152. The Stream Has Ended
152. The Stream Has Ended
***
The evening had deepened, and darkness lay thick across the night sky. But beneath it, the city blazed with countless lights that lit the streets as if throwing a tantrum of brightness.
August 18, 11 p.m.
The TSJ headquarters, its entire building tinged with blue light, was also brightly lit.
The scheduled practice hours had ended long ago, leaving everyone free to spend the rest of the evening as they pleased. TSJ's players and coaches were each occupied in their own way.
Rustle, rustle.
Step, step.
Only small noises arose from the people moving through the building. The headquarters held a mostly calm atmosphere.
Some players stayed in their capsules until late into the night playing Another World. Others went to bed early for tomorrow, or rested and settled their minds. Some of the coaching staff headed to the strategy lab to prepare for the team they would face next.
While each of them spent the time in their own meaningful way—
A beautiful woman with earbuds in, her black hair let down loose.
Yoo Eunha.
Better known by her player name Jeanne d'Arc, she was relaxing comfortably in her spacious private room.
After returning to the team dormitory two days ago, she had rested for a long while. Then, starting yesterday, she had joined scrims to regain her feel for the game. But she was only pacing herself moderately, not doing any extra practice beyond that.
Lying comfortably on her bed, Eunha was watching a personal stream displayed on a hologram floating in the air.
—Once you get past the Yeti Zone, the players' mentality does seem a bit different, doesn't it?
At the sight of Serin, her long silver hair hanging down, spinning her Crescent-Moon Weight around with quick flicks, Eunha let out a small laugh without realizing it.
"Come to think of it, Serin. You're still Diamond, aren't you."
Thinking that the tier really didn't suit Serin at all, she was resting by watching Serin's stream, which had come on for the first time in a while.
Eunha was too busy to contact Serin every single day, and in her remaining time she tried to watch Serin's streams, but then Serin would be taking a break.
While Eunha was watching Serin's stream with a small smile, she suddenly heard a knock. Knock, knock.
Eunha turned off the hologram and parted her lips.
"Who is it?"
"Ah, Eunha, it's me. Seola. Do you have a moment to talk?"
Hearing the familiar female voice, Eunha naturally worked the controls and unlocked the door.
"Come in."
Soon, with a creak, the door slowly opened.
A woman with red-tinted bobbed hair and a cute impression.
The youngest of TSJ's players, Baek Seola.
"Ah, Eunha. I... it's nothing, really. I just wanted to talk with you."
Seola stepped into Eunha's room and spoke hesitantly, as if reading Eunha's mood. Eunha sat up straight on the bed and glanced at a nearby chair.
As if telling her to sit there.
At that look from Eunha, Seola gave a small nod and sat down in the chair. Then Seola's gaze, which had been carefully taking in the inside of Eunha's room, suddenly fixed on one spot.
The sight of fancy gift boxes stacked neatly to one side. Among those boxes was the one Seola herself had given.
'She still... hasn't even opened the wrapping.'
The day Eunha returned had been her birthday, so several people in TSJ had coordinated to prepare birthday gifts. Seeing them left there as if abandoned was... she had expected it, honestly. But actually facing it made her heart ache even more.
That sight itself seemed to express a kind of wall between Eunha and the rest of them.
Since returning to the dormitory, Eunha had seemed relatively bright, but the gap still showed no sign of closing.
"..."
Eunha watched Seola stare at the gift boxes without much reaction and waited silently for her to speak.
"Eunha, did you... not like our gifts?"
"No, I was just planning to open them later."
"...If that's all it is, then I'm relieved."
Eunha's answer was so flat it bordered on coldness, but Seola kept mustering her courage.
"Eunha, you know. While you were resting, we really thought about a lot of things."
"What kind of things?"
"Things like whether we'd been too indifferent toward you all this time."
"No. You all treated me well enough. My suddenly saying I wanted to rest was a personal issue."
Looking at Seola, Eunha spoke her true feelings calmly.
There was no need to hide what was on her mind, and the inner conflict she had gone through was close to a kind of emptiness. It had nothing to do with them.
At some point, winning matches had stopped bringing her any joy at all, and no matter what else she did, she felt no emotion. It was purely a personal problem.
Actually, being indifferent toward other people was nothing special—just an ordinary part of daily life. But losing interest in Another World and feeling that emptiness was a fairly serious matter.
'I wonder if it looked different to other people.'
Even as she thought that, she truly hadn't been able to help it back then.
As the feeling of emptiness worsened during the league, it was obvious that if she didn't leave the dormitory, she would cause trouble for the team.
Then, by chance, she came across a video of Rin, and through the emptiness she felt a kind of curiosity.
The first person she felt could be of the same kind as herself—that was Rin in the video. After that, once she met her in person and spent time with her, most of the feelings like the emptiness she'd been carrying disappeared.
Even when she met people face-to-face and talked with them, she had never felt any interest in anyone she'd met before. But she was completely different.
She had a mysterious air that made her seem as though she didn't belong to this world. Serin's slightest actions and gestures naturally drew my gaze.
So the other TSJ players being indifferent toward me had never been the issue at all.
But Seola, who knew nothing of Eunha's inner thoughts, looked at her with a truly apologetic expression.
"No. You always accepted everything without showing anything, so we really were indifferent. You always did everything so well. I think we leaned on you too much all this time. You must have had to bear so much pressure alone..."
Eunha had been listening silently to Seola's long speech, but when she sensed the situation taking an odd turn, she cut her off immediately.
"Seola? I'm really fine."
Eunha wanted to catch at least a little more of Serin's stream, which could end at any moment. When Seola showed every sign of dragging the conversation out, the situation became uncomfortable.
"You say you're fine, but really. Eunha... why are you so bad at expressing your own feelings?"
But faced with Eunha's attitude, Seola steeled herself and mustered even more courage.
From experience, she knew that if the conversation got cut off here again, it would simply end there.
"What do you mean, I'm... bad at it?"
Even at Eunha's puzzled question, Seola's emotions kept welling up. Clutching the hem of her skirt, she continued.
"Really. You know... after experiencing the empty space where you weren't there, I couldn't help but feel it clearly. What kind of burden you'd been carrying all this time, Eunha. And I really didn't even know that all along..."
When Seola even began to choke up slightly at the end, Eunha was momentarily flustered.
'What on earth is wrong with her?'
She had suddenly shown up and was now on the verge of tears. Eunha couldn't understand it, and for a moment she was at a loss for words.
"Eunha. If I... held your hand and things like that, would it make you uncomfortable?"
As Seola looked at Eunha's hand and choked up, Eunha nodded.
She hated physical contact with anyone.
And at that sight of Eunha, Seola smiled faintly.
'Because Eunha has always been like this.'
Even when someone approached her trying to close the distance, she always treated them coldly.
She never let it show how hard things were for her inside, or what she really felt.
A person who always hid herself and acted calm on the outside.
That was Eunha.
And so Seola's misunderstanding only deepened further.
"Honestly, you know... Eunha. I still don't know how to close this distance with you."
"..."
"It's already been over two years since I joined TSJ and we started living together, right? But even when you suddenly left the dormitory, I didn't know you were struggling that much. The way you looked on the outside always seemed so composed. So I thought you'd be fine. Maybe I thought, 'It's Eunha, so she'll be okay.'"
"..."
"Even when the schedule was packed and everyone was struggling, you always got through everything with a calm expression, and you always performed well in matches. At some point, I guess I started taking that for granted. A lot of fans expected that from you, and in matches the other players all took it for granted that you'd do well. I guess I thought that way too... You must have been struggling so much too, Eunha."
...
For about five more minutes, Eunha listened quietly and calmly to Seola's long words.
The mood made it too awkward to cut her off, so Eunha found it hard to speak. Eventually, unable to take it any longer, she reached out and took Seola's hand.
She had to end this somehow.
"Seola. I didn't know you thought about me that much. I'm really grateful for that."
Eunha's expression, which had felt cold all this time, seemed to Seola to soften into something so warm in that moment.
"But right now, you know. I want to sort out my thoughts alone for a bit. Seola, could you head back for today?"
At Eunha's voice, which sounded affectionate for once, Seola smiled more brightly than ever.
"...Yes. I will. Then, from now on, if things are hard, you have to show it on the outside, okay?"
"Okay. I will."
She didn't really get it, but Eunha answered that she understood on the surface and managed to soothe Seola and send her back out.
Click.
At the sound of the door closing, Eunha immediately grabbed the hologram device and quickly pressed on Serin's stream, which she had minimized.
Then a line of text appeared in Eunha's sight.
—The broadcast has ended.
"......"
For a moment, Eunha chewed her lip, seized by an indescribable emotion. Setting aside her deep disappointment, she pressed the channel's VOD.
But for some reason, today's stream didn't appear in the VOD list.
"Ah."
Blinking blankly as she searched through the VODs, Eunha found herself bringing her hand down hard on the blanket.