Work Text:
1.
Chenle’s first mistake of the day was hitting snooze on his alarm and rolling around to take five more extra minutes of sleep, because he had almost missed a very important meeting with his manager and had to stare at his new potential sponsor in a wrinkled shirt and hair sticking out of five different directions through the camera.
The second mistake of the day was deciding to press the Start Streaming button on OBS. He wasn’t even meant to turn on stream today— he had told chat that he had a very important meeting so he’d probably take the day off, but he didn't expect the meeting to go so quick and didn't want to think about that mess of a meeting more than he needed to, so the only distraction he could think of was to start stream.
The third mistake was deciding to queue up ranked solo. He had kind of planned on playing some variety— chat has been begging him to play R.E.P.O with his friends or Elden Ring, but he really needed something to take his mind off that awkward, unprepared meeting and what better way to feel like you want to die even more than playing League of Legends solo queue?
A great idea in theory, but the red carpet of a match history staring back at him now as he tabs through it reminds him of why he shouldn't play League when he’s not in the best mindset. He’s sat here for two hours now and has dropped almost 200 LP— nothing is on his side, his four braindead teammates keep running it down if they don't get feats, his chat keeps calling him washed, his duo ignoring his cries for help and choosing to go on a date with his boyfriend instead. Everything is going horribly which is why he queues up another game immediately after the losses, because you simply can't end on a loss.
It’s only uphill from here, anyway. There’s no way Chenle would lose seven games in a row, right? At this point, maybe he has to bring out a carry jungler since none of his laners play with two hands. So much for chilling and vibing.
There’s a visible frown on his face when the client loads into the champion select screen. He immediately hovers Diana, hoping that the mid laner gets the memo and chooses an AD champion but it’s solo queue, no one cares about draft in solo queue, and his first-pick mid laner locks in Syndra. Any other normal functioning player would see that pick and give in and just play an AD jungler, but not Chenle. Chenle has suffered for the last six games and god forbid he plays comfort and goes against the typical drafting norms. No, his team will have to suffer with four AP champions if they have to.
“I hate this game,” Chenle announces to his chat, locking in Diana. “I hate every single player that plays this game and every day I wake up and regret becoming a League streamer.” He points a finger at his screen— at this Syndra, and continues; “I don’t care if this Syndra is Challenger1000 LP, if I gank him and the enemy mid laner gets away on 10 health I will say mean things in chat. I don’t care if they’re a pro player, I don’t even care if he’s Jisung!”
That’s not true. Chenle would care, actually, if this Syndra is Nongshim’s mid laner Bogos. Bogos— or Park Jisung— a League of Legends prodigy that Nongshim picked up out of nowhere and he had somehow wiped the asses of every other tier 1 LCK team’s mid laner out there. A storm to be reckoned with, Chenle can’t help but be enamored whenever Jisung plays not only on stage, but during his streams in solo queue. Chenle isn’t a mid laner, he’s a jungler one-trick, but when he checked out some of Jisung’s YouTube videos out of curiosity, he found out that Jisung not only a talented pro player, he’s also a great streamer; prioritising explaining to his viewers his thought process during team fights and what to look out for, or small tips that are useful for every elo. He also doesn’t rage, he just silently looks annoyed and goes on with his day. Before he knew it, Chenle had finished watching the two hour VOD and had a plateful of tasks he had yet to finish for the day.
It’s rare for the League scene to gain such a character, so it’s not like anyone can fault Chenle for being a little annoying about the pro player. It’s not like Jisung knows he exists, anyway (he says, whilst being one of the most followed League content creators). Let him have a little fun.
As the screen transitions into the loading screen, a comment from his second monitor catches his eye.
[gumadoongie]: the syndra is bogos kekekekek
Chenle's heart drops for a millisecond, before he catches himself and rolls his eyes, dragging the user onto the screen as public humiliation. “Don’t say shit like this,” he warns, highlighting the message. “You guys know I’m sensitive to this kinda stuff.”
And he is. Last time his chat pulled off a stunt like this, he got way too excited for his reaction to be considered normal, only to find out that Jisung wasn’t even in Korea, he was off in some kind of EU bootcamp with the rest of his team and Chenle’s disappointed face once he found out was clipped and posted onto his subreddit fifty times.
Chenle has never gotten into a game with Jisung before, despite hovering around the same elo as him for as long as Jisung has been pro, or for as long as Chenle has known about him.
[gumadoongie]: IM SERIOUS
[gumadoongie]: CHECK BOGOS’S STREAM
Yeah, no. Chenle isn’t falling for that again.
[imissyouzeus]: omg it is
[imissyouzeus]: holy shit lmaooo it IS bogos
Chenle is doubtful, but something at the back of his mind tells him to check Jisung’s stream, just in case. So he does. He types in ‘NS Bogos’ in the stream search bar and lo and behold, there’s a bright red LIVE in the top left corner of the thumbnail from Jisung’s account. With trembling fingers, Chenle clicks on the stream and it opens to Jisung’s screen identical to his. Chenle sits up straighter immediately, mouth open as he quickly exits his stream.
There is no way.
He sees the whirlwind of his chat in the corner of his eye pass by in a blur, probably laughing at his reaction or him insulting his beloved pro player earlier, maybe both knowing the people in his chat. His mind is all over the place, but he still finds it in him to give his chat a stern talking to.
“Don’t laugh at me,” he frowns, wagging a finger at his camera. “You guys are all—"
At that moment, the game loads in and he spawns in fountain, cutting him off. Whatever, talking to chat can wait, he has a pro player to impress right now.
And he tries his best, he really does. And he can tell Jisung is trying his best too (even though he chose Syndra with his Diana), but it wasn’t enough. Typical League players and their inability to play the game for more than 15 minutes. When the first ff15 vote failed, their top laner began to run it down, so it was a 4v5 for the rest of the game.
So much for impressing Jisung.
(He could only hope the Baron steal at the end of the game when the enemy Yorick was eating through their base was cool enough to leave a good impression on the pro player).
The game ends and Jisung is Chenle’s sole honour. The small smile on his face is hard to hide when he hovers over his honours and finds that Jisung had honoured him back.
Small smile gets erased off his face almost immediately though as he buries his head in his hands. His one and probably only game with the pro player he might have the smallest, tiniest crush on ended in him calling their top laner horrible things (that was justified!) and had him running around the map half the time being useless since he wasn’t exactly fed.
“He hates me,” Chenle groans, dragging his hands down his face. The sight isn’t pretty on his camera, but he doesn’t care at this point. “The only pro player I care about hates me. I shouldn’t wear his jersey ever again. This is the worst thing that could happen to me.”
A small ding sounds through his headphones and he lifts his head, praying that Donghyuck’s boyfriend has finally had enough of him and sent Donghyuck home to play League— to save Chenle from the clutches of solo queue.
It wasn’t. Donghyuck’s profile is still greyed out on the side of his screen, but at the very top of his friends list is an incoming request from bogos binted.
Park Jisung.
Chenle stands up and his chair breaks into two behind him.
2.
Despite now sitting pretty in Jisung’s friends list, Chenle has never tried to invite him into a game. He’s scared. Jisung adding him means that he’s aware of Chenle’s existence, and that is already too much for him.
Donghyuck has other ideas, though.
“We need a fifth and you have Nongshim’s Bogos sitting in your friend list,” Donghyuck says. “Why won’t you invite him?”
“We are not inviting a pro player into our ARAM clash team,” Chenle rebuts, readjusting his headphones. “Just drag a random in.”
“Not when you have a pro player available a click away.”
“Shut up. I’ve literally never invited him to play and this will not be the first thing. Who else is playing?”
Chenle can hear Donghyuck typing away on his keyboard. He really needs to use a noise suppressor.
“PrincessLuna0813 will be joining us after he finishes eating,” Donghyuck replies. “And Renjun, of course.”
Chenle figured as much. He mindlessly goes through all the icons at the top of his screen, before stopping at his ‘loot’ page and dismantling all his champion shards, one by one to kill time.
“I haven’t played with Jaemin in so long,” Chenle hums, sliding down further into his chair. “Are you gonna stream this?”
Donghyuck, much like himself, is also a Challenger streamer— the only difference is that he’s a one-trick ADC instead. Chenle likes playing with Donghyuck; they met on the rift, after Donghyuck’s double pentakill in one game and Chenle decided to send a friend request to try and get carried by that ADC, and Donghyuck accepted. Now, here they are. A year later and Chenle can’t seem to shake off Donghyuck no matter what, no matter how hard he tries.
“Nah, you know how Renjun feels about being on stream.”
Chenle doesn’t really, but he’s not about to tell Donghyuck that. “Well, why did you decide on the first day of clash to form a team? You literally could have planned this out like a week ago.”
“That ruins the fun of going through my friend list of ten people to find four who are free and willing to play clash with me!”
Chenle shakes his head. He’s too organised for that sort of thinking, he hates doing things on the day they’re due.
“Chenle,” Donghyuck elongates the second syllable, voice echoing through his headphones. “Please just ask Bogos, it would be so cool to have a pro player in our clash team. Please, please, please.”
Chenle can already feel the headache coming. “Fine,” he grumbles, only to shut Donghyuck up, though. “I’ll ask, but don’t be disappointed when he rejects me.”
A cheer comes from the other side of the line and Chenle grimaces as he presses the message button, finding Jisung’s account to message him. He has the green online button on his profile, but he hasn’t loaded into a game yet, so Chenle takes the time to quickly type out a (hopefully not too awkward) message.
Hey sorry if this is sudden lol
But my friend is doing aram clash and we need a fifth
Was wondering if you’d like to join?
Obv if you’re busy it’s ok
;p;
oh hey! It’s chenle right?
Jisung knows him?
You know me?
ya
i watch ur streams sometimes
He does?!
Oh what?
Omg,,, I didn’t want to say cause I didn’t
want to freak you out but I’m a fan
oh lol i know
ur chat is funny when they come
into my stream to talk abt u fanboying
Chenle blinks at that message. Life cannot be real. To know that his own chat is backstabbing him like this… He’s going to kill them all. All 804k of his viewers.
Pls don’t pay them any attention
My chat is stupid
hahahah its ok
i can probably fit in a few clash games
i actually just finished my scrims for today so
:D
“He said ‘yes’!” Chenle exclaims, voice an octave higher.
“Don’t lie.”
“I wouldn’t lie about this.” Chenle’s foot begins to bounce. Holy shit, he’s going to be playing with Jisung again. And he isn’t going to have some random screwing up the game and making him look bad. Of course, he’d have to privately message Jaemin beforehand to tell him to not do anything stupid, and it’s a given that Renjun would behave, so his only problem is the person who he’s sitting in a Discord call with right now.
As if sensing what is about to come, Donghyuck pipes up. “Don’t worry, I won’t do or say anything to mess up your chances of getting together with your beloved pro player,” he jokes.
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious!” And he sounds so genuine that Chenle can’t help but believe him. “Renjun knows how much you like Bogos, anyway. If I do anything that ruins your blooming relationship, Renjun would be mad at me and ruin our relationship.”
Chenle sends a silent prayer to Renjun for keeping Donghyuck in check even when he’s not physically here. Now nothing is standing in his way to true happiness (impressing Jisung).
“Tell Bogos to buy his own clash ticket, though. I’m not paying for it.”
“It’s 975 blue essence, stop hoarding them,” Chenle responds, accepting the invite into Donghyuck’s lobby. Renjun and Jaemin are already there, waiting for him.
“Yeah, no. My blue essences are reserved for Renjun’s clash tickets and my chromas only. I’m sure Bogos has more than enough blue essence to buy one 975 ticket.”
Oh, but Chenle has so many from disenchanting his champion shards on the day he got into his first ever match with Jisung. It’s nothing, 975 blue essences are a joke in the League economy, so it shouldn’t be suspicious at all if he sends a clash ticket Jisung’s way.
“Do you have Bogos’ discord?” Donghyuck asks him as they watch Jisung make his way into the lobby.
“Nope, why?’
“Unlucky, it would be nice if we could VC with him too. If he plays Malphite or something, we’d know to follow up.”
“You’re a four-time Challenger and you don’t know when to follow up a Malphite ult?”
“Oh, shush. I’m just trying to play wingman and get you to ask for his Discord! C’mon, you can’t be this dense.”
In the team chat, Donghyuck types ‘join vc' to signal to Jaemin and Renjun that they’re already there and Chenle sees an opening to ask for Jisung’s Discord— to ask if he wants to join their call.
But he doesn’t, too scared and unprepared— and in the end, no one asks.
3.
When Chenle agreed to sub in for a friend’s tier 2 LCK team, he wasn’t expecting to be needed for scrims as well. He had thought he would just be a name on a piece of paper, just there for the off-chance that their jungler disappears into the night and they need a replacement immediately. But when their jungler did disappear for one of their scrim sessions, suddenly Chenle is dragged into scrims at 9 in the morning.
“Who are we scrimming against?” Chenle asks. He isn’t sure if anyone heard him, and he’s tried scrolling through the team Discord channels for any indication on who today’s scrim partner is but to no avail.
Luckily, the nice guy that Chenle doesn’t remember the name of has super good hearing and supplies him with an answer. “We’re scrimming Nongshim today.”
Chenle falters for a second before recomposing himself. That’s right, it can’t be their main roster. They wouldn’t send their main roster to do scrimmages with a tier 2 team, but at the same time… Nongshim doesn’t have a tier 2 team that Chenle knows of.
“When you say Nongshim-” Chenle begins, mouth dry. “You mean their main roster?”
“Yeah.”
How the heck did a tier 2 team manage to get in touch with Nongshim’s main roster to scrim against? And why the hell did Nongshim agree? Are they lacking in scrim partners so badly that they have to scrim with a tier 2 team?
“That’s crazy,” is all he says, heart pounding as the Nongshim members begin flooding into the lobby.
He feels kind of out of place. Everyone is accessing this lobby through the tournament realm, so they all have their team’s initials in the beginning of each ID. Chenle, who didn’t even have an account until 24 hours ago, didn’t think too much of the ID and just typed ‘dehet’ into the username bar, obviously not getting the memo. So now everyone looks professional with their ‘CJF Sponge’ and ‘NS bogos’ and Chenle is just ‘dehet’-ing through the rift.
Not long after Chenle’s internal breakdown over his ID and nice guy (who he has now learnt has a name and it’s Jeno) reassuring him that it’s fine, they finally load into the game.
Chenle tunes out the draft and ban picks because that kind of stuff is way too out of his area of expertise, but halfway through it he realises that he probably should be listening, at least for the guy he’s subbing in. Maybe he’ll ask for notes or something, like Chenle’s old highschool classmates. Or maybe the rest of the team would ask Chenle for his thoughts on their draft, not that Chenle would know how to reply— he had plans to just pretend he was in a ranked game. It doesn’t happen, though. No one asks for Chenle’s opinions and when asked which champion he should play, the coach just told him to “Choose whoever you want”.
To that, Chenle locks in Fiddlesticks.
In hindsight, it definitely was not a good choice. A champion that relies on the lack of vision on the map against a five-man pro team that is also on voice call with each other? He might as well be playing as a canon minion at that point, but it’s too late and the game starts. Chenle is 100% sure the coach didn’t mean to actually play whoever he wanted, but then why even word it like that at that point? It really wasn’t Chenle’s fault. He was too in the mindset of this scrim being like a ranked game.
After reassuring the coach that his Fiddlesticks isn’t that bad, they spawn and the team makes their way into their respective lanes. At 00:40, Chenle is restless and somehow musters up the courage to send a whisper to Jisung, thankful that he sent a friend request when they were both waiting in the lobby for their coaches.
/whisper NS bogos#kr1: Hiiii didn’t expect to see you here today
NS bogos#kr1: chenle?
/r NS bogos#kr1: Yessss how did u know
NS bogos#kr1: mmm secret :D
NS bogos#kr1: i’m surprised to see you too tho
NS bogos#kr1: i didn’t know you were in cjf
/r NS bogos#kr1: I’m not I’m just subbing in for someone
NS bogos#kr1: oh i see
NS bogos#kr1: good luck then
NS bogos#kr1: i won’t go easy on you >:D
/r NS bogos#kr1: You don’t have to go easy on me
/r NS bogos#kr1: I literally smurf ur elo
/r NS bogos#kr1: My Fiddlesticks is rank 1
/r NS bogos#kr1: Catch up lil bro
NS bogos#kr1: yeah right kek
NS bogos#kr1: your mid laner is gonna need a lot of help
NS bogos#kr1: but gank for him and i’ll just get fed heh
/r NS bogos#kr1: Cocky aren’t you
And Jisung has every right to be, honestly.
The scrims went fine, but Jisung wasn’t lying when he said that CJF’s mid laner would need a lot of help. Chenle probably had ended up ganking his lane six times during the laning phase and even then the mid laner somehow still lost lane.
It’s no surprise that they get stomped by Nongshim, but Chenle doesn’t leave the scrim feeling too bad about it.
That night, whilst Chenle is streaming solo queue, he ends up in a lobby with Jisung again, except this time— they’re on opposing teams.
Chenle makes sure that every time he appears mid to gank, he leaves with an extra kill, and not without doing an ctrl+3 emote and throwing up a bee sad sticker whenever he takes Jisung’s gold shutdown, to which Jisung retaliates with a bee angry sticker.
4.
They talk a lot more now, Chenle and Jisung. Not in-call or on another platform, but they send each other messages whenever they’re both online at the same time. A small “good luck on ur games today!” “thanks you too!” exchange.
Sometimes it goes a bit further though, with Chenle commenting on Jisung’s lose streak, or an off-meta pick (why was he playing Veigar ADC?), or just a little taunt whenever he passes Jisung on the Challenger leaderboard. Not that it ever lasts for long, though— but Chenle is determined to have it stick for more than 24 hours at some point.
It’s not much but it's enough for Chenle. If you told him two months ago he’d have Jisung in his friends list and would occasionally chat with him, he’d call you delusional. This is enough. Heck, knowing that Jisung sometimes watches his stream is more than enough.
And even if it wasn’t, there isn’t exactly a gateway for them to become closer. Chenle can’t invite Jisung to duo with him since he has Donghyuck and the ADC gets sulky if they don’t queue up together (Chenle would ask why he doesn’t find a support to duo with but he already knows the answer to that; Renjun is a support main and Donghyuck would rather die than play with someone else that isn’t him), and as Nongshim Bogos Number 1 Fan, he knows that Jisung isn’t exactly on board with the idea on duoing in ranked.
So small whisper messages are enough to satisfy the hunger for now, with the slim chances that Jisung ends up in the same lobby as him and they type a lot more in chat, with Chenle getting a small taste of what truly playing with Jisung would be like.
Or that was what it was meant to be for the foreseeable future until one day, Chenle receives an invite from none other than Jisung. Not even a rift or an ARAM invite, but a custom ARAM invite.
“Um,” Chenle voices to no one, eyebrows furrowed, still in the middle of resetting his camera position when the notification popped up on the top right of his screen. He was getting ready to start streaming and already had his PLS WAIT overlay looping on stream.
On one hand, chat would absolutely fry him alive if he’s even a minute late, and there’s no doubt it would get even worse if they knew he abandoned them for Jisung, but on the other— they can wait. He’s been on time consistently for months now, he deserves a little break.
Sitting down and pulling his (new) chair closer to the desk, Chenle wastes no time in pressing the small tick by the popup, not wanting to make Jisung wait too long or before the popup disappears.
He joins the lobby and is immediately greeted by Jisung.
bogos binted#uju: hi chenleeeee
chenle#daegal: Hi! What’s up?
bogos binted#uju: i woke up too early and i have some time to kill before my scrims
bogos binted#uju: saw that u were online
bogos binted#uju: wanna 1v1?
Yeah, his chat can definitely wait.
bogos inted#uju: if you’re not busy of course
chenle#daegal: Yesssssss
chenle#daegal: No I’m not busy
bogos binted#uju: yay
bogos binted#uju: jsparkandy
bogos binted#uju: that’s my disc, add me
So much for not growing closer. Chenle adds Jisung, and as he waits for his request to be accepted, he writes a quick pinned comment in his chat, saying that unforeseen issues came up and he’ll be half an hour to an hour late to the stream— begging for chat’s forgiveness.
A notification pops up signalling Jisung has accepted his request and Chenle springs up to send a quick “Hiiiii” to him, to which Jisung responds to with an incoming voice call?
Chenle isn’t prepared for this at all in the slightest. His water bottle next to him almost drops to the floor as he fumbles around his desk, looking for his headphones. Is this really happening? On a random Thursday morning?
“Hi,” Chenle manages to squeak out when he picks up the call. “Sorry, I was looking for my headphones. Hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”
‘Hope I didn’t keep you waiting’? Chenle wants to bury himself five feet under. What the hell does that even mean?
To his relief, Jisung doesn’t think too much of it. He just laughs softly (which melts Chenle just a little bit). “Hi Chenle. It’s fine. Thanks for joining, everyone is still busy or asleep but I already opened League and can’t be bothered closing it to just open it again. Curse me and my inability to read the scheduled time. I’m so lucky you were online to save me.”
“Haha, it’s no worries, I was getting ready to…” Chenle trails off, catching himself before he speaks too much. Jisung doesn’t know he was planning on going live and he doesn’t have to know. “I was getting ready for some solo queue games,” he quickly recovers. “I have to end the season higher than you, and since you’re busy scrimming 24/7 now in preparation for Worlds, this is the perfect time.”
Jisung lets out a scandalised gasp. “You’re using things out of my control to gain leverage on me? We have to red card you.”
“What? This is in your control. Quit your eSports team, join my streamer team instead.”
Jisung hums, fake-considering it. “What do I get as payment?”
“A super cool jungler who’ll gank your lane all the time?”
“Yeah, nah.” Jisung starts the custom game and they load into the champion select screen. “If you win, then I’ll join your streamer team.”
It’s a joke, but Chenle can’t help but get fired up— taking it as a challenge. “Oh, really? Then I’d have to try my best. Do I get to pick our champion?”
“Nope,” comes Jisung’s reply. There’s a hint of a smile in his voice. “Lock in Yone.”
“That’s not fair! You know I’m a jungle one-trick! You, on the other hand, play mid lane for a living and Yone is literally meta.” Instead, Chenle locks in Nautilus. “It’s Nautilus time, Jisung. I know you want to.”
“Wha— Alright, fine.”
The screen loads in once they both lock in Nautilus and it’s then that Chenle realises that Jisung probably has to go in ten minutes and Chenle still has a stream to get back to, and the two of them are custom ARAM 1v1-ing each other as Nautilus. This will be a long 1v1.
While they wait for the game to load, Jisung breaks their comfortable silence. “You didn’t tell me you were about to stream when I invited you…” he softly says.
“Huh?” Chenle quickly opens up his phone to check if he had forgotten that he made a post on Twitter or anything of the like, but he didn’t. The only thing that holds him accountable for today’s (delayed) stream was him verbally saying he was going to stream at a particular time last night— which Jisung would not have known. “How did you find out?”
“I saw someone on my Twitter timeline talking about it.” A beat of silence. “You didn’t have to join if you had something else happening,” Jisung mumbles, quiet enough that Chenle can still hear him through his microphone. “I feel bad now.”
Chenle places a curse on whoever appeared on Jisung’s timeline— sending bad vibes their way.
“Don’t feel bad!” Chenle is quick to reassure. “Chat can wait,.” Jisung makes a doubtful noise at that. “I’m serious. They’re like a bunch of toddlers who cry when I’m not in their line of sight. It’s only 30 minutes, they won’t miss me too much. They see me every other day for eight hours.”
A hesitant “Are you sure?” sounds through his headphones and Chenle has to put all the genuinity he has in his body into his “Yes” response. Jisung will not be feeling bad on his watch.
“Okay,” Jisung responds as they load into the game. He still sounds unsure, though. “We’ll do first tower, yeah? I don’t wanna hold you up for too long and I think some of my teammates are starting to get online.”
To say that Chenle feels a little sad about it would be an understatement, but it’s fine, he tries to tell himself. He’ll have more chances at playing games with Jisung next time, anyway, now that they’ve broken that threshold.
“Alright, first tower,” Chenle repeats, buying his items. He’s gonna go AP Nautilus— tank Nautilus has nothing on him. “I’m not going to go easy on you,” he warns Jisung as he takes the portal. “I don’t care if you’re scrimming T1 today or whatever, I’m winning this 1v1.”
“Please go easy on me, I have never played Nautilus in my life.”
Chenle doesn’t, and it’s not really his fault— he was building AP which meant that he completely demolished Jisung’s turret in four auto-attacks. Which again, isn’t really his fault. He’s a jungler main, he doesn’t do the whole turret thing. He had forgotten that the damage you do on turret scales with the AP ratio of your champion. So when the final third of Jisung’s turret disappears just like that, Chenle cringes at himself.
“Damn,” mutters Jisung as they both exit out of the game. “I actually went easy on you because I have to go, coach just messaged me.”
“Oh.” Chenle doesn’t even try to hide the disappointment in his voice.
Jisung must have picked up on it, because he immediately hits him back with; “I’m joking, Chenle. You played well. A well deserved win. Thank you for the game.”
Chenle isn’t upset at the comment Jisung made, he’s upset that Jisung has to go.
“No.” He shakes his head, even though Jisung can’t see. “Thanks for playing with me. Good luck with your scrims today.”
“Thank you, thank you.” And right before he leaves the call, Jisung adds in. “Next time we play Yone, yeah? It’s only fair.”
And then Chenle is left on the call by himself, Jisung’s last words ringing in his ears.
There’s going to be a next time?
5.
Chenle won’t even lie, there’s a small part of him that accepted the on-site co-streaming invitation at Worlds because he wanted to see Jisung offline. Don’t get him wrong, being on-site for Worlds is an amazing experience, and being invited to co-stream is a dream come true for a League streamer like Chenle— but there’s no way of Chenle to ever meet Jisung in real life, not when he lives all the way in Busan and Jisung is having LCK matches in Seoul every week or so.
So when Chenle gets the invite and form, he sends it back signed immediately without reading through it, which he should have done because now he’s walking up to the stage right before the actual anticipated match of this year’s Worlds— beside Jisung, and getting ready to play an off-role in front of hundreds of thousands of people. Chenle has no idea how Jisung does this for a living, but on the flip side, he does the same thing— just at home through a screen.
How exactly did he get here? Turns out the form that they sent Chenle was a participation form was for a charity event, where the top five bidders get to play Summoner’s Rift against Chenle, three other League content creators Chenle doesn’t care too much about, and the fourth person he found out that morning; Nongshim’s Bogos.
Why is Nongshim sending Jisung on a bunch of side quests when he has a World Finals match literally later that day?
He barely managed to greet Jisung before the five of them were shuffled onto the stage after drawing straws for who would play what role. Chenle tried to reason with them, saying that he quite literally cannot play any other role other than jungler, but one of his new team members (REM, Chenle recalls), tells him that the whole point is to play an off-role, so they don’t stomp their opposing team too badly.
Luck seems to be on his side today, though. He had drawn support, and his accompanying ADC turned out to be Jisung.
They make their way to the centre stage where the PCs are and as Chenle sits down and begins to double check his settings, he starts to feel a little uneasy.
He’s never been in the centre of a crowd this big before. He’s not a pro player, he’s never played any game on stage in front of cameras and thousands of eyes. Everything he does is in the safety of his room, where he’s able to turn off his camera the moment he feels uncomfortable or upset. Here, under the blinding lights and ringing cheers from the crowd, he feels lightheaded— not real.
A hand on his shoulder grounds him slowly. He turns his head to see Jisung— with big doe eyes underneath his black-rimmed glasses, worriedly looking at him.
“Are you okay?” Jisung asks, leaning in. “You look a bit… stressed.”
They’re too close, way too close and Chenle springs back. “Yes! I’m fine!” he sputters out, tangling his fingers with the headphone wire. “I’m just… not used to being on stage. I don’t know how you do this.”
Jisung takes the headphones out of Chenle’s hands and helps him put it on. He doesn’t miss the loud whopping from a section of the crowd and he’s sure Jisung heard it as well, but he doesn’t say anything. He readjusts it, tilting Chenle’s head to the side to make sure it’s on properly, before leaning back and smiling.
“I get it,” Jisung says. “It was rough for me too at the start, but you’ll get used to it once we start playing. Don’t worry, you got this. And you’ve got me too.”
Flustered by whatever Jisung just did, Chenle looks away, already feeling his face heating up. “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles, not sure where to look. His ears already feel like it’s burning and he’s grateful that the headphones cover them. “I should be saying that instead. Remember my Nautilus the first time we 1v1-ed? Absolutely kicked your ass with it.”
Jisung brings a hand up to his face and laughs at that. “Oh, yeah, for sure. I’m so excited to see your Nautilus again, especially since I’m not going against it this time.”
“Watch me carry this game.”
“Go for it, it’s always the support’s job to carry, anyway.”
The staff members cut their conversation short, telling them to do a tech check with their PCs and headphones as they’ll be starting in a few minutes.
Chenle finishes his checks pretty quickly, there’s nothing unique about his keybinds or settings— he honestly uses all the default options, so he chooses to look over at Jisung instead, once he’s done smiling and greeting the crowd, of course.
Jisung looks cute. Face scrunched up and eyebrows furrowed as he double checks that everything is up to his standards. This is the one time Chenle is going to be able to play properly with Jisung— no, with Nongshim’s Bogos.
That reminds him.
He slides his chair over just slightly, close enough so he’s barely an arm’s length away from his-soon-to-be ADC.
He taps on Jisung’s arm and when Jisung removes one side of his headphones to listen in to whatever Chenle has to crazy, he leans in and whispers into his ear.
“Good luck on your match later, by the way,” Chenle tells him. “I’m worried I won’t get the chance to tell you later.”
He pulls back with a toothy grin and Jisung grabs onto him before he could scoot back in front of his PC. He gestures for Chenle to take off his headphones and when he does, Jisung cups a hand to his ear.
“If I get MVP tonight, let’s grab dinner together later.”
Chenle stares agape at him. “What about the afterparty?” he mouths, eyes darting everywhere. His heart needs to calm down.
Jisung has the audacity to shrug before holding out a hand. “Let’s shake on it?”
Chenle stares at it. He has to shake it, of course he does. This is something he dreamed about for so long, he would be a fool to not take it. “Alright,” he says, reaching out and sealing the deal. He prays to whatever is out there that not only does Nongshim win tonight, but Jisung doesn’t get steamrolled and wins MVP.
Chenle turns back to his PC, readjusting his headphones. “You better lock in for this game, though,” he says. “How are you gonna win MVP if you don’t win this for-fun match?”
Jisung seems to take it as a challenge as he locks in Ashe. “Watch me.”
That night, Nongshim beat BLG 2:0, and the MVP was none other than Bogos. Chenle watches him lift the Summoner’s Cup from his own streaming corner with the biggest smile on his face, proud— and excited about what that meant for tonight. And as Jisung scans through the crowd, he pauses, right where he knows Chenle would be looking at him, and mouths “I told you” with a small, almost shy smile on his face.
Once the closing ceremony finishes, Jisung finds Chenle in the midst of the crowd of people congratulating him. Chenle had just been waiting patiently, but the moment Jisung locks eyes with him, he pushes through the crowd until he’s in front of Chenle.
“Hi,” he says, a bit breathless from all the pushing and shoving.
“Hey,” Chenle greets back, face lighting up. “Ready to go?”
Under the dimmed lights, Jisung’s hand finds its way to Chenle’s and he laces their fingers together as he guides Chenle out of the arena and into the streets of Seoul.
+1
“Guys, I’m back at Worlds again! And this time, I wasn’t conned into playing on stage unlike last year!” Chenle announces to his stream. A flood of comments laughing at him fills the screen and he pans over his camera to Donghyuck and Renjun taking pictures with a fan beside him.
“Look at how awkward Haechan is with his fans,” Chenle laughs, zooming into the poor boy. Not that he’s any better, he’s honestly kind of awkward with fans too, but he had last year’s Worlds experience under his belt so at least he kind of knows what to do.
“Actually, I need to go find someone,” Chenle says, taking out his phone and checking the time. 2:04pm. Nongshim is having their meet and greet right now, which is just perfect. “Come with me, chat~” Chenle singsongs as he waves goodbye to Donghyuck and Renjun. He’ll text them in a bit to find them again, but right now, there's a certain mid laner he has to look for.
He navigates through the arena, greeting fans and dodging friends. Nongshim’s meet and greet event is being held on the other side of the area that Chenle is in and, boy, if this area is big. There’s a lot of people and Chenle gets carried along with the crowd, praying that wherever the people around him are going to the same place he needs to be as well.
Luckily, he spots the meet and greet table— it’s hard to miss with the big red and black banner that’s hung up around them. Chenle fights the tide and makes his way closer to the table, still talking to his stream chat whilst trying to get Jisung’s attention.
Jisung spots him from a mile away and waves him over, greeting him from the section that’s closed off via stanchions.
“I like your jacket,” Jisung comments once Chenle is close enough. He waves hello to the camera.
That’s right, Chenle is wearing a Nongshim jacket to support his favourite team. He lets Jisung hold the camera and he does a little twirl for his fans, showing off the name that’s branded on the back of the jacket; Bogos.
(“I’ve always been curious,” Chenle asks that night after Worlds, when they’re having Haidilao. “Why is your ID Bogos? What does it mean?”
Jisung drops a piece of meat into the broth and it splashes up onto his white shirt. Chenle watches with a frown as Jisung wipes at it, staining it even more.
Jisung doesn’t reply, all he says is; “Hey, just wondering if you got your photos printed?”
“What?”
“Bogos binted?”
“Huh?”)
Jisung looks at him with a fond look on his face. “I like it.”
“You have to like it! I wore it for you!” Chenle exclaims, lightly punching Jisung’s shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his chat spamming question marks, “gay??” and “chenji real!”. It isn’t really a hidden secret that he and Jisung are probably more than friends with how often they’ve been spotted hanging around each other during in-person events, alongside their frequent stream collabs. There’s been speculation but they’ve never confirmed or denied anything, deciding that it’s more fun for their viewers to play detective and figure out if it’s just an elaborate act or if they're really dating. But Jisung had recently asked if they could go public with their relationship, and— well, who is Chenle to say no?
One of the staff members calls for Jisung to return to his post so Jisung turns to Chenle in a rushed manner. “I’ll talk to you after I’m done with this, okay? Wait here for me.”
And wait will Chenle do if it’s for Jisung. But right before Jisung leaves, Chenle pulls him in by the jersey and kisses him. A soft, sweet and short kiss for the ride and when Chenle pulls away, Jisung looks dazed, cheeks already reddening.
Jisung gets dragged away by said staff member and Chenle smiles cheekily as he waves goodbye, before turning back to his camera. The chat on the side is moving at an inhuman speed and Chenle’s smile only grows at the sight of it. “Oh yeah! That’s a thing now too!”
[gumadoongie]: WHAT
[imissyouzeus]: how tf did chenle bag jisung holy
[gumadoongie]: my loser streamer isn’t bitchless anymore… wipes tear