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Seokmin doesn’t want to brag, but he’s a pretty decent Pharah 1 in Overwatch. He likes to occasionally look up his career profile and see where he’s ranked as (“I’m in the top 500.” Seokmin says to someone in his lab who’s obviously not paying attention, but he just wanted to say it), and bask in the glory. And when he’s paired up with Seungkwan, the ace support as Mercy 2 , he’s virtually indestructible in every competitive match they play.
He’s always had a dream of becoming a professional player, and he never would have thought it would come true until Jeonghan, the D.Va 3 main, or tank god as they call him, decided to bring this up during lunch with the rest of their friends. To say the least, Seokmin is excited, very excited. They already submitted the paperwork to join, and they’re only waiting for the response.
Today marks a month of waiting for them to reply, but Seokmin is too busy to worry about it. He’s staring at the screen of his laptop, watching the clock tick down for the match to start. Everyone is busy talking in the group’s voice chat, and Seokmin can hear Hansol yawn into the mic. The team they’re against seems to be at the same level as them, and Seokmin recognizes one of the players as Soonyoung, his classmate from linear algebra.
“Hiya!” Soonyoung had typed into the match’s chat, and before Seokmin could react, the doors opened and Jeonghan called for the team started running to the control point. It’s supposed to be a normal Thursday night for Seokmin, avoiding homework and shooting rockets at people in order to win the game. The match runs fairly smoothly, with Seokmin’s team capturing the point first, until he hears the sound of Mercy dying.
“Fuck, someone kill the Genji 4 .” Seungkwan mutters in the voice chat.
“He keeps dashing away, where is he?” Hansol says from the other side of the point, scoping in on the map, clearly hoping to catch the man in the act.
“I don’t know! Just get them!”
Seokmin’s main advantage and strength he has being a Pharah main is that he’s always high above the ground, creating a clear bird’s eyes view of the whole map. It usually works. Usually.
Today is not one of them.
Seokmin doesn't like to admit that he gets gamer rage (or “tilted”, whenever Mingyu catches him in one of those moods), but this fucking Genji played by someone called “shadowdragon” is really getting on his damn nerves today. He grabs his hair in frustration as he sees the kill feed and waits to respawn- did this Genji really just spray paint over his dead body 5 ?
“Why isn't anyone healing?” Jeonghan yells into the mic, and Seokmin sees that his whole team is absolutely getting destroyed.
He can also hear Seungkwan start to make the gargled whining noises he usually does whenever he starts getting stressed. The duo of Soonyoung healing and whoever that Genji is has been constantly targeting them throughout the whole match, making their own team vulnerable.
If his family wasn't asleep, Seokmin would be shouting into the chat too, so he opts to furiously type into the chat.
Dokyeom (Seokmin Lee): HE CAN’T HEAL CAUSE NONE OF YOU WILL KILL THAT ANNOYING ASS GENJI”
Nothing could prepare him for what happens next. Seokmin’s face drains of color when he realizes he sent it into the general chat, and instead of only his team reading his message, every player in the match can read it. Even the Genji.
He’s going to throw himself off the ledge, and he hears everyone laughing at how Genji seems to have stopped moving to read it too.
shadowdragon: lol
“Oh god.” Seokmin mutters to himself as he tries to fly as high as he can before the Genji can come full speed at him. It doesn't work, and for the next 3 minutes, the match’s kill cam is all of Pharah dying due to Genji’s blade along with him teabagging her corpse.
“You’re dead this match.” Jeonghan deadpans, to which Jisoo snorts.
“Shut up.” He types (into the correct chat this time). Seokmin finally punches the Genji in the face, delivering the final blow that stops him.
shadowdragon: sick kill lmao
Fuck this dude.
It's not surprising that the whole team loses by a landslide, and Seokmin sits restlessly as he watches the play of the game get taken by that same stupid ass shadowdragon. Seokmin could’ve probably slept this anger off if it wasn't egged on by the other team.
shadowdragon : I think I set the new record on how many times I teabagged someone in a 15 minute match
Hoshi (Soonyoung Kwon): LLLLLOOOOOOLLLLLLL
He hates this team. He hates this whole goddamn team.
He goes off to lecture the next morning with bedhair and a frown on his face after listening to 20 minutes worth of nagging from Jeonghan before class.
“You need to stop panicking when we’re losing, you always do something that costs you your life in the match. Also work on your blind spots, that's the reason why the Genji kept on getting you yesterday.” Still rings in his mind, and he tries to pretend he isn't pissed when Soonyoung sits down next to him.
“Some game that was last night, huh? Wonwoo wrecked you.” Soonyoung grins and pats him on the back.
“Wonwoo? Was he that Genji?” Seokmin asks.
“Yeah, best Genji we have on our team. If you remembered to press tab to switch the chats, I think we wouldn't have won that match so quickly.”
“Shut up. Your friend wouldn't stop being on my ass the whole entire game, how would you like it if someone teabagged your dead body?”
“It’s kinda funny.”
“You’re sick.”
Soonyoung shrugs, stretching out his arms across his desk before putting his head down.
“Tell me when class is over, I need a nap.” He mumbles before dozing off. Seokmin rolls his eyes, realizing he has to take notes for Soonyoung today. Once Soonyoung had officially fallen asleep, Seokmin can feel someone looking at him from the corner of his eye.
Some man with a smirk on his face, cheek rested on the heel of his palm, stares at Seokmin intently, and he wishes Soonyoung could wake up already to block this guy’s field of vision.
“That Genji got you good last night, didn't he?” He says, and Seokmin can just feel the amusement dripping out from his voice.
“Were you in the match too?” Seokmin responds, finally breaking eye contact with him. He pulls out his notebook and tries to pay attention to professor’s notes he scribbled onto the whiteboard.
“Yep, and Soonyoung is right, the game was fun, especially when you get that one hero that keeps hovering in the air. 19 times.”
Seokmin’s cheeks start burning and he almost drops his pencil when it clicks. He turns around to look at this man that came straight out of hell to haunt him, who still has that evil smirk plastered on his face.
“Wonwoo.” Seokmin says, and he waves.
“Nice to meet you, Pharah.” Wonwoo replies, and he looks down at Soonyoung, “You think Soonyoung would mind switching seats with me?”
“I’d prefer us to keep a distance from each other.” Seokmin hurriedly states, wondering if he should move down to the empty seat in front of him.
“Why? Scared if I come too close I'll kill you again?”
“No. Not at all. And my name’s Seokmin. Don’t call me Pharah.”
“Ok, Seokmin,” Wonwoo chuckles, “I never expected such an antsy guy like you to play her, you know?”
“And I never expected such a douchebag to play Genji.”
“All Genji mains are dickheads, dude. Get with the program if you want to play competitively.” Is the last thing Wonwoo says before he lies his head down and proceeds to take a nap on the desk just like Soonyoung.
“I fucking hate this team.” Seokmin grumbles.
He doesn't prefer to play alone. Usually, Seokmin does a lot better when he's with his group of friends. A lot of what he does in virtual gaming also is just a reflection of who he is in real life.
Seokmin becomes quiet in the chat when he gets placed in a team with random strangers for the next round. Not bothering to even know the names of each of the players, he aimlessly starts flying around the spawn room, waiting for the game to start once again.
As he tries to shoot a couple of panels off the wall, he hears what sounds like knives being thrown at him, only to find out they’re shurikens when he turns around. Shurikens owned by Genji.
The Genji waves hi, and Seokmin finally reads the name hovering over the character.
shadowdragon: Hi!
Seokmin’s mouse is already hovering over the “leave game” option, but he stops when a bar forms on top of the screen.
“Friend Request Pending from shadowdragon ”
“Fuck no.” Seokmin says out loud as if Wonwoo could hear, and he exits out immediately.
Fuck that guy. Fuck him! Seokmin repeats that to himself as he looks at the friend request on the home screen, biting his lip as he goes back and forth on what to do. But curiosity gets the best of him when he presses accept. Immediately, Wonwoo writes a message to him.
shadowdragon (Wonwoo Jeon): fancy meeting you here again, it's like fate
Dokyeom (Seokmin Lee): it's a coincidence.
shadowdragon (Wonwoo Jeon): u still mad I killed u like 30 times?
Dokyeom (Seokmin Lee): more or less pissed about how you teabagged me every time
Dokyeom (Seokmin Lee): and it was only 19
shadowdragon (Wonwoo Jeon): ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it’s my thing. let me make it up to u and say yes to my group request already
shadowdragon (Wonwoo Jeon): we’ll be the biggest power duo out there
Reluctantly, Seokmin agrees, joining the voice chat automatically, and he can hear Wonwoo’s fan humming in the distance.
“We can't be a power duo with two offense heroes.” is the first thing Seokmin says. There’s just sounds of the headset being adjusted on Wonwoo’s end and garbled noises as he tried to speak.
“It'll work out, don't worry. Do you trust me?” Wonwoo replies after a couple seconds.
Seokmin doesn't say anything and stares at the screen, waiting for the server to search for a game.
“Your silence speaks words.” Wonwoo snorts, and Seokmin can imagine the smirk plastered on his face.
When Wonwoo said they would be a power duo, Seokmin really didn't expect them to carry the whole team like this.
He finished with 41 eliminations and with Wonwoo following close behind, having team kills almost every single time they were together. Seokmin could barely hide his excitement as he shouted into the mic.
“Wow! Oh my god that was a good strategy holy shit- I usually never get this many ult 6 kills in a game!” Seokmin smiles, looking through the statistics.
“Then do you trust me when I say we’ll do good together, now?” Wonwoo asks.
“Not really. I saw you spray paint over another dude’s dead body.”
“Come on, it’s just my habit!” Wonwoo defends, and Seokmin merely hums in response.
“I’ll trust you if we win the next match.”
He hears Wonwoo chuckle into the mic as the screen shows “Searching for a game”.
“You have a deal, Pharah.”
For the last 20 years of his life, Seokmin has never been the guy who was able to hide his feelings or intentions all too well. Jeonghan often scolds him that this is how he always gets knocked out of the air, but Seokmin can't bring himself to sneak around for anything of that matter.
“You've been looking really happy these days.” Seungkwan notes as he watches Seokmin pack his laptop into his messenger bag.
“What do you mean?” Seokmin almost sings out.
“Like how just now, you went all high pitched on me as if you were about to belt out a note.” Seungkwan snorts, and he stands in front of Seokmin to block him from going towards the exit. “Spill the beans, Lee. What's gotten you so happy and excited to do something other than Overwatch?”
“Nothing! I'm just in a hurry cause I promised to study with a friend today for math at the library.”
“Who's the friend?”
He fiddles with the bag strap and starts avoiding eye contact with Seungkwan, whose eyebrow is quirked up, a frown prominent on his face.
“Wonwoo.”
“Wonwoo? From the enemy team?” Seungkwan dramatically gasps out loud, “I’ve never felt more betrayed!”
“Quit it, this isn't some Romeo and Juliet shit. We’re cool.”
“Say that to you 3 weeks ago when you wouldn't stop yelling about how he kept dicing your ass into a million little pieces.”
Seokmin waves him off and tries to push him away from the door, and Seungkwan finally caves when Seokmin gives him the biggest puppy eyes ever.
“Have fun on your study date. But don't come calling me at 3 in the morning again if you have a dream that Wonwoo killed you on Oasis 7 again.”
“It's not a date.” Seokmin only replies to the first part, trying to ignore the embarrassing stunt he pulled. Seungkwan will never let him live that down.
It’s not a date . Seokmin repeats to himself. It honestly didn't seem like one, especially with Wonwoo intently reading his textbook and typing up notes on his laptop, barely looking up from the table. Seokmin thinks that maybe he could've gotten more work done if he wasn't with him.
It’s definitely not a date, he concludes, closing his notebook and proceeds to stretch. Wonwoo eyes him and a grin spreads on his face. Oh no.
The problem with Wonwoo is that Seokmin never knows what he's planning. It almost seems like he's got a trick up his sleeve every single moment, or maybe he's just winging it so well that it works every time.
“Done?” Wonwoo whispers, to which Seokmin nods. Wonwoo taps his finger against his chin and stares, leaving Seokmin to break eye contact with him and mindlessly adjust the pencils he splayed all over the desk. He can hear Wonwoo chuckle as if he was amused by everything.
“Want to go eat dinner down the street? I'll pay.”
Not a date. Not a date! Seokmin practically screeches in his head.
“Yeah, I’m hungry!” Seokmin’s voice cracks and he tries to play if off by hurriedly stuffing his books back into his bag.
“Seriously, how does an anxious guy like you play Pharah that well?” Wonwoo frowns as he watches him. Seokmin only shrugs and walks with him towards the elevator, suddenly more self conscious of how he’s wearing baggy basketball shorts and a white tee with a coffee stain from this morning.
“We’re not going anywhere fancy, so don’t worry about it.” Wonwoo smiles. He swears this guy can read minds or something. Seokmin only nods and taps his foot against the tiled floor, waiting for the elevator shaft to reach them.
It feels awkward as Wonwoo orders things off the Chic Fil A menu, and Seokmin tries to busy himself by stacking up the ketchup packets. A worker nearby eyes him and frowns, but doesn’t say anything.
“What type of sauce do you want?” Wonwoo turns and looks at Seokmin.
“Anything.” Seokmin mumbles, trying to put another one on top. It’s wrong. Seokmin only likes the Polynesian sauce.
At the table, it’s basically a battle between Seokmin trying to maintain the image of him being completely fine and him screaming on the inside because he realized how cute Wonwoo looked when he carried all the food to the table with the brightest smile on his face.
“Soonyoung signed us up to play in the tournament in San Fran, so if you ever get the chance, you can catch me live online in a couple months or so. If we get in that is.” Wonwoo says with a mouth full of chicken nuggets.
“Oh really? Well funny enough, Jeonghan signed us up for the same thing.”
“No kidding? That’s amazing! We could practice together more often now. We could even make it our thing, you know. Study. Dinner together. Practice. Midnight snack run. Practice some more. Skip math.” Wonwoo lists out the plans he had already come up with, and Seokmin can’t help but grin.
“It’ll be great. I like spending time with you, Seokmin. It’s better since I spend a majority of my times on Overwatch that I don’t do much else, so it feels fucking nice to go out with you.”
Go out. Like. Seokmin. Seokmin only processes these three things in his head, and he tries not to scream out. He doesn’t know what he does in these situations. It’s not a choke room at all, where Seokmin has nowhere to escape, but he can’t help but feel like jumping off the ledge of the world’s map because he really did not just fall for the guy who tilted him a month ago, did he?
This isn’t a date, Seokmin and Wonwoo are just hanging out like two friends. Bros before hoes or something. Everything is going to end up really badly if Seokmin continues to think about how Wonwoo’s childish antics of blowing the wrapper off the straw is adorable.
“I need to go back home.” Seokmin blurts out, and Wonwoo stops folding his napkin origami swan.
“Oh, I can take you home.”
“No! It’s fine, Soonyoung said he’s nearby, so he can come pick me up.”
Wonwoo frowns and has a look of suspicion on his face, but only nods. “See you online tonight, then?”
“Of course! Bye!” Seokmin’s voice cracks for the second time today, and he excuses himself from his seat, trying to stride out the door in a perfectly normal fashion. He sees one of the employees who’s staring at the ketchup stacked on top of each other sigh as he walks out the door.
He, in fact, does his very best to avoid Wonwoo at every cost. When he receives the notification that “shadowdragon has started playing Overwatch”, he immediately logs off, sometimes barely catching the “Join Wonwoo Jeon’s Team?” banner across the screen.
Seokmin starts skipping class too, relying on Soonyoung for notes this time (“I can’t take a nap in class cause of you, anymore.”, Soonyoung says). The tactic is quite effective, really. By the third week, Wonwoo stopped texting, “are you free to play tonight?” and the inbox is empty.
Correction, the tactic is effective if and only if Jeonghan wasn’t friends with almost everyone on Soonyoung’s team, which in turn led to his Friday night being spent playing a rematch with their team.
“I think our team name is going to be Rugrats. What are your thoughts?” Soonyoung says in the discord call.
“It’s childish. Literally.” Jeonghan snorts, and the match starts. Seokmin feels something horribly wrong.
Maybe it’s because his aim is literal shit today, or maybe because shadowdragon has been solo ulting him everytime he manages to.
“Wonwoo, what the fuck? Get the healers!” A voice who Seokmin recognizes as Seungcheol shouts in the chat.
“No! This is good. For our team at least.” Seungkwan laughs, to which Seungcheol replies with, “Fuck off.”
It’s not good, because Seokmin has already died 14 times, and at this point, he’s just flying higher and higher into the air.
“Seokmin, fly lower, I can’t heal you if you’re too high up.” Seungkwan whines, struggling to jump to reach him.
“No.” Seokmin mumbles, and he sends a rocket towards Wonwoo’s direction, effectively killing him in the process.
“No one is pushing the goddamn payload 8 .” Jeonghan and Jihoon say almost exactly at the same time, and there’s a long awkward silence between both teams as they watch Seokmin and Wonwoo off in the distance of the map, trying to kill each other. Before Wonwoo could deliver the final blow, the match abruptly ends.
“What the fuck?” Wonwoo gasps out.
“No. No ‘what the fuck, Seungcheol?’ to me this time. What the fuck, Wonwoo?” Seungcheol nags.
“What were you guys doing, having some sort of lover’s quarrel?” Seungkwan adds.
“We’re not lovers!” Seokmin blurts out, and Wonwoo remains silent.
“Whatever.” Jeonghan mumbles, and Seokmin can hear furious clicking and typing on his end.
“1V1 COUPLE THERAPY” is the title of the new custom game Jeonghan had just created, and unsurprisingly, Wonwoo and Seokmin are the only ones placed in.
“You leave the game; you’re out of the team. Both of you guys. Get your shit together.” Jeonghan states, and everyone leaves the voice chat, leaving Wonwoo and Seokmin by themselves.
God, Seokmin wants to die at this point. Maybe if they both don’t talk this whole match, he can lie to Jeonghan that they made up. Then he can block everyone on the opposite team so they’ll never have the chance to dig out the truth.
“So. Care to explain why you were ignoring my texts and calls?” Wonwoo decides to start after picking a hero. Well, there goes his plan. Seokmin is too busy trying to think of an excuse that he doesn’t notice Wonwoo has headshotted him midair.
“I’ve… been busy.” Seokmin trails off, and he pushes Wonwoo off the cliff of the map with a blast from his rocket. The score titles “1 to 1” now.
“I know you’ve been avoiding me. I want to know what’s wrong because I do really like you. Did I teabag you too much or something?” Wonwoo mumbles, and this time Seokmin almost cries into the mic. Wonwoo throws a shuriken into his face and it shows that the round was given to shadowdragon.
“You like me?” Seokmin squeaks out.
“I asked you out on that date for a reason. Albeit, it wasn’t a great date since we just got chicken nuggets and all, but I thought it was a date.”
“No! No! It was a great date! I liked it a lot! I’m just such a stupid idiot.” Seokmin stutters, and he lets out a sigh as he walks over to the corner of the cliff and jumps off.
Stupid blind Seokmin still has the same stupid blind spots that make him have tunnel vision, not seeing the wider picture of everything.
“I like you a lot, Wonwoo. I just panicked because I thought it was a one sided thing, since that’s usually what happens. Hanging out with you was really the best thing to happen to me in a while especially when I’ve practically dedicated my life to this stupid video game.” Seokmin mumbles, and he can hear Wonwoo chuckle.
“Is that it? Then since we confessed our feelings in probably one of the worst possible ways to, why don’t we go out for dinner. Tonight?”
“I would love it. I’ll pay this time, then.” Seokmin smiles, and the game ends. Wonwoo types “we good lol” into the group chat, and everyone returns back to the call.
“The couple’s therapy really worked, Jeonghan! We’re going to go eat chic-fil-a again tonight.” Wonwoo says.
“That’s great. Not the chic-fil-a part. But the other part, think of a better place to eat.”
“Maybe our team name should be Alcazar. How’s that?” Mingyu suggests around the lunch table.
Seokmin stares at the letter that reads “Congratulations, you have been accepted to play at the Overwatch Pacific Championship!”, and he clutches onto it tightly, not able to hide the excitement on his face.
“You guys just searched up any fancy name for this, didn’t you?” Seungcheol smirks, showing off their letter of acceptance too. Wonwoo gives Seokmin a look and a smile, and he returns it.
“So, I guess summer dates are out of the question, since we’ll be practicing almost all day.” Seokmin frowns once they’re both out of their friends’ sights.
“Well, we could do what I suggested before. Play, break, go out to eat, avoid math, go watch a movie together, play some more, et cetera.” Wonwoo grins.
“Oh, I really like the movie idea.”
Wonwoo takes Seokmin’s hand, and at this point, Seokmin wonders why he was so nervous for everything in the first place.
