Description: Seongung watches, and waits patiently for the right opportunity. Too bad Coach Jung-gyun won't let his players be lazy.
A/N: SEND HELP. I AM ELEVEN AND THESE BOYS BREAK ME. WHEN BENGI LEFT IT LEFT A HOLE IN MY TINY HEART.
Seongung is patient. He stacks damage slowly, waits for his opportunities to shine and be recognized. If not, he just lets Faker glow and gleam. The afterwards, Sanghyeok comes backstage and just sighs, apologizing about the scripted sayings. But Seongung and the rest of the team just laugh it off, Sanghyeok eventually joining in. They've all done it before.
1.
Sanghyeok is the only sight the casters see. But Seongung knows that it's not exactly the boy they're seeing. It's Faker, not Sanghyeok, who is making the plays. And it's Faker, not Sanghyeok who smiles at the end of matches at him, who hugs him after tournaments. And yet it's so painfully obvious that Sanghyeok is the one behind the keyboard, it's Sanghyeok who landed spear after spear after spear on everyone. But even though Sanghyeok is the one being looked past, Seongung feels like it's 'bengi' who's being hidden from view. And yet, he feels joy as the boy grins at him- as Sanghyeok, not Faker. And at Seongung, not Bengi.
2.
Seongung isn't sure when Sanghyeok decided to give up. To stop even attempting to smile and laugh and grin at his teammates. What possessed him to stop smiling that amazing grin of his and become the stoic robot he was today. But he made it his solemn vow that as long as Bengi was around, Faker would smile at least for the games. That's when he decided to make his game revolve around the mid lane. Around Faker.
He wouldn't have it any other way. Nobody could mimic Faker's play style, or his smile.
5.
He reads about interviews in the the digital articles that pop out from the screen of his phone.
"Sorry, hyung." Sanghyeok always says. But honestly, Seongung doesn't mind much. Eveyone knew they could never have victory, any sort, without Sanghyeok.
He's begun to lose count of how many times has smiled at him, but it isn't good. Not even in the double digits. But it didn't matter, he would be by Sanghyeok's side for a lot longer.
"Everything's fine," he dismissed. And it really was, because Sanghyeok offered another little tilt of the head as well as that otherworldly smile.
11.
And they're on a stage again, spotlights dancing in the air like so many fireflies dashing in and out of view. Seongung catches Sanghyeok's eyes and is surprised at his quivering frame, shaking hands. But the second they're called up, all the breath
leaves Sanghyeok's body and he stops shivering. And the second 'in jungle, Bengi!' is cried out he begins to grin the tiniest smile he's ever made. But as Seongung steps up, it's like magic that he notices the little curve of his lips.
12.
"We've done it," Bengi whispers, but the grin blooming on his face is all Seongung. There identical smiles are on the face of Gwangjin, Jeonyeon, and Eonyeong. But the smile of Sanghyeok is on a whole other level.
He raises his hand to trace the grin, but he has to stop it.
"Seongung is smitten?" A voice inquires in a whisper, and Seongung jumps around. Eonyeong is standing right there, arms crossed in a haughty stance.
"Yes," Seongung breathes out, watching Sanghyeok rise out of the shell of Faker and accept a hug from Gwangjin. It's not what he expected himself to say, but the truth is there. "yes, I am."
13.
Sanghyeok nearly trains himself to death. Jeonyeon is the first to notice the boy sleeping on the chair, curled up in the red and black like a cat. He takes a picture and nearly falls over with silent laughter, but he let's the boy rest.
"Seongung, look-" Jeonyeon whispers from across the room. "-look at Sanghyeok." He complies, but isn't as excited as the support. Seongung glares at Jeonyeon, and he looks back, confused.
Seongung walks over to his own chair and drapes his jacket on the shivering boy.
The semblance of a smile ghosts over his face, and unlike other ones, this one stays for hours and doesn't move until Eonyeong sees the scene unfold and decides to add his own sweater to the mix. There it just widens.
16.
"We're ordering dinner," Eonyeong yells. "what do you want?" There are really, only two options that the team will ultimately choose.
"Chicken," they end up deciding, three voices flooding the hall. Eonyeong dials the number he knows by heart already, before pausing at the last digit.
"Sanghyeok, what do you want?" Silence. "Sanghyeok?"
"Majority," is the quiet whisper, barely reaching Eonyeong's ears. "chicken." Eonyeong grins in satisfaction, before clicking the 7 and making the call.
Sanghyeok lets a bit of a happy smirk glide across his face as his eyes brighten at the prospect of chicken for dinner. Seeing this, Seongung smiles a grin much wider, but hardly with the amount of pure joy Sanghyeok's carries. Seongung thinks there's nothing that can ever match Sanghyeok's.
18.
Seongung isn't sure how much Sanghyeok practices. But he does know that he is the one to turn off the lights, he's the one to push away sleep until a game is done. Sanghyeok is the one who waits until dawn arrives to go to his room and finally rest for a couple of hours.
Him and Gwangjin talk sometimes, when they're in the practice room. It's cramped and lazily crafted, chairs nearly atop each other. But SKT manages to squeeze in there for practice and scrims, so the tiny space doesn't matter when within the large Summoner's Rift.
Gwangjin likes to share stories with the boy. His tales usually included breathy falsettos of damsel-in-distress supports, and a heroic ADC fearlessly typing in /all to defend the fair maiden. Seongung knows that these tales are usually dramatized, but Sanghyeok appreciates the stories.
He likes Gwangjin because he does all the talking.
As long as Gwangjin makes him laugh.
21.
Never a day goes by without Sanghyeok saying absolutely nothing. The mid-laner was always made to talk sometime during practice or dinner, and even if the team didn't press him to talk he would always greet them- 'morning' at 4, 6, 3, am whenever they wake up. But sometimes, that's the only thing he says until 11, when regardless of whether they're heading to bed or not, where they're all met with 'goodnight, hyung' the second before they drift off.
Even if they travel the globe, Sanghyeok is there to be a constant force in SKT's life. Eonyeong and Seongung sometimes argue and yell, but there Sanghyeok is to brighten their days. Gwangjin hisses at Jeonyeon with so much venom, but Sanghyeok sits there with the antidote and hot cocoa.
His silence is a signal- 'go on, I won't stop you,' that each of SKT gladly takes at a moments notice. And the tiny interjections Sanghyeok occasionally makes aren't scolding, or judging. He lays his words with the utmost care and love, affection for his teammates shining through in each short sentence.
And every time he smiles to cleanse his teammates of their worries, of their fears, Seongung is glad that he's there even though he's still working through the venom in Eonyeong's voice. There was nothing he wouldn't endure to see that brilliant grin.
24.
When Sanghyeok cries, its like nothing he ever saw before. There's so much pain in his eyes, which are rippling with tears and his brown pupils are hardly visible. With each and every fallen drop, Seongung wonders why he's crying. The gears of his mind turn and turn until they just stop and focus on one thing- he holds Sanghyeok closer and lets him nestle close to him. He cries out his heart in Seongung's jacket until finally, amidst the tears and pain, he just whispers in such a pitiful voice- "I'm sorry, hyung," he whimpers into the red jacket, voice as quiet as it never should be- "I'm sorry."
And he whispers back, over and over until the boy falls asleep, "it's okay, everything is okay, it's okay," and Seongung wonders, through a haze of distress and concern, if the boy actually believes it.
But a tiny little smile holds steadfast on his face in sleep, and Seongung knows that even though they'll have a talk about it when he's ready, nothing else matters that the tiny curve of Sanghyeok's lips.
Even though he's not the one crying, Seongung's the one being soothed more than Sanghyeok.
32.
They don't think Seongung is good. The articles and the newsletters say as much. But Sanghyeok sends him a grin each time he casts his eyes down, and suddenly he's back, ready to lock in Jarvan, stun the entire audience. Because with each flash of pearly-white teeth, and the tiny curves that become Sanghyeok's eyes, Seongung knows that he will fight on. He will make the audience cheer for SKT.
And make Sanghyeok smile along with Faker.
38.
Each time they enter the stage, each time they put on their headphones to drown out the noise and relay commands to each other, each time they push themselves to do the best they can, Seongung wants to cry. At heart, he was always bad under stress. But then Sanghyeok came into SKT and gave Seongung something to focus on- something to count day by day by day. Something to fight for.
Seongung slowly counts the amount of times Sanghyeok smiles, no matter how light the curve of lips. And he makes sure it's a real smile, his eyes roaming around his face before resting on the boy's eyes, the darling brown retinas he's come to known as Sanghyeok's, then stares.
He hopes it doesn't come off as creepy.
That's long enough to pinpoint and check if it's a real smile. It's honestly easy to tell, his eyes glimmer just enough to give it away.
But this time, as they stand upon the World stage and Sanghyeok is back in the confident mask of Faker, Seongung knows that it's a real grin.
42.
Seongung cries too, sometimes. But it's not for himself mostly. When he breaks down, he goes to get the comfort of anyone but Sanghyeok. The reason he cries is for Sanghyeok, the boy who had to make a conscious effort to smile, to grin, to enjoy his career.
Eonyeong just gives him a pat on the back and lets him cry into his shoulder. He sits him down afterward and let's him talk about it if he wants. At the end, it always ends up with Eonyeong giving Seongung a tiny smile and whispering- "You are so in love," and gives him a tight hug. Seongung always responds in a muffled tone- "but aren't you worried too?" Here Eonyeong bites his lip and looks down. "Yeah, I am. Poor kid."
When Seongung seeks out Gwangjin, the ADC is always ready. He hasn't begun a new game and his computer is never on. Jeonyeon is almost always by his side, with a blanket and hot-cocoa. The two give Seongung a 'it's alright', look, and suddenly he's sobbing, eyes overflowing with worry of the boy and he just breaks down in front of them. Gwangjin gives him a hug and assures him that Sanghyeok will be okay, that they'll do everything to help him. Then he's in Jeonyeon's embrace, and the support wears a mixture of concern and cockiness on his face- "ah, Seongung likes Sanghyeok!" but he lets Seongung cry his eyes out in front of him, gently 'shh'ing him and letting him sob. Afterwards, Seongung sits down in front of the bot duo and they give him cocoa, give him blankets. He's stopped crying by then, but Sanghyeok is still worrying him so badly.
Sanghyeok is the one person whom he never goes to. It would just be awkward. But in the end, he managed to find him anyway. Seongung ends up sitting down in front of Sanghyeok after his tears are all spent and tracks wiped off his face, blubbering about how he just was worried, how he was scared for him. And Sanghyeok waits for him to be done with a patient look, as inviting as the day was long. And when Seongung is done, Sanghyeok gives him a light smile and promises, "I promise I'll share more emotion. For you, hyung."
43.
Sanghyeok likes to run. Nobody else in SKT was very fond of exercise, no matter how much Jung-gyung takes them out to the park for a few hours of exercise every week. But Sanghyeok always loved to run, jump-rope. He went outside every non-practice hour and just ran around the block.
Seongung went on his phone during that time, ate a snack, chatted with his teammates. But Sanghyeok chatted for an hour, then went outside and ran. Seongung watches him as he retreats out the door, red jacket flying as he breaks into a run.
Seongung decides he would join him for his next run- and he does. He pulls on his tennis shoes- ow, he hasn't worn these in a long time- and slips out the door with Sanghyeok, who offers him a tiny smile and allows Seongung to run past him, but he doesn't, keeping in stride with the mid-laner.
"Isn't it fun?" Sanghyeok asked quietly, but not timidly, after they went back inside. Seongung grins and he decides to join him for each run after that.
44.
After Eonyeong leaves, it's like the floodgates opened. Players flood the house and make Seongung dizzy, Sanghyeok shy. And throughout all of it, Jeonyeon is showing everyone every part of the house, every aspect of the PC's, Gwangjin is greeting them with a handshake at the door but retreats to his phone afterwards, Seongung is trying his best to adapt, and Sanghyeok is missing dinners.
Sanghyeok knows that with this single person gone, SKT K will eventually fade. His life told him so- one loss becomes many and ripples until the force falls off the world. The Butterfly Effect is not a favorite of his, but it's one he knows all too well. He can tell in the way Gwangjin meets the eyes of Jeonyeon at lunches that they're planning to go, and all he can do it hope that Seongung stays.
His thoughts are in a haze, but Seongung's are crystal-clear. Throughout all of the ruckus, he's scouting out Sanghyeok. Amidst suitcases and rolling backpacks, he catches the glassy eyes of Sanghyeok. And he locks onto them, follows them with a steady gaze that assures the mid-laner that he's not leaving.
And thankfully, his gaze is still locked onto his face when Seongung catches the tears in Sanghyeok's eyes but the light, tiny smile on his lips.
49.
Sanghyeok has an awfully strict glare. It's hard and steel is pressed into every inch of it, making sure to chastise you for everything you've ever done. It's usually directed at inanimate objects, though, so mainly it's harmless to SKT.
But when it isn't, when it's fixed on one of them, it's absolutely scathing. It horrifies Seongung how much raw emotion is packed into the seconds Sanghyeok's eyes are narrowed and pulsing with pure irritation.
And yet, Seongung is relieved when he sets his scrutinizing glare on someone. He's finally letting out emotion, so unlike the stoic Faker the world was used to seeing. Sanghyeok hardly let out his emotions except for in certain situations, and seeing everything packed into that glare at least made Seongung a little less worried and a lot more happy for the boy.
Even better when the team answered his look with victory, and Sanghyeok's eyes and face filled with a bright smile.
53.
The house flooding with people is only an omen to come of them all going. Gwangjin goes to Curse, and his support Jeonyeon follows him only out of the house. But they're replaced by new people- Bae Junisk takes Gwangjin's place as ADC and Jeonhyeon comes with him as a bot duo. They're great and seem to fit in with the team, but they're not their bot lane, not Mandu who turned into PoohMandu and Piglet the cocky kid who practiced 14 hours a day and took care of Sanghyeok when Seongung didn't. And Seongung knows it, knows that their team is gone and probably dead, but he won't share his thoughts with Sanghyeok. The boy locks himself up in the gaming room like he did with Eonyeong, practicing throughout the day like an ode to Gwangjin.
He plays Caitlyn mid throughout that day and when she's banned he resorts to Fiddlesticks. In the rare case he's banned, when shivering Seongung checks Sanghyeok's match history, he finds he plays Jayce.
If he'd played a game of Nidalee and Jarvan IV, it would make all the champions in Sanghyeok's debut game.
Seongung sits by the locked practice door all night and still hears the clicking of keys until he falls asleep by the door.
When he wakes up he enters the room to find that Sanghyeok is just crying now.
Slowly but steadily he coaxes his mid-laner out of the room, the young boy still crying his heart out as he got to their shared room across the street. Seongung sets him down on the bed and he wails, crying and yelling and screaming.
"Hyung..." Sanghyeok whispers, voice clotted with pain. "why did they go?" At this Seongung pulls the boy close and lets a few tears of his own escape into the boy's messy hair.
"I don't know." He admits and they're both crying- Sanghyeok's breath comes out in short bursts mottled with pain and tears and raw emotion, like a fleeting spirit. Seongung's tears are scarcer, but they were shed the day before, when Gwangjin brought them into the same practice room and announced he was going.
"I don't know, hyung." Sanghyeok says after a while, when their tears are all spent and they're just shivering with dry sobs, when they're holding each other both to a point where Seongung's hands are pink, when they're just waiting for the moment to strike again and send them into hysterics.
"I don't know."
And even though the few words send them crying again, until Coach Jung-Gyun walks into the room and without a pause closes the door with a sad look, they both smile for a second in some odd, grief-filled way.
54.
Coach won't talk about the crying, but he catches their eyes at the irregular dinner and sends them a clear look- 'are you two alright?'
They nod, but they're slow and careful. Sanghyeok's hand is shaky as it reaches for the rice, and Seongung is tearing up his lips with careless teeth more so than his dinner.
The two bot laners know what's going on. They know it's because of them. The four of them lock unto each other's eyes and the bot duo knit together their eyebrows and ask for forgiveness.
Seongung gives them a half-hearted smile and looks back to his food, but Sanghyeok gives them a quick glance and grins for a moment before facing his plate.
Seongung sees it out of the corner of his eye and catches it in the way only he knows how.
55.
When Sanghyeok gets angry, something breaks inside of him. He's like water, swift and quick, gurgling down well-worn paths or flooding new ones. Breaking through dams with a little bit of time and effort, collapsing into river beds and ponds and pools. He ends up drowning little by little until suddenly SKT catches on and pulls him out.
When Sanghyeok gets angry, not only does something shatter inside of him, every obstacle in his path is torn away, their prestige and their life swept and away in a torrent of water and slicing currents, slashing and drowning and sinking dams, bridges, thought-immovable trees, long-standing buildings. He lets go of all the things that kept him contained within barriers, breaking and shattering them with the sheer force of his power.
Being swept away in Sanghyeok is not a pleasant experience. The people and obstacles tossed into his waves and currents put all their might to swim to the top, but he tosses them down without a second thought. He is a force that cannot be reckoned with when the barriers are broken, and when he's broken.
Seongung has to deal with the aftermath of pouring everything you are into one thing, and then purposefully shattering that one thing. Sanghyeok feels the rush of indescribable terror, like a bat swooping down in his chest a shadow falls over his heart and his hands finally get shaky. When he's right next to the enemy Nexus and ready to land that last auto-attack, he lets his cursor do the final thing for him. He drags himself away from the computer and gets up, waiting for Seongung to do the same. And Seongung knows that amidst the hugging and confetti and celebration, Sanghyeok is finally tired of his rampage. Tired of putting everything he had into being a wreaking tsunami that blotted out the sun and casting everything beneath into darkness.
Seongung gives him the tightest hug he's ever given and whispers into his ear- "but you're my sun," and Sanghyeok smiles a broken, pained smile that was all too real.
"and you're my wind," Sanghyeok replies, and later Seongung wonders about how that works.
Wind blew the clouds away from the sun, unveiled it. But it also worked in duo with the ocean beneath the sun, pushing and pulling and telling it little things to keep it going, whispering through the riverbanks and making the stream laugh. He takes the still ocean into his hands, shivering along the shimmering sea and pulling it into tiny movements that turn into riptides and currents and raging tidal waves.
Well, if Sanghyeok was the water, he would gladly speed along the surface.
60.
Seongung didn't like the media. Before, when he was new to SKT and was young, full of life and vigor, he craved for the attention from each camera, from every interviewer.
But now, he absolutely hated the flashing of cameras, the electronic articles that popped up in his browser all the time. And everything one Sanghyeok got pulled aside for an interview he clenched his fist. Sanghyeok would laugh and grin for the camera, but any person who'd spend more time with him than a few minutes in the interview room could tell that it was fake.
Seongung hated his own interviews, too. The people smiled and laughed and shone their cameras in his face. And they asked questions all about Faker. About how he played, about his own obvious affection for the mid-laner. And they write it down. They scribble with maniacal pace on notepads, and Seongung recognizes that they're drawing little hearts to when Seongung mentions Sanghyeok even in the slightest.
He guesses that makes them okay, because when Sanghyeok sees it too, he's smiling throughout the day.
68.
Seongung knows that Sanghyeok adores being in the spotlight. He basks in the stage lights and when he kisses the trophy they got for that tournament he's smiling for the cameras almost much as for his teammates. But he's always grinning so widely at his team when they win, always beaming straight into their hearts when they lift the gold or silver trophies. Often both.
And they're unbeatable. Sanghyeok smiles with such a brightness that fans are dazzled and SKT themselves are elated. He's so quiet and stoic most of the time that when he smiles, it's like all of his emotions come bursting out in a great blast. But his hatred and fear and anger are stifled by pure yet not unadulterated joy.
Seongung cries and laughs after they win. Sanghyeok grins and is pulled into so many hugs, first from Junisk, who gets to him first, then he's delivered into the arms of Jaewan. Seongung snatches him away and pulls him close, grinning and laughing and wiping his tears all while hugging his mid-laner.
Sanghyeok does the exact same, and Seongung cries even harder then.
71.
When SKT lifts the cup, new team carrying a new dream, everything of that year before the autumn floods back into Seongung's mind. Eonyeong. Gwangjin. And it hurts. It hurts so much. Seongung lost his top laner. He lost his bot laners. And he practically lost his team.
And yet, he didn't. There was still one last person left, smiling and whooping and laughing and cheering all at once in one brilliant grin.
He may have lost his two side lanes, but others often said mid lane was the most vital role.
78.
SKT hurt to be in. People left from the gaming team and Coach replaced them with a second thought to the ones left- the ones who knew the replaced gamer.
But the ones who had their heart set on staying planted their feet in the ground, held onto each other like a lifeline, curl around them and pray they won't be blown away. They take their heart and soul and pour it all into their monitor, leaving nothing but their body in the physical world, which works mechanically to press keys. But they have their feet firmly planted in the Summoner's Rift.
It hurt to be in. And Seongung knew that better than almost anyone. Sanghyeok and him had gone through the exact same things- they joined at the same time and had close connections with the same players.
(They tried to ignore the fact that everyone they met would be inevitably torn away.)
But they took heart in the fact that they'd always be there for each other. They looked each other in the eyes and they gave each other little smiles, little things of beauty and valor and hope.
Seongung knows that he would pour everything he was into the game as long as Sanghyeok was still at his side.
81.
Seongung notices everything leaves marks. Fisting your hand leaves dents in your palm, from your fingernails. Biting your lip long enough leaves an indent. And people leaving you leaves scars everywhere.
Sanghyeok hides those scars with the red jacket he refuses to take off. It's much too big, he's much too skinny and yet he wears it. He knows Eonyeong is probably never going to put his back on. He knows Gwangjin and Jeonyeon won't ever sit side by side again with Sanghyeok by their side, Seongung next to him and Eonyeong right there. All in their red jackets that they may not have had anymore.
Sanghyeok hides the scars with memorabilia. And when he notices Seongung taking his out from the wash and putting the still-damp jacket on, he smiles at him and the scars begin to fade bit by bit.
86.
Some people say Sanghyeok doesn't have a personality. That he likes water, and white paint. Yes, it was true he liked the two, but he didn't just drink water and watch paint dry all day. Some aspects of your personality was decided by your in-game decisions, tough most of Sanghyeok's personality was drawn from the game instead of a few.
When in game, Sanghyeok played aggressive. Whenever Seongung enabled him to lash and tear and roar out at the enemy, he took that chance and took it to an extreme. He harassed them. He competed for every single CS and forced them out of the lane with spears and shockwaves and without burning a single summoner spell.
Seongung enabled him to win, and when they won, the mid lane celebrated. They both celebrated, and the new teammates grinned at each other from across the room. Casting knowing glances at each other, then tossing them toward the two players, who won and smiled, oblivious to the rest of the stares.
95.
If Sanghyeok was the row of spears bristling from behind shields, Seongung supposed he was the one with the flag, darting between the ranks that brandished their weaponry. He raised the morale and displayed that they were not ready to back down, now or ever.
But he was also the blacksmith who forged the spear tips, welded them to the pole with care and love. The one who was sent the broken weapons back to be repaired and issued even more comfort and love. Seongung watched his formally broken weapons be sent back to war with a soft smile, pleased with their incredible endurance in the face of such a threat. They always come back broken eventually, and Seongung doesn't even need to see them to know what broke them.
But when he sends them off again, inevitably, he watches as they win the war. And he watches as they come back to him, some broken and some perfect still. But they always thank him in the strange way that only they could.
Then Seongung looks up and realizes Sanghyeok is standing in front of him, hands clasped and eyes pleading.
"Please stay," he whispers, and Seongung holds him tightly- tight enough that he can feel his own breath being cut off, and he can feel the sharp edge of a spear softening for him, and then he sees Sanghyeok with a tiny ghost of a smile pressed on his face.
"I will." He isn't sure, but this might be the hundredth time.
100.
Sanghyeok's smiles weren't easy to count, but he did his best.
When Sanghyeok looked at the list for the first time, he caught that one too.
101.