The Dream He Couldn't Give Up

Oppa.

By the dictionary, it is what a younger sister calls an older brother born of the same parents, or a male relative of the same generation in the family. In another sense, it is the fond name a younger woman uses for an older man who is no relation to her at all.

If the two meanings share anything, it is this: oppa is a word a woman uses.

Yes. A woman's word.

I had been a man, and not quite a month had passed since I became a woman, but oppa still refused to sit easily on my tongue.

But what was I supposed to do? I had lost the bet, and taking the penalty was only fair.

Right. That was the problem.

Why had I lost?

Early on I had been overwhelmingly ahead. When Geonmo had two kills, I had seven. More than three times his count. At that rate a comfortable win had looked certain.

What I had overlooked was that a bet between the two of us did not mean the two of us were fighting each other.

The kills we were chasing only went up when you killed the enemy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠team, and that enemy team was sitting in Immortal 1. For Geonmo, a respectable upper-mid Asia Chaser, they were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠easy enough.

If the bet had been a straight one-on-one, I was sure I would have crushed him. He was a former pro in his own right, but until a few months ago I had been a pro playing on the world stage.

Despite that gap, the bet collapsed into a question of who kept meeting the softer side of the lobby, and in the end it became a fight over luck.

Why was it that the enemies who had been hitting the site I was holding early on started, somewhere along the way, going only where Geonmo was?

The sort of thing people like to call the game having it out for you. Round after round his kills kept climbing, and mine climbed too, only far more slowly than his.

Maybe the early lead had been worth something after all. He chased with ferocious momentum, but it still didn't look like enough to close the gap.

Then, once round twelve ended and the sides swapped, the shape of it began to change.

The agent he had locked was Raze, the classic first-in entry. In an ordinary game an entry who takes one and dies is already ahead, but the moment he started bulldozing the defenders off site, the kill gap began to shrink.

"Hey, Omen—smoke, here, here."

"Omen, when I signal, Paranoia on this spot, please."

"Eunha, drop an eye right here."

Once our hard crowd control started getting spent for him as well, Raze grew wings and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ran even wilder.

No. Even that much had been fine. The real problem was the last round.

Twelve to five. The match was decided in all but name, and Geonmo and I were focused on nothing but the bet.

Win one more round and the game would end in our victory. We were already onto A site, two of them dead, the spike planted.

Our kills were two apart. I meant to win that round and finish the bet.

Then, out of nowhere, he popped his ultimate.

Raze's ultimate, Showstopper.

An ultimate that equips a rocket launcher dealing up to 150 damage—one of the highest-ceiling ultimates in Project A. Depending on the round it can wipe all five, or hit no one at all. The floor, of course, is just as low.

And Raze's rocket launched.

Not at an enemy. At me.

"This does not count!"

"If we win, that's all that matters! Where are they!"

Teamkilled by Raze's ultimate, all I could do was spectate his screen and pray.

Cruelly, God did not take the prayer.

"Nice!"

"No way..."

Both of us on thirty. I was sure a tie meant the bet was void.

Right. Thinking back, that donation was the problem.

Why had a single line I was certain would be written off as nonsense been taken seriously?

Why had even the viewers who should have been on my side gone along with that garbage?

Had they only wanted to watch me squirm while I got the word oppa out of my mouth?

In the end, borne along by their enthusiasm, I was all but forced to say it. After I ended the stream, Geonmo sent a private apology before he went to sleep.

Not that I actually had any grudge against hyung.

So. After a loss that absurd, what was I doing now?

"...Nothing to do, I guess."

I was just lying still on the bed.

The collab had ended cleanly. It was ten at night. Geonmo had gone to bed early so he could cast PCT LOCK//IN at dawn, and I had ended my own stream as well.

I hadn't planned on watching LOCK//IN, but more than five hours of watching every word so I wouldn't slip had worn me out.

I was idling around Kwitch, looking for anything worth putting on, when the phone in my hand buzzed and I nearly dropped it.

Brrrr!

"Ah—! You scared me..."

Who would text me at this hour?

Father? Or hyung?

The number started with +82.

"Nngh..."

So it had come after all.

High school.

If someone asked me for a memory from high school, I would answer at once.

I don't have any.

The year I turned seventeen and entered high school, 2019, was when COVED-19—the virus that set the whole world buzzing—was spreading. The entrance ceremony was held online, and the classes after it were online too. The moment my first semester of freshman year ended I dropped out to become a pro and went straight into KZ Academy, so high school, for me, was an unknown space I had never set foot in.

And in ten days, I had to walk into that unknown space.

As a girl.

"Why did Father send me to a coed school..."

A father who doted on his daughter that extremely, I had been sure, would send me to a girls' high school. For some reason Seyun High, the school I was headed to, was coed.

He had sent me to a girls' middle school, at least. I had no memory of attending it myself, but the middle-school ID belonging to Choi Eunha—girl, born in 2007—was unmistakably from a girls' middle school.

Wouldn't a girls' school be more uncomfortable, if I had originally been a boy?

I used to think that too. Right up until the day I went to the uniform shop to be fitted for the high school uniform I was about to start wearing.

My ears had always been more sensitive than other people's, so I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠overheard things I was never meant to hear, and that day I overheard them talking about me. Including the thing I had not wanted to know: that the way I looked was considerably attractive to men.

I know I'm pretty, now that I'm a woman. I look in the mirror at least once a day. I could hardly miss it.

But a man feeling something for me—expecting it, and actually coming face to face with it, were completely different problems.

If Driver Kwon hadn't been there that day, someone might have confessed to me.

A man showing interest in the me who used to be a man? Ugh.

I had decided to accept life as a woman. That did not mean I could date a man.

Maybe I would live alone for the rest of my life.

How had worrying about a high school entrance ceremony turned into worrying about who I was?

I had already eaten, and I had already said good night to Father.

My eyes were starting to close. Time to sleep.

...Maybe a Just Chatting stream tomorrow.

Talking with the viewers was more fun than I had expected.

Turning over what to stream the next day, I slipped under.

"Whoa. KZ is actually disgusting."

"Heh... now this is KZ. Everyone, these are my close friends. My juniors."

Six in the morning. While everyone else was asleep, streamer GOandMO was casting a PCT LOCK//IN match out of Brazil.

"No, I'm actually close with the KZ guys."

KZ versus CL. CL was the team that now held YAYE, the ace of OPT who had knocked KZ out of the 2022 PCT. That alone had pulled in a crowd of Project A fans, and even with a collab already on the schedule the day before, GOandMO had decided to cast this one.

He had gone straight to bed after ending yesterday's stream, just so he would be ready for it.

Part of the reason was the money a cast brought in. The bigger reason was simpler: as one Project A player, he had wanted to watch the best teams in the world play.

"All right, I'll wrap it up here. Thank you so much for watching today. Tomorrow's a rest day. Bye!"

He ended the broadcast and was just getting ready for bed when it chimed.

Ding!

A notification on Geonmo's Discord. The sender was one of his closest friends.

BunnyRabit. People more often called him Rabbit, or Carrot Bunny. Like Geonmo, he was one of the broadcasters sitting at the very top of Project A.

His friend's sudden offer left Geonmo staring, at a loss.

Project A was only just growing, with further still to go, and streamer GOandMO had climbed into a seat among the most popular broadcasters alive. Even so, he had once had a dream.

A dream he believed he had given up. And now it seemed a second chance had come looking for him.

Geonmo set two lives on the scale. The dream he thought he had abandoned, or the life he had already made as a successful streamer.

"He did tell me to think it over slowly..."

For Geonmo, who had only just been handed the offer, it was not something he could decide easily. His whole life was riding on it.