Dinosaur PCs and Prodigy Screenplays
I headed to the corner with the computers, where bulky, rugged towers greeted me. There wasn't a single sleek, custom-built case that looked cool and modern. Staring at these machines felt like stepping into a museum—a museum of ancient computers!
In the 2020s world I'd known, no one would touch these even if they were free. Hell, I wondered if they could even handle proper web surfing. Opening a single browser would make the RAM scream in agony.
Dad was beaming like a kid in a candy store. He must've been around computers a lot in his game dev days.
"Sora, check this out! It has 2GB of RAM! This thing's gonna be super fast."
Dad's eyes sparkled.
"And the hard drive's 200GB! That's enough storage to last a lifetime!"
He was buzzing like a boy who'd struck gold.
"The CPU and graphics card are top-of-the-line too!!!"
Dad rambled on about specs only he seemed to appreciate.
Mom poked his side playfully.
"Honey~ Sora has no idea what that means~"
"Huh...? You're right, haha!"
Dad realized he'd gotten carried away and let out an awkward laugh, scratching his head.
But I knew it all. Every spec and component for computers of this era. Sure, brand names varied a bit, but the big picture was unchanged.
"Sora, which computer do you like?"
"Hmm..."
I wanted to say a laptop would be better, but notebooks back then were total junk. They couldn't match desktop specs and were just portable trash. Forget gaming—they'd struggle with basic browsing.
Of course, having one would've been nice. And yeah, a guy needs his games now and then.
Gaming had been one of my top hobbies in my past life—mobile or PC, I didn't discriminate. Reading took the most time, but variety is the spice of life. Sticking to books alone got stale sometimes, and switching hobbies cured it right up.
At Dad's prompting, I scanned the displays. 200GB HDD, 2GB RAM... In my old era, these would've gone straight to the scrapyard. Terabyte drives were standard, 16GB RAM felt skimpy so folks dual-channeled to 32GB. More RAM, more good—that was the rule.
Though AI hype had jacked up RAM prices to gold levels. I'd snagged mine before the surge, but others paid ten times over. Blood money, right? A few bucks turned into tens of thousands. Stock surges had nothing on that—double was impressive; tenfold was legendary.
"Hmmm!"
Nothing really grabbed me. These were worse than the phones from my time.
But seeing Dad's eager eyes, I figured I should pick something decent.
We could've gone to Yongsan or an electronics market for a custom build, but I held off. I didn't know this world's PC market well enough yet. One wrong part, and boom—the power supply could've fried.
"Dad, this one looks good."
I pointed to a tower around a million won. Solid mid-range specs, nothing fancy. I just needed it for writing, so no point splurging.
"Ooh...! Good eye, Sora. I was eyeing this one too!"
I knew he was just humoring me, but it was sweet. Dad had a soft heart under it all.
In the old days, we couldn't dream of buying a PC, let alone a TV. But now? We could afford normal spending.
"Heh heh! Gotta grab a monitor, keyboard, and mouse too~"
A bare tower was useless. A PC was a symphony of parts.
And so, Dad and I picked up all the peripherals.
Shopping out with both parents felt great. I couldn't quite explain why. Was this the happiness of having a family?
A joy I'd never known before. But now it was mine. A gift from God or fate's prank—who cared? I had a real family at last. My past "family" didn't count—just the bio mom who'd dumped me at the orphanage.
"Wanna eat out?"
"Sounds good, honey! What about you, Sora?"
"Yeah!"
We chowed down on Korean BBQ together. Better days lay ahead. Sure, debt lingered, but hope was in sight. Pay it off steadily, and who knows? A Gangnam penthouse might be ours someday.
At our earning pace, it was doable. Money breeds money—snowballs fast once it piles up.
Park Sung-min spent a full week devouring the scenarios Sora had written. All three blew him away and sparked wild inspiration.
An elementary first-grader crafting movie scripts like this...? If he were a professor, he'd have scooped her up on the spot—straight into grad school.
An untrained kid pulling off pro-level work rivaling decades-hardened screenwriters. If an adult had written it, he'd just say "nice job." But this? From a kid fresh in elementary school? It defied logic.
How could a first-grader write like that? The world was vast, geniuses aplenty, and now he felt it viscerally. With 6 billion people on Earth, a Sora wasn't impossible. Human potential varied wildly—one adult couldn't throw a baseball right, another hurled 160km/h fastballs. Same species, insane gaps.
Still, Sora's smarts strained belief.
After reading, Park called Sora. He'd gotten her home number already. Mom picked up, but Sora was home, so they chatted. He kept it vague—too crucial for phone talk. Just said Songi Media wanted to meet. She agreed.
Park headed straight there, armed with her favorite chocolate cake. Like a grandpa winning over a grandkid with treats, he couldn't hide the instinct.
"Hm..."
At Songi Media's building, he met Sora. She wasn't always the same—fashion-savvy kid, rocking cute, girly outfits. Seeing her pink magic-girl vibe confirmed she was still a normal girl at heart.
Of course, she had no clue Mom had forced that outfit on her today. Sora hadn't spilled.
"Hello, Writer."
"Heh heh, no need for that...! Grandpa's fine...!"
Park secretly envied how she called his friend Kim Min-gyu "Grandpa." A cutie like Sora using it on him? Priceless.
Luckily, she obliged.
"Okay, Grandpa..."
"Ahem... Anyway. I read your scenarios carefully, Sora."
"What'd you think?"
Straight ball from Sora. Park answered.
"They're excellent. I'd praise a student's work like this... but knowing it's you? I don't even know what to say."
"Heh heh..."
Sora flashed a mischievous grin.
In her old world, these were blockbusters—8 to 10 million viewers minimum. Korea punched above its weight in moviegoing, but 10 million was massive. A yearly rarity, sometimes none—like post-COVID slump. Film industry tanked after.
But here? Movies were cheap date nights and prime hobbies.