Bonehead (Just Chatting)

The truth was, I had never been someone with friends. Not that I had lived entirely alone. It was more that I had never had anyone close enough to empty my heart to without holding something back.

There were a few people you could have called friends, but they sat closer to business than to friendship. We kept each other company because being alone got lonely, and that was the whole of it. Shallow ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠acquaintance. Nothing with roots.

Then, for someone like me, a friend I could honestly swear was close finally appeared. Kim Seungtaek. Unlike me, who could barely manage people at all, he was the classic social butterfly, easy with everyone around him. That was the kind of person Seungtaek was, and until then I had been sure our lives would never tangle.

But in my second year of middle school, while I was gaming alone at a PC café near school, he was the one who walked up first.

It started as a handful of games. The more often we queued, the closer we got.

Later we shared the dream, and looked at the same future.

Together we walked into KZ Academy and lived the trainee life.

All the way to the first title, the most electric moment of my life as a pro.

After that came failure after failure on the international stage. Plenty happened between him and me, big things and small. The friendship did not change.

From that day on, Seungtaek and I became nothing to each other.

Anyway. For the person who had decided to live as seventeen-year-old high school girl Choi Eunha, the last face in the world I wanted to see was SPAX. Kim Seungtaek.

We had been close enough to read a thought off a glance, close enough that there was almost no line we would not cross when we talked.

With someone I had never met, the odds of my tongue slipping were high—

"Ah."

I was doing this a lot today.

Nebula's voice came again, and only then did I climb out of my own head.

"Ah—no. It's nothing."

When I actually looked up, the broadcast was already halfway through introducing AFS's roster. I asked Nebula anyway, half convinced I had misheard.

"So... who did you say our coach was?"

I knew. There was no way I couldn't.

So I hadn't imagined it. The coach of Kwitch's representative team—the coach of the team I was about to play for—really was Kim Seungtaek.

"Hoooo..."

I shoved the knot in my head down as hard as I could. If I just didn't slip, nothing would happen. It was a tie from the past, and now it was nothing. So forget it. The me of now was not the twenty-one-year-old man, Choi Eunha. I was the seventeen-year-old girl, Choi Eunha.

Before I knew it they had reached AFS's last player, and the chat on Kwitch's official channel turned restless.

Restless wasn't quite the word. They were showing their teeth.

More than that—Pilleulo. As far as I knew...

"Pilleulo? Is that the guy who's rank one on the Korea server?"

It wasn't only the official chat. My own viewers were openly recoiling from Pilleulo, and even Nebula sounded like he wanted nothing to do with him.

I wanted to ask why. This was not the moment. I was live, and poking at someone who already looked rotten would read, to anyone watching, like gossip behind his back.

"I'm gonna step out to the bathroom."

I only pretended to leave. Mic off, phone on, and I opened a site.

"Pilleulo... Pilleulo..."

I needed to know why people flinched from him like that, why the hostility was so clean. After a pass through Namuwiki, my one-line review came easy.

"...This guy's insane."

Just trash.

A streaming career that had barely cleared a year, and that many scandals. And not small ones. Every entry was a heavyweight.

A league made up only of women pros gets announced, and out comes this:

A teammate in competitive has a bad game, and the abuse is this:

He slapped the queen-bee label on some nobody streamer on Kwitch, whipped his viewers into raiding her, and drove her off the air. Then, this February, when the trainee exposé blew open on the back of Cries's rant, he even sided with the trainees who had been named:

Any one of those, alone, was enough to bury someone in the broadcast world. The reason Pilleulo was not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠buried was simple.

Skill.

He was holding rank one on the Korean server, and he had the fans to match the title. That was why the stream survived scandal after scandal. If he had been a Kwitch streamer, he would have been buried and gone dark in a hurry. AFS's audience was generous about slurs and sexual insults. On top of that, true to the rank-one name, he printed highlight reels of flashy play, so the blind followers only multiplied. They were even holding up the absurd shield that the scandals were "just Pilleulo's charm."

At this point I had to wonder what was in the heads of the AFS staff who had put a man like that in the exhibition. And I understood why the viewers, and Nebula, wanted nothing to do with him.

"A madman only understands the rod."

Whether that rod was physical, or mental.

"I'm back."

I hadn't actually gone to the bathroom, so it hadn't taken long.

The timing was perfect. The moment I sat down, Seongjun started reading the schedule. It was my first exhibition, and I needed the format, so I actually watched.

"Mm... so."

"...That's it, right?"

So I had understood it. Maybe because PCK was coming up, the exhibition schedule was brutal. Twelve matches in the group stage alone. Fourteen once you folded in the playoff and the final, all of it inside a month. On a calendar that tight, the group winner's advantage—a straight ticket to the final—looked enormous. While second and third prepared for a playoff, first place could prepare for the final itself.

"Ah. Okay."

The official broadcast was over. Roster and schedule were both public, so now it was time to meet the new teammates. There was one person I would rather not run into. That was all.

Everyone but me and Nebula was already in the Project A channel. Anyone with the skill and the name to play an exhibition had long since been invited, and there was a room set aside for the Platform Exhibition that they had been using since last year.

"Ah... h-hello."

No one needed to trade names. Most of us had never met, but everyone already knew who everyone was.

Zzangdol felt like a wholesome kid from the countryside. Unspoiled was the word. He barely swore on stream, either.

Oldboy was... how to put it. Neighborhood ahjussi.

He wasn't actually that old. An FPS just demands reaction speed at a cruel level, so the player base runs young, and...

...deciding he looked ancient would have been rude.

"Y-yes?!"

God, that scared me. A heavy male voice stabbed straight through the earphones, and I let out a shriek.

"Th... thank you?"

A deep voice that brought Driver Kwon to mind. Hearing I'm a fan in a voice like that—I was grateful. I was also terrified.

It's not because I'm a loner. That Pola guy's voice is just too scary...

Something about it made me sure I would not be able to talk to him. It had taken me a long time just to get used to Driver Kwon's presence. A voice like this was not going to be easy.

While we were still trading light hellos, the active pro assigned as coach of our representative team stepped into the channel. SPAX.

Kim Seungtaek. My best friend, the one who had dreamed of going pro with me since middle school.

It had been a long time since I'd heard that voice.

"Yeah, I hear you fine."

"Ah."

Oh, shit.

The noisy Discord room went cold all at once, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠only then did I understand what I had done.

Being best friends with Seungtaek belonged to the past. Not even the past—to the days of the man Choi Eunha, who no longer existed. Which meant that I, the seventeen-year-old girl Choi Eunha, had nothing to do with SPAX. We were complete strangers.

So this was the situation. A seventeen-year-old high schooler, still wet behind the ears, had just dropped every honorific and talked like an old friend to a man four years older, at their very first meeting.