Even a League Addict Gets Moved by Flowers
With Ajeong's reaction to the flower trick already secured and her gift for me waiting as well, I found myself counting down the minutes until our workout was over.
The male staffer from the previous shift had quit, and the new hire was, thankfully, a woman. The age gap between us was wide enough that she didn't bother striking up conversation—just a quick greeting, and she was out the door.
"Whew… good work today!"
"You too. So, what's the gift?"
"Hehe… were you looking forward to it? What should I do~~?"
Ajeong put on a mischievous face and started teasing me. For all I knew, she'd told me about it in advance just so she could do exactly this.
"I don't have anything spectacular either, but I did prepare something."
"Really?? What is it?!"
"You go first, then I'll give you mine."
"Stingy."
"You're the one who got my hopes up first. I've been waiting over an hour."
"Hehe… okay, just hang on a sec."
Ajeong stood up from behind the counter and brushed past me on her way out. The space wasn't exactly spacious, so her legs brushed mine as she passed right under my nose.
Poke—
"Hyeuk—!"
I jabbed the rear end that had drifted into my field of view before I could stop myself. She reacted far more dramatically than I'd expected, whipping her head around to check if anyone had heard. Luckily, no one was nearby.
"Aigoo… you can't just do that out of nowhere!"
"So if I give you a heads-up first, it's fine?"
"…I'll go get it. Wait."
She didn't answer properly, but she didn't refuse either. That was basically permission, wasn't it?
We still weren't officially dating, and yet this was the kind of relationship we'd become—a couple only within the walls of the gym, putting on a performance. Even so, the physical contact between us was every bit as intimate as any real couple's. Touching her butt might have been pushing it, but then I'd remember that Ajeong had been the one to start it, and the one who got handsy with real enthusiasm, and I'd start wondering if I was the one being too passive.
Before long, Ajeong came back with her bag.
"…"
She hesitated for a moment, then walked past me again.
Squeeze—
"Hup."
This time she'd been half-expecting it, so she didn't make much noise. She sat down and started glaring at me, but I smoothly changed the subject.
"Is it in there?"
"…Yeah. Curious?"
"Yeah. Extremely."
"Hehe… it's nothing special, but…"
"Here!"
She pulled out a box and held it out to me.
"A mouse?"
"Yep!"
What she'd given me was a gaming mouse—and from the look of it, not a cheap one. I liked it, of course, but the sudden gift of a mouse felt completely out of left field.
"Why a mouse all of a sudden?"
"Because I never properly repaid you for helping me out recently…"
So she was still hung up on that. It was touching, but I still wanted to know why she'd specifically chosen a mouse.
"And… if we're gonna keep playing games together, you should at least have decent gear. Your game sense is fine, Woohyun, but your skill shots are terrible."
"What?"
"Hehe… want me to pick out a keyboard for you later too?"
Poke poke—
"Hup, are you sulking? You're sulking. You're totally sulking."
"I'm not~"
"You are sulking! It's okay. Even if you get worse, I'll still play with you~"
While I was reeling from Ajeong's relentless psychological assault, she started getting curious about my gift.
"So what did you prepare, Woohyun?"
"I'll give it to you before I leave."
"Heeh… are you embarrassed? Are you shy?!"
Ajeong started clowning around again.
Poke—
"Hyeuk—!"
A jab to the side put her right back in line.
"Let's go to a PC bang later and do a 1v1."
"Heheh… you'd lose for sure, Woohyun. Your rank's lower and you're a tool player…"
Poke—
"Hyeuk—! You… you're gonna mess with me like this during the 1v1 too, aren't you!"
"No way~ I'm not that cheap."
"Really…? Fine, I accept the challenge. But we're betting on it."
"What are we putting on the line?"
"…I don't know."
The moment I answered with total confidence, she looked flustered. She was clearly the better player, so she seemed to be wondering what on earth I was basing that confidence on.
Of course, I had a plan. I wouldn't jab her in the side just to throw her off—but if some natural physical contact happened to include a little poke here and there, well, that couldn't be helped. And if it went that way, I'd have a real shot at winning.
"Hmm… if I win, this time you actually become a Tottenham fan."
"Then if I win, you become an Arsenal fan?"
"No! I thought of it first, so you have to come up with something else."
"So you think you're gonna lose?"
"I do not! …It's just more fun if you think of something yourself."
"I did think of something myself."
"I went first, so it's banned! Banned!"
She still clearly believed she'd win, but she apparently didn't want to leave even the slightest possibility of becoming an Arsenal fan on the table. I had no choice but to come up with something else.
"Hmm… can I decide later?"
"No!"
"You banned my idea, so at least let me decide later."
"Umm… fine? But nothing ridiculous is allowed."
"For example?"
"Like demanding a hundred billion won! Or asking me to buy you a building!"
I had zero intention of asking for anything like that, so I nodded right away. Besides, money wasn't an issue for me right now—and the opportunities to make more of it going forward were endless.
"Tell me a few ideas first! I'll let you know if they're allowed or not."
"Alright then… how about this?"
I reached over and gave the curve of Ajeong's hip, spilling off the side of her little chair, a firm squeeze.
"…"
"Hmm? Is this one allowed, or not?"
"…D—"
"Ah~ but this one's already allowed anyway, so I'll go with something else."
I settled it before she could even answer. Ajeong hung her head low—no explicit permission, but no refusal either, same as always.
"I'll just tell you when something comes to mind. That cool?"
"Yeah…"
After that, the conversation drifted back to League of Legends, and we agreed to play together now and then even without going to a PC bang. She'd climbed another tier since last time and was currently Platinum 1. I was still stuck at Gold 3, so if Ajeong climbed one more tier into Diamond, we might not be able to queue together anymore.
"So practice already! Or should I make a smurf account?"
"No, leveling another one to thirty would take forever. I'll work hard."
"Right?"
Smack smack—
"I said get better! Unnie buses you up and you just drop rank again."
"How did you even know?"
"I looked up your match history 'cause I wanted to see how you were doing."
She was even more serious about League than I'd thought. And yet the fact that she still refused to leave me behind and kept trying to drag me along was genuinely touching.
We talked for over an hour before I finally decided it was time to head home. Ajeong seemed reluctant to let me go, but every time a customer walked in they shot us looks that said what's with these two, and she had her own work to do—so stepping out was the right call.
She followed me out from behind the counter all the way to the door.
"See you… tomorrow."
"Yeah. See you tomorrow."
I said goodbye and started to push through the door, then turned back around to face her. Ajeong looked at me with a puzzled expression. All that passionate League talk must have made her completely forget about the gift.
I held one hand out in front of me and paused, drawing her full attention.
Snap—
"Oh! Whoa! Whoa…!"
I pulled the red tulip I'd been hiding up my sleeve, making it appear as if out of thin air.
"H-how did you do that?!"
I pressed the tulip into Ajeong's curious hands.
"Is this a real flower??"
"Yeah. I bought it this morning."
"That's insane…! Thank you… it's so cool and so pretty!"
She checked the flower, looked up at me, said something, and then did it all over again several times. Satisfied with her reaction, I said goodbye one more time and stepped out of the gym.
"Whew…"
This is why people do magic.
When I'd first received the talent for magic, I'd been a little disappointed. I'd been fantasizing about getting soccer talent and becoming the best in the world, so honestly, anything else would have felt like a letdown. But watching Ajeong light up like that made me want to learn more.
Maybe I should apprentice under someone famous later.
Even an extraordinary talent was useless without at least some foundational knowledge—you needed a minimum of study to put it to work. But no one was going to just post those truly spectacular tricks online for free. The videos I'd watched yesterday had all been relatively simple stuff.
Take it slow.
There was no rush, so I decided to look into it gradually. Far more magical things than actual magic were already happening to me, after all.
Back home, I decided to take stock of everything I'd gained this time around.
First, the exceptional talent I'd received from the Balance Game option: magic. It didn't instantly let me perform every mind-blowing trick in existence, but it granted an absurd rate of absorption and the ability to master techniques in the blink of an eye. That kind of learning speed—so fast you couldn't even explain how you'd done it—probably said everything about just how absurd a MAX-level talent really was. I figured it was like those instinctive movements geniuses make without even understanding how they pull them off.
Should I become a magician…?
No matter how I looked at it, I doubted there was a single magician out there with a MAX-level talent. Sure, people with more experience and knowledge than me existed, but in pure raw talent, I was probably at the top. Of course, as long as I kept participating in the Balance Game, I'd keep acquiring incredible abilities going forward—so there was no need to decide anything hastily.
Yeah. Just enjoy it.
Participating in the Balance Game meant accepting that dangerous options could pop up every week. So fretting over what career to pursue or how to live my life going forward was pointless. For now, I'd focus on enjoying the present.
My thoughts had wandered, but at least the direction for how to use my magic talent was settled.
Next up for consideration: the Eye for Talent.
This one was just a skill. I'd used it yesterday, so I could use it again in twenty-nine days—a skill that let me check a target's talents. It probably wasn't limited to people, but I had no intention of using it on anything else. I'd been agonizing over how to use this ability efficiently, but now I didn't need to. If the focus was simply on enjoying myself, the targets were obvious: the people around me. Checking the talents of the people I cared about and helping them thrive—that was more than enough.
And the first person who came to mind was, of course, Kang Ajeong.
Ding—!
The moment I thought of her, a KokoaTalk message arrived with perfect timing.
She really wanted to play League that badly. There were still over three hours until she got off work, and she was already booking me in advance.
Ding—!
Apparently she still had more to say.
Good—looked like the tulip gift had gone over well.
I tried searching for a magic trick that would suddenly make me good at League, but…
There's no such thing, Woohyun.