The Private Practice Room
The next night, Tae-jun finished school and logged in a little later than usual.
The moment his character appeared in the village square, a whisper notification popped up.
Tae-jun set his hands on the keyboard at once.
After a brief silence, the reply came up.
Tae-jun blinked.
On a normal day, familiar nicknames like Raon, Mir, and Crown would have filtered into the party window one by one. Someone would leave a casual greeting, someone else would toss out a line or two about where they were headed, and Shopsop would cut through it all with short, dry prompts to get ready.
But not today.
Just you.
That brief sentence snagged at him for no good reason.
Tae-jun shifted in his chair, straightening his posture.
It was only a game. The other person was a user whose face he didn't even know. And still, the words just the two of them left him strangely tense. On ordinary days, the other party members had been there, so even when Shopsop called him out, the criticism had a way of getting buried and sliding past. Not today.
This was a seat reserved for watching him alone.
An invitation notification appeared a moment later.
An invitation to a Private Practice Room has arrived.
Tae-jun hesitated with his hand still, then hit accept.
The screen went dark, then brightened again.
It was neither a normal field nor a dungeon. A wide, empty circular space. Faint lines were scored across the floor in a grid, and training dummies stood at even intervals along the edges. The center held nothing at all. No monsters, no reward chests, no spectators.
It really was just the two of them.
Shopsop's character stood in front of Tae-jun's.
There was no movement. Even so, simply facing each other inside the screen carried a peculiar pressure.
Tae-jun froze for a beat.
The reply came at once.
You're not bad.
Tae-jun had been on the verge of a brief flicker of relief at those words—then the next sentence locked him solid.
Predictable.
Put another way, it meant his movement was far too obvious. He had survived raids, spotted traps in dungeons, even earned the occasional compliment—but through Shopsop's eyes, the gaps still showed up in sharp relief.
Tae-jun stared at the chat window for a long time.
Not a single line was wrong.
Which left him with even less to say.
Tae-jun shut his mouth.
Shopsop wasn't only watching the character in the game.
When he got impatient, when he got excited, when he got scared—all of it was being read. They had played together long enough that it was possible. He had made mistakes in the same party enough times, taken enough corrections, that of course someone could know.
And still, it felt strange.
As if it went past the movement of the character on the screen and caught the person sitting in front of it, too.
Tae-jun drew a short breath.
The opponent was Shopsop.
He didn't entertain the thought that he could win. Even so, he wanted to hold out for at least a little while. He didn't want to go down hollowly, and he didn't want to stay forever on the receiving end of corrections.
Tae-jun closed the distance first.
Arc Saber sprinted forward and lifted his sword. A skill icon flared, and Tae-jun landed the opening strike at once. The timing, he thought, wasn't bad. The range was enough, and the angle was right.
But before the blade could even connect, Shopsop had already slipped aside.
Behind the attack that cut through empty air, Shopsop's character stood at Tae-jun's flank.
The screen shuddered.
First hit taken.
Tae-jun pulled back at once.
But as if the direction of his retreat had already been read, Shopsop was already standing in the right-hand lane. The skill came in as if it had been waiting for the exact moment Tae-jun's character gave ground.
Second hit taken.
Tae-jun's eyes went wide.
Tae-jun's hands stopped.
Tae-jun stared hard at the monitor.
Somehow, those words didn't feel unfamiliar.
Seo Ha-yoon's movement in the gym a few days ago rose unbidden. Feet that shifted before the ball ever arrived. Eyes that seemed to read the direction before the other person even threw. Bodywork that never dodged more than necessary—only exactly as much as was needed.
Tae-jun shook his head quickly.
This was not the time for that thought.
The training went on.
Tae-jun attacked again and again. Shopsop refused to be hit so easily. When Tae-jun tried to press in, Shopsop was already a step gone; when he tried to fall back, the escape routes were cut off. It wasn't that the attacks were being dodged. Shopsop simply was never in the place Tae-jun meant to strike.
That difference was maddening.
They were clearly looking at the same screen.
They were clearly moving under the same rules.
And yet Shopsop was always a beat ahead of Tae-jun. Or rather—not faster so much as already knowing. Where Tae-jun would come in, when he would stop, when he would get impatient—all of it was being read first.
A third hit. A fourth. A fifth.
Tae-jun kept taking them.
At first he thought it was simply a difference in speed. The more they repeated it, though, the clearer it became that it wasn't. Shopsop wasn't reacting fast—Shopsop was shrinking Tae-jun's options. Leaving an escape route open in appearance while actually herding him that way; flashing a gap on purpose to draw the attack.
Tae-jun lost his words again.
He eased his fingers off the keyboard for a moment. Until just now, all he had wanted was to land a hit on Shopsop. But the harder he tried to land one, the more obvious his movement became. It felt like walking himself down the path Shopsop was waiting on.
Tae-jun steadied his breathing and looked at the screen again.
Shopsop's character stood dead ahead.
It looked motionless, but the stance was tilted by the slightest degree. The space to break left was wide. The right side was open. A frontal attack looked like it would connect.
It looked too easy.
Which made it feel wrong instead.
Tae-jun didn't go in.
Shopsop messaged first.
The chat window went still for a moment.
Then Shopsop's character eased out of the stance.
Tae-jun let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
It was a first.
He hadn't fully read Shopsop's movement. But at least he hadn't taken the gap right in front of him at face value. He had stopped once, and thought.
And that had been right.
It was a short sentence.
And still, Tae-jun couldn't quite pull his eyes off those words.
The frustration of being beaten down without a break loosened by the smallest degree. Wanting recognition so badly it showed was embarrassing—but he couldn't help being glad all the same.
The training continued after that.
Tae-jun still took a lot of hits. He wasn't good enough yet to keep up with Shopsop's movement. Even so, he no longer charged in blindly the way he had at the start. He distrusted the paths the opponent left open, and paused a beat before pressing a skill. Instead of watching only for danger markers, he tried to read the other character's stance.
That difference alone was enough to cut the number of hits little by little.
If the beginning had been pure being pushed around with nothing to show for it, by the later stretch he could at least track Shopsop's first move. Of course, everything after that got read again. Still, it no longer felt like he was only being spun around.
A long while later, Shopsop stopped first.
Tae-jun let the tension drop from his shoulders.
The moment it left him, he finally noticed how sore his fingers were. His palms were damp with sweat, and even though he had only been sitting in front of a monitor, he felt oddly as tired as if he had been moving his whole body.
Tae-jun looked at the chat window, then carefully typed.
The reply didn't come right away.
Tae-jun felt his heart pick up speed for no good reason.
Maybe the question had been strange. There were plenty of top-tier players. Shopsop had no particular reason to drag him around. He wasn't overwhelmingly skilled, and he still made plenty of mistakes. From Shopsop's side, the frustrating stretches might even outnumber the rest.
And still, Shopsop had put him in the party—and today had even called him alone into a practice room.
A moment later, the reply came up.
Tae-jun read the sentence and went blank-faced.
Whether it counted as a compliment was hard to say.
A laugh slipped out of Tae-jun.
It was a very Shopsop kind of compliment.
It wasn't soft. It wasn't wrapped up gently, either. And yet, somehow, it didn't feel like a lie. Shopsop hadn't said he was good—but it still felt like it meant he had been watching the whole time.
Because you don't quit even when you're bad at it.
Those words lingered in a strangely lasting way.
Tae-jun found a little more courage and asked again.
The chat window stopped.
This silence ran a little longer.
Tae-jun stared at the screen, unable to move his hands.
It hadn't been anything. Just a line tossed out like a joke. And yet Shopsop didn't answer right away.
That short silence felt strangely large.
The sense of wrongness that had been trailing him for days lifted its head again.
Seo Ha-yoon dodging the ball in the gym.
Seo Ha-yoon noticing he was tired before he said a word.
Seo Ha-yoon handing him candy as if it were the most natural thing, without needing to be asked.
And Shopsop, on the other side of the screen, pinning his habits with perfect accuracy.
The two of them were supposed to be completely different people.
There was no reason for Seo Ha-yoon at school and Shopsop in the game to overlap. And yet, strangely, the way they looked at people was alike.
At last, chat came up.
And right after that, Shopsop's character vanished.
Shopsop has logged out.
Only Tae-jun's character remained in the practice room.
The space that had been in constant motion until a moment ago suddenly felt hollowed out and quiet. The training dummies still stood in their places, and only the faint lines on the floor gave off a low light.
For a while, Tae-jun couldn't bring himself to hit the logout button.
Because you don't quit even when you're bad at it.
Those words stayed with him.
And so did the silence that had opened after his last question.
Tae-jun looked out over the empty practice room and slowly leaned back against the chair.
More than any attack in the game, that brief silence kept circling through his head.