Ch.14014. My Jungler!

“Wow~ That was fun~”

“It was great!”

The Spirit group reunited outside the theater.

Seo-eun’s satisfaction level seemed to be at maximum after watching with the other two.

Even the lead actress was satisfied enough that she couldn’t hide her expression, grinning to herself.

“Unni.”

Hana stopped Seo-eun in front of the elevator and let out a deep sigh.

“Hmm? What is it, Hana? Don’t tell me you didn’t like the movie?”

“No, that’s not it. Suhyeok didn’t watch part 3 before coming.”

“What? Suhyeok, really?”

“He didn’t just miss part 3, he hasn’t seen any of the series.”

Seo-eun couldn’t hide her bewilderment.

“Well, that’s true, but I still enjoyed it.”

That was a lie.

In truth, he couldn’t focus at all.

Partly because he didn’t know the content of the previous films, but also because he was constantly distracted by the fact that his hand kept touching Hana’s.

“Oh my… if you’d told us earlier, we could have watched something else.”

“That’s what I’m saying! Why didn’t you say anything!”

Though they meant well, Suhyeok was becoming more and more deflated with each comment.

Knowing that blaming him served no purpose, Hana stepped forward and grabbed Suhyeok’s wrist.

“I’ll lend them to you, so make sure you watch them. Got it?”

“But even if I get them, I can’t play them?”

Suhyeok’s laptop was a model that couldn’t play DVDs.

After all, how many things do people even do with CDs these days?

“…Really?”

Suhyeok had simply meant it as a polite refusal, but this only made Hana’s heart more confused.

Because they could easily watch them on Hana’s desktop.

But she couldn’t lend out her desktop.

That just wouldn’t make sense, logically speaking.

So the best solution would be…

“…Then we’ll have to set aside some time later.”

For Hana, who hadn’t yet made up her mind, that was the best answer she could give.

“Okay.”

Though he wasn’t sure why they needed to set aside time, Suhyeok nodded with a bright smile.

Outside the theater, they were all swept up in the crowd.

The Spirit members excitedly began sharing their thoughts about the movie.

“Honestly, I think killing off the female lead was too much.”

Choi Gang offered his opinion with an extremely solemn face.

“Hey, but I don’t think anyone here didn’t see that death coming?”

Juyeon nodded in agreement with Hana’s comment.

Confusion was plainly visible on Choi Gang’s face.

“…Are you saying you saw spoilers beforehand?”

“No. Just, with all those hints they kept dropping, how could you not know?”

“I thought this one was a bit predictable too~”

When even Seo-eun joined in, an enraged Choi Gang whipped his head toward Suhyeok.

“Lee Suhyeok!”

“Y-yes?”

“Did you predict it too?”

“Ah. No.”

Another lie…

“Hey, Suhyeok didn’t watch the previous ones, so he wouldn’t know even if we told him~”

On the way home, everyone laughed brightly.

The Spirit members kept chattering about the movie’s content, bickering non-stop.

Unlike the three walking ahead, Suhyeok and Juyeon quietly listened.

But even that was enough to make Suhyeok perfectly content.

The first social gathering had been quite enjoyable for Suhyeok.

* * *

“Yaaawn~”

Saturday had returned.

Waking up late without an alarm, Suhyeok let out a big yawn.

Rubbing his eyes, he organized today’s to-do list.

First, he absolutely had to practice guitar…

Do some laundry that had piled up, take out the trash.

Though Suhyeok was determined to tackle the household chores he couldn’t handle while commuting to school, he contradicted his resolve by crawling back under the covers.

This was how weekends should be, after all.

After wasting about an hour, the first thing he did upon getting up was check his phone.

Opening his messenger app without thinking, he couldn’t help but be startled.

[Spirit 1st & 2nd Years – 300+]

How could there be so many messages?

He’d checked before going to bed last night, so there shouldn’t be this many.

Still curious about the content, Suhyeok pressed the screen with his thumb to enter the chat room.

He scrolled down, skimming through the messages.

[Anyone want to play games together today~ Already got 2 people!]

[Wanna join?]

[So far it’s Jiho and me…]

It seemed the first-year juniors were looking for people to play games with.

They wanted to play League of Legends but were one person short of being able to queue up.

Suhyeok’s name started appearing in their conversation.

[Doesn’t Suhyeok-hyung play games?]

[@Lee Suhyeok]

Being tagged personally rather than being involved in a group activity was quite rare, so Suhyeok found the glowing blue text somewhat intimidating.

[Is he sleeping? Doesn’t seem like he’s seeing this.]

[Ah… this sucks… is it going to fall through?]

What should he do?

It was a game he played. But that was only ever solo play.

He’d rarely played while communicating with others, so he worried whether he could do well.

His tier was only Diamond…

-Bzzzzzz

While hesitating with his phone in hand, he was startled by a sudden vibration and dropped it.

The caller was Choi Gang.

He was definitely one of the members planning to play.

[Hello?]

[It’s me.]

A no-nonsense introduction.

[Ah. Yeah.]

[Did you see the chat?]

[I just looked at it…]

[What’s your ID?]

How could a conversation be this direct outside the military?

[It’s ‘OurHomeIsFar’…]

[Be online by 1 o’clock.]

The call ended abruptly.

Suhyeok stared at the screen with a somewhat dazed expression.

What just happened?

Am I confirmed as a member now?

While he didn’t have any compelling reason to refuse, this still felt a bit…

Or maybe not.

Perhaps it would be good to play together to get closer with his juniors.

Though uncertain, Suhyeok decided to log in after quickly taking out the trash.

Sitting in front of his laptop, Suhyeok felt unusually nervous about connecting to the game client.

As soon as he logged in, an invitation message arrived.

-Accept invitation from [DrummingIsMurder]?

The nickname seemed to immediately reveal who it was without needing to be told.

After pressing accept, voices immediately poured out from his speakers.

[Oh? Suhyeok oppa is here?]

[Wow! Suhyeok-hyung is Diamond? What tier?]

[Lee Suhyeok. Call your lane.]

But that wasn’t what was important to Suhyeok right now.

Earphones!

Where did I put my earphones?

After frantically managing to connect his earphones to the laptop, Suhyeok took a short deep breath and joined the voice channel.

[Hello everyone.]

Despite being their senior, Suhyeok greeted them like a complete newbie.

[Wow! Hyung! This is awesome!]

[Huh? What is?]

[Why is your tier so high?]

[Just got lucky, I guess…?]

He didn’t actually think he was bad, but he also didn’t consider himself good enough to boast about it.

[But only jungle is left, is that okay?]

[Yeah. I’ll take jungle.]

Though it wasn’t his main position, he’d played it occasionally, so he didn’t think it would be a problem.

Today’s members were:

Top – Choi Gang

Jungle – Suhyeok

Mid – Taeho

ADC – Geonwoo

Support – Sohye

Two second-years and three first-years.

The only surprising thing was Sohye’s presence.

He’d vaguely thought girls didn’t play these kinds of games much.

Of course, Suhyeok’s assumption wasn’t completely off the mark.

That’s because Sohye was a complete newbie who had only started playing to be close to Choi Gang.

[Oh! Got a match.]

The game was finally found.

[Suhyeok-hyung, I want to pick last, can we swap?]

Taeho asked to trade places.

Suhyeok readily agreed to his request.

It wasn’t difficult, and he understood that laners are affected by matchups.

But at this point, Suhyeok didn’t know.

That for him, playing online games with others would be…

An endless series of requests.

[Suhyeok-hyung! You need to come here right now!]

[Lee Suhyeok! Hit that and come straight to top!]

[No, Sohye! Why would you use Flash there!]

[But you told me to use it!]

Despite having the highest tier, Suhyeok was essentially Cinderella being bossed around by her stepmother and sisters.

Choi Gang and the juniors called for Suhyeok, the jungler, almost every ten seconds.

[Can… can I just finish eating this before I come?]

He was asked to abandon the monster he was killing and run to help.

But he needed to farm to carry the game later…

[No! We have to push this lane even if it kills us!!!]

At Choi Gang’s booming voice through his earphones, Suhyeok tearfully abandoned the monster he was killing.

Finally reaching Choi Gang’s lane, Suhyeok succeeded in taking down an opponent.

Just as he caught his breath and turned back to finish the monster he’d left behind, ping after ping came from mid lane.

[Suhyeok-hyuuuung!]

Ah…

Perhaps someone like him wasn’t cut out for team games after all.

They won the game, but the poor jungler spent the entire time being used by everyone.