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part two hundred and eighteen
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world cup: exomeme edition: prelims | round one | round two | round three
congratulations team a!
semi-finals 07-18 00:00 UTC - 07-20 23:59 UTC
xiumin ♦ lay ♦ chen ♦ chanyeol
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baekchen(/chansoo-ish) 1/2
(Anonymous) 2014-07-18 03:46 am (UTC)(link)In person, he doesn't seem like much. Jongdae sees Byuntae's spidery fingers jiggling away at the controller in front of the old TV in Minseok's living room, a whole crowd of people gathered around him and the guy he's playing, and raises his eyebrows. Byuntae is skinny, even smaller than Jongdae is. Bowl-cut hair, wonky nose, resting bitch face. Mole over his lip, and one on his thumb. Byuntae loses the first set to the other guy's Marth, down three stocks.
"Don't play Kirby," Jongdae advises helpfully over his shoulder, a little pitying. "He's too low-tier. Just a tip."
Byuntae flicks his gaze up and grins, showing his sharp canines. "Don't worry," he says, glancing at Jongdae's nametag. "FunkyLord92. I'm just getting started."
Jongdae rolls his eyes. Gamers into Melee tended to talk a lot of shit and never deliver. Who did this guy think he was, talking trash when no one even knew him?
Minseok jostles into Jongdae's shoulder as Byuntae selects Jigglypuff. Jongdae poorly disguises a bark of laughter behind his hand and turns.
"You said he was good," he whispers, accusatory, and Minseok shakes his head.
"You haven't seen anything yet."
Byuntae picks Green Greens as the stage and proceeds to completely wipe the floor with his opponent's ass, using Jigglypuff of all mains. Byuntae's style is erratic and risky—he's off the main map more often than not, but every single hit he lands matters. He wins the second set and the third set without even losing a life. "What the fuck," Jongdae says as the rest of the room erupts into loud cheers at Byuntae's victory, his fingers clenched around the back of Byuntae's chair.
"I told you," Minseok says smugly.
The other guy, gamer tag Waterboyjimmy, slumps in his seat. "I could've beaten him if I'd gotten more sleep last night," he starts whining, and Minseok cuts him off with a curt look.
"No Kevins," Jongdae says drily.
Byuntae twists his head to frown up at him. "Who's Kevin?"
"Damn," Jongdae says, patting Byuntae on the shoulder. "You've got a lot to learn."
"Kevin," Minseok says, as the milling crowd shifts to his kitchen to watch the next quarterfinal match commence, "was this Melee player from Canada who came to TG3 last summer. Every time he lost he'd make up some stupid excuse, like—"
"Someone was touching my shoulder the whole game," Jongdae says, shaking his head.
"I drank too much last night," Minseok continues. "Since then, we've called any stupid excuse a Kevin. Every game is equal. If you lose, you lose. And if you win—well." He brandishes the wad of prize money in his hand before shoving it back in his pocket. "You know how it is."
Byuntae jerks his finger at Waterboyjimmy's retreating back. "So that was a Kevin?"
"Well, his real name is Jino," Jongdae says. "But you could say that." He throws the idea around in his head for a minute before stretching his hand out for a handshake. Baekhyun looks surprised, and then pleased. "What's yours?"
"Baekhyun," he says, grinning. "I'm gonna win the entire tournament with Jigglypuff."
"I'm Jongdae," Jongdae says, eyes flashing. "And we'll see about that."
Baekhyun does end up winning the tournament, and the four hundred dollar cash prize. On the Smashboards, Jigglypuff makes a huge leap on the Melee character tier list, and Baekhyun keeps an obnoxious "#1 SMASH PLAYER IN THE WORLD!!!" in his forum signature for the next four months.
"Hey," Jongdae says, the next time they see each other at a local Gamestop tournament when Jongdae visits family in Los Angeles. "Wanna play doubles?"
Baekhyun sends him a considering look. Jongdae's Pikachu had lost to his Jigglypuff in the finals at TG4, but just barely. Jongdae holds his breath. Finally, Baekhyun claps him on the shoulder. "Let's do this shit," he says, and Jongdae grins.
The East Coast kids start stirring shit the next summer, right before TG5. "They say he's the best in the country," Jongdae comments casually, when Baekhyun comes to stay over at Minseok's so they can practice before the big tournament. "KoreanDJ."
"More like Korean-Suck-My-Dick," Baekhyun says, which isn't witty at all, but Jongdae knows better than to distract him when he's razing Minseok's Samus to the ground.
"I'm just saying," Jongdae says, flopping back in the couch and kicking his feet onto the coffee table. Minseok sends him a quick warning look before mashing at his controller. "If you really want to be the best, you'll have to beat them, too."
"You mean we have to," Baekhyun says, eyes luminous. Minseok roars in outrage as he loses his last stock and drops his controller on the floor.
"Right," Jongdae breathes. "We have to."
KoreanDJ is ridiculously tall and has a shock of curly orange hair that sits on top of his head like a bird's nest. Despite that, he doesn't seem much older than Baekhyun or Jongdae, given that he's wearing a flannel shirt over a Captain America t-shirt. He has a short quiet kid in tow with him, big coke-bottle glasses on his face. The other kid doesn't seem to want to be here at all, trapped at the local Y on a summer weekend. "We're signing up last minute for doubles," KoreanDJ says, voice lower and rougher than Jongdae expected. Minseok nods and marks them down on the bracket before getting called away to deal with a couple of Smashers who had clogged the toilet up.
"Who's your main?" Jongdae asks curiously.
KoreanDJ grins. "Money-match me for five bucks and you'll find out."
Jongdae totally owns KoreanDJ's Luigi. Turns out the East Coast isn't as good as they say they are. But what happens after the match, though, is what gets to him the most—KoreanDJ turns toward Jongdae in his chair and proceeds to list out every single one of Jongdae's Pikachu maneuvers back at him. "So you play pretty defensively, don't you?" he finishes, folding his arms across his chest.
"What?" Jongdae asks, blinking quickly. "How did you—you got all that out of one set?"
KoreanDJ shrugs and grins again. "It's kind of a specialty of mine."
"Wanna money-match me?" Baekhyun suggests to KoreanDJ's friend.
The other guy's eyes go wider than they were before, which Jongdae hadn't thought was actually possible. "Me?" he asks, voice soft and husky. "No, I'm fine."
They wander off. Jongdae shrugs helplessly when Baekhyun sends him a weird look. "Must be something in the New York City water," Baekhyun says. "Come on, let's practice."
Baekhyun and Jongdae work their way up the doubles bracket over the course of the first day of the tournament, breezing through other hopefuls. They beat the previous year's winners before noon the next day, ShowerCat's Zelda and ControversialJesus's Princess Peach.
Their last match is against KoreanDJ and DKS.
"Is that pronounced Dicks?" Baekhyun snickers.
"You have a problem," Jongdae says, elbowing him. "But really, how did they make it to the final?"
"Who? Oh, KoreanDJ?"
"Yeah. I mean, he sucked when he money-matched me. I thought it was all hype, hot air from the East Coast because they were pissed Cali Smashers were just better."
"He was also playing with Luigi," Baekhyun points out. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. Go play your singles match." The corner of his mouth jumps. "I'll be waiting for you at the top of the winner's bracket."
"Yeah, yeah," Jongdae says. "Go eat a dick."
Except Jongdae gets bumped to the loser's bracket the next round because of KoreanDJ's quiet friend. DKS's Jigglypuff is as different from Baekhyun's as night is from day. Baekhyun is constantly on the offensive, always looking for openings, and risky as hell when his character is off the stage. In contrast, DKS plays even more defensively than Jongdae does, almost a sterile, clinical style that barely leaves any openings for Jongdae to use. He loses two sets to one. DKS offers his hand out to shake after the final set.
"I hope you're ready," Jongdae says, dropping by Baekhyun's singles match on the second story of Minseok's house. "These East Coast guys are no joke."
Baekhyun finishes his opponent off and sends him a strange look. "What's up? I've never seen you this worried before."
"You'll see."
"I hate this guy," Baekhyun announces, the minute DKS selects Jigglypuff on the setup screen.
DKS sends him a vaguely alarmed look from the seat next to KoreanDJ.
"There can only be one," Jongdae intones, and KoreanDJ chuckles.
"Let's have a good game, guys," Minseok says. "You can start at any time."
It's one of the most frantic matches Jongdae has ever played. It's like Baekhyun's out to prove something because of the Jigglypuff ditto, and because of his agitation, he takes even riskier chances throughout the match, springing wildly off the stage to hack DKS and KoreanDJ out. Ever since Jongdae first saw him play, Baekhyun has always had some type of unholy luck, an innate understanding of the physics of Melee, and his fingers move at the speed of light, probably, so he comes out on top more often than not. Still, there are some heart-stopping moments when both teams are neck and neck and Baekhyun pulls something out of his ass, and it means Jongdae has to have his back at all times. Fortunately, he's had a lot of practice over the past year of playing with Baekhyun to adapt to the situation.
KoreanDJ's main turns out to be Marth. "Fourteen-year-old me thought he was the most handsome character, like myself in real life," he explains, after he and DKS lose the second set by a hair. "It helps that he's a badass in-game."
"Yeah," DKS says. "Say that the next time Jigglypuff sings his ass off the stage."
That startles a laugh out of Jongdae, who's running on nerves after playing so much Smash for the past 40 hours. Everyone's voices seem a little too loud every time he goes on this kind of tear, and there's an awful cramp in his hand. He bets the statistics for Smashers who develop carpal tunnel syndrome are ridiculous.
Baekhyun's head is warm and heavy when it lands on his shoulder briefly. "Three more matches," he says in Jongdae's ear, and Jongdae swallows and nods. "Hey. I need you."
"You got it," Jongdae says. He rubs a cramp out with his thumb and squares his shoulders. "Let's go."
When Jongdae really gets in the zone, it's like everything else in the world melts away. The aching tension in his shoulders, the rising and falling murmur of the crowd gathered to watch the final match behind him, the rumbling in his stomach after not having eaten more than a handful of chips and a tangerine in the past two days. All of that is gone. There's nothing but the controller in his hands and the characters moving across the 2D stage, his eyesight blurring a little even as he focuses, Pikachu plugging in all the defensive holes behind Baekhyun's pink Jigglypuff and edging in some nasty shots on KoreanDJ's Marth to boot.
They win the third set. KoreanDJ and DKS take the fourth, and then it's down to the last one, Baekhyun's sweat trickling down the side of his face, his fingers settling lightly on Jongdae's knee for a brief moment before they're clutched around his controller again, eyes shining with the spark of a challenge.
A quiet hush settles over the entire house as the last set commences. Baekhyun's everywhere at once, Jigglypuff cartwheeling through the sky as the Green Greens music starts up in stark contrast to the gravitas of the situation. Jongdae's thumb slips a little and he loses a stock when Marth brings his sword down and knocks him off the stage. The tree starts blowing half a second later and Baekhyun avenges his lost life.
Sweat drips into Jongdae's eyes. He blinks around it and keeps forging on. Baekhyun lets out a quiet huff next to him and wave dashes ahead, punts DKS's Jigglypuff off the screen.
Jongdae's breath catches in the back of his throat and holds. He gets sent out before Baekhyun does, but so does KoreanDJ—and then it's two Jigglypuffs duking it out on Green Greens, one brash and quick and loud, and the other still and quiet.
Jongdae's only played DKS twice, once when he lost the first time and then again in the loser's bracket, but he can tell Baekhyun's style of play wears him down. As if Baekhyun has so many holes in his defense that DKS doesn't even know where to start, and in the split second he uses to decide, Baekhyun's already bearing down on him like the hammer of God. Or King Dididi's. With one stock left each, DKS tries to kick Baekhyun off the stage for the third time and misses. Baekhyun's Jigglypuff edgehogs for two seconds and then flips up to punch DKS's, 109%, 116%, 129%—and—
GAME. The entire house erupts into noise around him, the sound crashing through Jongdae's head like water broken through a dam, and then Baekhyun's grabbing his shoulders and shakes him, roaring out his victory. Jongdae laughs helplessly, torso like jelly, flopping back and forth with Baekhyun's every move. "We're number one in the world," he yells, so excited his eyes look like they're about to pop out of their sockets.
"In America, more like," Jongdae hears DKS say drily behind them, but Baekhyun ignores it. He leans forward and smacks a resounding kiss on Jongdae's mouth before turning and gladhanding all the spectators surging around them.
They all go out to eat on Minseok's dime after the tournament is over, a hundred sweaty, tired gamers piling into the closest McDonald's down the street at midnight on Sunday. KoreanDJ, real name Chanyeol, had won singles by a sliver of a margin, with Byuntae coming in second. "You were good," Baekhyun says grudgingly around a mouthful of chicken nugget. "We'll get it back next year, though, so you better watch out."
DKS, real name Kyungsoo, glances distastefully at the flecks of chicken spraying out of Baekhyun's mouth. "You were good, too," Chanyeol says, earnest as ever. He brandishes a crisp French fry at Baekhyun's face. "I don't know how you do the stuff you do with that Jigglypuff, it's kind of insane."
Baekhyun sends him a gratified look. Kyungsoo trades glances with Jongdae over his shoulder and snorts when Jongdae makes a face.
baekchen(/chansoo-ish) 2/2
(Anonymous) 2014-07-18 03:47 am (UTC)(link)"Hey," Jongdae says later, when he's lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. He puts a hand to his mouth and runs the tip of his index finger over his lower liip. "Earlier. After we won. Was that—was that like a Fredo kiss or something?" He hazards a glance down at the floor.
Baekhyun turns over in his sleeping bag and stares up at him, eyes shining. "What?"
"You kissed me," Jongdae says, feeling a bit like an idiot. Something warm bubbles up from his stomach and expands in his chest. "I just—I don't—"
"You're stupid," Baekhyun cuts in. He scrambles out of his sleeping bag, damp hair hanging in his eyes, and comes to stand at the edge of Jongdae's bed, looming over him. Some time in the past year Baekhyun's filled out, shoulders broader than Jongdae's now. His nose is a little less wonky. He purses his lips, like he's considering something. Then, he bends down carefully and kisses Jongdae again.
The angle's pretty awkward. Jongdae props himself up on a hand and reaches up on instinct to palm the back of Baekhyun's neck, gasping when Baekhyun shivers and slides his tongue into Jongdae's mouth. The tip of it runs over the ridge behind his teeth, tickles the roof of his mouth, and Jongdae feels his toes curl into his sheets.
"Scoot over," Baekhyun says, muffled, and Jongdae makes room for him, like he had when they first met, like he does in every doubles match they play together, hand sliding down to the flat of Baekhyun's back and curling loosely there.
"Shit," Jongdae says, pulling back to breathe.
Baekhyun regards him quietly for a second. "Thanks," he says, and Jongdae narrows his eyes.
"What for?"
"I dunno," he says, glancing away, and Jongdae is amazed to realize that Baekhyun's nervous. It's the first time he's ever seen him act remotely insecure about anything. It's kind of cute. And kind of refreshing for someone like Baekhyun, who's all big talk and big bluster and big action. To see him fiddling with his lower lip between his teeth for wont of something to say.
"Cat got your tongue?" Jongdae says, grinning.
Baekhyun lets out a huff of laughter. "Technically," he says, scooting closer, breathing the same air as Jongdae's again, their mouths half an inch apart, "yes."
In the morning, Jongdae helps Baekhyun carry his tiny suitcase out to his beatup old Corolla. It's a five and a half hour drive back down to Los Angeles. Baekhyun's got a huge box of Goldfish to keep him company for the ride.
"Come visit soon," he says, leaning against the passenger's side door when all his stuff is packed up and ready to go. "We have to keep our practice up, you know. Especially if I want to totally demolish Chanyeol at the next tournament. And keep our doubles record intact."
"You sure you don't have any ulterior motives?" Jongdae challenges, thinking about the previous night, Baekhyun's mouth on his neck, his harsh breathing when Jongdae had been adventurous and stuck his hand down Baekhyun's boxers.
Baekhyun laughs. "Yeah, well. That too."
Re: baekchen(/chansoo-ish) 2/2
(Anonymous) 2014-07-18 03:57 am (UTC)(link)jk i rly enjoyed this anon! i know nothing about the game but you made it interesting and i like all the in-jokes you put in there lmao
Re: baekchen(/chansoo-ish) 2/2
(Anonymous) 2014-07-18 04:03 am (UTC)(link)Re: baekchen(/chansoo-ish) 2/2
(Anonymous) 2014-07-18 04:26 am (UTC)(link)Re: baekchen(/chansoo-ish) 2/2
(Anonymous) 2014-07-18 04:37 am (UTC)(link)^
(Anonymous) 2014-07-18 05:02 am (UTC)(link)Re: baekchen(/chansoo-ish) 2/2
(Anonymous) 2014-07-18 06:21 am (UTC)(link)now the second part is sf cute i just about let out an undignified squeak. ty for putting this awesome fic for team lay ;; ugh i just rly loved this