Summer Vacation.
Without hesitation, I started making the best possible moves—the ones closest to certain victory—right from the opening.
Moves a human wouldn't understand the reasoning behind...
Rather than "seeing several moves ahead," they were moves that maximized the probability of winning.
From there, I set up sequences that would favor me down the line.
When I play like this, it takes the opponent a long time to realize something's wrong.
Like someone trying to take on HaPhaGo...
Tak.
Clack.
Tak.
Clack...
After studying the board for a moment, Han Dae-ho flinched when he checked my expression.
"This isn't exactly a good situation for averting your gaze, is it?"
Tak.
"...!"
Han Su-ji, watching from behind, must have sensed something off about the flow, because she started searching for something on her phone.
Probably searching for "Yuja12," the name I'd mentioned.
No matter what time it was, whenever I logged onto the online Go server, game requests would pile up one after another—though I had no idea how anyone found out.
But by now, I was someone who could confirm an opponent's identity just by watching a few moves. I was confident I wouldn't lose no matter how I played.
We'd only played a handful of moves, but Han Dae-ho was already staring fixedly at the board as if he'd slammed into a massive wall.
After a long deliberation, he placed what he considered his best move, but even that wasn't the best move in my eyes.
His skill level was about... 2- to 4-dan?
If he played Yoon Hyeong-seop, they'd probably have an entertaining match with each other.
But that guy's not even human anymore.
I didn't humor him and make the game interesting the way I would with a little kid just learning Go.
I pressed in aggressively and began backing Han Dae-ho toward an endless cliff of choices.
A path of binary decisions where no matter what he chose, there was no end.
At first, he seemed to be keeping up, but now he couldn't even make a move within the time limit. He burned through his mental stamina at high speed, breaking into a cold sweat, until eventually Han Dae-ho resigned.
Once, back when I was learning Go on my own and played like this against my grandfather, I nearly gave the old man a heart attack.
"R-remarkable... good heavens..."
Only now did Han Dae-ho wipe his forehead with a handkerchief, and Han Su-ji handed him her phone.
- A new prodigy of the Go world—no, a meteor: 'Yuja12'
A figure who has defeated every single top-ranked 9-dan from China and Japan, and who adheres to a policy of mystique.
The reference footage included a video of the live broadcast where I played against HaPhaGo—which, by now, I'd turned into an iron fortress.
"".....""
"Do you understand now, as I said?"
Han Dae-ho stared at me with his mouth open, apparently no longer caring to hide his expression.
See? Forget excitement or provocation—when you show someone an insurmountable wall, this is how a person reacts.
"I like living alone in this world. I don't like being tied down anywhere."
I added ice to my extra-sweet coffee and slurped it down.
"By the way, do you like fishing?"
I decided that while he was in Korea I'd introduce him to Lee Jin-seok and my dad so he could have a good time.
I went into Su-ho's sisters' room.
Three pairs of eyes, arms crossed, looked me up and down.
The reason there were three was that an eight-year-old little kid was also standing there with his arms crossed just like his older sisters.
"Now I get why Su-ho hasn't been interested in girls all this time."
"Yeah, his standards were high—like, really high."
Just then, the eight-year-old boy shot me a glare.
"You can't have my big brother."
"Fine, you can keep him."
"Tch..."
Su-ho's little brother wore a thoroughly displeased expression.
I could tell just how much love this kid had been raised with.
It even seemed like he was incredibly attached to Su-ho, despite having barely gotten to see him because they'd been apart for a while.
Led by Han Su-ji, they launched into a full-scale interrogation of me.
"What do you like?"
"In terms of food? Or hobbies?"
"Both."
"I like anything fun, and I'll eat anything that tastes good?"
"What kind of answer is that."
"But I'm clear on what I hate. For example, I hate spicy food and alcohol, and I'm not a fan of clichéd gestures either~."
Then the second daughter, Han Su-jeong, touched my body.
"How do you take care of your figure?"
"Eat enough and exercise?"
"What kind of exercise?"
"Mostly swimming, and I go to the gym."
"You don't do stuff like yoga?"
"Ah, just some stretching after I wake up in the morning?"
Then came Han Su-ji's follow-up question.
"If you had to name what you're best at? Go, I assume?"
What I'm best at, huh...
Go was something that could be verified and ranked based on records.
But people in this world cannot rank my paintings.
And, although I admittedly borrowed the power of looks and recognition—
a song I released solo also once hit number one on the Billboard charts.
Not to mention dancing, and the same goes for my appearance.
And swimming.
Even when I'm moving vigorously underwater, I can hold my breath for over six minutes. If I just stay still and hold it, I could give a dolphin a run for its money.
The only reason I don't hold it longer is that it feels like oxygen stops reaching my brain...
"Hmm, you're good at everything, right? Painting if it's painting, music if it's music, sports if it's sports."
"...Cocky."
"Yeah, the face matches the attitude."
I spotted an Iron Fist joystick in the distance.
"Oh? Is that Suhyeon's Iron Fist stick?"
"Don't act like we're close."
Small as he is, the little guy has his pride and keeps needling me for no reason. But he couldn't even look me properly in the face, so he must think I'm really pretty.
"Want me to teach you?"
"...You know how to play?"
"I'm an absolute master."
Suhyeon's eyes sparkled—his dad was probably the only person who ever played Iron Fist with him.
We turned on the console and sat down.
Powl, the powerhouse who uses Bung Fist.
Suhyeon must have mained Powl; the play count on him was enormous.
For Suhyeon, whose eyes were sparkling with excitement at the thought of fighting me, I picked the exact same character.
"Huh? You're not going to play your best character?"
"I'm such a super master that I was planning to teach you~"
"...But I've played way more than you..."
When the game started and the familiar fight sounds rang out, I almost ended up crushing the tender young sprout.
The things you step on and make wilt are weeds, not a beloved little kid like this.
I deliberately let the kid land a Bung Fist on me.
"Hahaha!"
"Heh, you're really good, you know?"
"I won!"
"Want me to teach you some combos?"
"Combos? Yeah, yeah! Show me."
I taught him Powl's combos one by one.
"Whoa..."
"You fake a Bung Fist with the same command, go into a low, launch them, and then..."
Honestly, command fakes require at least poom-belt-level skill to actually fall for. Below that, the opponent is too busy just trying to land their own moves to care whether you're faking or not.
But seeing him play at this level without any separate study, I had a feeling he could definitely climb to black belt rank.
'So would that make him the youngest black belt?'
"Hey, hey!"
"Hm?"
"Do you know how to play Karina?"
"Of course?"
"Can you play her?"
I picked Karina.
Combos if you want combos, damage if you want damage, and short recovery frames on top of that—she's the ultimate low-effort cheese character in Iron Fist 9.
"I want to learn how to beat Karina."
"She's really strong, isn't she?"
"Yeah."
"She's originally a broken character."
"Really!? That's cheating!"
Her hair is the same pink color as mine, so a lot of people say I remind them of her.
Maybe because of that, everyone assumes Karina is my main.
However, my true main characters are Demon Deok or Chloé, who are considered the absolute worst in Iron Fist.
Demon Deok has a disgustingly huge frame but is slower than Powl—who is a damage character—and his damage output is worse than Karina's. But if you land a sidestep string with this character, it's pure trolling, and the T-bagging poses you can do to the opponent are the highlight of the kit.
That said, it's not like I can't play other characters, so I started methodically teaching him as soon as the match began.
"What do you do if the opponent is good at blocking?"
"Delay catch."
"See? For Karina, that recovery is so short that it's hard to punish."
I used an 8-frame move and watched Suhyeon, who was timing a fully-charged Bung Fist in response.
"That's right. For almost every move, there's a timing where it's hard or impossible to block. You aim for that window and strike."
"Okay!"
"If you practice a lot, I'll show you this next time."
I picked Powl and demonstrated a combo that shaved off three-quarters of the opponent's health bar in one go.
"Whoa! Wow!"
"This is a pretty difficult technique, so you'll need to get really comfortable with the commands."
"Okay!"
As I spent a long while playing with Suhyeon, at some point, Su-ho's entire family had gathered behind us, watching fondly.
We all sat down together to eat with Su-ho's family.
Su-ho's mother must be a good cook, because typical American dishes were being brought out, starting with clam chowder in bread bowls, followed by sausage gravy, mashed potatoes, and the like.
The one unusual touch was that, incongruously, there was finely chopped kimchi placed in front of each person's plate.
I was enjoying the meal since everything was tasty overall, but Su-ho maintained his usual expression.
What was his usual expression, you ask? Something akin to the look of a woman in love?
Whenever our eyes happened to meet, he smiled brightly as always.
""......""
Fuck...
Thanks to Suhyeon, the mood had improved, but now awkwardness began to drift back in.
As the eldest son, Su-ho had clearly been showered with love; the house was packed with photos taken of him.
From the parents' perspective, seeing their precious son, who lacked for nothing, so completely smitten with an outside girl was bound to feel a little bittersweet.
And on top of that, the girl their son is completely smitten with treats him as nothing more and nothing less than a male friend...
I'd thought I was leaving a good impression. But thanks to Su-ho staring at me all day long, my favorability rating was once again racing toward the negatives.
Whether Su-ho knew this or didn't, he carefully sliced the meat pie his mother had made, placed it on a dish, and handed it to me.
It was something Cho-a used to do for me often, but Su-ho had been staring only at my face during the meal—meaning he had barely touched the pie himself.
Eventually, his mother started throwing me pointed looks over her son's behavior...
I felt like I ought to look after his mother instead, but... I'm just not that type of person.
Cho-a, I don't think this is going to work out between us.
While we were eating at Su-ho's house, Tae-oh mentioned he was enlisting soon, and since Su-ho said he wanted to see him, we headed over to the café where Da-yeon works.
Tae-oh was already seated, combining his break with his security detail—a book in one hand while he drank hot coffee.
He looked like he was savoring some leisure, but to me and Su-ho, it just looked like he was putting on airs.
Han Su-ho had already been secretly inducted into HSW, under the purview of Team 7, and become my manager—though his parents didn't know.
But I had never introduced him to Da-yeon.
I stood at the counter, chatting with Da-yeon as I placed my order.
Da-yeon was diligently making coffee.
"Who is he?"
"Ah, that's Su-ho. Someone we recently picked for Team 7. They say he fights better than Ji-hoon and Tae-oh."
"Really!?"
"Yeah, yeah. Pretty dependable, right?"
"But... doesn't something seem a bit weird?"
Following Da-yeon's gaze, I saw Han Su-ho and Kim Tae-oh sitting with their hands locked together.
An impromptu arm-wrestling match had broken out...
"Wow... He must be really strong. That's the first time I've ever seen someone Tae-oh can't beat other than Ji-hoon."
She didn't just mean it was the first time she'd seen him lose, but literally the first time she'd ever seen him *unable to win*.
Tae-oh and Su-ho seemed evenly matched in strength, both of them straining until their faces turned red.
Is it something about being born male that makes your pride kick in over stuff like that?
Watching Su-ho showing off his strength, I had a pointless stray thought.
Carrying the coffee Da-yeon had so carefully made, I moved to the table.
"What are you two doing?"
The moment they registered my presence, they released their clasped hands.
"I told him if I won, he had to call me Boss."
Da-yeon also grabbed her coffee and sat down.
"You know this is Su-ho, right?"
"Yeah, Tae-oh told me."
"And you, you know Da-yeon, right?"
Su-ho nodded and looked Da-yeon up and down.
"Wow... She's really pretty."
Leaving Da-yeon to blush, I got down to the main topic.
"Ji-hoon gets discharged today, so we're planning to go to the valley tomorrow. That work for everyone?"
The rest of us had been planning this for a while, but Su-ho was probably hearing it for the first time today.
Da-yeon, not knowing exactly who was going, asked me.
"Who all is going?"
"Looks like it'll be a pretty big group this time. Yeon-woo is coming, right?"
"Correct."
"So that makes eight total? The four of us here, plus Ji-hoon, Min-ji, Jun-su, and Yeon-woo."
Part of the reason I included Su-ho on this trip was that I hoped he'd get closer to the people around me.
He had only ever lived in the US or Korea, so this kind of trip also seemed like it might be a little awkward for him.
We chatted over coffee, and after sending Tae-oh and Su-ho on their way, I talked with Da-yeon for a while before heading home.