“You know I think there’s a difference between Lu Han and Goddess.”

Well obviously, Lu Han thinks but stays quiet. His “Are you kidding me?” stare says enough though.

“No way.” Lu Han rolls his eyes.

“No no like…” Chanyeol furrows his brows then beckons Kyungsoo over. “Don’t you think Lu’s different when he’s Goddess? Like how he walks? And how he’s quieter?”

Kyungsoo nods sagely, setting his huge paper sack on Lu Han’s bed. In response Lu Han could feel his eye twitch, sometimes Kyungsoo did these things solely for the purpose of pushing buttons. He swore it was true.

“Of course it’d be different. You know? Because I’m a man and have to pretend I’m not.”

“No no it’s deeper than that…” Chanyeol trails off but before he can give it anymore thought Kyungsoo changes the topic.

“I’ve booked you for a full body wax tomorrow,” Kyungsoo deadpans, placing a flowery appointment card in Lu Han’s hand. “Three on the dot, Auntie’s a busy lady so don’t be late.”

Lu Han glares at the little card, sure enough it spells out “Do Beauty Salon” at the top in ornate letters. “Why this? I’m not a full time drag queen or anything. I got by just fine with just a little neat shaving.” Overall Lu Han thinks he does a pretty good job of masking the shock, he had no idea Kyungsoo had any family working in a beauty salon. He contemplates transferring pre-match makeup duty to Kyungsoo but a blurry memory of being placed in a chokehold flits through his mind, wiping out the thought.

“Actually we had a talk about this. It’s necessary.” Yixing comes in carrying a large bag like the one Kyungsoo held, like Kyungsoo he sets it down on Lu Han’s bed. “Turns out we’ve got a minor celebrity coming to the qualifiers this weekend. Remember that kid who ranked thirty-two in the top tier bracket at the world championship series?”

Ah yes, Oh Sehun.

“Yeah I remember him.” Honestly Lu Han didn’t follow super pro gaming too closely. At some point it all went beyond his understanding and contrary to most competitive Starcraft players he still played the game mostly for fun. However when one has friends that do follow every tournament one can’t help but pick up certain things. “What about him?”

Yixing pulls up a chair next to Kyungsoo and sits down. “He joined the SeoulTech Collegiate Starleague team. One of us is going to be taking him on.”

“Wait.” Deep down Lu Han thinks he may feel a bit panicky, he’s not sure. On one end he usually isn’t terribly competitive, on the other end he tends to choose the wrong things to care about. Either way the thought of their team being crushed right at the beginning of the school year isn’t very appealing. “Isn’t that really frowned upon? If he’s pro then why is he playing with us?”

“He didn’t join any pro teams.” Chanyeol says it with a frown. “He trained with some teams but he said in all the interviews that he doesn’t want to be a career gamer.”

Lu Han purses his lips. “I still don’t get what this has to do with me getting a full body wax tomorrow.”

“There’s probably going to be more people than usual at the tournament this weekend to see Ohmija.” Again Yixing beats around the bush and Kyungsoo looks like he’s ready to blow up any minute now, so Lu Han decides to drag it out a bit.

“That’s a cute name.”

“Yeah...Well… KeSPA’s sponsoring the collegiate tournaments this year. Attendance will probably be higher. We can’t have anyone suspecting you of being not a girl.”

Lu Han raises an eyebrow. If the Korean e-Sports Association was doing the sponsoring then the turnout would indeed be ridiculous. Professional Starcraft had reached a point where it was becoming difficult for the layman to understand and enjoy the sport. KeSPA found the answer to the declining viewership of major events in university level gaming.

Lu Han isn’t really worried about his true gender being revealed. As much as he hates to admit it he does make a convincing girl in the full Goddess costume. However there is something else that worries him.

“Did you happen to discuss any plans for what we’re going to do against Ohmija? I don’t think any of us can overtake him in singles.”

“Hey! I-”

Before Chanyeol can finish that thought Lu Han shushes him. “You’ve placed before too. We know.” After all Chanyeol never failed to remind them.

“I wasn’t going to say that!” Chanyeol glares at Lu Han. “I was just thinking there’s only one of him and a team of us. SeoulTech hasn’t entered a starleague team  in years. Honestly I think Ohmija is probably carrying their team.” Extending a hand to Lu Han, Chanyeol’s face breaks into his trademark toothy grin. “You and me, we could probably take him in 2v2s. What do you say, Goddess?”

Perhaps Lu Han has an edge because he knows how Sehun plays in teams. Additionally he works best teaming up with protoss players like Chanyeol. On the downside however, a lot of his and Sehun’s games were just them goofing around. So much so that a minor dispute between them during placements had the both of them, two master league players, flying silver in teams.

“Uh… Isn’t Jongdae better for this kind of thing?” Lu Han says feebly. Something about teaming up against Sehun makes him nervous. It’s not the idea of fighting a friendly party, he’s done that plenty of times in the past. There are concerns about getting his beat, Lu Han chalks it up to nerves.

“On his good days maybe but come on. It’d be a lot funnier if a ‘girl’ beat him.”

Lu Han frowns but keeps his mouth shut. Sure he considers saying things. On the off chance he and Chanyeol do beat Ohmija and his partner in doubles people will probably give Sehun a hard time for losing to a (not actual) girl.

The thing is, that’s a one way street. It’s never that a girl is good enough to win, always the other way around.

“Though it’d if it turned out that Ohmija was a beast at doubles or something.” Chanyeol’s brows knit together as a troubled expression crosses his face. “You know when all there was all that fuss about Ohmija being some kind of zerg prodigy I tried looking around for some gameplay vids…” He trails off.

Lu Han nods, he gets where Chanyeol’s going. He himself may or may not have tried looking up videos of Sehun’s matches in the past only to turn up empty-handed. To be fair why would there be any? If Sehun is just a pseudo pro and only came onto the scene recently then it was reasonable that there wasn’t much footage of his matches.

Chanyeol groans and flops back on the chair. “I just… It’d be really helpful if we knew how he played in doubles you know?”

At that Lu Han’s face immediately heats up. He has that information but he’s certain that ratting out Sehun’s team strategies would make him a terrible person. However Chanyeol looks really agitated at the moment and it would be so easy for Lu Han drop some helpful hints.

Actually probably not. He’s an awful liar, spill one thing and Chanyeol would probably be all over the replays of the games Lu Han and Sehun played together. Lu Han’s eyes nearly bug out with the realisation that Chanyeol would see the chat logs between him and Sehun.

Lu Han presses his lips together, those logs are to be defended no matter what.

“I heard my name,” Jongdae walks into the room bringing with him a refreshing opportunity to change the subject. “What are those?” He points to the bags on Lu Han’s bed.

“Everything Lu Han needs to be Goddess.”

At Lu Han recovers from the brief spot of pressure he straightens up a bit and furrows his brows. He wasn’t aware there was anything he needed to be Goddess beyond a little makeup and hair extensions.

Yixing gracelessly dumps the bags out onto Lu Han’s bed revealing a colourful array of makeup kits, hair extensions, and somewhere among the mess is their team uniforms. He picks out one uniform that is noticeably lacking in material in comparison to the rest and hands it to Lu Han. “This one’s yours.”

Lu Han takes the bundle, separating the glorified scraps onto the bed.

Credit where credit is due, there are no skirts. For that much he’s grateful.

However the shorts in their stead are absolutely tiny. He has nice legs, with shapely thighs and calves that aren’t pencil thin Lu Han thinks his legs are a step above most boy legs. The shorts can’t be decent though, the modest dress he wore for the tournament in Taiwan may actually be more preferable. As much of a blow to his pride as that is.

“Try it on?” Kyungsoo chimes in, Lu Han isn’t sure if he’s imagining that hopeful tone to Kyungsoo’s voice.

“Right now?” Lu Han asks incredulously. Kyungsoo remains silent but nods anyway, with a heavy sigh Lu Han takes the uniform off to a separate room and changes.

Donning the uniform brings an uncomfortable reality to Lu Han’s attention. The red shorts had looked tiny when he was holding them but wearing them proves too much as they stop well above mid-thigh. Additionally there’s the white tank top that’s near the opposite in that the flowy hem extends fairly low.

Low enough that it extends completely past the shorts… Lu Han definitely prefers the modest dress he wore before.

The puffy red jacket that comes with the ensemble keeps a bit of decency. While it only comes down to his ribcage, the sleeves are long. Though that was probably practical decision, god forbid anyone see his totally deadly guns in action.

“This is too small isn’t it?” Lu Han tugs at the shorts.

“Oh that was my idea,” Chanyeol booms cheerfully. “There was someone you wanted to impress right? This is the best way to do it!”

Kyungsoo whistles and smacks the back of Lu Han’s thigh. “Everyone will be ‘scouting your expansions’ in this outfit.”

He deadpans it in a way that’s extremely like him, also extremely creepy. If Lu Han didn’t know Kyungsoo better he definitely would have slapped him. Even knowing him, the remark makes Lu Han feel a little dirty.

With a heavy sigh Lu Han sets a reminder for his waxing appointment on his phone. It is indeed Starcraft season again.

*

"So Sehun, I was looking through the matches on your casual account. I see you've made a friend."

Joonmyeon insisted that the SeoulTech SC2 team was a family and that they should act as such. Which included eating dinner together at least thrice a week and engaging in civil discourse.

"I'm not going to give her any wins," Sehun blurts out so quick he nearly chokes on his rice.

"Wasn't suggesting you were. I'm just curious that's all. Why don’t you tell us about her?" Joonmyeon says with a smile then tsks, "and don't talk with your mouth full."

Sehun gulps down half a glass of milk, taking the time to recover before answering. "Uhhh,” he begins eloquently. “She's Chinese... Won Zowie Divina. Likes meat-"

Joonmyeon wags his finger, "That's what all of the press articles say about your friend. What can you tell us about her?"

A skeezy chuckle comes from the end of the table and they turn to find Zitao covering his face. "If she got matched against Sehun she must be hideous."

“Tao!” Joonmyeon directs a hurt glance toward him, ready to deliver a talk about how they had a duty to rid pro-gaming of the stigma against women. A talk well known to them all, one point of the talk being that “pretty” and “good at games” were not mutually exclusive.

"She isn't!" Jongin pipes up, "I can vouch for her, look up a terran player named Goddess. Also thanks for totally telling me that you're banging Goddess, Sehun."

Zitao furiously types on his phone while Sehun thought for a moment, scraping his fork around in small circles on the dinner plate.

“So where did your 2v2 team place?” Joonmyeon asks after a short but painfully awkward silence.

"Silver!" Sehun boasts proudly, promptly followed by a mini cacophony of explicites and dropped cutlery.

"Sehun you're one of the top ranked players in the top ranked nation at the moment and from what I understand Goddess knows how to play Starcraft.” Minseok stares at him incredulously. As one of the older members on the and their co-coach he has less capacity for handling bull than Joonmyeon. Or as Sehun sees it, the closest out of them to being rendered obsolete. BoxeR had already been on the way down by the ripe old age of twenty-six and Minseok isn’t far off from that age. Sehun contemplates picking on him. So what if he placed silver? It was on his casual account and he can do whatever he pleases on there.

“She plays quite well if I recall correctly. Why are you both in pleb class?"

But in the end Minseok is still a spectacular co-coach and Sehun’s team mates graciously don’t hate him for being a minor celebrity. Sehun wants to keep it that way.

"Well..." Sehun said, looking down at his thumbs. “So we kind of had a minor dispute that sort of... Went on through all of our placement matches. I ended up dumping creep on her base and she started going for my expansions instead of the other team."

It’s a curious thing for the media-proclaimed “zerg prodigy” to flub all of his placement matches, casual account or not. No one knows what to say until co-coach Joonmyeon puts out another shaky topic change.

“So I asked father for the roster of the K-ARTS Collegiate Starleague team,” Joonmyeon pipes cheerfully as he pulls out his notes. A collective groan goes around the table and he sighs. “Please tell me you were all aware of the tournament this weekend.”

These people share the passion that Joonmyeon has for the game but they are uncouth, untrained in the competitive level starcraft for the most part. He aims to change that and bring the SeoulTech team to glory and he’ll take those hurdles in stride.

Sehun picks up his bowl. “I’m off to the computer room.”

As he leaves the table he can just about feel Joonmyeon’s doleful glare boring holes into his back. Though it doesn’t take much for him to recover and soon enough Sehun hears him briefing the team on some randomer who ranked into grandmaster league once or twice.

Some people like studying the competition beforehand, Sehun isn’t one of them. He was never much fond of studying at all.

Booting up his gaming rig, Sehun’s pleased to receive an immediate request from Lu Han to voice chat. "Lu Han noona,” he coos sweetly into the mic.

Silence.

Undeterred, Sehun tries again.

“Lulu are you there?”

“What’s up?” She blurts out on the other end, like she was caught off guard.

“Were you in the middle of something?”

She says no but Sehun isn’t convinced as she still sounds slightly spacey. No matter, he takes advantage of the lull in conversation anyway. “Noona can I have you katalk?”

When the ensuing silence spans into the awkward territory Sehun fumbles to save the conversation. “J-just so we don’t have to use battle.net as a chat client!”

More silence. Sehun clutches his mouse tighter and his nervous clicking intensifies.

*

“Noona.”

Lu Han stares at the screen, mouth slightly agape. He isn’t equipped to deal with this, any of this. More scrutiny at tournaments, an impending meeting with Sehun… None of it.

a/n:

A. I am so ing sorry.

B. I will try to be better.