Ideal Type World Cup (2)

Snow.

That loathsome trash drifting down out of the sky.

I hadn't even been through the army yet, but some instinct in me had already grasped the truth. The only creatures on earth who welcome this white garbage are children who don't know any better, and couples possessed by a matched pair of cockroaches, glued to each other and scuttling around as one.

Anyway, it was snowing that day.

If the snow piled up and froze the floor by the convenience-store entrance, a customer could slip and get hurt, so I swept like my life depended on it. But snow that keeps coming back doesn't negotiate. In the end I resigned myself to sweeping every thirty minutes and went back to stocking the shelves.

"Hey!"

I was hauling stock out of the storage room when the voice reached me. A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠glance toward the counter showed an elderly customer standing there with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Yes, coming."

The moment I took my place at the register, the old man opened his mouth.

"Esse Gold."

"Here you go."

I set the cigarettes in front of him, and his face was already sour. Sure enough, he didn't like the picture printed on the pack and told me to swap it. Casual speech from the very first word, a face knotted into a scowl, and then—after I'd already changed the picture—the nerve to declare that one no good ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠either and demand I lay out every single pack. The sheer audacity of it left me speechless.

Even so, I held on to the very end.

After several exchanges, the old man finally found a pack with a picture he wanted. He was about to pay when he glanced outside, announced that he'd grab a bottle of makgeolli, and wandered off toward the fridge.

This customer really did come with every optional add-on.

A moment later he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠returned with the milky rice wine, and his expression was worse than before. I took the bottle and started ringing him up, only for him to suddenly argue that the makgeolli here was a full two hundred won more expensive than at the supermarket down the street.

This was bad. A final boss this powerful, and my poker face was one hit away from collapsing.

I tried to soothe him with gentle words and just get the sale finished, and he fished a few thousand-won bills out of his pocket, one crumple at a time, and flung them onto the counter.

Snap—!

That was the moment the thing called reason broke inside me.

I had endured everything there was to endure. But exploding in the open right there would have been amateur hour. I took the money meekly, finished the transaction, and waited for my opening.

"Here you go."

I scattered the change across the counter as if it were nothing. I didn't overtly throw it. But it was more than enough for my displeasure to get across.

The old man glared. Then he spoke, voice dropped low.

"You throwing money at me?"

His intelligence must have been on par with an amoeba. Judging by the fact that he couldn't even remember throwing the money himself about ten seconds earlier, that assessment was clearly correct.

Anyway, I fought that old bastard of a customer with everything I had. Other customers came in to watch the show, and someone—I never found out who—called the police, who showed up to mediate.

And I got fired.

"Anyway, because I have that tragic memory, I'm going with the one on the right."

"Next."

This one was simple. The worker for the next shift had arrived and we needed to hand off, and the matchup was a customer dawdling in front of the register versus a customer chewing out the employee because the prices were too high.

"The first one isn't even really a nightmare customer. It's not like they showed up knowing when the shift change was."

I picked the right.

And straight into the next round!

"I'll go with the first one for this. I've got a bad memory with drunks..."

After that, it was simple. I worked through the customer who eats and then trashes the place on the way out, the customer who picks a fight the moment you ask if they need a bag, the customer who shows up with a mountain of loose change to pay, and the rest of that miserable lineup.

"Please refrain from mentioning other streams."

Once the round of sixteen ended, the quarterfinals and the semifinals blew past so fast it was almost dull. That winter memory of the old bastard had hit so hard it had been steering my choices without my even noticing.

And then, at last, the final.

"Laid out side by side like this, it's honestly dizzying."

The bastard who hurls money or merchandise at the register, versus the bastard who gets drunk and causes every kind of problem inside the store. I'd had miserable experiences with both, so I couldn't choose easily. The old man from that winter day overlapped with the drunk who had smashed a soju bottle, collapsed in front of the counter, and sobbed his heart out.

The police had come and sent him on his way—except he hadn't gone home. Ten minutes later he was back, raising hell all over again. That exact drunk.

"Hmm. Then my choice is..."

One viewer's devastating chat blurred my judgment. The moment I pictured myself personally scraping up the vomit-pancake some drunk had gifted the floor, merely being talked down to by an elderly customer started to seem like something I could endure.

So I was just about to lock in the latter—

"...... Right. Manners really are what make a person. If someone drops the honorifics on a first meeting just because you're younger than they are, how is that supposed to be okay? I'm going with the first one."

Click.

The final selection was locked in. And then the boos came pouring in.

"No, everyone, think about it. Why do you suppose we keep working so steadfastly even while dealing with nightmare customers like these?"

"Quit the nonsense and listen. We put up with all of it to make money, don't we? And that's five hundred Water Balloons. To earn that much, I'd have to work five hours at a convenience store."

"What I'm saying is, even the me from that winter day—even the me who suffered through drunks—would have gladly handed over the win for five hundred Water Balloons. So I stand by it. Head held high."

And that was the verdict.

It had ended faster than I'd expected, but everyone was laughing and carrying on, so there was nothing wrong with that. For whatever time remained, some idle chat about how things were going, or whatever issue was swirling around Legend of League, would do just fine.

I was thinking exactly that when one of the viewers dropped a tip.

"Oh! For real? What's it called?"

To the delighted roar of the viewers, I searched up that Ideal Type World Cup and found myself.

It was surreal. Back when I'd only been a viewer, I had watched those things and laughed. I never thought the day would come when I showed up as a candidate myself. It was a little disappointing that the clip wasn't my real voice but an impression of the Ordeal, and yet it still felt like being recognized, and that felt good.

"...... These reactions are suspicious."

The viewers who'd flinched tried to play innocent, but there is always someone, anywhere, who can't resist jumping in.

"Huh? Is that actually the name?"

I'm a jungler. Had somebody mixed up the roles? Even as I tilted my head, my fingers were diligently searching for a world cup by that exact name.

"......"

What had I just seen?

The viewers' reactions told me I wasn't mistaken.

The Mid Carry World Cup. As it turned out, it had nothing to do with actual mid laners. It was a filthy little pun dressed up in Legend of League. From the very first match, two female cammers appeared in outfits that left very little to the imagination. Staring at them, I could feel my chest swelling with grandeur.

I clicked through in silence, and then my photo came up.

"Haah...... perverts."

I bickered with the viewers who treated the scolding like a reward and only got happier for it.

And then the stream ended.

"That was embarrassing."

Seeing the woman who was "me" in a photograph instead of a mirror felt strange. Of course my face wasn't in it—the shot was framed to put my chest front and center—but anyway, it wasn't like usual.

"You fucking—!"

And so another day draws to a close.