Chapter Text
The hum of seventy desktop towers created a ambient, low-frequency buzz that Choi Hyeon-joon had grown up listening to.
"Hyeon-joon-ah! Table 14 needs another instant ramen, and turn up the AC in the back corner!" his mother called out from behind the counter, her voice easily cutting through the sound of mechanical keyboard clicks and shouting teenagers.
"Got it, Mom!"
Hyeon-joon wiped his hands on his apron, setting down his camera bag carefully under the main counter before grabbing the hot bowl of ramen. At twenty-three, his life was a carefully balanced triad: working freelance photography gigs on weekends, managing his parents’ modest PC cafe in the quiet suburbs of Seoul, and spending every remaining, unscheduled hour of his life buried deep in the digital rift of League of Legends.
He wasn't just a casual player, though. On the Korean solo queue ladder, the name "Doran" carried a very specific, legendary reputation.
If you met him in High Challenger, you were guaranteed one of two outcomes:
- He would pick an aggressive, high-damage top laner like Irelia or Aatrox, pull off a mechanically impossible 1v2 dive under the enemy tier-two tower at minute eight, and single-handedly carry the game.
- He would attempt that exact same dive, miscalculate his damage by forty health points, die horribly, laugh softly to himself, and end up on a viral stream highlight reel titled “Challenger Top Laner Ints in 4K.”
Pro players stream-sniping him routinely lost their minds. He was unpredictable, hyper-aggressive, extraordinarily talented, and completely unbothered by his own chaotic misplays.
After finishing his shift at midnight, Hyeon-joon finally sat down at his preferred corner setup—PC #07, right next to the high-end photo editing monitor he had bought with his first big photography paycheck.
He didn't log into the game right away. First, he opened a specialized browser.
Hyeon-joon pulled a high-capacity SD card from his pocket and slotted it into his reader. Hundreds of RAW image files began loading onto his screen.
He adjusted his glasses, zooming in 200% on a shot taken from the spectator stands at the LCK Arena three days ago.
The photo was breathtakingly crisp. The subject was sitting on stage, the harsh blue floodlights reflecting off his glasses, his shoulders straight, his chin resting slightly upward as he adjusted his headset before draft phase. His expression was calm, stoic, and entirely unbothered by the roaring crowd of thousands.
Lee Sanghyeok. Faker. The Unkillable Demon King.
Hyeon-joon’s obsession hadn't started with esports; it had started with the game itself four years ago. When Hyeon-joon first picked up LoL, he was terrible. But while trying to learn how to play, he stumbled across a montage of Faker’s mid lane plays from 2013 to 2017.
He was mesmerized. The way Faker moved his champion wasn't just gaming—to Hyeon-joon's photographer eye, it was spatial art. It was precise, elegant, and impossibly sharp.
From that day on, Hyeon-joon was hooked. When he realized his freelance telephoto camera lenses could capture high-resolution shots from the fan section at LoL Park, a monster was born.
Today, Hyeon-joon was secretly one of the most famous figures in the T1 fandom: the head administrator and sole photographer of @HIDE_ON_LENS, a premier Faker fansite with over 30,000 followers.
Nobody on the internet knew that the elite, professional-grade photographer who posted breathtaking, highly cinematic 4K portraits of the esports legend was actually a sleep-deprived top laner working the night shift at a neighborhood PC cafe.
Hyeon-joon opened Photoshop, meticulously color-grading the blue stage light to highlight the warm, sharp angle of Sanghyeok’s jawline. He added a soft watermark in the corner: @HIDE_ON_LENS.
[@HIDE_ON_LENS]
2026.07.24 LCK Summer Split.
"The calm before the storm. Always standing tall."
[Attached: 4 HD Photos]
Within thirty seconds of posting, his phone began vibrating off the desk from thousands of retweets, likes, and comments.
“ADMIN-NIM YOUR COLOR GRADING IS A WORK OF ART!”
“How do you always capture Sanghyeok-hyung looking so majestic? Do you use a 300mm lens??”
“Hide_on_lens never misses. literally the best Faker fansite in existence.”
Hyeon-joon smiled softly to himself, his cheeks flushing a faint pink as he read the comments. He leaned back in his chair, hugging his knees to his chest.
He didn't do it for the clout. He just genuinely, deeply admired Lee Sanghyeok. To Hyeon-joon, Sanghyeok was a distant, golden sun—someone he felt privileged just to capture through a glass lens from thirty meters away.
"Alright," Hyeon-joon whispered to himself, slapping his cheeks with both hands to wake himself up. "Time for one game."
He minimized Twitter, booted up his Challenger client, and hit [ Find Match ].
Because his MMR was absurdly high, his queue times were long. He opened a stream on his second monitor—currently watching a popular LCK pro player’s live broadcast—to pass the time.
Five minutes later, the sharp, metallic chime of a match popping echoed through his headset.
[MATCH FOUND]
Hyeon-joon accepted. He locked in his signature champion: Aatrox.
He tabbed over to the lobby chat, checking the summs. He looked at his mid laner’s placeholder handle: hide on bush.
Hyeon-joon froze. His mouse hovering over the rune page completely stopped.
hide on bush.
Hyeon-joon swallowed hard, his heart violently hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He stared at the screen, his hands suddenly going icy cold.
He was in a lobby with Lee Sanghyeok.
Usually, when he played against pros, Hyeon-joon was completely unfazed. He’d solo-killed LCK starters before without blinking. But playing with Faker—with his absolute idol, the man whose face he spent three hours retouching in high-definition just ten minutes ago—was a completely different beast.
Before he could calm his racing pulse, the in-game chat box updated:
[Team] hide on bush: Hello.
[Team] hide on bush: Top-nim, can you play weakside? I will roam mid-bot.
Hyeon-joon’s fingers trembled over his mechanical keyboard. He typed back as fast as his trembling hands would allow:
[Team] Doran: YES HYUNG.
[Team] Doran: I MEAN YES SIR.
[Team] Doran: I WILL ABSORB ALL PRESSURE. I WILL NOT DIE. I PROMISE.
On his second monitor, the stream he was watching—where the enemy team’s jungler was currently broadcasting live—showed the jungler laughing out loud.
"Oh nice, we got Doran on the enemy team!" the enemy jungler chuckled on stream. "He's playing with Faker. Guys, I'm camping top. Doran is either going to go 10/0 or 0/10 in the first six minutes. Let's make him int in front of the GOAT HAHAHA."
Hyeon-joon stared at the enemy jungler’s words on the stream monitor, then at Faker’s champion loading into the Summoner's Rift.
Hyeon-joon gripped his mouse tightly, adjusting his glasses, his face turning bright red from sheer determination and panic.
"I can't int today," Hyeon-joon whimpered softly to his empty PC cafe. "If I feed in front of Sanghyeok-hyung... I'm deleting my Twitter account."