Golf Is a Science.
Golf Is a Science.
Dad and I made it to the PC bang and went straight into our usual booth.
"You're heeere~?"
Polite words, but her eyes never left the screen... it felt dissonant and natural at the same time.
I sat down next to Yua, and Dad took the seat beside me.
"Si-yoon, I'm almost done, okay? Just a minute."
"Okay."
Dad switched on his computer at exactly the same pace I did, then clicked the menu at exactly the same pace.
Yua watched us and laughed.
"Ha! Like father, like daughter! Hahaha!"
Dad and I checked each other's screens and snorted.
I booted up ROL and looked up Dad's tier; he was about the same rank as I was.
I could tell right then—if we ran games together for more than three hours, there was a hundred percent chance Ji-su would lose her mind.
We might even... get a proper demonstration of insubordination today.
Thankfully, Yua's tier was higher than Dad's and mine.
With a firm two-and-a-half-hour limit in mind, I started the game.
The verdict: Ji-su's combined kill-death total was thirty-eight kills and two deaths, but every single game was a loss.
Dad and Yua began tiptoeing around Ji-su's mood, so I changed the subject to shift the atmosphere.
"Oh yeah~ Yua, you said you play Maple Leaf Game."
"Huh? Yeah!"
We naturally transitioned into Maple Leaf Game.
Ji-su, who'd been laughing awkwardly next to us, ran one round on her own, and after getting it out of her system, she came over to Maple Leaf too.
The moment I saw the gear Yua had put together, I grasped the severity of the situation.
A build so bad it was literally just money dumped into it... no, money scattered on the ground.
How on earth do you dump this much cash and still put out damage this pathetic...
"Wow... you literally threw your money away."
My comment left Yua speechless.
"How much did you sink...?"
"...Ten million..."
"Don't bullshit me. I've heard things."
Yua glanced once at Ji-su and sighed.
"...Fifty million."
"Whaaat?"
"Fine... seventy million... that's what I spent."
Beside me, Dad, who'd been listening quietly, gaped in horror.
When I shot Yua a sidelong look, her face crumpled like she'd committed a crime.
"Wow, so seventy million is basically pocket change to you...?"
I stripped every piece of gear she'd collected and listed it all on the auction house.
"Ah! Don't—"
"What do you mean, don't? I can match this much damage with six million won."
"...Seriously...?"
I sent Yua a trade request and showed her the high-spec items.
"Whoa..."
"Wanna buy these off me? I'll cut you a deal. Three hundred million won total and they're yours."
"...I don't have that kind of money, you know..."
"Seriously, for 300 million I'll rent you what I'm wearing right now for one month, and once you hit level 230 I'll swap everything out for final-build gear."
The moment she caught my sparkling eyes, Yua began to brood in earnest.
"Three hundred million...?"
"Yep!"
I fixed her with a gaze that contained not a single ounce of shame, and Dad smacked me lightly on the back of the head.
"Si-yoon! Isn't that a bit much? Three hundred million is way too expensive. Who taught you to scam people? And not some random online player—Yua, who you've known for years."
""...""
Yua's expression had been practically on the verge of caving, but Dad's words snapped her back to her senses.
I clicked my tongue with a "Tch" and spoke to Yua again.
"180 million."
"Whoa... whoa! It got cut in half! Si-yoon, you!!! Isn't that way too mean!?"
Sure, I had opened with a high number, but her reaction honestly made me the baffled one here.
The woman drives around in two supercars and pretends she doesn't have 300 million won.
"Yua, go ahead and dump 300 million into it without my help and see how that goes~ I can beat your damage with ten million won."
"..."
"Isn't that a perfectly fair fee for the best damage dealer in Maple Leaf?"
"...Fine, 200 million, deal done. And tell me how much it actually is."
"What?"
"The original cost..."
"In exchange for telling you, we lock it at 200 million. Deal?"
"...Yeah."
I stretched my lips into a sly, mean-spirited grin.
"120 million."
"Whoa...! Whoa... you're seriously the worst..."
"That's business. That's society, our sweet, innocent Yua."
From then on, whenever Yua haggled with me, she started at one-third of my asking price.
I regretted losing a magnificent sucker,
but I overhauled Yua's gear from head to toe.
She took a swing at the monsters she always hunted, and her eyes lit up.
"Whoa... insane..."
"Honestly, you're satisfied with this, right?"
"This is seriously insane!"
Beside Yua, who was giddily hunting monsters, sat Ji-su with her pathetic damage output.
I rested my chin on Ji-su's shoulder and gave her a sly grin.
Ji-su broke out in a cold sweat.
"Ji-su~~ want me to... gear you up...?"
Ji-su flashed an awkward smile and shook her head rapidly.
After watching Yua's transformation, Ji-su eventually handed seventy million won over to me as well, and I put together gear that matched the price.
At this level, she had the damage output to enjoy every piece of content in Maple Leaf Game except the five bosses.
Unless she spent more money, of course.
Thanks to those two suckers—no, those two ladies—my wallet got significantly fatter, and our guild gained two new members.
"Ji-su, Yua, do you have time?"
""What's up?""
"I was going to take Si-yoon to see a movie. Thought I'd ask if you two wanted to join."
"Oh? Sure."
Yua nodded beside us too.
We watched the movie, grabbed a meal, and afterwards we were walking along, each of us holding an ice cream.
"I brought the car... should I give you two a ride?"
Yua asked, looking at Dad, but I was the one who answered.
"I've only ever seen your car in photos. I wanna ride in it."
And so we climbed into Yua's Berari supercar.
The house was a twenty-minute walk away, but I'd always been curious about her supercar every time I saw it.
Now that I'd ridden in it... honestly, it didn't feel all that different from Dad's car.
Sure, the exterior was insanely flashy, and if we'd tested its zero-to-100 time, the difference would've been obvious...
But we don't have an Autobahn here, and she drives it around Korea, so yeah, it's pretty similar.
"Si-yoon~ today was so fun!"
"Get home safe, you two~"
We all waved goodbye and parted ways.
"Hoo boy... school starts again tomorrow."
"Don't wanna go?"
"Eh, so-so~"
"Ahaha."
The weekend ended, and early the next morning I was hurriedly pulling on my uniform when Dad called out.
"Si-yoon, you have to eat breakfast."
"Da-yeon's waiting, I'm late."
I quickly shoved my feet into my sneakers.
"I'm off~"
"You'll get hungry, so buy something at the snack bar, got it?"
"Got it~"
The moment I yanked the door open, Da-yeon was waiting at the entrance.
"Morning~"
"Hi~ Did you get any studying done?"
"Yeah! I only need to review things now and then, so I think I can start proper CSAT prep soon~"
Da-yeon had been preparing for the CSAT in earnest since her third year of middle school.
We boarded the elevator as soon as it arrived, and once we had the space to ourselves, I shot Da-yeon a greasy grin.
Da-yeon flinched and covered her chest.
"Don't..."
As I advanced on her bit by bit, Da-yeon, cornered, looked up at me with pitiful eyes.
"Hehehe..."
"Don't... eek!!"
The doors opened on the first floor, and we stepped out of the elevator, breathing hard.
"Morning, Tae-oh~"
"Good to see you. The car's ready."
We climbed into Da-yeon's family's private vehicle, manufactured by Hanseong, and set off for school.
At this school, once exam season arrived, everything apparently shifted to independent study.
Kids running off with problems they didn't understand to ask the teacher.
But Ji-hoon, Tae-oh, and Da-yeon were bringing the things they didn't get to me instead of the teacher.
Of all the things I endured at school, independent study time—including exam periods—was the most excruciatingly boring.
I'd get it if this only happened a couple of times... but by now I'd exhausted every possible form of entertainment and had nothing left to do.
The one saving grace was that during finals prep period, the script for 'My Love Was a Gumiho' usually came out, so I could read that.
There was exactly one other person who wasn't studying, just like me: Joo Do-hyeon.
Ever since that incident, Joo Do-hyeon had been keeping quiet.
Once, half of his face had been swollen purple—though I couldn't tell who'd hit him.
It definitely wasn't Ji-hoon. No matter how little Ji-hoon cared about consequences, he wouldn't leave marks that obvious on a direct-line S Company heir.
He'd sooner bury him.
I pulled out my notebook and scribbled.
-I'm hungry...
Da-yeon checked it and quickly wrote back in pretty handwriting that rivaled my own.
-Didn't you eat?
-Nope.
-Whoa... wanna hit the snack bar at break?
-Sounds great~
With nothing else to do, I started sketching using the brushwork techniques I'd learned from Mr. Go Min-su.
As I pressed the pencil across the page, Da-yeon appeared to be struggling to focus on her studying.
Yeah, I'd better put it away.
I genuinely had absolutely nothing I could do, which made independent study time insufferably tedious for me.
The tedious first period ended, and the thought that five more periods still remained made everything feel even more bleak.
We headed straight for the snack bar as soon as first period finished.
"Si-yoon."
"Yeah?"
"Aren't you bored?"
"Mm... a lot?"
"...That must be rough..."
"Why?"
"Just... sitting there without doing anything..."
"Ah~ nah, I think the heat's about to give me heat rash on my butt every so often, but other than that it's bearable. Been like this since kindergarten, so whatever, I'm used to it now."
"That's right..."
Da-yeon suddenly spun toward me as though something had just occurred to her.
"Oh yeah, Grandpa said to come over on the weekend. He wants to teach you golf."
"All of a sudden? Golf?"
"Yeah. He said that nowadays, even women need to know how to play golf."
"Ooh, I've never even touched a club. That sounds fun."
Behind us, I could picture it perfectly—Park Ji-hoon and Kim Tae-oh reacting in disbelief at my shamelessness.
Let me remind you, in my previous life, I used to play golf with pros.
If I hadn't ended up with Taebaek, people around me used to say I would've made it in golf...
Wherever I went, I carried my golf equipment. To me, golf was like an extension of myself.
On top of that, when I wanted to instill dread in someone, I used to set a golf ball on their lips after a few drinks and practice my full swing.
Hearing me say I'd never even tried it, from the two people who'd personally watched every bit of that... they must've been utterly floored.
Not that I could tell the truth—that I was insanely good at golf and had even swung over a golf ball resting on someone's mouth.
"Si-yoon will be great at it! You're great at everything!"
"Obviously~"
I dodged Da-yeon's gaze, looked back at the two behind us, and smirked—and they both flinched again.
I'd been itching to play every now and then anyway.
I had plenty of confidence in this body too.
Golf wasn't all about power. I was confident I'd play even better than I had as Kang Han-seong.
Plus, the rules of golf these days were precise and far more gentlemanly.
Which meant there'd be no follow-up rounds of pulling a gun on an ungentlemanly opponent, and no clobbering anyone with a golf club, either.
In the old days, if an opponent behaved less than gentlemanly—say, by hiding their stroke count...
I simply demonstrated in person exactly how I'd handled the Tigers they called Taebaek's monsters.
"Playing with Da-yeon is gonna be seriously fun. Gotta go practice with Dad first~"
"No fair! Take me to learn with you."
"Heh heh, but then I couldn't teach you, Da-yeon?"
"Oh...? Si-yoon's gonna teach me?"
"Of course~"
"Then... shouldn't you just practice a little...?"
"Ahaha, fine~"
The moment I got home after school, I went looking for Dad.
"Dad!! Dad!!!"
"What?!"
Dad came charging out, clearly thinking it was an emergency.
"Let's go play golf."
"All of a sudden?"
"Yep."
"Hang on."
Without a moment's hesitation, Dad pulled out his phone, then ushered me outside still in the clothes I'd worn to school.
When his daughter wants something, the man's initiative is downright breathtaking.
Dad stopped by the JSM headquarters for a moment, then swung by Uncle Jang Seong-man's office and swiped some golf clubs.
"Daddy's actually crazy good at golf~"
"Pshh, I've never seen you play."
"Daddy played a ton tagging along after Si-yoon's grandpa~"
"Really?"
Dad brought me to a driving range.
"Oh? Long time no see. I figured as much when I saw the car."
"Hahaha, Si-yoon said she wanted to try golf."
"Ah~ Si-yoon, hi there~ I've known your daddy since he was little."
"Hello~"
Dad picked up one of the clubs Uncle Jang Seong-man used.
The case was packed full of every club type you could name.
'Whoa...'
As technology had advanced, the grip feel alone was completely different.
"What about mine?"
"There's a separate one for beginners."
"Wow, no fair, just Dad's..."
"If we're buying a new one, we have to fit it to Si-yoon's body."
"Oh... is that how it works?"
"Yep~ Hey, can we borrow a women's club?"
The older man who'd been watching me from behind nodded.
"Of course~ How could I say no to you? You can borrow one."
I took the women's club, settled into a stance under Dad's guiding hands, and tapped the ball.
The long-absent sensation flooded back into me.
And the moment I made contact, I knew beyond a doubt.
Just as technology had advanced, the performance of the clubs had become absolutely insane.
They say if you want someone to get hooked on golf, you should have them take a full swing first...
Dad started breaking down every movement for me, one by one.
I began by swinging with the same form I'd used in Kang Han-seong's body, then refined my posture based on his explanations, adjusting it to match my current build and muscle movement.
Once I'd found the stance that suited this body best...
I drew in a slow, deep breath.