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Gwak Boseong liked to think he knew himself fairly well.
He was already 25. He had spent nearly a decade playing professionally, long enough to understand the way his own mind worked—how pressure built slowly over a season, how frustration lingered long after a loss, how certain thoughts could spiral if you weren’t careful with them. Experience taught him to recognize those patterns early, before they turned into something harder to manage.
Which was why this particular pattern bothered him.
Because the problem wasn’t unfamiliarity.
If anything, it was the opposite.
Moon Woochan was someone Boseong knew very well.
They had known each other for years. They were the same age, moved in overlapping friend circles, and had already been teammates on more than one roster. Even during the years they weren’t playing on the same team, they stayed in touch easily enough; meeting up with mutual friends, running into each other at match venues, seeing one another often enough that Boseong had never really thought to question it.
Woochan had always fit neatly into a category that required very little analysis.
A good friend.
A former teammate.
Someone Boseong understood well enough that he didn’t need to spend much time thinking about him.
Back in their early days on Longzhu and Kingzone, and later during their time on KT, Woochan had been loud and reckless, grinning through everything like consequences were optional.
That version of Woochan had been easy to place.
Easy to read.
Easy to ignore, too.
Because most of the time Woochan was simply talking for the sake of it.
Which was why this was inconvenient.
Because Woochan was coming back to KT again in 2025, and Boseong was still there.
The strange part wasn’t that they were teammates again.
It was how natural it felt. Like something quietly returning to where it had always belonged.
That should have been comforting.
Instead, it made Boseong slightly uneasy.
Woochan was still cheerful, still warm in the way people expected him to be, but the sharper edges of his personality had been worn down somewhere along the way. He didn’t talk idly anymore, filling silence with noise the way he used to. He had gotten good at listening, too. He stepped in before things fell apart instead of laughing afterward.
He used to be loud in a way that was borderline irritating.
Now he was loud mostly during downtime, when the pressure had drained out of the room and everyone could finally breathe again.
Boseong noticed this despite himself.
Noticed it, and immediately told himself not to think about it too much.
People changed. They grew up. Boseong had changed too.
There was nothing strange about that.
Still.
The first day Woochan walked back into the KT practice room, Boseong felt it again—that small, irrational sense of something settling quietly into place.
“Welcome back,” Boseong said, casually.
Woochan looked up from the doorway, surprised for a moment before breaking into a smile.
Not the wide, reckless grin Boseong remembered from years ago. This one was softer. A little tired, maybe. But still warm.
“Yeah,” Woochan said, his eyes crinkling slightly. “It’s good to be back home.”
The smile lingered longer than it needed to.
Home.
Boseong told himself it didn’t mean anything.
Maybe KDF had changed him, Boseong thought later. Woochan had been the captain there, and Boseong knew how rough that season had been for them. Leading a struggling team had a way of sanding people down, forcing them to grow up faster than they probably wanted to.
Maybe that was all this was.
It was a strange thought, considering Boseong was the one wearing the captain title now.
When the coaches had first brought it up, he had assumed they would give it to Woochan instead. Woochan already had the experience. He had done the job before.
But the jungler had been the first to shake his head.
“You should do it,” he said easily, turning toward Boseong without hesitation. “You’re better for it.”
He had even added, just as casually, that he trusted him to lead them.
Boseong had agreed in the end.
Mostly because arguing with Woochan after he had already decided something was pointless.
Still, the first few weeks had been rough.
Boseong had the title, but Woochan was the one who stepped in when things stalled out. The one who kept scrims moving when frustration started building. The one who said the strict things Boseong hesitated to say out loud.
Boseong was… softer with the younger players than he probably should have been. Especially with Seungmin.
Woochan wasn’t.
And somehow, the balance worked.
The younger players orbited around Boseong, but when Woochan spoke, they listened.
Dependable.
Boseong didn’t miss the irony that this was exactly what he needed.
He also didn’t miss how heavily that realization sat in his chest.
The start of the season weighed on Boseong more than he admitted.
Expectations stacked up quickly when you were supposed to be the steady one, the player everyone looked to when things started going wrong. Some days it felt like he carried the team in his chest instead of on his shoulders.
He cried more that year than he ever had in his life.
Woochan was there for all of it.
And that, unfortunately, was where things started going wrong.
LCK Cup had been especially rough.
They were knocked out early, eliminated before anyone had really figured out what KT was supposed to look like that year.
In theory, that meant a long break before the regular season began.
In practice, it meant two months of nonstop grinding: solo queue during the day and scrims in the evening.
The lights in the practice room stayed on late almost every night. Scrims piled up one after another. Draft meetings dragged past midnight while the coaches tried to piece together something that resembled a plan.
Everyone kept saying they just needed to find their footing.
Boseong tried.
He really did.
But nothing seemed to click.
At least not yet.
Some days it felt like he was dragging the entire game forward through sheer stubbornness alone, forcing plays simply because someone had to make a decision.
Woochan stayed late with him more often than not.
Sometimes they talked through drafts, going over the same scenarios until the conversation circled back to where it started. Sometimes Woochan simply sat nearby, scrolling through replays while Boseong replayed the same fight in his head for the tenth time.
“You’re overthinking again,” Woochan said one night, leaning back in his gaming chair.
Boseong didn’t look away from the paused replay on his screen. “We lost that last fight because I hesitated using my ult.”
Woochan tilted his head slightly toward the monitor. “We lost that fight because three people were doing three different things.”
“I could’ve fixed it.”
“You think you can fix everything.”
Boseong huffed quietly. “It was my call.”
“Sure, but it was a bad situation altogether,” Woochan corrected.
Boseong finally leaned back in his own chair, rubbing a hand over his face. “Half a second earlier and we win that fight.”
“Or half a second earlier and their top laner flashes on you and the whole thing collapses anyway.”
Boseong frowned. “You’re not being very helpful tonight.”
“I try.” Woochan shrugged then nudged Boseong’s chair lightly with his foot. “Hey…”
Boseong glanced over.
Woochan was smiling at him. “We’ll figure it out,” he said.
Boseong held his gaze for a moment.
Woochan said it so easily.
Like it wasn’t even a question.
“…You’re very confident for someone whose smite missed Baron yesterday,” Boseong muttered.
Woochan snorted. “I was just unlucky that time.”
“Of course you were.”
“It was also your call to rush Baron from that position.”
Boseong turned to glare at him.
Woochan only grinned wider, completely unapologetic.
Then he leaned forward slightly and tapped the edge of Boseong’s desk with his knuckles.
“We’ll figure it out,” the jungler repeated.
And Boseong found himself believing him.
Which, in hindsight, might have been the first mistake.
Rounds 1 and 2 of the regular season were worse.
The team never seemed to stabilize, players rotating in and out of the roster while the coaches searched for something—anything—that actually worked. One week they swapped out Gil for Yoonsu. The next week Daegil was benched instead. And every adjustment seemed to reset whatever fragile rhythm they had managed to build the week before.
The only two constants were Boseong and Woochan.
Which meant every loss felt personal.
Well, at least to Boseong.
Boseong tried to keep it together because, as captain, that was part of the job. But frustration crept in anyway; during scrims when his calls fell apart halfway through a fight, during reviews when the same mistakes kept appearing on screen, and during the long silences that settled over the waiting room after another bad game.
Surprisingly… Woochan handled it differently.
Where Boseong tended to go quiet and inward when things went badly, Woochan moved in the opposite direction, keeping the atmosphere from collapsing entirely. He talked to the younger players, cracked really bad jokes when the room got too quiet, and occasionally dragged someone—usually Seungmin—out for a quick jog or run just to break the tension.
Somewhere along the way, he had become steady.
Probably steadier than Boseong was.
And, increasingly, distracting.
Which was another problem Boseong chose to ignore.
Part of it was simply proximity.
The season was going badly, which meant Boseong and Woochan spent more time together than usual, especially during long evenings when most of the team had already gone back to the dorm but the two of them stayed behind, going over the same fights again and again in an attempt to figure out what had gone wrong.
When someone was around that often, it became difficult not to notice them.
Small things at first.
Like the way Woochan went quiet when he was thinking, a soft hum slipping out now and then while he waited for a replay to load. The way he didn’t seem to mind the silence in the room.
And then, unfortunately, slightly more specific things.
Like the fact that Woochan’s eyelashes were… longer than Boseong had ever realized.
It was not useful information.
It was, in fact, extremely unnecessary information.
And yet Boseong found himself noticing it anyway. Especially when Woochan leaned a little closer to the screen, his eyes narrowing in focus as he followed a fight frame by frame, completely absorbed in what was happening.
Or the way his lips curved when he smiled after making one of his dry, terrible dad jokes, looking quietly pleased with himself despite how stupid it sounded.
Boseong did not need to be paying attention to that.
At all.
The mid laner tried to refocus, turning back to his screen and forcing his attention onto cooldowns and positioning instead of anything else.
It worked.
For about three seconds.
Movement in the corner of his vision pulled his attention back anyway.
Woochan shifted his chair closer until it bumped lightly against Boseong’s, angling himself so he could watch the replay from Boseong’s screen instead of his own.
“Wait… go back a bit,” he said, pointing toward the monitor.
Boseong did.
Or at least, he thought he did.
Woochan kept talking, tracing something on the screen with his finger, probably explaining a positioning mistake or pointing out a missed timing window.
Boseong had no idea.
Not a single word registered.
Because Woochan was too close—close enough that Boseong could see the faint curve of his mouth when he spoke, the way his lips moved around words Boseong wasn’t actually listening to.
His gaze lingered for half a second too long.
Then he looked away.
That was enough of that.
Except it wasn’t, because Woochan reached up a moment later and slid his glasses off to clean them, still talking as he did, before putting them back on like nothing had happened.
Boseong found himself nodding along anyway.
He still had no idea what Woochan was saying.
He had always known Woochan was good-looking, but apparently that fact had decided to become much more noticeable lately.
This was becoming a problem.
By the time Road to MSI started, the team was finally beginning to improve.
Scrims looked noticeably cleaner, drafts made more sense, and the other players were settling into their roles instead of hesitating every time something unexpected happened during a fight.
They were winning.
Not convincingly every time, but enough that it no longer felt like they were just hoping things would work out.
For the first time all year, things actually felt… promising.
Not stable yet.
But close.
Close enough that Boseong allowed himself, carefully, to believe they might actually get there.
And then, during their gauntlet run to secure a spot at MSI, they ran into T1.
Because of course they did.
Their series was brutal from the very start. Every small mistake was punished immediately and every fight felt like it slipped out of their hands just when it looked winnable. Even the games where they managed to hold their ground longer than expected seemed to end the same way, with T1 slowly pulling ahead in the final moments.
By the time it was over, Boseong felt hollow.
The walk back to their waiting room was quiet, too quiet.
No one really spoke as they filed back into the room, chairs scraping softly against the floor as people packed up their gear while someone sighed somewhere behind him.
Boseong slipped out before anyone could start reviewing the games like they usually did as part of the debrief, not quite trusting himself to sit through it without snapping.
He pushed through the back exit of the building and stepped outside, the cool evening air in Busan hitting his face a second later, sharp enough to make him pause.
The noise from the arena was still faintly audible through the walls, but out here it was quieter, softened by distance. The alley behind the building was mostly empty, lit by a few dim security lights and the distant glow of convenience store signs, while somewhere farther off, the low hum of the city drifted through—cars passing on a main road, voices carrying faintly in the night air.
Boseong leaned back against the wall and stared down at the pavement, replaying the last fight in his head whether he wanted to or not.
There had been a moment.
A split second where he could have committed—could have made the play, turned it around, maybe even saved the game.
But he hadn’t.
He hated moments like that.
“Tough series,” a voice said behind him.
Boseong looked up.
Woochan was standing a few steps away near the door, hands tucked casually into the pockets of his KT jacket.
Boseong let out a tired laugh. “That’s one way to say it.”
Woochan walked over and leaned against the wall beside him, close enough that their arms brushed lightly as he settled into place.
For a moment, neither of them spoke, the distant murmur of fans still lingering outside the venue filling the silence as it faded in and out with passing footsteps.
Boseong exhaled slowly, the breath leaving him in a long, quiet stream as he rubbed a hand over his face, trying to settle the thoughts that refused to.
“We almost had it,” he said after a moment. “That fight near dragon… if we regrouped earlier and had enough vision, we win it.”
Woochan tilted his head slightly. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
Woochan didn’t answer right away, and the silence stretched just long enough for the thought to settle heavier in Boseong’s chest.
“Or they catch you on the flank and you die first,” Woochan said finally, almost casually. “You were pretty isolated there.”
Boseong glanced at him. “You’re not helping, Woochan-ah.”
“I’m being realistic, Boseongie.”
Boseong let out a quiet, tired breath, his shoulders dropping slightly as the tension bled out of him. “I hesitated.”
“You always think you hesitated,” Woochan said. “Why is that?”
Boseong frowned faintly. “Because I did.”
Woochan hummed softly, like he didn’t quite agree, before turning his head a little more to study him in that quiet way he had whenever he thought Boseong was being too hard on himself.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said after a moment. “Even my calls were off that fight.”
Boseong didn’t respond.
“You rotating half a second earlier doesn’t fix that,” Woochan added, nudging his arm lightly with his own. “The whole thing was messy.”
Boseong’s jaw tightened slightly.
He didn’t like that answer.
He didn’t like the idea that it wasn’t something he could point to and fix.
“You’re doing better than you think,” Woochan said.
Boseong let out a short breath through his nose. “That’s not true.”
“It is.”
Woochan shifted beside him, settling more comfortably against the wall as his gaze drifted toward the dim alley instead of the ground.
“We were getting rolled a month ago,” he went on. “Like… actually rolled. Scrims were worse than solo queue, to be honest.”
Boseong huffed quietly despite himself.
“And now,” Woochan continued, “we’re taking games off T1. Making them work for it.”
“That’s not exactly the standard I was aiming for.”
Woochan laughed under his breath. “Relax, captain. I didn’t say we’re done improving.”
Boseong didn’t answer immediately.
The night air had cooled a little, the heat from the arena finally fading from his skin, and somewhere in the distance a few voices drifted past before disappearing again, leaving the alley quiet.
He glanced at Woochan.
Woochan looked unbelievably calm.
Like he actually believed what he was saying. Like the loss hadn’t shaken his confidence in the team at all.
“We’re getting there,” Woochan said again, quieter this time.
And for some reason, Boseong felt his chest tighten.
Not with frustration this time, but with something else—something quieter, something that settled deeper than it should have.
Which was… inconvenient.
Because Boseong knew better than to lean too much on words like that after a loss. It was easy to say they were improving, but harder to ignore the way every small mistake lingered in his head long after the game ended, replaying itself over and over until it felt permanent.
Still, he found himself looking at Woochan again.
Woochan hadn’t moved. He was still standing there beside him, relaxed against the wall like they had nowhere else to be, like the night could stretch on for as long as it needed to.
Like he meant it.
We’re getting there.
Boseong looked away first.
He shouldn’t believe him.
He knew that.
But somehow…
He did.
Again.
Rounds 3 through 5 were chaos, though somehow it was the kind of chaos that finally started working in their favor.
After Road to MSI, Boseong had been firm with the coaching staff in a way he hadn’t been earlier in the year, making it clear that there would be no more roster changes, no more rotating players in and out depending on the week. That this was the group they were sticking with for the rest of the season.
Woochan backed him up without hesitation, and that, more than anything, seemed to make the difference.
The coaches listened, and for the first time all year they were allowed to stay in one place long enough to actually build something instead of constantly starting over.
It didn’t click all at once.
They were still losing—against T1, GenG, and HLE. The Legend group was as brutal as everyone had expected.
But even those losses began to feel different, closer and more competitive, frustrating in a way that suggested they were almost there instead of nowhere near it.
Calls started to line up instead of colliding, rotations happened just a little faster, and the other players—especially Yoonsu—hesitated less, committing to fights instead of second-guessing themselves halfway through.
They were starting to understand each other.
Confidence crept into the room slowly, almost cautiously, as if no one quite trusted it to stay.
Then they beat T1 in Round 5.
Even that didn’t feel real at first.
The series had been messy and tense and far closer than anyone expected, every game swinging back and forth in a way that made it impossible to relax even for a moment. Boseong spent most of it forcing himself not to think too far ahead, not to consider what it would mean if they actually won, because it still felt like something that could fall apart at any second.
When the enemy nexus finally exploded in their favor, the room went quiet for half a second, as if no one was quite ready to believe what they were seeing.
Then someone shouted—not quite celebration, but something closer to disbelief.
They had actually done it.
They had beaten T1.
The win gave them momentum, but it also gave them something far more dangerous.
Hope.
And hope, Boseong knew, had a way of making things hurt more if it didn’t work out.
Which was how they found themselves facing GenG in the deciding series.
No one expected them to win—not the analysts, not the fans, and if Boseong was being honest, not even the team themselves. They didn’t say it out loud, but it was there in the way they approached the series, in the quiet understanding that they would have to play the best games of their lives just to keep up.
GenG had been untouchable all year, clean and controlled in a way that made them look almost unbeatable.
As it turned out, that was exactly what KT challenged.
Game after game, the series turned into a knife fight that refused to give either side a clear advantage, every objective contested and every team fight balanced on the edge of a single mistake that could end everything. There was no room to breathe, no moment where the tension eased long enough for anyone to relax.
Boseong barely remembered the details afterward—only flashes of it: a team fight that could have gone either way, a desperate call from Yoonsu that somehow worked, the distant roar of the crowd bleeding faintly through the stage walls.
And Woochan.
Woochan playing completely out of his mind.
Every objective fight felt like it balanced on the edge of a coin flip, dragons stolen at impossible angles, Barons secured through sheer nerve, and smites that landed so cleanly that Boseong almost laughed in relief every time the objective health bar dropped to zero on their side.
By the time the final game rolled around, Boseong felt like his heart had moved somewhere into his throat, every breath sitting just a little too high in his chest.
The last Elder fight was chaos, health bars dropping everywhere on the screen while voices overlapped in comms, everyone shouting cooldowns and timers at once as the fight threatened to spiral out of control.
Then—
“Got it.”
Woochan’s voice cut through the noise.
Elder dragon secured.
The fight swung instantly.
What had looked like a dangerous contest around the pit tilted in their favor in the span of a second, the objective secured cleanly and the momentum shifting so fast that even Boseong barely had time to process it before they were already moving forward.
The next few seconds blurred together after that, a push down mid lane with their team surging forward while GenG scrambled to recover, a desperate final defense that held for only a moment before collapsing under the pressure.
Then the enemy nexus exploded.
For a moment, Boseong didn’t move.
The room around him erupted, the casters’ voices echoing faintly through the stage speakers as they rose above the roar of the crowd, shouting about the upset.
Yoonsu and Daegil were already yelling, half laughing and half shouting in disbelief, while the coaches stood in the booth, clapping and shaking their heads like they still couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.
Seungmin was mostly silent. He sat there for a second longer than the others, shoulders dropping as he exhaled slowly, the tension leaving him all at once.
They had done it.
They were going to Worlds.
The realization hit Boseong all at once, heavy and overwhelming.
He barely had time to process it before Woochan was in front of him, pulling him into a hug.
Boseong stepped into it without thinking, his hand gripping the back of Woochan’s jersey like he needed something solid to hold onto, just for a second.
Woochan laughed softly against his shoulder, his breath still uneven from the game. “We did it,” he said, like this was normal, like everything was fine.
Boseong held on for a moment longer than he probably should have, just long enough to notice the faint, clean scent clinging to Woochan’s jersey—something light and familiar, subtle enough that it shouldn’t have mattered.
It didn’t.
It really didn’t.
Boseong pulled back anyway.
Then the moment moved on.
They were already heading toward the center of the stage to bow to the fans, then turning to gather their gear, the stage lights suddenly too bright and the cameras already swinging toward them as the crowd kept cheering.
Boseong barely registered any of it.
At some point, he became aware that his vision was starting to blur, the bright lights smearing slightly at the edges as he blinked, trying to refocus.
And then—
Oh.
He was crying.
Not quietly, either.
The cameras were definitely catching it, especially when he gave a shaky thumbs-up toward one of them.
Boseong scrubbed quickly at his face the moment the camera shifted away, trying to pull himself together, but it wasn’t really working.
Everything still felt too full, too heavy, too much to process all at once.
By the time they finally made it backstage and into the waiting room, the noise had dulled into something distant, the adrenaline slowly bleeding out of his system and leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion.
Boseong sank into one of the chairs, pressing the heel of his hand briefly against his eyes as if he could physically push everything back into place.
A hand appeared in his line of sight.
A tissue.
From Woochan.
“You’re really emotional lately,” Woochan said, sounding faintly amused.
Boseong took the tissue and wiped quickly at his face, letting out a quiet, irritated breath. “Shut up.”
Woochan laughed, the sound warm and familiar, the same quiet laugh Boseong had heard countless times.
Boseong looked at him then.
Really looked.
Woochan was still grinning, his face flushed with leftover adrenaline, his eyes bright in a way Boseong hadn’t seen all year. The tension that had been sitting on his shoulders for months seemed to have finally lifted, leaving him looking lighter somehow.
And suddenly, without warning, Boseong found himself overwhelmed by one extremely inconvenient thought.
I could kiss him.
For those smites alone.
Honestly, Woochan probably deserved it.
The man had just dragged them into Worlds with the cleanest Elder secure Boseong had ever seen.
It would be justified.
Completely reasonable, even.
Boseong blinked.
Then immediately looked away.
Absolutely not.
That would be—
Weird.
Very weird.
Because Woochan was his friend.
His teammate.
The person who had been sitting beside him through every terrible scrim, every frustrating loss, and every late-night review session for months while they tried to figure out how to salvage their season.
You could not just kiss someone like that.
Boseong dragged a hand down his face again, pressing his palm against his eyes as if that might somehow reset his brain.
This was not a thought he should be having.
Worlds felt bigger than Boseong remembered.
Maybe it was because the tournament was being held in China that year, which meant every arena they played in felt impossibly loud, packed with fans long before the first game of the day had even begun, the noise of thousands of voices rising and falling in waves that carried through the walls and down the backstage corridors, settling into a constant hum of energy that never quite faded even when the players were still waiting for their turn to walk onto the stage.
Even before they stepped out beneath the lights, the atmosphere was impossible to ignore, something that pressed in on all sides and made every moment feel just a little heavier.
It should have felt overwhelming.
Instead, after the chaos and uncertainty of their domestic season, it felt almost… simple, in a way that surprised him.
All they had to do was play.
Their first match of the Swiss stage against MKOI went better than anyone expected. Not because it was flawless—far from it—but because once the game actually started, the stage didn’t feel nearly as overwhelming as Boseong had feared it might.
The draft was clean, and though the early game began shakier than he would have liked, the team recovered quickly once the first few fights settled into something more stable, their movements syncing up in a way that felt familiar instead of forced.
When the enemy nexus finally exploded, Boseong leaned back slightly in his chair and let out a slow breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding since the game began, the tension in his shoulders easing just enough to remind him how tightly wound he had been.
1–0.
A good start.
But still not enough to mean anything yet.
Their second match against TSW was steadier.
Not effortless, but far more controlled than the first.
Their opponents tried to force early skirmishes, looking for openings in the first few minutes, but this time KT didn’t get pulled into the chaos. They answered cleanly, matching pressure where it mattered and disengaging when it didn’t, keeping the pace of the game firmly within their control.
The map never felt out of reach.
So when the enemy nexus finally fell, Boseong found himself exhaling more out of habit than relief, the tension from the first game noticeably absent.
2-0.
That was when people started talking, from backstage interviews to analysts on the broadcast desk. Their tone shifted as KT’s name began to come up more often than anyone had expected at the start of the tournament.
Commentators pointed out that the team that had struggled through most of the LCK domestic season was somehow sitting at the top of the Swiss standings, that this run wasn’t something anyone had predicted.
More than once, Boseong caught fragments of conversations drifting through the backstage hallways, half-heard remarks about how different KT looked at Worlds, about how this might be the most unexpected momentum shift of the tournament, about how one more win would push them straight into the knockout stage.
He tried very hard not to listen, because thinking about streaks was exactly how you lost them.
Still, by the time they stepped onto the stage for their third Swiss match against TES, the pressure felt different from the first two games.
The arena lights seeming brighter, the roar of the crowd louder, every moment carrying the quiet understanding that one more win would push them forward.
The series itself blurred together afterward into flashes of movement and sound; team fights breaking out in quick succession, the crowd swelling every time something started, voices overlapping in comms as cooldowns and timers were called out while the map lit up with pings.
And Woochan.
Woochan played exactly the way he had when they first beat T1—clear shotcalling in comms, clutch when it mattered, landing smites with a steady confidence as if the objective health bars were moving in slow motion and the pressure of the Worlds stage meant absolutely nothing to him.
When the final fight ended and the enemy nexus collapsed for the third time that day, the realization settled over Boseong slowly, almost cautiously, as if he didn’t quite trust it yet.
3–0.
They were still undefeated, and no one had taken a single game off them so far.
The arena erupted, the sound of the crowd crashing over the stage in a wave of cheers as cameras swung toward their side and the broadcast casters were shouting something excited in Mandarin that Boseong couldn’t understand.
Beside him, Woochan was already on his feet, caught up in the moment as he turned toward the others, laughing and patting shoulders.
Boseong found himself watching him for a moment longer than necessary.
Then Woochan glanced over at their team captain.
“You’re staring again,” he said.
Boseong looked away immediately. “I’m not.”
Woochan snorted softly. “Sure.”
Boseong ignored him, mostly because his heartbeat had suddenly become far too loud, pounding hard enough that, despite the safe distance between them, he had the brief, irrational fear that it might somehow be noticeable—even over the ringing in his ears and the lingering roar of the crowd.
Quarterfinals came faster than Boseong expected.
Their next opponent was CFO, a matchup that, at least on paper, should have been competitive enough to force them into a long and exhausting series.
Instead, it was over before Boseong fully processed that it had even begun.
Three games, three wins, each one slipping into their hands with a quiet efficiency that left very little room for doubt. By the time the final nexus collapsed, Boseong sighed in relief.
3–0.
They were going to semifinals.
The crowd roared again, though this time the reaction carried a different tone—less surprise, more a growing excitement about the team that was now, somehow, dominating the knockout stage at Worlds.
Backstage, the team atmosphere was lighter than it had been all year.
The others were laughing as they replayed moments from the series on Yoonsu’s phone, while another argument broke out nearby about which team fight had actually sealed game two, voices overlapping in that familiar, chaotic way that only happened when things were going well.
Boseong sat in the farthest corner of the room, finally letting himself breathe as the exhaustion hit him all at once, settling heavily now that the adrenaline had nowhere left to go.
“You look like someone who just finished running a marathon,” Woochan said.
Boseong turned to look at him.
Woochan was standing a few steps away, looking annoyingly relaxed for someone who had just finished playing a Worlds quarterfinal in front of thousands of people.
“It was three games,” Boseong said.
“Exactly,” Woochan replied. “And you still look exhausted.”
Boseong scoffed, shaking his head. “You’re the one who was sprinting across the map every five seconds.”
Woochan laughed softly, then stepped closer before lowering himself into the seat beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed the moment he settled in.
Closer than necessary.
For a moment they just sat there, the noise of the rest of the team drifting faintly through the open door behind them while staff members passed by in the hallway, the world outside their small corner continuing on.
Then Woochan leaned slightly into him and bumped his shoulder lightly against Boseong’s—a habit he had somehow picked up over the course of the year.
“Good job today, captain.”
The words were simple, casual even, but something about the way Woochan said them, this close, made warmth spread through Boseong’s chest before he had time to stop it.
That should not have mattered as much as it did.
Boseong had been trying, very deliberately, not to think about it.
About the way Woochan seemed… different.
Maybe it was just Worlds.
Maybe it was just what this stage did to people.
It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that Boseong noticed it anyway.
Not just in the games, not just in the results, but in the way it showed on him afterward—in the easy grin he didn’t bother hiding, in the way the tension slipped out of his shoulders, in the restless energy that lingered in the way he moved even after everything was over.
It made him look—
Boseong stopped himself before the thought could take shape.
He didn’t need to finish it. The impression settled anyway, quiet and persistent, and far more difficult to ignore because of it.
He found himself thinking, distantly, that he wanted to see that version of Woochan again.
Happy.
Which was the problem.
Because that meant—
They needed to keep winning.
The thought came easily after that, slipping into place like it had always been there.
They had made it this far, survived a regular season that had once felt like it was going nowhere, gone undefeated through the Swiss stage, and now stood only one series away from the Worlds finals.
There would be more games. More chances.
Boseong exhaled slowly, something in his chest tightening in a way he didn’t like.
That was… not ideal.
So he did the only reasonable thing.
He crossed his arms and looked away.
“You’re saying that like you didn’t carry half the fights and outplay their jungler,” he said.
Woochan raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so now you’re complimenting me willingly?”
“I’m stating a fact, Woochan-ah.”
“Sure you are, Boseongie.”
Boseong refused to look at him again, mostly because Woochan was still smiling in that way that made it increasingly difficult to think straight.
And that, Boseong decided firmly, was not something he was going to deal with right now.
Semifinals felt different.
Not because the games themselves were any clearer—if anything, Boseong would struggle to remember most of them afterward—but because the tension never really left his body from the moment the series started. From the first draft phase to the final fight, every minute of the match felt stretched tight with the quiet understanding that a single mistake could undo everything they had built over the course of the tournament.
Their opponent was GenG.
The best team in the world.
For months they had looked almost untouchable. They were the team everyone else measured themselves against. Analysts and casters had spent the entire season talking about their dominance, about how clean their games looked and how rarely they lost control of a series once it began.
In the last eight months, GenG had only lost a single best-of-five.
And now…
Now KT were sitting on match point against them at Worlds.
Boseong wasn’t even sure how long they had been sitting on that stage beneath the lights. The series had stretched his nerves so tightly that time seemed to blur together, every fight bleeding into the next until the only thing he could focus on was the steady pressure of his hands on the keyboard.
He only realized they were shaking when the game finally ended.
The enemy nexus exploded.
3-1.
For a moment Boseong didn’t move.
His screen had already faded to victory, the game client frozen on the final frame, but his fingers were still resting lightly on the keyboard as if his body hadn’t yet caught up with what had just happened.
Across the stage, the gaming chairs scraped against the floor as players began to stand. Someone behind him shouted, the sound breaking into laughter that carried across the stage, half disbelief and half exhilaration.
Slowly, the realization began to settle in.
GenG had been the strongest team in the world all year.
The team everyone expected to win the tournament.
And KT…
KT had just knocked them out.
Boseong leaned back in his chair, his hands still trembling slightly as he reached up to pull off his headset. Even without the comms in his ears, the stage felt strangely distant, like the moment was unfolding somewhere just outside his own thoughts.
Woochan was already on his feet, the sudden movement sharp at the edge of Boseong’s vision as he jumped up and started hugging the others, his voice cutting through the noise in short bursts of laughter and disbelief.
Boseong didn’t move right away.
He stayed where he was, staring at his monitor for another second longer.
At some point, he thought he felt a hand land briefly against his shoulder.
Woochan, probably.
He wasn’t entirely sure.
Then he pushed his chair back.
And the shaking started again.
Not from nerves this time, but from the sudden, overwhelming realization that they had actually done it.
They were going to the finals.
After the usual handshakes and bowing to the audience, Boseong was pulled to the side by the stage director.
“Bdd, interview prep.”
He blinked and looked at him.
Right.
He stood because they told him to stand, letting himself be guided toward the side of the stage while the rest of the team was still celebrating somewhere off the main stage. Production staff moved quickly through the space, headsets crackling as someone reached up to clip a small microphone onto the collar of his jersey.
“Just a couple of questions,” the coordinator said gently in Korean. “We’ll run them by you before you go out.”
Boseong nodded.
His hands were still shaking.
The first few questions were simple enough—something about the series, something about how the team had prepared for GenG. He listened, nodding along as they spoke, committing the general shape of the answers to memory without really needing to think too hard about them.
Then the staff member glanced down at their notes.
“And we’ll probably ask you about Cuzz as well,” they said. “About your synergy this year, how important he’s been for the team.”
The name landed harder than Boseong expected.
For a moment, he just stared at them.
Then he nodded again, like that was enough.
Like he understood.
Like he could answer that.
He opened his mouth, intending to say something—just to test the words, to run through it once before going on stage.
Something about how he wouldn’t have made it this far without him.
Something about how much easier it had been to lead this year because Woochan had always been there beside him.
The words formed easily in his head.
But the moment he tried to say them out loud, his voice caught.
Boseong stopped.
He blinked quickly.
Once.
Then again.
The tears came before he had time to stop them.
“Oh—hey,” the stage director said softly, stepping forward immediately.
Before Boseong could say anything, the man had already pulled him into a steady hug, one hand resting reassuringly between his shoulders.
“It’s alright. Just breathe,” the man whispered in English.
Boseong didn’t understand, but he pressed his face briefly into the man’s shoulder anyway, mortified and overwhelmed all at once.
He didn’t know why he was crying.
Well.
He did.
But that was a separate problem.
After a moment, the shaking in his chest settled enough that he could pull back, wiping quickly at his face while someone handed him a tissue.
“Take your time,” the coordinator said kindly.
Eventually, they went through the rest of the questions.
Eventually, he stepped onto the stage.
Eventually, the interview ended.
By the time the last of the media obligations of the day were finished, the adrenaline had drained out of his system, leaving behind a heavy kind of exhaustion that settled deep in his bones.
The team gathered briefly in the hotel hallway after they got back, the energy from the win still lingering in uneven bursts as staff and players moved in and out of rooms, voices overlapping as everyone tried to decide what to do with the unexpected free time the coaches had given them to recharge and reset.
Yoonsu suggested food, Seungmin suggested sleep, and within seconds a third option—ordering in and watching something together—turned into a half-serious argument that pulled most of the team into it.
Boseong stayed near the edge of it, listening without really hearing any of it.
Before the discussion could turn into an actual plan, he slipped away.
A few minutes later, he pushed open the door to the outdoor terrace at the end of the hallway and stepped outside, letting the cool night air settle against his skin as he leaned lightly against the railing, the quiet hitting him all at once in a way that felt almost unfamiliar after hours of noise and pressure.
For the first time all night, everything was still enough that he could finally breathe.
But even that didn’t last long.
“Why are you hiding from the kids?”
Boseong glanced over his shoulder.
Woochan was standing a few steps behind him, leaning casually against the doorframe, his expression relaxed.
“I’m not hiding,” Boseong said.
“You are.”
“I’m getting some fresh air.”
Woochan considered that for a moment before pushing himself off the wall and stepping outside, letting the door fall shut quietly behind him as he moved to stand beside Boseong.
For a while, neither of them said anything, the city stretching out below them in a scatter of distant lights while the noise from below barely reached this high, leaving the space between them quiet hat felt easy rather than empty.
Boseong shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket, the cool air helping clear the lingering heat from the stage lights still clinging to him.
“Finals,” he said eventually.
Woochan hummed beside him in acknowledgment.
Boseong let out a quiet breath that fogged faintly in the air as he spoke again. “If you told me six months ago we’d be here, I would’ve laughed at you.”
Woochan chuckled softly. “Six months ago we were losing scrims to the challenger kids.”
“That too.”
They stayed there a little longer, the silence that followed settling naturally between them.
After a moment, Woochan spoke again, his voice quieter this time as he said, “Still feels weird.”
“What does?”
“Us. Going to Finals.”
Boseong nodded slowly, the motion almost automatic as he answered, “Yeah.”
Woochan glanced sideways at him then, his expression shifting just slightly. “I’m glad it’s with you.”
Boseong blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
“I mean it,” Woochan said softly, with a smile. “Win or lose, I’m glad we’re doing this together.”
The words were simple, almost too simple.
And yet they settled somewhere deep in Boseong’s chest with a weight that felt completely out of proportion.
He felt his pulse pick up before he could stop it, sharp and sudden, that made him uncomfortably aware of himself, of the space around him, and most of all of how close Woochan was standing beside him.
It shouldn’t have felt like this.
There was nothing in what Woochan had said that justified that kind of reaction, nothing that should have made Boseong this aware, this focused on something so small.
They were teammates.
Friends.
This—whatever this was—was normal. It was supposed to be normal.
And yet, standing there in the quiet with the cool night air settling around them and Woochan looking at him like that, it felt strangely intimate in a way Boseong couldn’t quite explain.
Which was a problem.
A very obvious one.
Because Boseong had spent most of the year very deliberately not thinking about things like this, not letting moments stretch too far or linger too long, not reading into anything that didn’t mean more than it was supposed to.
And now he was standing here, overthinking a single sentence like it carried more weight than it actually did, like it meant something more than it should.
Which it didn’t.
It absolutely did not.
He cleared his throat, forcing his attention away before his thoughts could go any further, but that only made him more aware of everything again.
And Boseong—
Boseong was very, very fond of Woochan.
So dangerously fond that it probably meant something.
Which Boseong immediately decided it absolutely did not.
He cleared his throat again, forcing his voice back into something steady and normal. “Yeah,” he said, trying very hard to sound unaffected. “You’re not terrible to play with either.”
Woochan snorted softly. “High praise coming from you.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
Woochan bumped his shoulder lightly against Boseong’s, that familiar habit slipping in without thought.
And that made it worse rather than better.
Boseong kept his gaze fixed on the city ahead of them, letting the lights blur together just enough that he didn’t have to focus on anything too closely.
It was easier that way.
Easier than looking at Woochan, easier than acknowledging how close he was standing, how easily the space between them could disappear if either of them moved even slightly.
The thought surfaced anyway.
Boseong pushed it down just as quickly, exhaling slowly as if that alone could steady something that had shifted without his permission.
This didn’t have to mean anything.
It didn’t.
And if he just left it alone…
If he didn’t look too closely, didn’t think too much…
It would stay that way.
Probably.
Finals felt heavier than anything Boseong had ever experienced.
Not just because of the stage, or the lights, or the weight of the tournament itself, but because, at some point along the way, this had stopped being something distant and impossible and had become real.
They were here.
KT was in the Grand Finals.
Somehow, after everything they have been through, good or bad, they had made it all the way to the finals.
Boseong hadn’t let himself think about it too much before.
Even during the tournament, even as they kept winning, it had felt easier not to look too far ahead, not to consider what it would mean if they actually made it this far.
But standing on that stage, with the lights too bright and the noise of the crowd pressing in from every side, there had been a moment—quiet and brief—where it finally settled in.
This was it.
This was where they had been trying to get all year.
And for a while, it felt like they might actually take it.
That was the part that stayed with him the most.
The feeling that, for a few moments at a time, it had been within reach.
Close enough to believe in.
Close enough to lose.
The series itself blurred together afterward, every moment stretched thin with tension until nothing stood cleanly apart from anything else.
Boseong thought, distantly, that maybe that was his mind’s way of protecting him—letting the details fade so they wouldn’t settle too sharply.
All he really remembered was the feeling.
And how, little by little—
It slipped.
Until, suddenly, it was gone.
By the time they got back to the hotel, the post-Finals high had already worn off, leaving Boseong feeling exhausted in a way that made even small movements feel slower than they should have.
His hotel room was dim when he stepped inside, the city lights outside filtering faintly through the curtains as he set his bag down and unzipped it without really thinking about what he was doing.
He started packing, slowly and almost mechanically, folding clothes he didn’t remember wearing and stacking things he didn’t remember unpacking, letting the repetition fill the space where his thoughts might have gone.
For a while, it worked.
Until it didn’t.
The series came back to him in fragments—not in order, not clean, but sharp enough that each moment lingered longer than it should have, as if his mind couldn’t quite decide what to let go of.
Boseong paused, a shirt still in his hands as he exhaled slowly.
They had lost.
The thought didn’t feel dramatic. It didn’t crash into him the way he might have expected. It just sat there, heavy and quiet.
Earlier, in the hallway, Yoonsu had apologized.
The memory surfaced without warning. His voice was too quick, too earnest, the way he hadn’t quite met Boseong’s eyes when he said it.
I’m so sorry, hyung. I told you I’d get you there.
I said I’d get you the star, hyung. But I failed you.
Boseong closed his eyes briefly, something in his chest tightening at the thought.
That wasn’t how it worked.
League of Legends was a team game. It had never been on just one person.
But the words stayed anyway.
He folded the shirt and set it down carefully on top of the others just as a knock sounded at the door.
Boseong glanced up.
The door opened a second later, and Woochan stepped in.
Ah. He forgot to lock it again.
The jungler didn’t say anything right away, just leaned lightly against the door after closing it behind him, his presence settling into the room in that familiar, unintrusive way that made it feel less empty almost immediately.
“Packing already?” Woochan asked.
Boseong nodded once. “Might as well.”
Woochan hummed softly in acknowledgment before pushing himself off the door and walking further into the room, stopping a few steps away.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence felt quieter than before.
Boseong picked up another shirt, more out of habit than necessity, his hands moving even as his thoughts lagged behind.
“We were so close,” he said after a moment.
Woochan didn’t answer immediately.
“Yeah,” he said eventually.
Boseong let out a breath, his hands pausing for a second before he forced himself to keep folding.
“It felt like we had it,” he added, his voice lower this time.
“Sometimes it does,” Woochan replied, his tone even—not dismissive, not distant, just matter-of-fact.
That somehow made it worse.
Boseong huffed under his breath. “That’s a terrible answer.”
Woochan smiled faintly. “You asked a terrible question.”
That almost made Boseong laugh.
Almost.
The room went quiet again.
After a moment, Woochan spoke. “We’ll get another shot.”
Boseong glanced at him.
Woochan looked tired—more than he had earlier—but there was something steady in the way he carried himself, like the loss hadn’t unsettled him as much as it should have.
“We weren’t even supposed to make it this far,” Woochan added after a moment. “But we did.”
Boseong frowned slightly. “The loss didn’t shake you at all?”
Woochan let out a breath, his gaze dropping briefly before he shook his head. “It did. Losing never gets easier. You know that.”
He paused, then continued, his voice easing just a little.
“But at the end of it… I’m proud. Of what we did here. Together.”
Boseong looked down at the bag in front of him as the words settled.
He thought about the season—about the scrims that had gone nowhere, and the ones that had finally started to work, about the long nights and the quiet conversations, about the moments that had felt small at the time but had somehow led them all the way here.
And, inevitably—
Woochan.
Boseong let out a slow breath.
“Yeah,” he said.
It had been worth it.
Even now.
Especially now.
He glanced up again, and the words left him before he could stop them.
“I’m glad it’s you.”
Woochan blinked, not quite following. “What?”
“Win or lose,” Boseong continued, his voice more measured than he expected, “I’m glad it’s you I got to do this with.”
He hesitated briefly, then added, “I’m really glad it’s you, Woochan-ah.”
For a moment, Woochan didn’t say anything.
Then he exhaled softly, something in his expression easing.
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
The answer was simple.
But it was enough.
Boseong held his gaze for a second longer than he meant to.
Then another.
The moment stretched just enough for him to become aware of it.
He should’ve looked away, and he knew it.
This was exactly the kind of moment he had spent the entire year avoiding, the kind that turned simple things into something far more complicated than they were meant to be.
Woochan was still his teammate.
Still his friend.
Still the person who had been there through everything.
Which was exactly why this was a terrible idea.
But the season was over, and all the reasons Boseong had for holding himself back felt smaller now, less convincing than they used to be.
Woochan hadn’t moved either.
He was still standing there, close enough that Boseong could see the way his expression had softened, waiting for his next move.
Boseong hesitated, his breath catching slightly as something in his chest tightened.
And then, before he could think any further, he stepped forward.
His hand came up instinctively, grabbing Woochan’s arm.
He leaned in…
And kissed him.
He kissed Woochan.
It wasn’t smooth or careful or planned, but a little clumsy and a little too quick, like he had committed to it before fully thinking it through.
For a second, Woochan didn’t react.
Then he did.
Woochan’s hand came up, settling at Boseong’s side as he leaned into it just enough to meet him there.
And somewhere in the middle of it, something in Boseong’s chest loosened.
The tightness that had been sitting there for months finally slipped, rising too quickly for him to catch.
When they pulled back, it wasn’t far. Just enough space to breathe.
“…Hey.”
Boseong hadn’t realized it at first.
Only when his vision blurred slightly and his breath came out uneven, his hand coming up to drag across his face more out of instinct than anything else.
His fingers came away damp.
He let out a short, unsteady breath, something caught between a laugh and something else he couldn’t quite name.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
Woochan didn’t move away.
If anything, he leaned closer, his hand lifting to Boseong’s cheek as his thumb brushed gently beneath his eye, wiping the tear away without hesitation.
“For what?” he asked quietly.
Boseong shook his head, leaning into the touch before he could stop himself, his eyes slipping shut for a moment as he tried to steady his breathing.
“I don’t—” he started, then exhaled, his voice catching slightly. “I don’t know.”
Because it wasn’t just one thing.
It was everything—the pressure, the months of holding everything together because he had to, because there hadn’t been room for anything else.
And underneath all of that—
This.
The thing he hadn’t let himself feel, hadn’t let himself name, hadn’t even let himself think about for too long.
Now that there was nothing left to hold it back, it all surfaced at once, leaving him overwhelmed in a way he couldn’t quite put into words. For the first time in months, he wasn’t trying to hold any of it together.
Woochan watched him quietly, something soft and steady settling into his expression, his thumb still resting lightly against Boseong’s cheek as if to keep him there, grounded.
Then, a little quieter, almost careful, he said, “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while now.”
Boseong blinked, his thoughts lagging behind the moment. “…What?”
Woochan let out a small, almost sheepish breath, the corner of his mouth lifting faintly.
“Kiss you,” he said, and then, softly added, “and you’re apologizing for it.”
Boseong let out a breath that almost turned into a laugh, shaky at the edges but real, some of the tension easing just from that.
Woochan’s expression softened further. “Don’t,” he said quietly.
His hand didn’t move away; if anything, his thumb brushed once more beneath Boseong’s eye, slower this time and more deliberate, like he was giving him the space to settle.
Then Woochan leaned in, closing the small distance between them and catching Boseong’s lips in another kiss.
It wasn’t rushed or uncertain, just steady in a way that made it easy to follow.
And Boseong did.
He kissed him back without hesitation this time, without overthinking it, without stopping himself halfway through like he had done so many times before.
The second kiss was softer, slower, something that settled into place instead of catching him off guard.
Woochan’s hand still warm against his cheek as Boseong leaned into the touch, his fingers curling lightly into the fabric of Woochan’s sleeve as if to anchor himself there.
The tightness in his chest didn’t disappear completely, but it eased. Not all at once but enough that his breathing steadied, enough that everything inside him felt quieter, less overwhelming, like it had finally found somewhere to rest.
And for the first time all night, Boseong didn’t feel like he was holding anything back.
Here, in the quiet of his hotel room, with Woochan this close—his teammate, his friend, the person who had been there through everything—it felt simple in a way nothing else had all day.
Gwak Boseong liked to think he knew himself fairly well.
It had taken him longer than it should have.
But standing here now, with Woochan’s lips still on his, holding onto him like he was afraid to let go—
He knew.
He was in love with Woochan, and this time, he didn’t try to deny it.