Season 2: Chapter 140: Truly Recognized (1)
“Pfft,” Ju-Hyeok couldn't help but laugh as he looked at his phone.
Just then, Ji-Ah was standing in front of him and showing off a dress. She looked down at him with a cold gaze.
"Why are you laughing? Is this dress no good?"
She had been trying on different outfits and showing him. His laughter came at a particularly unfortunate moment.
Ju-Hyeok quickly explained, "No, no. I saw something funny."
He was laughing at the reactions in the chat room.
"Funny, huh? This dress..."
"No, that's not it!"
"Haah. It's already hard enough to go shopping just one day before the event because of how busy we are. And the person who came with me is laughing at my dress..."
"No, I didn't mean that! The dress looks good!"
Ji-Ah burst into laughter at Ju-Hyeok's flustered reaction.
"Just kidding."
It was all a joke.
Ju-Hyeok showed a face that said he had been pranked.
“Try something else on.”
"Alright."
Ji-Ah didn’t seem fully satisfied with the dress and decided to try on another one.
"How about this one?"
After a moment, she exited the fitting room again and spun around to show him.
Ju-Hyeok's eyes widened at the off-shoulder red dress. This was the best one among all the outfits he had seen her in today. Suddenly, all thoughts of the community disappeared from his mind.
"… Wow. It's pretty."
Ji-Ah tilted her head and smiled.
"So this is your real reaction."
Ju-Hyeok cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Are you going to choose this one?" the department store clerk came over and asked.
It seemed like they had made a decision based on their expressions.
"Yes," Ji-Ah quickly agreed and went back to change.
Meanwhile, the clerk prepared the packaging and proceeded with the transaction.
Ju-Hyeok took a moment to clear his head. He needed a break after all the thinking he had been doing. It was one of his habits to take such moments and clear his mind.
In his blank state, he heard the clerk's voice.
"Um…" she whispered to Ju-Hyeok with a slightly troubled look. "It seems you've exceeded the payment limit…"
Ju-Hyeok was puzzled at first. Then, he realized what happened.
'Isn't this her card?'
The clerk had handed him Ji-Ah's card. Ji-Ah had given him her card before changing, which led to this mix-up.
Ju-Hyeok naturally smiled and took out his card. There was no need to embarrass Ji-Ah on such a good day.
"Oh, I see. Please use this card."
He decided to buy it for her as a gift. Considering Ji-Ah's earnings, this kind of gift wouldn't be a big deal. It was the thought and timing that counted in giving gifts, wasn't it?
"Are you done?"
"Yeah, let's go. It took a while."
Ji-Ah left the store thinking her card had been used for the transaction.
"Ah, where's my card?"
"Here."
Ju-Hyeok handed her the card that the clerk gave him. Ji-Ah put the card in her wallet without saying much before tilting her head in confusion.
"Why didn't I get a payment notification?"
She usually received a message on her phone whenever she used her card. The absence of a message this time was unusual. Normally, she wouldn't have paid much attention and already expected to pay a significant expense.
"The card limit was exceeded."
"?!"
Regardless of their earnings, freelancers tended to have lower credit card limits. Getting a limit that somewhat matched their income took a long time.
Since Ji-Ah only started earning more recently, she didn’t have a very high limit. Exceeding the limit was all too common.
Ji-Ah looked very flustered.
"Ah... I see."
Did she miscalculate her limit by that much?
Ju-Hyeok had been hoping for some praise and felt puzzled.
'What?'
He expected her to ask how the dress was purchased since her card was declined. Instead, she seemed even more bewildered.
Ji-Ah finally asked, "Wait, then how was this dress paid for?"
Ju-Hyeok proudly pointed to himself as if he had been waiting.
"This guy."
Ji-Ah's eyes widened in surprise. And then a punch flew.
Thud!
"Ah! Why, why?!"
"How could you just buy something so expensive?!"
"Why are you buying it then?!"
"Well, I..." She almost said, ‘Because I earn more than you…’ but swallowed those words.
She couldn't hurt his pride when he had just given her a gift.
“Gulp.”
Ji-Ah swallowed her pride and calmed herself. She reminded herself to stay cool. Her mind cleared a bit. Then, she accepted the reality that Ju-Hyeok bought the dress for her.
A smile began to form on her lips.
"What is it? Are you mad or happy?" Ju-Hyeok asked, confused by her mixture of anger and laughter.
Ji-Ah turned her head away and said, "Anyway, don't ever buy something this expensive again. I hate overspending."
'Does that really apply to you?'
Ji-Ah was admonishing him, but was known for her impulsive spending habits.
Ju-Hyeok knew this all too well, so he couldn't help but comment.
"Look who's talking─"
Just as he was about to express his dissatisfaction, a white hand covered his mouth.
"Thank you. I'll wear it well."
Their eyes met. It was clear she meant it.
"Seriously."
A smile also spread across Ju-Hyeok's lips similar to Ji-Ah's.
"Shall we... go then?"
"Yeah."
They walked side by side through the department store. Perhaps because they matched each other's pace, even their strides seemed to have become similar. Could this be what happiness was about?
As these thoughts filled Ju-Hyeok’s mind…
'Oh?'
He suddenly remembered something he had forgotten. His usually excellent memory sometimes felt like a curse.
'…'
It was exactly moments like this.
Ji-Ah mentioned it a while ago, "I've maxed out my credit card. I only use my debit card now. Damn freelancers."
***
"Ugh!"
Sang-Hyeon abruptly woke up after dozing off on the sofa. He looked as if he had a nightmare.
"Phew…"
He tried to shake off the sleepiness and an odd noise came out of his mouth, but he didn't care and quickly got up to go somewhere.
It was on the shelf where his phone was. He urgently checked the time.
"… Ah."
He still had about an hour left until the national team scrimmage. He woke up much earlier than necessary, possibly due to nervousness.
"Phew. Lucky."
Sang-Hyeon felt relieved that he wasn't late rather than waking up too early by accident. He slapped his cheeks lightly and habitually fiddled with his phone.
Then, he went on the community to drive away the sleepiness, hoping to find some insults toward Almond. Nothing was better than that for waking up.
"Huh?"
However, Sang-Hyeon encountered something quite unexpected. Upon entering, the top post caught his eye.
1. Almond and BornToB’s last promo match was stream sniped (with evidence)
Sang-Hyeon scoffed when he saw this for the first time.
"What nonsense."
He recalled their last match being remarkably easy. Someone was now claiming it was a stream snipe. Was this a new way to mock someone? He was skeptical about it.
"Is this some kind of meme?"
It could be a meme. He doubtfully clicked on the post.
"…?"
Unexpectedly, the post wasn’t a meme or a new joke to mock BornToB.
The poster methodically and calmly presented evidence and developed a logical argument. Although one could argue it was possible to claim that all captured evidence was fabricated, the consistency of the statement was maintained from start to finish much like in a courtroom.
Apparently, claiming the truth in such statements greatly benefitted the person making the claims. It was almost evident that what the poster alleged was factual.
"It seems plausible…"
Sang-Hyeon stopped reading halfway and immediately went to the comments section. Due to his nature of not being good at reading lengthy texts, he usually got a general understanding from the comments.
The reactions in the comments section also regarded the stream sniping as an established fact.
— ?? It seems real?
— Wow, there are so many crazy people LOL
— I mean, stream sniping isn't a major crime, but their tone and ideology are disgustingly unpleasant
└ True that. That's exactly it
└ I thought the same
— Stream sniping to judge Almond???
— Stream sniping??? Reeeeally???
The stream sniping had almost been accepted as fact. Sang-Hyeon, the party involved, was the only one puzzled.
"Really… it was a stream snipe?"
Stream sniping meant playing while watching the opponent's stream. This allowed the stream sniper to know exactly what the opponent was doing.
In RTS games, this was quite fatal. Even in survival games like Battle Large, it was quite deadly because it could reveal hidden positions. Not to mention AOS genres, that went without saying.
Sang-Hyeon only found one thing odd.
"We won too easily."
The last game was so easy he barely remembered it. It seemed like stream sniping based on the initial spearmen rush, but was it really stream sniping?
"Anyway, everyone seems to think so."
Sang-Hyeon scratched his head and looked back at the comments. Even as he was browsing, countless new comments were being posted.
It was natural for such an attention-grabbing post to reach the top spot. Given the sheer volume of comments, some inevitably suggested that the story was fabricated.
— What kind of effort went into this fake story? Are people really falling for this?
However, the response was not favorable.
└ Greetings, Judge of Almond
└ Greetings, AK47's Shame
└ Hello there, Trolls. Welcome.
└ Greetings, Brr
└ Someone’s grinding their teeth over all the "effort" in this fabrication, lol
Nicknames of the chat room members appeared in the replies.
"Ooh…"
It seemed the post was strongly convincing.
Sang-Hyeon went back to the post and read it through to the end. As he read it, he thought it didn't seem like the work of a novice. Then, he saw what was written at the end of the last screenshot.
[Ronaldo: I’m Almond's manager you bastards.]
At first, he thought this was an insult.
“Hmm?”
Sang-Hyeon frowned and noticed an obscure name.
"Ro… nal… do..."
Moreover, the format of this post… He had seen it often somewhere.
The habits from briefing reports in Ah-Sung were still there, but this was just circumstantial evidence. Soon, even more definitive evidence came in.
Ziiing.
[Kimchi Warrior]
He received a call from Chi-Seung.
"Hello?"
“Ah, Mr. Almond! I have something urgent to tell you! Your manager isn't answering his phone!”
"… Ah. Please speak to me."
“First off, the scrimmage time has been pushed to 9 P.M.!”
"… I see."
Almond glanced at the clock and considered whether to take another nap, but the real topic had yet to come.
“Have you seen the top post in the community?”
Sang-Hyeon felt as if Chi-Seung had some kind of sixth sense. He awkwardly removed his hand from the screen.
"Ah… Yes."
“SandSpoon is my friend! He was spying on my behalf! Sorry! I was going to handle it quietly later, but… your manager suddenly made a preemptive move!!”
‘Ah…’
Sang-Hyeon roughly understood the situation. Chi-Seung tried to contact Ju-Hyeok about that.
"Got it. I know who's with Ju-Hyeok right now. I'll contact them."
“I'm worried everyone else in that chat will be unfairly penalized…”
"Penalized? Can it get to that point?"
“Of course! There will definitely be game penalties. It's like planning a crime in real life!”
"Right. SandSpoon needs to be saved."
“Yes! That's right!”
"Understood."
“Well, thank you. Please speak well on my behalf! I'll send all the evidence to your manager!”
"Yes, don't worry."
Click.
After hanging up the call with Chi-Seung, Sang-Hyeon clicked his tongue.
"It was really stream sniping."
Indeed, it turned out to be stream sniping. Those interesting folks still lost so miserably though.
Sang-Hyeon didn’t have much of a reaction given how easily they still won. However, his fans felt differently.
[Looking for a squad to send a complaint email to the headquarters]
[Let's give them a stern call!]
[Game over. Arrest them all! Assemble, pack of a hundred dogs!!]
Considering the nature of this community, those who participated in the chat were definitely not going to escape unscathed.