Work Text:
Everything started because Seungyong didn’t want to forget.
That realization came to him quietly, one night, long after the cameras were gone and the noise of the arena in Shanghai had faded into memory. Jinhyuk was asleep beside him, one arm flung across Seungyong’s waist as if claiming territory even in his dreams, his hair a mess against the pillow. The hotel room they were in was dim and still, softened by the faint glow of city lights slipping through the curtains.
Seungyong lay awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about how strange it was that this felt more unreal than any finals stage he had ever stood on.
They had known each other for years.
Back at Griffin, when Seungyong was the starting jungler and Jinhyuk was the substitute everyone described as “talented” in that careful way people use when they mean not yet. Seungyong played on stage under bright lights. Jinhyuk watched from backstage, eyes fixed on the screen with an intensity that made it clear he was not watching to admire.
At the time, Seungyong told himself he did not care. Every team had substitutes. Every position had competition. That was how you stayed sharp.
Still, he noticed things.
The way Jinhyuk lingered in the training room after scrims, asking about pathing decisions that most rookies would not even think to question. The way his voice stayed polite while his eyes stayed challenging. The way he absorbed information and then, the next day, executed it almost perfectly.
It was never open hostility for Seungyong. It was more like a steady pressure on his back instead.
People started comparing them before Jinhyuk had even played an official game. Coaches framed it as depth. Fans framed it as potential. Analysts speculated about whether the younger jungler might eventually surpass the one already starting. The narrative practically wrote itself.
Seungyong pretended not to read the comments.
Then Jinhyuk left for China first. And Seungyong eventually followed.
That was when it stopped being a hypothetical future and became something real. They were no longer on the same roster. There was no hierarchy, no starting spot to defend. Just two junglers in the same league, on different teams, both carving out reputations strong enough that the comparisons grew louder instead of fading away.
Former teammates.
Now rivals.
Two of the best the LPL had to offer.
Analysts loved putting their names side by side, dissecting their styles carefully. Seungyong was described as calculated, controlled, precise. Jinhyuk was aggressive, explosive, instinctive.
Opposites, they said.
Equals, they concluded.
On stage, their handshakes were firm and professional. Off stage, something else flickered in the space between them.
Because knowing someone as a rival is one thing.
Knowing someone as the player who once stood behind you, waiting for your spot, is another.
The tension between them sharpened with every series. Every invade felt deliberate. Every early-game skirmish felt like a conversation only they understood.
There were moments in-game when Seungyong could predict exactly what Jinhyuk would do, not because he had studied him as an opponent, but because he remembered the way he used to think as his sub. The risks he would take. The angles he preferred. The hunger that pushed him forward.
Jinhyuk, in turn, seemed to take a particular satisfaction in challenging him directly.
And somewhere in that friction, something shifted.
It began subtly. A longer look after a match. A message that started as a debate about the current meta and ended hours later with neither of them remembering how it drifted off-topic.
The competitive edge did not disappear, of course.
If anything, it intensified.
But it stopped feeling strictly professional.
Competition has a way of magnifying everything.
Respect turns electric.
Frustration turns personal.
Admiration turns… dangerous.
What started as tension sharpened by rivalry became something reckless and physical, something that felt like steam forcing its way out of a sealed room. It was easier, at first, to treat it like an extension of the same game they had always played. Two junglers who had spent years measuring themselves against each other now testing different boundaries.
They met in hotel rooms between matches, in spaces with no cameras and no teammates. There were no promises attached to it. No expectations beyond just casual fucking and making out. It was contained, almost clinical in its lack of sentiment.
They were very good at that version of each other.
They understood each other’s reactions the way they understood the game; through repetition, through instinct, through memory. Seungyong knew how far he could push before Jinhyuk pushed back. Jinhyuk knew exactly which buttons to press to make Seungyong lose his careful composure.
It was heated.
Competitive.
Addictive.
And most of all… uncomplicated.
But that was before.
Before the word feelings forced them to confront the fact that this was no longer about proving anything.
Before Seungyong had to admit that somewhere between everything, he had started wanting something more.
Before they chose to name it, and in naming it, made it real.
The word boyfriends settled between them quietly, yet it altered the weight of everything. It drew a line between what had been temporary and what was now intentional. It meant that whatever setup they had was no longer an outlet, no longer a private competition carried into dim hotel rooms. It meant something.
It still felt surreal to Seungyong sometimes. He would be in the middle of practice, half-listening to draft discussions, and the thought would hit him out of nowhere: Jinhyuk is my boyfriend. That alone was enough to make him smile to himself like an idiot. He would catch his reflection in the mirror while brushing his teeth and see the grin he was trying and failing to suppress.
After all the back-and-forth, the careful distance, the unspoken rules, Seo Jinhyuk was finally his.
Not temporarily.
Not conveniently.
But properly.
Officially.
The realization made his chest feel light and tight all at once.
Seungyong had always been deliberate about everything in his life. The way he trained. The way he spoke to the media. The way he built trust with his teammates.
Love, to him, was not something you stumbled into. It was something you handled with care.
He already knew what made Jinhyuk gasp, what made him shiver and moan, what made his composure unravel. Years of rivalry had made him excellent at reading tells, onstage and off.
What he did not know were the smaller things.
He did not know how Jinhyuk really took his coffee when he was not performing cool indifference. He did not know what song he played on nights he could not sleep. He did not know how to read the silences between his moods, the difference between thoughtful and overwhelmed.
They had skipped that part unfortunately.
That night, Jinhyuk had fallen asleep mid-sentence, as he often did when he felt safe enough to let himself drift. The room was quiet except for the soft rhythm of his breathing and the distant hum of traffic outside.
Seungyong lay still for a long moment, afraid to disturb him. There was something about this version of Jinhyuk that felt almost sacred.
Carefully, so as not to shift the mattress, he reached toward the nightstand and picked up his phone.
The screen lit the room in pale blue, casting faint shadows along Jinhyuk’s cheekbones. Seungyong opened the Notes app without fully thinking about why. He simply knew he did not want this moment to blur into all the others.
He did not want to forget.
He stared at the blank page for a few seconds, thumb hovering over the keyboard, before he typed:
he eats more when he’s happy. talk to him over meals. listen.
He read it back once, almost embarrassed by how plain it looked.
But it was true.
Since they had become official, Seungyong had started noticing the way Jinhyuk changed when he felt at ease. On nights when scrims had gone well or when a win still lingered pleasantly in his chest, he would linger at the table instead of rushing off. He would order an extra dish “just to try it,” even if he claimed he was not that hungry. He would talk more freely, jumping from one small topic to another—complaining about Jian’s or Wenbo’s stubborn build path, laughing about a fan sign he had spotted in the crowd, dissecting a misplay he swore he would fix next time.
He did not realize he was doing it. He did not realize how transparent he became when he was content.
Food, Seungyong realized, was comfort for him. Conversation was even more so.
If Jinhyuk was eating slowly and talking about nothing in particular, it meant he was relaxed. It meant he felt safe enough not to rush.
A few days later, Jinhyuk called after a long scrim block. His voice sounded rough around the edges, stretched thin with exhaustion. He was halfway through complaining about a failed early invade when he yawned so deeply that the sentence dissolved into a soft, sheepish laugh.
“You sound exhausted,” Seungyong said gently, unable to hide the smile in his voice.
“I’m fine,” Jinhyuk replied automatically, though the protest lacked conviction. There was the faint rustle of fabric, the creak of a mattress as he shifted. “You hang up first.”
It was something he always said, as if ending the call first meant admitting he wanted the company.
“I’ll wait,” Seungyong said.
There was a small pause on the other end, followed by a quiet huff that might have been gratitude disguised as annoyance.
They kept talking for a few more minutes, though Jinhyuk’s responses grew slower and softer. Eventually, his words trailed off entirely. Seungyong did not speak and just listened.
He listened as Jinhyuk’s breathing evened out. As the subtle tension in each inhale faded. As the silence stopped feeling empty and started feeling steady.
He did not end the call until he was certain Jinhyuk was asleep.
Afterward, in the quiet of his own room in the AL team house, Seungyong lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling with his phone still warm in his hand. The call had ended, but the feeling lingered.
He reopened the note and added another line, more slowly this time.
he gets drowsy when he feels safe. don’t hang up first.
He stared at it for a moment after typing, thumb hovering over the screen as if unsure whether something so simple deserved to be written down. Then he locked his phone and set it aside.
That was how it began.
Not with dramatic promises whispered into the dark, not with declarations about forever or vows, but with small observations typed in lowercase at midnight because he did not trust himself to remember them otherwise.
The list lived quietly in his phone, untitled, tucked between small reminders and patch notes. Anyone scrolling past it would have seen nothing important. It did not look serious.
But to Seungyong, it felt almost necessary.
he hums when he’s focused. if it stops suddenly, check in.
he talks faster when he’s nervous. always let him finish.
he hates broken promises. even small ones. so keep them.
The entries were mostly short and practical. Each one was something he had only noticed after slowing down enough to pay attention. Things that would have slipped past him before, back when all they had cared about was fucking.
He added to it in airports while waiting to board, watching planes disappear into gray skies. He added to it in hotel rooms that all smelled faintly the same, after Jinhyuk had left and the quiet felt heavier than it should. He added to it on buses between venues, forehead resting against the window, adrenaline humming under his skin before a match.
when he’s tired, he doesn’t want space. he wants quiet company so remember to sit close.
don’t joke about how much he eats. he laughs, but he shrinks a little.
praise him after a good game. he pretends not to care, but he does.
remind him that love isn’t something he has to earn.
That last one had taken him the longest to type.
He had stared at the screen for several minutes before writing it, aware of how much it revealed.
He never told Jinhyuk about the list. It was not meant to be shown, and it was never meant to impress him. It was simply Seungyong’s way of making sure he did not overlook the small things. He knew how easily details could blur when schedules grew hectic, when matches stacked back to back, when exhaustion made everything feel interchangeable. He did not want Jinhyuk to become something he thought he understood without actually paying attention.
Writing it down felt like anchoring it.
He just wanted to do right by him. Not in some grand, dramatic way. Just in the quiet, everyday ways that added up.
It unsettled him a little, how much it mattered.
But he wanted to get it right. Jinhyuk meant that much.
Months passed, and the list kept growing.
he says sorry when he feels useless. remind him he isn’t. tell him you need him.
he forgets he’s funny when he’s stressed. laugh anyway. let him hear it.
when he’s upset, don’t grab for him right away. wait. he’ll come closer on his own.
routine helps. don’t mess with it unless you have to.
One evening, after a particularly brutal loss to JDG, Jinhyuk showed up to Seungyong’s hotel room in Beijing without warning. He let himself in with the spare key he probably got from Wang Jie, dropped his bag near the door, and sank down onto the floor beside the couch as if the strength had drained from his legs halfway across the room.
Seungyong did not ask what happened. He did not ask which fight had gone wrong or who had misplayed. He simply sat down beside him and handed him a bottle of water.
They stayed there for a long time without speaking, their shoulders pressed together. The silence did not feel empty. It felt shared rather, like something they were carrying together without needing to name it.
Eventually, Jinhyuk let out a slow breath and said, almost to himself, “I think I’m too much sometimes.”
The words were quiet, but they landed hard.
Seungyong felt something sharp twist in his chest, something protective and aching all at once. He wanted to argue immediately, to contradict him, to list every reason he was wrong. Instead, he simply leaned closer, letting their shoulders press more firmly together.
Later that night, after Jinhyuk had gone home and the room felt too still, Seungyong opened the note again and typed carefully:
he thinks he’s too much. he isn’t. tell him whenever you can.
He never expected Jinhyuk to find it.
They were back in Korea for Lunar New Year, both home for a short stretch before the season pulled them in opposite directions again. Seungyong’s apartment felt different during the holidays. There were tangerines piled in a bowl on the counter, a pot in the sink from the rice cake soup he had made the night before, and a quiet that felt warm instead of empty.
Jinhyuk had stayed over.
When Seungyong woke up, Jinhyuk was still asleep beside him, face turned into the pillow, one arm draped loosely across Seungyong’s waist. His breathing was slow and even, his hair flattened on one side in a way that would have annoyed him if he were awake to see it.
Seungyong lay there for a moment, just watching him.
He slipped out of bed carefully so he wouldn’t wake him and went to the kitchen to make coffee.
He didn’t realize he had left his phone on the bed.
A few minutes later, Jinhyuk stirred. He reached toward the phone automatically, intending only to check the time before deciding whether to get up or steal another ten minutes of sleep. The screen lit up in his hand.
The Notes app was still open.
At first, he scrolled without really reading, his thumb moving lazily down the screen.
Then he stopped.
he says he doesn’t like clingy people, but he holds my hand first every time.
His eyes sharpened. He read the line once, then again more slowly, as if testing whether it really said what he thought it did.
His thumb moved down.
The apartment was quiet except for the faint clink of ceramic from the kitchen and the low hum of the coffee machine finishing its cycle.
By the time Seungyong walked back into the bedroom with two mugs warming his hands, Jinhyuk was sitting upright against the headboard. The blanket had slipped down to his lap, and he was holding the phone carefully in both hands, as if gripping it too tightly might somehow disturb what was written there.
Seungyong slowed when he saw his expression.
“…You keep notes on me?” Jinhyuk asked.
There was no teasing lilt in his voice, no smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He sounded softer than usual, almost unsure of how to react.
Seungyong crossed the room and set the mugs down on the nightstand before answering. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
He hesitated for only a second, because the truth felt simple enough. “I didn’t want to forget things.”
Jinhyuk glanced back down at the screen, scrolling a little further with his thumb. “You wrote all of this?”
“Over time.”
The winter sunlight had shifted enough to spill across the bed, catching faintly in Jinhyuk’s hair and reflecting off the edge of the phone screen. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The quiet did not feel tense, only heavy with something new.
Then Jinhyuk looked up. “You’re really in love with me,” he said.
It wasn’t a joke. It sounded like someone who had just followed a line of thought all the way to its inevitable conclusion.
Seungyong held his gaze without flinching. “Yeah.”
Something flickered across Jinhyuk’s face—surprise, maybe, but also something steadier and warmer. He let out a slow breath and shook his head faintly, as if he still couldn’t quite believe what he was holding in his hands.
“You’re ridiculous,” he said at last, but the word carried no bite at all. “You know that, right?”
Seungyong smiled, feeling oddly shy in his own bedroom. “Probably.”
Jinhyuk set the phone down carefully beside him and shifted closer across the mattress. He didn’t rush to fill the space. He simply leaned in and kissed him.
The kiss was slow and warm, carrying the softness of morning and the faint taste of coffee between them. It wasn’t heated or competitive or edged with the tension they used to carry into everything.
When he pulled back from the kiss, he didn’t move far. His forehead rested lightly against Seungyong’s, their breaths still warm in the quiet room.
“You really watch me that closely?” he murmured.
“I do,” Seungyong replied, just as softly. “I told you, I just don’t want to forget.”
Jinhyuk held his gaze for a long moment, as if trying to take in the weight of that answer. Something in his shoulders slowly loosened, the last bit of guardedness slipping away.
“Then don’t,” he said at last. “Write it down.”
Seungyong blinked, caught off guard by how easily it came. “You don’t mind?”
Jinhyuk let out a small breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “If this is how you love me, I’m not going to stop you.”
He reached for the phone again, opened the Notes app, and scrolled for a second as if reviewing it properly this time. Then he handed it back with a faint, crooked smile.
“Just make sure you add this one,” he said.
“What?”
“That I look really good in your bed.”
Seungyong rolled his eyes, but the smile spreading across his face betrayed him. “That’s not the point.”
“It’s very important,” Jinhyuk insisted lightly, leaning in to kiss him again. This one lingered a second longer, softer and warmer than before. “And write that I’m not going anywhere.”
Seungyong’s fingers tightened slightly around the phone at that.
“…Okay.”
That night, when they were tangled together beneath the blankets, Jinhyuk half-draped over him in his sleep like he always did, Seungyong opened the note once more.
he said to keep writing. he’s not going anywhere.
He had barely locked the screen when Jinhyuk shifted against him.
“You updating it?” he asked sleepily, voice thick with drowsiness.
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Jinhyuk mumbled, already drifting. “Don’t miss anything.”
Seungyong smiled in the dark and set the phone aside. He brushed his thumb gently over Jinhyuk’s knuckles until their fingers slipped together naturally.
“I won’t,” he promised.
Jinhyuk hummed, satisfied, and tucked himself closer without another word.