An unnad café in so alleyway.
A small shop that sold coffee and bread, without even a proper signboard.
At the counter, a young female owner was wiping down a coffee cup. Classical music flowed from the speakers, and matching the lody, high school girls were chatting in soft voices.
“So, you know...”
“Wait, really?”
Bright laughter blood on the still-young faces of the girls.
This kind of place didn’t have many regulars. It was too small, and most average folks preferred well-known franchise chains. Even if soone ca every day, it’d be just one or two people. Of course, she was among those few regulars.
“Noona.”
“Huh?”
“Are you even listening?”
She had been spaced out and turned her gaze forward.
Sitting outside the table was a young man, still looking more like a boy than an adult.
It was her cousin, Jin-ho. He had just graduated from high school and been admitted to a prestigious university—one whose na everyone would recognize—with top grades.
“What were you saying again?”
“I’m going nuts. You’re zoning out again.”
Jin-ho sighed, then opened his mouth.
“Auntie says to go on a blind date. A blind date.”
“A blind date?”
“That plastic surgeon guy or whatever last ti—why did you turn him down? Didn’t like his face?”
“It’s not like that...”
“Before that, you turned down a judge. And before that, a corporate employee, a lawyer, a pro athlete. You’ve just been turning them down one after another. Auntie’s getting more wrinkles by the day.”
“......”
“Noona, you don’t want to get married, do you?”
She said nothing.
“If you don’t, then just say you don’t. That you’re not interested.”
“It’s not that I’m not thinking about it.”
“Then is there soone you’ve got your eye on?”
“Not really.”
“So you’re thinking about it, but there’s no one you’ve set your sights on. What, do you need a chaebol prince or sothing?”
“That’s not it either.”
Jin-ho furrowed his brow.
Then he asked in a low voice.
“Don’t tell ... you’re still hung up on that ga?”
“......”
“It shut down a year ago, you know? In a year, like a hundred new gas have co out.”
A hundred, a thousand new gas might co out, but there’s nothing like that ga.
She murmured inside her heart.
“This is insane.”
“Sorry.”
“Do what you want. I can’t force you to do sothing you hate.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve got tutoring work. I’m heading out.”
Jin-ho left the café.
He seed busy, what with his tutoring side job.
She was alone again.
‘What a good ti in life.’
She looked over at the lively high school girls chattering away.
She had once been like that too. It had felt like the world was her stage. That illusion crumbled the mont she beca an adult and reality hit.
‘Childish delusion.’
She muttered in her heart.
What should she call what she experienced in that ga a year ago?
It had already been a year since the ga Pick
Up! was forgotten. The seasons had turned four tis, she had gotten promoted at work, and ?? Nоvеl??гht ?? (Don’t copy, read here) her mother’s white hairs had increased.
“......”
Han Israt.
The man was a character in a ga.
If she hadn’t made a mistake, he would have died aninglessly, caught in a fusion accident. But because of her mistake, he didn’t die and continued the fight in his own way.
When things weren’t going well, she used to think about that ga she played.
So called it a dead ga, others spat on it as trash, but to her, it was an experience more valuable than any journey.
They had felt alive.
They fought enemies to survive, grieved over the death of comrades, and moved forward even in the face of trials.
But no one believed her. Of course not. Who would believe that characters in a ga had actually lived and moved? She’d be lucky not to be treated like a lunatic.
She opened her phone’s photo album.
Screenshots of Han’s exploits were neatly arranged.
Han dangling from a sword plunged into a massive statue. Han escaping from an exploding corridor. Han mourning the death of a comrade. Han training hard. Every photo ca with her own attached notes.
‘Am I an idiot?’
Even after a year, she couldn’t forget.
And likely, she never would—not even until the day she died.
‘It’s just a ga.’
The graphics weren’t even fancy.
The combat wasn’t particularly fun.
The real-world monetization was outrageous, and in the latter half of the service, frequent crashes made it barely playable. Her account had even been suspended on false charges of using macros she never touched.
And yet, she couldn’t forget.
Over the past year, she had tried out every mobile ga she could find.
But that feeling she had when playing Pick
Up!—she never felt it again.
That sense of actually communicating with soone from another world.
She reached into her coat for the envelope.
That distinct texture of paper on her fingertips.
Inside the envelope was the property transfer contract handed to her by a lawyer one year ago.
She still hadn’t opened it.
Because one day, she would have to return it to its rightful owner.
‘Another day’s ending.’
She looked out the store window.
The once-quiet alley was now filled with people coming and going.
It was already the hour when office workers got off work. There weren’t many custors in the café, but the noise of the passersby outside filled the inside.
Screeeeech!
Amid that, an unnatural noise entered her ears.
“What the hell’s that psycho!”
“Uwaaaaagh!”
“Shit, who the hell drives a damn car down a back alley?!”
Thud. Clatter. Boom.
The sound of sothing violently colliding.
The chattering schoolgirls stopped talking.
“What was that?”
“Sothing must’ve happened.”
Just as the girl in glasses got up from her seat—
“Kyaaaaah!”
CRASH!
A black sports car shattered the café’s front window and burst inside.
Splinters of broken tables and chairs flew through the air. The fine china cups on the shelf shattered to pieces. The open-top sports car, which had plowed through everything in its path, only ca to a stop in the center of the café.
She quietly stood up from her seat.
The sports car had stopped right in front of her.
The car’s black exterior was scratched all over.
The man in the driver’s seat lowered his sunglasses slightly below his nose.
“Not at ho or the office, huh? So you were loafing around in a place like this.”
“Wh... who are you?”
“Just get in.”
The door lifted upward, and the man placed her in the passenger seat.
“Uh, is this like, a movie shoot?”
“He kinda looks like an actor...”
“A criminal?”
The high school girls huddled in the corner, whispering.
Only the owner stared blankly at her wrecked café.
“Sorry about that. Been a while since I drove. Just charge it to this card.”
The man placed a golden card on the table.
Screeeeech! The sports car spun sideways with both passengers inside.
The car made a small S-turn, then with a thunderous roar, launched out of the alley.
Perhaps everyone had already evacuated, because the back alley was completely empty.
A woman’s voice ca from the navigation system on the dashboard.
“They all look the sa. I drive forward and people move out of the way.”
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