A Movement Too Familiar

Even after gym class ended, Kang Tae-jun stood there for a long moment, rooted to the spot.

The slap of bouncing balls and the laughter that had filled the gymnasium were fading, drifting farther and farther away. The scrape of sneakers against the floor died out one pair at a time, and students scattered toward the doors, fanning themselves as they went.

Tae-jun caught his breath and looked toward one side of the gym.

Seo Ha-yoon was with her friends. She smoothed her tousled golden hair with her fingertips and smiled quietly, no different from usual — that calm, gentle atmosphere, the way she answered everyone kindly, the girl who was first in the school at both studying and sports.

That was Seo Ha-yoon.

And yet, strangely, the way she had moved in the dodgeball game just now would not leave his head.

The feet that had shifted before the ball even left a hand. The gaze that seemed to read the direction a heartbeat before her opponent threw. The body that never flinched more than it had to, moving only exactly as much as the moment required.

It was a scene too oddly precise to shrug off as simply being good at sports.

"Hey."

Lee Hyun-woo flicked Tae-jun's arm from the side.

Tae-jun came back to himself a beat late.

"...What."

"You've been staring at Seo Ha-yoon this whole time."

"I have not."

"Then what?"

Hyun-woo glanced in the direction Tae-jun had been looking and grinned.

"Was her dodgeball that impressive?"

Tae-jun shook his head at once.

"It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?"

Tae-jun couldn't answer for a moment. He wasn't sure how to put it into words.

Seo Ha-yoon had been good at dodgeball. That much was true. But what had caught on him wasn't ordinary athletic talent.

The way she moved had felt familiar, somehow. As if she already knew the answer before her opponent even started to move.

It looked like the way Shopsop moved in the game.

Before a boss attacked. Before a pattern began. While everyone else was still a step behind, Shopsop was already sliding into the safe spot.

In the end, Tae-jun said it quietly.

"The way she moved felt... familiar."

Hyun-woo stared at him, then shrugged.

"Ha-yoon's always been good at sports. Aren't you just thinking about the game too much these days?"

Tae-jun started to argue, then shut his mouth. It wasn't a wrong thing to say.

For the past few days, his head had been almost entirely full of Origin Fantasia. Even more so since he'd started running raids with Shopsop. Trying to keep up with what the rank-one player was seeing on their screen, he had started hunting for the same kind of instinct out here in the real world.

"Just take dodgeball as dodgeball," Hyun-woo said. "Don't go connecting weird dots."

"...Yeah. Okay."

Tae-jun said it, but the unease sitting somewhere in his chest did not go away so easily.

Then the gym teacher's voice rang ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out across the floor.

"Everyone wrap it up and head back to class."

Students began filing out of the gym one after another. Tae-jun fell into step with Hyun-woo and started walking.

The hallway stretched long with the voices of kids just out of gym. The rain had only recently stopped, and the air beyond the windows still felt damp; puddles lingered across the field.

Tae-jun looked ahead.

Seo Ha-yoon was walking with her friends. When someone spoke to her she turned her head naturally, and when she answered she smiled, briefly.

There was nothing special about it.

And still, he could not quite erase the moment she had slipped past the ball.

It really was strange. That movement had been far too precise.

Even after they got back to the classroom, Tae-jun could not settle into the lesson. A textbook lay open on his desk, but the letters refused to come into focus. The teacher's voice went on calmly from the front of the room, and Tae-jun's thoughts kept sliding somewhere else.

Shopsop. Seo Ha-yoon. Dodgeball. Raids.

Words that had no reason to connect kept tangling together in his head. He rubbed his forehead lightly with his fingertips.

There was no way.

Seo Ha-yoon seemed a world away from anything involving games. Shopsop, on the other hand, was the untouchable rank-one player of Origin Fantasia, someone no one could easily catch. Connecting the two of them at all was absurd.

The bell rang for the end of class.

The room loosened at once. Students shoved their chairs back and stood; a few headed straight out into the hallway. Tae-jun carefully drew out the phone he had left under his desk.

The Origin Fantasia community was already open on the screen. The boards were still filling up with posts about Shopsop.

Posts like that. Tae-jun scrolled slowly with his thumb. The assessments of Shopsop were, for the most part, all the same.

Tae-jun's finger stopped on one post. The writer had broken down Shopsop's play like this.

Tae-jun stared at that last sentence for a long time. And then, without meaning to, he thought of Seo Ha-yoon in the dodgeball game.

The feet that had moved before the ball flew. The eyes that had seemed to read the direction before the throw. The way she had slipped aside without ever throwing her whole body out of the way.

He muttered it under his breath before he knew he was speaking.

"...It's similar."

That was when it happened.

Tap.

A small piece of candy landed on his desk. Tae-jun lifted his head.

Seo Ha-yoon was standing there. She looked at him without any particular explanation.

"You've looked off since earlier."

"...Ah."

"Eat one if you're tired."

Tae-jun looked down at the candy in his palm.

"Thanks."

"Mm."

Ha-yoon didn't ask anything else. She didn't try to see his phone screen, and she didn't ask what he was reading. She had simply looked after him the way she always did — quietly, naturally.

Which was, if anything, even more like Seo Ha-yoon.

Hyun-woo looked back and forth between the two of them and laughed under his breath.

"I'm tired too, you know."

Ha-yoon smiled, briefly.

"Hyun-woo, you already had something sweet at the snack stand."

"You saw that?"

"Mm."

Hyun-woo shut his mouth at once. Tae-jun snorted a quiet laugh at the sight, and Ha-yoon went back to her seat without a fuss.

After she had gone, Tae-jun looked at the candy in his hand for a while. It was a small, ordinary piece of candy. And yet it snagged on him, strangely.

Ha-yoon always came close as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and then drifted away again as if nothing had happened. That distance felt oddly comfortable.

And at the same time, the movement he had seen in the gym rose up again.

Tae-jun shook his head a little.

I'm overthinking this.

He tried to let it go. But the small, unsettled feeling sitting in one corner of his chest would not quite leave.

That night, Tae-jun ended up sitting in front of his computer after all.

The room was quiet. Beyond the window, the damp night air that follows a rain had settled over everything, and only the monitor on the desk threw a blue light across the walls.

Origin Fantasia.

The familiar login screen slid past, and the character select window came up. Tae-jun chose Arc Saber.

The moment he connected, a whisper notification chimed.

Tae-jun set his fingers on the keyboard.

A reply came a moment later.

Tae-jun sat up straighter in his chair. A party invite came in almost immediately. He accepted it at once.

Familiar nicknames filled the party window one by one. High-ranking players. Named guild members. And right in the middle of them, Shopsop.

Chat started rolling up the screen fast.

Tae-jun looked at the monitor and steadied his breathing.

The moment combat began, the entire screen filled with effects. The boss's enormous body shifted, and danger markers flared across the floor. The party members each found their positions, and Shopsop's calls came up in chat, short and sharp.

Tae-jun put strength into his fingertips. He did not want to be late this time.

Even as he moved on Shopsop's calls, he tried to watch not the attack itself but the motion that came before it. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The shoulder before the boss lifted its weapon. The brief stillness right before a strike. The tiniest tremor in the floor-light, just before it flared.

The analysis of Shopsop's play that he had read on the community that afternoon rose up in his mind.

You don't dodge after seeing the attack. You see the tell before the attack comes out.

And strangely, Seo Ha-yoon's movement laid itself over that sentence. The feet that had shifted before the ball flew. The gaze that had watched an opponent's wrist and shoulder.

Tae-jun bit his lip lightly and locked onto ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the screen.

Then the boss drew its weapon back. Tae-jun looked not at the tip of the weapon, but at the direction of the shoulder first.

And he moved a beat early.

BOOM.

The attack slammed down on the spot where Tae-jun had been standing a moment before.

He had dodged it. It wasn't a last-second reaction. He had already been moving.

Shopsop's chat came up immediately.

Tae-jun looked at the screen for a moment. It was a short bit of praise. But it felt strangely good.

At the same time, something in a corner of his chest stirred again.

Read it like that.

That way of speaking, too — the habit of cutting straight to the point in as few words as possible — felt familiar, somewhere.

The fight kept going.

Tae-jun moved on the calls. This time he was not late. The timing on the way out, and the timing on the way back in, were both far more stable than before.

After a few close calls, the boss's health finally drained down to the last sliver. The final attack came crashing in.

KRA-KOOM.

A massive explosion, and the boss went down.

Chat rolled up the screen in a rush.

Tae-jun sat with his hands still on the keyboard and didn't move for a moment. More than the satisfaction of downing the boss, something else had settled in larger.

Shopsop's calls. The analysis he had read on the community. And Seo Ha-yoon, that afternoon.

He hesitated for a long time, then opened the whisper window.

The reply came at once.

Tae-jun wrote a sentence, then deleted it. Wrote it again, then deleted it again. And then, carefully, he asked.

For a moment, there was no answer. Tae-jun stared at the screen. The silence was not long. It only felt that way, strangely.

A little later, a reply came.

Tae-jun's fingers stopped. And in the end, he sent one more line.

This time, too, the answer was a little late.

At the same moment, in Seo Ha-yoon's room.

Ha-yoon, sitting on her bed, had gone still with her eyes on her phone screen. Only the small light of a stand lamp spread quietly through the room. Her long golden hair spilled down past her shoulders, and her fingertips had stopped, very briefly, above the glass.

A moment later, Ha-yoon slowly typed a reply.

Tae-jun looked at the reply and quietly let out a breath. It was Shopsop's usual way of talking. Calm, short, only what needed to be said.

And yet it was strange.

The movement he had seen that afternoon. The talk about Shopsop on the community. The calls he had followed tonight. And that brief silence just now.

All of it snagged on him, too neatly to call coincidence.

Tae-jun leaned slowly back against the chair. The monitor's blue light spread faintly across his face. For a long time he said nothing at all. Then, very quietly, he muttered,

"...No way."

He said it. But his eyes still would not leave the screen.

The rank-one player who drove him hard inside the game — Shopsop. And the girl who quietly looked after him at school, first in their year — Seo Ha-yoon.

They were supposed to be completely different people. That was the natural thing to think.

And still, Tae-jun could not quite settle the corner of his chest. A very small suspicion remained inside him, as quiet ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and persistent as the light of the monitor.