Chapter 2

Have you ever gone to the bathroom with your eyes closed?

Probably not.

I had that unfamiliar experience for the first time today.

I had no choice, because Seo Dami was screaming bloody murder that she would actually die if I went to the bathroom with my eyes open.

It was practically a shriek.

I couldn’t fathom how great a shame it must be for her to show her private parts to a man she didn’t even know, but I tried to understand, and as a result, I fumbled for the door like a blind man and did my business.

While I was sitting on the toilet doing my business, I could hear the sound of teeth grinding from somewhere.

It felt like that emotion, difficult to put into words, was about to tear me to shreds, so I quietly finished my business and left the bathroom.

How am I supposed to wash up before bed?

And how am I supposed to handle number two, not just number one?

Questions like these swirled in my head, but I kept my mouth shut.

After that incident, we were submerged in over an hour of silence.

In the uncomfortable air, I looked around again.

A room without even a single PC.

I spotted Seo Dami’s phone and asked for her permission to use it for a moment.

There was no reply, but there was no particular Sanction when I tentatively touched it.

If she hadn’t liked it, she would have shaken my mind with another scream.

I turned on the screen, first went on the internet, and searched my name.

I was wondering if an article about me had been posted.

If an article was up, I would have been able to figure out the situation to some extent.

But I couldn’t find any articles yet.

Even though I had clearly been in an accident.

Perhaps the team was blocking any articles from being published.

“Thank you for letting me use it.”

In the awkward silence, I naturally used formal speech and returned the phone to its place.

The silence was broken when it was time to eat.

Unable to just stay still, she spoke first.

<It’ll be mealtime soon. I have to go get ready.>

“A player prepares the meals?”

Seo Dami said that because she was the youngest on the team, she had to do the Setup for the Unnis’ meals beforehand.

And right now.

Only I could move this body.

I didn’t know how long I would be staying in this body, but if I wasn’t going to ruin her daily life, I had to cooperate for now.

“Alright. Where do I go?”

Originally, a successful Pro Gamer didn’t need to prepare meals for anyone.

Players who received a high Annual Salary of over 1 billion Won.

Since they were all high-value players, the team spared no effort to ensure they could focus solely on the game.

Of course, this was the story for players belonging to the top Leagues.

Seo Dami was at the very bottom of the women’s League team.

Since she was from the Third Division League, her life as a player was somewhat different from what I knew.

The kitchen wasn’t very big.

The dining area on the first floor of the Team House building had two tables with ten chairs distributed between them.

The side dishes were in the refrigerator, and her role was to scoop rice from the rice cooker, put it in bowls, and complete the Setup.

It seemed she didn’t make the side dishes herself.

As I was setting the spoons and chopsticks according to Seo Dami’s instructions, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

Up to five people can sit at one table, so why am I only setting out four places?

Aren’t there five players?

When I asked, Seo Dami told me the ridiculous story that her seat was over there, so I had to set up a place on that side.

They’re on the same team, so why do they eat separately?

They say you don’t even bother a dog when it’s eating.

Seeing them do this even in the dining hall, I could roughly guess what they would do during training and games.

“What about the Director or the Coach? Don’t they say anything?”

<······.>

I felt a rush of heat to my head and questioned her accusingly.

What was the job of the Director and coaching staff?

They had a responsibility not only to rack up wins for the team but also to protect the players.

But what Seo Dami was going through right now was nothing short of violence.

How could I resolve this absurd situation?

As I was quietly lost in thought, the sound of footsteps approached, and the players came flooding into the dining hall.

They were chattering and laughing among themselves, finding something so amusing.

Normally, Seo Dami would have bowed to them, sat down quietly, and picked up her utensils, but today was different.

I quietly took in the appearance of each and every one of them, as if performing a Scan.

If our eyes had met, a fight might have started with them asking why I was looking at them like that, but they didn’t give a damn about this side in the first place.

‘A bunch of punks who wouldn’t even last one punch in a fight.’

I was running a Simulation in my head, thinking that if one punch wasn’t enough, two would do the trick.

One of the players saw me and her eyes went wide.

“Hey. What’s that on your arm?”

On my arm?

I wondered what was on my arm and looked, only to realize anew that it was covered with the wounds Seo Dami got when she fell from the rooftop.

“Unni, look at her.”

“Hey. What did you do?”

“Crazy bitch. Did she self-harm?”

“Give me a fucking break. You clung on like a leech even when we told you to quit, did you finally have a change of heart?”

The girls shot vicious words at me.

If Seo Dami had been here alone, her eyes might have welled up and spilled tears, but unfortunately for them, the one making eye contact with them today was not Seo Dami, but me, Han Youngin.

“Hey! Aren’t you going to answer? What is that!”

I don’t know either, you fucking bitch.

The words rose to the tip of my throat, but I forced the corners of my mouth up and smiled.

“I fell.”

“Crazy bitch. Look at her smiling.”

“Hey. Act like you usually do. What’s with the grin? You’re making me lose my appetite.”

The reason I smiled when I should have been angry?

It was for Seo Dami.

If, by any chance, I woke up tomorrow and everything was back to normal.

Seo Dami would be the one facing these trashy people alone.

It was my judgment that it was better not to cause trouble just yet.

Still, they say you can’t spit on a smiling face.

They didn’t bother me any further.

Honestly, it was a relief.

If they had kept it up, it would have been hard for me to hold back.

‘Hoo. I’ll let you live for just a few more days. Just you wait.’

Suppressing my anger, I also began to eat.

It was always advantageous to survey your surroundings and make a plan before starting something.

After finishing the dishes of fury with a squeaky-clean scrub, I returned to the room and first asked Seo Dami for the whole story.

All this pressure she was under was clearly not normal.

If so, there must be a cause.

I doubted Seo Dami was the cause, but just in case.

If she was the one who had provided the cause.

It was a bit of a sad story, but she would be reaping what she sowed.

When I said I wanted to know the details, Seo Dami hesitated and held her tongue.

“You don’t want to talk? If you really don’t want to, you don’t have to. But from that point on, I’ll do as I please until I go back, okay?”

<…I’ll talk. I’ll tell you.>

“Good. Just let it all out. Who knows? I might be able to help.”

Seo Dami.

She was selected as a new team member for Universe Cat during the Second-Half Season of last year.

It was rare for a team member to change in the middle of a Season, but in her case, it was to fill the vacancy of a player who was kicked out due to a school violence controversy.

Her Debut Match wasn’t too bad.

Seo Dami had been attending an academy’s debut class to become a pro, and she performed the Defender position splendidly, based on her enviable Stamina.

At first, fans worried about how good a new player could be, but as she continued to deliver stable performances one after another, they opened their arms wide and sent their support.

The problem started from here.

The original players on the team were said to have been on good terms with the problematic player who was kicked out.

Birds of a feather flock together.

From their perspective, they must not have looked kindly upon her, who had joined the team in place of the problem child.

Seo Dami knew this well, so in the early days of her recruitment, she said she tried her best to get on her teammates’ good side.

Things like buying them drinks or snacks to win them over.

But to get straight to the result, it was a futile effort.

Not long after being recruited to Universe Cat, after just a few games, Seo Dami quickly began to gain popularity.

With her rather outstanding visuals and impressive performance contributing greatly to the team’s victories, the fans couldn’t help but love her.

A situation where the rookie who had rolled in started to monopolize the team’s popularity.

This was the fuse.

It had greatly provoked the narrow-minded girls who only cared about popularity.

I clicked my tongue as I listened to her story.

Your Annual Salary goes up, your treatment within the team gets better.

Every Pro Gamer knows that being popular is a good thing, but these girls had gone too far.

It was truly trash-like behavior.

<After that, no matter what I tried to do, it didn’t work…>

“That must have been really tough.”

<But I’ve gotten used to it these days.>

“Didn’t you ever think of talking to anyone?”

I first thought of asking the Director or Coach for an SOS.

I figured the power a Director holds within a team would be enough to mediate this problem.

But what do you know.

Seo Dami looked crestfallen, saying the Coach didn’t seem to care.

<I did try talking to the Coach. But he said there wasn’t much he could do. He tells us not to be like that, but…>

“That’s a little strange, isn’t it?”

Even his reprimands were half-assed.

In a way, it looked like the Director was leading the charge in neglecting this whole mess.

Is he taking bribes or something…?

It was an unlikely scenario in the top League scene, teeming with high-salary earners, but in the Third Division League, you never knew.

This den of demons, the lower League, was a place where you’d see articles about recruitment corruption popping up every so often.

“What about your parents?”

<I couldn’t tell them.>

Her parents had been against her becoming a Pro Gamer in the first place, she said.

In other words, Seo Dami was in a situation where she couldn’t tell anyone about her circumstances.

“At that point, most people would have quit, saying it’s too dirty. You’ve held on well.”

<If I quit now, I feel like I’d be losing… I started this despite my parents’ opposition, so I didn’t want to end it like this.>

Endure and endure again.

Her future plan was that if she endured like that and gained more popularity, or created value with her skills, she would be able to find a new job.

“So. Have you gotten a bit popular?”

<A little…?>

Seo Dami said in an awkward tone that she was slowly increasing her number of fans.

“Really?”

Let’s have a look.

The women’s Third Division League forum, a place I’d never paid attention to when I was an active player.

I went to the Universe Cat Team Forum and started looking through the posts one by one.

Indeed, it seemed her claim of being popular wasn’t a lie.

I could easily find posts with Seo Dami’s name on them.

And it was then that I first found out what my face, that is, what Seo Dami looked like.

“Oh.”

A pure sound of admiration escaped me.

A person can’t just see their own face, can they?

I could have just looked in the mirror in the bathroom, but because Seo Dami had screamed at me to close my eyes, I didn’t even know what my face looked like now.

Bobbed hair that came down below her ears.

Cute eyes, a kind-looking impression.

Seo Dami’s in-game appearance with purple hair stood out by far among the Universe Cat members.

To be honest, the rest of them looked like squids next to Seo Dami.

As I was admiring it, she shyly told me to stop looking.

<That’s enough, so stop looking.>

“Why? The picture came out great.”

<That’s enough.>

“Alright, alright.”

Though disappointed, I left her post and, saying I would show her my picture, went to the Magnus Team Forum and searched my name.

Han Youngin.

I’ve never been called handsome in my life; I’m the type who’s been told I look dependable, that I look like a hard worker.

Still, I wasn’t unlikable, so I was about to confidently show her my picture, but what was this?

The moment I saw the title of the post at the very top of the forum, my body froze without me realizing it.

「Breaking News. Magnus Team Attacker Han Youngin. Unconscious after a traffic accident.」

It started from then.

Posts about me began to pop up everywhere simultaneously.

Not just on fan galleries, but on all sorts of portal sites.

Countless reporters were competing to report on my life-or-death situation.