Over the next couple of days, Baekhyun doesn’t have schedules, but he decides to practice anyway, holding unofficial scrims with his friends from the other teams. Chanyeol notices him packing and asks him what he’s doing. “Oh, uh… I’ll be staying at the dorms for about three days. Non-stop scrims.”

Chanyeol doesn’t seem pleased with his answer. He leans against Baekhyun’s open door, watching as he packs an overnight bag. “Don’t you think you should relax a little? What about the others?”

“The others are fine with the idea. I’m not forcing them to play with me,” Baekhyun says, rolling his eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

“Well, can I come along? I wanna try sc, if you don’t mind,” Chanyeol asks, scratching the back of his head. Baekhyun is surprised, but he doesn’t show it and doesn’t prod. “Sure. Will you be staying over?”

Chanyeol hums as he thinks about it and says no. They head out for the dorms and Chanyeol practically glowing with excitement. Baekhyun smiles a little at that.

When they reach the dorms, everyone is happy to see Chanyeol with him. “Seems like you guys like Bambi more than you like me,” Baekhyun grumbles.

“Sorry Byun, but your boyfriend has our heart,” a member from another team yells from the back, and Chanyeol blushes. Baekhyun notices and silently curses. “We’re just friends,” he corrects. The room is significantly quieter and he knows he’s said something wrong, even though he doesn’t know why. He is telling them the truth, after all.

“Tell them, Chanyeol,” he whispers, nudging the tall man beside him.

“Yeah, we’re just friends, sorry if you guys got the wrong impression,” Chanyeol stammers, faking a wide smile. Jongdae sends him a sad smile, and he discreetly shakes his head.

“Sorry for assuming,” someone says, but no one explains why, and Baekhyun only shrugs. “It’s cool.” Strike one.
 

The next day is spent with Jongin’s team. During the night when they’ve ended their scrims, they have a little dinner together and Jongin brings Chanyeol up. “Hyung, where’s Chanyeol-hyung? Why aren’t you with him?”

“At home…? I don’t know?” Baekhyun is puzzled as to why Jongin would think they would be together when there’s something so important going on, like the League.

Jongin looks at him, munching on his fried chicken. “It’s like the two of you are joined at the hip, so I’m surprised that he isn’t with you today. It’s almost like the two of you are-”

“ Don’t say it,” Baekhyun warns, glaring at him.

“-dating,” Jongin finishes, grinning. Baekhyun frowns. “Did hyung finally get himself a boyfriend?”

“For the last time, we aren’t together. I wouldn’t dream of it,” Baekhyun answers tiredly. Everyone’s been bugging him about Chanyeol.

He can’t think of anything else beside the scrims, but Jongin keeps ing talking about Chanyeol, and it’s getting on his nerves. He’s staying at the dorms so that he can concentrate on practising and get away from too much Chanyeol, but even here, Chanyeol is everywhere.

“I don’t know. You two are pretty chummy. Streaming together, living together, he even comes to see your matches… Anyone would think the two of you are dating,” Jongin comments, and it has Baekhyun wondering if they’re a couple to everyone else. Strike two.

Maybe it’s time to draw a line.

Baekhyun has been unusually quiet. Just when Chanyeol felt like they finally made progress, Baekhyun closed up again. The man has been holing himself up in his room, only coming out whenever he needs to eat. Even then, it’s only to take his plate, thank Chanyeol and go back to… whatever he’s doing. He hasn’t been streaming either, and Chanyeol is very worried for him.

Chanyeol isn’t an idiot. He knows Baekhyun is avoiding him, but he doesn’t know why. They went from frequent cuddles to Baekhyun avoiding any form of unnecessary skinship with him. They barely speak unless Baekhyun wants to, and even then it’s not what Chanyeol wants to hear. He can’t help but wonder if he’s done something wrong.

He’s tried getting Jongdae to come and talk to him, but to no avail. “Just give him space,” Jongdae has told him. “It isn’t the first time this has happened.” Chanyeol finds it hard to believe that this is normal. He thinks that he should probably check on Baekhyun, but the man doesn’t seem to want to be disturbed.

Just as he leaves his room, he sees that Baekhyun is, surprisingly, leaving the house. “Where are you going?” Chanyeol asks softly.

“Somewhere,” Baekhyun vaguely replies. His stubble is obvious, and his hair isn’t properly combed. He’s wearing the outfit he had on yesterday, and he smells strongly of perfume. Chanyeol feels himself getting extremely annoyed and sorry for him.

“What time will you be back, then? Do you need dinner?” Chanyeol asks once more, but Baekhyun ignores him and slips his shoes on, leaving Chanyeol alone and stunned. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s done to deserve this cold treatment.

Out of curiosity, he decides to take a quick look at the state of Baekhyun’s room. Most streamers have a room solely for streaming purposes, but Chanyeol knows for a fact that Baekhyun streams in the same room he sleeps in. Peeking through the slightly open door, he sees that the room is a ing mess. He jerks back at the sight, and takes a deep breath as he enters. He feels like he’s committing a terrible deed, but he really wants to know what’s got Baekhyun like…. this.

When he enters, he finds that the room has a huge movable whiteboard sitting right smack in the center of everything. It’s scrawled with unintelligible words and tiny little diagrams all over, and it takes Chanyeol a while to realise it, but Baekhyun has been planning. He’s been analysing his matches, old and new, studying the new hero and writing down the strengths and weaknesses of his teammates. There are 8 people on Seoul Dynasty’s full roster, but Chanyeol sees 9 columns. He tucks that at the back of his mind and walks around the room, papers and other items scattered all over the floor — as if someone swept them off the table in frustration.

He sits at Baekhyun’s desk and sighs, leaning back in the seat. Oh, Baekhyun. The computer screen lights up and Chanyeol realises that he hit the mouse by accident while sitting down. He knows he shouldn’t peek, but the Overwatch home screen is there, and when he glances at the top right corner of the screen, it’s a username he doesn’t recognise, and it’s only level 30.

It’s a new account. Baekhyun’s got a new account. Of course, it isn’t unusual for streamers to own multiple accounts, but he knows Baekhyun would never get a new account just for the fun of it. He’s not that kind of streamer. He checks the profile of the account and is appalled to see the stats. The hours are mostly on the new hero, save for times where Baekhyun plays a little bit of the heroes he specialises in. He’s been practising the entire time he was holed up in his room, Chanyeol finds — and by the looks of it, it isn’t going very well. The skill rating of this account is significantly lower than Baekhyun’s actual account.

Leaning back once more, he swirls around in the chair, looking around the room. It’s plain and almost empty — only Baekhyun’s necessities are present. Chanyeol would say it almost lacks personality, but he supposes that is Baekhyun’s personality.

Chanyeol knows Baekhyun is beyond stressed, and he’s guessing it’s the last match they had with Boston that triggered this.

With the match before that, and the matches way before, Chanyeol can’t say he’s surprised. Baekhyun has never been one to do well under immense pressure. They always had Minseok to keep them calm, and now that Minseok is gone, Baekhyun probably can’t handle the stress alone. Speaking of Minseok… Chanyeol sighs. He’ll have to deal with that later.

He phones Jongdae and waits for him to pick up, leaving Baekhyun’s room in the process. He gently shuts the door close and goes back to his room. He wants to plan his next outing, but with Baekhyun like this, he feels like he should do something instead of have fun on his own. Besides, the last month has been more than entertaining. “Yes, Chanyeol?”

“Do you have practice today? Is Baekhyun with you?” Chanyeol hastily asks, not even bothering to say hello.

“We don’t. He’s not with me,” Jongdae answers, tone crisp. “He likes to be left alone during his… episodes. If you can call them that. Don’t bother looking for him.” It sounds as if he’s gone through this a thousand times.

Chanyeol can’t believe his ears. Was Jongdae seriously saying that? “How could you say that?” He spits. It doesn’t even seem like Jongdae cares. “Have you even tried?”

“What makes you think I haven’t?” Jongdae shoots back angrily, and Chanyeol thinks that maybe he doesn’t know about them as much as he thinks he does. Jongdae sighs. “Look, I know you’re worried for him. I am too, but worrying isn’t going to fix anything. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. I’ve tried with Baekhyun, it just doesn’t work.”

“I’m going to try anyway,” he says, determined. “At least tell me what’s wrong.”

“...he hasn’t been doing very well lately. In the league, I mean. Or rather, Overwatch in general. The more he plays, the more stressed out he gets. Minseok-hyung has always been there to calm him down during game plays, but obviously he can’t be with Baekhyun all the time. He’s just an easily stressed out person, to the point where he gets really depressed. He has bouts of depression pretty often, but he doesn’t want to see a therapist or take meds,” Jongdae says carefully, sounding a bit tired. “But I’m sure you already know most of that.”

Chanyeol takes it all in slowly. “I didn’t know it’s this serious, though. Baekhyun’s been studying really hard. I think he needs a break. His room is a mess,” he tells Jongdae, glancing in the direction of Baekhyun’s room. He doesn’t see the need to go into details when it’s not his place to say anything at all.

“Trust me, we all know that. The coaches are planning on sending Baekhyun back to Korea for a short break. But don’t tell him that yet, of course. He’s probably gonna get angry,” Jongdae replies.

“Okay,” Chanyeol reluctantly agrees. He’s still thinking about Baekhyun when Jongdae asks him, “So, are you planning on joining Seoul Dynasty?”

Chanyeol is caught off-guard and jolts up in his seat. “H-how did you know?”

Jongdae chuckles. “Wild guess, but thanks for the confirmation. I saw the three of you talking. Baekhyun saw you guys walking back in, but he doesn’t know, yet.”

It’s Chanyeol’s turn to sigh. “You know how I feel about being out of Korea. Although, it’s not bad as I expected it to be,” he admits. “And they told me I’ll most likely be on the starting roster, which means I would be replacing you or Baekhyun — I doubt they’ll make me learn a new hero completely. I don’t want that.”

“Well, Kariv from Valiant was brought in as a Widow specialist, but he’s playing Zen now, and he’s killin’ it,” Jongdae reminds him. “Don’t worry about us. Just do what you wanna do. No hard feelings, man. It’s not like we won’t able to play at all.”

“Can you really say the same for Baek?” Chanyeol says, exasperated. “You know how competitive he is.”

“It’s gonna be worse if he finds out you hid this from him,” Jongdae simply retorts. “He was asking me if I knew why you were with the coaches, and obviously I didn’t at that point in time, so I just shrugged it off. But now that I do, I’m telling you, if Baekhyun finds out from someone