Sidegrade (Just Chatting)

"You're not seriously thinking of signing those two?"

As captain, he had some say in whoever the team might bring in.

Even so, the captain's chair wasn't some throne of authority. It didn't entitle him to blurt out that they ought to sign whoever happened to catch his eye.

If the man across from Kim Seungtaek had been a coach swollen with his own rank, he would have caught an earful for it. Yoo Seonho was not that kind of man.

"Kid. Do I do the signing? The org does. I'm just a guy on a salary."

He let it end there, nothing more than a light cuff of a scolding.

"They dump the whole thing on you and wash their hands of it anyway. Don't they? Am I wrong?"

It was hardly something a mere team captain ought to say about the people above an organization. Yoo Seonho didn't bother pointing that out.

The wording was rough, yes. But the two of them had already spent three years on the same team, and when it was only the two of them in the room, Yoo Seonho had long since decided to let that much pass.

Tone aside, most of what Kim Seungtaek had said was true. The KZ organization had no interest in the Project A pro team it operated.

No. More precisely, it was fairer to say they hadn't—until, recently, they did.

Three years ago, when Leori collapsed, Project A had drawn a sudden flood of attention, and the org had spared no support for KZ, already the best team in Korea.

Ignorant of the Project A scene, they had no wish to run it themselves. From the day KZ's Project A team was founded they had left nearly all of the authority with Yoo Seonho, the man who had coached it ever since.

So, just as Kim Seungtaek said, Yoo Seonho did have the power to sign a given player.

He simply had no intention of using it.

"...Seungtaek. I told you last time, too. KZ is already a finished team."

"..."

Semifinals at the world championship. A height no other team in Asia had ever reached.

"Sure. Nebula, Eunha—those two are still uncut stones. Unproven on the pro scene."

Every year countless prospects threw themselves at the pro world, felt that wall in their bones, and broke against it.

The wall between amateur and pro was that immense. So high you couldn't even dare to measure it.

"They'll probably make it. Maybe even at a level that holds up on the world stage."

Even among prospects, though, there were stones of a different grade. The kind you could look at and be certain they would succeed.

Yoo Seonho was the coach other Project A coaches called the sharpest eye in the game, the man who had dug up KZ's captain, Spax, and their entry, FOXY.

In his judgment, Eunha and Nebula were talents who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would succeed. No question.

But.

"But do you think the rest of KZ is worse than those two?"

The roster as it stood: FOXY, Spax, Alpi, PEST, MOKO.

Every one of them had already succeeded on the pro scene. Every one of them had made a mark even at the world level.

"KZ is already complete. Complete enough to aim at a world title."

He was right. For three years KZ had steadily finished inside the world's top four, playing at a level that could reach for a championship.

Even the matches they lost had been fierce 3–2 wars against title favorites, defeats you could only call unfortunate. Games it would not have been strange for KZ to win.

"But we've sat in the semifinals every year, and in the end we never won."

At the same time, KZ had never once reached a final. For three years they had stayed parked at fourth in the world.

Maybe it was only a difference of perspective. Someone could look at those steady world semifinals and call it consistency, a team that kept delivering.

Someone else could say the same thing every year, and no growth in it.

Spax, at least, was not a man who could be satisfied with a semifinal.

Neither was the rest of KZ.

"Then you tell me, Seungtaek. If we bring those two in, which of our guys do you think has to leave?"

"That's..."

Kim Seungtaek had no answer. The bond between teammates was part of it, but there was a clearer reason than that.

"You know it too. Signing Eunha and Nebula would be nothing but a sidegrade."

Not an upgrade. Not a downgrade. A sidegrade—barely any difference before and after.

KZ was already a finished team. Forcing new pieces into a team like that was a thing with no knowable result.

No different from ripping a new part into a machine that was already complete, without even knowing whether the part would fit, or what the finished machine would be compared with what it had been.

"Right... I guess it would."

In truth, today was hardly the first time Kim Seungtaek had asked Yoo Seonho whether they ought to try signing some particular prospect. He had done it quite a few times.

"I believe in you, Seungtaek. In you and in the whole team. We can win a title. We can be the best in the world."

So.

"Stop looking outside. We keep doing what we've been doing, and we get harder. That's all."

"...Yes. I understand."

Spax answered quietly. Yoo Seonho nodded, as if that settled him.

"Good. Like I said earlier, it's vacation. Ease off a little."

"Yes, Coach."

A match between AFS and Kwitch that a lot of people had been waiting on, and the whole thing had gone up in smoke for a reason as stupid as that.

"Wow... incredible."

At this point it was almost impressive. And completely absurd.

Plenty of people, watching a sub get picked and then fail to show up for the event, had already asked why a sub even existed if this was how it went.

This mess showed how much a bench player mattered when a starter's seat went empty, and at the same time why the organizers had insisted on a six-man roster all along.

He had managed to cause it in one of the exhibition's main events, the one the most viewers had been waiting for, the one that would have drawn the biggest crowd. Skyudang wasn't going to be coming back for a while.

"What was that, miss?"

"Ah, nothing."

Oh, and for the record, I was in a car. Why a car? Because I had to go to school.

The weekend was over, a weekday had arrived, and the cold ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was nearly gone. Skipping any more school wouldn't do.

Five days a week of showing up was pretty annoying, and pretty tiring. But I wasn't heading ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠off to cram school the way most other students did, and it wasn't as if I actually sat through the classes once I got there, so this was about where the complaining ought to stop.

Still, staring into space for six or seven hours got a little boring.

"Thank you for the ride."

"Yes. Please take care of yourself."

I thanked Driver Kwon, who was looking out for me again today, and walked into the school.

The mask stayed on. The cold was almost gone and I wasn't coughing much anymore, but if I wanted this face hidden, the mask was not optional.

Whether I liked the face or not, it pulled far too much attention.

The classroom, after a while away. A week, so was "a while" even the right word?

I'd come in early again today. The only people in the room were the few I called the model students.

We weren't close, so I quietly took my seat at the very back.

I was scrolling the communities on my phone when classmates started trickling in, one and then another.

From the back row I could hear them talking about me.

"Didn't she drop out?"

"She looks like a delinquent."

I ignored it. These ears were uselessly sharp, and overhearing gossip about myself was just an ordinary day.

A lot of that gossip was boys taking an interest in how I looked. Even so, they didn't find it easy to actually speak to me.

This face was my mother's. It was more than enough to draw eyes. The sharp impression I'd inherited from my father shut the approach down before it started. Truly ironic.

I was sitting in that strange feeling of being appraised like a piece hung in a gallery when someone spoke to me first.

"Eunha... right? Your cold's better?"

My desk partner. Han Seong... what was the rest of it.

And this was the first time I'd seen him this awake.

"More or less."

My usual desk partner was a weirdo who face-planted and went to sleep the second he got to school. Not this—eyes perfectly clear, wide awake, some parasite of a boy.

"Yeah... I see..."

We weren't close, and he was a guy, so I'd drawn a line on purpose in case he started hovering. His reaction was pretty strange.

He stared at me as if he were taking me apart, some odd light in his eyes.

"What are you looking at?"

I didn't like that gaze. The words came out sharper than I meant.

"Ah. Sorry."

Only then did he apologize and turn his head to the front. He didn't seem to care about my tone at all.

...What's with him?

More than that. That voice.

I feel like I've heard it somewhere before.

Eunha, the supernova streamer whose name had been everywhere since the recent exhibition.

On an ordinary day her broadcast was the monitor, with a hand cam jammed into the left corner. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Today was not an ordinary day.

The screen was pure black. Nothing on it but the music she had left playing to warm the stream up.

Chat, though, was more feverish than it had ever been.

"Ah... hello..."

Had the mood swept her up? Or was she nervous about the penalty she still had to carry out?

Unlike the bright, lively Eunha everyone was used to, today's Eunha looked pretty tense.