Shuboma
A few months ago.
It was probably not long after my birthday had passed.
Shuboma and I were on voice chat like usual when, out of nowhere, she dropped a question on me.
"Hey, NerdAngel—your real name is Kang Hahwi, right?"
"Huh? Yeah, it is, but how did you know? Did I tell you?"
"Last time Santoto and Suptoto came over for dinner at your place. I heard them calling your name."
"Ah. Those rabbits are so loud everything carries, huh."
From that moment on, the questions kept coming.
"How old are you, anyway?"
"Why do you want to know my age?"
"Just curious all of a sudden."
"Random much. And why bother asking? If you're an Academy freshman, you're obviously twenty."
"Plenty of people enroll late, though."
"Oh. Fair point."
She asked my age, then—
"Hahwi… I mean, NerdAngel. How tall are you?"
"Why do you care about my height now?"
"Suddenly curious."
"What's with all the sudden curiosity? You never used to care about any of this."
"We've known each other for a while. I'm allowed to wonder about basic stuff. So how tall are you?"
"Dunno. Not that tall."
She asked about my height, which she'd never cared about before, and then—
"You said you live in a studio near the 17th Academy, right?"
"Ah. Not exactly nearby—just close enough to walk without it being a problem."
She asked where I lived, and on and on it went. The frequency of her fishing for personal details only climbed from there.
Then one day, out of the blue, Shuboma started defending the woman in Room 303. She didn't stop at a single comment, either—she slipped in a compliment about her roughly once a day. That was when I sensed something off.
Does she know the woman in Room 303?
That was my first thought. And once the praise started getting excessive, I even began to suspect that the woman in Room 303 might be Shuboma herself. Of course, I didn't jump to conclusions. It could have been pure paranoia on my part.
But then I properly heard her voice the first time I exchanged greetings with the woman in Room 303, and that was all the confirmation I needed. The woman in Room 303 was Shuboma.
At first, Shuboma probably had no idea either—that her neighbor was me, NerdAngel. If she had, she never would have spent so much time trash-talking herself.
Putting the pieces together, it went something like this: Shuboma only belatedly realized, through some chance trigger, that I and NerdAngel were the same person. Then she fired off all those questions over voice chat to confirm it. The whole interrogation had been so conspicuously unnatural that I, in turn, figured out that Shuboma and the woman in Room 303 were one and the same.
It was astonishing. Of all the coincidences in the world, this one took the cake.
But what, exactly, had given me away as NerdAngel? Thinking it through slowly, quite a few possibilities presented themselves.
For one, Shuboma already knew I attended the 17th Academy. She must have seen me more than once heading to school in the Academy uniform. Not that that alone would have done it—I wasn't the only male student at the 17th Academy. It was just one piece of evidence that I and NerdAngel were the same person.
The real giveaway, I was convinced, had been my name and birthday. Thanks to the rabbits, she learned my real name. She also learned when my birthday was. And on my birthday, when I came home, I had a short conversation with Cha Seolyu on the wooden bench out front. Seolyu, as casually as always, called me by name and handed me a cake as a birthday present.
That day, Shuboma must have happened to see and hear the whole thing—and that was when the suspicion took root that I and NerdAngel might be the same person.
Once she was sure, Shuboma stopped digging into my personal life. I half expected her to come right out with something like, "Hey, we're neighbors," but she never volunteered her identity. To this day, she had kept the fact that she was the woman in Room 303 completely under wraps.
In real life she never acted like she knew me—just played the part of an ordinary neighbor, a complete stranger. I had already figured out who she was, and she still had no idea that I knew.
Anyway.
Back to the present.
"Th-then I'll be going now."
Even today, Shuboma showed no intention of revealing herself. She was still behaving like any other neighbor. And because she was the one hiding it, it was hard for me to be the first to acknowledge her either.
She dipped her head in a little bow and stepped past me. Then she hurried off a few paces, only to stop dead in her tracks.
"Oh, right. They said it was going to rain, so I should go back up and grab an umbrella…"
She trudged back toward the stairs, scratching her head with a foolish little smile. I held out the umbrella I was carrying.
"Please use mine. I'm heading inside anyway, so I don't need it right now."
"W-what? No, it's fine… My place is right upstairs. I can grab it in a second…"
"Climbing the stairs again would just be tiring. Why put yourself through that? Just take mine, and you can return it whenever we run into each other next."
"……"
Shuboma stared at my umbrella with a flustered face, fidgeting in place. She seemed to be wrestling with whether to take it or not.
I heard she has a hard time around men… but it's pretty severe, huh.
I felt a flicker of kinship. Granted, I had reached the point where I could look a woman in the eye and hold a halfway decent conversation—but I hadn't fully overcome the trauma, so beautiful girls still threw me off just as badly as ever. Looking at her felt like looking at my old self.
Still, Shuboma was better off than I had been. She didn't have actual trauma about men. She had simply never spoken to enough of them. In other words, it was a phobia that would clear up the moment she got a little more used to guys.
In any case, nearly a full minute had passed since she started deliberating. Anyone else might have gotten annoyed by now, and no one would have blamed them. But I was different. One minute or five, I could wait with all the patience in the world—because I knew she struggled with men.
So I just kept holding the umbrella out in silence, until at last—
"Than— ahem! Thank you! I-I'll take good care of it…!"
—Shuboma took my umbrella. I'd been half afraid she'd refuse to the bitter end and leave us both in an awkward mess, so that was a relief.
"Of course. Use it, and return it whenever you're ready."
"Yes…!"
"Where are you headed, by the way?"
"Th-the convenience store!"
"I see. Well, take care."
"Yes! Thank you!"
Her face tight with nerves, Shuboma answered a little too loudly, bowed at a perfect ninety degrees, and then bolted for the building entrance with the umbrella in hand.
And then—
Thud—!
She missed a step and went sprawling.
"…Are you all right?"
"I-I'm fine…"
The moment I stepped closer to help her up, Shuboma flailed her arms and legs, scrambled to her feet, and fled as if her life depended on it.
Crazy bitch…
Back inside, I sat down at my computer and thought it over carefully.
Why wouldn't Shuboma reveal who she was?
Because she hated handsome guys? No, that couldn't be it. It wasn't handsome men she disliked so much as handsome men with rotten personalities. Not that I was claiming to have a great personality myself, but…
The fact that she still voice chats with me every day suggests she at least likes my personality well enough.
I was sure of that much. If she couldn't stand who I was, she would have blocked me and deleted me as a friend a long time ago.
So what was the reason? Was she afraid I'd think she was a stalker? Had she simply missed the right moment to say it? Or was she waiting for me to figure it out first?
No amount of fretting was going to give me an answer. Whatever the truth was, it was still just guesswork.
…Forget it. I'll just ask her myself.
I made up my mind. This ridiculous farce had gone on long enough.
I connected to voice chat and waited for Shuboma with nothing but time on my hands.
I was killing time clicking around with the mouse when—
Ding—!
Shuboma had joined the voice channel. I cleared my throat and called her name.
"Boma."
"What do you want!"
"What's got you so fired up… Anyway, did the convenience store trip go okay?"
"Yeah. Bought a ton of snacks and pads and— wait. Hold on. How do you know I went to the convenience store?"
I couldn't keep pretending forever.
"How do I know? You told me yourself on the first floor earlier. You said you were going to the convenience store."
"Huh…?"
Today, I had decided, this uncomfortable arrangement ended.
"How long are you planning to keep pretending you don't know?"
"K-know what? What am I pretending not to know…? You're saying the weirdest stuff all of a sudden, haha……"
Before, the trauma had kept me from finding the courage. But I could handle real-life girls reasonably well now. I had left the door cracked open in advance—so Shuboma could walk right in.
"Shuboma from Room 303. Stop playing dumb when it isn't working, and come to my room for a minute so we can talk. I left the door unlocked."
"……"
Silence stretched. Shuboma said nothing.
And then—
Ding—
She had left the channel. Not that there was anywhere left to run.
I immediately whispered Shuboma048, who was still logged into the game.
If she didn't come, I would simply go find her myself.