Chapter 72 : A Boring Day, A New Obsession

The fourth-grade classes passed by like that, and the time was 2:40 PM.

With the increasing number of classes in line with our age, our sighs grew deeper as well.

Anyway, the homeroom teacher told us to go home safely.

Inside the school bag were numerous newsletters, nine out of ten of which would end up in the trash.

After sending off Siyeon, who no longer minded going home alone, I stayed behind to carry out my duty as part of the cleaning crew.

Holding a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other, I swept through the front and back of the classroom, gathering large pieces of trash first before sweeping up the smaller dust particles into the dustpan.

The dust that stubbornly refused to go all the way into the dustpan—I simply flicked it away and shoved it under the lockers.

Ugh, it’s so frustrating how it just won’t go in properly.

“Wouldn’t it be better if each classroom had a vacuum cleaner?”

Muttering to myself about something that would obviously never happen, I grumbled as I continued sweeping.

Well, of course, spending a few hundred bucks per classroom on vacuums would be far less cost-effective than just grabbing a few elementary school kids every day after school and making them sweep with a broom and dustpan.

“Now that I think about it, is this really reasonable?”

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I were the principal, I’d probably do the same thing.

Even if they were small vacuums, they’d definitely break or get damaged because of kids messing around.

And with today’s prices, even a handheld vacuum isn’t cheap. If every classroom had one, the cost would be insane.

Saying that a school is like a small society wasn’t wrong.

It didn’t have to resemble society in terms of “humans being cheaper than machines,” though.

Once we finished cleaning, one of us—who was eager to go home—would tactfully go to the teachers’ office to call the homeroom teacher.

That eager student was me.

I walked to the teacher’s desk in the office and called out.

“We’re done cleaning.”

“Oh, alright. Let’s go check.”

Classroom cleaning inspection.

At this point, there wasn’t much meaning to it since all the classes were over,
but it was still a way to gauge the homeroom teacher’s mood for the day.

Most male homeroom teachers were fine.

As long as we didn’t leave the place looking like a disaster zone, they’d be satisfied as long as there were no big pieces of trash or piles of dust.

A simple “Good job” and we’d get our confiscated smartphones back.

The problem was when it was a female homeroom teacher in a bad mood.

Did she lose money on stocks or something?

On days like that, she would suddenly start scrutinizing every little dusty corner she usually overlooked.

And of course, today—my turn as the cleaning duty student—just had to be one of those days.

“Look at this corner. There’s so much dust here.”

I immediately knew this wasn’t going to be an easy pass.

With her arms crossed, she used the tip of her shoe to drag out dust from under the podium—
a spot that was nearly impossible to reach with a broom.

“f*cking b*tch.”

It wasn’t just me.

The other kids also looked like they were chewing on something bitter as they trudged toward the cleaning supply cabinet at the back of the classroom,
reluctantly grabbing their brooms and dustpans again.

The teacher went on to point out five more areas after that.

Only after making us bend over repeatedly to sweep every inch of the floor did she finally say a few words.

“You have to clean every corner properly. If you leave dust in the classroom, it’s all going into your lungs, you know?”

Oh, come on. You’re just doing this because you’re in a bad mood today.

After muttering a complaint that couldn’t be voiced aloud, I retrieved my hostage-like smartphone, packed my bag, and left the classroom.

Even though only about ten minutes had passed since school ended, the way home was completely empty.

Despite that, the snack shop—quite a distance from school, no, actually very far—was packed.

Seeing that the PiXchu Pork Cutlet was 2,500 won, I couldn’t help but feel full just from knowing that it used to be only 500 won.

Passing by the snack shop, I quickly arrived home.

Unlike the apartment we had to leave due to redevelopment, the distance now felt noticeably shorter.

“I’m home…”

“Shhh.”

As soon as I opened the door and stepped inside, I was greeted by a scene straight out of a horror movie—
a doll, stuck to the wall like a ghost.

“Ah, f***! That scared me.”

Before I even realized it, I instinctively grabbed the thing’s face in an iron claw.

Since I was gripping onto something, my strength naturally increased.

My heart pounded, like I had just watched a horror movie scene.

“KRRAAAAH…!”

“Bored with life again?”

Swallowing back the startled yelp, I steadied myself and threw a pointed question at the bear-like idiot who had staged this surprise.

This guy—over the past few years, his methods of inviting a beating had become increasingly creative.

Just recently, he had whined about not getting leftovers from our delivery food…
And now, today, he was recreating horror movie scenes.

As he struggled to free his head from my grip, he finally started blurting out his excuse.

“A-Ah, no…! Both of them were asleep, so…!”

“Oh, really?”

Hearing his excuse-like answer, I loosened my hardened expression slightly.

Shifting my gaze past the bear-like fool still in my grasp, I looked towards the room.

Indeed, the atmosphere felt quieter than usual.

Still gripping his face, I swung my arm as I walked toward the room.

Inside, the two were sprawled out on the floor with their bedding.

Siyeon was lying there in the same clothes she had been wearing when I left, fast asleep.

Next to her, Jieun unnie had her arm draped over Siyeon like a pillow, her hands resting on her stomach.

Jieun unnie being exhausted made sense—after all, she was constantly overworked as a government employee.

But what about Siyeon?

‘Well, she must’ve just been sleepy…’

After confirming their state, I finally relaxed my grip on the bear’s face.
A sigh of relief escaped him.

And so, as usual, I dropped my schoolbag, took off my socks, and tossed them into the laundry bin.

It was 3 PM.

With Siyeon nowhere near the computer, the silence felt dull.
So, I turned it on for entertainment.

The cooling fan whirred as the PC hummed to life.

But once it was on, I had no idea what to do.

The mouse cursor simply hovered over the desktop.

The only thing I really knew how to play was a game I used to enjoy back when I was in second grade.

‘…I don’t understand any of this.’

After not playing for about two years, the items and dungeons had all changed.

When I asked in the chat where players gathered, they told me the items my character was wearing were completely outdated.

In the end, I just ran through the same dungeons I used to grind two years ago for a bit, then closed the game.

I realized—I really couldn’t do online PC games anymore.

So, I started using my computer like a big smartphone.
I had no right to mentally criticize Siyeon.

“Hmm…”

By a stream of consciousness, I found myself visiting the Magical Girl Gallery for the first time in a while.
Neither Siyeon nor I had been active recently, so there were hardly any posts about us.

When I searched for our magical girl names, there were barely any mentions in recent posts—just old threads speculating whether we had already retired.
There was even a growing conspiracy theory suggesting that we had been forcibly kicked out due to the inappropriate remark made at the press conference.

Other than that, a few die-hard fans were just desperately asking when they would ever get to see Sun and Moon again.

With nothing interesting about us, browsing the gallery wasn’t fun.
My mouse pointer wandered aimlessly across the screen, searching for something else to do.

Shooting games were never my thing, and online RPGs felt like a hassle to keep up with.

I sighed and reached for my smartphone, deciding to just play the game I had been playing.
That’s when I noticed a program Siyeon had installed—one that let us play mobile games on the computer.

‘And I was mentally complaining about her just now…’

Click, click. I double-clicked to launch the program.

As I stared at myself, now doing the very thing I had judged her for, I felt a deep sense of self-loathing.

This is what happens when you have absolutely nothing to do.

I logged out of Siyeon’s account and logged into mine.

There were way more mobile games I could play on my computer than I had expected.

Among them were some roguelike games I had given up on before because I didn’t like the touchscreen controls.

But playing on a computer was a whole different story—I was confident in my keyboard and mouse skills.

So, I finally installed one of those games that I had previously just scrolled past in the app store.

Looking back, this was probably the moment when things started to change.

The moment when I, who never thought I could communicate with the elementary school kids in my class, started to connect with the boys in particular.

“Whoa, you play that game too?!”
“Huh? Oh.”

The very next day at school.

Some boys who had been tapping away on their phones that morning suddenly approached me, their curiosity piqued.

Caught off guard by their unexpected interest, I paused my game and glanced at the boys, their faces lit with excitement.

And just like that, the roguelike game I had started on my computer became an obsession.

Whether or not the mobile controls were inconvenient, I was determined to see it through to the end.

So, I installed it on my phone and played it nonstop for the entire day.

Life had been so boring, but now that I had something fun in my hands, my passion ignited, and I couldn’t stop playing.

Me.

“What characters do you have?”
“All of them.”
“For real?!”

The biggest difference between me and my classmates? Spending power.

For characters that required money to unlock, I had no problem dropping a few thousand won here and there—so I just went ahead and spent tens of thousands to unlock everything.

But for my classmates, whose parents disapproved of spending money on games, even getting a gift card was a struggle.

Some of them were lucky if their parents didn’t install parental control apps to monitor them.

In a world where their parents restricted their spending, I, who had every character unlocked, instantly became an object of envy.

Author’s Note

I used to be so jealous of kids who bragged about spending tens of thousands on games when I was in elementary school…
Now, it’s probably ₩110,000 ($80) packs in mobile games.

See you in the next chapter!