A Suspicious—No, a Little—No, a Very Perverted Woman (Reality)
The F4 versus KZ final.
Before the match began, a Rioat tribute track swelled through the venue, and the players from both teams started filing into the arena.
On the giant screens posted around the arena, the interviews both teams had given ahead of the final were rolling.
These were the interviews of the two teams that had climbed all the way to the 2023 PCK final—F4 and KZ.
The words changed from player to player, but every interview followed a single current.
On one side, F4, jaws set for a showdown with KZ, who still held the throne of Domestic No. 1. On the other, KZ, dry as dust. At a glance it was the defending champions looking arrogant, and F4 rising to challenge them for the crown.
The finals opening had been staged around that exact concept—F4 taking on the final boss named KZ—and with every bit of the video craft Rioat had honed since the Legend of League days poured into it, the package was genuinely worth watching. Pulse-pounding music, players lit one after another, each of them striking the coolest pose they could manage to sell the shot. And yet...
"Pfft—hah. God, I still can't get used to videos like this, no matter how many times I see them."
From a friend's seat, of course, it was just funny.
"Spax? Why? I thought he came off looking cool."
That counted as looking cool?
"Mm... you think so?"
Maybe it was because we'd known each other since middle school, but no matter how I looked at Kim Seungtaek up on that screen, he read less as cool and more as ridiculous. Then again, that might have been something only I saw, given the peculiar fact that he was my best friend.
"Oh, there's Geonmo."
"Pfft—!"
Yeah. I am not surviving this one.
Right after Spax, the face on the screen was Geonmo-oppa. I'd known him back in my pro days, and even when I'd only just debuted as a streamer, he'd helped me with all sorts of things.
"What the hell is that bastard's face? I seriously want to beat the shit out of him."
"Aigoo, hyung, 'beat the shit out of him'? Let's settle for just a light smack."
Unlike with Spax, the two of them were reacting hard. Maybe they were finally getting a taste of how I felt. Depending on who was listening, it might have sounded like they were crossing a line—but Oldboy and Zzangdol were both close with Geonmo-oppa, so they could get away with it.
Mm... more importantly... there's still a little time before it starts, right?
"I'm gonna run to the restroom."
I hadn't gone once since leaving the house for the Park, and I wanted to get it done before the final began. Couldn't have the flow break on me while I was watching.
"Ah, go ahead."
"Okaaay."
The moment I stood, Driver Kwon rose with me. He really didn't have to...
"I'll go by myself."
"Still, just in case..."
"You know it's not even five meters from the waiting room to the bathroom, right?"
If the restroom had been any real distance, I would have just gone along with it. It was genuinely that close, so I declined as politely as I could.
"If anything happens, contact me right away. You know how, yes? Press the button and the alarm comes straight to me."
The button. If he meant the button, then definitely...
"You mean this?"
The thing my father had given me the day of my high school entrance ceremony. It was nothing more than a keychain shaped like a die: press the button on the face marked one, and it reached Driver Kwon at once. He'd told me to press it without hesitation whenever I was in danger, or whenever I needed him. So far, I'd never had a reason.
"Yes. Should anything happen—anything at all—you must press it."
"Yeah, I got it."
What could possibly happen on a trip to the bathroom? But if I didn't agree, he wasn't going to let me go alone, so I answered that I would. He really did overprotect me...
"Hm-hm-hmm~"
Business done, I was on my way back to the waiting room. The final still needed a little more time to start, and it had been a while since I'd been at PCK Park, so I decided to look around a bit more. When we'd filmed the Newbie Guide I'd had dozens of bodyguards in tow, so I'd never really gotten to wander like this with my guard down.
"Oh, this part hasn't changed."
I was browsing here and there, just starting to think I ought to head back, when—
"Excuse me."
A woman's voice came from behind me.
"Yes? What's the matter?"
"Do you happen to know where the CL League staff offi—ah!"
She'd been asking for help, then clapped a hand over her own mouth and startled. From the clothes, and from the way she kept glancing around, she didn't look like Rioat staff... A streamer who'd been invited separately? They'd said they were running a streamer viewing party out of the waiting room, so maybe she was a broadcaster here only for that, not for the event match.
I had a separate reason for assuming she worked in front of a camera. The woman in front of me was seriously good-looking. Not on my level, of course, but she was far more beautiful than the girl streamers I'd browsed a few times while shopping for streaming setups. If you figured those women only looked prettier than real life thanks to top-tier cameras and lighting, then the woman standing here was more than enough to count as a beauty in the flesh.
"Huh? Is there something you need?"
Was she looking for the waiting room? I was heading back anyway, so I could at least walk her—
Grab.
"Euh?"
"Whoa..."
What—what is with this person?
Out of nowhere she was pawing at both my cheeks with both hands. I'd been about to help her, and this was what she did?
"H-hey—"
I couldn't let that kind of rudeness slide from someone I'd just met, so I tried to pry the two hands off right then—
"Let go of m—"
The difference in strength between us was bigger than I'd thought. I couldn't move.
"She looks exactly like the real thing. What is she, a doll..."
More than that—her eyes are terrifying!
She stared at my face as if something had possessed her, a look packed with pure mania. Wait. I'd been through a situation like this before, hadn't I?
Which was...
Ah. Auntie?
After I'd decided to show my face for the Newbie Guide shoot, I asked my mother to do my makeup. Half a year in a woman's body hadn't taught me a thing about women's clothes or cosmetics.
So she introduced me to a friend of hers. The friend had known her since high school; back when Mother was acting, she'd been her personal makeup artist, and these days she ran a makeup shop in Gangnam—an incredible woman, Mother told me, all of it.
And it clearly hadn't been friendship alone that put her in charge of makeup for someone who'd once commanded the very top of the entertainment world. Auntie's skill was astonishing. Even I, already used to my own face, was shocked at how completely my look changed. Thanks to that I could walk into the shoot with my head up, and the response had been good, so I owed Auntie a great deal.
After that day we didn't end as a one-day connection. Now and then, we kept in touch. Auntie taught me how to use a few simple products, and she even gave me some of them as gifts.
So—if you're asking why I suddenly brought Auntie up...
"She looks exactly like the real thing. I thought she was some kind of doll..."
"You are seriously cute! A perfect copy of Hayeon when she was little, a perfect copy!"
It was because the woman in front of me made me think of Auntie. More precisely, the way she'd looked at me the first time we met was almost a perfect copy of Auntie.
"Her skin's incredibly soft and pale, too... and she's barely wearing any makeup... how is this even possible?"
Why did the woman in front of me keep overlapping with the Auntie who had helped with my Newbie Guide shoot?
It wasn't just a similar air. How to put it—even the behavior was almost identical to Auntie's. The way she treated me. Even the way she stroked my cheeks. The same.
Thinking about it again, on top of the vibe and the behavior, the looks were similar too. If Auntie were exactly twenty years younger, wouldn't she look like this? Something along those lines. Unlike my mother, who still flaunted a face that could pass for her thirties—an absurd baby face—Auntie had an appearance that matched her age. Putting it that way felt a little cruel... the wrinkles in her skin, the white hairs showing here and there. Even so, maybe from regular care, Auntie fell short of my mother but was still plenty young-looking, and you could tell at a glance that she'd been quite popular when she was young.
Come to think of it...
"Oh my, you're better than my daughter. That girl doesn't even bring home a single snack when she finally visits."
"You have a daughter?"
"Mm. Eight years older than you."
She had said she had a daughter... and that the girl was eight years older than me.
A sports club... A pro gaming league was classified as esports in its own right, so there was room to call one a sports club.
Could this person be Auntie's...?
No. No way.
How many women in their twenties were there in the world? There was no way this was Auntie's daughter. And before any of that—
"H-hold on a second!"
Just how long is she planning to keep this up?
At first I'd been a little scared and stayed still, but I couldn't take any more of it, so I knocked her hands away. Of course her hands didn't budge an inch—even though I'd shoved as hard as I could.
Maybe I really do need to work out...?
"Huh? Ah—ah, I'm sorry!"
I hadn't managed to force her arms off, but I seemed to have succeeded at snapping her back to herself. She kept saying she was sorry and took a step back from me.
"I-I'm really sorry! I think I lost it for a second...!"
"Ah, it's fine..."
I was still flustered, but she'd apologized, so I decided to let it go. She hadn't actually hurt me, and if I didn't get back to the waiting room soon, Driver Kwon would worry.
I turned to head for the waiting room—and then—
"E-excuse me."
The woman spoke to me again.
"Yes?"
"Could I... get your number? You're my ideal type..."
"...What?!"
Moments like this, the adults really weren't wrong about a single thing. If my father had drilled into me how dangerous men were, my mother had warned me that I had to watch out for women, too.
"Your dad said every man is a wolf, and you have to be careful? Pfft-hah... That is so him."
"But Eunha. Being careful of men isn't enough, you know? The world has more kinds of people than you'd think."
At first I hadn't really understood what she meant. Now I felt like I was starting to. Because—look at the woman blushing right in front of me.
"..."
Without a word, I drew a small cube of a die from my pocket.
Click.
And pressed the button without hesitating.