Can Winter Be Warm Too, Spring
The internet was losing its mind.
It wasn't just Jin Gyeo-wool's looks going viral — her old remarks from the Hwasong High tournament had been dug back up too. Overnight, she became Recon Gallery's flash-in-the-pan idol.
Of course, with the broadcasted tournament still a ways off, the frenzy didn't last long. That was only natural — the 2018 CCK Summer season was in full swing. And this season, just like before, Lee Do-jin's team, Hyunseong Universe, was tanking hard.
Under normal circumstances, he might have lent wings to the rumors swirling around Gyeo-wool. Instead, Do-jin was vacuuming up every scrap of attention himself, and the spotlight that should have fallen on her drifted away like smoke.
So today, as always, Recon Gallery was busy praising Jang Jae-hong and tearing into Lee Do-jin. The two fandoms were split down the middle, locked in their usual death match.
In a situation like that, there wasn't much Jin Gyeo-wool could do.
Play League of Council.
And every Monday, go through behavioral correction practice with Lee Do-jin.
"I'm going to throw some expected interview questions at you. Answer them properly."
"Okay."
The sessions mostly took place at Gyeo-wool's house. Do-jin had enough of a public profile that meeting outside risked drawing unwanted stares and unnecessary hassle.
"As the first female player to advance to the national finals of the Presidential Cup Recon Amateur Tournament, could you share a few words about how you feel?"
Gyeo-wool answered the first question with confidence, drawing on everything she'd practiced.
"I don't think being the first woman to advance is particularly important. I've simply been one user who loves, enjoys, and cherishes League of Council. My goal has always been the same, then and now. To become a beloved pro gamer, lift the CCK championship trophy, and go even further — to raise the World Championship trophy."
Even by her own assessment, it was a clean, flawless statement. Gyeo-wool clapped for herself with mock admiration.
"A little overflowing with confidence, maybe… but I guess that's fine."
Hearing that, Gyeo-wool shot Do-jin a scolding look.
"Come on. This much is standard these days, isn't it? You're the one being too careful. A little extra confidence is just fighting spirit."
"There you go again. I told you not to call me 'you.'"
"Oops."
Truthfully, the interview side of things wasn't much of a problem. Hon Gyeo-wool's personality might have been rotten, but Bae Do-hyun hadn't inherited that particular trait wholesale. You could tell just from the way he naturally drew people in — Do-hyun had always been good with words. A top laner packing serious brainpower. It would have been stranger if he couldn't put together a coherent sentence.
The real problem lay elsewhere.
Bae Do-hyun was a man. He had lived as one for over twenty years.
"Oppa."
"……."
So the word oppa sat heavy on his tongue. Unnie was no better.
Gyeo-wool waved her hands and offered a substitute.
"Lee Do-jin-nim."
"I told you to call me oppa."
"Ah……. That's a little…."
Do-jin could only find it strange. She used to call him oppa so easily. She'd even gotten her memories back — so why wouldn't she say it now?
"What's so hard about saying the word oppa?"
It was hard. Nowhere near as easy as it sounded.
Gyeo-wool dropped her gaze and chewed her lip.
"Can't I just call you hyung?"
Honestly, there was no real need for any of those older-sibling titles — hyung, oppa, whatever. Bae Do-hyun's original age was mid-twenties, after all.
"Hyung, my ass. I already told you standing out is a problem."
"Ugh……. I really hate this."
If Gyeo-wool debuted, whether she wanted it or not, every eye in the scene would lock onto her. The people who lived on Recon Gallery were bored people. When they ran out of fresh bait, they naturally circled back to the familiar kind. If Gyeo-wool showed even a hint of eccentricity, she'd become prime feeding material.
The Lee Do-jin discourse had been rolling for years already. And now, right on cue, a female Challenger who happened to know him showed up? That was bait optimization incarnate. They would walk the razor's edge, biting and tearing and chewing her over. Pro gamers had images to maintain, after all — unless a comment fully crossed the line, there was almost nothing you could do to shut it down.
"Hurry up. If you don't practice now, there's definitely going to be a problem."
"What kind of problem?"
"Are you going to call every older person 'hey, you' too?"
"Most of them have titles. Coach So-and-so. Coach Such-and-such. Player Whoever. How often am I actually going to need to say oppa?"
Do-jin flinched. That was a viciously logical rebuttal — not very Gyeo-wool of her.
"Ah, well… once you get close! Everyone does the whole oppa-dongsaeng thing. That's why I'm telling you to practice ahead of time. What if there's someone older on your team? Are you going to keep calling them 'Player So-and-so'? That's not how it works. Teammates need to talk comfortably with each other."
"Then I'll just call them 'hey.'"
"I already said that doesn't work."
Do-jin was weirdly insistent about the word oppa. Watching him, Gyeo-wool felt a strange thought take shape.
Why is he so hung up on being called oppa?
It wasn't hard to guess. Do-jin and Hon Gyeo-wool had spent a long time together as oppa and dongsaeng. Hon Gyeo-wool had even been in love with him, throwing herself at him at every opportunity. So for Do-jin, Gyeo-wool running up yelling "Oppa!" felt natural. That was why he kept pushing for it. Hyung, or any other title, simply wasn't familiar.
This guy… he pushed her away so hard, but deep down he liked being called oppa, didn't he…?
A smile tugged at the corner of Gyeo-wool's mouth, as if she'd just found a weakness. Maybe, if she played this right, she could sweet-talk this giant of a pro gamer into doing whatever she wanted.
Using the word oppa was genuinely awful. But if it meant freely steering a heavyweight like Lee Do-jin…
Gyeo-wool decided to sell her soul to the devil.
"Oppa!"
"…Yeah. Good. That's nice."
Watching Do-jin's face flush for a second, Gyeo-wool laughed inwardly. She'd thought of him as a full-grown adult, but he was still just a kid who only knew games — and that was pretty entertaining.
And once she'd said it, it wasn't nearly as burdensome as she'd expected. She didn't know why. Maybe because Hon Gyeo-wool had used it so often that her tongue and lips accepted it on instinct.
"Oppa."
"Huh?"
"Oppa. Oppa."
Every time she said it, Do-jin pulled back with an uncomfortable look on his face. Gyeo-wool smiled like a gamer who'd just acquired an excellent weapon.
She had no idea that, without even realizing it, she was collecting weaknesses on the people around her one by one.
On Choi Do-yun: the feeling of love. On Gong Je-hyeon: the feeling of fear. On Yu Min-jae: the feeling of pity. On Ha Jeong-uk: the feeling of admiration. And on Lee Do-jin: the feeling of affection.
She held a weapon for dealing with every one of them — but of all those weapons, the only one she'd truly learned how to wield was the method for handling Lee Do-jin.
"Let's play."
"…Yeah, let's."
Still, scattering the word oppa around freely felt wrong. Hon Gyeo-wool probably hadn't called anyone else that either. If she had, it wouldn't feel so strangely free only with Do-jin.
On the way home from Gyeo-wool's house, Lee Do-jin ran headlong into a sudden surge of emotion.
It was a feeling he couldn't quite understand. It felt good, but also… there was a sweetness to it he had never noticed before.
He had never seen Gyeo-wool make that kind of face either.
As a child, Gyeo-wool had been like a dog. Not as an insult — as a genuine metaphor. She really did come running like one. The moment she spotted Do-jin, she'd try to throw her arms around him. If she heard he was coming, she'd bolt to the front door and wait with desperate devotion. If he said he was leaving, she'd cling to his ankles and get dragged along, begging him not to go.
If that wasn't a dog, what was it?
But back then, he had been in the thick of his pro career — every scrap of focus poured into practice and team management still hadn't felt like enough. Gyeo-wool might have been showing pure affection, but to Do-jin in that period, nothing could have been more burdensome. Try to concentrate on his work and she'd sulk like he'd disappointed her. Try to give her attention and he simply didn't have the hours. And yet he couldn't fully neglect her either — not with a personality that volatile.
In short, he had been stuck in an awkward middle ground, unable to move either way.
Then she lost her memories once, and the person who came back was different. The girl who had been a disaster of a personality, who did whatever she wanted and refused to practice no matter how many times you told her — she became terrifyingly calm and diligent, as if Lee Bom's personality had been layered over her own.
And that wasn't all.
Just now, when he heard the word oppa from her for the first time in so long, new leaves had sprouted on the withered flower tree inside his chest.
That tree had put down roots in Do-jin's heart a long time ago. More precisely, from the very earliest days — from the first time he and Gyeo-wool ever met as small children. But the moment he debuted as a pro gamer, the thriving flower tree had been sealed away deep inside him beneath a great dome-shaped shell. Years of blocked sunlight and no water.
Then Do-jin lost his little sister, and his heart twisted hard.
He couldn't have known. He couldn't have known that the massive earthquake of that loss would shatter the walls of the shelter locking away the flower tree Gyeo-wool had grown. He couldn't have known that the moment her warm sunlight poured back in through the cracks, the dying tree would drive its roots even deeper into the ground.
That meaningless request — just call me oppa — had set off another earthquake in his chest.
A heavy thud, and the shelter walls shook. Oppa, oppa, oppa — a few enormous impacts, and the shelter collapsed completely.
In person she was as rough and easygoing as any guy friend — and the moment they parted, the care for his state of mind followed naturally. Do-jin had to work hard to steady his shaking heart.
…She's grown up. She really has.
He noticed it every time he saw her, but Gyeo-wool's development these days was something else. He'd been deliberately ignoring it, but at eighteen she had already reached the realm of goddesses. It was summer, and every time she came to see him she wore thin T-shirts and short three-quarter pants — and every time, he had to fight to keep his eyes from drifting to her thighs. That wasn't even the half of it. She smelled strangely good too. An adult scent, maybe. Something soft that tickled the tip of his nose…
But Lee Do-jin was deceiving himself.
Jin Gyeo-wool was never going to hold private feelings or affection for him. Right now, the only thing filling her head was how best to use him.