Has Winter Become Spring (3)
It had only been a slaughter of Platinum-rankers in a few casual games, but Bae Do-hyun felt an incredible surge of exhilaration.
That nameless hunger — the hollow emptiness that no amount of Recon could ever fill — finally felt like it was being satisfied.
So it was the lack of physical talent all along…
It had been a craving born of inadequacy. No matter how sharp his mind was, he had never possessed the mechanical skill to execute what he saw in-game. The self-loathing that festered from that shortfall — the inferiority complex he had carried for years — had finally met its answer in Jin Gyeo-wool's body. The ravenous thing inside Bae Do-hyun was, at last, content.
Current Memory Erosion Rate
“Jin Gyeo-wool, 0.05%”
A Memory Erosion status that had never existed before he activated Soul Assimilation now sat permanently in a corner of the League of Council client.
The accumulated erosion was still only 0.05%. Naturally, Bae Do-hyun felt no particular strangeness in his own memories.
"So roughly 0.01% per game, huh…"
Which meant a thousand games would push it to 10%. Ten thousand games, and Jin Gyeo-wool's soul erosion would hit 100%.
A lot if you think about it one way. Not that much if you think about it another…
Even Plum, who held the record for the most official matches played, sat at around six hundred. But factor in the solo queue and scrims he played every year, and his annual game count easily cleared a thousand.
Five days a week, six solo queue games a day — that was fifteen hundred games in a single year.
Ten thousand games might come faster than expected.
Just to be sure, Bae Do-hyun tried playing without Soul Assimilation. His body was unmistakably slower. People said you didn't notice the difference when you upgraded your gear, but the downgrade hit you like a truck — and now he understood exactly what that meant.
Once you've turned it on, you can never turn it off. It's basically a drug.
That was why the system had asked him twice at the start.
But Bae Do-hyun didn't regret it. Filling the physical void that six years of Recon had never been able to touch was more than enough.
Still, something was missing. He had high-grade mechanics and a high-grade mind, but the mountains standing between him and the pro scene looked steep.
Time and effort could close the gap — in theory. Combined, Bae Do-hyun and Jin Gyeo-wool might climb as far as Master tier. Beyond that was still out of reach.
Maybe I shouldn't have touched Recon at all…
In a way, it was more terrifying than any drug. He had only played a handful of games, and already his body was screaming at him to queue up again.
Faster. Next game. Victory. Kill streak!
Bae Do-hyun forced the rising clamor in his chest back down and slowly walked over to stand in front of the mirror once more.
"Gyeo-wool."
This time, he called the girl's name.
"Jin Gyeo-wool?"
He hadn't expected her to appear at the first ring of the bell, but after two more calls, Gyeo-wool cautiously materialized above his head.
What.
"You."
The sleeping pills on the nightstand. The incense candle for soul separation that looked suspicious no matter how you sliced it.
Do-hyun asked with a fair degree of certainty.
"Were you planning to die? To follow your friend?"
At those words, Gyeo-wool fully emerged from the Do-hyun reflected in the mirror and snapped at him in a fury.
Don't be ridiculous! I wasn't trying to die!
She pressed right up against the glass, her words tumbling out.
I just… I just wanted to see Bom one more time. That's why I bought the incense candle. I thought if I lit it and went to sleep, I'd get to see her right away. But that wasn't how it worked… That's all it was.
She insisted otherwise, but she couldn't hide what she felt. No wonder she wasn't a mechanics-specialist player for nothing.
Sharp-minded Bae Do-hyun saw through the lie immediately.
"Don't lie to me. You were the type who wanted to die at the drop of a hat."
Shut up. Who the hell are you to talk like you know everything?
It wasn't just her behavior. The most damning evidence sat inside the drawer beneath the sleep lamp beside Gyeo-wool's bed.
Do-hyun hadn't spent the entire evening mindlessly grinding Recon. He had torn through every corner of the room, digging up everything he could about the girl named Jin Gyeo-wool.
"If you weren't planning to die, why did you write a will?"
You… went through someone else's drawers without asking!!
"If things went south, you were ready to follow Bom into death. Am I wrong?"
Ugh… uuuuugh. Shut up. I said shut up!! What do you know. What do… what do you even know…!!
Gyeo-wool vanished back into wherever she hid when things got inconvenient. The kind of personality that bolted the second the conversation turned against her.
But in her, Bae Do-hyun saw something he recognized in himself.
Incompleteness.
Whether it was a god's joke or not, two incomplete people had been bound together and, for a fleeting moment, become something whole. The instant Soul Assimilation activated, the two of them could play at the absolute peak.
Before he became Jin Gyeo-wool, it was Bae Do-hyun who had let his inferiority complex drag him into the gutter.
After the talent monster named Jang Jae-hong appeared, Do-hyun's jealousy had hit rock bottom. And the end of that rivalry had been the fistfight at the bar two nights ago.
Throwing punches when your own skill was garbage. A completely thoughtless act. A pro had to stay calm no matter the situation — and Bae Do-hyun had failed that test completely.
The fact that Jang Jae-hong had earned recognition and debuted on the first team at seventeen — the youngest possible age — had made Do-hyun sick with envy.
And the way that bastard kept rubbing it in his face over and over made his blood boil. The gathering of amateur players two nights ago had supposedly been a celebration of Jang Jae-hong's first-team debut. It had also been a stage set to mock Bae Do-hyun, who had nothing to show for six years of grinding.
Do-hyun didn't know the full story between Jin Gyeo-wool and her dead friend.
That she had leaned on that friend with everything she had, and that the friend's death had left her a half-person — there was no way to know any of that unless she said it herself.
But he had a pretty good idea. It wasn't exact, but he understood the Gyeo-wool who had been ready to throw herself after her friend into death.
Because Bae Do-hyun had been the same. He had simply been clinging to the fraying straw of a dream that might never end.
If I close my eyes and open them again, maybe I'll be back in the past. Maybe this whole life is just some cheap dream. He had entertained those empty fantasies for years.
So he understood.
"If I die, everything gets solved. You can run away thinking that. I've had that thought more than once or twice myself."
Hearing that, Gyeo-wool cautiously poked her head back into view.
So that's why you threw yourself in front of a truck?
"Hey. I told you that was an accident."
Ah, right. An accident. Fine, mine was an accident too. Happy? Who the hell thought they'd get kicked out of their own body like this.
Even so, something in Do-hyun's words must have resonated, because her tone softened compared to before.
I watched you play Recon.
"…You can see what I'm doing even when I'm not standing in front of the mirror?"
Yeah. I can. Except when you're in Recon, it's blurry like there's a filter on it, but I can still make out the general idea.
"Is that so."
Do-hyun was grateful he hadn't done anything stupid right after waking up. If he had said something like Whoa! I'm actually a girl now! Free boobs get!, Jin Gyeo-wool would have sold every last scrap of him — existing and non-existing — while she watched.
You. You were pretty good.
"Ah… well. I borrowed a bit of your power."
My power?
"Yeah. I don't know how it happened, but it seems like I can draw out the power of your soul."
And when their strengths combined, two incomplete puzzle pieces finally locked into one perfect whole.
"That play was only possible because I added my game sense to your mechanics."
……
Gyeo-wool's eyes went wide with surprise.
She already had a face as cute as a puppy's, and right then she looked almost unfairly adorable.
"I don't know what kind of life you've lived. But if we're talking about me — I spent six years practicing to go pro, and I failed. Map reading, decision-making, all of it was excellent. I just didn't have the absolute mechanical skill."
And that missing physical talent had been filled completely by Jin Gyeo-wool's soul.
"I saw a new world. So this is what it's like when both your mind and your hands are good…. I even thought — if I keep improving from here, maybe I really could go pro."
…That's amazing.
Gyeo-wool hesitated, as if she had something to say. But Do-hyun's story must have sparked a realization, because she began to murmur quietly.
Maybe… you ended up in my body because of ──…
"What was that?"
Nothing. It's… similar, though. Honestly, all I had was mechanics. Zero decision-making. I was the type who solved every situation with pure physical talent in the moment.
"I figured as much."
A perfect mutual completion of each other's weaknesses. Soul Assimilation had taken two people who could never have made it alone and forged them into a single force.
I wanted to be a pro gamer. To follow my best friend, and the oppa I liked…
Please don't let that oppa be Lee Do-jin. Do-hyun had a dozen questions, but he let them pass for now.
For someone like me who dumped everything into mechanics to actually be good at the game, I needed Bom and her game sense. But because of my mistake… Bom died. And after that day, I couldn't play anymore.
Bom died, Jin Gyeo-wool locked herself in her room, and that led to the cold war with her mother. Everything clicked into place.
Bae Do-hyun absorbed the things Gyeo-wool would never say twice and asked her this:
"Your dream. Would it be okay if I carried it on?"
It was Jin Gyeo-wool's dream — but becoming a pro gamer had also been Bae Do-hyun's long-held wish.
"Like I said, I always wanted to go pro too. Enough to die for it. Enough to go insane."
But the limits of his skill had held him down, and in the end he had exhausted himself rolling around in the dirt of his own making.
Jang Jae-hong may have provided the spark, but one of the reasons Bae Do-hyun threw that punch that night was because he had already decided to give up on the dream of being a pro gamer.
"Anyway, so… I thought I was going to die like that, and then this happened. A twist of fate. Right?"
Gyeo-wool's gently smiling face. And behind her, another Gyeo-wool standing and looking at that version of herself with quiet pity.
Two people — a man and a woman — who wanted the same thing but possessed opposite halves of what it took. Now they inhabited a single body at the same time.
"I'm sorry about your friend. The fact that you've ended up as a soul like this isn't my fault, but… it's still a tragedy."
…It's fine. Honestly, I figured it didn't matter if I died. Just like you said.
"So here's the thing."
She had been ready to die anyway. She hadn't been hoping for a happy future. So why not start living for the things she actually wanted, beginning now?
Bae Do-hyun began sketching out a future designed for the two of them together.
"I don't know how you'll feel about this, but from now on, I'm going to work toward becoming a pro gamer."
Since Do-hyun was the one currently occupying the body, he would inevitably be the one in the driver's seat.
"But even if our situations were reversed right now, I would have made the same choice. Seriously."
…… Hmm.
Gyeo-wool seemed to be thinking it over, but she didn't look opposed.
Do whatever you want. Just… with one exception.
She set a single condition.
If you ever run into Do-jin oppa, you treat him well. No exceptions. Got it? That's mandatory. You have to. Absolutely. As long as you keep that promise, I don't have any complaints.
She would be watching the whole time — and if he broke the promise, she would interfere however she could. That was the clear subtext.
If Jin Gyeo-wool ever completely rejected Bae Do-hyun, there was a real chance Soul Assimilation would become unusable. So Do-hyun decided to accept her request.
No need to mention the soul erosion thing.
There was no way of knowing what the effects of soul erosion would be, or what would happen to the accompanying spirit Jin Gyeo-wool once it hit 100%.
But it was ten thousand games. He would have to play ten thousand games of Recon before that situation arrived.
Bae Do-hyun figured life was too short to start worrying about something years down the road.
"Alright."
And after staring at a girl this pretty for so long, the desire rising in him was getting hard to control.
"Hey, can I just touch the chest a little?"
……
The cute girl's face filled with pure disdain, but Do-hyun took the lack of a refusal as consent.
Gyeo-wool wasn't particularly inclined to refuse either. Control of the body already belonged to Do-hyun, and the hands doing the touching were ultimately her own.
Just a little…
Watching her own body behave strangely from a completely different vantage point simply left her with a deeply peculiar feeling.