Life's Breakthrough (4)
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beeeeeep!
Gulp.
He heard the sound of the door opening.
Mom came home later than usual. Even though he had given her a heads-up, what should have been nothing but pure happiness felt a little different today.
"Jimin?"
"You're back?"
Normally, Park Jimin would wait a beat after hearing his mother come in and then casually wander out of his room. Today he was already waiting in the living room.
"What? Why didn't you order something to eat?"
"Ah…"
The first thing Mom checked was whether her son had properly fed himself. The ten-thousand-won bill still sitting there made the absence of dinner painfully obvious.
"Well…"
Jimin stood there awkwardly. He never got into trouble, but right now he looked exactly like a son who had done something wrong.
"What's going on?"
His mother turned at the unfamiliar reaction from her boy.
What do I do?
This sudden change. For Jimin it was wonderful news, but making her understand it was a completely different problem.
"Sniff sniff. What is that smell?"
"Ah!"
She noticed before he could even speak. The real problem was that he still hadn't figured out the right words.
"Here."
"Hm?"
Jimin slowly started pulling the food out of the bag.
Before she could ask anything else he quickly snapped the rubber band off the chicken box and opened the plastic lid on the container of spicy whelk noodles.
"What is all this?"
"…"
He just gave a tiny nod.
He had no idea what to say.
If he put himself in his mother's shoes, how was she supposed to take this?
Her son, who almost never needed money, had spent more than thirty thousand won preparing dinner.
And the thing behind it was actually more important, but how was he supposed to bring that up either…
"I bought it."
"You bought it?"
"Yeah."
"You, Jimin?"
"Y-yeah…"
Kim Eunhye stared at her son as if she couldn't believe it.
Even she, the one who earned the money, only bought this stuff once in a while because it felt wasteful. And her son had prepared it?
"Where did you get the money?"
"Well."
Jimin scratched the back of his head.
He had fully expected his mother to ask about the source of the money first.
He had expected it and expected it again, and still he hadn't come up with a plan for how to explain.
The joy of buying her favorite food had simply been bigger than all that difficulty.
It's not like I earned it doing something bad, but…
He couldn't even imagine telling his mother out loud about those, now that he thought about it, rather short moments when the money had come to him.
"Are you going to answer properly or not?"
"…"
At the scolding tone in her voice, Jimin pressed his lips tightly shut.
His gaze dropped to the floor on its own.
Whenever something was wrong, it always ended up like this.
"…"
Then he carefully lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
"Park Jimin!"
When he met his mother's eyes, he saw the same worried look she always wore for him.
No.
"Mom, the truth is…"
Jimin slowly opened his mouth.
She was definitely thinking something had gone wrong with him.
They had lived together his whole life, and Jimin was used to reading people's faces; he trusted his own instincts.
Being scolded while the dinner he had carefully prepared sat right there? The unfairness of it didn't matter at all.
But he couldn't stand his mother looking at him with sad eyes.
"I earned it."
"What?"
He decided to start with the conclusion.
"How?"
"With a game."
"A game?"
"Yeah."
Jimin looked straight into his mother's eyes as he spoke.
She looked pretty confused. But it was still much better than before.
"There's this really famous game. I went to the PC bang with my friends and everyone said I was really good at it. That game."
"How do you make money with a game?"
"I appeared on an internet stream."
"An internet stream?"
"Yeah."
His mother's expression darkened a little.
"Jimin, isn't that something weird people do?"
"No, there are lots of good people too."
The timing was terrible.
Not long ago a certain streamer had been playing a crime-related game, and footage of him giggling while smashing a passing woman with a hammer had been maliciously edited and aired on the news, causing a huge controversy.
In reality the game had players casually shooting men and elderly people with guns as well, so people familiar with internet streaming just mocked the media for it.
And Jimin and his mother had watched that news report together less than ten days ago.
"So how exactly did you make money by appearing on a stream?"
"Ah…"
Unexpectedly, his mother was calmly interrogating her son.
But from here on the explanation got even more complicated.
"She was just really famous… I ran into her by chance and she asked me to play with her, so I said okay, and then she gave me money."
"…"
His mother still looked like she didn't understand at all.
The problem for Jimin was that even he didn't know whether the amount he had received was appropriate, so he couldn't speak with confidence. And now he had to explain it all at his mother's level too.
"Okay, I get it."
"Huh?"
"It's all going to get cold."
She casually moved the chicken and spicy whelk noodles to the center of the table and started bringing out chopsticks and plates.
Did it work?
He felt like he hadn't finished explaining at the end, but his mother didn't ask any more questions.
"This is from Aunt Mikyeong's place, right? What made you think of going there?"
She first put a chicken drumstick on her son's plate and started mixing the noodles into the whelk sauce as she spoke.
"You really like this place, Mom."
"…"
The words came out of Jimin more smoothly than usual today.
It was still a little awkward, but once he started speaking honestly it wasn't as hard as before.
"You've grown up."
His mother said it briefly and ate some noodles. Jimin, who usually read people's moods from their faces, couldn't read his mother's feelings just then.
"Mmm, as expected."
A satisfied smile. Jimin felt happy right along with her.
"Do you know why Mom likes this place?"
"Huh? Why?"
Completely different from when she had been grilling her son earlier, she smiled a little, drew out the moment, and then spoke.
"When Mom was in college there was a hof near school. This place tastes just like that one."
"Ah…"
It was the first time Jimin had ever heard that.
"I was so immature back then… and now look at me, I'm a mom."
She said it while eating her belated dinner.
"…"
Jimin also started eating the chicken that had cooled a little.
He couldn't put it into words, but a lump formed in his throat.
Thud.
He stood up from his seat.
Today, when he felt like this, he wanted to do something about it.
"Here."
"Hm?"
Jimin held out an envelope of money to his mother. He had originally planned to give it to her a little later.
"What is this?"
Ten fifty-thousand-won bills.
His mother couldn't help but be shocked.
"This is the money you earned, Jimin?"
"Yeah."
"You received this much?"
Jimin nodded.
He had actually earned more, but he knew full well that it wasn't purely because of his own ability.
"What kind of stream pays this much just for appearing?"
"Well…"
Jimin ran his brain at full capacity.
"In this game having a high score is really important, so while we played together I raised the streamer's score a lot."
"You raised her score?"
"Yeah."
If he started talking about how the stream got popular just because he appeared, the way Dahye had said, his mother would understand even less. No need for the word "tier" either. Even if she had no interest in games, talking about scores would be easier for her to accept.
What was the word they used?
Jimin started choosing the right word to drive the point home.
"It's like being a designated driver."
"A designated driver?"
"Yeah."
He wasn't sure if the comparison was perfect, but the viewers had used that expression for him a lot.
"You raise the score for them?"
"We raise it together, but yeah, basically."
"…"
Jimin looked into his mother's eyes as much as he could while he spoke.
But once he had a solid word like "designated driver," talking became easier than before.
"What a strange world we live in."
His mother still looked like she didn't fully understand, but she seemed to be trying her best to accept it.
"She's really famous. The people watching live go over two thousand, no, even three thousand."
"Really?"
"Yeah!"
Jimin suddenly started praising Yu Dahye.
That viewer count was actually her peak, but he inflated it as much as possible to emphasize that she was someone who could hand out that kind of money.
"Our son's amazing."
"Haha…"
He wasn't sure if she had completely accepted it, but his mother said it with a smile.
"She just gave it to you on a whim? Not something that keeps coming?"
"Huh? Y-yeah."
Dahye had given him the money completely on impulse, so his mother was right.
"Make sure you thank her properly. But it's a lot of money, so don't just grab everything they offer you."
"Okay."
"Let's eat."
Her son, who couldn't lie, had explained the source of the money even if it didn't fully make sense.
Kim Eunhye began eating her favorite food with a new kind of joy.
"…"
Thank goodness.
Jimin had been worried she might ask him to show her Dahye's stream.
It wasn't that he was embarrassed—really, absolutely not—but for some strange reason he just didn't want to.
"With this money we should go buy you some clothes and shoes."
"Ah…"
His mother said it with the happiest expression she had worn all day.
Jimin silently nodded.
"Ugh, this is rough."
The enemy mid Jerard and poking Varus had both grown huge.
Dahye frowned at the sheer power of the heavy poke composition.
Jimin had gone top again this game while she herself had picked ADC.
But as ADC Xayah she couldn't find a single good angle to deal damage.
"Ah, this is not good!"
Their jungle Scanner was getting beaten half to death. At this rate they would have to give up the fourth dragon!
"…"
Jimin, who had picked Yohone, used Soul Liberation and then his ultimate, Fate Sealed.
"Oh?"
A four-man ultimate that caught the enemy mid Jerard and ADC Varus. Then the skill combo that followed.
He successfully targeted the enemy damage dealers whose bodies had been pulled forward trying to finish Scanner.
You have slain an enemy.
Double Kill!
Triple Kill!
Quadra Kill!
ACE.
"Nice!"
The moment Yohone swept through and came back, Dahye boldly used her forward dash and cleaned up the rest.
A game that had been going badly was completely reversed with a single teamfight.
After securing the clean ace, their team headed for the Baron pit.
"Ah, what the hell was that! Jimin!"
"…We won."
Jimin, quieter than usual today, simply declared the victory while Dahye went crazy with joy beside him.
They toyed with the poke composition that was helpless against the Baron buff and took the win.
"Ah, carry!"
Dahye, who had been thoroughly enjoying her happy solo queue lately, beamed with a huge smile.
Yangga's Dakgalbi donated 50,000 won.
"It's fun again today. Gotta go play Yohone after the stream."
"Thank you!"
With both the game and the stream going well, Dahye bowed politely in thanks.
"…"
"Why are you so quiet today?"
"Huh?"
Dahye wasn't about to let Jimin's unusual silence slide.
"You feeling sick?"
"No, no I'm not. Hehe. Just concentrating."
"Yeah? If you're trying hard, I'm the one who should be grateful."
As if she couldn't wait for the next game, Dahye immediately started queueing up again.
"…"
Yesterday he had spent a happy time.
He had bought his mother dinner and even given her allowance money. He had even heard her call him an amazing son.
But nothing had really changed.
His mother still dragged her aching body out to work every morning.
Today was the same, and tomorrow would be the same.
I need money.
It looked difficult, but it was clear.
"Oh my, another fifty thousand… Thank you!"
Today the viewers seemed to fill up faster than yesterday. And donations were already popping.
Judging by Dahye's behavior, he might receive money again.
Jimin shook his head.
No.
But he didn't want to take more money from Dahye.
Before any talk of conscience or what was proper as a person, he simply didn't like it.
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While waiting in queue, Jimin was searching for something on the internet.