Work Text:
(hee hee billy jean’s not my): val @ 9?
(hee hee billy jean’s not my): who the hell changed my name.
(male manipulator): booting up my laptop rn
(male manipulator): fr who did that,
(hee hee billy jean’s not my): glad i asked an hour early, then
(male manipulator): HEY. she tries her best.
“(male manipulator): fr who did that,”
(hee hee billy jean’s not my): i should’ve known.
(tenZ (real)): hyung do u want a pc ,, i will literally build you one
(male manipulator): i appreciate it, but i really don’t doubt you’d wire a ticking bomb to it
(male manipulator): plus, i don’t really game like that to begin w,
(tenZ (real)): you’d literally b cracked instead of whatever you got going on rn
(male manipulator): ok hardstuck silver
(hee hee billy jean’s not my): @(jongsane) you up?
(tenZ (real)): FUCK OFF AT LEAST I’M FUCKING SILVER
(jongsane): can won join
(hee hee billy jean's not my): we’re planning on ranking up so no
(jongsane): WHY NOT D: WON IS CRACKED .
(hee hee billy jean’s not my): when he wants to be. he actually hates val more than all five of us combined and throws every chance he gets :man_standing:
(jongsane): i Actually hate it when you type out the discord emojis .
(jongsane): i guess i’ll play :face_with_rolling_eyes:
(hee hee billy jean’s not my): Awesome :smile:
“(tenZ (real)): FUCK OFF AT LEAST I’M FUCKING SILVER”
(male manipulator): next time my ping is actually decent, i’m throwing our ranked game . you have everything to lose , i don’t
(tenZ (real)): i will actually Kill you.
(male manipulator): yawn emoji
(male manipulator): is jakey joining? if not, i’m not playing
(hee hee billy jean’s not my): dw he told me he was
(jake): i’m joining :D !
It’s eight thirty, and Jake is the first one to join the Valorant voice channel. Heeseung joins seconds later, followed by Sunghoon.
“Hey, guys,” Jake sings into his headset as he pulls up the game launcher and queues a playlist.
“Hey, baby.”
“Hey, babe.”
There’s a heartbeat of silence within the voice channel.
“I’m literally Jake’s boyfriend,” Heeseung is the one speaking.
A short, incredulous laugh comes from Sunghoon’s mic, and his voice is ear-scratchingly loud when he speaks. The guy needs an entirely new setup.
“Okay, and I’m a homewrecker.”
Heeseung scoffs before grumbling his next words exaggeratingly, “If you want to kiss me, just say that.”
The smacking of lips from Sunghoon’s terrible mic would absolutely grind Jay’s gears if he were in the voice channel at this moment and lead to even more tinnitus-ensuing chaos.
Speak of the devil—Jay joins right as the two are still entertaining each other’s otherwise irritable banter and Riki is the last one to join, deafened. He has the right idea.
“What. The fuck. Is going on,” Jay says.
“Wanna join?” Sunghoon asks instead of answering.
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
“What’s the move for tonight?” Jake asks the moment his game launches. A party invitation from Heeseung is already waiting for him, to which he readily accepts. The two of them are the only ones in the party currently—it would’ve been them and Sunghoon, but his Mac isn’t necessarily a gadget for a first person shooter.
(H33): hi yun
Heeseung types in the party chat, and Jake doesn’t bother hiding his fond giggle.
(JAK3): hi bb
Heeseung exhales a fond laugh of his own through his nose, and it peaks the mic slightly.
“Oh my god. Are they doing it again?” Jay asks, exasperatedly.
“You do the same exact thing with Jungwon when he decides to play,” Riki says after finally unmuting. He was the next person to join the party.
Then Jay joins, “If Sunghoon’s game doesn’t launch in the next five minutes, I’m making all of you suffer by having him join.”
“I’m the party leader,” Heeseung points out after sending Jake one last private message, “We’re not playing shit under my watch.”
“But playing with Wonnie is so fun!” Jake chimes in, “It’s been so long since he and Sunoo played with us.”
Jay pulls his mic closer, and it’s awfully apparent in the way it peaks and crunches his voice, “Thank you, Jake. This is why everyone likes you.”
It’s Heeseung’s turn to mouth harass his own mic, “Dude. Back the fuck up. I can smell your breath from all the way over here.”
“I can smell your’s too. Smells like straight ass and Sunghoon. Oh wait—that’s synonymous—“
“Hey, what the hell—“
The trio gradually gets louder as they continue to talk over each other and throw out as many vulgar insults as they can possibly think up. Riki deafened the moment Jay leaned into his mic earlier, and Jake just snickers along to their odd way of expressing friendship.
“Oh my god. It finally launched after ten minutes. That’s a new record,” Sunghoon says as he joins the party.
They queue into several spike rushes first—a gamemode that’s first to win four rounds as opposed to thirteen—to test their luck with Sunghoon’s laggy end. It was a wonder how he manages to even walk in the game.
When they finally manage to get all five of them to load into the agent selection, they all groan in relief.
“God, why do we even bother inviting Sunghoon hyung if we can’t even load in,” Riki asks, and it’s definitely out of habit, considering how they’ve played many games with Sunghoon’s god awful ping in the past.
“I can literally dodge right now and make that the fifth attempt to play a spike rush.”
“Just lock in your one-trick Cypher, already.”
“Okay, Wal-Mart TenZ.”
And before Riki can rebut and ensue yet another petty argument, Jake cuts in.
“Guys, who should I play today?”
Heeseung had already picked his agent, Phoenix. Like Riki, it was an agent he was best at and comfortable playing. But, unlike Riki, he could easily fill in for the team. Jay had simply played eenie-meenie with his unlocked options and decided to lock in Sova.
“Choose whoever you want, Yun, it’s just a spike rush,” Heeseung says before he focuses his attention on Jay, his tone becoming flat, “Do you even know how to play Sova.”
“Oh fuck off, you just said it’s just a spike rush. And I’ve seen, like, two lineups for Bind,” Jay replies as they load into their match.
“You forget that these two like to absolutely sweat in matches, no matter the game mode,” Sunghoon says with a long sigh. ‘These two’ being Heeseung and Riki.
“Not true,” Riki replies, but he was already doing his usual flashy moves with his melee and pistol. They both had the latest skin on them.
“Your RGB back-lit keyboard with Gateron Blue Switches says otherwise.”
Riki’s character proceeds to spaz out on their screens as he runs his hands over his annoyingly clicky keyboard, the sound spilling into his high-quality mic.
“I’m shock-darting you once the round starts,” Jay barks, and his Sova already has his bow cocked in Riki’s direction. Friendly fire is not an unknown concept to their group.
And truth be told, the three of them would absolutely hate to be the ones going against Heeseung and Riki. The duelists would demolish the opposing team a minute into the game and take a couple wins for themselves before unleashing their utmost toxicity by taunting the other team, making them think they have a chance at winning.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that they are both Silver.
“Their Jett is actually ass,” Riki says with a snicker before doing another one of his flashy moves, clicky keyboard and all.
The next gun for this round is a Phantom, and Jake rushes over to Heeseung before the round starts.
“Hyung! Can I have your Oni?” His character jumps up and down in front of Heeseung’s, but the decorated gun is already dropped on the ground a second after he asks. Heeseung picks up Jake’s default skinned gun, a little snow globe buddy from the free battle pass hangs from it.
“God, you’re insufferably head over heels,” Jay says. Hypocritically.
“Do I even need to mention how you become a pocket Sage for Jungwon,” Heeseung quips back.
“He’s the only one in the team aside from Jake who deserves to be healed and res’d.”
“Can’t really argue with that.”
They win the spike rush, then the next, and then another. They figured three games should be enough for Sunghoon’s laptop to adjust accordingly, so they finally queue into a competitive game.
But, of course, their judgement is always dead wrong.
“Are you guys loaded in yet?” Sunghoon asks.
“Uh, ch’yeah. We already bought guns and util,” Jay answers as he runs over to Sunghoon’s still character, slashing his Prime Axe melee as if it would get his attention.
“My game crashed.”
“Don’t worry guys,” Riki says, cockiness seeping into his voice as he stretches, “I’ll win us every round.”
They could practically hear each other’s rolling eyes, but Jay is the one to call him out, “You actually have the biggest head for someone who barely reached Silver.”
“Fuck off. I’m proving you all and Riot themselves wrong today.”
They hop over to ‘A’ site before the barriers could come down. Jake, playing Sage, watches their flank. Heeseung and Riki are already itching to entry, and Jay is right in the middle of it all, tapping furiously on his ‘C’ key so he can drone in and scope out their enemy team and, maybe, not get themselves killed right off the bat.
The barriers lift, and Riki nearly dashes head first into ‘A’ main if it weren’t for Jay already having pulled out his owl drone.
“One’s close left on Switch, and one’s Heaven, I think,” he calls out.
“Watch this, guys, watch this.” Riki doesn’t bother sneaking up to the main entrance as he smokes his left where the enemy is expecting him and does a dash-updraft combo onto Generator before he takes out the one in Heaven.
“Wow,” Jay draws out monotonously because he’s seen this same move every time they land on Ascent.
Heeseung was close behind Riki as he entried and easily took out the person by the door who was distracted, aiming for Riki. The site is completely free, and the rest of the enemy team is on their way.
“Yun, come plant, come plant,” Heeseung says as he closes the door behind him to watch Tree and Catwalk.
“Coming! Flank was clear, by the way.” He rushes to on site to plant the spike.
They’re all watching angles when Sunghoon suddenly lets out a short, high-pitched scream. On their map, they could see his character move frantically and an enemy in his field of vision.
“I’m in. And one’s in spawn!” They hear a couple of gunshots before Sunghoon’s character is dead.
“Someone watch Main,” Heeseung calls out, and Jake is already ahead of him as he runs to Wine and peeks the corner every so often.
The enemy who killed Sunghoon earlier rounds the corner, and Jake waits patiently for them to get closer and closer. They were probably feeling flustered, being the last player standing on their team, and failing to check all of the obvious nooks and crannies people tend to hide behind.
They run past Jake obliviously, but they barely step foot past the arches of Main before he lands a clean headshot on them.
“Nice!” Heeseung is always so enthusiastic when Jake pulls through for the team, and it makes him break out into a grin every time.
“Are we in a lower elo or what,” Riki says as they proceed to the next round, careful in not being greedy and spending all of their currency on better guns.
“You’re actually toxic,” Jay guffaws, “that was quite literally the first round.”
“He’ll be humbled sooner or later,” Sunghoon hums, and it seems that his laptop isn’t causing too much commotion. For now, at least.
They’re in the lead—six to zero—and the team morale is decent. They’re buying better guns at this point; Phantoms, Vandals, and Riki buys an Op any chance he gets.
“Want my Celestial Phantom, Yun?” Heeseung runs over to Jake, who was occupied in messing with his game settings.
He gasps lightly, “Yes! Thanks, babe.”
None of them can see, but they all know Heeseung is grinning like a fool on the other side of their screens.
“Can we forfeit?” Jay asks, all of a sudden serious.
Riki expresses his confusion faster than the rest and shoots his Ion Op in Jay’s direction, “Why? We’re six to zero.”
“I miss Jungwon,” he replies not even a beat later.
“…Well, can you miss Jungwon after we win and rank up.”
“I haven’t talked to him in three hours.”
Sunghoon is the one that groans this time, “God, just let Jungwon take my spot so this guy can play properly.”
“Only if Jungwon promises he won’t throw our game,” Heeseung replies.
“He said he won’t!”
“Did you even ask him?”
“Sure did!”
The opposing team did them both a favor by surrendering the match, and when Riki mutes once again, they all know he’s probably screaming at his lego figurines in frustration.
Heeseung should’ve known better when Jungwon immediately locks in Raze—another duelist whose two out of the four of her abilities can damage her own teammates—for his warm up game. Jungwon always has a ball sabotaging his own team.
“God, we actually just lost,” Heeseung mumbles before they’re even loaded in the map.
“Just be glad Sunoo hyung isn’t in the same lobby as him right now,” Riki replies with a scratchy voice—he probably did just get done screaming his lungs out. He’s going to kiss his Silver rank goodbye tonight, and it hasn’t even been a full week.
Someone joins the call at that moment and Sunghoon, who’s watching Heeseung’s shared screen, greets him before everyone else.
“Hello to the best Raze main in South Korea,” Sunghoon hollers.
“Hello to you too, Sunghoon hyung,” Jungwon replies, “and everyone else.”
“I’m literally his boyfriend, and I didn’t even get a ‘hi’ before this.”
They could hear Sunghoon’s cockiness through his fucked up mic as he speaks, “You and Heeseung hyung are just stand-ins for your’s truly.”
“Hi, Jay hyung,” Jungwon says with feigned aloofness to mask his own smittenness, “Riki has been talking about his damn rank up game all week, so I was really considering ruining it for him just to shut him up.”
“You’re the biggest sadist I know,” Riki grumbles, and there are snorts of agreement amongst the others.
“Thank you,” Jungwon hums, and they could hear the saccharine smile on his face, “I’m in a good mood today, though, so don’t worry about me throwing.”
They’re sitting in the queue for another competitive game, and the time stretches past a minute. So it was one of those nights.
Sunghoon and Riki are having a normal conversation for once by not talking in decibels higher than ninety, and Jungwon is busy entertaining Jay’s affection in the form of a seemingly normal conversation, but they can all hear the tenderness in their words.
Meanwhile, Heeseung and Jake turn to their phones where they have their own conversation in the midst of four voices talking over each other.
heeseung: how many games do you want to play tonight?
jake: depends
jake: could rly use some hugs :>
heeseung: is everything alright??
jake: o yeah ! jus want a hug
“I’ll be right back, guys. Just yell if we get in,” Heeseung suddenly says in the midst of the multiple conversations. They all barely pause to acknowledge him.
Jake could hear his headset rustle as he took it off of his ears and set them aside. Soon enough, he feels the quick footsteps before he hears them. And before he could process them as a certain someone’s, his door is being swung open and a flurry of Heeseung is flooding his view.
The giggles spilling past his lips are muffled into Heeseung’s clothed shoulder when he’s pulled into an embrace, “What are you doing here?”
“Are you muted?” Heeseung speaks in a hushed tone, smiling.
“Oh shit, no I’m not—” he says as he mutes himself and takes the headset off of his head. In the quietness of Jake’s room, they could both hear their friends scream their complaints and make retching noises through both his headset and across their long hallways.
After putting a pause on his music, he swivels his chair to face Heeseung. With him sitting down, their height difference was even more jarring as he craned his neck to look up at Heeseung, an uncontrollable grin pulling at his lips.
“Get up,” Heeseung beckons gently, tapping at his elbow on the arm rest. Jake hops up and nearly collides his forehead with the tip of Heeseung’s nose if it weren’t for the taller of the two grabbing a hold of his arms to steady them.
Jake goes to wrap his arms around the other’s middle, but Heeseung quickly plops down into his chair, holding his arms open. He watches Jake with such a soft smile on his lips and eyes that glitter with the colorful brightness of his setup that Jake can’t help but to bounce giddily at the sight of him.
He straddles Heeseung’s lap, his sleeve-covered palms tickle at the other’s neck as he wraps them loosely around broad shoulders. Like this, Jake is the one peering down at Heeseung, and it’s one of his favorite things to do—to hold Heeseung’s face in his hands as he cranes to look up at Jake.
“Is this my hoodie?” Heeseung asks as he brings up a hand to pull gently at the gray hood over Jake’s messy blonde hair.
Jake nods with a close-lipped grin and pink cheeks before looking down and pulling at the side of Heeseung’s gray sweats clad thigh, “We’re matching.”
Grinning teeth mirror his own, and long-awaited lips find Jake’s innocently before littering across the plains of his face. The butterflies in his stomach erupt into the form of mirthful laughter and flutter their pretty wings past Heeseung’s lips when they find his once more.
When they pull away, Jake situates himself comfortably onto Heeseung’s lap. The strands of blonde hair that peek out from the gray hoodie tickle Heeseung’s cheek when Jake rests his head on his shoulder, nuzzling deep into the heat of his neck. Arms come up to wrap themselves around him, and he feels impossibly comfortable in that moment.
He could feel the tip of Heeseung’s nose against his hair and a kiss placed shortly after. Maybe Jake should call it early so he could fall asleep in Heeseung’s arms and possibly fix his fucked up sleep schedule.
“‘M coming over when we’re done playing,” Jake mumbles against Heeseung’s neck tiredly.
Heeseung rests his cheek against Jake’s head as his hands fiddle with the hem of his stolen hoodie, “It’ll be open for you.”
Jake can feel the lids of his eyes grow heavier as he continues to let himself be huddled in Heeseung’s arms. It doesn’t help that one of his hands find their way under his hoodie to rub a soothing hand up and down the expanse of his t-shirt clad back.
“Get your asses back in the game, we finally got in,” they could hear Jay yell at the top of his through the mic, except his voice cuts out as it peaks.
The sheer volume of Jay’s voice is enough for Jake to jolt awake and, this time, his head actually hits Heeseung’s face.
“Hyung, are you okay,” Jake says with a mixture of concern and laughter as his hands come up to assess the damage.
Heeseung winces, but he tries to brush off the throbbing pain in his jaw, “I’ll live.”
Jake spares a glance over at his monitor to see they were the only two left who have yet to choose an agent, and the timer was running out the more he stayed in Heeseung’s lap. He gets up to pull the other up by his hands, and Heeseung’s heavy weight falls onto him as his unwillingness to leave shows.
“Hyung,” Jake chastises him with a slap on the back, but the smile in his voice betrays him, “Hurry before Riki beats all of our asses.”
“He can’t do shit when he lives across town and has no car,” Heeseung shoots back as he continues to give Jake all of the hugs he could possibly ever want. Jake smiles fondly into Heeseung’s hair, giving the crown of his head a few pecks before mercilessly plucking him off and shoving him out of his room.
He pokes his head out the door with a whisper. It’s not like anyone could hear them anyways, “Win us some games, and then you’ll have me all to yourself.”
And before Heeseung can step forward, Jake is already closing the door in his face with childish laughter.
When they settle back into the voice channel and choose their agents, Heeseung speaks, “Come on guys, let’s make this quick. I have places to be.”
“‘Places’ being Jake hyung’s room, right?” Jungwon replies flatly.
“Exactly.”
Their map for this game is Bind, and their team doesn’t look all that bad; Heeseung plays Viper, Riki as Jett (shocker), Jay as Brimstone, Jungwon as Killjoy, and Jake sticks with Sage. They’ll probably need healing.
This time, they’re defending rather than attacking, which is perfect for Jungwon to prove that he is on their team after all. While he’s busy placing down his limited equipment, Jay’s following close by instead of setting up his own gear.
“Hyung, go away.” Jungwon shoots two bullets in Jay’s direction for emphasis.
“As you wish, shnookums.”
“I hope he dies first,” Riki mumbles from where he’s antsily jiggling Heaven. The barriers haven’t dropped yet, what exactly is he holding.
Jake sits at the entrance of Lamps while Heeseung stands across from the teleporter, tucked in between the wall and crates; for a moment, their characters catch sight of one another, and they wordlessly crouch up and down before going back to waiting for the barriers to drop.
It’s quiet when the barriers lift. At least, until Jungwon’s turret goes off on ‘B’ site.
“Garden,” Jungwon calls calmly, “Just one, though.”
“There’s at least two coming up ‘B’ Short,” Jay calls next, and there’s a series of shots going off along with his character taking damage.
Strings of vulgar words spill past Jay’s lips at rapid speed as he tries to run away, “Jake dear, I need that heal.”
“On my way,” Jake says after taking out the Omen lurking on ‘A’ Short.
They rotate with Heeseung going through the enemy spawn and Riki and Jake going through their’s to meet the other two on ‘B’.
“Smoked off,” Riki says at the same time Jay’s character inevitably dies amongst the chaos that was going on on the other side of the enemy smoke.
Jungwon takes the trade, swinging boldly from behind the tunnel and landing a clean headshot on the enemy Jett. Riki pushes through the smoke in that moment while Jake clears elbow, where their Reyna had been waiting for him.
Jay practically squeals from his end of the mic, “Jungwon avenged me!”
“Don’t die next time so I don’t have to,” Jungwon quips back mercilessly.
Jay’s KDA is as follows after the game: 2/17/5. Jungwon stopped avenging him after his third death and may or may not have gotten himself killed for teabagging and shooting the other’s sprawled corpse on the other fourteen.
And the moment Heeseung presses tab for the slightest second, Sunghoon unmutes to speak as they set up for the next round.
“Riki,” he sings, “What are you doing as second to last bottom fragger?”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up—“
“Jungwon is a kill away from being top frag,” he raises his voice over Riki’s repeating mental breakdown, “What’s going on? Is the Black Reaver buff not working?”
“1v1 me on that stupid Mac of yours, whore. Your stupid ass mains a bald motherfucker with tripwires I could jumprope with and cages that one-way’s yourself instead of the other team.”
Sunghoon wheezes into his mic because he enjoys instigating, “Okay, but you’re second to bottom frag with, get this, zero bitches!”
Riki doesn’t rank up after that game. The sound of his headset hitting his mic before he disconnects from the voice call is enough to let them know how badly his rank plummeted.
There’s a pause in the channel before Jake speaks up, “Great game, guys!”