Chapter 28: DOAH#8721

༺ DOAH#8721 ༻I’ve watched a ton of dramas and read a bunch of manhwa, but I knew very well that real relationships wouldn’t proceed like how it was portrayed in those medias.

[Don’t lose contact with him, okay, Luka?]

Hanbit unnie, the self-proclaimed dating expert, spent the next four hours giving me a crash course on how to nail the early stage of flirting while duo queuing.

[Now is the perfect time, you know? This is the phase when you get to like each other. You have to nail it if you want to get into a relationship with him comfortably.]

[If you feel the conversation starts to dry up, come up with another topic, okay?]

[No, Luka. If he’s as handsome as you said, he wouldn’t wait for you!]

I told her that I didn’t want to be too pushy toward him because I didn’t want to trouble him, but Unnie insisted that I had to do this to get what I wanted.

Luckily for me, I had ways to contact him.

Leaving an opening for us to play games together last time was a smart move.

Ideally, I’d like to find some more time to duoq with him, but currently, my schedule didn’t allow for that kind of flexibility.

On Wednesday, I already scheduled a stream until dawn, while I had to attend a meeting and direct on Thursday for Closer’s album.

I had a stream on Friday, a collab on Saturday, and I wasn’t sure what my plans for Sunday were yet, but this was roughly my situation currently.

As my schedule was so filled up and I couldn’t even explain to Oppa, I needed to seize any opportunity I found when I had some free time.

If I keep putting it off, it’d be difficult for me to bring it up later.

So, before that happened, I had to carry out the operation.

As soon as I was done streaming with Clover unnie, I typed on my phone.

[oppa, can you tell me your username?]

I remember he told me that he had a barcode username, but he hadn’t contacted me since.

Honestly, I wanted him to contact me first, but Unnie told me that I should be the one who initiated, since the desperate should make the first move, and I agreed with her.

Oppa was a cold person.

And I was the one who he once rejected.

There was no room to worry about who was losing out here.

I tortured my mouse out of nervousness after sending it, but the read icon showed up instantly.

Whoa. Why did he read it so quickly?

Was he using his phone or what?

[Ah, hold on.]

Maybe Oppa went to check his ID because he completely forgot about our conversation yesterday.

It made me a little sad, but well, it happened.

There was no use even if I were to cry about it.

[It’s lIllIIlI.]

[do you want to play together tonight?]

Ugh… Couldn’t I ask it in a better way?

Yes, it was straightforward, that was good and all, but I shoulda worded it better!

[I don’t think I can play tonight… Is tomorrow night okay, though?] Sᴇaʀᴄh the Nʘvᴇl(F)ire.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

We might have to do our group project tomorrow, but at least I didn’t schedule a stream tomorrow.

[okay, tomorrow then… is 9pm a good time?]

[Perfect. I’ll see you then. Later.]

[yes then i’ll text you tomorrow?]

[Okay. Good night!]

Ack…! No, why are things turning out this way?!

I should’ve kept the conversation going…!

Now he definitely went straight to bed!

[yes! sleep well, oppa!]

Why did I end our conversation like that? With such a dry answer too! I pulled my hair with both hands.

“Aaah… Kim Doah… What are you doing…?”

Maybe Oppa wasn’t actually cold, I was just a dumbass.

Anyway, at least things turned out well…

I wasn’t good enough to play comfortably yet anyway, so in a way this was actually a godsend. I could use this chance to log on to my second account and practice.

[cherriestastegood]

When I came up with that name, I wasn’t thinking much of it, but because of Hanbit unnie’s joke, it had been bothering me ever since.

That perverted Unnie…

These Unnies were the type of people who wouldn’t hesitate to tell dirty jokes that would make other people pass out when they heard them. 

Anyway, I decided to soloq for a few matches, so I started to queue up and…

[lIllIIlI: ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC ADC]

One of my teammates spammed that in the draft chat.

“One… Two… Three… Four… Five, six, seven…”

Since the username felt similar to Taemin oppa’s, I counted how many l’s and I’s there were.

Huh? This…?

After cross-checking it with my phone, I blinked with a dumbfounded look on my face.

I thought he said he couldn’t play tonight?

Anyway, I still had to pick my role, so I typed in the chat to claim it.

[cherriestastegood: support]

…So, did Oppa lie to me?

But that didn’t make any sense.

If he really didn’t want to play with me, he wouldn’t promise me to play tomorrow.

He didn’t seem to try to push me away at all too, so this whole thing was confusing to me.

[cherriestastegood: are you taemin?]

I was about to send that in the chat, but I hesitated, so I ended up deleting the sentence entirely.

…If he was really Oppa, the situation would definitely turn awkward.

I didn’t want to ruin this smooth sailing ship with my own hands.

Besides, it wasn’t like he had done anything bad.

He might just have wanted to play the game alone.

Even I felt that way sometimes.

Also, there was a chance it might not be him at all.

I mean, some people shared their accounts with their friends, so this could also be the case with him.

Yeah, yeah, I knew I was just trying to make excuses for him, but I was just trying to look at it in a positive light, okay?! 

The character I picked was the cat support, Yuumi.

Since I was going to play with him tomorrow anyway, I figured that I should treat this as a practice match.

Not long after, the game started and the suspicious ADC, Mr. lIllIIlI, picked Ezreal, the usual combo with Yuumi.

Anyway, I was curious what kind of player he was when he played solo?

Since I pretended to not know him, it wouldn’t hurt to act like someone else so I could learn more about his gaming style.

Then let’s start with this.

When I used the happy bee emote, my ADC, Ezreal, gave me a thumbs-up emote.

Oh, so he was the type who could accept things like this.

When I thought he was a kind player…

-lIllIIlI signals that enemies are missing

-lIllIIlI signals that enemies are missing

-lIllIIlI signals that enemies are missing

-lIllIIlI signals that enemies are missing 

I couldn’t hide my embarrassment question mark pings were being spammed across my screen.

The enemy’s support was a hook champion that could inflict fatal damage once it caught you.

When I tried to trigger my passive recklessly by auto attacking, I ended up getting hooked by them.

That was my blunder, and our team’s ADC seemed to be upset by it.

I guess he was the type that would spam ping you if you made a mistake.

[cherriestastegood: sorry:<]

I quickly apologized, went back to the lane, and we continued our laning.

As an ADC, he was really skilled.

Even with this terrible matchup, he was able to cs safely and hit his skill shots properly.

His poking was so good that he could cut the enemy’s health bar to under half.

At one point, he pinged me to quickly come to him. He seemed to be in a hurry.

I checked the mini map.

The enemy’s jungler was missing from the map.

If we pushed forward recklessly and got ganked, both of us would die and we’d lose our lane.

I pinged him to retreat, but the disaster had already happened.

He E’d forward.

Right when he was about to kill the enemy with his Q.

Their huge slimy jungle, Zac, came over to our lane.

The enemy’s ADC, who was low hp, did a thumbs up emote before walking up. Meanwhile, their support flashed forward, as if going by the mindset, ‘If I’m gonna die, I’m taking you with me’.

Obviously, the result was a complete disaster for us.

Ah… How many minions were there?

The tower was on the verge of blowing up.

Ah… Seriously… This was why I pinged to retreat…

It’s just a jungle diff. Whatever, it couldn’t be helped.

I wasn’t going to blame my ADC because I also thought it’d be okay to fight without our jungle, but he was spam pinging me now.

-lIllIIlI(Ezreal): cherriestastegood(Yuumi) ignite is ready

-lIllIIlI(Ezreal): cherriestastegood(Yuumi) ignite is ready

-lIllIIlI(Ezreal): cherriestastegood(Yuumi) ignite is ready

-lIllIIlI(Ezreal): cherriestastegood(Yuumi) exhaust is ready

-lIllIIlI(Ezreal): cherriestastegood(Yuumi) exhaust is ready

Like, seriously? Why?!

They were out of range, I couldn’t even cast the spells on them!

Why the hell are you pinging me?!

Was it because I apologized earlier? Did you think I was easy to bully because of that?!

[cherriestastegood: you died because you brainlessly e’d forward.]

[lIllIIlI: If you used exhaust and ignite, I’d have killed all of them.]

[cherriestastegood: no way. how could you even kill all of them with that hp?]

[lIllIIlI: Yeah. That’s only expected from Yuumi players.]

My hands and feet were shaking.

Fucking hell.

I felt the back of my neck tightened.

[cherriestastegood: were you even watching the map? did you even know where jungle was?]

[lIllIIlI: Yeah. I’d win even if they came. There was no reason to be scared when you had all your spells up.]

[cherriestastegood: stop bsing.]

[lIllIIlI: Not at all. When did I bullshit? If you’re so confident, tell me on voicecord.]

Fine. I wouldn’t be Kim Doah if I were to back down from something like this.

Without hesitation, I left him my voicecord user in the chat.

[cherriestastegood: DOAH#8721, send a friend request.]

And that was the last message from the suspicious ADC, Mr. lIllIIlI.

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