A Shocking Defeat, and the Styling (Real Life)
"Why'd they lose, you ask? On attack, at least, the movement was pretty good. You could tell they'd crammed in a decent amount of practice in a short time."
Through that first half, SC had looked good enough that you wouldn't have been embarrassed setting them beside a first-division side. The gunfights would still have shown a gap, of course, but this was the second division. I decided to set that part aside.
"The problem is the team completely fell apart once the second half started. More precisely, it felt like every single one of them was thinking, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing right here."
Attack is different. You can walk in with a plan already built. On defense you have to keep rewriting that plan on the fly, matching whatever the other team is doing, which means it isn't only the IGL calling the big orders. Every player holding a site has to be able to read the round and adjust. SC showed none of that.
"I'd have to hear the off-broadcast comms to be sure, but from where I was sitting it felt like they were just waiting for Nebula's call to arrive. That piles more work on him than attack does, and it looked like it was choking his own play, too."
Dump every one of those split-second reads onto Nebula and his own play suffers. He's human, in the end. There were other things that stood out even more than that, but I decided not to say them. They were a rookie team that had only just debuted. A perfect performance would have been the stranger thing, and I wasn't SC's analyst. There was no reason to nitpick them to death.
"...Losing the first set is what it is. Right now they all need to get their heads on straight."
Weak team or strong, in the Project A pro scene, losing the map you yourself picked lands hard on the mental. How could it not? Every plan you prepared for this day failed, and they turned it back on you. Of course the mind wobbles. For an SC made entirely of players who had only just debuted, the blow would be a big one.
And of all people, the coach had to be Kim Sangho.
Coach Kim Sangho was spoken of as having the best eye in the country for raising players and finding talent—domestic number one, people said—but on managing players, and on strategy, he was ranked near the bottom. On the management side especially he was bad enough that a player on his own team had once sued him for assault. Could a coach like that steady an SC whose heads were already shaking? I wasn't holding my breath.
The broadcast cut to Han Seongun with both hands clamped over his forehead.
"...Nebula's mental just broke."
A weak side of Han Seongun I had never once seen. For me, it landed as a fresh kind of shock.
The casters were right. In the end, an FPS is a fight to manage your mental. Even if a blind bullet punches through your head, even if you glance away for a second and an enemy walks into the exact angle you were holding, the one who stays calm is the one who takes the win. By that measure, Han Seongun right now did not look like someone you could expect to win a second set.
SC closed the first set on Ascent—the map they themselves had chosen—in a loss that cut to the bone, and they never found a real look in the set that followed. By now you had to wonder whether the good play from the first half of set one was what SC actually was, or whether that had only been a high point that flared once and went out.
"Tsk... that's the match."
"Nerves? Hmm..."
Viewers, trying to explain the loss away as something else. Unfortunately, this match hadn't been lost to nerves or any other mood of the mind. I wouldn't say nerves had contributed nothing—but they weren't why SC lost.
"I think SC just isn't finished as a team yet. The timing is what it is. They haven't even had a month to build chemistry, right?"
Of every reason for the loss, that was the heart of it. SC was not yet a complete team.
"An IGL only points the team in a direction. The fine movements are supposed to belong to each player. Right now it feels like they're leaning on Nebula alone..."
Load a team up like that and the weight on Nebula gets vicious—and he was already the one under the most pressure. A 2–0 was a shocking defeat, but from SC's side it might actually have been a mercy.
"Better to get hit this hard at the very start. Think of it as a vaccine?"
A flaw that blows up early is easier to fix than one that waits until you're riding momentum into a playoff or a final.
The SC match I'd come on to cheer for was over. There was another match after it, but I didn't feel any need to watch, so I decided to end the stream.
"All right, that's the broadcast for today. I've got somewhere to be tomorrow, so it's a rest stream."
I usually went live all seven days, but unfortunately tomorrow had to be off.
"I told you I don't have a boyfriend. What boyfriend... I'm just going to get styled before the Newbie Guide shoot."
At first I'd meant to throw on whatever and go, but Mother had been horrified. She had done her very best to give birth to a pretty daughter, she said, and here I was refusing to take care of the face. Honestly, my looks were good enough without any effort that I never felt the need to dress them up.
They acted like they weren't, but the viewers were quietly hoping I'd show my face. I was dying to know how they'd react once they learned the secret of this Newbie Guide shoot. I decided to save that fun for later.
"Hehe. Who knows?"
If I spilled it all here, where was the fun in that?
"All right, I'm ending it here. Next time I'll just chat and tell you the stories from the shoot, so look forward to it!"
Two days before the Newbie Guide shoot. I had been living almost entirely inside the house, so I used the excuse of a pre-shoot styling and went out for the first time in a long while.
"I could have come alone..."
"You can say that to me all you like, miss. There is nothing I can do."
Driver Kwon did have to come along whenever I went out. Even so.
"Oh my. Trying to give your mother the slip. I'm hurt, you know?"
And why had Mother come at all? The seat beside me—the back seat of the car, usually empty—had her in it too.
"I'm not trying to ditch you... You're famous...!"
I still hadn't shown my face, so that was one thing. Mother, until a few months ago, had been the most famous actress in the country. Entertainment turned over fast, yes, but she wasn't so forgettable that a few months would erase her. Someone was bound to recognize her...
"Don't worry so much. Everywhere we're going today is the kind of place people won't notice."
A place people wouldn't notice...?
"What? What do you mean?"
We were going to get me styled, and it was somewhere no one would see? A place like that usually had at least a person or two in it, didn't it? Well. If anyone knew a place like that, it would be Mother, who had been a celebrity. Maybe it was somewhere you booked ahead.
"A friend of mine is a stylist. I asked her, and she's going to meet you today. Who knows? Maybe you'll be a celebrity someday too, Eunha."
A celebrity. Back in my pro-gamer days I'd had a name that could stand next to one, but...
"Ugh. I have no plans for that."
I hadn't actually been popular on that level, and I didn't particularly want to become one either.
"Anyway, your hair's gotten long. Planning to keep growing it out?"
Mother, sweeping my hair back from the seat beside me. Now that she mentioned it, it had grown a lot.
"Ah, my hair?"
When I had become a girl, it had been a medium cut just past the shoulders. Now, if I stood, it reached my hips.
"Mm... I don't know."
At first, so soon after becoming a girl, even that medium cut had felt awkward. Half a year on, I was already used to it, skilled enough to wind even this length up without thinking. And it was hair I'd grown for half a year. Cutting it all off felt a little wasteful...
"A little trim is fine, but I don't want it short like before."
"It's your hair, so do as you like. Whichever way, Mom only sees you as cute and pretty."
"We've arrived, madam."
While we talked, we reached the destination: a salon that looked rather lavish. The car door clunked open.
"Then I'll wait outside."
"Yes. Thank you for the safe drive, Driver Kwon."
"We'll be back."
In case someone recognized her, Mother had sunglasses on. Aside from my long hair tied into one, I looked the same as always. They'd said I might try clothes on here, so I'd picked something as easy to change out of as I could.
I went up to the door and pulled the handle. Another clunk, and the door didn't budge.
"Uh, Mom? It's locked?"
The lights were on inside. Why was the door locked?
"Hm? Ah, wait a second."
Mother rummaged in her pouch for a moment, then drew out a key.
"...Why do you have the key?"
"Hm? This? My friend gave me a spare. Said if she wasn't around, I should just let myself in."
Was this how celebrities and stylists usually were? From the news, it was the celebrities doing all the power-tripping. I knew Mother wasn't that kind of person, but this looked like a pretty equal relationship.
"You two must be really close."
"Y-yeah? We are."
"More precisely, it's closer to her liking me too much..."
"Huh? Is your friend a man?"
"No, she's a girl. If she'd been a man, I would have reported her already and she'd be in jail."
"...What?"
"You'll understand what I mean once you meet her."
Mother frowned as if she didn't even want to picture it. What kind of person was this friend, that Mother of all people couldn't keep her face in check?
The lock turned. Inside the salon there wasn't a sign of anyone—empty enough that they might have left the lights on and gone home at closing.
"Oh. You didn't forget the key."
"Eek—kyaaah!"
I nearly jumped out of my skin.
What? There was nobody here. So why a voice?
A woman's voice, coming from beyond the salon curtain. It wasn't a ghost, was it? I bolted the other way and hid myself completely behind Mother.
The curtain snapped aside.
The voice behind it wasn't a ghost. It was a polished-looking woman who seemed to be in her thirties.
"If you'd forgotten it, I was just going to go home."
"You scared the kid. You still haven't changed a bit, have you?"
Mother stroked my back lightly, as if to tell me it was all right.
Uh... so...
"Th-that's Mom's friend...?"
Mother nodded, quiet. Only from that did I understand that the woman really was her friend.
"So you're Eunha?"
"Uh, hello...?"
She grabbed me.
"E-eh?"
I had no choice but to panic at what she did next.
"You are seriously cute! A perfect copy of Hayeon when she was little—a perfect copy!"
W-well, this woman had suddenly thrown her arms around me...! And she didn't stop at the hug. She started squishing my cheeks.
"Ah, ahh, p-please leggo a little..."
"And why is your skin this soft! Ugh, that girl's personality is rotten, but the face was perfect—and it got passed right down!"
Something... something about this felt very wrong.