The Snowball
“Hey, did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“You know that girl who took down Jang Jinsol? The fifth-grade girl. They say her family’s in the mob.”
“What? Seriously? Come to think of it... she was crazy strong.”
“No way! A kid who smiles that innocently could never be like that!”
“Hey, hey, my friend in Class 3 saw it herself. She plays games with gangsters at the PC bang. She’s basically nested there.”
Through the children of Eunha Elementary School and their loose lips and wild imaginations, the rumor about that fifth-grade girl slowly spread.
Among the sixth graders, Lee Chaewon was already known as the fifth-grade girl who had beaten up the notoriously awful Jang Jinsol, so the innocent elementary school kids swallowed the rumor without a second thought.
Before long, the story had begun to leak beyond the sixth graders and toward the fifth grade as well.
The problem was that among the fifth graders, Lee Chaewon was better known as the pretty top student in the entire school, so the rumor caused quite a stir.
And in the end, it reached the ears of Kim Siyeon, the person closest to her in the outside world.
When Chaewon heard the question relayed to her by Siyeon, she only stood there with her mouth hanging open, blank with disbelief.
***
Do my mom and dad work in the underworld?!
She almost said no, then hesitated.
Why? Because she didn’t actually know what they did.
She’d never really asked, and she’d never heard anyone explain it, either.
She’d just assumed they had normal office jobs.
She didn’t even know much about office workers from her past life, and in this life she’d been busy every single day.
Trying to answer honestly made her feel a little like a terrible daughter, so she went quiet for a moment.
“Uh, huh? Why’d you go silent? That’s scary.”
“W-What! N-no, I don’t think so?”
“...You’re making it sound real by getting flustered.”
She’d tried to dodge the question, but the more she wriggled, the more suspicious it sounded, so in the end she confessed.
“I don’t know what my mom and dad do.... But I don’t think they’re doing anything bad....”
Dad was definitely safe!
There was no way that perpetually goofy, smiling face belonged to a gangster.
As for Mom... hmm.
She was a little scary, sure.
She had that sharp, striking beauty and an imposing presence.
But why was she asking that all of a sudden?
My mom and dad are good people!
“No, I just heard some rumor by accident earlier. Apparently, the sixth-grade boss at Eunha Elementary is the daughter of the mob or something.”
“...Boss?”
“Yeah.”
“Hold on, are you talking about me when you say boss?”
“Yeah.”
“What nonsense. How childish. What even is a boss? Ew.”
She’d assumed it was just stupid gossip.
But.
Murmur murmur.
At lunch, too.
Murmur murmur.
During gym class, too.
Murmur murmur.
On the way home from school, too.
“What the heck...?”
She could feel the nonsense rumor she’d expected to die out had started to swell instead.
From what she heard through Siyeon, the story had become this: Chaewon loved games, so she’d set up camp at the PC bang with gangsters; she was waiting for a man who could defeat her in a game; in truth, she didn’t care about gender or age and was ready to crush anyone; and the reason nobody had beaten her yet was because the moment she won, the underlings below her would bury the loser.
“What kind of bullshit is that? What kind of trash novel even makes up crap like that?”
“People must be bored.”
She’d told the kids she knew well that it wasn’t true, but it was hard to stop the rumor from spreading to the ones who didn’t know her.
And to be honest...
“Oh, it’s her.”
“Gasp! Let’s avoid her.”
“Siyeon! Come over here, this way!”
“...She’s enjoying this, isn’t she?”
No, she’d come to the library to do homework, but everyone was scattering out of her way.
That wasn’t the only benefit, either.
Maybe because she stood out so much in terms of looks, people could identify her way too easily.
“Hey, move aside. Move.”
“Wh-what? Hup!”
Even waiting in line at a convenience store outside school, she got to profit from it.
“Heh-heh-heh.”
“Honestly... she’s thrilled.”
She wasn’t threatening anyone or actually hurting them.
And getting whispered about from behind was annoying, but wasn’t she allowed to enjoy a benefit or two in return?
It was enough that the people around her knew the truth. As for everyone else, she didn’t really bother to clear things up.
Maybe because her body had become a kid’s, she’d gotten a little childish too.
Even petty power tasted sweet.
Maybe this was ssalmeok in its own way?
And so, leaving the rumor alone, she kept shuttling back and forth between the PC bang and school for a little over two more months.
Not long after that, she came to regret the choices she’d made.
.
.
.
She tore open an ice cream bar she’d dug out of the freezer and took a bite.
Her mom was due home any minute after a parents’ meeting, so she couldn’t go to the cool PC bang right now. If she wanted to survive the summer, ice cream was a necessity.
“Uaaah. It’s so hot.”
She was sprawled in front of the fan when her mom, who had gone out to the meeting, came back soon after.
“I’m home.”
She figured the meeting must have ended early because of the heat, but—
“Chaewon, come sit here.”
Her mom didn’t even change clothes before coming in. She just tapped the sofa impatiently.
Chaewon glanced at her and sat down beside her.
What’s this about?
“Chaewon, your mom went to the parents’ meeting, and you know what? The moms who used to be all friendly and warm were suddenly watching their step.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“I think our Chaewon knows why that is. Why do you think that is, hmm?”
“Huh?”
Wait. Was this about that? The whole mob-family rumor?
Wow, so that ridiculous story had reached her parents too.
Since it had been going around months ago and seemed to have quieted down by now, she’d thought the matter was basically over.
Right now, though, the ice cream melting in her hand was a much more pressing issue.
“That? It’s nothing. Nom nom. Someone spread a rumor that Mom and Dad were gangsters.”
It really wasn’t a big deal. Just a misunderstanding.
What did she care what other people babbled about?
Chomp chomp. She kept eating her ice cream as she spoke.
“Did I hear that wrong? Gangsters? You mean people who use their fists?”
“Yeah.”
Sadly, she didn’t manage to finish the ice cream.
“What on earth happened that a perfectly respectable mother gets turned into a mob wife, and our Chaewon just sits there looking so shameless?”
“Waaah—Mom—my cheeks are getting torn off—”
Maybe because her answer had been so halfhearted, her mother’s hands began mercilessly abusing both her cheeks.
“Listen to me trying to be nice here. Why won’t you explain yourself properly? I worked my butt off all day and came home to find people calling your mom and dad gangsters. This, this—”
“Ahhh—s-sorryyy—people are all just pigs and dogs so they bark whatever they want, crrrraaap—!”
“You’re not going to explain this right now? What exactly have you been doing?”
Geez. She was the one who’d been wronged here, too.
She was the victim!
...Though if someone asked whether she’d secretly enjoyed the attention instead of making a proper effort to deny it, she didn’t really have an answer for that.
It wasn’t her fault, so did she really need to correct the rumor that urgently? That was what she’d thought.
But if Mom had found out, there was nothing to be done.
Other people’s nonsense could be ignored, but her mother’s fists were always close at hand.
But how do I explain this?
She decided to explain as calmly as possible, leaving out only the part where she’d basically been living at the PC bang.
“No, well, um... I went to the PC bang sometimes?”
“Mm-hm. A PC bang? What’s that?”
“You know. A place where people play games.”
“Fine, let’s say that’s what it is. But—”
“Before I knew it, I’d gotten friendly with the guys there, so they’d sometimes give me something tasty to eat? We played games together too. I guess the other kids saw that and misunderstood?”
She thought that was a perfectly clean explanation.
She’d even minimized how much gaming she did.
But then—
“...What?”
Her mother’s reaction was anything but normal.
The tremble in her eyes was unforgettable... no, more like she looked deeply shocked.
“You got... friendly with grown men? You hung out with them? W-What kind of place is this PC bang...?”
Her mother muttered to herself while yanking out her phone and searching frantically.
“Hah—!”
Then she covered her mouth with one hand, her other hand trembling violently.
“M-Mom. What’s wrong...?”
Only then did Chaewon realize something had gone seriously wrong.
Her mother’s phone slipped from her hand.
It fell right in front of Chaewon, and the image on the screen was crystal clear.
What the hell is this?
It was a dingy room with old computers lined up in rows, and it looked like nothing so much as a rat’s nest full of rough-looking men chain-smoking.
So her mother was thinking she’d gotten close to guys like that?
Wow. Where do I even begin explaining this?
Her mother was too shocked to speak.
Chaewon lightly grabbed the hem of her pants and shook it back and forth.
“Mom, the place I went to wasn’t like that.... Not every PC bang is like that....”
Her mother seemed to hear her at last, because she bit her lip hard and went back to searching on her phone.
But unfortunately...
“Hic—”
Nero PC Bang was a highly futuristic PC bang that Chaewon had helped drag into this era, and when you searched the internet, every place that came up looked more or less the same.
There were a few that looked brighter, but the men with cigarettes hanging from their mouths were a constant.
“W-Why are you cryingyyy? I’m sorryyyy.”
Die, past me, for enjoying life without a care in the world.
Chaewon was startled by her mother’s tears; it was the first time she’d ever seen them.
For some reason, once Mom started crying, Chaewon started crying too.
By the time the two of them were clinging to each other and bawling, her dad, who had come in late, rushed over in alarm.
After sniffling and settling down, they decided to go see the PC bang Chaewon had been talking about.
Fortunately, she was able to clear up the misunderstanding by introducing Nero PC Bang, where smoking was banned and the place was bright and spotless, too...
“Still, Mom would rather Chaewon not go to PC bangs at all.”
“......”
However much it was managed, it could never look good in a parent’s eyes.
Obscene language flew everywhere, and people’s image of games in this era was rock bottom.
Maybe because the tears her mother had shown were so shocking, Chaewon found herself nodding at once, unlike herself.
As she left Nero PC Bang, she looked back at the sign.
My ssalmeok hideout...
She’d planned to use the place for free forever, and later, when the game she’d played in her past life finally came out, she was going to earn real money there too....
It was sad that her plans had gone off the rails, but she held her mother’s hand tightly and went home.
And one week later—
“Hieeek?? This is mine?”
“Yeah. Happy birthday.”
She had been getting used to her dad’s laggy laptop when—
“A c-computer!!”
“Use it at home. At home, okay? Your mom and I bought it because our daughter studies so hard.”
“Huff, huff, huff, huff! Thank you. Mom and Dad are the best!!”
She did a backflip on the spot, abandoning the whole hideout thing and everything else with it.
.
.
.
People say humanity still hasn’t invented a time machine, but that’s a lie.
The light pouring from that monitor was the essence of a vast rift in space and time, and the moment you clicked login, you could leap straight into the future.
That’s right: once you put on a headset and took it off, three or four hours had vanished like magic, right in front of me.
“What are you doing? Here, you’ve gotta just keep firing away.”
By now, the time Chaewon had spent with her precious treasure-computer had reached two years.
And she had become a middle school student.
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