107. What It Means to Hear Someone's Sincerity...
107. What It Means to Hear Someone's Sincerity...
***
If you asked whether I'd planned to spend the whole evening together, honestly, I'd only agreed to meet out of curiosity. I hadn't been thinking that far ahead.
But isn't there a saying?
That you can't bring yourself to refuse someone who's smiling at you.
And on top of that—
When someone who usually seems indifferent and expressionless with other people lights up every time she looks at me, so openly happy that it shows on her face, the effect was doubled.
Yeah.
That's why I couldn't turn down Eunha's offer to have dinner.
......
The moment she stepped into the private room on the upper floor of the dazzling restaurant, Serin felt a faint sense of disconnect.
No, more than a disconnect, it would be more accurate to say she was wondering how she'd ended up spending this much time with Eunha.
"When did you even make a restaurant reservation?"
She asked casually.
"Just now...? I happened to contact a restaurant I know, and luckily they confirmed they had a table available."
At my words, Eunha nodded awkwardly, and something about it didn't quite convince me.
Now that she thought about it, from the café until now, the route and the course of the day felt as if everything had been planned in advance.
A dinner reservation at a high-end restaurant like this. And a private room, at that—could you normally arrange one the moment you called?
Even as the question crossed my mind, I spoke with deliberate firmness.
"Then I'll say this now. Dinner is on me."
Even as I said it, my gaze drifted to the item Eunha had quietly handed me in the car on the way to the restaurant—the wallet I was holding now.
A softly ivory-toned wallet. At a glance it looked like an ordinary design, but the sleek alphabet logo of JJ attached to the bottom center caught the eye.
Eunha had suddenly slipped it to me, saying it seemed like it would suit me. When I accepted it and asked how much it cost, she didn't answer.
She just said it was reasonably priced and not to worry about it, then awkwardly turned her head away.
Judging by Eunha's behavior, it was surely expensive. Honestly, more than the price being burdensome, what felt strange was the way Eunha was launching a full-scale gift offensive on their very first meeting.
No matter how much she liked someone, people didn't usually give gifts like this on a first meeting.
In a way, Eunha seemed like someone who didn't really know how to express affection.
Like a child who just gives gifts without thinking?
Serin even got the feeling that Eunha didn't know what would please her, so whenever she felt like giving something, she just gave it all.
But at the same time, it was obvious how carefully Eunha watched to see how I reacted to every gift—like a cute animal flinching at a person's slightest movement—so I couldn't think badly of her.
No, actually, it was strange to be suspicious of someone's intentions just because they gave a gift.
Rattle.
Clunk.
After Serin and Eunha each took their seats in the restaurant, a server came to take their order. Serin silently looked at Eunha, and Eunha smiled softly and ordered the B course for them.
The way Serin looked at her without a word made Eunha laugh. The expression that seemed to say "order for me" because she didn't know the menu only made Eunha's fondness for Serin grow.
And so, the time spent waiting for the food.
As a small silence wrapped around them again, the two seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere without saying much.
Eunha, who naturally enjoyed quiet atmospheres, simply liked the silence of being alone with Serin here. Serin, for her part, hadn't been to a high-end restaurant like this in a long time, so she looked around or watched the people walking along the street through the window in the private room.
It was Serin who spoke first.
"Eunha, are you planning to return during the season?"
The biggest piece of information she'd learned about Eunha before meeting her—about the player Jeanne d'Arc—was that she was currently taking a break.
But from spending the day together, Serin had sensed that Eunha seemed to have a fair amount of free time, so she asked casually.
"Ah, yes. I've already let them know I'll be returning. To be exact, I go back to the team house in three days."
"I know it's playoffs right now, so you're going to get really busy too, Eunha."
"Yes. Probably... once I'm back at the team house, it'll be hard to find personal time."
Eunha nodded slightly in agreement and spoke with a hint of regret in her voice. Well, that made sense.
From the articles Serin had skimmed, Eunha had lived as a pro player for three straight years. Even during her personal break, she'd apparently done nothing but practice, running Another World Solo Queue and team matchmaking.
- A relentless workaholic.
- An overwhelming amount of practice.
- The combination of talent and effort creates perfection.
- A player who isn't satisfied even after taking the throne.
- An iron woman who maintains perfection even amid nonstop ad schedules and match schedules.
There were many ways people described the player Jeanne d'Arc, but as a pro player, nearly all of them centered on the word "perfect."
Most descriptions paired her dazzling talent with the fact that she always worked just as hard as ever.
And yet that player had suddenly said she was struggling and taken a break.
Serin wondered how sweet this break must be for her now. But at the same time, she thought about how relentlessly Eunha must have been running to declare a break so suddenly.
And once that thought occurred to her, Serin found it strangely remarkable.
'She's spending her precious break meeting me?'
I glanced at Eunha without much thought, and it turned out she was looking right back at me.
"You're resting comfortably right now, right?"
"...Pardon?"
Eunha looked puzzled, as if asking what she meant.
"No, I mean, you're on break right now, Eunha. I was just wondering if it's okay for you to spend a whole day with me like this."
Among Another World players, Eunha was a pro whose market value was practically impossible to calculate.
It felt strange, all over again, to think that a player like that was spending an entire day with her.
Without even realizing it, Serin had searched earlier and found out Eunha drove a hypercar worth not hundreds of millions but tens of billions of won, and casually used department store VIP lounges.
Even dinner was being handled at a restaurant like this.
It was a life far removed from ordinary—truly the life of the upper class.
But contrary to what Serin was thinking, Eunha was actually the one who was surprised.
At Serin's apparent tendency to put herself down, Eunha made a genuinely taken-aback expression and spoke calmly.
"If I'm being completely honest, today is the most comfortable I've felt during this entire break. I don't think I've laughed as much as I did today in recent memory... Spending time with you, Serin... it's just really, really comfortable, you know?"
At those completely unexpected words, Serin looked at Eunha again.
"...Really?"
"Yes. Honestly... how should I put it? Even while resting until recently, I felt empty. I said I wanted to rest and left the team house to spend time alone, but I didn't really feel like I was resting. If anything, I felt disillusioned with my life as a player. Even while winning the league, at some point those results started to feel so natural, and playing matches and producing results stopped being enjoyable. It was just... everything felt empty."
As she spoke, Eunha slowly swept a hand through her hair. She seemed a little embarrassed, but at Eunha's sudden confession, Serin looked at her with a hint of wonder.
A sweet break. Serin had assumed that after running nonstop as a player, Eunha would be resting comfortably. But the words that came out of Eunha's mouth were completely unexpected.
That even after declaring a break, she hadn't felt like she was resting.
That instead, she'd felt an even greater emptiness.
"Then, by pure chance, I saw a video about you on NewTube, Serin."
"A video about me..."
It was surely something related to Another World, but Serin was a little surprised.
That even a famous pro player like this had watched a video of her.
"Yes. Videos about Another World's Rin—about you now, Serin."
Eunha looked at Serin with a steady gaze and spoke as if she were certain, and Serin looked back at her with a slightly flustered expression.
"I watched your performances in Another World as if spellbound. The way you moved so freely while swinging the Crescent-Moon Weight, a weapon that's hard to handle. The way you enjoyed duels themselves. Or the way you handled yourself with ease even against Plea and a user named Gosu. It was all so impressive that my eyes kept going to you naturally. The more I watched, the more amazing you were... I couldn't help but admire you."
Eunha smiled softly, as if every word was sincere.
"...Hearing praise about Another World from you, Eunha, feels really strange."
Serin, who knew what Jeanne d'Arc looked like in matches, felt a little awkward even as she answered.
It was true that she'd fought well against rankers and put on a fairly impressive performance, but the person saying this was none other than the player who currently held Another World's rank 1.
And not just that—a woman who stood in a league of her own even at the pro level.
"And what's even stranger is that watching those videos of you, Serin, gradually filled that empty feeling in me. It was like seeing a completely different kind of person from everyone I'd ever watched before."
"...That's really embarrassing."
As she answered Eunha, who seemed to be speaking from the heart with pure intentions, Serin felt a strange tingling in her chest.
The words that watching me had filled that emptiness.
Hearing that said so directly was almost unbearably embarrassing.
Like receiving a confession that wasn't quite a confession...
Even as Serin looked embarrassed, Eunha's eyes sparkled with a soft heat as she spoke, as if expressing everything in her heart without hiding anything.
"So during my entire break, I watched every single one of your streams without missing a single one. And honestly, the point when I started to actually rest—enough to call it a rest—was when I first learned about you. That was a big part of why I went to your stream and donated."
"Ah, so... all those huge donations you've been sending, Eunha—they all had that kind of meaning behind them."
"Yes. That's right. I said I was resting, but I didn't have the desire to do anything... or even the motivation. I was just spending time blankly in my officetel. There was this emptiness that wouldn't go away, and I'd grown listless. But watching your streams made those feelings gradually disappear. Instead, how should I put it—passion? It's a little embarrassing to say, but... it felt like my feelings for Another World came back to life."
'...How can she just say all this?'
Pure intentions.
It was so obvious from her expression that she was speaking sincerely, without any ulterior motive, and hearing it head-on made Serin's chest keep tickling.
It was different from the feeling of hearing someone praise or flatter her—it made her fingers and toes twitch.
"So I, really, Serin, you..."
Serin couldn't bring herself to stop Eunha's endlessly continuing words and could only sit there listening, her fingers and toes twitching with embarrassment.
Knock knock.
—Your food is here.
A savior had arrived.