Life's Breakthrough (2)
"Ahh…"
Shock at the enormous sum. The urge to offer thanks as fast as humanly possible. The two impulses collided head-on.
As a matter of basic human decency, gratitude came first. After that, he set the shock aside for a moment and decided to settle the question still gnawing at him.
Eight hundred sixty thousand won was a sum Park Jimin simply could not wrap his head around. Thanks to a mother who had kept him away from smartphones since he was little, he lived farther from social media than most kids his age — which only made the number feel even more unreal.
"…"
Still dazed by the sheer size of the transfer, Jimin couldn't quite make sense of what Dahye was saying.
Dahye left again. She was the kind of woman who burst in out of nowhere, finished her business, and vanished just as fast.
"Ah…"
Jimin sat there blankly for a moment, then made his way over to the bed. The girl who shook him every bit as hard as that enormous sum of money had disappeared, and reality settled back over him. Of course, things were different from before — someone had just sent him a wildly excessive amount of water while he was still walking through the desert.
He checked his phone again.
An account that had never really had the chance to accumulate savings now had a huge number stamped across it.
He swallowed hard.
"Is this money really mine?"
It still didn't feel real. He had been so drawn to that nuna out of nowhere, and somehow it had led to him gaming with her exactly the way he'd wished. He had kept watching her light up with happiness and acknowledge him. Honestly, the pressure to win had been there at first — but in the end it had been a happy dream. And to walk away from that dream with this kind of money on top of everything else…
He had thought it was a world that had nothing to do with his real life at all.
"…"
He needed to calm the excitement first. This was definitely his money. And with everything he still had to do, he couldn't just leave it sitting there.
"Whoa…"
Sniff sniff.
He held ten fifty-thousand-won bills up to his nose and breathed them in — bills he almost never had any reason to see. They were real. Withdrawing them as cash made the size of the money hit him all over again. He had even walked an extra ten minutes to his own bank's ATM just to save the thousand-won fee…
"Hoo…"
Now he needed somewhere to put ten fifty-thousand-won notes, and the crisp new bills felt strangely awkward shoved into a pocket.
"Kid, you see those money envelopes over there?"
"Uh— yes?"
Someone spoke up out of nowhere, and Jimin startled. He turned around to find an old woman standing there.
"If you fold them like that they'll crease. Put them in one of those."
He looked where her wrinkled hand was pointing and saw a stack of money envelopes.
"Thank you…"
He slid the bills into an envelope right away.
"If you get it, hurry up and get out of the way. Aigoo, tsk tsk — when are kids these days going to learn to fix this habit?"
"Ah!"
He had been wondering what she meant — then he saw the out-of-order notice stuck on one of the two ATMs.
"I'm sorry!"
He stepped aside at once.
"What?"
"You want to go there?"
"Yeah."
Jimin's friends, Lee Jonghyun and Yoon Sangcheol, stared at him in surprise.
"Isn't that place kind of expensive?"
"It's not super expensive, but still — Jimin, what's gotten into you all of a sudden?"
They had been on their way to a PC bang together when he suddenly offered to buy them pizza. It was a completely random thing to say.
"I came into some money."
"Money?"
Sangcheol kept asking as they walked.
Guess he doesn't know.
Jimin had figured that even if the others didn't, Sangcheol at least would have known he had appeared on Dahye's stream — so this was pretty unexpected. Even if no clips had gone up on Nurtube, still. Of course, whenever Jimin glanced over at the PC bang these days, Sangcheol did seem to be watching other girl streamers…
"We're here."
In a neighborhood with almost nothing that could be called a real restaurant, this was the one pizza place that had any kind of reputation. A famous mukbang YouTuber had stopped by once, and for a while there had been a line every time you walked past. The fever had cooled off since then, though, so there was no need to wait.
"Order whatever you want."
"…"
By Jimin's usual standards, the tone was almost cocky. His two friends still didn't know what to say.
"Where are Yuseok and Jaeyeong?"
"Those two are watching the SCK playoffs winners' bracket."
"Winners' bracket?"
"It's the match that decides who goes to finals. Winner goes straight to the grand finals; loser has to win one more game to get there."
"Ah…"
Sangcheol answered when Jimin asked after their missing friends. Jimin didn't fully understand, but it sounded like an important game either way.
"They're P1 fans. Why are they even watching that match?"
"Look at you pretending not to care while still knowing exactly what's going on with P1."
"No, I mean — there's no way P1 would even be in the winners' bracket."
"Yeah, true… but still. It's first place versus second place from the Summer regular season. You've gotta watch that."
"Which teams?"
"Maehwa and Genji."
"Again? Ah, damn, that's why I don't watch SCK these days. The team that loses is just gonna end up advancing anyway."
Jonghyun grumbled. Compared to the friends who were genuinely invested in SCK, his interest in pro matches was a lot lower.
Maehwa Life Esports and Gen.G Esports — the undisputed twin powerhouses of Korea's SCK. After P1's Worlds three-peat and Maker's retirement, Maehwa Life and Gen.G had taken turns claiming the trophy at the 2026 and 2027 Worlds, proving SCK was still alive and well. These days they were struggling on the international stage, but at home they still reigned as untouchable tyrants of the league, and the fans were getting tired of it.
"I heard P1 hasn't taken a single game off either of those two since last year."
"Why is that the only thing you remember?"
"I dunno, I just heard it somewhere."
"They should just merge Maehwa and Genji into one team. Instant Worlds champs."
"That doesn't even make sense."
"…"
Jimin found himself wanting to jump into his friends' conversation. Come to think of it, talk about pro matches would pop up in Dahye's chat now and then too — though those debates always ended in rough language.
"Here you go."
"Thank you!"
"Thanks for the food."
Two hot pizzas came out at the same time. Some YouTuber had once said ordering them one of each was the way to go, and it had become the house formula — one pepperoni, one Hawaiian. That small-framed mukbang YouTuber had polished off both alone and then ordered three more, but here three sturdy eighteen-year-old boys settled on sharing two between them.
"Yo, isn't that nuna pretty?"
"…"
"This guy is such a girl-obsessed freak."
At Sangcheol's words, Jimin glanced sideways to check out the part-timer's looks. She had a neatly tied-back hairstyle that suited her and a small head, but she wasn't an outstanding beauty.
"You shouldn't talk about people's looks so casually."
Jonghyun, who had snuck a look at the same time as Jimin, said it flatly. Meaning: not pretty by his standards.
"Anyway, spill it already."
"Huh?"
Before anyone had even touched the hot pizza, Jonghyun asked.
"Where'd the money come from."
"Ah…"
The friend he had known the longest, the one who had helped him the most — and the mature type who, once he got serious, made it almost as hard to lie as talking to your own mom. To Jimin, Lee Jonghyun was not an easy friend to brush off.
"It just… came up somehow."
"Somehow?"
"Yeah."
"What does that even mean."
"I'll tell you later."
"What?"
Jonghyun was looking him in the eyes. Jimin glanced away, then met his gaze again.
"…"
Jimin had never been the type to hold eye contact when he talked.
"It's not money I made from anything bad."
"Who said it was."
Jonghyun scratched his head as he answered. Well, of course it isn't. There was no way Jimin had gotten money from something shady — but the sudden windfall had still made him wonder if something was up.
"Something must've happened. Anyway, thanks for the meal, Jimin."
"Yeah!"
"Thanks for the food."
The two friends started cutting the pizza with knives, then—
"Let's just eat with our hands."
"Yeah, let's."
They switched to hands. Using utensils was way too annoying.
"That'll be 47,000 won."
"Okay."
Jimin handed his card to the part-timer.
"…"
It was a ridiculous thought, but he felt a flicker of nerves — half-afraid he had somehow been mistaken and she was about to tell him there wasn't enough balance.
"Thank you, come again."
"Yes."
I wonder if she's about the same age as Dahye nuna?
Jimin politely returned the smile of the adult woman who had been so friendly to him, then stepped outside.
"Eeeeh? What was that damage just now?"
First game of solo queue duo for the day. Dahye watched Jimin's Jayce delete the enemy Aetrox in an instant and sat there stunned.
"Ah, I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what."
He had shoved the entire wave in and killed the enemy Aetrox. He did die to a gank from the enemy jungle Elise who had even burned Flash for it — but the trade was a massive gain for the team.
Dahye's Taliyah — the team's only AP — snagged three kills in that teamfight.
"Ahh, I played so well that fight, right?"
"Yes."
"I played so well, right?"
"…You played really well."
"Thanks!"
She finally pulled the reaction she wanted out of still-understated Jimin.
In front of the enemy Nexus, Dahye's Taliyah — and she hadn't been bluffing earlier — yanked the enemy Varus who was missing Flash with a Seismic Shove, and a game that had already been basically over ended right there.
"Ahh, way too easy."
Dahye rolled her shoulders and grinned, full of herself.
"Guys, I'm gonna go order some food real quick."
And just like yesterday, she picked up her smartphone.
"…Ah."
Something occurred to Jimin too. He searched online, then quickly installed a delivery app.
It's not there…
Even searching for a shop he had known for years turned up nothing.
Idiot.
Thinking he could just wait for Mom with only this five hundred thousand won — he really was a terrible son.
"I ordered tteokbokki! Come on, Jimin, let's go!"
"Okay."
Still thinking about what to buy for his mother, Jimin decided for now to focus on the game.
"…"
"What are you grinning about like an idiot?"
"Huh? I wasn't smiling."
"Lie to me and you're in trouble."
"Yes…"
Faced with her smiling threat, he immediately backed down. Had he been smiling just now?