What Is Ssalmeok?
Boss
What exactly is ssalmeok?
The word comes from the idea of turning in-game currency or items into cash, then using that money to buy rice and eat.
As more and more people began making a living—or a side hustle—out of games rather than just treating them as hobbies, the practice spread. Before long, the meaning had expanded beyond the online world into every corner of real life.
Heh. I wonder how much all this would go for.
The cards piled up in front of me now could also be called ssalmeok, in a way.
“Heehee.”
Not a single won out of my own pocket, and I’d gotten my hands on all these precious cards!
“Chaewon, is it really that good?”
“Yep. You should start stockpiling things for the future too.”
Kim Siyeon, who’d been hanging around me again today after doing the same yesterday, tilted her head with a look that seemed to say, Is it really that great?
You foolish little thing. You could shove it right in her mouth and she still wouldn’t swallow it.
There was no reason to keep indulging her—
“Ta-da! I bought some cards too, since Chaewon likes them. I got two packs, so I’ll give you one.”
“What?!”
She pulled out two packs of cards, then promptly shoved one into my hands.
You little rascal…! Turns out you’re a smart one after all!
All in the space of a single second, my opinion of her flipped over like a pancake, but Siyeon just kept grinning without a clue.
“Then we’re friends, right?”
“Of course. Let’s be friends forever.”
“Waaaah. Heeheehee.”
At a glance, it might have looked like I was shaking her down for cash.
But I hadn’t begged for them, and I certainly hadn’t threatened to cut ties if she didn’t hand over cards.
If she was giving them to me of her own free will, refusing would have been rude.
“So, can I just rip these open like this?”
I grabbed Siyeon before she could tear into the pack in a boring, no-nonsense way.
“Wait!”
“Eh? Wh-why?”
“There’s no tension that way.”
“Tension? What’s that?”
“Um….”
How was I supposed to explain this?
Like there was no dopamine? No thrill?
Ugh, all English words.
Looking around, I spotted yesterday’s green-shirt kid.
“Hey, Greenie.”
“My name isn’t Greenie….”
“Whatever. You know cards, right?”
If he’d acted like he knew everything yesterday, then he probably knew enough.
“Of course I do!”
“Really? Then when we open our cards, tell us whether they’re good or not.”
“Sure. Easy.”
Perfect. We had a designated pull announcer now.
With his face alone, I’d be able to guess whether a card was just ordinary or some special ultra something-or-other.
“If you’ve got nothing better to do, come over here!”
“Why?”
“What’re they doing?”
“They brought Duel King cards!”
“I want to see too.”
In no time at all, the snot-nosed kids swarmed in.
Audience secured.
Like a gamer soaked through with pull-gacha dopamine, I’d built a cutting-edge system.
First, Greenie’s reaction.
Second, the audience’s response.
If there were any dramatic sound effects, that would be the cherry on top, but that was asking too much.
“All right, we’ll start with Siyeon’s. You open them one by one.”
I handed the cards over to Greenie and took my seat as well.
“Staaart.”
Now that all eyes were on him, he must’ve gotten nervous, because Greenie’s hands trembled as he opened the pack.
There were seven cards inside.
He flipped them over one by one, slowly.
Hmm, are they all duds? I wondered, just as—
“Oh!”
The once-calm kid’s eyes suddenly lit up.
What, seriously? Was it rare?
“Wow, a cat!”
“What is it? Is it a good one?”
“No, it’s cute.”
“…….”
Damn, I thought it was something special.
Siyeon took the card with a delighted giggle, clearly pleased with it.
But I wasn’t the kind of person who’d settle for that.
“All right, this one’s mine. Please do your best.”
I solemnly held out my pack, and Greenie began flipping through them one by one just the same.
“That one! Is that one good?”
“It’s super common….”
“Oh, that furry thing is cute.”
“It’s practically overflowing everywhere… should I give you mine too?”
“Whoa, a dragon! It’s a dragon! That’s expensive!”
“...It’s a lizard.”
Tch. They all looked impressive, and yet they were all bad?
“Last one.”
Gulp— Greenie’s eyes widened before he even saw it.
“What is it? What is it?”
At last, the final card was revealed.
“Oh.”
“Woooow.”
“It’s shiny!”
“What is that?”
Unlike the others, its surface gleamed.
And unlike the monsters we’d seen so far, it was a human woman.
This is definitely expensive! Definitely! Yoo-hoo!
Just as I was about to launch into a victory celebration—
“Hm. It’s not a good card.”
“What?! You wanna die?! Look at it properly!”
“N-no, my older brother said this one wasn’t very good….”
“It’s all shiny and pretty! How could it not be good? This is total fraud.”
“What does that mean? Fraud…?”
There was no way.
It was a human woman among a sea of monsters, and she was pretty, too—and shiny!
No, no. We must still be judging cards by performance rather than rarity.
I carefully hugged the card that looked like a magical girl to my chest.
“Hmph. Come with me, then. Don’t listen to such ugly nonsense.”
While I tried to comfort myself, the kids who had been watching came crowding in with their own words of encouragement.
“Chaewon, I think your card is the prettiest too.”
“Yeah. It looks the strongest.”
“Want to trade for mine?”
“It’s pink, so it looks like a princess! It suits Chaewon perfectly!”
……Is it really that bad?
Ugh.
Just as the bridge of my nose started to sting—
Rattle—!
“I’m here!”
The door flew open, and one boy came barging in.
***
Ha Jinsoo had originally planned to keep skipping kindergarten through today because of a family trip.
But he’d come back during lunchtime because he wanted to play at the kindergarten.
And yet something about the scene in Haetnim Class felt off.
Girls and boys were all mixed together, playing in one big jumble.
He looked around in confusion, and his eyes landed on one person.
Kim Siyeon.
At that age, when children didn’t know how to handle the feelings they liked someone with, affection and bullying were only a hairsbreadth apart.
Grabbing hair, stealing things, making her cry—Ha Jinsoo’s honest feelings were that he just wanted to stay near her, even if it was through that.
But now Siyeon was stuck to the side of some girl he’d never seen before.
When she was with him, she always frowned so miserably, and here she was acting all sweet and clingy.
On top of that, the boys were apparently mingling in too, and the whole thing irritated him to no end.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
He marched straight over there and butted in.
Just then, Chaewon and Siyeon were busy sorting through the cards they’d pulled and received.
“Hah, lame. Just the kind of cards girls would like~”
Hands clasped behind his back, he raised his voice so everyone could hear.
A few boys quietly took his side, which made him even more confident.
“Look at me~ I’ve got dragons, dinosaurs, and even transforming robots~ Heh~ What is that? Weak as anything!”
Jinsoo puffed up his shoulders, staring down at Siyeon and the newcomer, who were both just looking at him blankly.
Usually, girls would pout and run off around now, or else grumble in protest.
What’s with this one?
Chaewon glared at him with a face full of displeasure.
The moment his eyes met hers—those light brown irises with a soft, warm gleam—Ha Jinsoo inexplicably turned his head away first.
Wh-what?
Still, she was just a girl. He figured she’d be scared, surely.
“Hey, you.”
“...Me?”
“Yeah, you. You ugly little gremlin.”
Thud.
My mom said I’m the prettiest in the whole world?!
“W-what are you saying! T-then you’re ugly too!”
“How could an ugly thing this pretty even exist?”
“...I-iiih...!”
She couldn’t even deny it.
But fights between little kids were all about momentum.
Facts didn’t matter.
Just like when he’d bullied Siyeon, Ha Jinsoo raised his voice even louder.
“Oh, spare me, you look like a busted dumpling!”
Chaewon didn’t even lift an eyebrow; she just snorted and smiled coldly before opening her mouth.
“How dare you look at my card and call it trash? You must’ve grown up eating garbage if you came out looking like that!”
“I didn’t say it was trash.”
Ha Jinsoo clenched his fists, sensing that this was no ordinary kid.
He tried to push forward by force.
Then—
“If you’re a Duelist, then settle it with a duel.”
“Huh?”
“If you’re a real man, then fight fair and square with a duel!”
Jinsoo couldn’t manage a reply right away.
To be a man… do I have to duel?
Everyone was watching him.
If he backed down here, wouldn’t that make him look unmanly?
But if he accepted on the spot—
...How do you even do that?
While he hesitated, Chaewon stepped closer.
“You insulted my cards, didn’t you?!”
“They’re lame. Mine are way better.”
“Hmph! Then how about a wager? You bet all your cards. I’ll bet all of mine too.”
“Huh?”
“What, scared? You’re saying your cards are stronger, so why are you scared? Coward.”
Even as his cheeks twitched under the barrage of taunts, Ha Jinsoo didn’t swallow the bait whole.
“I don’t need some girly cards like that.”
Facing Chaewon, who was all swagger and no hesitation, he instinctively reached for an excuse.
“Hmm?”
Chaewon cocked her head, then snapped her fingers as if something had just occurred to her.
“Fine. Then I’ll bet something else.”
“...What.”
Snap—!
Her slender finger pointed straight at Kim Siyeon.
“If I lose, I’ll give you Siyeon!”
“Eeh?”
“What?!”
Siyeon hurried over and clung to Chaewon’s side, tugging at her arm.
“Ch-Chaewon.”
“You trust me, right?”
...Huh. Why isn’t she nodding right away?
For the first time, the ever-attached Siyeon gave Chaewon a doubtful look.
Still, after a moment of thought, Siyeon shyly nodded.
“If Chaewon will take responsibility for me… then okay.”
“If I lose, then it’s that ugly kid who takes responsibility. You’re his if I lose.”
“Eh?! It was that kind of deal? I don’t like that!”
“Don’t worry. I won’t lose.”
“R-really? I can trust you?”
“Of course.”
Even Jinsoo, who had been refusing just moments ago, quietly accepted.
The rules were simple.
Out of each player’s ten cards, one would be chosen at random, and whoever won the most rounds would win the duel.
The two of them immediately drew a card each.
“Heh. I won, right?”
“Are you dumb? Mine’s 2000 attack, and yours is 1000.”
“Um...? Two thousand? One thousand? But mine’s a dinosaur and yours is a person….”
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“Which is bigger, 2 or 1?”
“...2?”
“Right. So 2000 is stronger than 1000.”
“But still… it’s a dinosaur….”
The match ended with all the drama of a popped balloon.
From the start, the cards Chaewon had gotten all looked valuable.
In other words, they were packed with high-attack cards.
On the other hand, Ha Jinsoo had chosen only the ones that looked coolest to him, so the result was obvious before they even started.
“For a little brat… tch.”
All right, now it was time to exercise the rights of the winner.
“Hand over all your cards.”
I held out my palm to the devastated Jinsoo.
I’d gotten revenge on the first friend I’d made after entering kindergarten.
And I’d gained a boatload of new cards.
Talk about killing two birds with one stone.
“Waaah—”
Huh?
The tear-soaked voice coming from the floor startled me.
Wait, he’s crying?? Uh, what do I do?
Was I too harsh?
“Hey, hey, hey. No, no, I don’t need them, so I won’t take them. Just give me one card, okay?”
“R-really?”
“Yep. You can keep the rest.”
Only then did Ha Jinsoo wipe his tears and stand up.
“Th-thanks… You’re kinder than you look.”
“You wanna die?”
I was humming softly as I leafed through the cards, wondering which one I should take, when Jinsoo looked at me, nodded, and seemed to make a decision.
He opened his mouth with the grave expression of someone making a truly important vow.
“Instead… I’ll date you. I was gonna date Siyeon originally.”
Skreee— Chaewon’s head turned slowly to the side.
...?
Did my ears break? What the hell did this tiny punk just say?
“You don’t have to thank me. I feel bad for Siyeon, but… you’re pretty too.”
The moment he finished speaking, goosebumps crawled down her spine.
Without thinking, Chaewon’s tiny foot cut through the air.
Smack—!
“Gyaaah—!”
Ha Jinsoo sprawled to the floor and burst into tears.
“My goodness, Chaewon’s amazing!”
“......She’s a gangster.”
“Chaewon is so cool…!”
The kids buzzed excitedly, saying the boss had changed hands, and the teacher came running in at the racket.
And so, just two days after enrolling, Lee Chaewon was crowned the new boss of Haetnim Class.
***
By the time Park Eunjeong, Chaewon’s mother, had finished imagining a full-blown, slap-filled showdown straight out of a drama, her conversation with Ha Jinsoo’s guardian had gone in a far warmer direction than expected.
“Kids bicker when they play together, that’s just how it goes. My kid’s a handful too, so I understand. And she doesn’t seem hurt at all.”
“Still, I’m so sorry…. It’s her first time at kindergarten, so I think she got a little too excited.”
“Oh my! Really? She’s never even been to daycare?”
“No….”
Her face reddened slightly, as if she might seem like a neglectful parent.
“That makes sense~ But does your daughter do child acting or something?”
“Huh? No?”
“She’s just so delicate and lovely that I thought maybe you were too busy working to send her anywhere. Hohoho.”
There was nothing that broke the ice among mothers quite like praising each other’s children.
As they chatted back and forth, time flew by.
Before long, it was time to say goodbye.
“Goodness, Mrs. Chaewon’s mom, you’ve got your hands full. We’re a dual-income family too, so I know exactly how that feels. If you’re interested in the child-acting side of things, give the place I mentioned a call. In my eyes, there isn’t a kid out there like Chaewon.”
“Haha, thank you. I’m not sure she’d even be interested, though. You go on ahead.”
She’d even ended up taking a business card from someone who apparently ran both an acting academy and an agency with an acquaintance.
It’s not just me being a doting mother and wearing rose-colored glasses. Other people must think she’s pretty too.
Just then, the corners of Eunjeong’s mouth twitched upward.
“Mom, is it over? Are we going home?”
The troublemaker waiting outside finally appeared.
From the empty wooden stick in her hand, it looked like her father had bought her ice cream.
No wonder. He probably didn’t scold her at all—just spoiled her rotten instead. Tch.
“Lee Chaewon. You’re not allowed to swing your fists at people whenever you want. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“You know that and you still did it, huh!”
“But it was an emergency.”
Jeonghwan quickly stepped in on his daughter’s side.
“You know what Chaewon told me? Good grief, they actually dared to propose to our daughter. I’m with Chaewon on this one. Even you can’t stop me.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. What a fool. What do you think the child’s learning from this?”
Jeonghwan ignored her and patted Chaewon’s head.
“Good job, sweetheart. From now on, if some punk boy tries to come at you like that, just hit him first. Got it?”
“Yep.”
“Good. And you only marry Daddy, okay~?”
Smack—!
“Ow! Princess! Why are you hitting me?”
“...? You said to hit boys who come close.”
“Obviously I’m the exception…! Ow, my nose. My daughter’s got a mean hand….”
“...Why are you the exception? I still feel just as bad.”
Watching the dumb-and-dumber comedy routine unfold, Park Eunjeong let out a sigh that seemed to sink the ground beneath her feet.
Fortunately, after that day, she never got another call from kindergarten saying Chaewon had caused trouble.
A year passed, and Chaewon turned seven.
---