𝙱𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚁𝚞𝚕𝚎𝚜 || c.ch × k.sw ||

[For.ty]

text: we're pretty certain we won this first round, but we don't want to be too optimistic
text: what do you think? xX

sunwoo had sent that text as soon as they had settled into the break room, yet there was no response from chanhee. it didn't really make sense... what could keep him from responding? they should be in the audience waiting, maybe the connection is poor inside the buildings, that would make sense.

"hey, is anyone's text going through? chanhee hasn't seen or replied to any of my texts."

hyunjae faced his screen towards him, showing him and everyone else his messages with sangyeon, "mine are working. yeonnie's on break so we've been going back and forth a bit."

"but you have a different phone company- changmin you check! maybe that's the issue?"

"he probably has his phone on silence and is walking around or something," juyeon intervened, "younghoon probably got hungry or something and they're looking for food."

that made sense- if anything it made sunwoo feel a lot better. maybe it was the tournament making him all anxious, but the fact that he couldn't even communicate with chanhee recently made his heart falter a bit.

eric and juyeon resumed their conversation, and so did the rest of the team. that was until there was a faint knock on their door.

sunwoo, immediately assuming it was chanhee, ran to the door and swung it open.

it wasn't him, but it sure did leave the person on the other end a bit baffled- they hadn't yet put their hand down from knocking.

"hyunjun?" juyeon piped up, he wasn't expecting him out of all people to show up- but it wasn't a bad thing. the team felt a bit awkward, they recognized him from the beach trip but none of them really got too close to him. they greeted him anyway to be polite.

"Oh- hi everyone!" he waved before stepping into the room, "i just wanted to wish you all good luck in the next rounds."

"what are you doing here? you didn't say you were coming." juyeon stood up and went to hug his friend, leaving behind a confused eric.

hyunjun laughed, "my company is sponsoring the tournament so I'm here as a VIP guest. are chanhee and younghoon not here?"

"they're here!" sunwoo advocated, "i guess they just don't know you can visit during our break..."

"oh that's a shame, you guys won't mind if i steal juyeon for a bit, right?"

no one had any objection, except for maybe eric himself but he stayed quiet- for the most part, "remember our break ends soon though!"

the two stepped out of the room, everyone else collectively sighed. hyunjun wasn't the problem, it was just the fact that they were all waiting for someone- most of which didn't show.

"well, boys. guess we have to rely on each other for support. we did good, if anything we can still celebrate this small win if we leave after this-"

"we are not leaving after the next round," hyunjae cut changmin off, "we can't let sangyeon down after he leaves, we have to do our best."

"he's right! i, eric son, will not accept defeat today. juyeon has helped us a ton already, we can do this guys!" he held his hand out in front of the guys, palm down.

changmin nodded with determination and slapped his hand over his, sunwoo followed behind and so did hyunjae after rolling his eyes. the whole teamwork thing was a little cringy to him, much more now that sangyeon was absent, but he loved them.

"let's go the boyz!" the four cheered in unision and they threw their arms into the air just as soon as their end-of-break announcement rang through the intercom.

"just on time, deep breaths everybody."

-

it was the moment of truth. the judges had analyzed every team's performance and had come to a conclusion, leaving everyone in suspense as they awaited the results.

"welcome back everyone," the announcer began, "i bet you're all excited to see who will be continuing on."

the crowd cheered, chanhee and younghoon being no exception to the excitement. sangyeon of course was ecstatic as well, though he sadly had to watch from the general audience- he forgot he qualified as VIP and went with the cheaper ticket.

"let's get straight to the point shall we?" the screens above now listed every team and their opponents. "first things first, TBZ against KACHÉ. this was the first match to be concluded in round one, and it comes to no surprise that the winners came out to be... TBZ!"

one of the screens above had removed 'KACHÉ' and instead filled itself up with the winning team name- that of which of course was the one chanhee and younghoon were rooting for with their entire chests.

KACHÉ hugged each other and then went on over to TBZ to congratulate them. they just looked happy to be there, albeit still a bit disheartened to lose so soon into the games.

round one, success for them. however half of the teams were eliminated, that means the other half are the stronger teams. it's only going to get harder for them.

chanhee paid close attention to the teams that were still up, he wanted to know what team the rude guy was on. it didn't take that long for him to find, he was the second team announced to pass on. team 10X, they beat team EXPED. so they were advancing, and they were probably going to go against TBZ if chanhee's intuition was correct. he could only hope things would go smoothly no matter the outcome.

the next winners were USONE! geonhak's team was advancing too, with everything going on he had forgotten about his dear friend also being in the competition. they beat a team called CARD, it was sad seeing them go home but it had to happen.

SLVCHILD was beat by SLAY6, GOAT7 didn't pass but STRAYZ did, the team BITSY completely annihilated OFN, BERIBERY had a close one with NCITY but managed to pull through, and finally HEXAGON sadly did not win against SLICE<3.

it all ran smoothly, thankfully. for some reason chanhee had a bad feeling about what was to come, it made his nerves go crazy and he began to fidget. luckily, younghoon was there to share the nerves and they both quietly waited for the next round to begin.