambling plays that never looked back, Eunha preferred something a little steadier.
"It feels much more refined than Pilleulo. It's a slightly contradictory way to put it, but she plays aggressive and stable at the same time."
The desk was quietly feeding an Eunha–Pilleulo rivalry, drawing the audience in. They knew perfectly well what had passed between the two of them lately. To a casual eye, both of them simply played aggressive. Look closer, and they were not the same thing at all.
Pilleulo's only foundation was confidence in his own skill. Eunha was different. Can the team trade it? What do we lose if I die? A reason lived inside every step—a well-honed blade of a playstyle. That was Eunha.
The introductions ended, and the casters filled another two minutes with chatter.
"We're told both teams are fully ready."
Two minutes. From the seats at home, it felt like twenty.
"Then the map veto begins!"
A best-of-five final. The first map selection—the one that could seize the momentum—belonged to Kwitch.
The first map of the final was set. Ascent.