Life Is the Real Match, Kid (Revised)

"Nnngh...."

A morning like any other would have been nice. I'd watched the match until dawn and then squeezed in one more game before bed, and I was in worse shape than I'd expected.

Maybe I really should quit pulling this at ungodly hours.

Even on break, Father preached the importance of breakfast, so I had to be up by nine—and PCT matches, thanks to the time difference, were broadcast in the middle of the night.

"Ugh... I'm all stiff..."

The alarm was set for eight. Breakfast at home was at nine, and I needed the time before that to wash. At first I'd set it around eight-thirty. A girl's body, I'd learned for certain, took longer to get clean. When I was a boy, fifteen minutes had been plenty. Now that I was a girl, even finishing inside an hour felt tight, and waking any earlier than eight was more than I could stand. The one small mercy was that my hair only fell to my shoulders, so washing and drying it went a little faster than it did for other girls.

With hands that had grown used to the work, I dried my hair, pulled on the frilled pajamas that by now felt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like nothing but comfort, and headed for the living room.

"Oh."

"Eunha, you're up?"

The housekeeper gave me that greeting every morning. Today, the person saying it was someone else.

"Ah... Dad? You're... awake?"

The one offering me a good morning was Father, seated on the living-room sofa with a coffee mug in one hand and a book in the other. But wasn't this the hour he left for the office?

"Dad, shouldn't you be heading to the company?"

Whatever had put him in such a good mood, he answered through a soft, helpless smile.

"It's the weekend, isn't it? Days like this are for spending at home with my daughter."

Right. It was the weekend.

Just then a door opened on the second floor, and my older brother—the man who, now that I was his sister, had become my oppa—came walking out.

"Father. You're up."

He came down into the living room and offered a morning greeting to Father, still bent over his book. Father didn't so much as glance at him. Eyes fixed on the page, he answered short.

"Yes."

Nothing like the warm smile of a moment ago. Cold, and indifferent.

With the two of them in the room together, the air in the living room seemed to drop a few degrees.

I can't breathe...!

However kind my brother was to me, he was the image of Father, and he carried the same chill. Two people that cold in one place, and the mood sank straight to the floor.

"Chairman, breakfast is ready."

The housekeeper's arrival let me escape the freeze. With me she had the air of a nanny. With Father and my brother, she was unmistakably staff.

A rather solemn, quiet meal began. I'd eaten with Father plenty of times since becoming a girl. Sitting down with my brother there as well was a first.

God, I really can't breathe.

Father and my brother both ate in silence, not a word between them. Even Father, who would usually toss a few remarks my way, said nothing. Pressed flat under the two of them, I couldn't get a word out either. An eternity crawled past, and the moment the meal ended I fled to my room.

Back in my room after breakfast, I thought about yesterday. The enemy Jett who had suddenly snapped and poured a flood of abuse over me: KZ cries. I was long past being shaken by insults, and nothing he'd said had done me any real harm. That still wasn't a reason to let people like him walk. If it had been someone else, it would have been enough to leave a mark. cries had crossed a line I was willing to overlook.

So I picked up my phone and opened the messenger.

I could have walked over and said it—he was right here in the house—but I wanted this kept as far from Father's ears as possible. If Father found out, cries might actually end up dead. I wanted him properly disciplined. I did not want that. Someone might call it an excessive fantasy. They'd only say so because they didn't know my father. His love for his daughter went past anything I could imagine.

How was I supposed to get this across as cleanly as possible?

That was summary enough, wasn't it? The little 1 beside the message vanished, so he had to have read it, and still no reply came. Two minutes or so passed before his answer arrived.

Uh.

The chill coming off that message was just my imagination, right?

I told him everything that had happened yesterday. From cries picking a fight during the stream, through everything after the friend request.

He was worried about me. Fortunately I wasn't fragile enough to fold under trash talk that low.

Family, after all. He knew me too well.

Huh?

If my brother was on it, I could relax. Suing the haters before this had all been handled by the team. Ignorant of the law, I had no choice but to ask someone like him.

I left the matter of cries with my brother and decided to play in the meantime.

For the record, I did not know it then. That my brother loved his little sister every bit as excessively as Father did. That because I had brought this up on a weekend, the company legal team would be working through the weekend too. I wouldn't learn the truth of that day until quite a while later.

The weekend passed. On a weekday morning, after breakfast as usual, I was lying on my bed when a text arrived.

Heard on its own, the message sounded like he'd killed someone. A follow-up cleared up the misunderstanding.

Did lawsuits usually end this fast? I'd never filed one myself, as a boy or as a girl, so I had no idea.

Honestly. Reliable.

These days saying it out loud still felt awkward, but typing oppa in a text had gotten easy. It felt a little like I was catfishing... so what? I really was a girl.

Ding-dong.

The doorbell rang almost before the thought had finished. My brother must already have told the housekeeper. She asked the visitor a few simple questions and opened the door without much fuss.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The person who came in—the person my brother had sent—was a woman in a crisp suit, young-looking, somewhere between her twenties and her thirties.

"Hello, Miss Eunha. Director Choi asked me to deliver this."

The feeling that this person was glaring at me was just my imagination, right? Yeah. Imagination.

Director Choi, though. That had to mean my brother. Which meant this woman was probably on the legal team at Father's company. The woman I took for legal handed me a white envelope.

"What is this?"

"Lee Hoyeong, the young man you filed against, and his family asked us to pass this along. They're requesting leniency."

Lee Hoyeong? So cries's real name was Lee Hoyeong.

"Leniency?"

"Yes. And the director asked me to pass this along as well. Personally, he'd rather the boy paid for it with no settlement—but it's your matter, so he'll leave it to you."

"Hmm... I'll read it first."

I took the letter from the legal staffer, opened the envelope, and read it slowly. Then I tore it up on the spot. She didn't look the least bit rattled by the suddenness of it. She simply held out her hand.

"I'll throw it away."

"Please."

The reason was simple. The letter contained something that had no business being there. Opening the very first line with because I was drunk was too much. Get drunk and you're allowed to talk about killing someone? Allowed to curse them out? Drink and drive and the punishment gets heavier—so why was everything else diminished capacity? I would never understand the law in this country. Maybe that was a presumptuous thing to say for someone who'd never studied it.

"Then I'll proceed on the understanding that there will be no settlement."

"Yes. Please do."

Same as before. Same as when I'd sued the haters. I had no intention of settling.