Since he was first able to read and understand the English language, Im Yong Soo knew that he was destined to be a gamer, or at least to date one. When the first words your soulmate will say to you are tattooed onto your body just after birth it can sometimes give you a small idea of what your future held in store. This was exactly the case for Im Yong.
Running around in a circle on his upper arm was: "And that, loser, is how the fucking Lava Cookie crumb… what are you looking at?" in a spidery, hard to read but elegant calligraphy.
He obviously didn't know what this meant when he was a little baby born in Seoul, Korea, not understanding a lick of English but after moving to America when he was four and eventually understanding it he got it, nearly.
He had no idea what a Lava cookie was until he got his hands on his brother's copy of Pokémon Ruby when he was five and discovered that it was a game item.
When he found out he ran up to his eldest brother, Gameboy advance in hand, waving it about and yelling. "ANIKI! ANIKI! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!" As his brother took the game and looked at it he chuckled, shaking his head.
"How sweet, aru. Your soul mate uses a reference and profanity to rub victory in your face upon your first meeting…" Yao had stopped mid-sentence to think. It had always been a bit of a mystery as to how these would be the first words Im Yong's soulmate would say to him, it made no sense how the first conversation would start like that.
Thanks to his brother, he had grown up surrounded by these references. He'd been playing video games since his brother had first asked him if he wanted to play 'Smash Bros. Melee' for the Gamecube with him and it just stuck. He played them so much that he rose to incredible levels of knowledge and skill and after picking up Warcraft III when he was eight his friends convinced him to join a team and take part in Blizzcon 2009.
Obviously it was difficult to find a team, as an eleven year-old, but when he did his team won. He got a load of news coverage considering his age and his career took off from there. His family wouldn't let him drop from school, annoyingly, but his team kept it up. By the time he was seventeen he was basically funding his crazy large family, and this is when this story takes place.
They had to change games after Warcraft tournaments stopped and eventually he convinced them to take up smash bros (it was what started his whole gaming experience after all) and they were due to take part in the next Super Smash Bros. tournament, February 2016. After winning various Smash competitions in the past they had a bit of weight on their shoulders.
His siblings had noticed the huge stress and the way that he suddenly snapped at them whenever they tried to say anything to him. That was how he had ended up racing around the house one morning screaming in panic. "What the fucking hell happened to my fucking game consoles, headset and pc!? I can't practise! I can't practise! I CAN'T FUCKING PRACTISE! MEI, WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU PUT THEM!" He yelled at his little sister as he met her in the kitchen.
"Not in here," she replied, laughing at her brother's obscene behaviour. "And stop swearing, it's unbecoming. It's not like they're in any danger, I'd hate to see your 'babies' suffer Imba." Im Yong cringed at the bad nickname she had adopted back as a child.
"What did you do with them?!" he yelled at her, desperately.
"Yao put them somewhere, we all agreed that you needed a break from practice. Look at yourself," she gestured at him. "You're breaking down and the school is getting mad that you haven't been doing your homework. Apparently you didn't even turn up on Tuesday!"
Im Yong chuckled. "Well duh, I hate Tuesdays. Why go in when I could practise with the guys."
"That's not the point! It's taking over your life!"
"But we nailed a new technique!"
"And? The school doesn't care."
"Screw the school."
"Yao doesn't care either." That shut him up, he cared about his eldest brother more than anything else, even his gaming career. Most people were surprised that they weren't soulmates as Im Yong certainly treated him like one. "He's disappointed more than anything. You've being paying so little attention to anything you don't even know that he found his soulmate last month and that he's bringing them over from Europe to visit today."
He stuttered, confused and incredulous. "Y-you're joking… right?"
"No I'm not, they'll be here in, like, two hours," she said looking at her phone for time reference. "And we've got to clean up and remove your grunge."
Furrowing his brow he nodded. "Then let's do just that."
Two hours later the large, run down house was presentable and lunch was cooking in the kitchen waiting to be eaten. Since they had started, the whole family had shown up making nine siblings and a guest in their living room. Needless to say that, like usual, half of them had to sit on the floor due to the sheer number.
Yao's soulmate turned out to be a very tall Russian man by the name of Ivan Braginski. He was rather creepy and terrifying but if Yao loved him he was part of the family by default. He seemed friendly at least and was making himself at home, everyone was contentedly talking to him and he seemed just as comfortable to engage in the conversation.
"You are being Im Yong, da?" he had asked, gaining the other's attention with his sketchy English.
"Oh, yeah, that's me."
He smiled and cocked his head. "Yao has telling me that you are professional video gamer."
Im Yong widened his eyes and nodded. "That I am."
"And that you are specialising in the game Super Smash brothers, correct." He nodded, not too sure about where Ivan was going with this string of questions. "Da, I thought so. And I am also assuming you will be in the next competition in winter?"
"Uh yeah… why?"
"Well, you see. My little sister is partaking too. She's very good, although in my opinion she is spending far too long doing the practice." The whole room then started laughing.
Yao was probably laughing hardest though. "Oh, you think Natalya practises too much, at least she has a social life."
Natalya Braginski. Im Yong had never heard of the name before and he knew just about all of the other gamers in the league. At least those who had talent. She didn't even appear to be listed as a competitor. Despite this, he decided against learning her face or any information about her he could. He knew that she was female and that she would one day be his sister in law; that was all he needed to know frankly.
There was actually a better reason for this though, even if he would never admit it. If she turned out to be nice, pity worthy or just pretty his subconscious bias would kick in, most likely making him want to intentionally lose if he happened to play her.
And yes, he was one of those guys who were exceptionally nice to girl gamers, but only because of his upbringing, females and elders deserved upmost respect in his books… provided they deserved it.
-=={0}==-
After that he went back to practising with his team (Yao had given his equipment to Kiku, one of his older brothers), getting better and better until February was upon them and he was at the stadium. So far he had gone through a lot of a lot of interviews and questions from gaming magazines, asking about upholding his title as reigning champion and his reasoning behind changing games every competition when it lowers his chances.
"Isn't it obvious, it's because I can. I love the smash games and it lets me know that I'm good at them. Legitimately good at them."
Ever since he started back when he was eleven he seemed to be at ease in front of a camera and always knew what to say in order to win over audiences. Being so young and apparently good looking, though he always knew that, he was popular amongst the gaming community.
"So have you heard about the new rookie? She's supposed to be good," a reporter from Nintendo power asked him, shoving a microphone in his face as an assistant took notes.
He looked at them for a second, trying think if he did. He then gasped and laughed. "Oh, you mean Natalya."
"Who?" they replied, confused.
He realised that she probably went by an alias. "I don't know her gamer name, I don't know much about her at all actually, is she really that good?"
"Apparently so, but it's surprising that you wouldn't research the opposition. Why is that?"
"Oh, to make it a fairer game, duh. If know diddly squat about them then there's no judgement on their person."
That seemed to be a good answer as the spectators around them gave good reception and a couple of fan girls started shouting weird things.
-=={0}==-
The competition went on for two days and, as expected, Im Yong and his teammates made it through the ranks quickly until there were only two competitors left, Im Yong and Natalya. The whole time he had managed to completely avoid her and was genuinely surprised that she had beat all of the incredible, dedicated gamers he already knew to get to the final. It didn't necessarily matter who won, they both came out on top but the stakes were still high.
The event's hosts had enjoyed the idea of keeping the two from meeting until after the match, liking the attention it gathered and therefore, as they set up for the final match there was a large divider between the two.
Im Yong was obviously acting as cool and boyish as ever but inside the nerves were eating away at him. The only one who noticed was Kiku, who went with him to every competition he had ever been in.
"Why are you so nervous?" he asked, approaching his younger brother as he prepared for the match.
"Nervous? Who's nervous? I'm not nervous, I'm fine. Just… peachy…" he spat the last word, letting his nerves get the best of him.
Kiku sighed and rested his hand on Im Yong's shoulder. "You'll be fine, you're the best and have been since you were seven and you first beat me at melee." He looked into his brother's eyes, still seeing that he was stressed. "Look, just finish this up and we'll get some Kimchi, okay."
"YEAH!" Im Yong yelled happily, the prospect of Kimchi, his favourite food in the whole world and was unhealthily important to him, riling him up. "KIMCHI!"
Shaking his head, Kiku sighed. "Of course that's all it takes. Now, you smash this bitch into the ground, okay?"
"Yeah, thanks dude!"
-=={0}==-
Six hours later the match had started and was still going on. The two competitors appeared to be so evenly matched that it was basically a stalemate and it took over two hours for either of them to take the other's first life. To his glee, it was Im Yong who was in the lead.
The tension was unbelievably high and if there hadn't been such an intense atmosphere the match would have been incredibly boring. For a lot of people it was, watching a little 'zero suit Samus' (Im Yong) and Link (Natalya) fight for hours on end was just dull for some.
However the moment of victory was by complete bad luck on the others part. First it was like a tickle that was easily ignored but then it got more annoying and it was suddenly a full blown sneeze.
Those precious three seconds were the breaking point as when they sneezed the other hit them off of the platform and it was too late to be able to save themselves and the match was over.
And Im Yong had lost.
The people on the other side of the divider were screaming and shouting in victory while Im Yong stared at the screen emotionlessly.
"Well shit…"
"OMFG! Immy are you okay!?" one of Im Yong's teammates asked as all nine of them gathered around. "You lost, what the hell?!"
"Meh." They all gasped, surprised that he didn't take his first loss worse. "So what, I lost. I still get Kimchi, don't I Kiku."
Kiku nodded, smiling and shaking his head. "Yes, we'll get some Kimchi after the prize giving. We'll use your prize money."
The team was getting excited over the plans for a long awaited dinner when the divider was finally removed and all cameras were pointed on the two team captains as they turned to look at each other.
As Im Yong laid eyes on her he was instantly entranced. He could only think about one thing, how perfect she was.
She really was a beautiful girl, refined and feminine in stature. Her hair was dead straight and platinum blonde, held out of her face by a white ribbon tied in a bow on top of her head like a Disney princess. She also had pretty, deep blue eyes which flared up as she jeered, with a very heavy and alluring Russian accent like her brother's, in Im Yong's face. And as she did so, he could only stare.
She laughed victoriously, thinking that the gobsmacked look was due to his loss. "And that, loser, is how the fucking lava cookie crumb… what are you looking at?" she said the last bit when she realised that he was staring at her with an idiotic, spacey lopsided grin.
"You're gorgeous…" he whispered under his breath, not even taking into account what she had just said, instead lost in thought. Kiku, however, had and was losing his shit.
"Imogen, are you deaf!" he exclaimed, shaking his brother's shoulders back and forth.
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" he protested, pushing Kiku off of him. "And what are you talking about?"
All Kiku did was gesture at Natalya, who was blushing furiously and had her arms crossed, looking at the floor intensely, almost willing it to spontaneously combust, basically giving away that she had realised it too. That was when Im Yong finally registered what she had said and stood up very suddenly.
"She's… her… I'm… we're… No way!" He looked between his brother and Natalya frantically, finally settling on her before running up and grabbing her shoulders. "You… you're… holy hell, Igŏsŭn koeng khanghada, narŭl Sarang!" he spurted out in his first language, hugging her tightly.
Natalya struggled against him. "What are you doing? Get off of me!" Sheepishly he stepped back and smiled brightly.
"I'm hugging my soulmate! What does it look like?"
"HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT!" she yelled defensively.
"Well you see…" he began while pushing up the sleeve of his t-shirt. "With first words like these it's rather difficult for them to be a fluke or coincidence."
She blushed harder, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "But… no…"
"Am I really that bad?" he asked, slightly depressed. "I'm fun, I promise. And you're awesome, no one's ever beaten me and trust me you won't ever again, but it's all cool, right?"
Natalya looked at him, his desperation blatantly obvious, especially from his nonsense reasoning, and sighed. She rose her hand to his cheek and stroked it with her thumb. "That's not it… i-it's complicated."
By this point they had garnered a lot of camera attention, the surprise drama proving to be popular amongst audiences. An audience had also gathered of staff and live spectators who were hooked on the scene.
They hung there for a while just looking at each other. The studio deadly silent. That was when Kiku started to chant "kiss, kiss, kiss," quietly under his breath, encouraging others to join in.
Eventually the two gave in and Im Yong pushed his lips onto hers, wrapping his arms around her waist as she snaked hers around his neck. The audience burst into applause, cheering in excitement and adoration.
When they pulled apart, Im Yong was beaming and looking at his soulmate expectantly. The corners of her mouth were tilted up ever so slightly in a very small, but extremely cute smile and all Im Yong could think about was how lucky he really was.
-=={0}==-
I hope you liked this! I never thought I'd ever write KoreBel but here it is and I like it. I love gaming and I hope this sort of shows that. I'd like to say now that, yes, I did change a lot of the rules for the Apex Smash Bros. event to fit to the story and I had to change Belarus' surname to make it into a plausible sibling relationship in a human AU. I really hope that you can forgive me. Also, if you were thinking, 'how can someone be in the lead in smash bros. when they're on the same life?' I was referring to the percentage and that Korea had a smaller percentage, and if you had no idea what I was talking about there go and play a smash bros. game and lose a couple of friends. BTW they were playing Smash Bros. WiiU for competition. Remember to review and if you like my writing feel free to make requests, I'm bad at coming up with ideas!