A Secret Fan
His real name was Han Goyo. His pro-gamer tag: Goyo.
The way she first learned of him was the purest accident.
Kang Byeok-rin had never had the slightest interest in games, let alone professional gamers. And then, one day, videos of Goyo's matches began sliding into her MTube recommendations.
She ignored them, of course. She hit "Not interested" more times than she could count—and still, whether by some glitch or sheer stubbornness, the algorithm kept serving him up.
She was in the middle of dismissing him yet again when, without quite meaning to, she found herself staring at the thumbnail.
After enough glances, the face had grown familiar.
He is handsome, I'll give him that.
He ought to have been a celebrity. What he was doing playing games, she couldn't begin to guess. If he had been an idol or an actor, it was the kind of face she would have considered as an ambassador for one of the group's subsidiaries.
Is he short, maybe?
Looks like that, and he wasn't in entertainment? That seemed like the only explanation.
For the first time, Kang Byeok-rin hit play.
What? Why aren't they showing the actual person?
A bunch of people were moving these little character-things around on a screen. The players themselves never appeared. It was nothing but the game, on and on.
Stubbornness got the better of her. She skipped through in ten-second increments, hunting for the part where the person she actually wanted showed up.
The whole time she skipped, a voice that sounded like a commentator kept shouting the same name.
"Goyo! Goyo! Goyooo! This is unbelievable! Player Goyo has no intention of losing! He simply cannot lose!"
"Oh, underage players are the scariest, aren't they? Their instincts are just that sharp. Ah—speak of the devil, Player Goyo—whoa, whoaaa! Goyo! He takes down his opponent yet again! Absolutely dominant!"
Other names came up, but Goyo's share of the callouts was overwhelming.
So the man called Goyo wasn't just a pretty face. He was good.
She patiently skipped through a video well over thirty minutes long, ten seconds at a time. The Goyo she wanted never properly appeared. His face did flicker onscreen now and then in the middle of a match, but only as a tiny, low-resolution inset in the corner—and even that was maddeningly brief.
Kang Byeok-rin mashed the skip button until, at last, the match ended, and she finally got a proper look at him.
His expression went beyond blank. It was cold. The upturned corners of his eyes gave him a distinctly sharp, even difficult, air.
Then, the instant victory was sealed, Goyo pulled off his headset, and the corner of his mouth curled upward. That face, so indifferent from start to finish, broke into a brilliant smile.
Kang Byeok-rin stared at the screen, dazed.
It was as if a person could sparkle. The thought crossed her mind, just for a moment.
And the next thing she knew, she had hunted down every video of him that existed.
He's five-foot-eleven? That's pretty tall. He only recently debuted as a pro, and he'll come of age next year.... He's younger than I am.
Mid? Like... the middle? I have no idea what that means, but Goyo seems to be the best at it. He wins every match he plays, doesn't he? And his name gets called the most, too.
She scraped up every video of Goyo she could find and watched them through the entire night.
The next morning, Kang Byeok-rin sat with bloodshot rabbit-eyes and admitted it to herself.
She had developed a serious interest in this young pro gamer.
It was the first time in Kang Byeok-rin's life that she had become anyone's fan. It would also be the last.
The time she spent with Goyo had been happy. She had fallen for his face first, but before long she had fallen into his matches. Her secretaries had coached her that it didn't suit the image of a chaebol heiress, so she had never shown her fondness in public—but she had genuinely loved the player called Goyo.
It had lasted only a year.
That was all the time Kang Byeok-rin had been given to watch him.
"Haaah..."
Pulled back from the memory, Kang Byeok-rin let out a quiet sigh.
Goyo's final match was still as vivid as if it had been yesterday. She had been worrying herself sick every single day since the report that he had suddenly vanished. She had never imagined she would run into him like this.
Is he all right? His body, I mean?
She had been so startled earlier that she'd fled, and hadn't gotten a proper look at him. Her heart still hammering, she drew a deep breath through her mouth and let it out.
Approaching a player who had retired from injury and announcing herself as a fan would only be a burden to him. Besides, the fact that she liked a professional gamer was a secret from the public.
Just act natural. Pretend he's a stranger. Natural!
Kang Byeok-rin clutched a twenty-five-centimeter Goyo character plush to her chest and repeated the instruction to herself several times over. Then she bolted to her dressing room, turned it upside down, and changed into an outfit that looked casually thrown together and had, in fact, been anything but.
Steeled with grim resolve, she went downstairs to the drawing room where Goyo would be waiting.
"Acting natural" failed spectacularly.
Guided by Chief Secretary Woo, I stepped into the mansion and looked around with open curiosity.
It's huge.
The garden was enormous, too. So this was what a rich family's house looked like. The interior was elegant and refined, as if announcing the owner's taste.
Not that I could sightsee in peace—not with Chief Secretary Woo standing ramrod-straight right beside me.
She keeps looking at me.
Someone in her position—chief secretary of Cheongang—would surely know about Sidaecheong. She might not know Samra was an android, but she would know he held an important post. And yet she paid Samra no attention at all. She was looking only at me.
Every time our eyes met, she offered a courteous business smile—but there was a chill in it I couldn't quite place.
I glanced at my watch. Five minutes to the appointment.
"The Chairman will arrive on the hour," Chief Secretary Woo said, an understated smile on her face.
"Thank you."
I thanked her promptly, and her smile only deepened. She seemed even more displeased....
I had no idea why, but I found myself thinking I should wrap up our business and disappear as quickly as possible.
Just then, a tremendous crash rang out from upstairs.
Chief Secretary Woo ran for the stairs, and I shot up from my seat as well. Kang Byeok-rin came limping down, leaning on Chief Secretary Woo for support.
"Are you all right?"
I hurried over and asked, and Kang Byeok-rin's face went scarlet. Realizing my mistake, I eased back a step. She'd fallen; she was probably embarrassed. Maybe I'd been too familiar.
At that, Kang Byeok-rin immediately cried out.
"I'm fine!"
Her voice cracked, and the red crept all the way down her neck. Chief Secretary Woo was now glaring at me with no attempt to hide it.
I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry.
I was apologizing inwardly when Kang Byeok-rin asked a strange question.
"Are you... all right?"
I hesitated, unsure of what she meant by it—and that was when the host of today's appointment strode into the drawing room.
"Samra!"
The booming call filled the high-ceilinged house. A woman with a thick head of medium-length hair came striding toward us. She was well past sixty, yet she looked no older than middle-aged.
Closing the distance with long strides, the chairman of Cheongang—Kang Cheon-seo—extended her hand to Samra.
"Have you been well?"
"I have been well."
Samra shook her hand and answered with perfect courtesy.
"Haha. Still a civil servant, I see?"
"I intend to remain one."
"What a shame. You quit, you call me first, all right? I've already queued up for first dibs."
"You are not first in line, Chairman Kang Cheon-seo."
"Oh, come now. We're friends. Let me cut the line."
"That is a subjective assessment, Chairman Kang Cheon-seo."
It was the sort of answer that could have been taken as rude, and Kang Cheon-seo laughed it off with gusto. Then she turned her gaze on me.
"I was wondering what on earth could get our precious Samra to take a trip outside."
Kang Cheon-seo's irises sat sharp against the whites of her eyes; there was a force in her look. She held out her hand to me as she spoke.
"To think it was because of you, Goyo. I was quite surprised. A pleasure to meet you. I ought to have said hello while you were still competing. Instead I'm only meeting you after you've retired."
I froze at the unexpected remark, and Kang Cheon-seo smiled.
"We were even a sponsor, you know? We signed on after I saw you play."
"...Thank you."
I finally managed to move my lips, then belatedly bowed at the waist.
"I never imagined you would remember me. Forgive my delayed greeting. It is an honor to meet you, Chairman."
"Honor? Please. The honor is all mine, meeting you."
She gave my hand a light shake or two and released it, then slid a glance toward Kang Byeok-rin.
"Rin-ah. You go back upstairs and get that treated first."
"Grandma...!"
Kang Byeok-rin called out to her with the most put-upon voice in the world. Kang Cheon-seo cut her off without a shred of mercy.
"Kang Byeok-rin."
Kang Byeok-rin's face twisted, but in the end she let Chief Secretary Woo support her toward the elevator.
Once she had confirmed Kang Byeok-rin was gone, Kang Cheon-seo gave an elegant shake of her head.
"I've done a poor job raising my granddaughter. The girl's a wild colt, I tell you."
The Chairman regarded me steadily.
"You can let that slide, can't you, Goyo?"
I smiled.
"I didn't see a thing."
Kang Cheon-seo laughed out loud and said, in excellent spirits,
"Shall we go eat? You must be hungry, Goyo."
I had the distinct impression I was being treated like a child. Then again, given Kang Cheon-seo's age, being treated like one wasn't all that strange.
Frankly, if it meant getting my hands on Neat Appearance, being treated like a kid was nothing—I'd endure being treated like an animal. I found myself weighing which would do more damage to Sidaecheong's honor, crawling around on all fours or barking like a dog, as I followed Kang Cheon-seo to the dining room.
Staff who moved without a sound were already laying out a warm meal on a marble table. Kang Cheon-seo seated Samra and me, pressed this dish and that on us, and steered the conversation along.
The Chairman had a surprisingly deft way of putting a person at ease, which only made me more tense. I kept myself sharply focused, determined not to let her practiced business rhetoric draw any words from me that must not be said.
It was only after the meal, when dessert arrived, that she came to the point.
Having dismissed everyone around us, Kang Cheon-seo opened with a loaded remark.
"So. What is it you came to ask of me, Goyo?"
I set my spoon down at once, mid-bite of the persimmon sorbet served in its brass bowl.
"Hm? Why'd you put that down? Talk while you eat."
"Yes. Thank you."
Even so, I didn't resume eating. I waited for the Chairman to speak.
Kang Cheon-seo's eyes curved into crescents, creasing at the corners.
"It must be quite the favor, hmm? Samra coming outside, Samra helping someone—neither of those has ever happened in his life."
Given her personality, she would hate it if I beat around the bush. I stated what I wanted directly.
"To clear a Trial, I would like to request your support in the form of the item in your possession: Neat Appearance."
"Mm..."
Kang Cheon-seo let out a troubled hum, but even I could tell she wasn't truly troubled at all.
"I can't exactly give it to you for nothing."
"State your reasons."
"Samra, don't be like that. Paseong went to a lot of trouble to get this for me. If I just hand it straight over to Sidaecheong, how would I show my face?"
Paseong...!
I caught myself before I could shoot out of my chair and glued myself back to the seat. Then I asked, keeping my face as composed as I possibly could.
"Representative Cha of Paseong obtained Neat Appearance?"
"That's right. Representative Cha is incredibly capable, you know. You know him too, don't you, Goyo?"
I did. I knew him far, far too well.
I swallowed, with some difficulty, the words that were about to burst out of me.
Because Representative Cha of Paseong was none other than my favorite character.
So he really does exist in this world, too.
I was still trying to press down the feeling swelling in my chest when Kang Cheon-seo threw more fuel on the fire.
"What to do.... Why don't you ask Representative Cha for permission yourself, Goyo? I'll put you through."
She pulled out her phone and waggled it.
A call with my favorite. I couldn't let an opportunity like this slip away. I spoke, struggling not to let the excitement show.
"If it would not be an imposition, I would like to ask—"
"No."
Samra cut me off. His face went blank. Stripped of every physical response that had been mimicking a human being, it was startlingly cold.
"Chairman Kang Cheon-seo. What do you think you are doing?"
"What's gotten into you, Samra? It's just a phone call. Don't tell me you're hiding something."
"This is not a matter that concerns you, Chairman Kang Cheon-seo."
"Shall I take a guess?"
Kang Cheon-seo said it with a sly look on her face.