The Girl Who Would Become a Star
The girl who bore the name Hwangbo Yeon had been sick from the moment she was born.
The name of the illness was long and difficult, so she never bothered to memorize it. But there was one thing she understood with perfect clarity. She would become a star before she ever became an adult. It was a phrase borrowed from a fairy tale, but to a young girl, death could only be understood in those terms.
With every year that passed, the illness slowly ate away at her body. Even the lightest exercise became a struggle, and though she had long since enrolled in school, she was hospitalized so often that the hospital felt more familiar than any classroom. She had even held her graduation ceremony from a hospital bed — in every way that mattered, the hospital was her school. Her attending physician and the nurses helped her with her studies, so they were her teachers as well.
Even so, up until then, the girl had been all right. She could still take short trips with her parents. She could still go on walks with her little sister, three years her junior.
Time passed, and on the morning she became a middle schooler, the girl woke to find that all sensation had vanished from the lower half of her body. What surprised her more than the fact that she could no longer walk, however, was how little the discovery shocked her — as though she had always known this day would come.
And then, after another long stretch of time had gone by, the girl found she could no longer move at all from her hospital bed. Every sensation below her neck had disappeared.
From that day forward, she spent every waking hour inside a virtual reality device. It had been modified for medical use, and inside it she began playing games — something she had never done once in her life. She couldn't have said why the impulse struck her. She tried every genre except horror, and she failed at all of them, again and again. Along the way she was mocked for her lack of skill, and the criticism stung enough to shrink her a little — but she never stopped.
By the time she became a high schooler, everything except thought itself had become impossible. Even blinking her own eyes.
The girl who had not shed a single tear even when full-body paralysis set in finally broke down and wept, terrified. For the first time, she could feel it — the hour when she would become a star was drawing near. Why did it have to be her? The girl who had never once spoken a word of complaint spent that day silently cursing the world, and herself along with it.
But she pulled herself together soon enough. With help, she laid herself back inside the virtual reality device. Knowing how little time she had left, she moved faster than she ever had before. Even the horror games she had shoved into a corner out of fear — she started playing those, too, one by one. It led to a grimly comic incident in which the strain on her heart sent the medical staff rushing in, but nothing could stop her.
And through all those countless games, the girl finally understood her own heart.
She did not want to die meaninglessly like this. She wanted to leave a mark so large that the world would know she had existed. She wanted to claw and fight until her name lingered on people's lips for a long, long time.
But realizing what she wanted changed nothing in any dramatic way. No matter how hard a person tries, there are limits they cannot cross. Even if you strive as though you are dying — even if death itself is already at the door — some things simply cannot be done.
And so the girl slowly wore down. The spirit she had carried when she first stepped into virtual reality was long gone, and a bitter cynicism rose up in its place. In the end, she would accomplish nothing. She would die inside this narrow virtual reality capsule — that much was certain. A life that ended not in a bed but in the middle of a game: how could anyone call that anything but wretched?
Even as those cold thoughts circled, the girl never stopped playing. Or rather — she could not stop. An act repeated for years on end does not halt; inertia carries it forward.
Until the day she died.
But when she tamed a single fox in a newly started game called Al Fantasia, something in the girl's daily life began to change. At first, the fox reminded her of a puppy she had raised as a child, and she cherished it dearly. Its temperament seemed a little high-strung, but even that prickliness was a delight to her.
She had thrown herself into everything with the single-minded resolve to leave a trace behind — but the girl was still young. At some point her parents and sister had stopped coming to visit, and the loneliness that piled up while she waited for them was something no one could ease. Playing a game full of other people made no difference at all.
Now, though, it was different. Watching the fox react so fiercely to every gesture, every action she made, the girl felt the loneliness knotted inside her begin to loosen, little by little. And when that fox transformed into a human — into a child around her sister's age — she felt something bloom in her chest.
She did not know the name of that feeling. She only knew that she was purely, simply happy to have someone beside her she could actually talk to. The story she heard afterward was shocking, yes — but it was not enough to change her mind.
If anything, a thought rose from deep in her chest. Thank goodness.
If the fox had been nothing more than data existing inside a game, it would have forgotten her someday. No game lasts forever. But if that fox was actually a user like herself — a person — then when she died, wouldn't that person carry the deepest trace of her, held close inside their heart, for the rest of their life?
That was what Hwangbo Yeon was thinking as she looked at the frozen figure of Choco. She had explained everything that had happened up to now in a calm, even voice, leaving out only the feelings she herself had harbored. Even that alone would have been an enormous shock. Anyone would react that way if someone they knew suddenly confessed they were terminally ill — and Choco, with that kind heart of hers, would take it harder, not easier.
Still, hoping the blow wouldn't land too hard, Yeon put on a mischievous smile and spoke playfully.
"Now do you understand how badly you've treated m— Choco?!"
The rest of the sentence, which would have followed if the dazed Choco hadn't suddenly burst into tears, dissolved into flustered panic. Yeon frantically pulled Choco's head into her arms.
"D-don't cry. I'm sorry, I was just teasing..."
"W-who's crying—"
Choco couldn't finish. A shapeless mass had risen to her throat, and she could only hiccup out tears. If she said another word, she was certain she would come completely undone. Memories of every time she had scolded Yeon or treated her harshly kept surfacing in her mind.
If she had been able to calm down and think clearly, she would have realized she had never said anything all that cruel — but in the memories rising now, every word she had ever spoken to Yeon had twisted into something that must have cut her deeply. That was how profoundly Yeon's story had shaken her.
If she had known, she never would have pushed her into those reckless hunts. She couldn't have known, so there was nothing she could have done differently — and yet the guilt of having forced those things on Yeon, whose body was already failing, sat heavy in her chest. Choco's voice came out crushed and trembling.
"I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry..."
Whether it was the instability of her mind or something else, the Dignity skill had stopped taking effect. But Choco didn't even notice that her speech had returned to normal. She just kept apologizing.
"What do you have to apologize for? I'm the one who hid it."
"But..."
"Honestly, if I could have kept hiding it, I was going to go as long as possible without saying a word."
Yeon stroked Choco's hair and whispered quietly.
"You're such a kind person. If you'd known about my condition, you would have told me to stop playing games and take care of my body instead."
"That's..."
Choco started to say something, then lowered her head. No doubt she was remembering every time she had urged Yeon to log out after they'd been in the game too long.
Of course, that isn't the only reason.
It wasn't that she had wanted to put off telling her for as long as possible. She had never intended to tell her at all. She had planned to stay by Choco's side, playing Al Fantasia until the day she died, and then simply vanish without a word of goodbye.
After a bond like that, Choco would surely wait for her to log in. She would wait and wait, and when Yeon never came back, she would almost certainly go find Se-jin and ask what had happened. And Se-jin, whom Yeon had deliberately told everything, would tell Choco all of it — that Yeon had been terminally ill, and that not long ago her life had finally run out.
How would Choco react to that? Would she cry the way she was crying now? Or perhaps, having built an even deeper bond by then, she would show some other face entirely.
But of this, Yeon was certain. The trace of herself left inside Choco's heart would be very, very deep.
What a filthy, cheap thought.
That was how Yeon saw herself — a wretched person, for planning to leave a mark even if it meant wounding someone she cherished. Maybe it was better for both of them that she had been found out like this. Holding onto that thought, Yeon carefully eased Choco away from her.
And then, without meaning to, she let out a little puff of laughter.
"Your face is a mess."
The tear-ravaged expression made it almost impossible to picture the pretty face underneath. Yeon didn't bother hiding the grin tugging at her lips as she carefully, tenderly wiped away the streaming tears. In a small voice, she murmured,
"Even if I told you I was fine, you wouldn't be able to accept it like that. Would you, Choco?"
"...How could I possibly?!"
"Oh, your speech pattern's back."
This was the Choco she knew. Yeon smiled and pressed their foreheads together. No warmth passed between them, but the contact alone was enough to steady her. The press of forehead against forehead made the connection between them feel real.
"But I don't want you to do that. Don't wrap me up in cotton. Don't try to protect me. Treat me the way you always have — no different from any other day."
She knew it was impossible. She said it anyway.
She felt Choco flinch at the word order.
They treated each other comfortably, but as far as the system was concerned, Yeon was Choco's master. As long as an order didn't stray too far out of bounds, Choco would have no choice but to obey. And Yeon had to go that far. In all the years she had wandered through countless games, Al Fantasia was the first one she had ever truly found fun.
The skill she had slowly built under Choco's guidance had come into its own when she hunted alongside Se-jin and Ho-jin. For the first time, Yeon had felt the joy of the hunt. A sword she had never once swung in her life moved freely in her hands, and the ideal path of the blade drew itself not before her eyes but inside her mind. In that, she had found a thrill. She wanted that exhilaration — something no other game had ever given her — to keep going.
Of course, that wasn't the only reason. If Choco grew timid because of Yeon's condition, it would surely slow her progress toward her goal of becoming a Gumiho and returning to her original body. Yeon herself was bound to a cruel fate as a dying girl — but Choco was a person trapped inside a game, which was no less absurd. Yeon didn't want her own circumstances to hold Choco back. If anything, she wanted Choco to use how much stronger she had become — to close in on her goal that much faster.
Because then, without a doubt, she would remain that much deeper in Choco's memory.
Having said all that, Yeon suddenly remembered the words Choco had shouted, stepping in front of her, the day they met Ho-jin's party.
"..."
"Will you do that for me?"
Choco closed her eyes without a word. The tears that had been welling there spilled over and slid down her cheeks. Yeon said nothing, and simply held her tight.
Only after a long time had passed did Choco answer, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"If that is thy request..."
Then she would.
"Thank you."
And Yeon's voice, answering, was brighter than it had ever been.