He Is That Guy

Yoo Chae had never once in his life felt jealous of anyone—so he never could have imagined jealousy would hurt like this.
Hearing Yu Jihan’s voice on Seo Taeyoung’s stream or watching him play was great, but at the same time, a hot, blistering jealousy burned him from the inside.
Am I really this childish?
It was laughable to be jealous in the first place. What was there between him and Yu Jihan to be jealous about? If Yu Jihan and Seo Taeyoung ever found out, they’d probably swear at how ridiculous it was.
He felt pathetic, juvenile… and even if the jealousy hurt, he couldn’t turn the stream off. There was no way he’d give up the only channel that fed him news and details about Yu Jihan he’d never known before.
Yu Jihan, who was currently serving in the military, kept popping up on Seo Taeyoung’s stream whenever he came out on leave. On days he didn’t appear on stream, he’d sometimes be in-game—and Yoo Chae would run into him as an enemy in solo queue.
It was one blistering summer day. As usual, Yoo Chae had Seo Taeyoung’s stream open—never knowing when Yu Jihan might show up—while browsing the web, when Seo Taeyoung’s words snapped his eyes back to the monitor.
“Huh? Enemy jungler’s Jihan.”
Having given mid to another player, Seo Taeyoung had taken the jungle—a role he wasn’t good at—and spotted the opposing nickname Jeo Jolryeoyo in the loading screen.
“Ah, guess I should show Jihan my jungle skills.”
He quipped shamelessly, and as soon as the game started, he tossed a joke at Yu Jihan in all chat.
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): sup?
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): sup
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): guess you’re dead too, Jihan
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): since you ran into me in solo queue lol
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): lololol
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): ha.. time to climb
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): going full tryhard
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): don’t be too shocked by hyung’s jungle mechanics
The game unraveled fast once Seo Taeyoung got counter-jungled¹ by Yu Jihan.
It was inevitable. Even for an ex-pro, swapping to an off-role you don’t main is no easy task.
Although Yu Jihan seized control of the jungle duel against Seo Taeyoung, Hiore isn’t a game you win with just one lane ahead. With top and mid each giving up a solo kill², the early momentum evaporated and the flow swung hard toward Seo Taeyoung’s team.
Forced by circumstance, Yu Jihan roamed bottom to try for a double kill, but his support made an incomprehensible play; the enemy lost only one while his side lost two—a losing trade.
From there, the snowball³ rolled. No matter how hard Yu Jihan tried, the state of the game slipped beyond recovery.
In the end, Yu Jihan won the jungle matchup—but his team lost, badly.
Watching the stream, Yoo Chae understood him to the core. It’s the sort of day every jungler faces multiple times.
No matter how well the jungler plays, if the laners keep misplaying and inting into the enemy, there’s no winning. Hiore is a team game, in the end.
If I were on his team, I could’ve carried this.
Jungle was his main role too, but he was certain he could play support better than the one queuing with Yu Jihan right now. Even off-role, he’d be a hundred times better than that guy.
Normally, Yoo Chae didn’t care whether random solo-queue teammates were good or bad. But when Yu Jihan’s teammates inted, it felt like it was his match—they were stealing his win. If not for idiots like that, Yu Jihan’s LP would be higher. The regret bit at him as if it were his own loss.
Having failed to turn it around, with their base entirely overrun, Yu Jihan’s team could do nothing but wait for the enemy to finish the Nexus. That’s when Seo Taeyoung giggled and typed.
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): Mr. Drowsy

[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): I’m visiting your house
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): it’s spacious
Breaking the Nexus turrets as he typed, Seo Taeyoung drew a reply from Yu Jihan.
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): lol why’d you get here so late
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): I was waiting~
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): lmao
[All] 00101001 (Akaljek): that’s hilarious # Nоvеlight # lol
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): you were waiting for me?
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): no wonder the door was wide open lol
[All] LiveKindly (Bess): lol
[All] TreeTreeNamwoo (Chase): they knocked everything down and then walked in, ffs lol
[All] CinnamonCandy (Iril): honestly
[All] CinnamonCandy (Iril): our support is dogshit lol
[All] TreeTreeNamwoo (Chase): support diff, facts
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): nah
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): this is jungle diff
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): right?
[All] TreeTreeNamwoo (Chase): ?
[All] LiveKindly (Bess): ?
With a scoreline of 1/8/5, Seo Taeyoung was telling Yu Jihan, who had gone 6/2/9, that it was a “jungle diff.”
It was so shameless it was funny—both the stream chat and the game chat exploded with laughter.
[All] 00101001 (Akaljek): wow that’s a take;;
[All] CinnamonCandy (Iril): technically jungle diff, yeah
[All] CinnamonCandy (Iril): our jungler was worse, that’s the diff;
[All] LiveKindly (Bess): ah~ that diff? lol
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): lolol
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): jungle diff, agreed
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): you admit it, right?
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): of course
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): learned a lot today ^^~
[All] Jeo Jolryeoyo (Root): salute ^^7
[All] TreeTreeNamwoo (Chase): where’d you sell your conscience, my guy lol
[All] ThereGoesMyUlt (Viagun): enemy jungler agreed, why are you all mad, hehe
High-tier solo queue means you keep running into the same names. The game had been scuffed, but the chat vibe stayed decent.
After the Nexus exploded and the game ended, Seo Taeyoung DM’d Yu Jihan.
[ThereGoesMyUlt] Man, that was fun, been a while
[Jeo Jolryeoyo] fr lololol
[ThereGoesMyUlt] if I matched into you
[ThereGoesMyUlt] my mmr isn’t totally wrecked yet lol
[ThereGoesMyUlt] been stuck D1 ghosting the queue, kinda scared;
[Jeo Jolryeoyo] yeah
[Jeo Jolryeoyo] saw the stream
[Jeo Jolryeoyo] thought you went full siege mode⁴ in D1 lol
[ThereGoesMyUlt] lmao
[ThereGoesMyUlt] was that your revenge for this last game?
[Jeo Jolryeoyo] lololololol
Even after a frustrating loss and Seo Taeyoung’s teasing, Yu Jihan didn’t seem annoyed at all. As always, the two chatted warmly—plain as day, a close hyung–dongsaeng pair.
Yeah. Yoo Chae was jealous of that. What did it matter that he’d met Yu Jihan back in middle school? It meant nothing. Yu Jihan had forgotten his face, his name—he’d even forgotten they’d ever met. The past lived in Yoo Chae alone.
Resting his chin in his hand, eyes on the monitor with the stream, Yoo Chae blinked slowly.
It can’t be helped…
No matter how bitter it felt, there was nothing he could do. If he was already this crazed with jealousy just watching them chat, how was he supposed to stay calm?
From that winter day in February—snow dumping down—when he’d first met Yu Jihan’s eyes as the boy tilted an umbrella toward the kid sitting at the rusted metal gate, everything had been inexorable. The warmth of that convenience-store triangle kimbap he’d received back then was still that vivid.
So Yoo Chae made a decision: he would take a break.
“Taking a break out of nowhere? What are you talking about?”
“It’s a two-year contract anyway—it’s ending soon. I’m thinking of resting for about a year and then re-signing.”
This October, Yu Jihan would be discharged from the army. Before he returned to school next year, he’d have a lot more time to game. If Yoo Chae didn’t re-sign, he’d officially be unemployed from November, after Worlds.
Anyone who knew anything about Yoo Chae and Yu Jihan would’ve seen right through that plan—but unfortunately, no such person existed in the world, including Head Coach Yoo Kyungseok and the team’s head coach.
“I mean… not re-signing and taking a break is obviously your call… but this is so sudden.”
“Yoo Chae, something going on with you lately?”
Hearing his leave notice, Yoo Kyungseok and the head coach were taken aback. He’d recently come off his meds, but he’d always been an anxious kid—of course they were worried.
Yoo Chae had zero desire to spill Yu Jihan’s name or the mess in his head to anyone, so he gave a minimal answer.
“I’m just tired. Stressed out. I want to rest.”
“…”
It was so perfunctory you’d need a magnifying glass to find the sincerity. Yoo Kyungseok and the head coach sighed in unison.
What a little bastard…
 
________
Notes
[←1] Counter-jungling (카정): invading the enemy jungle to steal monsters or kill the opposing jungler as a strategic operation.
[←2] Solo kill (솔킬): killing an enemy alone without assistance.
[←3] Snowball (스노우볼): an early, small lead that grows larger over time, like a rolling snowball.
[←4] Siege Mode (시즈 모드): from StarCraft—the Siege Tank’s stationary mode; here, a joke about being stuck and not moving up.