A New World
Elementary school students sat at the very bottom of the pecking order in school life.
Not only were they younger, but when it came to build and knowledge, they were practically little kids compared to middle and high school students.
Which was fair, really, because they were little kids. Still, among public schools, it was probably the one time in life when you could literally come home covered in dirt and somehow avoid being openly pointed at.
Even among children who rolled around in mud, though, hierarchy existed.
In sixth grade, you stood at the top of the elementary school food chain.
And among them, the boys who were decent with their fists naturally walked around the whole school with their shoulders squared and their chests out.
When the tiger was away, the fox played king.
Their little kingdom had continued year after year.
Being the class boss, being a delinquent, that kind of thing.
Even the teachers saw it as something pretty normal, but...
“Lee Chaewon? No way. There’s no way she’d do that.”
“I, uh... I saw her knock someone flat with my own eyes.”
She was the model student, the honor student. First in the school, friendly with everyone in her class, born with striking looks that seemed almost impossible, and so polite to teachers they could hardly believe it. The teachers simply could not easily accept that Lee Chaewon had beaten up a sixth grader one year above her.
And on top of that...
“I-I didn’t get hit!”
“There were that many witnesses, though...”
Probably because he was the sort of boy who strutted around calling himself the boss, Jang Jinsol was desperately trying to hide the fact that he’d been beaten up by a fifth-grade girl.
The rumor had already spread through the children like wildfire that “hey, that kid got his ass kicked by a girl,” but what could he do?
It was a matter of pride.
How am I supposed to handle this?
A sixth-grade punk who’d gone down to a class one year below him to flirt.
And a fifth-grade honor student who had personally put that punk in his place.
Both of them were at fault, but even the teachers were human, and their sympathies did tilt to one side.
Besides, the sixth graders themselves were trying to make it all go away like nothing had happened.
They had already been behaving that way anyway.
The homeroom teacher, with all the good intentions in the world, called Chaewon’s parents personally to reassure them not to worry.
Meanwhile, Lee Chaewon, completely unaware of any of that, thought everything had been settled nicely and skipped home in high spirits.
***
Lately, my greatest joy in life was being at home.
“Heehee.”
As soon as school ended, I sprinted straight home.
Since my parents both worked, I got to enjoy the house all to myself.
For about three to five hours until they got off work, give or take.
When I was little, back in first or second grade, there was nothing to do alone and I thought I’d die of boredom. But not anymore.
Because I’ve got Dad’s laptop!
The specs were low and it stuttered a lot, but once I got used to it, it was good enough.
So what if it lagged now and then?
The important thing was that I could play games.
[Fire in the hole-!!]
“I was faster~ Kihih.”
At last, a game I knew had been released.
It was an FPS called Dead Zone.
I’d played it often even back in my shut-in days at the exam cram dorm.
It had ruled the online game scene for a very long time, and I liked it quite a bit because I was pretty good at it.
Was it always this fun?
Maybe being younger had improved my physical reflexes?
It was more fun because my shots actually landed.
“Kihik, go ahead and try.”
The furious chat made me grin uncontrollably.
I was controlling someone else’s emotions!
With the mindset of a typical troll, I kept sidestepping in and out of the cave opening and sniping more relentlessly than ever.
Bang-!
Fire, then retreat.
I’d even pretend to run away just to let them hear my footsteps, then sneak back and, bang-!
I’d predict the grenade and back off just in time, then bang-bang-!
After killing about four people in a row, I spotted a familiar name in the kill log.
[WoniWoni>.< ▄︻┻┳══━一 BangbaedongBulppatta]
“Oh, it’s that guy?”
Once I confirmed the face, I started hunting only him.
Bang-!
[WoniWoni>.< ▄︻┻┳══━一 BangbaedongBulppatta]
Bang-bang-!
[WoniWoni>.< ▄︻┻┳══━一 BangbaedongBulppatta]
It wasn’t like I kept killing him because his reaction was funny.
It was more like a sacred task to weed out rotten players.
You filthy chat-spammer, learn your lesson.
I kept drilling holes through his head after that, and the 8v8 deathmatch to 100 kills ended with me racking up 30 kills on my own.
BangbaedongBulppatta accounted for about ten deaths of those.
Still not satisfied, he kept hammering out more chat in the lobby.
Clack-clack-clack-
So I poured oil on the fire.
Sure enough.
“Wow, he’s burning up.”
Judging by the way he kept going on about footwork, he’d probably seen something somewhere.
But the footwork I used was the distilled product of future technique, honed and perfected by the old hands of this game.
Unless you were a top-ranked player, of course no one could appreciate its greatness.
“Hmm, in times like these, the best answer is...”
I left him with that one line and left the room.
After that, a flood of angry friend requests came in, but I ignored them.
I did want to teach him a more thorough lesson, but unfortunately it was time to turn the game off.
Dad knew I was sneaking games because I needed his help making the account, but Mom didn’t know.
I absolutely could not get caught.
Mom would definitely scold me.
Ever since before, Mom had suggested that instead of staying home alone, maybe I should go to a cram school or something in that time.
But who was I?
The top student at Eunha Elementary School.
I’d confidently said I didn’t need cram school at all.
And I’d safely protected my free time.
“Hehe, games are fun.”
Being young was definitely nice~
My reflexes were faster, so it was even more fun.
I had already put the laptop away and was stretched out on the bed, resting, when...
Beep-beep-beep-beep-
About ten minutes later, Mom and Dad came home together.
“Welcome back!”
I greeted them the way I always did, ready to demand food because I was hungry.
“Lee Chaewon. Don’t you have something to say to your mother?”
Mom was cold as ice, while Dad watched nervously from the side.
Huh? What is this?
I had too much to feel guilty about to just blurt out anything.
At times like this, the answer was obvious!
“Hehe, dunno.”
The idiot act is the best-
“I heard you fought at school.”
Gasp.
Since even Dad, who should have been on my side, was only glancing around nervously, Mom’s anger was clearly serious.
To avoid provoking her further, I spoke in a small voice.
“I mean... I worked it out okay...”
“So if you win a fight, that makes everything fine? Did you ever think your mom and dad would worry if you came home having gotten hit somewhere?”
“......”
I couldn’t say anything, because it was true I had acted on impulse when I got heated.
Sometimes I really did lose control of my emotions.
And it felt like this time, everything had lined up at just the wrong moment.
Especially lately, my moods had been all over the place. I really wasn’t acting normal.
I didn’t even know why I was like this.
Maybe because I was younger?
Even now, something felt like it was boiling up inside me.
Mom was right about everything, but somehow it still didn’t feel rational.
My eyes prickled, and before I knew it my lips were pouting in little jabs of their own.
“Did you do wrong or not.”
“......”
I knew I was supposed to say I was wrong.
But the words just wouldn’t come out.
But he started it by being creepy...
“Did you apologize to the friend you hit?”
“......”
My head drooped on its own.
“How much do you think that must have hurt? Don’t you feel bad for your friend?”
“I-I...”
I was trying to say I’m sorry...
I really had given my brain that order.
But my mouth opened of its own accord.
“H-he was the one who came on to me first! What do you know, Mom!”
Guh.
I even flinched inwardly, but there was nothing I could do now.
Once I’d already done it, I escaped to my room and slammed the door.
Thump-thump-thump-
I hadn’t even closed it that hard.
But for some reason, the sound felt way louder than I meant it to.
Should I say a gust of wind must have blown it?
Trying to come up with an excuse too late only made me more scared of Mom, so I hid under the blanket like a shell-dwelling hermit crab.
Mom didn’t storm into my room, but as time passed, that somehow became even scarier.
She didn’t even call me to come eat.
How cruel.
I cried silently to myself until I finally fell asleep.
I think Dad may have come in at some point, but I wasn’t fully awake, so I couldn’t say for sure.
It was my first clash with my parents.
I thought this cold war was going to drag on for a long time, but unexpectedly, it cleared up the very next day.
“Kyaaah!!”
“What? Chaewon, what happened?!”
That morning, I went to the bathroom and saw a vivid red stain on my pants, then screamed my head off.
Only then did my family understand the cause of my mysterious mood swings.
...
Damn it, so it was my period.
Luckily, I barely had any cramps.
You could call that a blessing, but actually experiencing how sharp-tempered a person could become didn’t feel all that welcome.
Still, now that I know why, I feel a lot better.
Mom was flustered too, and explained a lot of things while apologizing.
I kept feeling tears start to well up again for no reason, but that was probably hormones too, right?
Anyway.
I got through my first period safely with a few days of devoted support, and life settled back into peaceful routine.
As always.
Lots of kids asked me to trade Duel King cards with them, or to duel, but...
“C-Chaewon, do you maybe want to go to a PC cafe with us?”
Why were so many kids suddenly asking to play games with me...?
I never even told them I played games.
“I think I know why.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because you said the other day that your ideal type is a guy who’s good at games.”
“Whaaaat?”
My God.
She really does have delusions of interest.
All the kids who came to me asking to game were interested in me?
What kind of nonsense was that?
In a guy’s world, playing games together was just how you got to know each other.
For gamers, there was only competition and victory.
How on earth could romance blossom in a place like that?
It’s a place where, if you’re an enemy, you kill them, and if they’re on your team, you yell at them to play better.
I already knew online games were becoming more and more popular, so this felt natural to me.
And...
I’d felt it since I was little, but Siyeon really did seem a little princess-brained sometimes.
Hmm... no! Kids are like that.
I was just about to point it out, then stopped myself.
That innocent belief that the world revolved around her.
She really knew nothing about boys.
I patted Siyeon on the shoulder and snorted a laugh.
“You’ll understand someday.”
“...Wow, what was that? I feel like I just got massively insulted.”
Avoiding Siyeon’s triangular-eyed glare, I thought it over.
I do want to try a PC cafe.
I’d gone plenty of times in my previous life.
Still, what held me back was that PC cafes weren’t yet fully dressed up in their modern look.
So there would probably be a lot of things to feel disappointed about, both in specs and in atmosphere.
Wouldn’t it just be like playing on Dad’s laptop?
And I didn’t get much allowance anyway, so it felt wasteful...
“Chaewon.”
“Yeah?”
Just as I was trying to shake off my lingering regret, Siyeon spoke up.
“Then will you go to the PC cafe with me? Teach me games too.”
“You? Play games?”
“Why? Is that weird?”
Yeah.
She’d followed me around so much that, ever since we were little, I’d made her try everything from Duel King to soccer and all kinds of boys’ games.
She spat every last one of them right back out with a little “tch!”
She was the kind of friend who preferred more feminine hobbies, to the point that she’d still be knitting if you let her.
“I want to try too. I’m curious.”
“Hmm... okay.”
Well, once couldn’t hurt.
Besides, going with Siyeon is more comfortable than going with kids I’m not that close to.
And after school...
We headed to the relatively modern PC cafe.
“Ooooh.”
Unlike what I’d expected, that it would be a room full of shabby old computers where they’d just scam people out of money, the specs were much better.
“T-this is insane. There’s no lag at all...!”
“What’s lag?”
It was way better than I’d expected.
When I played on Dad’s laptop, I often died in unfair ways, but on the PC cafe computers...
It’s so smooth!!
I got so excited that I went on a killing spree in the match, and even with newbie Siyeon tagging along, we kept winning round after round.
Holy crap.
So this is the new world.