#kayli

pt. 1 - Irony and Fragility

After the disappointing loss against Cloud9, Kayli chose to spend the night at Liquid’s gaming house instead of with her own teammates on Flyquest. Sure, Flyquest had lost to Phoenix 1 and were starting to lose their reputation as the undefeated, power team of this split, but all their players were hardened veterans and it wasn’t like she had played anyway. She’s been Flyquest’s substitute Jungler ever since a small scandal in AD Kill’s organization caught the media’s attention during the off-season. After much discussion, Kayli and her teammates were leased out to other teams for the Spring Split of 2017.

 When she first received an offer to play with the team formerly known as Cloud9’s Challenger team, she was at a complete loss for words. Ever since she interacted with them at the occasional LCS parties, she’s loved An and Hai, so she had no reservations in accepting the offer, even if it wasn’t a starting position. However, even by Week 7, she still hadn’t been put in. She didn’t hate being out of the spotlight, in fact she rather enjoyed supporting her teammates from backstage – as strange as that sounded.

 Unlike Flyquest, Team Liquid wasn’t faring so well after they started the season with a nice 2-0 win against Counter Logic Gaming. Liquid’s loss had left them more devastated than Flyquest would have been after any loss.

 Not like Liquid wasn’t already on a losing streak. Not like they hadn’t just signed the most popular AD Carry in NA for the rest of the split. Not like they hadn’t moved Gwangjin to the Mid-lane to hopefully improve their roster. Not like they hadn’t signed Adrian as a substitute Support with only 3 weeks left of the Spring Split. Steve wasn’t kidding when he said he would do anything to push the team into playoff contention.

 Well, Kayli hadn’t expected him to take his statement lightly. He had done everything in his power.

 Some people commented on how Liquid’s new roster for the upcoming, final 3 weeks looked great on paper. Three out of the five players had experienced the pressure and emotional rollercoaster that came with competing at Worlds. Naturally, many expected the team to show up in this split before the new additions, and even more so once “Doublelift” temporarily joined the roster. What could go wrong with so many renowned, skilled players?  Apparently, Peter getting executed by Red Buff on his first game back into the professional spotlight. And that was only one example.

 With only one day of practice as a new team, even against a Worlds-class team like Cloud 9, the loss was more emotionally and physically draining than one would expect.

 Everyone, including the players themselves, had high expectations for Liquid’s roster. When they fell short of said expectations, their pride was shattered and that feeling of defeat – which came from everyone questioning whether they were still fit to play in the professional scene – drowned them in self-loathing and excessive criticisms. Criticism from within rather than without. No one had the energy to toss blame at each other or even attempt at giving each other constructive opinions after that game.

 There could’ve been more disasters, but losing 2-0 in their first set as a nominal monster team was a nightmare.

 Peter was more upbeat than Kayli had been expecting when she arrived at the house. He didn’t seem too upset about the loss, in fact, he seemed pretty optimistic for all the future games to come. Although that was reassuring, the somber mood that hung over everyone else’s heads could still bring anyone’s mood down.

 “Just…uh, you can put down your stuff in my room. I’ll be right back in a few minutes,” Yeujin mumbled in heavy Korean as he led her through the house towards his room. She passed by Samson in the kitchen, and the two of them shared a somewhat humorless smile. Kayli was no stranger to Team Liquid, but unlike the past few splits, she hasn’t found any time this split to spend time with her Jungling mentor and his new teammates.

 “Just…” Yeujin caught his best friend’s eyes for a brief moment as he ran his fingers through his dark-colored locks. He let out an exasperated sigh as he placed his phone in the palm of her hand, “you know,” and left the room without another word, leaving a saddened Kayli right inside the doorway with a small duffle bag on her shoulder.

 She missed seeing the bright smile on her fellow Jungler’s face back when he played on Fnatic in 2015, and the almost equally as vibrant smile when he played with Immortals last year. He started on Team Liquid with a nice smile, despite a rather confusing – or rather, upsetting – conversation over the phone with Kyungho in mid-January. Kayli knew very little of the context of the phone call, but she knew what it resulted in. A so-called “break.”

 She could only imagine how heartbreaking it must’ve been for Yeujin.

 Kayli flopped down onto Yeujin’s bed, curling up on her side. One of the phones in her hand vibrated softly, lighting up the screen with a text.

 ‘Are you okay, hyeong?’ was the simple message from a familiar Top laner. It took her a minute to remember that it was only the afternoon in Korea where ‘Huni’ was. Kayli effortlessly unlocked the phone to view the message. It must’ve been out of habit, since the notification gave her all the information she had needed.

 Once unlocked, what caught her attention in Yeujin’s recent messages wasn’t Seunghoon’s text, but an unread text from someone who she hadn’t heard from in what seemed like forever.

 She definitely hadn’t been epecting the message from an old friend. Sure, he was her friend too, but he was an especially close one of Yeujin’s.

 ‘Rekkles.’

 Martin Larsson was the last person Kayli expected to text Yeujin, since they hadn’t kept much contact since season 5. Yeujin, despite sharing pretty much everything with Kayli, had kept the reasons for how he and Martin lost contact to himself. She never pushed at it, because even though it brought him down a little bit, it didn’t seem to affect his daily life too much. Maybe it was Seunghoon’s presence that anchored him, and now that that was gone Yeujin had more worries and unnecessary thoughts on his mind to hold himself comfortably. Either way, it would be a blatant lie for her to say she wasn’t curious about the two of them, but she respected Yeujin’s privacy enough not to poke at it.

 The click of the bedroom door closing snapped the Jungler out of her reverie. She rolled her body to face the door and her best friend, all while still lying on her side.

 The young Korean had changed into a simple outfit that consisted of plain gray shorts and one of his old Fnatic t-shirts (as eerily coincidental as that seemed). His towel was draped around the back of his neck, and his short dark hair was damply ruffled in a way that Kayli was sure only Yeujin could pull off as attractive.

 Flyquest’s substitute Jungler slowly sat up, running her lithe fingers through her reddish gold hair to get it out of her face. She opened her mouth to speak but stopped short when she realized she had no idea how to approach what might be a sensitive subject.

 The text message from Martin implied that there was something more than just a really close friendship between them in his time at Fnatic. Not that Kayli hadn’t inferred that from how Yeujin acted when anyone so subtly mentioned him. If he had refused to talk about ‘Rekkles’ for the past two years and visibly flinched when the Swedish AD Carry was mentioned shortly after his departure from Fnatic, how would he react now? Kayli wasn’t sure what she’d do if she asked and he answered her with complete silence for the rest of her stay. Would it create a rift between the two of them just as bringing up Hyukkyu or Seohaeng to Kyungho had done to the two of them? Yeujin had a bad habit of putting too much distance between him and others when he wanted to avoid a subject. Sure, avoiding Kayli wouldn’t be as easy as avoiding Kyungho since she wasn’t hundreds of thousands of miles away and they saw each other at the LCS Studio at least once every week, but just the mere idea of a tense atmosphere between each of their encounters felt suffocating to her. She only had him in North America and she knew he leaned on her emotionally just as much as she relied on him.

 Although she wasn’t trying to hide it, Yeujin caught her less than subtle actions and let out a dry chuckle.

 “I’m not made of glass, Kayli,” he hung up his towel and dropped down onto his full-sized bed beside her. It was really out of character for her to think so deeply about something before talking to him. When he crossed his legs on the bed, she naturally laid back down with her head in his lap. She looked up at him through the fiery strands of her dyed hair, realizing that it’s been months since she’s seen his genuinely happy smile. The one that he always wore without needing something to happen to make it appear. She missed it. She missed it so much.

 “That’s not—”

 “Just say it.”

 Kayli felt as though she had offended him just by thinking about how to phrase her question. Maybe she had overthought it too much. He was a lot stronger – mentally and physically – than many people gave him credit for. “Jin…” an attempt at a soft whine turned into a squeak of discomfort.

 Her fellow Jungler just looked at her expectantly.

 “Did you know… see… the message?” when a look of confusion flashed across his features, she quickly added, “from…Martin?”

 The expression on his face became even more unreadable. Kayli hated this. It’s been about a month and a half since she became unable to naturally read her best friend, and it pained her. Was it because she spent a lot more time at her team’s house rather than sleeping over at Yeujin’s? Was it because she didn’t make a big enough effort to go out and see him? Was it because she didn’t try to comfort him more after his earlier losses? She couldn’t feel anymore useless as his best friend. Even just the idea that she couldn’t figure out how to fix Yeujin’s mood bothered her more than the idea that she might not play on stage for the rest of the split. Scratch that, she couldn’t care any less about being on stage. It bothered her more than the time when she fought with Yeujin about Kyungho and was given the cold shoulder for about a month.

 When Yeujin didn’t answer after a long minute, she sat up and shook her head gently. “Never mind. Forget that I asked,” she tried to wave the tense air away with her hand. “Seunghoon sent you a text while you were in the shower, by the way.” She held her hand out with his phone and fell back down once he slowly took the phone back.

 Kayli absolutely hated the silence that followed for the next few moments. It felt like an eternity before he laid down in front of her, but it was less than a minute before he spoke in a hushed whisper. She caught the numerous emotions that passed his face but some were easier to identify than others: confusion, hurt, sadness, frustration. But, most importantly, the one that stayed made her chest clench in pain. Heartbreak.

 “I guess I never really told you…” his lithe fingers reached over and played with the soft curls of her silky hair. Despite changing the color so many times, Kayli’s hair still felt soft and feathery to the touch. Yeujin curled up closer to her body just like he has done countless times since they were toddlers. The air of subtle hostility she had felt when he accused her of underestimating his mental strength had completely disappeared. It was as if it never existed as he squeezed his eyes shut and reached out to hug his anchor closer to his body. The only thing left was heartbreak as Kayli heard him take shallow breaths in an attempt to stall the inevitable tears. Despite the size of his bed, with the two of them curled up so closely, the Junglers took up less than half of it.

 “I messed up, Kayli. I messed up so bad,” he mumbled in Korean as she raised her hand to reassuringly brush her fingers through Yeujin’s hair as he tucked himself into her smaller body. Kayli caught the shaking of his shoulders as she gave him a tight hug for comfort and encouragement.

 He looked like he just wanted to cry but the tears refused to fall. She knew he wanted disappear, judging by the look in his eyes when he opened them to stare back at her own dark orbs.

 “I want to go back,” Yeujin’s voice broke as he spoke in a hushed tone with fractured Korean. “Turn back time. To go back and fix it. Everything.”