Why Are You Coming Out of There?! - 1
Nam Jinwook clicked his mouse and moved the champion on his monitor. Then he wiped out the tiny enemies. Every time he did, coins and experience piled up.
In the real world, the more you work, the more money seems to leak away.
But in the game world, you could earn a living with such refreshing honesty.
“....”
Getting old really does make you start having strange thoughts, even when you’re playing a game.
Click.
Click.
Click.
With a burst of frantic clicking, a valiant berserker charged toward the alien creature, swinging a sword as large as his own torso and spinning with all his strength as he burst out of the forest and roared.
-Hraaaah!
FIRST BLOOD!
Of course, it was Nam Jinwook’s champion who got caught.
And then, from beside him, a disappointed voice spoke up.
“Aw, top lane gave up first blood.”
The answer came in a calm voice.
“Looks like it.”
“Still, it’s fine. I’ll carry. Boss, you can just trust me and follow my lead. Should we power up with a high five or something?”
“Understood.”
Smack!
The two of them suddenly slapped hands in a high five, charging themselves with motivation. It oddly brought back the feeling he’d had in college, back when he’d been doing club activities.
Fifteen minutes ago, that was the kind of vibe that had led them to invite Nam Jinwook to play.
“Would an interview be possible, by any chance?”
“What sort of interview are you here for?”
“I wanted to ask why such an old stadium was purchased by Big Plan in the first place. I also tried contacting your manager, but Big Plan wouldn’t give me his number, so I came in person.”
“That’s….”
Then, the woman who had been hiding beside Manager Seonwoo Taek timidly stuck her face out. She suddenly made a bizarre proposal.
“If you play a game, I’ll tell you.”
And so, the game began.
It felt like the opening of some youth drama.
...For a divorced middle-aged man like me, this youth is blinding.
Nam Jinwook remembered that and kept playing in silence. But the last time he’d really dug into a game was ten years ago, and it was hard to adapt to a meta that had changed beyond recognition.
So before long, he had become dead weight on the team.
[0/7/2]
0 kills.
7 deaths.
2 assists.
There was no dead weight quite like him.
He was basically the sandbag for the couple seated beside him.
For some reason, even though it was only a game, he was starting to feel self-conscious.
It’s only a game.
Was this some Korean instinct? Or the instinct of a reporter who hated offending the mood of his subject?
Maybe both.
Nam Jinwook let out a low sigh.
“....”
When he finally came to his senses, he realized he was playing a game. And not just anywhere, either, but in a player seat right in the middle of the stadium he’d come to interview. The chill of the empty arena’s silence stabbed straight through his chest.
In a place this vast…
Was it really okay to play a game like this?
That thought crossed his mind.
The massive display, blacked out to darkness, felt like a panopticon’s watcher reprimanding him. That was why he hadn’t been able to focus on the game at all since earlier.
“....”
Anyway, I’m already dead weight, so it’s fine if I let my attention wander for a bit.
Nam Jinwook looked to his side.
There sat the two people beside him. The expressionless man in a fine suit was the manager he’d come to interview, Seonwoo Taek, while the woman with the bob haircut in a blue dress was the person he’d seen before.
I’d waited with the stubbornness of asking anyone who showed up, but I never imagined I’d get to see both of them at once.
Waiting three days straight had been worth it.
Thanks to that, he saw the two people he’d wanted to meet at the same time.
Even while playing, they chatted away.
“Boss, hold on a second. Mid lane—just cover mid for a bit!”
“Understood.”
After saying that, the girl suddenly wriggled her small feet and kicked off her shoes. Then she rummaged through the bag she’d brought along. From inside, she pulled out a pair of white indoor slippers.
“These shoes are new, so I can’t focus. I need to change into the slippers I brought from the hotel.”
“You were well prepared this morning.”
“Yep. Expensive hotels really do have nice slippers. The breakfast buffet was good too. Hup…. Okay, now it’s fine. Thanks.”
“Not at all.”
Man and woman.
Hotel.
Breakfast.
He assembled the keywords from that short exchange.
[The man and woman had been together at a hotel since Friday morning.]
The air was already thick with implications.
“....”
Nam Jinwook gave a slight nod and adjusted his glasses.
Then he stole a glance at Seonwoo Taek’s face as he helped the bob-haired woman. He still wore the same expressionless look, yet he had indulged every one of her trivial requests.
He’s her lover.
A wealthy financier who’d made a splash among Yeouido securities firms at such a young age, and he was going out of his way for a woman who wasn’t even his girlfriend?
That didn’t make sense.
Not when he thought about the pride of the financiers he’d met through major newspapers.
Besides, anyone who succeeded in their mid-to-late twenties usually had two or three lovers in tow. A man like that would have already clicked his tongue and refused.
In short, Manager Seonwoo Taek was the type of man who treated a single lover with great devotion.
It was highly private information, yes, but
he needed it to shape the framework of the interview to come.
“....”
If he’s a man in his twenties in an expensive suit, he wouldn’t lack for women, so he wouldn’t be some kind of prisoner. And from how casually the woman asks things of him, she doesn’t seem like a one-night stand, either.
Then there were only two possibilities.
Either that woman was also a key figure at Big Plan, and the two of them were having an equal office romance, or Manager Seonwoo Taek was the sort of man who kept a lover close and brought her along with him when he worked.
The former was fairly common in small venture companies.
The latter….
“....”
He didn’t want to believe it, but.
After witnessing the latter once already, he couldn’t help keeping it in mind. And that person had even been a high-ranking local official.
Personally, I’d prefer it if it were the former.
That would make for much more fruitful reporting.
And then—
“Reporter Nam.”
“!”
He turned his head.
Seonwoo Taek was looking at him without expression.
“The opposing mid lane is empty. It looks like they’re heading that way. I’ll be there soon, so please hold them off for a moment.”
“Ah, yes.”
What an unusual person.
That was the only conclusion Nam Jinwook could reach.
He was strangely courteous, harmless, and expressionless.
He was kind to his own woman, too,
and he hadn’t even gotten angry or complained at the rude reporter he was meeting for the first time.
If I’d been like that when I was young, I probably wouldn’t have gotten divorced.
He had so much money.
And yet he was a kind man who hardly seemed rich at all.
A man who put people before money…
not someone who hid his poverty beneath innocence, but someone who preserved that innocence even amid great wealth.
“....”
For some reason, he found himself thinking that it would be nice if one such person really did exist.
*
Sadly, the game ended in defeat.
Despite DoDam’s performance, the reporter still never managed to claw his way back. In the end, he got an earful of profanity from the people matched with us, sent to him through private whispers. But he didn’t seem to care.
Is that because he’s used to getting cursed at for a living?
DoDam, true to her word, said she’d go ahead with the interview.
“You kept your promise, so we have to do it.”
“Understood. Then, while I interview him, you should wait in the lounge.”
“What are you talking about? I’m doing it too.”
“But….”
“Relax, relax. As long as you don’t take any pictures, it’s fine.”
And so the interview began.
Nam Jinwook looked over here with a serious face, his glasses catching the light as he sat against the darkness of the spectator stands. Pulling a document from his bag, he said, “First, this is the question I asked earlier as well.
“Yes, go ahead.”
“Did you have a particular reason for choosing this stadium?”
Then DoDam, who had been looking at her phone beside him, raised her hand. She shook her head and said, “Oh, no, no. I’m the one who suggested it.”
“Ah, so it was you…. Are you perhaps affiliated with Big Plan?”
“Huh?”
DoDam tilted her head slightly. Somehow, the sheer absurdity of what she felt seemed to spill all the way over here. And with that same absurdity in her voice, she asked back at Nam Jinwook, “Reporter Nam, did you come in knowing all about the D/FENCE match?”
“Pardon?”
“....”
When Nam Jinwook still didn’t understand the point of the question and cocked his head, DoDam came over as if she’d realized something. Then she leaned in and whispered into my ear.
“Ah, sorry. I thought you’d come in already knowing she was a VTuber, so I was going to act all confident and bluff a little. But it seems like he doesn’t know at all. He just came because of the stadium.”
“That does seem to be the case.”
“What do we do?”
“I’ll keep it tightly trimmed to only the things relevant to me. DoDam, you can stay wherever you’re comfortable.”
“This interview was because of me…. I’ll just stay here.”
“Understood.”
That was how our conversation ended.
DoDam moved over near the spectator seats with an embarrassed look on her face, and Nam Jinwook watched her, head slightly tilted. Then he asked me, “Is there perhaps something wrong…?”
“Not at all.”
“I see. Could you tell me what position that young lady holds at Big Plan?”
“It’s confidential.”
“Ah, a private relationship, then. I’m sorry. I’ll respect your privacy.”
“That’s not it.”
“Pardon? Then is it a public…?”
“She is someone precious to me in private.”
“I-I see.”
“Yes. She’s among the most precious connections I have….”
At that moment, from far away, DoDam came running toward us, her face already bright red. She covered my mouth with her small hand. Her hand was warm, too.
DoDam whispered, “If you say it like that, you just keep falling deeper into the pit…! You don’t have to spell everything out so directly; you can just put it a little more roundabout, you know…!”
“Mmmf mmmf mmmf.”
“Ah, sorry.”
“Understood.”
DoDam sighed and stood behind me. Then she folded her arms, narrowed her eyes, and kept watch. But she didn’t look angry exactly.
I looked back at Nam Jinwook and said, “In any case. It’s confidential.”
“I-I see.”
Nam Jinwook awkwardly adjusted his glasses again, then lifted the documents once more. He seemed to have enough flexibility to accept a situation that was a little hard to understand.
Then, with utmost seriousness, he said, “Manager, are you perhaps aware of the High Fence Stadium Project that was carried out nationwide ten years ago?”
“!”
*
When the interview ended, Nam Jinwook bowed his head in farewell. Then he turned away with a hollow expression.
To see him off, Kang DoDam and Seonwoo Taek came out in front of the gate of D/FENCE Stadium.
-Thank you for agreeing to the interview. I’ll be on my way now.
-Not at all. Please be careful on your way.
-Goodbye.
-Thank you.
Under the dark night sky, DoDam muttered as she watched the lonely middle-aged man’s back recede into the distance.
“Feels like he was hoping to write some kind of critical piece about a shoddy project. But once he found out we bought it for personal reasons, he seems to have left.”
“....”
Seonwoo Taek lifted his head and looked at the blue sign.
“I had no idea the High Fence Stadium construction had once been a nationwide project. And it was a youth e-sports talent development program, too….”
Then he looked at DoDam and asked, “Did you know about it, DoDam?”
“Nope.”
“....”
DoDam shrugged. Then, pulling as much as she could from memory, she said, “If I remember right, that elementary school kid who won the tournament I entered definitely made his pro debut. Not long after, his performance turned to complete garbage and he quit, though…. He was still doing pretty well as a streamer, so I figured, whatever.”
“I see.”
“But I had no idea they did this stuff in places like Chungcheong or Jeju, not just Seoul. I also didn’t know there were even a second and third High Fence Stadium branch.”
“Is that so?”
Seonwoo Taek nodded as he sorted through the situation.
“I think that man was expecting us to know the history behind those High Fence Stadiums.”
“In reality it was just Big Man throwing money around~ Big Man!”
“....”
DoDam said that and scratched her head awkwardly. The hair she’d had styled at an expensive Gangnam salon was already coming undone.
“Sorry I made that poor old guy do labor with a game for no reason.”
“It couldn’t be helped, given the misunderstanding in how we saw each other.”
“Are you comforting me with that?”
“No. I’m simply stating the facts.”
“Hmph, I guess that’s fair.”
“....”
And then.
We fell silent for a moment.
“....”
“....”
To be honest, there was something else she wanted to ask.
When I say I’m precious to him, how precious am I, exactly?
And that brazen thought.
I’ve got Big Man, so I should probably start stepping back when it’s time….
And that lonely thought.
“....”
But DoDam couldn’t bring herself to say either of them. She only gave a bitter smile and met the gaze of the expressionless Seonwoo Taek.
He said, “What should we do now?”
“!”
Well….
DoDam thought for a moment.
And then she recalled a place where a familiar face might be waiting.
“Should we go back to the convenience store?”
“The convenience store?”
“Yeah.”
“I see.”
This time, too, Seonwoo Taek didn’t ask why. He simply followed DoDam’s lead in silence.
“....”
“....”
DoDam thought to herself:
Now.
I should give her back to Aki.
I’m fine with just that.
Just…
Just.
This is enough.
I’m Big Man’s first, after all.
Thinking that way, she smiled.
After all, it had been a fun vacation.
“Ah… that was fun.”
But when they returned to the convenience store, the person waiting there was not the yellow-haired girl she had expected.
At the table in front of the convenience store, a woman with glasses and another woman with her hair tied long were sitting in cycling gear, eating chocolate bars. Just as they were about to take a bite, they muttered:
“Wotya…? Boss?”
“Huh? M-Manager?!”
“Eunhwa.”
The point where the three ways of addressing each other collided.
There, DoDam tilted her head to the side.
“Huh…?”
What on earth are these people?