Has Spring Become a Legion? (2)

Ever since they'd secured a practice room and thrown themselves into proper tournament prep, time had started slipping away like water through open fingers.

He'd been sure there was plenty of it left — and then he blinked, and it was late June.

Barely a month remained until the Seoul regional finals.

In that stretch, Jin Gyeo-wool had grown at a staggering pace, and she'd even unlocked a way to restore the Companion Spirit's hidden reserves of activity.

The problems the Companion Spirit had been carrying — problems even Jin Gyeo-wool could sense — were the fractured relationship with her mother, and the restoration of a shattered image.

But the newly added Touching Fates wasn't an unalloyed blessing.

Restoring activity meant handing over complete control of the body.

There wasn't even a detailed tooltip — no way to know how many hours of sleep recovered how much. The only options were to wait for the erosion rate to climb high enough to unlock the conditions, or hope another Memory Ledger clear cracked it open.

Everything else aside, the real problem was surrendering control.

If I give the body to Wool-i right now…

There was no telling what she'd do.

However calm Hon Gyeo-wool looked inside the mirror world, there was no guarantee she'd behave the same way out here ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in reality. Even Bae Do-hyun, after confirming Lee Bom's death, had only gone quiet once he stepped into the mirror world — into the realm of the unconscious.

So the smartest move was either to lock down a firm agreement beforehand so Hon Gyeo-wool wouldn't do anything reckless, or simply keep her from wandering off at all.

…I'll leave it alone for a while.

For the moment, there was no need to burn Companion Spirit activity through Spring and Winter anyway. The all-night grind sessions of early tournament prep were behind them.

More importantly, once Memory Erosion crossed thirty percent, both brain and body had vaulted to a 1st-Class level.

And what did that mean?

It meant Jin Gyeo-wool was one step from Challenger.

"Commander unnie, are you insane?"

Gong Je-hyeon was the same age as her, and he'd already upgraded his title once — from team captain unnie to this. The team was called a legion now, so Jin Gyeo-wool wasn't a captain anymore. She was the Legion Commander.

"No, seriously, what are you doing climbing the ladder alone like this? Show your teammates a little consideration."

Mid-game, Jin Gyeo-wool shot back without looking up.

"…Bullshit. Then climb it yourselves."

"I mean, I've been trying and I just can't…?"

They couldn't run team ranked every single session. Solo practice time was hardly scarce. Everyone pushed their tiers through solo queue and duo queue alike — but the only one posting results that actually jumped off the screen was Jin Gyeo-wool.

Yu Min-jae, who'd been listening to the two of them bicker, muttered under his breath.

"It's good if even one of us hits Challenger fast. The higher Winter unnie climbs, the more the rest of us can study other lanes off her replays."

Dry, blunt, and dead on the money. Gong Je-hyeon looked thoroughly done with life and slunk back to his seat.

A mid-checkpoint, then: everyone except Jin Gyeo-wool was still stuck in Grandmaster on the solo ladder. It couldn't be helped. Tiers didn't rocket up just because you wanted them to, and unlike team ranked, solo queue loved to send you sliding backward. In the heavenly realm, even if your team played well, you still lost if the enemy played better. That was just how it worked.

Jin Gyeo-wool, bundled in a thick cardigan, shivered her way through the end of a game and grumbled under her breath. The AC might as well have been Siberian.

"Ugh, it's freezing. Who cranked the air conditioning this hard?"

"That'd be me, Commander."

She snatched up the remote and checked the set temperature.

Eighteen degrees? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Was he trying to freeze them all to death?

Her finger jabbed the number up to twenty-four with pure spite.

"You're a stick figure — why do you need the AC blasting like this? Aren't you cold?"

"I run a little hot. Haha."

Jin Gyeo-wool narrowed her eyes at Gong Je-hyeon, then exhaled a short sigh and turned toward the soundproof room's exit.

It was already six in the evening. Saturday or not, they'd been practicing since early morning, and everyone looked a little worn down.

"Choi Do-yun. Come with me a second."

"Huh? Me?"

Jin Gyeo-wool pushed open the soundproof door and stretched hard. Unlike the frozen wasteland of the practice room, the lounge was warm. Cardigan slung over one arm, she headed for the massage chair, Choi Do-yun trailing after her like a duckling.

As the machine rumbled and kneaded every inch of her body, Jin Gyeo-wool spoke.

"You've been paying attention to a lot of useless stuff lately."

"…M-me?! When did I ever?"

Choi Do-yun crossed his arms and waved them frantically, insisting it couldn't be true. But Jin Gyeo-wool had noticed ages ago that her first little subordinate had been acting strange.

"Go easy on the hair product. You're in a headset all day — whatever you put in just gets crushed flat. And are you wearing cologne? I can smell it next to me during practice. It's wrecking my focus."

"…Ah."

The hair product had been a bid — however small — for Jin Gyeo-wool's attention. The cologne was insurance against body odor. It was summer; sweat was becoming a real problem. He'd figured he was being considerate, making sure Jin Gyeo-wool wouldn't have to suffer unpleasant smells stuck between four guys.

After all, Jin Gyeo-wool smelled good without putting on a thing. Choi Do-yun did not.

"I'll stop with the hair stuff. The cologne was because I was worried about smelling like sweat… is it really that distracting during practice?"

Not catastrophically distracting — but enough to snag at her nerves. Jin Gyeo-wool pointed through the glass at Gong Je-hyeon, who was currently behaving like a monkey inside the soundproof room.

"That bastard runs full arctic blast all day long. You don't need to worry about sweat. Did you not see me wearing a cardigan until just now because I was freezing?"

"I saw."

"So what sweat?"

If this kept going, the infinite-scolding express was about to pull into the station. Jin Gyeo-wool was already hovering near Challenger and interfering more and more with her teammates' play; if she started picking apart his personal life on top of that, the suffering would double. Choi Do-yun quickly grasped that flashing immediate compliance was the only path to survival.

When a wife like Jin Gyeo-wool delivered affectionate nagging, you took it at face value. He'd gladly give her a foot massage and get scolded with gratitude ten times over. Talk back, and the nagging turned painful.

"Sorry. I won't spray it anymore."

"If it really bothers you that much, use something other than cologne."

Still reclined in the massage chair, Jin Gyeo-wool ordered Choi Do-yun to fetch her backpack. She rummaged through the bag he handed over and produced something that looked like a small spray bottle.

"Deodorant spray. The scent isn't that strong, and it cuts down on underarm sweat — which means less BO, right?"

Underarm sweat and BO, dropped into the conversation without warning. The bluntness of her phrasing left Choi Do-yun flustered.

"Wanna try some? It's pretty refreshing."

"Uh… isn't that for women?"

"Does deodorant have a gender?"

Truthfully, Jin Gyeo-wool hadn't wanted to carry the thing in the first place and barely knew anything about it. Han Yeo-reum had jammed it into her bag by force, insisting it was basic manners when guys and girls lived in the same space.

And had she actually used it just because she'd been forced to take it? Of course not. Jin Gyeo-wool was a pretty girl who smelled good after a shower alone, and she barely sweated even in the heat. Just now she'd simply been passing along what Han Yeo-reum had told her, word for word.

"Arm up. Try a spray. If you like it, use it."

"What do you mean, arm up?!"

Even unloading one annoying item from her bag like this counted as a win. Jin Gyeo-wool kept pushing like a door-to-door salesman — just try it, just try it — and Choi Do-yun finally caved, deodorant landing in his hand.

"It's yours now."

"…Huh? What? This is yours, unnie!"

"Take it. I don't use it anyway. Spray it and get back in here so we can practice."

Her short massage course finished, Jin Gyeo-wool sat up, dumped the bag she'd left beside the chair back onto the sofa, and disappeared into the soundproof room.

Choi Do-yun was left standing there alone, thoroughly bewildered.

"…Is this a present?"

This scenario hadn't been on the list Choi Go-yun had given him of things girls do when they like a guy. If he stretched it, maybe it fit under item seven — she pays for things. Either way, she'd just handed him something she'd bought, no warning.

He gave the can a gentle shake. Plenty of product left. He'd never been on the receiving end of a girl's "here, I found this, you take it" before, and it stirred a strangely buoyant feeling in his chest.

Choi Do-yun decided he'd have to repay her soon, then blasted both underarms with deodorant and bolted back into the soundproof room.

The moment he stepped inside, he found Gong Je-hyeon on his knees, hair clenched in Jin Gyeo-wool's fist, begging for mercy.

"Aaaah! Aaaah!!"

"I set it to twenty-four and walked out for five seconds, and you already dropped it back to eighteen?"

"I was hot, what was I supposed to do!"

"You're the only one who's hot. Everyone else is freezing."

"Okay, okay, just let go of my hair!"

"Are you going to lower it again or not."

"Twenty-four degrees, locked in, Commander."

After a brief negotiation that wasn't really a negotiation, Gong Je-hyeon was the clear loser. Ha Jeong-uk clicked his tongue — tsk tsk — as if to say, why pick a fight you can't win?

But Gong Je-hyeon was a weed of a jester, the kind that bounced back no matter how hard you stomped him.

"For real, Jin Gyeo-wool. When Han Yeo-reum gets here, I'm telling her everything."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

There was a reason for the threat. Every time Jin Gyeo-wool acted too much like a guy, Han Yeo-reum would swoop in like a live-in governess and try to correct her behavior. For Jin Gyeo-wool, that was pure torment. Someone who'd lived Bae Do-hyun's entire life, ordered to act like a girl? Crossing her legs when she sat was about as far as she could manage. Anything beyond that was a hard no.

"…You tell her and see what happens."

"Oh, I'm telling!"

"Aigoo. This guy never shuts up."

"Gyaaah! My hair! My hair! Not the hair!"

Jin Gyeo-wool felt something off.

Before, when they traded banter like this, the fist would have come out first. That was how guys talked, wasn't it? But lately, whenever she decided a teammate needed a sharp lesson, her hand went straight for the hair. Every time irritation spiked, her fingers found a handful of scalp whether she wanted them to or not.

Same thing right now. Gong Je-hyeon had been a pain. She could have clipped him in the throat, low-kicked him, or slapped him across the back. And where did her hand go? Straight to the hair.

Is this another side effect of Soul Assimilation?

It seemed plausible enough. The way she got heated during games was answer enough. Bae Do-hyun might be sitting in the control center, but the body's owner was Hon Gyeo-wool — a kind of bug in the system.

"We're heeere~! Everybody, dinner time!"

In the end, Jin Gyeo-wool was still gripping Gong Je-hyeon's hair when Han Yeo-reum and Cha Ga-eul arrived and walked into the soundproof room.

Getting chewed out by Han Yeo-reum over dinner was a foregone conclusion.

"Gyeo-wool, Gyeo-wool… why are you turning violent again!"

"That's because that bas— that guy keeps provoking violence."

"What, is turning the AC down because I'm hot a crime now?!"

I already told you it was cold. Jin Gyeo-wool leveled an axe-eyed glare at Gong Je-hyeon, and he flinched and ducked behind Han Yeo-reum.

Look at him. The second he got the chance, he hid behind Yeo-reum and played the victim.

A long sigh drained out of her. Face full of discontent, Jin Gyeo-wool brought her chopsticks to a pork cutlet kimbap. As the crisp texture filled her mouth, the sensation from a moment ago — fistful of hair in hand — replayed in her head.

There's a weird sense of calm to it…

She didn't know why, but the instant she went into root-harvesting prep stance, her mind settled. A bizarre phenomenon. Every so often the anger slipped the leash entirely — and even then, grabbing a handful of hair felt like it might be enough ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to bring it back under control.

Still wearing a vacant expression as she swallowed the kimbap, Jin Gyeo-wool suddenly reached out and seized Yu Min-jae's hair.

But Yu Min-jae was the only person who knew the full depth of Jin Gyeo-wool's desperate situation. If she wanted his hair, she could have it ten times a day. Even now, with a whole fistful of it defying gravity and standing straight up, his face was a portrait of serene peace.

"……"

The complete lack of reaction left the sensors inside Jin Gyeo-wool's body dead. No way to regulate anger like this. Her hand drifted, as if by instinct, back toward Gong Je-hyeon's head.

"Yeah. This is the one."

"Aaack! Hey! We're eating!"

"Gyeo-wool, Gyeo-wool~!!"

An astonishing calming effect, spreading through her whole body like instant medicine. It was a side effect of growing up grabbing her older brother's hair since childhood — but the Jin Gyeo-wool of right now had no way of knowing that.