Next-Door Hyungnim.
Next-Door Hyungnim.
The day before the closing ceremony, I was walking slowly to school with Da-yeon in the morning.
We ran into Park Ji-hoon on the way.
He'd been waiting for us and waved as he spoke.
"Hey! Did you let out a refreshing fart before you came out today? Our Tti-yoon at school again..."
Da-yeon checked my expression, flustered, and I gave an awkward laugh.
"Heh-heh, you wanna throw down first thing in the morning...?"
"Si-yoon...?"
When I went to tie my hair up, Da-yeon stopped me.
"Let's just ignore that moron!"
"...Hmm... should we?"
"Yeah!"
Tae-oh had grown a lot and was now 178 cm, and Park Ji-hoon was 192 cm.
Da-yeon had grown to 171 cm before her height stopped.
I... there was a 9 cm difference with Da-yeon.
A 30 cm height difference with Park Ji-hoon.
A difference of a full 30 cm in height is really... humiliating.
Because of this height difference, Park Ji-hoon came and stood in front of me and then looked around with narrowed eyes.
"Now where did our Tti-yoon go~"
Just as I was thinking I should have taken him out when I saw his face first thing, there was one good thing about a gap of 30 cm with the other guy.
When you get in close, he can't tell what you're doing... and if you kick straight up from there, it's a vital point.
Thwack!
"Hnuuuaaargh!!!"
Park Ji-hoon collapsed to the ground in a haze of dizzying pain.
Kim Tae-oh, who was beside him, had his eyes squeezed shut.
"The little shrimp bastard faking it..."
"You crazy bitch!!"
Tae-oh, who had grasped the situation, started thumping Ji-hoon on the back.
Park Ji-hoon's body was no longer easy to regard as a student's; in terms of pure strength alone, it was closing in on my body from the past.
Park Ji-hoon's 105 kg frame felt fairly menacing.
Leaving Park Ji-hoon collapsed on the ground, Da-yeon and I headed to school.
In the classroom, as Da-yeon and I were playing gomoku, the homeroom teacher came in.
"The exam results are out, so come up when I call your name."
""Yes~""
The little kids went up in order, and the homeroom teacher looked at my grades and nodded wordlessly.
Despite the trouble I'd had during the exam, my score was marked as 100.
Da-yeon getting perfect scores too had become almost routine these days, and I looked at the report card of Kim Tae-oh, who was sitting behind Da-yeon.
"You not studying lately? What's with these grades?"
Sure, both their scores averaged over 80, but that was woefully insufficient for the university they were aiming for.
"Ahem... it's too hard..."
"I heard you're getting private tutoring at home."
"I'm working on it..."
"Tch... Da-yeon's expecting to go to the same university with you, so don't disappoint her."
"...Got it."
Park Ji-hoon, behind me, had his phone propped on his score sheet and was watching baseball.
"Dumbass..."
"...?"
He turned serious when he looked at me, so I held up two fingers and threatened him as if I'd poke his eyes.
"See these eyes? Poke."
"Go ahead and poke 'em!"
Park Ji-hoon opened his little eyes wide at me.
Without an ounce of hesitation I jabbed straight for his eye, and he freaked out.
"Kyaaaaack!"
I ignored Park Ji-hoon clutching his face and checked his report card.
"Whoa, how's this bastard gonna make it to college... there's no special arts-and-phys-ed track for fighting, is there?"
Park Ji-hoon, tears beading up, sat up straight and said,
"With baseball."
"Bullshit? I've never seen you play baseball."
Park Ji-hoon, still teary, opened his left eye, which was at least a bit better off.
"You think I can't play? My dad's Park Jeong-ho."
He said it with loads of pride, and honestly, it was deserved.
The ace pitcher of South Korea. Park Jeong-ho, now a legend.
The fastest officially recorded pitch was 164 km/h, and the son of Park Jeong-ho, the man who renewed the record for Korean fireballers, was Park Ji-hoon.
"Stick around after this. You can watch."
"When I said I wasn't doing baseball and was gonna do fighting, I got my ass beat with a bat by my dad."
"You bastard, do you just go around getting your ass beat everywhere?"
At that slightly over-the-line remark, Park Ji-hoon stared at me, and from my turned-around position, I pivoted back forward.
After the closing homeroom, we came out of the gym carrying a baseball, gloves, and a bat.
"Hey, pitch."
Park Ji-hoon tossed the ball up, caught it, and smirked.
Park Ji-hoon set his stance.
I was about to curse him out, tell him he looked corny as hell acting all cool...
But the ball that left Park Ji-hoon's hand without warning...
came at me at a speed that overwhelmingly surpassed my expectations.
Thwump.
"".....""
That crazy bastard...
The sting ran from my palm to my fingertips.
Above all, it was staggering that Park Ji-hoon had thrown it roughly just to warm up, without even setting his stance.
"What's with that look? Am I a little amazing? I threw that casually—were you shocked stiff?"
I flashed a smile at Park Ji-hoon, who had begun to get under my skin.
"I'll show you what a true talent-monster is..."
I spoke to Park Ji-hoon right away.
"Hey! Throw it as hard as you can."
"Won't regret it? Even my dad finds it tough."
"...Do it."
Park Ji-hoon took a full, perfect stance for the first time.
Yeah, it was clear that the earlier one was just a casual throw.
Well, Park Ji-hoon's wingspan and muscle fibers, which were beyond the typical East Asian range, had already surpassed Park Jeong-ho's.
Just as I'd followed after my dad into music, Park Ji-hoon would have been trained by Park Jeong-ho.
The ball left Park Ji-hoon's hand...
If Tae-oh or Da-yeon had been watching, it would have vanished from their sight the moment it was thrown.
If not for my overwhelming dynamic visual acuity... even catching it would have been a struggle at this speed.
Still, afraid I might get hit, Park Ji-hoon threw it wide, but I held my glove out, curious about the power behind the speed.
Baang!
Was it because my body is light...?
I was knocked straight back onto the ground.
And the damage was greater than I'd thought, so I took off my glove and stared down at my hand for a moment.
By rough estimate, it exceeded 166 km/h.
'Crazy bastard... this is...'
My hand was trembling faintly, and my white skin had turned bright red.
Tae-oh, who spotted my hand, freaked out and took medicine from his pocket and rubbed it onto my hand.
'Why the hell does that bastard carry that around...'
"Can you catch it?"
"Huh? Uh... maybe... I think."
I wanted to measure Park Ji-hoon's pitch speed precisely, but it was probably a speed that would chew up and spit out most Major League pitchers.
And having caught the ball, I understood clearly.
Why, when Park Ji-hoon said he wanted to do fighting, Park Jeong-ho had grabbed a bat and stopped him...
After throwing the ball back to Park Ji-hoon, I gripped the bat.
"Throw."
"Oh... if you hit my pitch within 3 tries, I'll take a hit on the ass with your bat speed."
Park Ji-hoon was full of more pride than I expected... I smirked.
"I'm gonna take a full swing; you won't regret it?"
I took a practice cut in the air for a moment.
Whiiing!
"I'll connect at exactly this speed."
"".....""
The field fell silent at my clean, perfect swing form, and before I knew it, little kids who were watching had begun to appear.
Park Ji-hoon swallowed hard and started to set his stance.
And the ball that left Park Ji-hoon's hand...
That fucker... suddenly won't throw a fastball.
Whiiing!
"Hey! You cheap bastard, why aren't you throwing it straight?!"
"Bullshit! If that hits you, your bones are gone, you crazy bitch!"
Meanwhile, Kim Tae-oh, wrapped all over in protective gear and having caught Park Ji-hoon's pitch, had his expression contorted.
"Whoa... this is... impressive."
Kim Tae-oh shook out his wrist, his palm apparently stinging like mine had.
Park Ji-hoon got into his throwing stance again, and I too lifted my leg to load up the bat with as much power as possible.
In sync with his throwing motion, I swung the bat.
I relied on nothing but my overwhelming dynamic visual acuity, tracking Park Ji-hoon's ball to the very end, and at the same time adjusted the position of the bat.
Park Ji-hoon's pitch, which began to slow down in my vision...
'That son of a bitch is dead...'
Fwhoooosh!
Crrrrack!!!!
The ball I hit started to fly with a distance worthy of an out-of-the-park home run.
Park Ji-hoon, who confirmed the ball was flying, threw his glove to the ground and started running like hell.
"Get over here, you son of a bitch!!!!"
"Fuck off!!!! You crazy bitch!!! Don't come near me!!!"
I tried to chase him carrying the bat, but I couldn't gain enough speed and threw the bat on the ground and started sprinting for real.
Da-yeon and Tae-oh just watched the two of us as if this was a familiar sight.
As time passed, the song my dad and I had made came out that evening.
So, Dad and I sat in his studio together and filmed a reaction review.
On the live broadcast of the Neotube channel 'Si-yoonJi-ho', an overwhelming number of 2 million viewers were watching.
We turned on the music video that was airing live on JBC's Next-Door Hyungnim.
The chat flew by at a speed we couldn't read, mixed with various languages.
And a flood of donations came in.
"All this money's mine~ right?"
"Yeah, our daughter, take it all~"
Dad had been a yes-man to me in the past too, but.
After that day I lost consciousness, he'd begun raising me with even more doting care, so.
By now, he just nodded to almost anything.
As we watched the music video, a viewer made a donation and pointed out my outfit and actions while I was dressed in hanbok.
- You are wearing Chinese clothing, so why aren't you saying thank you to China for lending it?
"...? What crazy bullshit is this, you moron."
Dad was horrified at my unfiltered comment and covered my mouth.
I pointed at one donation window with my finger, and Dad, who didn't know Chinese, took his hand off my mouth and tilted his head.
"They're saying hanbok is Chinese?"
"That's crazy talk..."
Then another donation window popped up.
This time they put it up translated into Korean.
- Have you no conscience. Just because famous people like you use Chinese things, does that make them Korean?
I was someone who'd learned how to deal damage to opponents by clashing with users in countless games...
To teach these guys the scariness of a Korean high schooler, I smiled naturally and spoke in Chinese.
"Even my cat knows to watch for reactions when it steals a Churu, but you guys are truly shameless morons. What's the point if you have a huge population, when more than half of you aren't even decent human beings."
Dad was also taken aback by my fluent Chinese, something Si-yoon had never once used.
Suddenly, Chinese flooded in at an overwhelming speed.
"Ah, our channel's getting buried by Chinese. Birds of a feather really do flock together, huh?"
With the current live viewers having already surpassed 2.5 million, the countless people who didn't know Chinese couldn't understand the situation.
When I dismissed China, they started cussing me out, even through donations.
And as if coordinates had been marked for the Si-yoonJi-ho channel, people started swarming in even more.
- Don't you know that a quarter of your blood is Chinese?
I wondered what that was about and searched it up, and there were quite a lot of videos claiming I had Chinese blood mixed in.
Groundless videos that my mom had come from a Chinese and Korean...
"Whoa... it's creepy... you think these proportions can come from genes like China's? Whoa... from such uncivilized genes?"
The video presented as evidence was a clip showing the moment Uncle Han Jeong-min and Mom entered Korea via China.
"So these morons have been thinking this sort of bullshit..."
And so the music video review became an afterthought, and I started messing with the Chinese viewers.
We hit an all-time record of 5 million live viewers, which was over twice the previous record high.
But the people flooding in showed no sign of stopping.
It was packed with people rushing in from all over the world, saying me and Dad were fighting with China.
As I wasn't reading the chat at all anymore, I smirked at the pile of donations stacking up.
This was sweeter than I'd thought.
On Neotube, you can pin the person who donated the most to the very top, and using that feature I leisurely deleted the top comment and answered as I went.
5 million... and among them, the top 0.001% were competing and firing off money, so it was ridiculously sweet.
"The root of you guys' problems is that Zedong started the Cultural Revolution, you yourselves threw it all away, and now you come and argue it's yours, you morons."
When I provoked them, the Chinese viewers who were extremely offended took over the entire top of the donation list.
Dad stared at me with trembling eyes at the massive sum.
"Since you don't have the cultural records of the Ming and Qing you threw away, you reference the culture recorded in Korea, so to you morons, it all must look like yours."
I wondered, if Dad were to find out through articles what his daughter had said, what his reaction would be.
I became curious whether he'd be greatly surprised and try to manage the situation, or nod and say it was true.
The keyboard warriors filled up the comments, but I put only the donation list window on screen, as if to taunt them.
"These bastards have all become Zedong. Should've recognized it in 1956 when they shouted 'Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend' and then stabbed everyone in the back. The 500,000 people who had their wits properly about them back then died, so the full-on moronification began."
When I discussed China's history, I smirked at the fact that quite a lot of them didn't know it.
Most likely, the Chinese government was distorting history to frame it favorably for themselves.
"Wow, but it was my mistake for thinking you'd at least know your own country's history. I apologize~ sorry."
As I answered back mixing English, Chinese, and Japanese to match the donation languages, quite a few people were surprised by my language skills.
Of course, the people cussing me out in Chinese were overwhelmingly numerous.
"Haa~ Zedong should've survived... if things like the Great Leap Forward kept going, it would've killed off more of these cockroach bastards."
The more excited they got, the more the donation list stacked up, and I smiled looking at it.
"I always feel this whenever I see you guys, but is China really the only place that thinks of Zedong as a great man?"
At my somewhat intense history lecture, everyone except the Chinese viewers who knew history started repeating the same things.
"Uncivilized bastards, if only the Chairman would just shout 'That bird is a harmful bird' at those guys once."
My remarks had people having fits in droves, and in equal measure the chat started filling with curses.
"Wow, the cognitive regression is real. Look at them playing dumb even though at minimum 78 million of their own citizens died. Some of your ancestors probably croaked back then, you know?"
I had a conversation with the Chinese person bickering through donations.
"Xiaolin? You don't seem to even know what I'm talking about, do you? Look at you swarming in like cockroaches and bickering."
"Confucius up in heaven, our sage of Confucianism, would probably pound the ground in regret seeing you Chinese bastards act like you don't know you're desecrating his grave."
I was about to start digging up all the history in full force.
But I was stopped by Dad's intervention.
From my acrid expression, he seemed to have guessed something.
"Si-yoon, what were you saying... for the Chinese people..."
"Dad, we probably won't be able to promote in China anymore."
"Ah, that's fine. I was already mad at them for not paying your dad's song royalties in China anyway!"
I looked at the donation list, smiled, and spoke in Korean.
"Whoa, the China money alone is 42.5 billion won~ sweet deal~ it's a moment to donate to Korea, which has suffered over these history issues."
"Oh! Shall we!?"
Dad was about to turn off the broadcast, so I grabbed him.
"Why...?"
"We gotta brag about exactly how much of the 42.5 billion we'll donate after taxes are taken out~"
"Ah..."
Dad, who had spent a long time with me, understood precisely what I meant.
It was a remark directly sniping at the government, effectively saying, 'You're making a donation and yet you're going to deduct taxes? Why bother?'
With that final comment, we ended the broadcast.