Standing at the Crossroads of Choice
Ordinarily, when a high school student announces they want to drop out, the people who fight it hardest are the parents. Of course they would. What parent would be thrilled to hear their child suddenly wants to quit school?
Jin Gyeo-wool's parents, however, were the textbook definition of laissez-faire. Whatever she did, they largely left her alone.
Her father, Jin Man-ho, had been writing under his wife Min Cheong-ha's financial support since before they married, so he was in no position to challenge her approach to parenting. And Gyeo-wool had inherited her mother's formidable temperament. He wasn't so much a doting father as a man who turned into a complete fool the moment he stood in front of his daughter, terrified that poking the wrong nerve would get him torn apart.
Her mother, Min Cheong-ha, had let Gyeo-wool do whatever she wanted since she was little. The fact that she'd enrolled her athletic daughter in every combat sports academy imaginable was proof enough. And from the moment Gyeo-wool first recognized her own feelings for someone, Min Cheong-ha had simply let her follow everything Lee Do-jin did. She knew better than anyone that threats would never work on a daughter who took after her so completely.
Under those circumstances, the role of most actively opposing Gyeo-wool's withdrawal fell to her homeroom teacher, Kim Seongyeong.
"Are you really going to drop out?"
"Yes. It's not like my grades are amazing. I bounce around the middle of the pack. That isn't going to get me into a good university anyway."
In the faculty office during lunch period, Kim Seongyeong glanced at Gyeo-wool's most recent exam scores on her computer monitor and let out a short sigh.
She wasn't wrong. An average grade of 5.5 made any Seoul university impossible from the start. Gaming and studying both demanded a sharp mind — if she forced the girl to keep studying and she ended up mediocre at both, that would be the worst outcome of all.
But Gyeo-wool was yet another student launching a tiny boat toward the wide open world, oars in hand. Kim Seongyeong wanted to be even a small source of strength for her.
"I'll look into ways for you to get your diploma without dropping out."
"…Wouldn't that be difficult? Because of the attendance requirements."
"It would, but… I was thinking they might make accommodations for you the way they do for the specialized athletic students. Those kids and you both have to belong to a team, and tournament results matter, so you all need time to practice."
Still, holding a diploma papered over with a mediocre student record and transcript might be worse than simply taking the GED later, if she ever truly wanted to go to university.
The morning after the Presidential Cup finals, Gyeo-wool had already finished her conversation with Hon Gyeo-wool on the subject.
I don't care if I don't have a high school diploma.
You mean that?
Yeah. You don't care either, do you?
Well… yeah. Tournament titles matter more than a diploma.
…That way you can stay close to Do-jin oppa, right?
Probably?
Hon Gyeo-wool still couldn't let go of her feelings for Lee Do-jin. The mere mention of him made her face flush. She was a girl who usually looked at the world through the cold eyes of winter — but whenever Lee Do-jin came up, spring bloomed in her gaze.
How do I put this. Have you been meeting Do-jin oppa regularly?
Yeah. He said he'd help me so I don't make mistakes after debuting. He's been teaching me all kinds of things.
Ah. So that's what it was. No wonder.
Why? You sensing something?
Hon Gyeo-wool didn't answer Bae Do-hyun's question. She simply turned her head away with the shy expression of a girl in love, her face going red. Bae Do-hyun could more or less guess what she was feeling, so he didn't press.
Anyway, I… as long as I can stay close to Do-jin oppa, I don't care about anything else. Do whatever you want. Dropping out, joining a team — whatever. You're way better at that stuff than I am.
If she was going to entrust everything to him, all he could do was give it his best. After all, the true owner of this body was Hon Gyeo-wool. Bae Do-hyun was nothing more than her proxy.
"Um… Teacher, I'm really serious about going pro."
"Hm?"
"Do-jin o— I mean, Lee Do-jin told me. That you were his homeroom teacher when he dropped out."
"Ah… well, yeah, I was."
Gyeo-wool took Kim Seongyeong's hands, which had been resting on her knees, and held them. She wanted to convey her feelings and sincerity as raw and unfiltered as possible.
"Just like Lee Do-jin was serious, so am I. I want to invest every hour I have right now into Recon. And through that, I want to put up real results next year. I want to leave a mark in people's memories. That there was a player named Jin Gyeo-wool, and that her skill was truly incredible."
Trying to have it both ways was greed.
Life was short, time was scarce, and spreading yourself across too many things meant you could never beat a genius who poured everything into one. A tree receiving a fixed amount of nutrients needed regular pruning to stay healthy and live long. People weren't so different. If you didn't yet know the true ceiling of your potential, the right move was to commit fully to one path, see it through to the end, and only then reassess the other.
"So I'll put studying on hold. If I have to do it later, it won't be too late. And even if it is, I just have to work a little harder, right? If I put as much time into studying as I put into gaming, there's no reason I couldn't manage it."
The sight of Gyeo-wool — brimming with conviction, fully aware of what she was capable of, methodically closing in on her goal — stirred something in Kim Seongyeong. It felt entirely different from the time she had sent Do-jin out into the professional world.
Winter might end up even bigger than Do-jin. Unlike him, who never properly saw his own talent, she knows exactly what she's capable of.
Having finished her thought, Kim Seongyeong raised both hands in surrender, as if admitting defeat.
"Alright. You're right, Gyeo-wool."
At the same hour, in the culture desk office at Minjung Ilbo.
One reporter, apparently having gone without proper sleep after a long stretch of coverage, was dead asleep at his desk with a pillow under his head, drool trailing from the corner of his mouth.
Other reporters were noisily taking calls and bustling about all around him, yet he didn't so much as twitch. He must have been exhausted beyond measure.
Department Head Ma Yun-seok walked into the office holding a plastic cup of Americano half-drunk, fresh from a post-lunch cigarette break with a peer from a neighboring department.
His eyes landed on Yun Dong-seop's desk — right in front of his own, at the far end of the office — and a deep crease cut across his brow.
Ma Yun-seok strode over to Yun Dong-seop's seat and stood beside the sleeping man, calling out briefly.
"Hey."
Every pair of eyes in the office flicked toward the two of them for a moment. But this was a familiar enough scene that people just smirked and went back to their own work.
Ma Yun-seok pulled his right hand from his pocket and started jabbing Yun Dong-seop's shoulder. His subordinate had said he'd sleep for just one hour and was already four hours deep. The sight of it was almost offensive.
"Hey!"
Ma Yun-seok's voice rose, but the unconscious man's ears refused to listen. His brain was so drowned in sleep it probably couldn't even register that a sound existed.
Ma Yun-seok gathered himself for a moment, then bellowed with full force. The office rang with it — and still, not a single person looked their way.
"Hey, Yun Dong-seop!"
"Wh-what is it!"
Yun Dong-seop shot upright and stared straight ahead. The sound had come from his left, but he was too sleep-drunk to process that level of detail.
"Hey. Is this your house? You bring a blanket from home and just sprawl out all cozy in your chair?"
"…Oh. Is that all? I thought a war had broken out."
"A war, you damn idiot. Why the hell are you still sleeping! Get out there and do your job already!"
Ma Yun-seok's calloused hand flew out and smacked Yun Dong-seop hard across the back of the head. With a yelp, the half-awake reporter's head slumped forward onto the pillow.
In a drained voice, he lifted his head again and slowly turned to check the wall clock. His phone was right by his head, but he was still too foggy to even think of looking for it.
Still, he had to say his piece. It was time to explain why he'd been sprawled out sleeping until now. He spun his chair around, stood up, and faced Ma Yun-seok squarely.
"The interview I had scheduled for this afternoon fell through."
"What?"
"The player I was supposed to interview suddenly had to go on an overseas trip, so it got pushed to next week."
Yun Dong-seop said it with complete confidence, but Department Head Ma was speechless. If a shoot fell through, you used the time to chase another story, or prepped materials for something else, or worked the phones to get a read on the industry — any of those would have been fine.
What was even more absurd was that he'd only found out about the cancellation today. Ma Yun-seok tilted an eyebrow and looked at Reporter Yun with pure disdain, then flung a sharp remark that was meant to sting.
"Nice work. Not even checking your schedule ahead of time. That's so like you."
But Yun Dong-seop was long accustomed to Department Head Ma's needling style. His defenses were already maxed out. Words like that didn't hurt anymore.
"Well, that's not exactly my fault, is it? These kids doing whatever they want isn't exactly new."
That much was true. But he still shouldn't have said it that way.
Ma Yun-seok's hand cracked across the back of Yun Dong-seop's head a second time.
"Even so. You eat because of those kids. You can't talk behind their backs like that. You ought to go thank them and bow, and even that wouldn't be enough."
Hit twice, Yun Dong-seop was finally awake, the back of his head stinging. He grimaced and rubbed it as he answered.
"Aigoo, Department Head, you don't go out into the field yourself, so you wouldn't know. These kids don't listen to a word you say. So what if they're good at games? Their character's not there yet. They're completely out of control."
"Ahaha! Fair enough. I'll give you that one."
"You're agreeing with me, Department Head?"
"You little punk."
From across the way, Yun Dong-seop's junior — who had been hammering away at a keyboard writing an article — let out a complaint at the flood of mismatched youth slang.
"Both of you, never exchange jokes like that in front of the kids. Their faces just die."
"What? Why? Everyone uses that stuff."
"That trend died ages ago."
"Already? Well, good luck keeping up with how fast kids' slang changes."
Ma Yun-seok laughed easily and went back to his seat. When he set the disposable coffee cup on his desk, the condensation clinging to it dripped onto the glass cover.
He lowered his heavy body into the chair and was about to reach for his mouse and keyboard when his gaze naturally drifted to a sticky note stuck beside the monitor. He let out a short ah, then gestured for Yun Dong-seop.
"Yun Dong-seop. Since your schedule's blown open, go cover this instead."
Yun Dong-seop, who had been leaning his upper body at about a forty-five-degree angle while gauging whether he could go back to sleep, groaned and forced himself upright again. Annoyance was written all over his eyes.
"What is this?"
"What do you think. The biggest hot issue in the esports scene right now, according to my source. And you — you free from November ninth through the eleventh? You're free, right?"
Did he have something scheduled? His eyes went to the desk calendar standing on his desk. November tenth had several red hearts drawn on it, along with writing. An absolutely unmissable, critical appointment.
Yun Dong-seop started laying groundwork to argue that he could cover something immediately, but November was impossible.
"Well… right now is fine, but that period might be tough?"
"Why not?"
"It's my wedding anniversary. I'll actually die, Department Head."
The moment the words left his mouth, Ma Yun-seok's mockery came flying.
"Aigoo, maybe if you'd taken better care of her normally. You think your wife is actually going to be happy just because you're suddenly paying attention now?"
"Ah, Department Head, come on!"
But the interview subject written on that sticky note was someone Yun Dong-seop had wanted to meet at least once himself. November might be difficult, but if he got the interview done early, there was no need to meet her then, was there? And the girl in question would still be in Korea in September, so meeting her now would be easier anyway.
Skipping an interview wouldn't get him fired. Failing to observe his wedding anniversary might cost him his life. To protect that life, Yun Dong-seop carefully cut a deal with Ma Yun-seok.
"I'll go cover it right now. That works better for you too, right, Department Head?"
Ma Yun-seok, who had already known from the calendar on Yun Dong-seop's desk that the anniversary was November tenth, grinned and nodded twice.