Hero Academy (3-16)
"…She's late."
After Cho Seohyun last time, was I about to get stood up by SaintBlue now?
I sat alone in the waiting lobby, staring at the scenery around me as I opened a channel.
Come to think of it, what was SaintBlue thinking when she sent me that friend request?
The first: she had been so impressed by my skill that she wanted to climb the ranks the honest way, the same as she always had.
I dismissed that one on the spot.
She doesn't even like games that much. I don't know the guy, but her boyfriend is supposedly good at them — so there's no real reason for her to latch onto me.
The second: BugKiller had deliberately pointed SaintBlue in my direction.
…That's plausible.
From what I had seen of her, SaintBlue seemed like the type who had a hard time turning people down. And if the one asking was her boyfriend, refusing would be even harder.
BugKiller had clearly been enjoying himself, massacring people in normal matches. For a guy who got off on that to suddenly get his face stomped in by a beginner?
He would never swallow that.
We had only queued together for three games, but it had been more than enough to tell that his personality was garbage.
Well, whether he set her on me or not… the fact that she still hasn't shown up means either something came up, or she got bored. One of the two.
I was still debating whether to just queue solo when—
"Hm?"
Friend SaintBlue has logged in.
SaintBlue logged in, but she didn't queue into a match. Instead, she came to me asking for advice.
The subject was her boyfriend.
"I know things don't always go well… but he just looks so worn down today."
"Hmm…"
"Since you're a man too, could you maybe give me some advice on how to comfort him?"
Apparently her boyfriend, who usually delivered outstanding results, had recently made a mistake that caused real trouble at work, and it had left him completely deflated. She didn't give me the full details, of course — she was simply asking how she ought to handle a boyfriend whose whole mood had shifted from the usual.
"He's always been so good at everything that I just don't know what to do when it's like this."
"Just leave him alone."
"What? You mean… don't say anything at all?"
"Talk to him the way you normally would. Stick to what needs to be said, and avoid anything work-related as much as you can."
The core of my advice was simple. I told her that men have a strong tendency not to want anyone seeing them look pathetic. They hate having their failures put on display, so during a stretch like that, it was better to keep a little distance and keep the conversation to practical necessities.
"If whatever he's working on starts going well again, then you can praise him. That's enough."
"…That does sound right."
SaintBlue nodded, accepting what I had said.
Armonia cut in, sounding puzzled by my counsel.
Honestly, I was just winging it.
Being a man doesn't mean I understand every man alive.
There was no emptier claim in the world than "men understand men." There were no correct answers in human relationships. Even something that looked like the right answer could turn out, years later, to have been a fatal mistake — that was just how life worked.
The real reason I had said what I said had nothing to do with helping BugKiller. I wanted SaintBlue to put a little healthy distance between herself and that guy.
If I got lucky, BugKiller might take her sudden coolness the wrong way, throw a tantrum, and they would actually break up…
Not that any of that is my problem.
I hummed the thought to myself and turned back to SaintBlue.
"For now, how about we play a match to clear your head?"
"Haa…"
A soft breath broke the dark, and the lights came on. Seong Sua looked around the inside of her dorm, slipped off her heels, and stepped slowly inside.
Only a few days ago the place had been a mess. Now it was neatly put in order.
She sank into a chair at the table, drained, and let the day replay itself in her mind. Plenty of things had happened — but only one of them kept rising to the surface.
A man's hands.
Seong Sua had done everything she could to keep the sounds from leaving her mouth while Sung Suho's hands worked over her. At some point, though, she had lost the fight and the soft noises had started slipping free.
The memory hit her hard enough that she shook her head and stood up from the chair.
"Get a grip…"
She undressed slowly, hung her clothes on a hanger, and stepped into the shower. Hot water ran over her body as she closed her eyes.
The moment her lids shut, a scene rose up again.
May I work on a different area?
Of course. Do as you like.
It was the dream — the younger version of Sung Suho massaging her. Seong Sua wanted desperately to scrub that memory out of her head.
Not because of disgust. Not because of fear.
Because of guilt.
Every time she saw Sung Suho inside VR, the same feeling surged up in her: the desire to have a child like him. VR was not reality, of course — but in that place where no one was watching, it had always felt close enough to the truth.
And now she was carrying the guilt of having done that with the Sung Suho she had once thought of, in a dream, as something like a son.
"Haa… haa…"
Guilt or not, she could feel a hot current coiling low in her belly. Her hand began to drift downward.
Warm water slicked the soft hair between her legs — carefully shaped, not a stray strand out of place. She had always kept herself ready. She had tended to every detail, imagining that someday the eyes of the person she loved might fall on her bare body.
Those eyes never had.
The one who had freely touched her instead was a near-stranger she had known for less than a month.
Thinking of that man, Seong Sua let her hand slip beneath the neat line of hair. The instant her fingers brushed the small peak—
"Huu… I can't do this."
She pressed her lips tight, forced down the heat surging through her lower belly, finished her shower, and went to bed.
After afternoon classes, Seong Sua walked out to the campus parking lot with Sung Suho. The lot was packed with cars so expensive that a single scratch would probably cost more than his entire annual salary.
She stopped in front of one of them. She was just opening the door and about to climb in when she caught the look on Sung Suho's face — pure astonishment as he stared at the vehicle.
"Wow… this car looks incredible."
"Hehe… get in."
Watching him peer around the interior with open curiosity, Seong Sua smiled.
Most of the time he seems so adult, but moments like this he turns into a kid… He's an interesting person.
With him beside her, she turned the ignition and set off to buy Animal Village.
Driving all this way for a single game might have looked absurdly overblown. But when the game in question was a VR title, it was nothing of the sort.
After roughly an hour on the road, they arrived at a building so tall it barely looked like a place to buy games at all. Seong Sua parked, then led Sung Suho inside.
In the elevator, he eyed the absurd number of floor buttons and asked,
"Which floor?"
"Let's start at the first floor and get directions."
They went to the information desk on the ground level and asked. The attendant explained that game purchases could be made freely on any floor, so they only needed to go up one level.
Sung Suho turned to her, startled.
"Don't tell me this entire building is a game shop?"
"Hehe… Not so much a game shop as a building dedicated to VR systems."
VR games were not simple software you could pick up off a street-corner shelf. The hardware itself was so expensive that buying the software required a complicated process. The result was a massive building planted in a high-traffic area, with every facility concentrated under one roof — or so she explained.
Once they were back in the elevator, Seong Sua finished the rest.
"You can also do VR demos here. They have every game, and the company actually recommends trying them before you buy."
"Wow… so the whole building exists to sell both the hardware and the software."
"That's right."
Given how expensive the devices were, the company ran the place like a giant showroom, all in the name of sales. Floors one through twenty were for game demos; everything above that was for commercial software outside of games.
Their only purpose today was to buy a game, so the second floor would have been enough.
They rode the elevator — and arrived not at the second floor, but the twentieth.
They had clearly been told software could be purchased on any floor, so Sung Suho looked at her with a puzzled frown.
"Uh… we can buy software on the second floor too, can't we?"
Seong Sua answered with a bright, easy smile.
"Since we're already here, we might as well try a few other things."
Most VR demo areas were at least somewhat open — people wandering the building could drop into an empty chair and try a headset whenever they liked.
The space Seong Sua and Sung Suho were in now was nothing like that. It was a fully sealed private room where the two of them could sit comfortably and experience VR without anyone watching.
Sung Suho looked around the enclosed suite and let out an impressed breath.
"I guess people with money really do get different treatment."
Compared to the open demo stations outside, a private room like this was only available because Seong Sua already had a purchase history for VR hardware on file.
"This place is still a company, after all."
A business built around driving sales would naturally pour more benefits onto customers who were easy to sell to again. That was just common sense.
"Yeah, that tracks. Well then…"
Sung Suho nodded, sat down in one of the chairs, fitted the VR headgear, and logged in. Watching him, Seong Sua took the seat beside his and connected as well.
The moment she entered, Sung Suho was right there in front of her.
She was so used to seeing only his child form inside VR that looking at him like this left a strange little ache of disappointment. And with that disappointment came the younger Sung Suho from her dream, rising up all over again.
…No. Don't think weird things!
Seong Sua forced herself steady, put on a smile, and spoke.
"While we're here, want to try a few other games?"
"Sounds good to me."
Scrolling through the list beside him, she asked,
"What genres do you like, by the way?"
"Hmm… as long as it isn't shooting or rhythm, I pretty much like everything."
"Then…"
She scrolled calmly down the list until Animal Village caught her eye.
This would be the safest choice… but we can play it later anyway…
She was about to keep scrolling when she noticed a red mark sitting next to the title. Seong Sua glanced sideways at Sung Suho for a second. He was looking around the dark virtual space, not paying any particular attention to the list.
"The interior spaces in VR all look pretty similar, don't they?"
"Haha…"
She burned the mark beside Animal Village into her memory, then went back to browsing the list.
After that, Seong Sua and Sung Suho spent roughly three hours demoing games inside the VR room. Most of what they played were short sample runs, but the immersive nature of VR left both of them thoroughly satisfied by the time they stepped back out.
The moment they left the room, Seong Sua turned to him.
"I'm going to go buy the game first. Wait here just a moment."
"Sure, no problem."
Sung Suho took her at her word and began looking around with open curiosity. While his attention was elsewhere, Seong Sua went to the software counter on the twentieth floor and made her purchase.
Identity verification complete.
We hope you enjoy your play.
"Um…"
Instead of answering the clerk's farewell, Seong Sua asked a question of her own — leaning in and dropping her voice so no one nearby could overhear.
The employee nodded and answered.
"Yes. Animal Village is rated for all ages, but it can be unlocked into an adult version."