Yun Qi zoomed in on the picture again. He was absolutely certain there was no mistake—it was this guy. They’d only met the once, but he made a point of paying close attention to anyone who showed up by Yu Jin’s side.
【Doesn’t Eat Grass: You sure?】
【Silk Scarf: Dead sure.】
【Doesn’t Eat Grass: Hold up—you signed with Eidis?】
Doesn’t Eat Grass suddenly switched tracks.
【Doesn’t Eat Grass: Eidis handled your contract?】
【Doesn’t Eat Grass: Isn’t he impossible to even meet? Why would he deal with signings???】
【Silk Scarf: He must’ve had some time on his hands.】
Yun Qi tossed out a half-baked excuse to deflect.
Doesn’t Eat Grass wasn’t buying it. He kept firing off messages, speculating at most about why Eidis had stepped in for this signing—but their actual connection? No chance.
Who would dare guess that? Who would even think to?
Even Yun Qi himself could hardly believe he’d shared those ambiguous moments with him back in the day.
And with their current situations? No one would dream of linking the two of them.
【Silk Scarf: Beats me what happened. Probably just a fluke.】
【Doesn’t Eat Grass: A fluke? Dude, do you even know who he is? Need me to remind you? It’s straight-up weird that he signed you.】
No matter how hard Doesn’t Eat Grass racked his brain, he’d never figure it out.
Yun Qi, meanwhile, resolved to play dumb all the way.
【Silk Scarf: Anyway, that’s who signed me. I don’t get it either. Gotta go—training time.】
Yun Qi brushed him off with that and quit WeChat.
Doesn’t Eat Grass left him alone after that.
Yun Qi still hadn’t quite processed it. Digging deeper, he wondered who had put Yi Yang up to it. Chole and SK had never crossed paths before—no grudges, nothing. They were parallel lines that never intersected. Chole and KRO belonged to the same club, the same company: one a domestic powerhouse, the other a promising upstart. Yi Yang’s choice said it all—he’d rather grind as a sub on KRO than start for Chole.
But SK had reached the finals this year. How could Chole have crushed them in the Challenge Tournament? Chole hadn’t even made finals. Where had that kind of dominance come from?
Yun Qi checked Yi Yang’s join date with Chole, and it clicked: he’d signed on after the finals. So he’d dragged the team to a bloodbath win over SK all by himself? A sub? Way too deep.
If someone really had put him up to it… was it Yu Jin? Or somebody else?
Yun Qi stewed over it for a while before diving back into training and shoving it from his mind.
That evening, training done, he headed to the cafeteria for dinner.
Still the new guy, he wasn’t familiar with much yet. Groups of players who knew each other streamed past him. Yun Qi stood there, glancing around. The place was big, tables half-empty. Plenty packed meals to go, nagging the lunch ladies for extra scoops. Food was free, so they didn’t skimp—the takeout boxes were piled mountain-high.
Picky eater that he was, Yun Qi had no idea what to get when he spotted Little Ji chatting with a few others. Little Ji saw him and grabbed his arm. “You eaten?”
Yun Qi shook his head. “Not yet.”
The guys with Little Ji turned to look—complicated stares, no doubt recognizing him. Yun Qi met their eyes steadily.
“What’re you in the mood for?” Little Ji asked, all helpful warmth. “Want the rundown?”
“Thanks,” Yun Qi said. He wanted to know the good options; nothing here jumped out at him.
Little Ji launched into recommendations based on his own tastes, pointing out which counters had the best grub—heavy flavors here, light ones there. Then he hauled Yun Qi along to join them. Yun Qi went with it, tray in hand, and sat down with the group.
“Why pick this place?” one of Little Ji’s buddies asked him. “You had it good on SK, right?”
Nobody got it. Starting on SK’s roster beat trialing anywhere else, especially for someone with his rep. Why come here and scrap with rookies?
“Everyone’s got their reasons,” Little Ji said, sounding wise beyond his years. “Why’d you pick KRO? You knew starting spots are brutal here.”
The guy shrugged. “Hey, if I’m playing, I aim for the top team. No other squad’s even qualified for foreign servers yet. KRO’s a battle-hardened vet out there. Why box myself into domestic leagues?”
“Exactly—he wants foreign servers too,” Little Ji said to Yun Qi. “Ignore these chatterboxes. No harm meant.”
Yun Qi smiled faintly, eyes downcast. “It’s fine.”
The people around the table dove back into conversation. “Speaking of the foreign servers, what’s the plan this year? Is KRO heading overseas again? What about E God? Is he competing?”
“I heard from the second team guys that Brother Jin’s probably joining this year. His injury’s all healed up, and he’s back stateside, so he should be good to go, right?”
Yun Qi’s chopsticks froze midair. He listened to the insiders’ chatter, his mind snagging on all the talk about injuries.
He’d been hurt?
“The big issue is, if E God sits this one out, our morale’s gonna tank. We’re tops domestically, no doubt, but taking on the EU server without him? Forget it—we’d be lucky to scrape into the Grand Finals. Those players over there are monsters.”
“They’ve had a solid esports scene forever, while we’re still the new kids on the block. Normal that they have more top-tier talent. Can’t win ’em all. But with Brother Jin stepping up this year, we should be fine. The undisputed king of this game is right here in our country—no need to sweat it.”
“Brother Jin hasn’t touched a comp in years, though, and he’s spent the last two recovering abroad. I’m just worried he’ll choke on his comeback…”
“Bullshit,” the buzz-cut guy shot back gruffly. “Even if Eidis lost an arm, he’d still smoke most players. You seen his old match vids? That level of domination is straight-up terrifying. EU’s been strutting around these past couple years, but with big bro back in the game, what the hell can they do?”
“Don’t talk it up too much—the foreign servers are stacked with heavy hitters,” Little Ji chimed in.
“Sure, plenty of big shots abroad. But why’d they only crawl out of the woodwork these last two years while Brother Jin was sidelined? Back when he was carrying the team, he wiped the floor with them—no mercy, no remains. Call me cocky if you want, but as long as Brother Jin’s in form when he jumps back in, we’ll take it.”
The group was deep in heated debate when Little Ji glanced up at Yun Qi. “You know my brother, yeah?”
Yun Qi hesitated. “Yeah.”
Someone nudged Little Ji’s arm. “Anyone in esports who doesn’t know your bro? What kinda question is that?”
Little Ji let out a cheeky chuckle.
Yun Qi picked at his food like it was an act, barely managing a few bites before his appetite vanished. His parents had nagged him about it since he was little, and even grown up, nothing had changed. He wasn’t a big eater, didn’t crave much—just a bit of soup could fill him right up.
He forced down a handful of dumplings and called it quits. Little Ji and the others, though, were still growing boys with bottomless stomachs. They polished off their plates and lined up for seconds at the serving window. Yun Qi didn’t stick around. He nudged his bowl aside. “I’m heading out.”
Little Ji mumbled around a mouthful of dumpling. “Huh? You’re done already?”
The others shot him puzzled looks, figuring the newbie was too shy to pig out in front of strangers. They urged him to grab more.
“I’m stuffed. Got stuff to handle back at the dorm. Don’t wanna cramp your style.” Yun Qi stood. “Catch you later.”
Little Ji waved him off. “See ya tomorrow.”
Yun Qi nodded and slipped away from the table.
Little Ji chomped another dumpling as the group watched Yun Qi’s retreating figure. One of them said, genuinely impressed, “He’s pretty reserved, huh.”
Little Ji glanced over. “Yeah. Not what the rumors painted.”
“Online, they hype him up as this flashy, trash-talking hotshot. Figured he’d be yapping nonstop, but he barely said a word after sitting down.”
“New guy’s gotta play it cool.”
“How come you all know him and I don’t?” another one wondered.
“You with your head buried in practice all day, ignoring the scene? No wonder.”
Little Ji just grinned. “C’mon, eat up.”
~~~
Yun Qi made his way back to his room.
Tucked deep inside the dorm, it offered total privacy. He always paused at the door on entering, struck by the care that had gone into picking this spot for him.
It was a haven of personal space—no roommates, no hallway noise to interrupt. The view was killer: courtyard vistas bathed in sunlight by day, silvered by moonlight at night. The decor hit just right, all soothing colors that melted away tension.
He’d peeked into other rooms on his walks; they weren’t all like this. His was special. Tailored for him, by Yu Jin—not by KRO.
Yun Qi flopped onto the sofa, the plush pillow cradling his head infused with a faint, crisp scent. The wide windows let in a perfect view. Tension drained from his body.
But as he lay there, his mind circled back to the cafeteria talk. They’d mentioned an injury? Yun Qi had never heard solid details. The story everyone bought was that Yu Jin had spent those two years abroad traveling the world. Sure, there were wild conspiracy theories he dismissed out of hand. But actual injury talk? That was new.
His competitive career hadn’t been a long one—from making his debut and catching everyone’s eye to claiming the Server #1 spot, it had only been a little over a year. There shouldn’t have been any chronic injuries built up from years of grueling play. Eidis wasn’t the type of genius hammered out through endless hours in the Training Room either. Yun Qi had always dismissed the rumors about his injuries as nothing more than a convenient excuse from the esports team to cover for his trip abroad.
They simply hadn’t wanted to reveal the real reason.
But today, over dinner, he’d heard an insider echo the same story. Could there really be something wrong with him? At the thought, Yun Qi sat up in bed.
He grabbed his phone and pulled up Yu Jin’s chat. The last message was still that unresolved question about whether to accept the offer. Their relationship was too tangled for casual chit-chat like old friends might share. Yun Qi stared at his profile picture for a moment before abandoning the idea of such an abrupt inquiry. Instead, he turned to the internet for answers.
A search for “Eidis injury” turned up page after page of media speculation. Nothing definitive about hospital visits, no quotes from teammates confirming any ongoing issues. The most they’d mention was the occasional cold or fever before a big match.
Yun Qi skimmed through several entries but found no concrete information. He was on the verge of giving up on online sources when another related headline caught his eye.
“Eidis rumored to be secretly married.”
The press had made a huge fuss over a ring on his finger, complete with photos. Yun Qi had wondered about that ring’s origins himself, but he knew better. There was no way Eidis was secretly married.
No way he was married at all.
Yun Qi couldn’t quite pinpoint where that certainty came from, but he brushed the rumor aside without a second thought.
He set his phone down, hoping the insider tip he’d overheard today was just as baseless. He wanted Yu Jin’s trip abroad to have been nothing more than a vacation for some much-needed R&R—no hidden motives or complications.
No amount of mental gymnastics or digging through search results could compare to seeing things clearly up close, right by his side. But how was he supposed to march over to A Block in broad daylight and announce, “I’m here for Eidis—I need to ask if everything’s okay”?
Even if they let him in, could he really just blurt it out to Eidis’s face? What even were they to each other now? Just ex-boyfriends. They weren’t close enough to casually check in on one another.
The more Yun Qi dwelled on it, the more resolute he became. He couldn’t keep putting this off. He had to accelerate his plans, claw his way onto the Starting Roster by any means necessary.
No explanations required.
He’d plant himself right in front of Eidis, out in the open, and there’d be no avoiding him then.
Yun Qi steadied his emotions and began pacing the room. Yu Jin had mentioned that plenty of essentials were stashed in the storage cabinets. He hadn’t gotten around to checking every one yesterday, but the reminder sparked his memory now. He rummaged through them one by one and struck gold: a thermos—the exact thing he needed most at the moment.
It was still in its unopened box, resting atop a rolled-up towel. Yun Qi felt a spark of delight when he found it. Everything had been prepared so meticulously for him, down to details he hadn’t even considered himself—like replacing his cup. Yu Jin had thought of it all.
Yun Qi pulled out the pristine white thermos, complete with a packet of desiccant inside. He gave it a thorough wash and dry, then set it next to his room card, planning to take it to the Training Room tomorrow.
That night, as he lay in bed, his eyes drifted to the cup on the desk. It wasn’t anything extravagant, but it carried an undercurrent of quiet thoughtfulness that no one else knew about.
Eidis had always been so considerate like that. When they were together, Yun Qi never had to overthink or worry about a thing. Eidis handled all the preparations, leaving Yun Qi free to simply relax and savor the moment.
The cup held his gaze, dredging up wave after wave of intimate memories—their meeting, their growing closeness, their love, and finally their parting. It all felt like a dream in retrospect. Yun Qi’s emotions seesawed wildly in the haze of his thoughts: buoyant one instant, weighed down the next; a flicker of secret joy, then pangs of regret. He was hopelessly tangled up in it all.
There was no such thing as a regret pill in this world.
Even if he could turn back time, he’d still have to endure it all over again. Back then, in those circumstances, he truly had no other choice.
