Framed by My Captain, Reborn on My Rival's Team novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Best of Five

Lu and Ji duel for the mid lane, Ji wins by reading a habit Lu never told anyone, and the stake is collected that night.

The whole house watched the duel on the big wall screen.

Su Ran sat on the floor with a bucket of fried chicken.

Coach Pei stood at the back, reading glasses on, with a tea gone cold in his hand.

Lu and Ji sat at the two far desks with their headsets around their necks.

Game one went to Ji.

Lu had taken a risk at minute four, and Ji punished it without even changing his face.

Game two went to Lu, cleanly, with a trade that made the top laner whoop.

Game three went to Ji again.

Game four, Lu played the way he had in the Seoul qualifier, loud and fast, and won it by two towers.

"Two all," Su Ran said, with chicken in his mouth. "Ge. Ge. Two all."

"I can count," Ji said into the mic.

Game five opened even.

At minute eleven Lu had the lead and a full bar of health.

Ji's champion turned and walked away.

He didn't run, he walked, with his back to the lane, toward his own tower.

Lu chased.

He knew he was doing it while his hand did it.

Lu had never told anyone in his life that he couldn't leave a retreating back alone.

Ji's champion stepped under the tower, spun, and the trap closed in four seconds.

LANTERN HAS BEEN SLAIN, said the screen.

There was a long silence in the scrim room.

"That was a read," said the top laner.

"That was a cheat," Su Ran said. "Ge, you can't just know him."

Ji took his headset off and hung it over the monitor.

"Three to two," he said. "Dinner's at seven."

He looked at Lu then, for one second, over the top of the screen.

"Third floor," he said. "Eleven o'clock."

Ji's room was at the front of the house, with a window that faced Vanguard's lit glass front across the road.

A narrow bed with grey sheets.

A desk with one locked drawer.

A black watch on the shelf, its strap worn pale on the inside.

Ji pulled the blind down on the Vanguard windows and turned the lock on the door.

Lu stood by the bed in his hoodie with his hands in the pouch.

"So what's the order, Captain?" he said. "Strip? Bark? Fetch?"

"Take your hands out of your pockets."

Lu did.

"Come here."

Lu took three steps and stopped an arm's length away, because he was damned if he would walk the last one.

Ji closed it for him.

He took Lu's jaw in one hand, tilting it up, and looked at him.

"You walked into the trap," Ji said. "Every time."

"Because I'm better than the trap."

"That's what you think."

Ji kissed him.

It wasn't polite.

It was hard and hot and close-mouthed for one heartbeat.

Then Lu opened under it and bit Ji's lower lip, and Ji made a low sound in his chest.

Lu got both hands in the front of Ji's T-shirt and shoved.

Ji let himself be walked back two steps, until his legs hit the edge of the desk.

Then he took Lu's wrists, turned them, and slammed him back against the door.

"Mine," Ji said against his mouth. "Tonight, that's the deal."

"Say please."

"You first."

They were both hard already.

Lu felt it through two layers of cloth, Ji's cock long and heavy against his hip, and his own jumping against Ji's thigh.

He ground into it on purpose.

Ji's breath caught.

"Careful, Lantern."

"Or what?"

Ji let go of one wrist, shoved a hand down the front of Lu's sweatpants, and closed it around him.

Lu's head hit the door.

"Fuck."

"That's the idea."

The hand was dry and hot and sure.

It went up the shaft with a twist at the head, a slow pull, a squeeze that made Lu's knees fail.

Ji watched his face the whole time.

Lu hated being watched.

He hated it, and his hips jerked into the grip.

"You do that," Ji murmured. "When you're about to lose. You push forward."

"Shut up."

"You do it with your mouth, too."

"I said shut up."

"Make me."

Lu got his hand into Ji's pants.

Ji was thicker than he had thought, hot and wet at the tip, and he groaned when Lu's fist closed around him.

"There," Lu said, and gave him a hard, fast pull, the way he'd have taken a duel.

Ji's forehead dropped onto his shoulder.

"Slower."

"Make me."

For a minute, neither of them won.

They stood hip to hip against the door with their fists working, breath stuttering into each other's collars.

The creak of cloth and slick skin was loud in the quiet room.

Ji bit the side of his neck, not softly.

Lu swore and arched into the sting, and sped his hand.

"Look at me," Ji said.

"No."

"Lantern."

He looked.

Ji's eyes were black and wide, nothing bored in them, and his mouth was open on every breath.

The hand on Lu's cock tightened and twisted and went faster, and the whole bottom of Lu's stomach pulled tight.

"You first," Ji said.

"You."

"You're losing."

"I'm not."

"You are." He tipped his thumb across the slit.

Lu came with his head against the door, a cry bitten off in his teeth, hot and hard across Ji's knuckles.

Ji's hand didn't stop until the last of it was done.

Then he took Lu's fist, still wrapped around him, and finished himself in it with three brutal strokes and a groan against Lu's ear.

The wet heat covered Lu's fingers.

They stood like that, breathing.

Ji wiped his hand on a towel from the shelf, and tossed another one at Lu without a word.

Lu cleaned himself off, and his hand was not entirely steady.

He pulled his pants up.

His whole body felt like a plugged-in wire.

"Still cold?" he said.

Ji's mouth twitched.

"Warming up."

He turned the blind a quarter inch to peek at the street, then back.

"Sleep here," Ji said, "or on the couch. Your choice. Registration is at nine."

Lu picked up his hoodie off the floor.

His phone lit up in the pocket, a buzz against his thigh, and the name on the screen was BOSS.

He read the text standing in the middle of Ji's room.

Come home. I'll forgive you.

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