Shoutout (Reality)
Back when I was the pro known as Galaxy, the teammate I was closest to was, without question, Spax—Kim Seungtaek.
The tie ran all the way back to middle school, and it was a conversation with him that put me on the path to debuting in the first place.
If someone asked who came second...
I would have answered without a second's hesitation. FOXY. Park Jaeseong.
"Agh! How do you even react that fast? I'm seriously never going to beat you. Not once..."
Jaeseong was a KZ Academy trainee then, but he wasn't living at the academy. He was already boarding in the dorm off KZ's franchise practice room.
The only reason he hadn't debuted was his age. Inside KZ, the plan was already set: the moment he turned eighteen, they were calling him up to the starting roster.
Spax was captain, which meant looking after every single teammate one by one, so the job of taking care of Jaeseong fell to me. Contrary to the rumor that he was stubborn as sin, he actually listened, and we settled into a pretty close hyung-and-dongsaeng thing.
"You're too obvious coming out. Forget leaking every sound on the peek—why do you only ever short-peek?"
"Hyung, your reaction time is just too fast. I used to win every time doing it like this..."
"You think a regular player and a pro are the same? Fix that habit before you debut. Your right-hand aim is excellent. Your left hand is way too simple."
We ended up in a lot of custom-room 1v1s like that. I didn't think they helped much, but he insisted playing me was good for his motivation and kept asking, and whenever I had the time I went along with it.
Customs. Ascent mid. Sheriff, Marshal, rifles. KZ, sitting at the top of the domestic scene, and me—KZ's ace—against one trainee. Plenty of people would have assumed a one-sided result, but Foxy's talent wasn't ordinary talent, and the 1v1s ran surprisingly close.
"Aack!"
Or maybe not.
"Told you. Too simple. Let's call it and go eat. I'm hungry."
"Oh, right, it's already this late. Ah—you're buying, yeah, hyung?"
"...Didn't I buy last time too?"
Anyway, Jaeseong and I kept at the 1v1s, and now and then we ate dinner together. KZ ran its own cafeteria, but every so often we wanted a place outside. Honestly, the cafeteria wasn't much good either.
"Come on, I'm just an academy trainee who hasn't even debuted, and you're a starter. A famous pro. One of the ones they call the world's four great entries."
Unlike me, already making money as a proper pro, Jaeseong was still a trainee and didn't have much cash, so I ended up paying every time. I wasn't especially greedy about money to begin with. Better to buy a junior dinner than leave it sitting dead in a bank.
"You think I'd mooch a meal off a trainee? Obviously I was joking. But what's this world's four great entries thing?"
"Oh, don't play dumb. That's your nickname. Apas, Duke, Cned, Galaxy! You don't know it?"
"What kind of cringey title is that? And the four great entries—why am I even in there?"
"They're all Champions semifinal entries. You're one of them."
"...Fine, the first three. Leave me out. I'm not even close to their level."
"Hyung, you put yourself down way too hard. If you were bad, KZ wouldn't even have made the semis."
Maybe it was because I looked after him more than anyone else on the team. Maybe it was because I kept buying dinner. Whatever the reason, of all the teammates he followed me the closest, and his read on me was always too much—stacking me up against the world's top three entries like it was nothing.
"We only got as far as the semis because of me."
Did Jaeseong even know that the world's four great entries had started as a way to mock me? Probably not. Take the game away and the kid was pure by nature.
"There you go again. I'm not saying it because we're on the same team. The way I see it, all four of you are about the same."
He wasn't mocking me. He genuinely believed I was at their level.
"Nonsense. Say that and you think I'm buying you something expensive?"
Every time he went there, I shut it down.
"Ahem. Shame. No, I'm kidding. You just don't show it in real matches. I never once felt you were behind those three. I mean it!"
"In a real match it's normal not to get even ninety percent of your skill out. You think those three are showing their real level either?"
"That's... fair."
Unlike them—players who had already proved themselves over and over in the matches that mattered at international events—I hadn't proved a thing. I was nervous. It wasn't my real level. That excuse doesn't hold. Once or twice, maybe. I was well past a few failures.
"Still, the way I see it—"
"Okay, okay. Pick wherever you want. Stop inflating me."
"I'm telling you, that's not why I'm doing this."
"Then I'll just grab a burger and be done with it?"
"Ah—hold on—!"
Anyway, that was the point. Maybe because I'd looked after him for so long, he followed me more than anyone. Back then I thought it was only that—that he respected me as a decent hyung and a senior.
Apparently he really had fallen for my play itself. That was why he respected me. Why he followed me. Even with no acquaintance between us at all, he was saying my name and talking like that.
When was it that he'd said those words? Before we were close. Trainee days. The first thing he ever said to me, the moment we met.
Jaeseong had been my fan even before he caught Coach Yoo Seonho's eye as Foxy. He said watching me was what grew the dream of going pro.
I understood the feeling. I wasn't a Project A pro myself, not then, but I'd built my own dream watching pros in other games. Someone who turns into a role model usually settles into a kind of sanctuary in your chest. Put simply, the rose-tinted glasses go on. Once a role model enthroned like that loses, people start hunting for the cause of the loss somewhere outside them. Bad luck. A sick body. Nerves. Reasons like that.
Jaeseong filing me under the world's four great entries was probably the same species of thing. Inside him, the name Galaxy had settled in as holy ground.
That was what I had thought.
Until a moment ago. Until Foxy's interview.
"Whoa... Eunha, Foxy just gave you a shoutout."
"What? Eunha, you know Jaeseong?"
At Foxy's sudden line, every broadcaster in the waiting room turned to look at me. Attention landing this fast was... a little much. Ask me if I hate being noticed and the answer is no. What I don't enjoy is attention that has nothing to do with anything I meant to do. I like the kind that comes when I've done something, finished something. Not the kind that chains off somebody else's move.
More than that—do you know Jaeseong.
"Uh... well..."
If knowing counts, I know him. Better than anyone else in this waiting room, probably. Maybe better than any of the KZ players up on that screen.
"We've never even talked, though..."
"Huh? For real?"
But that was then. Right now I was nobody to Jaeseong. A stranger, full stop. And he was still saying things like that. Which meant he really had believed I belonged with the world's four great entries. That I was on their level.
Good at the game, no eye for players—is that it? Where does he even see that?
This—this lunatic!
Why does he love 1v1s that much? They don't even help!
"Wow. If he asks you for a 1v1, will you do it?"
"No. I won't."
If it were the old days, senior and junior, maybe. Right now I had not the slightest intention of playing him.
Hmm. An awkward question. With Jaeseong's personality, of course he'd say he was the best—
"Huh?"
An entry better than Foxy. As far as I knew, Korea didn't have one. Then again, this was a guy with so little eye he'd put me on a level with Apas and Duke. Figures.
Right. Seya, he might actually think that about. P1 had never beaten KZ, but the destruction Seya put on the server was enormous. Seya, at least, was someone Jaeseong could reasonably call a rival—
"?"
Why is that guy actually like this?
Are you doing this on purpose?
