Brioso

Quarterfinals Part 1 - Choices

Author's Notes
I literally finished the next chapter (now the next two chapters) just before the start of this year's Worlds. Again, I'm pleasantly surprised at how big this one got...I personally had fun adding in some Heesica and some friendship Jeti into these next two chapters as well. Usual rules apply – reviews welcome, but no flaming just because you're not a fan of the pairings, SNSD or Cloud 9.

Glossary
Soju – The most popular alcoholic beverage in South Korea, a distilled drink typically made using rice, wheat or barley.

Following the return flight to Seoul, we did our best to shut out a lot of the Korean netizen chatter knowing that we were returning to face a home team. Moreover, it was not just any home team, but the reigning world champions, who only the previous year had taken on and beaten all comers in Los Angeles, compiling a 15-3 overall record on the way to becoming the first Korean team to win the Summoner's Cup and thus earning the admiration of a nation. They hadn't been their usual selves since, but they still had the same team that had won it all – Piglet, Impact, Bengi, PoohManDu and of course Faker, who was still loved, feared and revered as the best mid-laner in the world and the face of competitive League, especially in Korea.

We did also get the news that Jessica had been held out of Girls' Generation's trip to Guangzhou, citing differences and discussion over creative direction and her future. We were perturbed, but mainly thankful that the nuclear option (as Aurora and I had called it) had not been taken – or so we thought.

In the days between the end of our group stage and the quarterfinal, our preparation consisted mainly of scrims, but we still made time to watch the second week of the group stage in Singapore. We were having fun after watching some good upsets when Aurora, who had been browsing Reddit, gasped and beckoned us over.

We went over and saw what had caused that reaction – and quite a few of us gasped ourselves. Jessica had publicly picked Cloud 9 to beat SK Telecom T1 K, and it had quickly trended on both the League of Legends and K-Pop subreddits. As we looked up the details and the reactions both from Korean netizens and from back home, Aurora called Jessica.

"Unnie, that's amazing...but what the heck do you think you're doing?" She asked.

"One, being a fan and friend, and two, taking some of the heat off you. I know how fans here can get, remember, so I didn't want you experiencing the worst of it alone." Jessica replied coolly but sincerely.

"Thanks a lot once again, Sica unnie, but you shouldn't be doing it that publicly. At least not yet – you've got too much to lose." Aurora pleaded.

There was a pause where I could feel the tension thicken. Then Jessica said meaningfully, "Believe me, compared to what I and the rest of us had to deal with over the past few weeks, this is nothing."

There was another moment of silence. Then she asked,

"Is it okay if I come over tonight? I think it's about time I told you what's going on like I promised."

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"I've decided to leave the group."

She had come up, and all seven of us were gathered around and rocked by those words.

Balls and Hai looked grim, while Sneaky, Lemon and Meteos looked at her sympathetically and Aurora and I looked like we'd just been told a relative was dead.

"But..." Aurora said. "You said that the others came to a consensus and told the people upstairs that you shouldn't have to leave! Is it something involving one of them?