A Great Resolve

Lim Sarang had been living through some difficult days lately.

Nothing in particular had changed. If anything, asked whether she was happy, she could have said with complete confidence that she had never been happier. And it would not have been her alone. Anyone would have felt the same.

A romance she had never once had in her entire life. Just when she was beginning to wonder whether she simply had no interest in love, she came face to face with her ideal. Only then did she understand. It was not that love held no interest for her. She had merely never met an ideal she could fall into completely.

And he did not dislike her, either. If anything, she could feel the signals that he liked her back. Still, she was careful. Those signals were not so different from the attention most men sent her way, and the longer she had gone without meeting anyone, the more cautious she had grown.

What if he was only after her body? What if, underneath it all, their personalities simply could not fit? Every kind of thought crowded in. She had read it herself, in post after post. A handsome man was half the battle won; no matter how ugly the fight, one look at his face and the anger melted. Other posts insisted you had to choose a kind man, that only then would you be treated well and live in comfort.

Whatever the truth of it, she was happy now. And that was precisely why it was hard.

Because Lim Sarang was a celebrity. Because she was the leader of an idol group riding the very peak of its popularity. Honestly, if someone told her to give up the ideal she had finally met at twenty-five for the sake of that seat, she was prepared to throw the celebrity life away without a second thought. She was sorry to the fans who cheered for her, but she had already earned as much as she needed to earn. Since her debut she had never once stepped down from the top, and even now, with album promotions few and far between, she was out on her own as a commercial model, on variety shows, and everything else besides. Once she had burned through a month of schedules with no room to breathe, the feast of zeros waiting in her account was enough to dull any sense of what money even was.

She wrote lyrics and composed, too. Most of Lovely's songs were hers. Tracks from years ago still played everywhere in medleys, and the royalties piled up handsomely on their own. So she had no lingering attachment. Even if she quit, she was already set to play and eat for the rest of her life.

These astonishing exchanges had not come from some other community. They were posts on Lim Sarang's own official community, LoveLove. Posts like these were deleted and warned as a matter of course, and everyone knew it, yet lately the mood in the community ran roughly like this all the same.

There was some self-correction, but most of the fans were intensely wary of the first real interest she had ever shown. Lim Sarang had plenty of female fans, yet she was a female idol, and female idols inevitably drew an overwhelming majority of men. She was only human. Reading posts like these, breathing in an atmosphere like this, her spirits could not help but sink.

She knew. She knew she stood where she stood, and earned what she earned, entirely because of her fans' love. She knew an idol was a product that could hardly rise without that love, and without attention taken too far. She also knew that the wish to be judged purely as a singer, an actress, a model was possible only if she had never been touched at all by what it meant to be sold as an idol.

"..."

And so it was not easy. Throwing everything away, and choosing at last to live however she pleased. She was twenty-five. Even if she was prepared enough to fail several times over at whatever she did next—

"The Lovely girls..."

There were colleagues who had walked those years beside her. Walking out and running away would be no different from dumping the aftermath on the other members. And by nature, she did not want to run.

"It's complicated. So complicated."

Her schedule had been especially brutal lately, and her head already ached. She had opened LoveLove during the ride between schedules, hoping for a little healing, and even that place only piled on more stress. She came home wrung out and lay down in the capsule. She wanted nothing more than to wash up and sleep, but if she meant to shake the stress off, she had to go to Haven.

"Hoo. Haa."

The moment she drew in Haven's air, her head cleared. Haven was that kind of place. Another world, just as Windy had said. A world where she could erase the Lim Sarang of reality and live as a different Lim Sarang entirely. No cameras. No stage. No costumes. She could move, act, and live exactly as she wished. She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could step into a dungeon as a ranker mage, carry her share like anyone else, and take her satisfaction from it. And now there was someone she wanted beside her. Someone she wanted to see.

The thought of Kim Siwoo brought a smile to her lips. She was learning, keenly, why her mother had always told her to meet a handsome man. A handsome face was not something you needed only in the middle of a fight. Even when the stress was entirely her own, simply calling him to mind made her smile.

And then, all at once, a thought came to her.

"I want to play with Siwoo."

In truth, the thought had first stirred while she watched him drawing his class. As they grew closer it had only sunk deeper, and by the time Kim Siwoo had climbed to something like ranker level, she had promised herself that she would party with him and run dungeons at his side. She had not said so yet. But it was too far off. She was in the mid-sixties. No matter how fast Kim Siwoo grew, it would take a year at the very least, and that was only if he kept up his present pace.

"It takes too long."

So she thought of something else.

"I could just come back down."

Lately, whenever his stream cut to off, she had gone digging through other Haven broadcasts and ended up watching a great many class-draw streams. They were fascinating. She was too busy these days to spend much of her life in Haven, but whenever she had a spare hour, Lim Sarang was still a hardcore Haven user. Otherwise she could never have drawn a four-star mage, climbed into the mid-sixties, and held her place among the rankers. And the items were another matter entirely. It was already common knowledge that she had cashed out a fortune running into the millions. Lim Sarang loved Haven. Which meant she was ambitious. And so the idea began to look perfectly reasonable.

"Maybe I should try it too..."

Honestly, she had already been laying the groundwork in her head, telling herself it did not even have to be five-star. She would be throwing away two years, and the money that had gone into them, but the money was only a few months of income to her. The time was a shame. And yet, set beside the memories she would build with Kim Siwoo from here on, it did not feel like a waste at all.

It might be a foolish thing to do. For a man whose face in the real world might not be that face at all, she was falling this hard, and drawing up plans to do something stupid. But what could she do? It was her first love. Even so, Lim Sarang kept a line of her own.

"Siwoo... do you happen to have time right ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now?"

"Huh? Yeah. I just turned the stream off. Want to meet?"

"...Yes."

"Let's eat. Together."

She contacted Kim Siwoo.

We went to a Korean restaurant and ate. In Haven, she said, you never gained weight no matter what you ate, so celebrities on a diet often did their eating there.

"Mmm. Kimchi stew with Spam. I love it."

"That's a thoroughly Korean palate."

"I am Korean."

"Right..."

Her expression did not look good, so I offered a little comfort on the side.

"You've been catching a lot of hate, haven't you?"

"What? Pfft. Ah! No. It's only natural. I'm an idol..."

"Come on. It's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not like you announced you were dating. You're allowed to say someone's your type. You're not some one- or two-year-old."

"Um... I'm not that old..."

"Ah... that isn't what I meant."

She is two years older than me. Not that I've ever really felt like she's some poised older sister. Anyway, I said what I could to comfort her. She would handle it well enough on her own, but seeing that look on her face made me feel bad all the same.

"Siwoo."

"Yeah?"

"If I were to start over and draw my class again... would you be able to party with me?"

"Huh?"

We had been eating, and then Lim Sarang asked it out of nowhere. What was she talking about? I lifted my head and met her eyes, and it did not look like something she was merely saying.

"I want to play the game with you, Siwoo."

"..."

Me too. Would it be too strange to say that? For a moment I was thrown. Was this a confession? For a confession, she was talking about something far too wrapped up in the game.

"You mean... deleting that ranker character and drawing a class all over again..."

"Yes. Five-star draws are all the trend these days. Honestly, watching you made me want to draw one too..."

"...."

She's got plenty of money. She can do whatever she likes. Why ask me? Maybe that look reached her.

"I want to draw again... and grow while I play with you, Siwoo. If you'll allow it, I'm going to make a great resolve."

"Ah... with me, the whole way?"

"Yes!"

Then it was a fair thing to ask. Was I uncomfortable with it? I asked myself, and the answer came out on its own.

"I'd like that. If I could be with you every day, Sarang..."

"...Eh?"

"...Huh?"

"..."

"..."

It felt as if some other answer, the one buried in my heart, had come out instead of the one I meant. Lim Sarang shot up from her seat. Her head was bowed low, but looking up from below, I could see all too clearly the flushed skin showing through the fall of her face.

And with that, she stormed straight out of the restaurant. By the time I paid and stepped outside, Lim Sarang had vanished from the friend list on my phone.

"..."

She really did make a great resolve.