97.
The remarriage proceeded quickly.
Chae Yoo-jeong, who followed the woman into her second marriage partner’s house, came to live in a large and spacious mansion that was incomparable to the small room he lived in before.
Around that time, she resumed communication with her relatives, whom she had severed ties with. The woman’s older sister, Chae Yoo-jeong’s aunt, had one son.
“You’re Chae Yoo-jeong?”
At the first meeting, Yoo Gyeong-seok greeted Chae Yoo-jeong by lightly tapping him on the shoulder. He was 8 years older than Chae Yoo-jeong and was working as a professional gamer.
Meeting his relatives for the first time in his life did not give Chae Yoo-jeong much inspiration. He couldn’t even remember the face of Yoo Gyeong-seok, who had just greeted him.
After nine months of the woman remarrying a strange man and living in a spacious mansion, Chae Yoo-jeong’s life was filled with nothing but color. He wasn’t interested in anything and everything was boring. Even when the winter came, just before he turned 15, his condition was still the same.
The person who noticed that Chae Yoo-jeong was not normal was his cousin, Yoo Gyeong-seok.
Since he had been receiving psychological counseling regularly due to the stress and burden he experienced while working as a professional athlete, he immediately noticed that Chae Yoo-jeong, who was different from his peers, had a problem. In fact, Yoo Gyeong-seok was the only adult who cared about Chae Yoo-jeong at all.
When Yoo Gyeong-seok asked if it would be a promising idea to get counseling, the woman’s emotionless gaze turned to Chae Yoo-jeong. The woman who had been staring at the child for a while opened her mouth.
“I’ll make a reservation so you can go.”
The answer that he didn’t really want to go was just stuck in his mouth this time.
In the end, Chae Yoo-jeong followed the woman’s wishes and went to the hospital again, and after receiving consultation, he was prescribed medication. However, Chae Yoo-jeong had no will to change, so even if he took the medicine, it had no significant effect.
On the contrary, he felt that the more medicine he took, the more unstable his memory became, to the point of discomfort. The good news is that his compulsive behavior of washing over and over again to get rid of the bad smell got a little better through his counseling. Although he still thought his body had an unpleasant odor.
Time passed quickly. Four years later, Chae Yoo-jeong, who turned 18 in the winter, grew taller than anyone could recognize. Although his mind was still warped in some places and his personality was cynical, he was much more talkative than when he was younger.
“Game fair held in Busan?”
“Uh-huh, let’s go together.”
Kang Ji-ye held out a pamphlet. Chae Yoo-jeong, who didn’t even accept it but just glanced down, answered indifferently.
“I’m not going.”
“Why? You’re free anyway.”
“What does it have to do with me being free and going there?”
“Kyeong-seok oppa said I should never come alone!”
Kang Ji-ye was one of Yoo Gyeong-seok’s close younger friends. It had already been over a year since Kang Ji-ye, who was completely infatuated with Yoo Gyeong-seok and follows him around, and Chae Yoo-jeong, Yoo Gyeong-seok’s younger relative whom he takes exceptional care of, became acquainted with each other.
Even though Chae Yoo-jeong, who was four years younger than her, spoke informally and ignored her, Kang Ji-ye was unbothered. Her only interest was Yoo Kyeong-seok.
“I’ll do all the driving, so why aren’t you going? If it’s easier to take the KTX, I’ll pay for the ride.”
“Do you think I’m a beggar? Go away. I’m not going.”
“Would you be happy if you stayed in your room for over a month and took medicine? If you don’t go, I’ll tell the lady.”
Chae Yoo-jeong furrowed his brows in frustration and glared at Kang Ji-ye.
The lady that Kang Ji-ye spoke of was Yoo Gyeong-seok’s mother and Chae Yoo-jeong’s aunt. After a long time, the aunt and the woman reconciled and became quite close sisters, and they talked to each other about their experiences.
So, if Kang Ji-ye were to tell the lady, there was a high possibility that it would reach the woman’s ears. He didn’t want to cause trouble by needlessly attracting the woman’s attention, so Chae Yoo-jeong ended up taking the handed over pamphlet.
***
When they arrived at the offline competition venue held within the expo, Yoo Gyeong-seok, who had been contacted, hurriedly ran to us.
Like Chae Yoo-jeong, Kang Ji-ye, who was standing with an expressionless face, immediately had a bright smile on her face when Yoo Gyeong-seok came.
“Chae Yoo-jeong came all the way here. Ji-ye must have had a tough time.”
“He never goes out alone.”
Yoo Gyeong-seok recently finished his professional career and turned to coaching. It’s said that he came with a team player to promote the amateur offline competition of the ‘Hero of Legends’ game, which started today.
“They are also promoting other games, so go around and take a look. Let’s meet again later. I’ll buy you dinner.”
Yoo Gyeong-seok, who came out briefly from work, quickly finished speaking and went back into the venue. Kang Ji-ye, who had come to see Chae Yoo-jeong and Yoo Gyeong-seok, had no particular interest even though there were many other interesting things to do, so she just sat in an empty chair at the convention hall.
The atmosphere in the once-cluttered competition hall changed soon after the competition began. Because it was an immensely popular game and a competition held by former professional gamers, the excitement was quite high.
Chae Yoo-jeong, leaning back in the chair with his arms crossed, looked in front of him with a bored expression. It was at that time that he slowly blinked his eyes while listening to the sounds of commentators and casters talking that echoed throughout the venue.
“……!”
Among the contestants entering the Red Team booth, he saw a particularly familiar face. Chae Yoo-jeong, who was surprised by him, quickly straightened his slouching upper body.
At first he thought he was mistaken. But no. It was a face he had seen dozens or hundreds of times in his dreams.
-Ah, the red team players have entered.
-What do you think of this match?
-I think the Jungler’s fight will be the most important for both teams.
-I have the same opinion. As is the case with today’s meta, both teams prefer to benefit from small-scale fights in the jungle rather than lane battles.
-The shoulders of Junglers on both teams must be heavy.
-In the case of the red team, ‘I’m so sleepy’ Yoo Ji-han, who is in charge being the Jungler, shows overly aggressive play. And he only chose heroes whose personal physical strength was significant. You know?
-Haha, I know. Yoo Ji-han is a player who has been talked about a lot since the preliminaries for having good physical skills.
‘Yoo Ji-han......’
Thump thump, the sound of his heart rang in his ears, and all sounds faded away as if submerged in water. All he could see was Yoo Ji-han sitting in the booth in the distance.
Yoo Ji-han, who was chatting with a teammate sitting next to him, smiled softly, and put on the headset around his neck. Then he stretched his straight fingers and grabbed the mouse.
The series of actions slowly replayed and stuck in Chae Yoo-jeong’s mind. In a world that was infinitely dark and almost colorless, countless colors filled up as if paint had been poured.
‘Yoo Ji-han!’
He wanted to stand up right now and shout out his name.
Really seeing each other again, he was so happy and thrilled, but instead his body became stiff as if he was broken.
‘Do you remember me? You remember, right? I told you my name too. Only four years have passed, so shouldn’t you remember? I can’t even forget and even dream of you.’
For three hours from the start to the end of the game, Chae Yoo-jeong held his position, suppressing the urge to immediately run to Yoo Ji-han. Kang Ji-ye kept scolding him, asking why he was being so crazy, but he didn’t even listen.
But even after the game was over, there was no chance to meet Yoo Ji-han. There may have been a separate path behind the booth, but the audience did not come out below the venue.
Chae Yoo-jeong, who was greatly heartbroken, had no choice but to ask Yoo Gyeong-seok at dinner.
“I want to meet the athletes who competed up close. Is there no way?”
“Tournament? Could it be that the Hero tournament is happening now?”
Yoo Gyeong-seok opened his mouth with an expression of surprise.
“Well. It won’t be easy because we’re ordinary people, not e-sports players. After the finals, there’s a separate interview booth right next to the competition. I think you can see them for a moment when I go there? It passes on the left side of the audience.”
“Finals.......”
“But why are you asking such questions about Hero? Do you want to try it?”
Chae Yoo-jeong, who ignored Yoo Gyeong-seok’s subsequent questions, fell into trouble. Since today was round 16, there’s three more days left until the finals.
If Yoo Gyeong-seok told him that he could meet Yoo Ji-han, he would have met him right away without any hesitation. He wasn’t helpful at all.
After being conflicted for a while, Chae Yoo-jeong eventually abandoned his plan to return back to Seoul and decided to watch Yoo Ji-han’s play in Busan for the remaining three days.
Chae Yoo-jeong, who went to watch the competition the next day, and the day after that, and the final without being late, watched Yoo Ji-han without paying any attention to others. Since it was a competition for a game he had never played before, it was unlikely to be fun, but for some reason, the more he looked, the more he couldn’t take his eyes off.
As if living up to Chae Yoo-jeong’s expectations, Yoo Ji-han easily advanced to the finals and won the competition. Yoo Ji-han, smiling with his teammates while holding a large card with the winning prize written on it, was as bright and magnificent as the sun, just like when he saw him in the hallway all those years ago.
‘So cool.’
Yoo Ji-han, standing proudly in the center of the competition hall, shone brighter than anyone else in Chae Yoo-jeong’s life. His pounding heartbeat spread throughout his body.
“It’s over, so let’s go out before it gets too busy… What? Where are you going?”
Chae Yoo-jeong quickly left the scene, leaving Kang Ji-ye behind, and ran to the side of the audience where Yoo Gyeong-seok mentioned. There were quite a few onlookers there.
As he made his way through the crowd right in front of the fence, Yoo Ji-han came down from the competition venue with his teammates and walked towards them. Chae Yoo-jeong was trembling and spit out his name, which he had swallowed several times over the past four days.
“Yoo Ji-han... Hyung!”
He tried to call him by just his name, but he remembered Yoo Ji-han’s words asking him to call him ‘Oppa’ the day they last met four years ago, so he belatedly added the word ‘Hyung.’
Yoo Ji-han, who was passing right in front of him, stopped when he heard Chae Yoo-jeong’s call. Then, with a surprised expression, he looked straight at Chae Yoo-jeong. When his eyes met his, Chae Yoo-jeong’s heart was pounding so hard that it felt like it was going to burst at any moment, and heat surged up to the back of his neck.
Chae Yoo-jeong, who was trembling from tension, curled his hand and clenched his fist, and continued speaking with difficulty.
“I’m Chae Yoo-jeong.”
Yoo Ji-han’s eyes widened slightly when he heard the name. Seeing that, Chae Yoo-jeong’s anticipation grew in size in an instant, like inflating a balloon.
‘I’m sure you remember me.’
Otherwise, there was no way he would have reacted like that.
Unlike 4 years ago when he seemed much taller than himself, now the eye height was similar. The child who was small enough to be mistaken for a girl was no longer there.
So it was not unreasonable for him to be so surprised when he saw Chae Yoo-jeong. Above all, would he have dared to imagine that he would meet the child from four years ago again in this situation?
Chae Yoo-jeong himself was incredibly surprised when he saw Yoo Ji-han four days ago, so it must be the same with Yoo Ji-han.
That brief time of less than a minute felt exceedingly long. It was the moment when Chae Yoo-jeong swallowed his dry saliva and opened his mouth again.
“Long.......”
“Um, sorry.”
Yoo Ji-han, who erased his surprised expression and smiled shyly, answered me.
“I think you’re looking at the wrong person.”
---
Credits:
Translator: Hoshi Miya
Editor: Meimei, Ghostx
Support on Kofi:
HM: I feel a bit sad for YC.
GX: 4 years of dreaming, and hoping. Yet the person who he dreams of doesn’t remember him.
We made a Discord Server! please join us!
Poor yoo chae.....