Summer Vacation.
Today, Dad and I moved fast and efficiently for the deep cleaning.
Three years ago, Alpha and Beta would run from the vacuum, but now even dodging it seemed like too much effort for them.
When I brought the vacuum closer, Beta just lifted a paw.
"Move."
"Myap."
"Ohhh? You've gotten a little old and lazy, is that it?"
No joke, Beta looked me up and down, then slowly hauled herself up.
"Wow... look at this bitch? Unbelievable, she's got some nerve?"
"Kim Si-yoon. I told you to use nice words, didn't I?"
Dad, who had just finished cleaning the bathroom, lifted the living room sofa, and I alternated between sweeping and wiping up the accumulated dust.
"Let's just hire a company and hand it off, okay? What is all this every quarter?"
"No can do~ That dust is full of memories~"
"Hah... so why not just let those memories pile up and live with them?"
I'd never actually hated cleaning.
I just didn't enjoy it the way Dad did, that's all.
I was the type who, to avoid cleaning my room, never went in there except to sleep, so a quarterly deep clean was seriously annoying.
After five hours of cleaning with short breaks here and there, Dad finally seemed satisfied.
"Ughh~ so refreshing!"
"Are we done?"
"Now it's laundry time. You go clean the storage room."
"Too much work."
"So you're just going to take a break while Dad cleans?"
"....."
Dad pointedly showed me the left side of his face, the swelling still not fully gone.
Lately, Dad had been pulling the preemptive guilt-trip card way too often...
I looked at Dad's face and, without a word, headed upstairs to the storage room.
The laundry Dad mentioned was, of course, not the kind you just toss in the washer and call it done.
It was the kind where you stomp the grime out of the thick blankets by foot to get them properly clean.
Since Dad cleaned at a level bordering on physical labor, I did feel a little self-conscious about resting on my own.
After pulling out my blankets and handing them over to Dad, I dusted off the storage room, tidied up the inside neatly, and stepped back out.
Then I opened the bathroom door where Dad was and stuck my face in.
"What else are you doing?"
"Now it's really over. Dad's going to finish this up and rest, too."
"Okey~."
I went into the game room and fired up the game I'd been hooked on lately.
Iron Fist 9.
It was a game that had once dominated an era but crashed and burned with 8, then was reborn under a new developer.
Praised for being more refined and smoother, it was gaining popularity again, spearheaded by a flood of streamers.
Dad and I had even bought dedicated Iron Fist sticks to settle the hierarchy between us.
Dubu and Sheen had also jumped on the trend and were playing this game, and as if Dubu had checked that I'd come online, a message came in.
Tadatadatadak.
Iron Fist, this game showed some pretty serious synergy with my body.
Equipped with near-superhuman reaction speed and a head that memorized all sorts of intricate combos, I could react to every single move my opponent used and jam in parries and counters.
And so, right now, I was beating the everliving shit out of Dubu, who was streaming live.
"Dempsey Roll!"
-"Cut the crap!"
If you input the commands precisely, the character moves smoothly, but if you push that speed to its absolute limit, it starts moving all weird and janky, like I do.
"Side-step spam! Dempsey Roll!"
-"Hey!!!"
"Fufufu, despair, Dubu. The unknown world is meant to be feared, after all..."
I was enjoying the game more than I'd expected, so I'd even memorized the frame-by-frame motion of every move.
If the opponent used a move around 15 frames, I'd defend the motion window between 4 and 12 frames where the damage landed and jam my own move in.
I was currently sitting in the celestial realm of Black Belt 1st Dan.
The general assessment was that my skill was more than enough to climb to 5th Dan.
I just didn't play that much, that's all.
Of course, Dubu was at Green Belt 2nd Dan, a little below the South Korean average.
And so, since Dubu had asked me for teaching, I was just toying with her right now.
"Screw Blow!"
-"There's no move with that name!!! Stop making stuff up!"
With 'Mine Duck,' a character known as the hardest and shittiest, I launched Dubu's female character into the air for the only known combo.
Then, I spoke to Dubu in a low voice.
"Fufu. There's a famous saying in this industry... Asobi wa, owari da."
-"Why are you so hyped up!"
When I jammed in my super on Dubu, who was already losing her mind over the moves I was using, the screen went into slow motion.
"Fufu... kokomade da."
-"Hey!!!"
My side-step spam skill was so good it left onlookers aghast, and according to the pros, if you played like I did, the left wrist controlling the stick would get completely wrecked.
Even Da-yeon, a true game artisan, lost to me easily in Iron Fist.
Aside from Mine Duck, I usually played female characters, and I'd already sunk a few hundred bucks just on getting their costumes.
I picked a new character and spoke to Dubu.
"Big sis, have you ever worn a skintight suit?"
-"Me? You saw my cosplay video the other day."
"Honestly, is it even possible to wear that and move like this? I feel like I'd suffocate. After just an hour, wouldn't your skin feel crazy tight?"
-"It really is super uncomfortable."
"Feel like your tits would chafe and turn black."
-"Hey! Are you insane!?"
The character I selected was Kuroe, a female character with an idol concept.
This time, I put on a skin based on the costume from My Love Was a Gumiho.
-"Wow... how much did you spend?"
"Dunno, just kept rolling the gacha till it dropped?"
Probability may apply equally to everyone, but the number of attempts does not.
The money I'd burned just to get this one costume must've been in the triple digits.
Kuroe
Short reach, long recovery.
Kuroe was introduced as a massive low-tier character, but in my hands, things were a little different.
A playstyle centered on weak attacks with tricky delay catches, always stealing the opponent's attack timing with unorthodox strikes.
Dubu just mashed buttons anyway, so I'd win no matter what I did.
I toyed with Dubu for a good while, turning her into soft tofu, then finished it off with a super.
"Here we~"
- Here we go!
"Finish oo~yeah!"
- Finish oo~yeah!
When I recited the lines and enjoyed the game, people went nuts over how I looked, a little bit weeby.
Just as I was having fun gaming with Dubu.
Dad must have finished the laundry, because he asked me to help hang it up.
"I think I gotta go help my dad, let's play again sometime~"
-"I'm gonna practice and get my revenge."
"Ehh, talent's got a gap, y'know. Maybe if you put in another 10 years or so?"
I peeled my butt off the chair and got moving.
"Si-yoon, it's about time to get ready."
"Yeah, I'm hungry. Da-yeon says she's all done getting ready."
Just then, Da-yeon punched in the door code and came inside.
"Si-yoon~"
"Hey~"
"Oh! I'll help you!"
Da-yeon, dressed in neat clothes with her university varsity jacket as outerwear, walked over to Dad and started hanging the laundry.
Today was the day we filmed for Guseok Restaurant.
The reason Da-yeon was filming with us was because this rice noodle episode featured a spot that had established itself as a go-to restaurant in an alley near Hanguk University.
The concept was to give interviews from the perspective of Hanguk University students.
After finishing the laundry, we got into the car, and picked up Yoon-seo and Na-gyeong as well.
The two of them, seeing Dad for the first time, bowed at a strict ninety degrees and sat there tense and prim, not saying a word, just blinking with wide eyes.
"Hey there, hey there~"
"Hello!"
Dad picked them up and headed for the JSM headquarters.
Uncle Jang Seong-man came running out barefoot to greet us when he heard I'd arrived.
Uncle Jang Seong-man, his hair gone fully white, looked every bit the rich middle-aged guy.
"Si-yoon! It's been so long!"
Jang Seong-man approached with a benevolent smile.
Na-gyeong and Yoon-seo, seeing the high-profile Uncle Jang Seong-man for the first time, looked tense this time, too.
Uncle Jang Seong-man looked at Yoon-seo with interest.
He looked her up and down and nodded.
"That uncle's a pervert. Watch out."
"...?! Si-yoon!? What do you mean by that?"
"Haha!"
Uncle Jang Seong-man laughed off my joke, then looked at Na-gyeong and Yoon-seo and said,
"The picture looks good~ Shall we go get our makeup done first?"
""Yes, sir""
Uncle chatted with Dad as he guided us along.
We went into the prep room.
Na-gyeong and Yoon-seo's makeup looked light, but it was the result of a long, painstaking process.
Na-gyeong, especially, had taken the makeup really well.
"Wow..."
When I showed them Da-yeon, whom I'd personally handled and finished prepping, people gasped in admiration.
Once I added clip-in extensions that suited Da-yeon, who now had short hair, she looked like an actual celebrity.
We finished up by putting on our varsity jackets, boarded the vehicle Uncle had sent along with Dad, and headed near the Guseok Restaurant filming location.
I read through the script, confirming the lines I had to say.
It was so thorough that it even told me, if we ran out of things to talk about while waiting, to say something about worrying over next semester's electives.
We got out of the car and walked to the Guseok Restaurant filming location.
The two of them shrank back in front of all the cameras, while Da-yeon and I didn't.
As if JSM was trying to shoot a music video or something, the sheer number of cameras they'd loaned out was the showstopper.
"Si-yoon, isn't that it?"
I nodded, pretending to check my phone.
"Yep~"
The reason I was 'pretending to check'... was that this, too, was in the script.
The four of us approached, chattering and giggling, and Da-yeon's voice signaled the start of recording.
We stood in front of the Vietnamese rice noodle shop.
"I've never been to this place in this alley before."
"I heard it's been here for half a year?"
"Yeah, yeah, I had no clue."
"It'd better not be bad after we came all the way here. Dad, you watching? You'd better be careful too, Mr. Baek."
When we opened the door and walked in, the rich scent of meat broth hit hard, and the restaurant owner greeted us.
Maybe it was because we'd been cleaning since morning, but I was hungry, and the smell definitely passed the test.
The restaurant owner's looks were more than passable.
To my eyes, trained in reading faces, he had a face like a really vicious exam-taker.
From what I'd heard in passing, he was apparently an incredible hard worker, and a face like that is one that succeeds at whatever it does.
Na-gyeong and Yoon-seo had relaxed their nerves somewhat.
Contrary to the script, we pulled out our Nantendos and started playing Debtor's Forest.
The script had said if we had nothing to say, just use it as reference material anyway.
"Oh, right. Si-yoon, let's take 'Bicycle and Science' together next semester."
Da-yeon and I were thrown into deep dilemma by Na-gyeong's words.
Bicycle and Science, one of the Tier 3 electives Yoon Hyeong-seop had described.
"...Why?"
"That one, isn't it basically riding a bike for 20km almost every week?"
"I... know, right? Figured we could get some exercise in, too..."
"After the midterm evaluation, it's 40km every week. The final week is 90km."
"Yeah..."
"You want to bike a distance that takes over an hour even by car? You've lost it, our Na-gyeong."
Just then, Yoon-seo told Na-gyeong she'd take the class together with her.
Na-gyeong smiled like she'd just seen a savior.
"Da-yeon and I have never ridden a bike once in our lives?"
"Ah... you can learn..."
"Learning to ride it with our grades on the line?"
"...Right."
"Gotta try to snag Intro to North Korean Studies or Intro to Psychology."
"Those are Tier 1."
"If you try for those and fail, then you end up riding a bike. Who the hell picks the bike first."
"If the broadcasting professor sees this... won't he be disappointed?"
"Huh?"
While we were talking, the noodles had apparently been finished before we knew it, and the owner's expression was clearly tense as he brought the food out.