Grape Cave (2)

Yoo Jinwoo. Speaking her own name after so long left Choco's lips feeling parched dry.

Then again, even before she had become like this, people had called her by her nickname far more often than by her real name. Perhaps that was only to be expected.

"Yoo Jinwoo... That's a pretty ordinary name."

"Did you imagine some magnificent name would come tumbling forth?"

"That's not what I meant... It just feels unfamiliar, somehow."

The awkward little ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠laugh that came with the words struck a chord in Choco as well. It was her name, yes — but it had been a very long time since anyone had spoken it aloud.

Choco wet her dry lips with her tongue and went on.

"The one called Yoo Jinwoo... was just an ordinary fellow. People said he had been born into what they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠call a gold-spoon household, but he never swaggered about it. He put in a reasonable effort and achieved reasonable things. An ordinary human being, nothing more."

Of course, being born into wealth meant he had never wanted for anything. If his grades seemed to be slipping, a word to his parents produced a tutor without the slightest fuss, and whatever he wished to try, he could. There was no discord in the household, either. His parents were happily matched, and he and his one younger sister never bickered the way siblings in other families did. The word want had never existed in their hearts, so perhaps that was only natural. Yoo Jinwoo's temperament, accordingly, was a decent one. He knew how to give in moderation, how to yield in moderation, and he possessed nothing that could be called a competitive streak.

It was, in every sense, a leisurely life — one abundant with ease. Rather than compete with anyone, he preferred to keep company and simply enjoy himself. That did not change when he became an adult. He entered what people called a prestigious university, but Yoo Jinwoo had no particular goal to speak of. He had gone only to mix with others a little more; he had no calling toward scholarship, and no ambition toward a career.

Even so, he was a man, and so he enlisted. The military was a place oppressive in ways civilian society was not, and at times outright violent — yet his nature did not change. Even inside that unreasonable institution, Yoo Jinwoo's manner and his heart remained full of ease.

"You've been gilding yourself this whole time... You talk like it was nothing special, but you were pretty full of yourself, huh?"

"It is the proper way of things that a person live with a modest measure of self-regard."

"For that kind of talk, it seems a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠little much..."

Under Yeon's sly, sidelong look, Choco turned her head away without a word. It was something she had heard from the people around her more than once. Someone who pretended otherwise, yet quietly lived on the taste of their own excellence.

"Such things differ from person to person."

Choco cleared her throat and fell silent for a moment. It was not that the remark had struck a nerve. The observation was not even wrong, and she had never much cared about that sort of thing. It was only that the words waiting ahead were not a story one could toss out lightly.

"Choco?"

Yeon tilted her head at the sight of her walking on without a word. But the voice did not reach Choco's ears. Once the memories had begun to surface, what filled her eyes was no longer the cave at all.

Choco drifted toward the fallen woman in a daze, then faltered. A hand had come down upon her shoulder and caught her there.

"Choco!"

"Yeon?"

Yeon's figure rose upon the empty road — not in modern clothes, but in the kind of leather gear one saw in a fantasy world, a sword gripped in one hand.

"Are you okay? You haven't been answering since a while ago..."

Only then did Choco blink. In an instant the scenery snapped back from the road to the cave, and a dim, sunken dark filled her vision. A hallucination. Recognizing it for what it was, she dragged a hand down her face.

So much time had already passed, and still the memory of that day was unbearably vivid.

"Forgive me. Something came to mind for a moment. Where had I left off?"

"That you got through the military without much trouble... But are you sure you're okay? You don't look well."

Choco nodded without a word. She did not need a mirror to know exactly what her face must look like. To anyone watching, it would not have been a pleasant sight — every bit as dark as the passage they were walking now.

"If it's really too hard to talk about, you don't have to. I don't want to know so badly that I'd make you say something that hurts..."

"I am grateful for your concern. But I am truly all right. It is all in the past now."

Was that truly so? Even as she said it, the doubt rose in her. If she could truly dismiss it as a thing already past, then why had she been hiding from reality inside a game, all the way until this very day?

"If you say so, Choco... I guess I can't stop you, but..."

Yeon muttered it as though something still sat wrong with her, looking entirely unconvinced. A stuffy, old-fashioned thought — she's young; when an adult says it's fine, she ought to take it as fine — shoved its head up for a moment, but instead of voicing it, Choco offered a different opening. It was a continuation of the story she had been telling only a moment before.

"As I said just now, the military was not so terrible as one might expect. Of course, the prospect of spending nearly two years there was a dreadful one... but I was able to meet a rather different sort of people from those I had known outside."

The kind of human who used a senior's rank to commit outrageous abuses. The deadweight who tried to bury himself behind the word same class. The junior who, after being treated well, quickly tried to act as an equal. And a majority who were ordinary, yet somehow alien. All of them faces one rarely saw in regular society — and all of them faces that had, without question, been there all along.

She had wondered whether the military was what changed people so, but the institution itself had been something she could adapt to, in its way.

"But I did not remain there long. Some... four months, perhaps. After that, I returned home. I had been discharged."

Yeon did not ask why. She did not know much about the military, but anyone who played enough games eventually picked up a few pieces of information they had never asked to learn. That a soldier, upon ordinary discharge, used the phrase full-term sergeant — and that the period in question was close to two years, at the very least. And so the words discharged after four months, even to someone with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no connection to the military at all, were enough to know that something bad had happened. Something very bad.

Feeling, somehow, that she must not let Choco go on, Yeon opened her mouth.

"Choco."

"There is a thing called consolation leave for new recruits. Some three months after enlistment, they grant you three days or so to return home. A kindly enough system. And it was then that I lost my mother."

"...What?"

But Choco's words had been faster. Before Yeon could do anything at all, the shocking sentence was already out, and Yeon's eyes went wide. Choco, however, continued in a face of perfect calm.

"It was a traffic accident. She was crossing at a crosswalk when a car ran the light and struck her, and that was the end. There was no time for an ambulance, no time for surgery. By the time we reached the hospital, the doctor was already confirming the time of death."

"..."

"It did not even feel real, so I stood there in a daze for some while — and then one day they told me to go home. They summon you whenever they please, and send you away just as they please. Truly, they do as they like."

She even let out a small, dry laugh, as though she found it genuinely absurd, and Yeon looked at her with an expression that had no name.

"And so I went home... stayed with my family for a time, and then left to live on my own. When I said it was painful to be in that house, they understood at once."

She had crossed into an entirely different district to live alone. If she stayed in the same area as home, she was afraid she might find herself going back without meaning to. In a modest studio, seeing no one, she spent her days sunk in thought.

If only she had not stood there in a daze. If only she had noticed a little sooner. Of course she knew that even if she had, she could not have saved her. But that kind of lingering regret does not let go easily. She lived with those clinging feelings wrapped around her — and then she encountered a game that had only recently opened. A game called Al Fantasia.

The truth was, she had never been much of a gamer before that. Even when virtual reality games rose up and began to catch on, she had only tagged along with friends a handful of times. She had never sat down and committed herself to a game in earnest. And yet her gaze had locked onto Al Fantasia because of a single phrase: an adventure in another world you could never experience in reality.

Yes. I—

As the words left her, flame bloomed in her grip.

The thing she had named Fox-Fire went sailing toward the Armor Ants charging in from ahead. There was no bursting bang. Before it even made contact, the fox-fire spread in every direction and swallowed the entire oncoming swarm — then erased them without leaving so much as ash. Watching it, Choco let the corner of her mouth lift, just slightly, and murmured,

"Being like this... it was a little better, you see."

She understood, then, why people became addicted to things. Because even this much let you look away from the pain of reality. And so she fled from the real world and began a new life inside the game. Except for meals and the necessities of a body, she lived entirely within it.

Living like a wreck, doing nothing but play, she had before she knew it become the rank-one player — the user who went by the name Black Knight. A greatsword Berserker who wore full plate armor painted black from head to toe. It was the story of the rank-one player that Yeon had not quite managed to hear when she had logged into the forums.

"Mm... I ought to have heeded your words and left the tale untold."

Having finished speaking, Choco scratched her head without turning around. For some reason, she did not have the courage to look at Yeon just then. And of course she didn't. Yeon had only said, lightly, that she wanted to know about her — and Choco had gone and laid a story this heavy at her feet. She should have stopped where Yeon had suggested and let the whole thing slide.

Choco gave an awkward little laugh.

"As for what I just said, let us simply pretend I never—"

That had been the idea. Then Yeon's body crashed into her from behind, and her mouth shut of its own accord.

"Yeon?"

The girl holding her said nothing at all. She only buried her face in Choco's shoulder and held her, wordless.

And yet — why did it feel as though tears were about to fall?

Choco opened a mouth that would not stop trembling, and murmured,

"...Yeon."

The voice was wet, and the words died in Choco's throat. She moved her lips a few times, then let her head fall.

Because of the armor, no warmth came through at all. The arms wrapped around her neck were so tight it was hard to breathe. And yet that very constraint seemed, somehow, to loosen the thing that had been drawing tight around her heart. She laid a trembling hand upon the arms that held her.

That was all. Quietly, the two of them stood like that for a long while.

The ceiling had not broken open — and still the parched earth grew damp beneath the droplets that fell, one after another.