The Grandfathers.
The Grandfathers.
We had dinner at Grandpa's house and then headed home.
After that, Grandpa started showing up at our place all the time with Grandma.
Every evening, Grandpa was out running around with Lee Gi-seok. It was honestly hard to tell if he was coming to see us or coming to see Lee Gi-seok.
Lately, even though they bicker every time I see them, they actually seem to get along surprisingly well.
Alpha and Beta watched Roy and Rosa, who had come along with Grandpa, with obvious disdain. Roy and Rosa, maybe because they'd never seen cats as big as themselves before, looked thrilled and wanted to play.
Alpha was already huge for a Maine Coon, but Beta was even bigger. In terms of weight, Roy and Rosa were almost double Alpha and Beta, but their body length was about the same.
Still, true to his nasty personality, Alpha hissed and smacked Roy and Rosa as they approached.
One day.
Out of nowhere, Grandpa started teaching me how to play Go.
"Go's boring, though..."
"Ah, once you start, Si-yoon, you'll be completely hooked too."
Instead of listening to the explanation, it was way faster for me to just search up the rules of Go on my phone and skim through them. Grandpa knew that too, so he just watched me look at my phone for a moment.
A moment later, Grandpa's lesson began in earnest.
I listened to him explain the reasoning behind opening moves and the most basic rules, then spoke to Grandpa.
"It'd be faster to study on my own. Let's play when you come back next time."
"Hahaha, can this old man look forward to it?"
"Of course~"
Lately, maybe because of Lee Gi-seok, Grandpa had gotten back into Go and seemed to need a practice partner.
Dad didn't know how to play Go, so he'd given up long ago. It looked like Grandpa had brought it up thinking that his grandkid, who was smarter than anyone he'd ever met in his life, would pick up Go quickly.
I decided I'd study for exactly seven days, just to humor Grandpa.
For the first two days or so, I watched the basic rules. Then I started skimming through life-and-death problems at speed, trying to understand them.
Once I'd more or less memorized the rules, I spent two days watching Go matches on Neotube at 5x speed. I definitely understood the basic rules, but I didn't get *why* they placed stones where they did—I just memorized it anyway.
And for the remaining three days, I started playing against a Go AI on the computer.
*Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack...*
The reason I picked an AI instead of playing against people? Because people take way too damn long, agonizing over every single thing.
*Tatatak. Click.*
Without wasting even a single second, I kept speeding up my clicking, faster and faster.
*Tatatatatatak clack.*
If I made a mistake, I could just make up for it in the next game, but right now I needed more information.
Dad saw me staring at the screen and clicking away. Curious about what I was doing, he wandered over—and was horrified by what he saw.
I mean, who plays Go at an average pace of about three moves per second?
At a glance, it probably looked like I was just messing around, but I was actually steadily building up my know-how as I played.
Most of all, just like Grandpa said, the more I learned, the more fun it actually was.
At school, I'd solve life-and-death problems on my phone. At home, I'd play against the AI. Repeat.
On the eighth day, Grandpa came over to visit again.
Bringing a Go board as a gift for me...
"My little pup! Have you been studying Go?!"
"Something like just seven days of studying Go?"
"Oh! Great, then shall we see what you've got?"
The second he arrived, without even changing into comfortable clothes, Grandpa started setting up the solid wood Go board in the living room.
Just that one board seemed to create an antique, elegant atmosphere.
I picked up a Go stone with my small hands, touching one for the very first time, and placed it on the board. Grandpa watched me do it. His face showed he wanted to play like he was humoring his cute grandkid, but...
It didn't take long for that look to turn into one of sheer shock.
His adorable grandkid started carefully placing the stones one by one, using all three fingers—thumb, index, and middle.
She looked all grown-up, but her hands were so small that the way she placed the stones was something anyone would call the cutest sight in the world.
My grandchild, smarter than anyone I'd ever seen in my life, had clearly been studying—the placement of her stones was solid.
Her play for the first ten opening moves was the picture of a complete amateur.
Thirty moves.
My grandchild's playing style seemed perfectly optimized for modern Go.
I remembered that artificial intelligence program from years past, the one called 'Alppago,' playing exactly like this.
Sixty moves.
...What... what *was* this pressure...?
This cute little grandchild in front of me, who'd never formally studied Go a day in her life... was growing at a terrifying pace right there on the board, sucking my blood dry.
A feeling that her skill was improving even in the middle of playing.
One hundred moves.
My grandchild placed what I thought was the absolute best move each time, without a single second of hesitation.
And the way she watched my next move, expressionless and cold...
It was like... a knife pointed right at my heart, asking...
'Where can you go to escape...?'
One hundred fifty moves.
A cold sweat started trickling down.
If... there had been a time limit... that look on my grandchild's face, combined with the pressure of the clock, would have made me lose to her.
Fear started creeping in...
My sweet, cute grandchild.
I felt like I'd dragged a monster that should never have been woken out into the world...
Two hundred moves.
Ah... Had she said she studied for seven days...?
Had she said this was the first time she'd ever picked up a Go stone in her life?
It was wondrous.
If, in this game... from my own hand... a 'divine move' capable of turning the whole situation around were to appear.
Si-yoon would, without any change in expression like right now, and in under a single second.
With that fundamentally improper grip on the stone, holding it like a little kid...
It felt like she'd just shove the knife right at God, asking if *this* here... was God's heart...
I'd been watching Si-yoon, whom I'd thought was just plain cute, and threw down my stone with a hand that was trembling and damp with sweat.
I'd known since move sixty that I'd won, but I wanted to learn a bit more by seeing how Grandpa played, so I followed his lead and placed stones here and there.
Then, at some point, Grandpa stiffened up, and all the color drained from his face.
I figured if I kept this up any longer, it'd be dangerous for the old man, so I quickly put his stones out of their misery.
*Tak.*
Grandpa played a move completely different from everything that had come before, one that didn't fit this game at all. I was wondering why he'd put it there, and was about to set my stone down when Grandpa stopped me.
"I threw in the stone... It means I'm admitting defeat."
"Huh? Heheh, I win~"
"...Heh heh..."
Dad looked at me and Grandpa, let out a chuckle, and spoke as he walked past.
"Ah, no way, you lost to Si-yoon after she studied for seven days?"
"...Ji-ho, that's not something to joke about so lightly..."
"Hahah, Si-yoon's like this with everything she does, so I'm used to it."
"....."
Grandpa stared up at the ceiling with a hollow look for a moment, then looked at me and spoke.
"Can you do a review?"
"Review? You mean just play the same moves over again from the start?"
"Yes."
I swept the board clean and started placing the stones back down one by one. Grandpa stopped the review for a moment at move nine, the black stone I'd played.
"Here, why did you make a knight's-move approach instead of going into the 3-3 like you did last time?"
"Because that's how you played it, Grandpa? I was just copying you."
"Ah..."
Grandpa's answer was tinged with a sigh.
Since he wanted to hear my reasoning for every single move, I answered while concentrating alongside him.
Playing against a person wasn't as bad as I'd thought.
Because just imagining what they were thinking when they placed a stone there was helpful.
And right now, as we did the review, I started updating the information in my head—the spots where I realized *this* would've been an even better move at the time.
Once the review was over, Grandpa gauged my reaction. Then, maybe because he didn't want to go through the same experience he'd just had again, he tidied up the stones.
And then, with eyes full of life, he looked at me and grinned like a mischievous little kid.
"...?"
"Would you like to play a match against Da-yeon's grandpa?"
"Is there something you want?"
"That's my little pup~! How do you know this old man's heart so well?"
Grandpa's expression suddenly turned dead serious as he continued.
"Crush him. Mercilessly. Even more mercilessly than you did to this old man!"
Grandpa and I smiled at each other wordlessly.
From a distance, Dad just watched us and smiled proudly to himself.
Over the past two weeks, I'd been absorbed in playing Go on my phone and computer.
There wasn't anything else to do anyway, since Da-yeon, Tae-oh, and Ji-hoon weren't around. Plus, once lunch break was over, I had to leave school early to prepare for the drama anyway, up until vacation started.
So that was how I started playing Go online.
I was playing Go in the car after school when Jong-hyeon spoke up.
"You'll get carsick again at this rate."
"Yep~"
I was just starting to feel queasy, so I took Jong-hyeon's advice, turned off my phone, rested my chin on my hand, and stared out the window.
Today was the first day of filming, but Dad had gone overseas for a concert. Since I was home alone, Da-yeon had decided to come over to my place in the evening.
Not long after we entered a quiet rural area, we arrived at a place lined with massive warehouses.
This was the studio they'd built for this shoot.
The scale of the warehouses and all the filming equipment moving around in perfect, orderly fashion showed you just how much money they'd sunk into this place.
The moment I appeared, people started handling me with extreme care.
"Director Yoo Dae-yeon!"
"Si-yoon!"
Director Yoo Dae-yeon was in overall charge of the shoot this time. He was the same Yoo Dae-yeon who'd made his name internationally years ago with a zombie movie.
"You know the drill, right? The additional conditions."
"Hahaha! You haven't changed a bit!"
The first shoot began with acting, of course, but the main goal was to get in sync with the other actors.
To help the actors adjust, only a few cameras were rolling, and they weren't shooting in full detail.
As I walked over, I found some familiar faces waiting in a dressing room labeled 'Kim Si-yoon.'
They were the JSM stylists and makeup artists. They were wearing black Notflix clothes—I'd heard that since JSM's artists were world-renowned, they'd signed a contract with Notflix for this project too.
"Oh my, oh my. Si-yoon... you get prettier by the day..."
"Seriously, at this rate we're going to starve to death. You don't even need makeup."
That's what they were saying now, but in thirty minutes to an hour, I'd be transformed into a different person.
Just like right now...
""Wow...""
For the first time in a while, I put in pink colored contacts and a white wig with streaks of pink peeking through. The crew drew clean, sharp pink tattoo designs on my pale face. Before I knew it, 'Joo Ha-rin'—the character who appears in the story with her overwhelming looks—was standing right there in the mirror.
Over thin underwear, they wrapped bandages, and once I put on the pink-accented hanbok, the look was complete.
The reason my chest looked bigger than usual was that they'd added a little padding... But don't you dare disrespect my girls, I massage them every single day. What was I supposed to do, the fictional Joo Ha-rin's are bigger than mine... And besides, the padding is really, really thin.
Looking in the mirror, my proportions practically screamed 'this is perfection,' and the bandages wrapped around my chest, peeking out between the folds of the hanbok, along with my snow-white abs, drew everyone's eyes.
""Wow...""
The studio fell silent.
Some of the Notflix Korea branch staff, seeing me in person for the first time, were at a loss for words. Some of them were frantically filming me to report back to their higher-ups.
My body had shot up, and as if in proportion to that, my appearance had become even more striking. With the makeup on top of it, even the actors I was friends with had their mouths hanging open.
"You're going to catch flies."
"Ah, uh... right."
I started taking selfies and messing around with Kang Hui-seon, who'd played the role of Lee Min-ji in the zombie movie.
The selfies we took now were treated as strictly confidential, and we could only post them on social media with full permission. Especially any photos taken inside the studio were classified as top secret, and if they leaked out without permission, the person responsible would have to pay a penalty fee.
Well, obviously I had no intention of posting anything without permission.
Kang Hui-seon, who took pictures with me, was the last person to join the cast. She was dressed in a sleek suit; her role was the leader of Team 3, the villain exorcists.
The free-form shoot continued as we built chemistry with the other actors, played around with the acting, and tried out some prepared ad-libs.
"Si-yoon, give me a look like you're gazing at your favorite food, but even more so."
I started acting in the exact direction Director Yoo Dae-yeon wanted. He had a solid grasp on me too, so whenever he wanted a specific expression, he'd find reference material and show it to me. I was confident that when it came to seeing something and copying it, I was better than anyone.
"Perfect!!! That's it... Let's go in this direction."
As we were all getting in sync, I tried working with Actor Kwak Il-seong this time. His character was deathly terrified of me and came off a little like comic relief.
Even though he was over three times my size, he kept flinching.
Originally, this was supposed to be a scene shot in school uniforms, but since I was already done up in my nine-tailed fox costume, we were just working on our timing.
"Why me...?"
"Ha... Miss Ha-rin, Her Grace the elder nine-tailed fox has..."
I smirked and stared at Actor Kwak Il-seong.
He swallowed hard.
I slowly walked up to him, smiled, and placed my hand on Actor Kwak Il-seong's trembling shoulder. Then I smiled brightly and spoke.
"Grandmother says so? Then I guess I have to~"
Before I knew it, it was evening, and we ate from the food truck Dad had sent over. I was eating with the actors when I noticed Jong-hyeon off by himself, standing guard.
I scooped up another serving of food and brought it over to him.
"Eat while you work~"
"Ah, thank you."
"I gave you that, so don't sneak off and throw it away. Take a picture of it after you've eaten and send it to me."
Realizing he'd been caught, Jong-hyeon couldn't hide his embarrassment.
"I get that your job guarding me is important, but you also know there's no one here who could lay a finger on me. So relax and eat up."
"Understood."
After eating the food Dad sent and finishing up a short bit of filming, I headed home.