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Airports are a place outside of time.
They’re drifting through the ages. People from everywhere, on their way to elsewhere. Clothes, languages, time zones. None holds conventional meaning. All exist simultaneously. An orderly chaos.
Airports are a place outside of time, and as such, they belong solely to the domain of fate.
Jaehyuk’s return to Korea was witnessed by the stars. He stood outside the plane and breathed. Trying to make out a few of the brightest ones shining far above. The air itself seemed to welcome him, a change in the wind, subtle and icy, caressing his cheeks. He might have imagined the smell of home.
A major airport like this was never asleep, but it was notably sparse as Jaehyuk trudged through it. People were gathered in small groups, huddling together beneath jackets and coats. Wherever he looked he was met by hangeul, greeting him like an old friend. Jaehyuk was tired but he slowed his steps anyway. He couldn’t find it in himself to waste this short, quivering moment when it was just him and Korea, reunited.
And then a boy caught his gaze.
As he walked towards a gate, there was a lone boy lit up by the light of his phone. His bangs obscured his eyes and he hunched in on himself, as if the empty space around him imposed on him. Between his feet there was a backpack with a single plushie attached to the side. Genrang. Like a familiar face, Jaehyuk eyed the mascot of the team he returned to. He slowed, almost imperceptibly. And as his eyes trailed back to the backpack’s owner, the boy suddenly looked up. Like he could feel Jaehyuk’s gaze. Across the walkway their eyes met and Jaehyuk thought oh.
Peyz stared back, seemingly having exactly the same realization of who he was looking at.
Jaehyuk stopped. He hovered, for a moment, too far from the other to say something, but close enough that it was clear he angled towards him. And the moment stretched out until a voice in the back of Jaehyuk’s head helpfully informed him that he’d been staring too long. That it was growing weird. But Jaehyuk found himself rooted.
He could walk away.
He didn’t.
His strides were long, sure and directed straight towards Kim Suhwan. The kid’s eyes widened, eyes flicking from side to side as if there happened to be someone else close by who Jaehyuk could possibly be aiming towards. When he realized that there, in fact, wasn’t anyone else, he wiped his face of any discernible emotion and stood up hastily. He barely even winced when the phone placed in his lap hit the floor with a resounding smack. Jaehyuk suppressed a twitch of his lips.
Suhwan bowed deeply as soon as Jaehyuk was within acceptable conversation distance. “Jaehyuk-ssi, good evening.”
Jaehyuk rolled his eyes. “Just hyung is enough. What are you doing here?”
It was, perhaps, too brusque of a statement, but sue him. Jaehyuk was not familiar with dealing with people. Especially not when said people were Kim Suhwan, someone he had only exchanged polite greetings and nods with, yet knew disconcertingly much about due to Jihoon and Wangho’s fondness of talking. There wasn’t a guide for these sorts of things, then again, Jaehyuk did not need one. He was Ruler, he made the rules.
Suhwan rose from his bow. “My plane was delayed. I have two hours to wait.”
So he was heading to his new team as well. On his way to a new country. Now he was here, alone in the airport. The lights were still bright, not giving any clue as to what time it was. Around them most of the stores were closed though, and few people moved about. Even in a timeless place, like this one, changes occurred. But there still was a café between Suhwan’s gate and the next. It was empty, save for the lone barista who was caught up in her phone. A quaint place open around the clock, probably ridiculously overpriced, as was the way of the airport.
Jaehyuk is not a gentle man.
He takes what he can get his hands on, cuts his way through. Leaves people, places and dust in his wake. He jerks his head towards the café anyway. “I’ll treat you to a drink.”
He turns on his heel and walks over there before Suhwan has a chance to react. Before Jaehyuk has a chance to meet his eyes. Quiet footsteps echo behind him. Jihoon did always say that the kid was quiet. He’d mock Jaehyuk for it on their occasional calls, catching up in the dark of night. Those rare times when neither of them were burdened with streaming, sponsorships, practicing, winning. When they weren’t Chovy and Ruler. ‘Suhwan’s nothing like you’ Jihoon would say. ‘We’ve had to teach him to ask. For kills and space and peel. What a nice change to have a respectful ADC.’ And Jaehyuk would roll his eyes and complain about the fact that they’d give their new teammate a penta kill but they always stole his.
Jaehyuk ordered a coffee, black without sugar, with no preambles. Beside him, Suhwan mumbled out a wish for a lemonade. Jaehyuk had no idea how the barista heard.
Siwoo often said that Jaehyuk was all edges. He did not have the capacity for softness. It made him the perfect ADC, the perfect winner. The best of the best. It did not, however, make him a very capable human being. As such he found himself hesitating as Suhwan’s eyes flickered between the lemonade before him, to Jaehyuk’s coffee, over Jaehyuk’s shoulder, past his eyes. Jaehyuk was not in the business of doubting himself. But here was a boy who had taken his place, now cast aside as the ruler saw fit to reclaim his castle. A boy who still, for whatever reason, chose to continue in the footprints Jaehyuk had left in the snow when he headed to China.
Jaehyuk did not quite feel bad, but he was curious.
“Yun feng is a good support,” he said. Suhwan’s eyes stilled somewhere near Jaehyuk’s temple, before they slowly moved to his eyes. “He’ll be more accommodating than Siwoo.”
Suhwan nodded and the silence stretched out between them. His eyes dropped to Jaehyuk’s coffee again. He gripped his own glass. “I liked playing with Siwoo-hyung,” he offered. A quiet voice, but no less steady than Jaehyuk’s own. “He taught me a lot.”
Jaehyuk barked a short laugh. “Such as Singed tactics I’d imagine.”
A miniscule smile emerged on Suhwan’s face. “He said my Singed was very good. For an ADC.”
That did sound an awful lot like Siwoo. Jaehyuk had been gone a long time but some things stayed the same, even the storm that was Son Siwoo. The realization that Suhwan might know Siwoo better than Jaehyuk made something hitch in his stomach. Like missing a step in a staircase. Jaehyuk had been gone for a long time. Some things did not stay the same.
“Why are you going to the LPL?” Jaehyuk found the question slipped out before he’d decided to say it. “Jihoon said you received an offer from KT.”
Suhwan considered his answer, sipping on his lemonade. It had the bright, almost neon color of something truly unnatural and overly sweet, Jaehyuk cringed just imagining something so cloying. Then again, he’d been 18 too once, inhaling copious amounts of sugar without batting an eye.
“I couldn’t play for GENG anymore,” Suhwan said eventually, “and it doesn’t feel right to play in the LCK unless it’s there.”
Jaehyuk felt something creeping up his spine. It was uncomfortably close to why Jaehyuk had left for the LPL. In fact, it was the reason. And the feeling in his spine curled up to his throat and clogged it, for just a second. Jaehyuk was not sentimental, but he blinked and saw himself being eliminated from worlds in 2022. Packing up his room. Sitting at this airport waiting for a plane. He blinked again and Suhwan was once again sipping from his sugary lemonade. Jaehyuk’s own drink was bitter by design. He wouldn’t have been drinking coffee at 18.
“And what do you want to achieve in the LPL?”
Suhwan looked him straight in the eye. “I’ll win worlds next year, hyung.”
“Not satisfied with MSI, then?” A stupid question, but Jaehyuk knew nothing else to say.
“Were you?”
A snort left him and Suhwan’s eyes widened, as if he realized who he was talking to. “I hope we will meet in the finals, then,” Jaehyuk said, a wry smile on his lips.
“What about you, hyung?” Suhwan said. “You have achieved it all. Is simply winning enough?”
It was a good question, one Jaehyuk had been plagued by many nights following their failed attempt at the Golden Road. Was anything enough? Could anything sate one named Ruler?
“Let me put it like this, Suhwan-ah. In the end, what matters is not winning in itself. It’s who you’re competing against. A win will never mean anything, unless you were challenged by someone worthy.”
Suhwan tilted his head. “Like Faker, you mean?”
“Well, among others. Sanghyeok-hyung is the first challenger, and often the last. But one does not have to be the demon king to be worthy.” He paused, appraising his opponent. His replacement. His successor. “So I do hope to meet you in the finals.”
Suhwan’s eyes widened and for a moment they simply stared at each other. Jaehyuk found it was like looking in a mirror through time.
“Siwoo-hyung talked a lot about you,” Suhwan said, then winced, almost imperceptibly.
Jaehyuk grimaced. He couldn’t imagine his old support sharing well meaning anecdotes. “Only good things I’m sure,” he said dryly. “Jihoonie talks a lot about you.”
Suhwan looked as if this information was entirely incomprehensible. And because Jaehyuk could not resist, he added: “So does Wangho.”
“To you?” Suhwan said, seemingly struggling immensely with this addition. “Why?”
“Jihoon mostly does it to say how much easier you are to play with than I.” Jaehyuk makes a face. “And Wangho… Well he’s warning me I suppose. About the up and coming talent.”
Jaehyuk was not in the habit of admitting his imperfections. But he could acknowledge to himself what the kid sitting before him had that Jaehyuk himself didn’t. After all he wasn’t a Royal Roader. He didn’t have a three-peat in his past. And though these were not things that haunted Jaehyuk at night, it was things that had trickled through his mind like dripping blood during the years since he left GENG.
He loved his team. He wanted them to win, to prosper, even when he left them behind after 2022. Despite this, Jaehyuk was selfish, and there was no helping the needle in his heart when he called Jihoon and Wangho to celebrate their victory in spring 2023. Because some part of Jaehyuk thought they would stumble, at least for a while. He thought that maybe his absence would be felt enough that some time would be needed to recuperate. But there was Suhwan, filling shoes that no one, even Jaehyuk, thought could be filled. It was frightening, in a quick, merciless and cold way, to see how easily he’d been replaced. And Jaehyuk was very rarely frightened. So he found that the kid deserved the credit. The rookie that took the throne of a king without hesitation.
But now the prodigal son was returning.
Jaehyuk felt comfort in knowing JDG would be in capable hands.
“They’ve helped me a lot.” Suhwan looked away.
It’s strange, Jaehyuk thinks, that they’ve filled almost the same spaces, know almost the same people, walk on the same road, but they do not know each other. But he supposes that’s the way of time. It draws him forward, and he wades through snow, unable to see who follows in his steps. But he needs to remain wary, if he wants to be the one to keep forging the path ahead. They’ll likely keep circling each other like this. Always in the periphery. That’s the way of their trade. The best clash, they see each other. Jaehyuk has seen a lot of this kid since he entered the scene. And whether for the kid, for their shared teammates, or for the hope of a worthy opponent – he hopes he will see more of him in the future.
Two men walk the same path, separated by time. They meet in the in between.
Jaehyuk settled down in his chair. Jihoon was meant to pick him up, but Jaehyuk did not feel bad about making him wait. Consider it payback for all the teasing he’d received for missing internationals during the year. He orders another coffee.
“I’ll wait for your plane with you.”