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LCK Finals, 2025
The roar of Inspire Arena was the kind of sound you felt in your chest before you heard it in your ears. It vibrated through the floor, through the arena seats, and through the palms of fans clutching banners with trembling hands. The casters’ voices surged above the crowd, loud and almost breathless:
“Gen G gets their revenge for last summer. And they are your 2025 LCK Finals Champions!”
The announcement boomed, but Jihoon heard it almost distantly, as though from underwater. His headset was already off, his teammates surging out of their chairs, Canyon slamming his fist into the air, Ruler hugging Duro. Kiin shouted something wordless, pure triumph, and Jihoon followed, because this was what he had worked for, wasn’t it?
Another title. Another trophy.
MSI, EWC, and now LCK. All that remained was Worlds, the one crown he’d chased for his entire career.
He smiled because the cameras were on him, because his fans deserved that much. He let himself be pulled into the embrace of his team. He lifted the trophy when it was placed in his hands. He stood in the rain of confetti, the sound of ten thousand voices chanting Gen G! Gen G! Gen G!
It should have been enough.
But as the lights dimmed and the interviews ended, as the trophy was placed carefully back on its pedestal for photos, Jihoon felt the ache inside his chest again—the hollow space where joy should be.
The ride home was quieter than expected. Kiin was scrolling through his phone, already looking at social media reactions. Duro was softly humming, replaying the walkout music like he always did after a big win. Canyon had leaned his head back, almost dozing off.
Jihoon stared at his own phone. The lock screen glowed in the dark interior of the van, lighting the edges of his face. Dozens of messages had already poured in: old teammates, friends from high school, even his parents. Congratulations! You did it again! One step away from Worlds!
He should have replied. He should have joined in the laughter when Ruler cracked a joke about their confetti hair.
Instead, Jihoon opened a blank message. His thumbs hovered.
Hyung, I did it. Did you watch the game? Only the Worlds title left! I hope you’re proud
The words stared back at him, blurry in the dim light of the van.
He deleted them as quickly as he’d typed them. The ache in his chest grew heavier.
Choi Hyeonjoon wouldn’t read it anyway. Not anymore.
Griffin, 2019
They had been teammates for four years. Four years in which they had followed each other from roster to roster, like shadows bound together.
Jihoon had been there for Hyeonjoon’s rookie season, and Hyeonjoon for his prime. What began as awkward camaraderie between players grew into something deeper.
The practice rooms were where it started. Nights where everyone else had already gone to bed but Jihoon stayed, replaying VODs, dissecting lane assignments. Hyeonjoon would linger too, sometimes pretending he just wanted to “get a little more practice in,” but mostly because he hated the silence of their shared room when Jihoon wasn’t there.
“Hyung, you should sleep,” Jihoon would murmur without looking up, eyes fixed on the monitor.
“You should too,” Hyeonjoon would counter, always with that small smile tugging at his lips. “But I’ll stay if you stay.”
It was small, that promise. But it was constant.
Over time, meals became shared rituals—midnight ramyeon runs, sneaking in fried chicken after a scrim win. They sat on the dorm balcony during summer, Jihoon scrolling his phone in silence while Hyeonjoon filled the air with small talk. A hand brushing his, then not pulling away.
By the second year, teammates stopped teasing. It was too obvious. The way Jihoon softened only around him, the way Hyeonjoon’s gaze always sought him first.
They weren’t reckless. They didn’t need labels. It was just—there. A tether between them, warm and unbreakable.
Or so Jihoon thought.
DRX, 2020
The cracks began quietly.
At first, it was Jihoon’s hunger to prove himself. Everyone said he was a prodigy, a once-in-a-generation midlaner. Yet the trophies never came, at least not the big ones that mattered. And every time they stumbled, every time they lost a final, Jihoon’s grip on the dream tightened like a fist closing around water.
Hyeonjoon noticed. He always noticed.
“Jihoon-ah,” he’d whisper one night after a tough loss, both of them lying awake in their room, “you don’t have to carry everything.”
But Jihoon couldn’t explain the fire inside him, the desperate need to show the world he wasn’t just hype, that he wasn’t just numbers on a KDA sheet. He wanted everything.
He wanted love too, of course. But when faced with the choice, he always reached for glory first.
Gen G, 2023
The end came in winter, after another season ended without the title Jihoon longed for.
It was late, the practice room nearly empty, only the soft hum of PCs still running. Jihoon sat at his station, replaying mistakes from their loss. Hyeonjoon stood behind him, silent for a long while, before finally speaking.
“Jihoon-ah,” he said gently, “we need to talk.”
Jihoon turned, and the look in Hyeonjoon’s eyes made his stomach drop.
“Hyung…”
Hyeonjoon sat down across from him. His hands fidgeted with the hem of his hoodie. “I love you. You know that, right?”
Jihoon swallowed hard. “I know. I love you too.”
“That’s why this hurts,” Hyeonjoon said, voice shaking. “Because I think… I think we can’t keep doing this.”
The words sliced through the quiet room like a blade.
“What are you talking about?” Jihoon’s voice cracked, louder than he meant. “We’re fine. We just—we’ll try harder next year—”
“No.” Hyeonjoon shook his head, tears brimming. “That’s just it. We always try harder. You always try harder. And I’m proud of you, Jihoon. God, I’m so proud. But I also know you’ll never stop. You’ll never be satisfied. There’s always another title, another trophy, another mountain to climb. You’ll always feel like you have something to prove”
Jihoon’s breath came ragged. He reached across the table, gripping Hyeonjoon’s hand. “But isn’t that what makes me… me? Isn’t that why we’re here?”
Hyeonjoon squeezed his hand back, then slowly let go. “Maybe. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for you to come back from chasing something else. I don’t want us to turn into people who resent each other because you were never really here.”
Jihoon’s throat burned. “So you’re leaving.”
“I don’t want to. But I have to.” Hyeonjoon’s voice broke. “I’d rather walk away now than stay and watch us hurt each other, or hate each other. Years from now, I’ll watch you on TV. I’ll cheer for you when you win your 10th, 20th.. Hell, your 100th trophy. And I’ll be happy knowing that to you… losing me would have been worth it.”
He wanted to scream, to beg him to stay. But the words lodged in his chest. Because deep down, he knew Hyeonjoon was right.
And Jihoon let him go.
Post LCK Finals, 2025
In the present, as the van drove through Seoul’s neon streets and the LCK trophy glinted in the dark, Jihoon shut his eyes against the ache.
He had won again. He was one step away from the only dream he’d ever chased.
But all he could think of was the boy who once stayed up with him in empty practice rooms, who once said I’ll stay if you stay.
And the boy who no longer did.
LCK Summer Finals, 2024.
Jihoon will never admit it but the memory of 2024 refused to leave him.
Even now, with the newest LCK trophy still fresh in his hands, Jeong Jihoon could close his eyes and see it: that summer night, the roar of the crowd, and the way confetti had rained down—not for Gen G, but for HLE.
“HLE are your 2024 LCK Champions! They dethrone Gen G!”
The shout of the caster had been deafening. Jihoon remembered sitting frozen at his station, headset slack around his neck. The Nexus had already exploded; the scoreboard glared cruelly in red.
Across the stage, Choi Hyeonjoon stood with his new teammates – his grin stretching wide, the kind of smile Jihoon hadn’t seen on him in years. It wasn’t the polite one Hyeonjoon always offered fans or the tired one he gave after practice. It was radiant, almost childlike.
Peanut hugged him from behind, Viper clapped him on the shoulder so hard he nearly staggered, and Zeka yelled something into his ear that made him laugh until his eyes crinkled.
And Jihoon, on the losing side, couldn’t stop watching.
A surge of pride rose in his chest—because wasn’t this what Hyeonjoon deserved? All the years he had been overlooked, criticized, labeled inconsistent. Tonight he was a champion. Tonight he had silenced them all.
Jihoon wanted to run across the stage, grab him by the hand, and whisper, I knew you could do it. I’m proud of you.
But he couldn’t. Because he had chosen something else long ago, and Hyeonjoon had chosen differently.
That night, in the Gen G team van, the silence pressed heavy. His phone screen glowed with a half-typed message.
Hyung, I’m proud of you. I knew you’d win.
Delete. Always delete.
MSI, 2025
By the time the 2025 season came, Jihoon’s hunger had sharpened into steel. Losing to Doran had stung, yes—but it had also ignited something dangerous inside him. The world said he couldn’t finish, that he’d never get the trophies that mattered. He swore he’d prove them wrong.
And for a while, he did.
Gen G stormed through spring. MSI came, and the bracket led them inevitably to a finals showdown with T1.
The world called it a clash of titans. Jihoon only felt the ache in his chest when he saw the red jackets across the stage.
Because there, leading the T1 lineup, was Hyeonjoon.
The series itself should have been vindication.
Gen G outmaneuvered them. Canyon found angles nobody else could. Ruler and Duro dominated the bot lane. Jihoon himself played some of the cleanest League of his life, carving through teamfights with ruthless precision.
When the final Nexus fell, confetti rained down again—this time for him.
They were MSI Champions.
He smiled for the cameras. He lifted the trophy. He told the interviewer what they expected: “We worked hard, I’m proud of my team. We’ll continue playing well.”
Deep inside though, the pride turned into hollowness. Because across the stage, Jihoon saw Hyeonjoon bowing with his teammates with that small, graceful sportsmanship he always carried. And then he saw the hand that settled on his shoulder.
Oner’s hand, the other Hyunjun.
It was impossible not to notice once the thought lodged in his head.
He kept thinking back on moments he shouldn’t have noticed. During setup, Oner would lean close to murmur in Hyeonjoon’s ear, making him laugh despite the pressure of the series. After one particularly rough lane, Hyeonjoon looked stricken, but Oner just nudged him with a smile, said something to their comms, and the tension melted from his hyung’s face.
It was everything Jihoon used to do—what he thought only he could do.
But worse, Oner did it without hesitation, without the weight of ambition pulling him away.
The post game interviews sealed it.
Jihoon sat in the MSI green room, scrolling numbly, when the broadcast cut to the losing side. The host asked:
“Doran-ssi, even though the result wasn’t what you wanted, you still looked very composed. What keeps you steady in these moments?”
Hyeonjoon glanced at Oner and chuckled. “Honestly? Hyunjun was a big help there. He always tells me I’m fine, even when I don’t feel like it. That I just need to play my game.”
The camera turned to Oner, who shrugged like it was the simplest thing in the world. “Hyeonjoon-hyung just needs to hear it sometimes. He’s too hard on himself.”
The fans cheered, the casters praised the “team synergy,” and the interview moved on.
But Jihoon sat frozen, fists tight in his lap.
That was supposed to be him. That used to be him.
LCK Playoffs, 2025
The proof kept piling up.
Jihoon was no stranger to insomnia. Even after championship wins, his mind refused to shut down. He had lived his life by the hum of screens and the rhythm of endless self-critique, and silence only amplified the gnawing emptiness.
So, most nights, he scrolled. Past news articles, highlight reels, fan edits—until inevitably, as if drawn by a thread he couldn’t cut, he landed on something with Hyeonjoon in it.
It wasn’t hard. T1’s content machine churned endlessly. Clips from scrims, behind-the-scenes interviews, streams. And recently, more often than not, Oner was right there beside him.
The streams were the worst.
Jihoon had tried to stop watching them. Really, he had. But every time insomnia won, he found himself searching for Hyeonjoon’s channel. And where Hyeonjoon was, Oner almost always appeared.
They weren’t even in the same room—each streaming from their own setups in the T1 HQ—but Discord bridged the space like it was nothing.
“Damage bet?” Oner asked one night, voice smooth through Hyeonjoon’s stream.
“Again? You always lose,” Hyeonjoon teased.
“Loser buys drinks tomorrow. Café across from the practice room,” Oner countered.
“Deal,” Hyeonjoon said confidently.
Hours later, when Oner “accidentally” underperformed, Hyeonjoon groaned and laughed, “Yah, you did that on purpose.”
“Guess I owe you coffee,” Oner replied, unbothered.
Jihoon’s hands curled tight around his phone. In all the years he had been with Hyeonjoon, he had never thought to make mundane things—coffee, meals, van rides—into rituals of care. He had always been chasing the next trophy, the next proof of his worth. He had never stopped to turn ordinary days into something sacred.
Then came the moment that burned itself into him.
It was past midnight when Jihoon, lying restless again, opened Hyeonjoon’s stream. The game was background noise. What mattered was the laughter spilling between him and Oner.
A fan dare was how they explained it after. But on that night, Jihoon listened, breath caught, as Oner spoke on the Discord server he shared with Hyeonjoon.
“Hyung, saranghae,” Oner said, playful but steady.
The chat exploded in chaos. Emotes, clipped reactions, the internet screaming.
On screen, Hyeonjoon let out a flustered laugh. “Yah, what? Don’t say weird things.” His ears were pink, his smile too soft to disguise.
Jihoon turned off his phone before the stream ended. He lay in the dark, every nerve thrumming. He couldn’t even be angry. And for the first time, he admitted to himself: Oner was filling the space he’d left behind. He was giving Hyeonjoon a love he had never managed to.
In another life, maybe he would have fought. He would have shown up at Hyeonjoon’s door, begged him back, and promised to choose love over trophies.
But Jihoon knew himself. He couldn’t stop chasing glory—not when he was finally this close to Worlds, to the one title that had eluded him all his life.
One night, Jihoon almost texted.
He typed it out after another punishing day of scrims, hands trembling.
Hyung, you look so happy these days. I’m glad.
His thumb hovered over send. Then he deleted it. Because Hyeonjoon’s happiness wasn’t his to claim anymore.
And besides… Oner made him happy in ways Jihoon never managed. Everyone could see it.
What Jihoon realized, lying in the dark with his phone screen black, was that Oner had become the kind of love Hyeonjoon deserved. Quiet, steady, full of little moments that built a home.
The kind of love Jihoon could never give, because he had been too busy chasing something else.
The proof had only grown since then. Behind the scene clips, the streams, the bets. Oner’s quiet caretaking, his instinct to notice the little things—how Hyeonjoon always needed to stretch before and after games, how he’d only have proper meals if he wasn’t eating alone, how his mood lifted when someone teased him at just the right time.
Jihoon had loved Hyeonjoon once. Still loved him, in ways he couldn’t peel away. But his love had been sharp, consuming, built on ambition and the need to prove himself. He had thought love meant running ahead, so Hyeonjoon would always have someone to follow.
Oner’s love was different. Softer. He didn’t run ahead. He stayed beside him, matched him step for step – steady and sure.
And it was that love—the right love—that Hyeonjoon had chosen now.
Post LCK Finals, 2025
The van jolted over a bump, snapping Jihoon back. His teammates were still laughing, the trophy wedged between seats like an afterthought. Jihoon lifted his phone again. His thumb hovered.
Hyung, I miss you.
He stared until the words blurred, then deleted them. Again. Always.
The night passed, texts went unanswered, and Jihoon lay awake long after his teammates had fallen asleep. His medals and trophies glinted faintly in the moonlight spilling through the curtains.
All the proof of his greatness, laid out for the world to see.
But none of it filled the space that Hyeonjoon had left.
Worlds, 2025
The Worlds stage was brighter than anything else. Beijing, packed with roaring fans, banners waving in every corner of the arena. Gen G stood in the tunnel, jerseys crisp, nerves hidden beneath years of discipline.
Jihoon rolled his shoulders, exhaled slowly, and fixed his face into the calm, determined expression the world expected. Cameras followed every step. Millions watched from every corner of the globe.
The casters’ voices thundered as they walked out
“And now… Korea’s first seed—Gen G, your 2025 LCK Champions, looking to claim their final trophy this year!”
The crowd screamed. The lights blazed. The music swelled.
Jihoon smiled as he waved, soaking in the sound, the validation, the glory. He was exactly where he had always wanted to be.
And yet, beneath the roar, his heart whispered only one thought.
Hyeonjoon-hyung, are you watching? Just one last time, I hope you think of me.
It was the last thing he had left to ask for. And maybe, just maybe, it was enough.
Jihoon took his seat, headset sliding on, monitors flaring bright before him. The countdown began. Across the stage, across the years, across all the choices that had led him here, he imagined Hyeonjoon’s eyes watching him.
The stage lights blazed. The tournament has officially begun.
And Jihoon.. no, Chovy.. had one last thing to prove.
[END]