The life of a progamer is superficially, as Youngjae would put it in accented English during his tournament interviews, “Not Hard!”

They wake up at 12 in the afternoon and sleep at four in the morning, play video games all day, have fans falling at their feet and earn money from all that, for crying out loud. It’s actually the perfect life.

Except it’s not, really. As the starting jungler, Jinyoung can testify to this. 

There are three lanes in League of Legends: top, mid and bottom, which coincidentally happen to spike his blood pressure increasingly in that order. Sure, junglers are supposed to pop into the different lanes and tip the scales in their team’s favour, temporarily outnumber the opponents in that lane to help grab a kill or two, but some teammates don’t seem to grasp that he actually needs time to farm his jungle neutral monsters first.

“Stop,” he grits into his headset during a scrim. “Extending before I put down vision. Jackson.”

As if his life as an outdated tanky, hard-initiation jungler isn’t hard enough, some s seem to feel the need to do stupid things like engage in tower dives right after the enemy jungler takes out all his wards on that side of the jungle, leaving them blind to enemy roams.

Jackson is a loud, aggressive AD Carry, probably the worst kind- Jinyoung’s just glad he doesn’t have to sit next to him when they’re in the booth for matches.

No one really knows what he’d been doing playing support with the Taipei Assassins all those years back- neither does he, he’ll tell you when asked, but Jinyoung suspects it has something to do with Mark.

Compared to the rest of them, even Jaebum and Jinyoung himself, he’s a chronic team-hopper, or had been, anyway, till he joined GOT7. He’d flitted through teams in the Taiwanese LMS, the Chinese LPL, switching from support to ADC to top, until finally settling in the North American LCS with a Challenger team, before the invite had come in from their coach.

(Bambam likes to tease Jackson about that on his particularly bratty days- even he’d never stooped to the level of joining a Challenger team. Jackson will snipe back that he’s never been knocked out of the International Wildcard Qualifiers- that usually shuts Bambam up right away.)

Back when Jinyoung was still in the Korean LCK, before the sister team ban that’d pushed then teamless players like him out of the country in search of offers, JFlawless had been a nobody, just another name buried under the ones of top-tier Chinese AD carries. No one’s sure what happened in between, except for the fact that he must’ve worked his off to get where he is today.

To say his mechanics are just good would be an understatement. There’d been a Chinese ADC who’d snickered about him being unable to hit his Ezreal Qs during a Youku interview, before the international Mid-Season Invitational last year, probably unaware of the fact that Jackson could, in fact, speak Mandarin.

To put it in words still age-appropriate for those under 21, Jackson proceeded to later completely destroy him during that tournament.

He is (and likes to remind everyone that he’s) probably the best AD Carry’s NA’s ever seen- legendary at best and inconsistent at worst.

Now he just needs to stop doing dumb things under turret and Jinyoung might live. The only one who suffers more than him is probably Mark.

Mark is Jinyoung’s one and only bottom lane reprieve.

Supports are supposed to be there for their AD Carries- bail them out of trouble when they’re getting overeager for kills, go in for the hard engage and tank the damage while they nail snipes from the backline, and Mark does all that, and somehow more.

He builds his reputation out of comfort- he’d grown with another team for three whole years, the constant, quiet figure in the background, specialising in ranged champions the way no other NA support had done back then. Then his old carry upped and left for the European LCS, leaving the team scrambling to find a new one.

They’d settled on a flashy, foulmouthed import straight out of the Korean LCK, and it’d taken a season of lost games for everyone to admit that the new bottom lane just wasn’t working.

Half of North America cry bloody murder when it’s Mark who gets kicked from the roster during the offseason.

There was the other half, though, that whispered that he was past his prime, had his time, and was getting rusty, unable to keep up with the meta changes or his new, hyperaggressive ADC.

He doesn’t talk about his previous team to any of them- but then again, he doesn’t exactly talk much to begin with. He’d been reluctant to join the team knowing Jackson would be on, but they’d been a hit almost immediately, kill-death-assist ratios soaring, putting a deadly, unmatched pressure on the bottom lane.

“Jhin flash down for 30 more seconds, Bard both summoners down,” the support says without Jackson or Jinyoung having to ask, once he sees Jinyoung roaming down to the bottom lane.

“I’m in the brush,” Jinyoung says, hiding his Elise neatly out of enemy vision, waiting for the right moment.

It’s a simple procedure- Mark’s Karma snags the opponent Carry with the tether, Jackson’s Jinx sending shot after shot at them from a distance, and Jinyoung’s out of the brush, cocooning the enemy Bard before they can ultimate.

“Bot open,” Jackson snickers, once their work is done, and the enemy support is scurrying away with double-digit HP.

“Don’t be rude,” Youngjae pouts into the headset, and Jinyoung rolls his eyes at their AD Carry, throwing down a ward and retreating back into his jungle.

Mid roams are always a little stressful- not as stressful as they are at bot, though, but Youngjae has a penchant for cracking under the slightest bit of pressure.

Otherwise, though, his playstyle’s brilliant.

Jinyoung watches cautiously from the brush as Youngjae pokes the enemy Taliyah down to half health from behind his crowd of minions with his arrows- he’s always been proud of his Varus play, and while he’s looked good on other champions like Taliyah and Malzahar, he’s never managed to muster the same kind of confidence.

The previous year could technically still be considered his rookie one- his three-month stint in the Korean LCK, b with potential as it was, didn’t do much, before the ban when half the Korean rosters, taking him, had flooded out of the country.

Youngjae’d shied away from the offers in China, coming into North America barely able to speak a word of English, trailing in the footsteps of Jaebum and Jinyoung, terrified at the prospect of leaving their shadow. And even up till now, Jinyoung can safely say, things have hardly changed.

“Hyung?”

“Get him a little further back- he’s going to waveclear,” Jinyoung says, voice steady. “Flash up?”

“Flash down. He’s got a QSS, though,” Mark reports.

“Jae, hit him with the Chains of Corruption once he’s down to two minions.”

Youngjae gets a good angle, and the chains land- immediately, the enemy champion burns his QSS, escaping from the attack, but Jinyoung’s already out in lane, cocoon hitting home. All it takes is a couple of auto attacks from Jinyoung and one snipe from Youngjae, and the opponent Taliyah is down.

“I did it!” Youngjae half bounces in his seat, and Jinyoung nudges him cautiously- the last time their midlaner did that, he’d accidentally hit his Zhonyas, which had led to a pretty embarrassing solokill at mid about two seconds later.

“Focus,” Jaebum says firmly, pulling them all back into the game. “Jinyoung, get vision around the Baron.”

“Yessir,” Jinyoung mumbles, putting down another ward in the midlane brush and heading down the river.

They like to joke that there is the game, and then there’s the toplane.

Jaebum prefers tanky, hard initiation champions like Poppy and Gnar, but this doesn’t stop him from dominating his lane with mobile champions like Ekko too. Most of the time, unless the toplane is a losing matchup, Jinyoung has the luxury of leaving Jaebum to farm and solo-kill, while he babysits the other two lanes.

“Vision cleared,” Jinyoung announces as he takes out the last enemy pink ward, throwing down one of his own.

“Enemy jungler last spotted at Gromp,” Mark says.

“,” Jackson snickers. “We’re on our way to Baron.”

They move quickly- it won’t be long before the enemy team picks up on the fact that they’re trying for the Baron, the biggest neutral monster on the map, and the buffs it gives.

“Botlane heading up,” Youngjae says, pinging on his map.

“Start Baron, get ready to peel off when I say so,” Jaebum orders. “Youngjae, zone them off.”

They burn down the neutral monster buff pretty quick- Jackson’s damage is insane at this point, and Jinyoung had snagged them a Mountain Drake earlier, and they’re almost done by the time the enemy team engages.

“Bard ultimate!” Jaebum barks, and everyone shifts out of range as the orb from the opponent support comes down, freezing the Baron.

“Focus Graves! Don’t let them steal!” Jinyoung engages, chunking down the enemy jungler down to about half health before rappelling upwards to avoid the following damage. Jackson fires a rocket, and the Graves is gone.

“Where’s the Kennen?” Youngjae asks anxiously, skirting around the Baron pit, nailing shots on the enemy midlaner. “Ultimate up?”

“Teleport from behind!” Jinyoung panics for a second- , they must’ve just gotten down a ward. “Get out of the pit!”

Then there’s a wham, and Jaebum’s Keeper’s Verdict hits- sending the Kennen and his fatal ultimate flying out of range, just in time for Jackson to burn down the carries while Jinyoung smites the Baron, securing the buff.

“Okay guys,” Jaebum cracks his neck lazily, then, starting his empowered recall, not even bothering with the enemy support, now running for his life. “Let’s win this game.”

*

They laze for a bit, after debrief and before the next scrim. Jackson’s engaged in an extremely noisy Lee Sin 1v1 with Bambam, with lots of Thai and Hokkien vulgarities thrown about that Jinyoung can’t scold them for because he doesn’t understand. Jaebum’s monitoring one of their old matches, Mark’s playing with Coco, and Jinyoung’s reorganising his shards in his inventory.

Yugyeom plops down on his seat on Youngjae’s right with a chocolate milkshake, leaning over to look at the soloqueue match he’s playing- he’s trying out Syndra, this time. The midlaner bites his lip, practicing a combo, the typical flash-stun-ultimate. He’d waited for a jungle roam, burning the opponent flash, then gone for the all-in, his champion’s violet-black orbs zooming towards the opponent Cassieopeia, nailing the kill.

The sub jungler slurps on his straw obnoxiously.

“Nice balls, hyung,” he comments, then, before skirting away nonchalantly on his swivel chair.

Youngjae fumble fail-flashes and dies under turret.

a/n:
cries well that was a super long pause between chapters OTL super sorry for the delay in posting T.T my finals are just around the corner and i've been having tests pretty much every week so life has been one extremely tilting journey for the past month but :""") i'll work hard to update (please understand my heart ;A;)

also i'm still deciding where i want to go with this fic...? so like if it'll be a oneshot series of got7 being their usual in progamer form or a chaptered thing where things get a tad more serious and exposition-y, so tell me what you guys think? ;A; 

so yes thank you all for reading, comments and kudos will be much treasured and loved as per normal hehe, hope you all enjoyed this chapter? ^.^

p.s. yaaaaall i have zero idea about lane matchups and stuff so if i accidentally pick one team into 3 losing lanes i apologise in advance T_T i'm also aware that they don't actually talk in-game like that, but does one actually know what's going on when they talk irl
p.p.s. also...i'm sorry for the overload of technical terms this chapter...it gets better next chapter onwards!! i promise ;A; plus let's pretend they live in a universe where the cap on korean players is 3 and not 2 okay OTL that's the one thing i couldn't work around sobs