Chapter 12
“Lee Seung-ho!”
The voice calling my name.
When I turned my gaze, I saw Shin A-young running toward the main gate.
Why is she in such a hurry? I'm worried she'll trip and fall.
“Sorry, I'm a little late, huh?”
— “Whew··· That bastard made me waste so much time.”
Something must have happened at her club.
I didn't even need to read her thoughts to know what had happened.
“Hi, A-young~”
Lee Sol, who had been with me, greeted her.
“Huh?”
Shin A-young's eyes widened ever so slightly when she saw her.
“Sol's here too? Are you coming with us?”
“Yeah, I thought it might be nice to play a game for the first time in a while.”
Actually, Sol joining us had been unexpected even to me.
I had asked her out of courtesy if she wanted to come along, but I hadn't expected her to accept.
“It's not too much trouble?”
Shin A-young wore a look of wonder at that.
Yeah.
I was curious about that too.
“···What exactly do you think I am?”
At that question, the corners of Lee Sol's mouth pulled crookedly.
“You don't happen to think I'm someone steeped in laziness, do you?”
She grumbled a little, apparently displeased by that.
···But.
— “Wasn't that what she was?”
‘Wasn't that what she was?’
Shin A-young and I had the exact same thought.
Apparently, she was thinking the same thing as me.
That aside.
“···Shall we go?”
I started walking first.
There was no point in continuing to stand at the main gate.
People's gazes were gradually turning this way. Those two attracted far too much attention, after all.
If we were going to move, it was better to go quickly.
— “I didn't expect Sol to come too··· but I guess it'll be more fun with more people.”
Shin A-young readily accepted Sol joining us.
···That was a relief.
She had joined us out of nowhere, after all.
Since I'd read her thoughts, I figured it would be fine to bring Sol along, even if no one else did.
People's feelings could change back and forth, after all.
***
Hmm, this is fine.
Shin A-young looked satisfied as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror in the PC bang's first-floor lobby.
A pulled-down hat and a mask covering her lower face.
No one would recognize her like this.
She wasn't the only one covering her face, either.
“Sol, want to borrow a hat?”
Shin A-young adjusted her mask and asked Lee Sol that.
“The hat's fine, but do you have a spare mask?”
“Hold on a sec··· Oh, I have one left.”
As it happened, there was exactly one left in her bag.
Good thing I'd put in a spare.
Seeing that, Lee Seung-ho wore a slightly dumbfounded expression.
“···Do you really need that?”
“You get more people talking to us than you think.”
Places like PC bangs, where men made up a higher proportion of the customers, especially brought that out.
They would keep coming up to them, making it impossible to focus on the game.
Shin A-young had experienced that often, of course, and so had model Lee Sol.
It was more comfortable to cover their faces.
“···I see?”
Lee Seung-ho marveled softly at that fact.
Seeing that, the corners of her mouth lifted slightly.
She suddenly felt mischievous. With a subtle smile, she poked him lightly.
She moved closer than usual.
“Are you starting to realize who you're with now?”
“What are you talking about?”
Lee Seung-ho snorted and went inside the PC bang first.
···That wasn't the reaction she'd expected.
Because Lee Seung-ho really didn't seem bothered at all.
···That kind of rubbed her the wrong way.
“I'm going to top up my PC time.”
Lee Seung-ho left his computer on and headed to the automatic time-charging kiosk.
While he was away, Shin A-young ordered from the menu first.
With practiced movements, she ordered her usual drink, iced tea.
Except today, she ordered three cups.
“Here—”
Shin A-young placed two cups of iced tea, delivered by the part-timer, in front of Lee Seung-ho's desk.
“What's this?”
He gave her a questioning look.
“My treat. One's for Sol.”
“All of a sudden?”
It wasn't all of a sudden.
She had bought it to thank him for calling her earlier.
If he hadn't, she might have had an even harder time getting away.
She had bought one for Sol too since it would have been awkward to leave her out.
Shin A-young didn't say any of that aloud.
“If you don't want it, never mind.”
“I didn't say I didn't want it.”
Lee Seung-ho quickly took the iced tea.
“I'll enjoy it.”
“Me too~”
Shin A-young logged in, then peeked her face out from behind Lee Seung-ho.
Lee Seung-ho was in the middle seat, with Sol directly across from him.
“Sol, have you played RUL before?”
“A little, a long time ago? I think I played one ranked game and quit.”
“Then we don't need to start with the tutorial.”
That was good news.
They wouldn't need to waste time on the tutorial.
“There are three of us, so flex queue?”
Lee Seung-ho answered Shin A-young's question.
“Yeah, flex queue. You're going mid, right?”
“Yeah.”
She was normally a mid laner, even though she'd gone bot last time.
She had done terribly last time, but today she planned to show them what she could really do.
She had even watched some of Arin's instructional videos on NewTube before coming.
“Then I'll take her bot.”
Lee Seung-ho took Lee Sol down to the bottom lane.
It was a practical decision.
Since Sol was a beginner, sending her as support was the better choice, if he had to choose.
About three minutes into the game.
Maybe the mental practice had helped.
Her laning felt especially smooth today.
“···Nice, the damage trade is insane.”
They hadn't gotten a kill, but the opponent's health was already low enough to be in kill range.
The opponent had no choice but to slink back to the fountain.
That alone was an advantage.
“The mid gap's already showing···!”
Shin A-young turned toward Lee Seung-ho, thoroughly full of herself.
“Want to take a look at her now?”
“Ah, she missed her skill.”
“Ah. That's not good. Back off a little and just poke.”
“Okay.”
Perhaps because he had been concentrating so hard, he didn't react much.
“······.”
He sure was busy.
Shin A-young couldn't keep watching them. She turned her gaze back to her own screen.
Tap tap tap. She pressed the keyboard keys and resumed laning.
Even so.
Something.
She felt strangely left out.
Maybe because the two of them were a bot duo, she felt a little detached as the mid laner.
“Let's whittle their health down with trades. Try engaging once.”
“Okay, going in now.”
The two of them were talking back and forth, while she silently focused on laning.
That was what bothered her.
···No.
Wasn't she getting into a strange mood over something completely insignificant?
“Ahem.”
Shin A-young lightly cleared her throat to change the mood.
Enough. No more pointless thoughts···
“Shin A-young. Can you roam now?”
She flinched.
“Huh? Uh, yeah, I can. Can you wait a little?”
The sudden question startled her slightly.
Shin A-young pushed her lane first, then reached the bottom lane before the opponent.
“I'm going in now!”
The enemy bot duo, who hadn't expected her arrival, tried to retreat belatedly, but it was already too late.
— You have slain an enemy.
With Lee Seung-ho's help, they cleanly took down the opponents.
She gobbled up two kills in one satisfying burst.
“Oh···! What was that, A-young···?!”
“Nice roam.”
He casually tossed out a single comment.
“Hey, hey! Stop taking so much CS!”
“Oops. Sorry.”
Yet he got furiously angry whenever Sol touched a minion.
She was completely absorbed in the game.
“Can mid join us now?”
“It's a little tough right now.”
After that, Lee Seung-ho kept calling her name.
“······.”
Was it a coincidence?
She wondered if it was a coincidence··· but somehow, it didn't feel like one.
The way he kept talking to her even when there was no need.
Somehow, it felt as though he was deliberately making her conscious of him.
‘Did he notice that I was feeling left out?’
No, that couldn't be it.
She wondered if her feeling left out had shown on the outside, but his eyes were still glued to the monitor.
He couldn't have had time to check her expression.
“······.”
In any case, he was unbelievably quick on the uptake.
He had always been like that.
He acted as if he deliberately avoided things she found uncomfortable.
He didn't push too hard. Nor did he blindly agree with everything she said.
Just like an ordinary friend.
Maybe that was why.
Somehow, being with him felt more comfortable than at other times.
While she was lost in such idle thoughts, thirty minutes had passed.
“The difference isn't that big, so we need to play well at the Baron team fight.”
The game had reached its late stage.
There was still a chance for the game to turn around in a single team fight.
At that moment.
“Ah.”
With a short cry, Sol's character turned to ash and disappeared.
She had gone too deep while trying to secure vision. She died without accomplishing a thing.
“Huh?”
Shin A-young, who had followed after her, immediately sensed that something had gone wrong, but—
Once she had been pulled in, her own death was inevitable too.
“···We're screwed.”
Just as Lee Seung-ho had said, not a single person remained alive.
The enemy team advanced straight down mid.
It ended in an instant. The Nexus's health rapidly vanished, and then—
— Defeat.
The screen was dyed red.
A brief silence pressed heavily on the air.
“Um···”
Sol rolled her eyes around nervously.
“···Sorry.”
She said it quietly.
Sol shriveled up, utterly dejected.
“It's okay. It happens.”
It was only their first game, after all.
Besides, she hadn't been able to focus properly from the middle onward either.
Shin A-young reassured her, saying it was fine.
···Of course, that's what she said, but honestly, it wasn't entirely fine.
Sol wasn't merely bad; she was truly god-awful.
The fact that they'd made it to the mid-game was only possible because their mid and ADC were relatively far ahead.
At this rate, it was only natural that they'd go on another losing streak like last time.
“······.”
“······.”
Shin A-young and Lee Seung-ho quickly exchanged glances.
They didn't say anything directly, but they could tell they were thinking the same thing.
They needed some kind of countermeasure.
“Should we switch positions? I'll go ADC.”
Shin A-young decided to look after Sol herself.
He would probably be better off jungling.
“Then I'll jungle, and······ Sol, you······.”
Lee Seung-ho picked out a certain character for her.
“Do you know how to play this one?”
“···A cat?”
A mage cat appeared on the screen.
Yuming.
The one who would lock Sol's mouse in place.
Since it had a mechanism that let it ride on a teammate, it perhaps suited her temperament rather well too.
Thus began the next game.
“Slurp! Slurp!”
One bite of the standard W-E-Q ramen combo.
Sol faithfully carried out Yuming's combo, step by step.
‘We have to win···!’
Rat-a-tat-tat!
Shin A-young gritted her teeth and pounded the mouse while carrying Sol on her back.
Lee Seung-ho followed up with a strategy of constantly watching bot lane.
Maybe that was what made it work?
Somehow, the game tilted in their favor.
“Got them!”
At the thirty-minute mark.
Shin A-young, who had grown strong, cut down the enemy ADC and support. At that moment, the path to victory began to appear.
The team-fight victory they secured in front of the enemy base was enough to blow the game wide open.
“Break the Nexuuuus!”
They pushed straight down mid and destroyed the Nexus.
— Victory!
“Phew···!”
“We won···!”
It was only one game, but she was completely exhausted.
Shin A-young and Lee Seung-ho slumped limply into their chairs, all their strength gone.
“···Oh.”
Sol let out a small gasp at the victory text on the screen.
“This game is fun.”
The moment an Iron Yuming one-trick appeared in RUL ranked.
***
“I'm going to the bathroom.”
It was kind of urgent. I hurried to find the restroom.
I'd been so focused that I hadn't even realized I needed to go.
“Phew···.”
That felt good.
I washed my hands thoroughly, then briefly checked the shelves for something to eat. Just as I was about to return to my seat—
Jingle~
“Ugh, why are we suddenly at a PC bang?”
As the bell rang, a group of familiar-looking faces began entering through the entrance.
“The girls all left. What's the point of staying behind at karaoke with just the guys?”
“That is true, but···”
“Can't be helped. Let's just play ranked at the PC bang.”
Their uniforms told me they were students from our school.
Their faces looked familiar.
“······.”
“······.”
As I passed by, my eyes briefly met those of one of them.
···Ah.
I remembered.
That person. Isn't he one of Shin A-young's club seniors?