Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 196

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Genius Archer’s Streaming Season 1 Episode 196
66. A Trivial Story (3)
“Why are you muttering to yourself like that?”
The face of my junior whom I hadn’t seen in ten years.
Even after such a long time, I could instantly tell it was Hyeonju Cha.
“Hyeonju…?”
“Yes.”
“What brings you here…?”
I stood up from where I’d been sitting, feeling embarrassed.
“Dongsu told me about it. I was thinking about Soyeon and wanted to visit. It turned out to be her birthday.”
“Ah…”
“And when I came here for her birthday, I heard someone mention seeing someone who looked like you. I don’t even remember who told me anymore.”
“I see.”
“Anyway, I happened to overhear a bit.”
“…!”
Seeing my reaction, Hyeonju gave a reassuring smile.
“Will you tell me too?”
“…”
I hesitated.
‘Right now?’
I had resolved to tell Soyeon eventually, but suddenly revealing a fact I’d hidden from my colleagues all this time was another matter.
Even for someone as bold as me, making such a decision on the spot was difficult.
However, I shook my head.
‘But I already decided to tell her.’
I met Hyeonju’s gaze.
In those clear, gentle eyes that resembled Soyeon’s, my determined expression was reflected.
“Let’s go somewhere to talk.”
“There’s a cafe over there.”
“Let’s go.”
Walking to the cafe, we exchanged awkward pleasantries.
‘Saetgang Place’
I thought the atmosphere would be dark since it was a cafe inside a memorial park, but it surprisingly felt like a nicely landscaped cafe.
Hyeonju brought the coffee.
“Your personality has changed quite a bit, hasn’t it?”
Hyeonju set down the coffee and shared her impression from our conversation on the way here.
“Really? Well, I can’t be exactly the same as I was in high school.”
“I heard you attended Asung. Did you change a lot there? Or was it after your sister’s incident…?”
“Well… probably both.”
“Did Dongsu tell you about it?”
“About what?”
Still, once we sat down and talked.
Surprisingly, my conversation with Hyeonju after ten years felt natural. As if we’d been seeing each other regularly all along.
“I was the one who found you, oppa.”
“But… do you still watch my streams these days?”
“Yes.”
“…Maybe you shouldn’t watch them?”
“Why? That’s too much.”
“Well, it’s just… knowing someone’s watching makes it awkward.”
“You think I’m the only one watching? There are probably others who know you. People from the archery world too, I’d imagine.”
I let out a hollow laugh.
“People from the archery world? What am I, some celebrity? They probably don’t even remember me. Who I am.”
“The people who know you, know you.”
“That was over ten years ago. My face then isn’t the same as it is now.”
Hyeonju chuckled and changed the subject.
“How long has it been since you visited your sister?”
“About two years, I think…”
“So you do visit fairly often… For me, it’s been about four years.”
That made sense.
Few people visit someone they haven’t seen in over ten years, especially a former friend, every single year.
Modern people can’t even manage to visit their own parents’ graves regularly.
“So. Are you going to tell me now?”
Hyeonju asked with a light smile, as if it were casual.
Of course, her heart wasn’t light at all.
Even after ten years, that incident remained a mystery.
“What you told your sister earlier. Tell me too.”
“…Alright.”
I nodded.
I glanced briefly at the massive window beside me.
Pure white snow was falling heavily, blanketing the park below.
“First, the reason I quit.”
“Yes…”
“Soyeon was right. I didn’t quit because it wasn’t fun.”
Hyeonju didn’t seem particularly surprised.
“Your sister told me. How young you were when you started. What it meant. And that because of your grandmother… you had to keep going no matter what.”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“Then why did you quit? You couldn’t possibly stop in that situation. And seeing you still shooting now… you still want to do it, don’t you?”
“Because of this.”
I extended my right arm.
“…Your right arm?”
I explained my current situation.
From the extent to which this arm could function, to why it even works in virtual reality games.
“…!”
Hyeonju’s expression showed she was in shock.
She hadn’t even considered an injury.
After all, it looked perfectly fine on the surface.
“Oh, oh brother… I, I didn’t even know something like that….”
Hyeonju’s eyes trembled slightly.
As an active player herself, she understood best what kind of emotions I must have been going through.
It must have felt like something I’d cultivated by pouring more than half my life into was suddenly severed.
Like half my world had disappeared.
“…Why, why didn’t you say anything?!”
“The coach said it would negatively affect your training… and my pride….”
“What…?!”
Hyeonju fell silent for a moment.
She was probably a bit angry. But I had to tell her everything.
I’d already started anyway.
From the moment Dongsu discovered me. This was unavoidable.
“…Pride?”
Hyeonju’s voice had changed completely from before.
Well, if I only said pride, of course she’d react like that.
“Soyeon always said I was the best.”
“…And?”
“Not just Soyeon, but the coach, my friends, my juniors too… everyone thought I was a prospect. I couldn’t tell all those people who believed in me that I’d suddenly become a cripple overnight.”
A moment of silence passed.
I added quietly.
“…I’m sorry.”
Thud.
On the table, Hyeonju’s arm trembled.
“You could have just told me anyway….”
How nice that would have been. Why didn’t I? Such hypotheticals.
Since I’d done that dozens, hundreds of times myself, I let Hyeonju just pour it out.
“Just cowardly, go against the coach’s words and throw away your pride and tell me! You were close with your sister anyway?!”
Hyeonju’s eye makeup streamed down her face.
“You could have told her at least!”
She was wrong. Even if I’d told everyone in the world, I wouldn’t have told Soyeon.
In front of her… I didn’t want to show the bare, pathetic truth of my situation.
I wanted to remain the strongest Sang-hyun Yu in her eyes.
But now that I’ve lost both my arm and Soyeon.
“I’m sorry.”
That was all I could say.
Hyeonju lowered her head and sobbed.
“Why… why do you carry everything alone like that? Huh? How long were you planning to keep quiet? Why didn’t you tell us even after your sister died!! We didn’t even know…!”
Back then at the funeral ten years ago, Hyeonju had resented me without knowing the full truth.
She had even said she wanted to drive me away.
She wasn’t in her right mind back then.
Later, those words came back to haunt her, clawing at her chest.
“I actually tried to tell you.”
“Then when?!”
“When… Soyeon called me for the last time. I was in rehabilitation. Back then, I thought the rehabilitation would work. If only it worked, if only it could work somehow….”
I couldn’t continue speaking properly at that point.
I struggled to draw another breath.
“I thought everything would be fine. But that day Soyeon died in the same kind of accident I did. I only found out later that I could only achieve partial rehabilitation.”
“The same accident…?”
“Yeah… autonomous vehicles had so many accidents back then.”
From the way I spoke, Hyeonju could piece together what I was thinking.
‘He’s feeling guilty, isn’t he?’
Why I couldn’t tell my colleagues even more.
“Don’t tell me you’re feeling guilty because it was the same autonomous vehicle accident? Is that why you couldn’t tell us even after your sister died?!”
I simply lowered my head in silence.
“Why are you being so foolish? Who would think that way?”
Hyeonju spoke insistently.
“You were a high school student back then. A high school student! Nobody holds a high school student responsible.”
I know that too.
That it wasn’t actually my fault.
“…From my perspective, it’s no different from me killing Soyeon. Even now, I can’t help but think that way… I can’t do anything about it. Only the person involved would understand.”
What others see as trivial.
But this sentence always circles through my mind.
‘But you were the only one who could have saved her.’
There’s nothing I can do about it.
“Sigh. Oppa. Then all surgeons are murderers?”
“….”
“Of course… I regret that you didn’t tell us right away… I really do… regret it. If your sister had lived… it would have been so nice, right? But as a high school student, your situation was just too hard for you to judge properly.”
Hyeonju grasped my hand.
From its weight, disproportionate to its size, she could feel it.
What kind of burden this hand had been carrying for ten years.
“It’s okay.”
She spoke to me with sincerity.
“Ten years have passed. It’s all okay now.”
Something wet fell onto the back of Hyeonju’s hand.
I finally let out the tears I had been holding back.

* * *
After our meeting ended.
Hyeonju climbed into her car.
She offered a farewell with a noticeably calmer demeanor.
“See you next time at Dongsu’s cafe.”
“Sure.”
“About your right arm… I’ll keep that to myself. It would be better if you told them directly later, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
I watched her car recede into the distance with a crisp engine sound, waving my hand.
‘I’m grateful.’
I truly felt indebted to Hyeonju.
Even if her comfort back then had been insincere.
The fact that she listened to the story I opened up about for the first time made her my benefactor.
Once Hyeonju’s car had completely disappeared, I walked deeper into the park.
I stood before Soyeon one last time.
I touched the inscription carved into the stone.
“I’ll come again.”
Standing before Soyeon with a considerably lighter heart than before.
“By then, perhaps…”
Perhaps by then, there would be a few more people in the world who knew you.
I set down the white flowers I’d bought from the cafe, promising to return next year.
“Happy birthday.”

* * *
On my way home.
My heart felt both light and strangely weightless.
It was as if something monumental had been resolved.
In reality, nothing was truly settled.
It was merely that the largest tangled knot in the corner of my heart was slowly beginning to unravel.
‘Thank goodness.’
Even that alone gave me the sense that something had been properly resolved.
Now, with a somewhat lighter heart, I could return to my main work.
Checking the community’s reactions in the taxi on the way back was part of that effort.
[Why Almond is finally truly ‘kinglike’ today]
[Finally! Almond faces off against a Challenger today!]
[From today on, we’ll be calling Cello ‘Gol’.]
[Warning! National stationery shops on alert! Cardboard must be changed to ‘Gol-board’…]
The community was discussing today’s practice match opponent.
‘Today’s opponent is a Challenger… was it ‘Black Tea’?’
A Challenger ADC.
An opponent I needed to take seriously.
As I scrolled through various reactions about them, I had already arrived home.
It was still around 2 PM.
“How was the wedding?”
Juhyeok, who had been pulling weeds in the yard, straightened up and asked.
“Ah….”
I had lied to Juhyeok about going to a wedding.
‘I should tell him.’
Recalling my meeting with Hyeonju today, I felt that now was the time to tell Juhyeok as well.
“I have something to tell you.”
“…Huh?”
Juhyeok was startled by my sudden serious tone and sat down at the table.
I confessed everything to him. From how Soyeon Han had passed away in an accident long ago. Why I felt guilty about it, and who I met today.
What I wanted to do going forward.
“….”
After hearing the entire story, Juhyeok simply stared at me blankly, unable to say anything.
He removed his glasses for a moment and rubbed his eyes.
“Something just got in my eye, that’s all.”
Juhyeok sniffled, adding this as if worried I might misunderstand his masculine composure.
“…So that’s why you’ve been avoiding it?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want people to know about it, of course… but honestly, I was most afraid of what my colleagues would think of me.”
“Like you were responsible for her death?”
“…Yeah.”
Juhyeok exhaled softly and gazed out the window.
‘I suppose… if something like that had happened… I would have done the same.’
Now everything made sense.
I had suspected as much. That there was something more I didn’t know about.
“…Now I understand.”
Juhyeok fell silent for a moment, unsure what to say.
“How do you feel?”
“Well… much better. The way Hyeonju spoke, it sounded like she was forgiving me.”
“She’s a good person.”
“Yeah. She’s always been good, ever since we were kids.”
Juhyeok tapped Sanghyeon on the shoulder as he spoke.
“Anyway, congratulations. It feels like you’ve taken a step forward.”
“…Thanks.”
Sanghyeon offered a faint smile.
“Time really is a healer, isn’t it? Ten years… that’s frightening.”
“By then, all the emotions should have faded away.”
Juhyeok nods in agreement.
He was old enough to understand how easily humans erode before the passage of time.
“Still, it’s nice seeing you stay in touch with your old teammates. I thought you were a loner back in high school.”
“What are you talking about? I was popular. In the archery club, anyway…”
Sanghyeon timidly added that qualifier before heading toward his computer.
“I have a lot to prepare today. Let’s talk more later.”
3 PM.
It was still early, but today’s practice match was against a formidable opponent, so I had planned to make proper preparations.
[Taco: Today’s practice ADC Hongcha gameplay footage, habits, and key avatar compilation file.zip]
When I opened the file Taco had sent, it contained various video files along with detailed explanatory text.
Almond began opening and watching them one by one.
I had assumed I would be inferior to the Challenger, and planned to exploit her weaknesses however I could.
No matter how skilled a Challenger is, there is no perfect player in this world. I had memorized even the directions she habitually dodged and the patterns of her movements.
Focusing all my concentration solely on defeating my opponent.
Today my condition was excellent.
The weight that had been pressing down on me all this time seemed to have lifted.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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