League of Legends Glossary

• LCS – the League of Legends Championship Series, Riot Games' official professional League of Legends competition in North America and Europe and the premier event for the game on either continent.
• Cloud 9 – an American E-Sports team that Hai co-founded in 2013 as a League of Legends team. At the time of the story, they have already expanded into DotA 2, Hearthstone and Super Smash Bros.
• Top laner – as the name suggests, this player is responsible for the top lane in League of Legends.  Champions that a top-laner might play are often tankier (more  resilient) ones but can also include fighters, mages and even marksmen.
• Mid laner – as the name suggests, this player is responsible for the middle lane in League of Legends (and therefore the shortest path between the opposing teams' bases.) They tend to be especially strong mechanically. Also often called AP (Ability Power) Carry because the mid-laner is often tasked with being the team's primary magical damage dealer.

KCON 2014
Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, Los Angeles, California, USA
August 9th

It was not long after Girls' Generation had performed at KCON as one of the headline acts, and Tiffany Hwang was anxiously searching around for a wallet she had lost just before their performance, when she had gone to buy water for some of the other members while on a pre-performance walk.

As she turned around a corner, She saw a pretty and fair-skinned girl who looked familiar. She was wearing a skirt that went past her knees and dark blue Mary Janes and had long blonde hair with tips in a shade of blue slightly darker than her shirt, which bore a logo and the name "Cloud 9 HyperX". Close by her was an Asian boy with short black gelled hair and slightly tanned skin wearing tan khakis, black Nikes and the same shirt, and in his hands was the wallet she was seeking. Both were anxiously looking around.

"Excuse me, is there anyone who lost a wallet?" He was asking, evidently worried about returning it to its owner. At that moment, the blonde girl close to him turned her back.

Relieved and excited, Tiffany immediately rushed over to him.

Whilst the rest of the team had been meeting IU, Teen Top and VIXX, I had found the wallet lying on the floor. I hadn't even looked at its contents thoroughly for any clues as to who the owner might be - the last thing I wanted was for the person to find me at that moment and think I was a thief. Aurora had offered to go with me to look for who it belonged to - or give it to Lost & Found if it took too long. Neither of us was counting on me getting surprised - ganked, if you will - by a very attractive lady who was still wearing the black and white dress I'd just seen her wearing onstage.

"Oh, thank you!" She exclaimed. "I'm sorry - I was just worried sick about it because I went onstage knowing if it had been recovered."

"It's okay - I'm just glad we could help!" I said instinctively, before I realized just who she was and simultaneously got chills and felt my heart race.

"Oh, my God...Tiffany noona from Girls' Generation?" I managed to say.

"Yes, I am!" She said, giving me the famous eye smile that made people's hearts - mine included - skip a beat. Then she asked, "Carlo from Cloud 9?"

"Yes! But how the heck do you know?" I knew I was wearing the team shirt, but I was bewildered at knowing one of my favorite artists/idols knew who I was.

"Don't you know? When you beat SKT to win All-Stars, it was big news in Korea. Sica and I decided to start watching you guys in the LCS when we could and we sometimes watch yours and Aurora's streams. Thanks for playing our music to support us!"

This was true - while streaming, Aurora and I had made it our habit to play K-Pop to the point that we had been recognized as not just fans but K-Pop friendly streamers who had folks donating on Twitch to ask if we could play this or that. We half-joked (because we knew it was also true) that we used our streams as personal radio stations as well, and so we'd happily played Genie, Run Devil Run, Kissing You and The Boys, among other songs, for sizable audiences, even though Meteos and especially Sneaky remained our most popular streamers.

That said, though, I was astounded to have Tiffany giving me a quick but tight hug - accidentally, almost too tight.

"Oh, you're too kind! Easy, though...Fany noona!" I said, having the air squeezed out of me for an instant.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" She responded. "I didn't hurt you too much, did I?"

"No, don't worry, you didn't." I assured her. Then I tried to make light of it and said, "Mind you, and here I was worrying about getting overexcited."

We both shared a laugh as Aurora came rushing back, having heard the shouts.

"Carlo! Are you all - Oh, my God!" She started concerned and finished with a squeal as she saw Tiffany. She knew who she was instantly, but she literally stunned into silence. Her eyes were wide as her hands flew to and stayed there.

"Hello, Aurora." Tiffany said kindly. "I'm glad to meet you!"

"F-Fany unnie?" Aurora managed to say, almost squeaking.

"That's me!" Tiffany replied, as I handed her back her lost wallet.

"Wait, that was your wallet?" Aurora asked, astounded, before saying, "I'm so glad we were able to help!"

"You're not going to believe this, but she was just telling me that she started watching us after what we did at All-Stars. She's also heard of us playing K-Pop, including their music, on stream." I said.

"Hey, she's not the only one. Way to go so far, Aurora - and I'm glad to meet you too!" Another female voice said.

We turned to see that Jessica had arrived. Tiffany looked from her to Aurora and me and smiled, while the two of us had another heart attack.

"No way. Her too?" Aurora was almost hysterical from excitement by now, and I could understand why - Jessica was her favorite.

"Oh yes, her too." Tiffany said, and she and I both nodded with big grins on our faces.

"Oh...Sica unnie!" Aurora cried, throwing her arms around her just as Jessica opened hers. She was unable to contain tears of joy as she managed to say... "Saranghaeyo..."

"Oh, Aurora-yah, saranghaeyo." Jessica said, visibly moved as she hugged her back. They came apart briefly, and she said, "We're glad you're supporting us - keep supporting us too and let's keep winning, all right?"

"Let's do it." Aurora said, wiping away her happy tears.

Jessica gave her one more squeeze and then turned to me to give me a hug as well. "That goes for you too, Carlo - I'm glad I get to meet you too!"

"Annyeong haseyo, Jessica noona." I said, doing my best to keep my wits about me and pronounce and articulate properly. "We're all over the moon about this - before we get any further, we saw you gals onstage and you guys were fantastic. Lived up to the hype and then some!"

"Thank you very much!" Jessica replied. Then she heard footsteps, looked over and back at us, and her smile grew as she added. "Oh, don't look now, but here come the girls."

Sure enough, the other six Girls' Generation members who were there that day were approaching. Aurora's hands went to again and I was merely able to mouth, "Oh, my God." Seeing how overwhelmed we were, Jessica supportively gave Aurora a sideways hug while Tiffany took my shoulder.

"It's okay, we got it!" Tiffany said, raising the wallet. "These two found it and were trying to return it."

"Yay!" Hyoyeon cheered. Then she looked again at us and asked, "Hang on...that's Carlo and Aurora from Cloud 9 League, isn't it?"

"It is! Oh, that's right, they were playing here today as well!" Yuri asked.

"Did well too. At this rate, we'll be seeing them come to Korea for Worlds!" Taeyeon said, making Aurora and me go red but also smile.

As if that wasn't enough, our five original members - Hai, Sneaky, Meteos, LemonNation and Balls - also arrived at about the same time, also wearing pants and team shirts. Sneaky and LemonNation were also wearing white C9 hoodies.

"Wait, what the hell...?" Sneaky managed to say as he saw everybody.

"Whoa!" Balls and LemonNation said almost simultaneously.

"Holy crap, that's SNSD!" Hai exclaimed.

"Wait, am I hearing right? Do they seriously know who we are?" Meteos asked.

The excited chatter continued for a few more seconds before Hai decided to speak up.

"All right, let's slow down a bit here - with your permission, of course, Taeyeon." He said, looking straight at his opposite number, who smiled and nodded appreciatively as we quieted down. Feeling bolder, he smiled back and said, "Obviously, introductions are in order, so let's do it this way. Aurora's let us know that Sooyoung couldn't make it because of a drama filming," Here, he indicated Aurora, who nodded, before he finished, "and she and Carlo have done their best to educate the rest of us about you guys. Let's see how far one of us can get with naming everybody before they step in. Does that sound good?"

"I think that does sound good!" Seohyun said, and the others quickly agreed. "Okay, who wants to try? And don't feel bad if you can't get us all - I know it can be a challenge."

Balls bravely volunteered. He correctly named Taeyeon (his favorite), Jessica, Tiffany, Sunny and Yoona before he blanked out, leaving Aurora and me to clean up and name Hyoyeon, Seohyun and Yuri.

"Not bad at all!" Taeyeon told us with a smile. "Okay, now our turn - I'm guessing you're looking for someone other than Tiffany or Jessica who knows all your names, right?"

"Yes." Aurora replied.

"I do!" Sunny piped up.

"Oh, this'll be something if Sunny knows too. Go ahead - and I suggest taking out the two 'easier' ones first." I said, using my fingers to mime quotation marks and indicating Aurora and myself.

"Certainly. Aurora and Carlo..." She said, indicating the two of us as we nodded and smiled back.

Then she turned to our AD Carry with the short messy brown hair. "Sneaky..."

"Oh!" Sneaky exclaimed in a cute moan - as he would later say, a cute version of the Kreygasm.

"Meteos..." Here, she indicated our jungler, who had curly blond hair and was the tallest of any of us.

"Oh God." Meteos said, unable to supress a big smile at Sunny knowing and saying his name that way.

"Balls..." Sunny said, indicating our short Vietnamese top laner, who is the other big K-Pop fan on the team besides Aurora and me.

"Aw, you're awesome, Sunny." Balls said, smiling and waving.

"Thanks." She said, before turning to our bearded, slightly balding coach and sub support, "Lemon..."

"Glad to meet you guys." He said, holding out his hand, which Sunny shook.

"And finally...Hai." She finished, indicating our Chinese/Vietnamese mid-laner, captain and shotcaller.

Every one of our team members started clapping. Sunny found herself getting high fives often and fast.

"Holy s**t." Sneaky said, unable to stop himself from laughing.

"Yooo...this is too good!" Hai exclaimed as he finished shaking Sunny's hand.

"Yeah, man, stop the presses. Girls' Generation knows the names of every single C9 LoL player?" Meteos asked, in a manner that suggested that he, like the rest of us, couldn't believe it.

"Hey, Frost is gonna be so mad at us..." Balls said with a grin.

"Hey, we beat them fair and square, so no disrespect to them, but I'm not too worried about them." I said. As Yuri had alluded to, we weren't just there at KCON as fans - we had actually played CJ Entus Frost in a few showmatches earlier that day as part of the KCON League of Legends Champions Festival organized by OGN...and had scored a clean sweep. We'd won a Dominion game with our starters, two 1v1s with Hai beating CoCo and Balls beating Shy, and even a 2v2 with Sneaky and Lemon, our classic bottom lane duo, beating Space and MadLife.

"Yeah, MadLife got asked about his type among you guys and he said Yoona." Aurora said, turning back to Girls' Generation and specifically the member in question. This was true - before play had started, there had been an onstage Q&A.

"Oh, really?" Yoona said. "That's nice to hear...but I think I'd rather spend time with Cloud 9."

"Oh, God...You're too kind!" Aurora squeaked.

"You guys are gonna have to carry me out of here at this rate." I told our teammates, half jokingly and half seriously.

As we went back to the team house, we couldn't stop talking about that meeting, even as we talked about the exhibition, the performances we'd seen and the other stars we'd met.

"Hey, I'm not as much of a Koreaboo as Balls or even Aurora or Carlo, but that was pretty sweet." Sneaky said. Meteos and Lemon nodded along with him.

"On another note...you guys are probably the envy of a hell of a lot of Girls' Generation fans out there, especially the guys." Our boss, Jack, said with a big grin.

"Yeah, dude, we are going to get memed to death if we start misplaying." Meteos said knowingly. "The moment we start even looking like we're slumping, Reddit's gonna be like, 'Is Girls' Generation to blame for C9's poor performance?'"

"Hey, only one way to prevent that for sure, right?" Hai said.

"Oh, yeah. Keep winning." I said with a grin.

Unbidden, I found myself looking at the sky and remembering what we and Girls' Generation had said as we'd thanked each other and gone our separate ways for the moment.

Tiffany had said, "Hey, keep up the great work! If you get to Worlds, we can meet talk as early as boot camp if both of our groups aren't too busy." The other Soshis had nodded in agreement and smiled at us.

I had replied, "That would be awesome. We'll do our best!" Likewise, the rest of us had agreed to it - even Sneaky, Meteos and Lemon.

I knew somehow that we all could make it happen and was resolved to do what I could...but none of us any idea about the road we would end up walking together when we did.

Author's Notes
Hope you guys like this start! The next chapter will include at least the start of boot camp. I'm going to write bit by bit, trying to average 200-250 words per day since I'm busy with some other things. Reviews are always welcome, but I do ask for no flaming just because you're not a Cloud 9 or North American fan.