A Loser's Win

Best Route

 

Jihoon wasn’t a really romantic guy. Never was. He’d been quite content with his current high school career, which consisted of watching his friends have hot makeout sessions with their significant other while quietly watching by the side, eating a turkey sandwich just a few feet away. He’d been used to the giggly “sorry”s that would follow afterwards, and he’d grown quite accustomed to said friend-and-other-person continuing their kisses with even more vigor, can you believe- right after.
The boy had his priorities straight, with other things to worry about; like studying, for example. While his loser-dork friends were each-other’s faces off, he could be revising an essay paper like no-one’s business.
Ah.
Yet, that was actually quite sad, now that he thought about it.
But that brought him back to his point- he was perfectly happy being single, and he didn’t care one bit if his friends all had partners that they could be lovey-dovey with. Speaking of which, he could get a lot of studying done right now if one of said friends wasn’t bugging the hell out of him every split second.

Jihoon was leaning over the library table, head resting in his arms as he tapped his pencil rhythmically against his forehead. Next to him was his absolute best friend in the world, note the sarcasm, Soonyoung. The dancer was having the time of his damn life, poking at the shorter boy’s shoulder at record speed.
“Ji,”
“Soonyoung.”
“Ji,”
“Soonyoung.”
“Ji.”
“Soonyoung.”
“Ji-”
“WHAT!?” Jihoon jolted up, but froze as the other library-goers’ stares bore into his skull, judging him. He was shushed until he sat down, feeling eyes all around him.The boy covered his face in embarrassment… not before giving Soonyoung the angriest glare in the world, first.
“Wow, Ji, you okay? You’ve been seeming kinda fevery lately.” Soonyoung asked with a big grin while drumming his hands on the table; somehow ignoring all the dirty glares that were now directed at him.
“I dunno, maybe everything would be just peachy if you’d stop with trying to drill a ing hole into my shoulder, Kwon Soonyoung.” Jihoon whispered angrily. Normally he would’ve just smacked Soonyoung gently on the head before going back to work, but today he was more irritable than usual. Everyone was getting on his nerves, and his workload wasn’t exactly helping.
“Woah, woah. Calm, Ji. You’re doing it again.” The blonde raised his hands defensively. “Are you doing fine in school?” he asked, genuine concern in his eyes.
“Ugh…” The peach-haired boy let out a long, shallow sigh, before continuing, “Yeah, sure, but I bet I’d be doing even better if you left me alone. I’m really not in the mood right now, Soon. You can just leave and go hang out with that DK guy or something.”
Although Soonyoung could be a prick sometimes, luckily, he knew Jihoon’s boundaries pretty well from all the years they’ve been friends. He’s sure as hell pushing them right now, so he did what every good friend would do, and backed off.
Not before setting a little harmless prank into action, though.
“Sure, Ji, I won’t bug you if you don’t want me to.” Soonyoung shrugged, shouldering his backpack on. “Thanks, Soon, you’re the best.”
“I sure am, and that’s one reason why I’m not leaving till I give you this. Give it a shot sometime. I heard it’s one of the top games right now!” He gently tossed the CD on the table, and waved as he shuffled off, probably to go find someone else to annoy.
Jihoon simply nodded until his friend was out of sight, paying no attention to the gift that was given to him. He spent the next few hours studying in peace.

Real hell broke loose when Jihoon had gotten home. Boots were spewn somewhere by the door, and his jacket was haphazardly thrown toward the general direction of a chair; the bedroom was a mess. But he decided he had more pressing matters to deal with, holding the disc his friend gave him in between his trembling fingers. They weren’t trembling because he was tired unlike usual- they were trembling because he was furious.
“Soon, you piece of . Soonyoung, you steaming pile of dog,” Jihoon angrily whispered to himself repeatedly, as if he was some sort of broken record.
In his tiny mitts was a crisp, factory-sealed limited edition copy of Kissy Kissy Heartthrob Dreamboat Paradise 3 Deluxe. He had almost spat when his eyes landed on the painfully bright cover art that was printed on the packaging. Was this a sick joke? Because Jihoon wasn’t laughing. His face was steaming red as he flipped over the box and read the glittery-pink, heart-covered text on the back. 5 new characters, 36 unique routes, and an all-new original soundtrack! A heart-pounding romance-filled highschool adventure! Could h-he be your perfect match!?!? (New Bonus Features Included, for ages 14-18)
Jihoon was quick to grab his phone, speed dialing his cheeky friend’s number. It lead straight to voicemail. After 4 more calls, Jihoon gave up, deciding that he was going to strangle Soonyoung the next time he saw that sad sack of .
Hmm, but an all-new original soundtrack…?” He pondered. “Maybe a little look wouldn’t hurt. I’ll just install it, play a few minutes, uninstall, and then pass this back to Soonyoung tomorrow… It’ll be his problem after that.” He loaded the disc in, went through the installation process, and started the launcher. “Piece of cake. Just in and out.

That’s what he had said 5 hours ago. Five. Hours. Ago.
It was currently 4 am and Jihoon was still sitting in front of his bright LED monitor, tears streaming down his rosy cheeks.

Turn back to the start of the game- everything was fine. He had been introduced to the setting, a cliche transfer-student highschool scenario. Easy peasy. He entered his name as “Woozi”, which was a homage to his splitting migraine that had formed thanks to Soonyoung. He customized his character- a tiny, strawberry pink-haired girl; as there was no male option, for some ridiculous reason. Simple. Then, he was introduced to all the characters and possible date route options in one in-game day. There was Jeonghan, the silent handsome type that was secretly kind, Vernon, the reckless childhood best-friend, Mingyu, the tall artistic guy who was tall-tall, Wonwoo, the emo-broody guy who said a total of one line for the entire course of the game so far, Seungkwan, who although stuck to Woozi like glue for the entire game, wasn’t a dateable character, and...
Seungcheol. Seungcheol, oh boy. The cute, puppy-like young man that little Woozi had bumped into in the hallways. This boy was the one that had made Jihoon into the sobbing mess he was, just a few hours later.

Everything was fine at first. Jihoon had simply taken a liking to Seungcheol, and decided to go after him and see if he could get to his best ending, but oh, how he was so, so naive. 
Every time Jihoon was confident that he had done everything it would take to unlock Seungcheol’s best ending, he was met with a bad end, fail, or even plain just old death, because the sicko developers thought it would be a great idea to include character death in a game targeted towards teen girls in the mood for love. It frustrated him enough to the point where he would’ve just settled with a normal ending, he didn’t care, he just wanted to finally be happy together with poor Seungcheolie, god ing dammit. Surprisingly enough there were no walkthroughs on the internet, so no matter how deep he searched, all Jihoon could do was suffer alone. This was not such an easy feat, though, as Jihoon was naturally inept in flirting.

   [Heya! How was your day? It’s the perfect weather for studying, huh?]
     >Yup!
     >No…
     >Oh my god Seungcheol off
And yet, Jihoon wonders why he can’t get a good ending.

That was why Jihoon was currently curled up in a ball on his chair, bawling his eyes out. The words that Seungcheol said every time he lost shot him right through the heart. “Sorry, Woozi, I actually don’t like you one bit! Wait, Woozi is your name right? Boy, the weather is nice today! I like football!” But it was okay. Jihoon was too busy wallowing in self-pity and disgust to actually care. “It’s been hours. It’s 4 am, leaning on 5. Why won’t Seungcheol just marry me already. Holy , are his standards just too high? Am I just not good enough? Is it the hair? What am I saying wrong? Wait should I have chosen that other option instead of-” this went on for a while, in between retries on getting better results. Jihoon’s cellphone started buzzing at around 8 am, and he was tempted to violently hurl it at the wall and just continue playing, but instead huffed as he picked it up to his ear.
“What?”
“Jihoon? Where are you, bro, school just started and-” Soonyoung sounded exasperated.
“Do you know how to get Seungcheol?”
“Who?”
“Bye.” Jihoon tossed the phone onto his hurricane-site of a bed and focused his attention back to the game. He was going to do this, even if it would kill him.

Half a day later, he had done it, and it definitely killed him. Somewhere along the way, the options in the game and Seungcheol’s reactions had started becoming a little different. Somehow, Seungcheol seemed to be more...what was it? Relaxed? Trusting, even? Previous “Oh, okay…’s turned into “Yeah! Sure!”s, and some whole scenes seemed as if they were rewritten, edited, or at least modified in some way. Jihoon disregarded it as the developers being clever. Perhaps they had written multiple different scenarios for each scene or something. Yet, in the end, it didn’t even matter. Jihoon did it. He got the best route.

Jihoon had started to cry out of happiness (which was the one of the manliest things he had ever done, mind you,) and slowly drifted off to sleep right after. The boy was exhausted, as to be expected, and he felt he deserved some rest after that big accomplishment. It had been glorious, and the ending was everything he had imagined and more. He could just feel the breeze through his hair as they stood in the high school’s yard, right by a blossoming tree, ripe with the fruit that came along with spring. His heart didn’t miss a single beat as Seungcheol spoke in his deep, gentle, yet nervous tone. “I-I.. uh, wow… how do I say this? Haha, you’ve really got me frozen. N-not like that’s a bad thing!” Jihoon almost screamed. “L-look… Woozi… I like you. A lot. I can’t help but blush whenever I see you. It’s bad. Crazy bad. I only have my eyes set on you, Woozi. A-am I allowed to say this…? I’m gonna say it. Woozi, I love you. I love you a lot. Please go out with me.” It was at that moment when the small boy had bursted into a squealing mess of tears in front of his monitor, which lasted for several minutes before he completely conked out.

Jihoon woke up in his bed to the sound of chirping birds in the morning, completely refreshed. That was the best sleep he’d had in ages, surprisingly. He might’ve missed an entire day of school to drop off the face of the earth and play video games, but hey, it sure hit the spot. The peach-blonde boy fussed with his hair as he scratched his scalp, rolling to the other side of the bed. He hit something hard and fleshy. Something human-shaped, hard, and fleshy.
“Hmm…?” An unrecognizable voice hummed as the figure Jihoon was now touching roused in their now-interrupted sleep.
Whatthewhatthewhothewhothewhothe-” Jihoon had started to panic, as he was shocked awake with the sudden relevation that there was an unidentified stranger laying next to him dangerously close, and that he somehow woke up on his bed when he was previously sleeping by his desk. Okay, okay. No problem. No problem whatsoever. Actually; nevermind. It was a big problem, so Jihoon took matters into his own hands, throwing his comforter to the ground and rolling off his bed at a rapid rate just to end up crashing on the cold, hardwood floor of his bedroom. 

DGDFCrapcrapcrap-- okay, this is fine, who th-” The stream of words pouring out of his were put to a stop as he stood up and got a complete look at the intruder.
He could’ve sworn they were an exact carbon copy of Seungcheol. There was the slight greasiness and shine that was present in his simple-cut raven hair, the same exact strong eyebrows that were curved in concern and confusion, the child-like curiosity in his eyes, - even the freckle on his left elbow was exactly where it was supposed to be. Jihoon couldn’t help but start sweating at the sight. Whatever, this didn’t change the fact that there was unidentified personnel in his house. “I-I’ll give you 30 seconds to identify yourself, wait, , not yet- let me grab something to protect myself with; actually no-” 
“Woozi? Is everything alright?”
Holy . Jihoon was practically pissing himself.
“W-wh-who...are...you?”
“Huh? What do you mean, who am I? Woozi, are yo-”
“Just,”
“C-choi Seungcheol…? Your boyfriend?...Right?”
An ‘awwwwwww’ had probably escaped somewhere in the depths of Jihoon’s brain, but on the outside, Jihoon was practically ready to explode. Choi Seungcheol? Here? Boyfriend? Bed?
Was Soonyoung some type of wizard, or was he sleeping with a top-class conman?
“Okay...Seungcheol, please explain to me how you got here. In full detail. Right now.” Jihoon plunked himself onto the edge of his bed, rubbing his temples. The relaxation he had felt at the beginning of the morning had been completely drained.
“I have no idea what’s going on right now, Woozi, but alright. Yesterday, I asked you out, you accepted, cried a little bit, but accepted nonetheless, and then…?” Seungcheol’s brows furrowed as he crossed his arms, trying to remember what had happened the day before.
“...we slept?”
Jihoon almost spat. “Well, duh.” The tiny man quickly got back onto his feet, pacing the perimeter of his bed. “Great. This is just great. I skipped a day of school to waste several valuable hours of my life that I will never get back trying to woo a digital boyfriend, in which said boyfriend turns out to be not-digital, and doesn’t remember how he woke up in my bed- Ugh, what next? He confesses that he thought I was a girl this whole time?” He laughed at his own suggestion.
Seungcheol’s mouth was agape from shock. “Wait, you’re not-”
“Seungcheol, I swear.”
“Nothing, nothing. Could we spend a few minutes just… trying to figure this out?” The taller man suggested, arms currently occupied with one of his so-called-boyfriend’s pillows.
“Sure.”

Minutes had passed, and barely anything was resolved, other than Jihoon’s name and boyfriend situation. “So… your name really isn’t Woozi? Then why would you tell me that it was?” As time passed, the two boys’ positions had changed, Jihoon sitting in between Seungcheol’s arms, smack-dab in the middle of his bed. Normally, Jihoon would take caution when hugging random strangers, but since this day couldn’t get any weirder, he decided to just it. “Because people lie, ‘Cheol. You’ll find that occurring quite often in real life.” Jihoon’s slightly sarcastic remark earned him a toothy grin and slight chuckle. “Well. it’s fine, I like Jihoon a lot better anyway!”
Jihoon sighed. Well, if one thing turned out alright today, it’d probably be the fact that he now had an extremely affectionate, attractive, and sweet boyfriend. Wow, maybe he was living a cliche dating-sim-like life.

 

Soonyoung woke up to a single text and attachment from his best friend on his notification tray. Perhaps good ol’ Jihoon had finally forgiven him?

[hoon1771] > Soonyoung. Come to the library in 30 minutes if you want an asskicking. I also need to introduce you to my CRAZY HOT BF THAT I HAVE NOW

Attached was a picture of Jihoon with some guy- wait...

[10hoamtam10] > No thanks and isn’t that the guy from that thing?? the thing??what the jihoon who the hell???
[hoon1771] > that doesn’t matter just hurry uP Seungcheol is an impatient baby and it’s 10:10 so that means: -whooping time :’)


Congratulations! You got the BEST END.

----

i hope you enjoyed the read!! i check this over for grammar for a few times , i hope its not too atrocious lmao

this was originally supposed to be a crackfic where it ends after seungcheol confesses and jihoon cries, but i decided to add more to it and give it a serious ending. i plan to one day make a sister fic from seungcheol and soonyoungs perspective! until then, thank you for checking this out till the end <3

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Comments

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deeohniall #1
Chapter 1: this is everything I've always wanted to read!!!
livingforaesthetics_
#2
Chapter 2: Omigod, this was amazing. I love it so much and I can relate to Jihoon on a spiritual level. Thank you so much for blessing AFF with this brilliant fic and I'll be sure to check out your revision of it! You're awesome!
ymcakayna
#3
Chapter 1: IM GOING CRAZY
swampfur #4
Chapter 1: COME TO THE LIBRARY IN 30 MINUTES IF YOU WANT AN ASSKICKING LMAO
Keinievangel
#5
Chapter 1: LMAO why this is so cute and random at the same time?? (how does that even possible??) xD Oh, yes please please write those sisters fic i want to read more xD
jihoonhyung #6
Chapter 1: I'm cryin this is so cute plz continue it
Jaejee #7
Chapter 1: I am so gpad that I bumped into this fic. Although, I kinda knew what was gonna happen next when Jihoon slept, I still love it! And about that sister fic, better do it now girl as I can't wait a minute more for it! Nah just kidding. Just don't take too long :)
chelseajay
#8
Chapter 1: I DREAM FOR THAT SISTER FIC. LOL
awkward101 #9
ahh this was so cute! any chance of you adding on to it in the future?