The Contest
When I opened my eyes, the atmosphere alone told me it was early morning.
Huh… why does everything hurt so much?
I'd been so exhausted I'd fallen straight back asleep, but now the pain was so foul I couldn't even stay under. No — foul didn't cover it. It felt like my feet were about to be sawed clean off. Even without looking, the heat radiating from them told me they were swollen tight as drums.
The burning was so extreme that sleep was simply impossible.
The ridiculous part was that it was the soles of my feet that had gotten wrecked… so I couldn't even get up carelessly.
I probably needed a hospital right away… but how was I supposed to get there? I'd clearly underestimated this. I'd figured it would be fine once I slept it off… instead, it had gotten so much worse.
I pushed my upper body up first and took a careful look at the soles.
The bright-red, ballooned flesh was thick with yellow pus, mixed and seeping out with blood.
Looking at the state of them, I couldn't just keep lying there forever, so I finally squeezed my eyes shut and stood.
"Hwaaagh…"
The sound tore out of me on its own. Forcing those ruined feet along, I made my way to the hospital.
It was Sunday, and still early, so I ended up at the emergency room.
The moment I got inside, they checked the wound — then took my temperature first. It was a cut from glass embedded in my sole; I couldn't see what my body heat had to do with anything.
I found out later they were checking whether the wound had progressed into sepsis.
Fortunately it wasn't anything that severe… just a skin infection that had set in around the torn flesh.
So they thoroughly disinfected the gashes and stitched them up. Then seven days' worth of medication on top of that.
Both feet were in the same condition, so the figure I cut was absurdly awkward — I looked ridiculous.
Since I was already up early, once I got home I turned on the computer and started working.
It had been a long time since I'd felt this absorbed in a project. My feet were a mess… but the pain had settled into a steady, even intensity, and somehow I'd already gotten used to it. Maybe a debuff of just the right strength actually sharpened me instead.
That said, working through it made one thing clear: the proposal Sebin noona had sent me was, frankly speaking, a mess. Not that I meant that as an insult. Of course it was.
She had no experience to begin with… and it wasn't even her major. Even if she had been a major, documenting your own ideas without real industry experience is hard.
Hell, even I only got away with it because I'd developed everything alone. If I'd had to work with other people, I probably would have been a disaster as a planner myself. The only reason my game had succeeded was that I thought everything through alone and worked exactly the way I wanted.
"Where do I even… start fixing this."
I muttered it under my breath, humming to myself. It really did feel like I'd found the old me again for the first time in ages.
Games with a similar atmosphere to the one noona wanted. Games in a similar genre. I dug through every single one of them, picking apart their defining traits.
What the basic UI looked like… the combat systems, the structures for earning currency. I organized it all, piece by piece, getting ready.
Next time we sat down for a meeting, I planned to set what I'd prepared side by side with her ideas and check whether they lined up with what she actually wanted.
I couldn't just do whatever I felt like. We'd promised to make the game she wanted to make, and this contest was something she'd started in the first place.
I'd been staring into the monitor for a long stretch when a messenger notification arrived.
A message from Nariring. It had been a while since we'd talked like this. We used to message each other all the time… and now here we were, actually meeting face to face.
Looking at Nari reaching out over messenger, a thought struck me. How strange it all was.
That familiar, easy tone. Right… when we talked online, Nari had always spoken like this. That was why I'd never once imagined this person was actually a girl.
But was internet speech just a kind of habit? We knew each other in real life now, and she still talked like this. She never used this tone when we were face to face. Were they really the same person?
The thought flickered past. Though, for what it was worth, I was still using formal speech with her the way I used to online.
I took a photo of my feet and sent it — not over the internet messenger, but through my phone. Partly to show her I'd been to the hospital. On my end, I was also hoping the ridiculous sight of me might land as a joke.
The second the photo went through, a call came in from Nari.
"For real? What happened to your feet?"
"Well… I hurt them yesterday. Pretty funny though, right? I've got Mickey Mouse feet."
"…Sorry."
"Huh?"
"I had no idea you were hurt… and I got so mad at you yesterday. You should've said something, you idiot."
"Well… separate from the injury, it's true I wasn't focusing properly on what I needed to do. It's fine. I didn't send the photo for that reason anyway…"
"Still, I feel bad for no reason. But weren't you with that girl yesterday? How did your feet end up like this?"
"…I'm right in the middle of working, okay? So I'm gonna get back to it for now."
I'd sent that photo as my carefully prepared punchline, but the conversation was veering somewhere else entirely, so I hung up in a hurry. I hadn't wanted an apology like that.
The bigger reason… I just didn't want to go over Seoa again. After yesterday, it really felt like everything had ended for good — she hadn't crossed my mind even once. That was probably why the work had been going so well.
I didn't want to force her name back into my mouth and drag those thoughts up again. I was deep in my work right now, fully myself the way I used to be. I couldn't let that break.
The second I hung up, those messages arrived again over the internet messenger. Switching platforms didn't mean she couldn't just tell me… was she pretending not to know on purpose, playing dumb? She was genuinely hard to read.
And the moment we were talking online again, that tone snapped right back into place like a ghost. I almost wondered if Nari had a split personality.
Wondered if there was a version of her I still didn't know.
After that, I was able to sink straight back into the work.
Yeah. It really had been a long time. Sitting in front of a monitor with nothing weighing on me. And it felt good — losing myself in a project like this again.
Right. This was who I used to be.
That long, drawn-out one-sided love was over… and it felt like I'd finally come back to myself, whole.
But maybe — just maybe — I was already starting a new one-sided love all over again.
The next day.
I had to go to school… and just thinking about showing up looking like this made everything go dark in front of my eyes. But what choice did I have? If I wanted to get to the club, I had to go to campus first.
I also needed to go over what I'd worked on yesterday with Sebin noona. It would be rough, but I had to go.
At school, running into Seoa was inevitable — but even when we crossed paths now, we didn't exchange so much as a greeting. She didn't take the seat next to mine. It really did look like we were completely finished.
She did glance at my awkward gait like it bothered her a little… but that was as far as it went. She never actually spoke to me.
That was the end of it.
"You okay? I'll specially carry you all the way to the clubroom."
When class ended, Nari was waiting for me outside the lecture hall. Watching me hobble along, she said it in that teasing tone of hers.
The second I made a move like I was actually going to climb on, she shrieked and bolted.
And so we headed for the clubroom.
"Why are you walking like that?"
"Unnie, Minjae's actually getting a circumcision at his age. It's a shameful secret, so let's keep quiet about it."
"……"
The moment we arrived at the clubroom, Sebin noona took one look at me and said that. As if it were some annual ritual, I had to explain myself to every person I met.
Of course, I just substituted a vague "I got hurt somehow" for the real story.
Meanwhile Nari was off on her own with that line, clutching her stomach laughing. Nari was clearly not a normal person. Was she insane?! That was straight-up sexual harassment!
The two of us goofing around was one thing… but Sebin noona was right there…
I snuck a glance to check whether noona looked uncomfortable. My worry turned out to be completely useless.
Sebin noona was biting back a laugh, her lips twitching… which was a relief, I guess. Still, it somehow left me as the only one feeling awkward.
"Ahem, ahem…"
I cleared my throat for no good reason, trying to shift the mood.
And… riding that current, there was something I wanted to tell everyone in the clubroom.
It was a thought that had hit me while I was working alone on Sunday — something I felt I needed to share with Sebin noona and Nari, who were doing this club with me.
And with the atmosphere the way it was now, it felt like the right moment to say it.
"All this time…"