Genius Archer's Streaming Season 1 Episode 3
1. I Still Want to Shoot (3)
"It's this identical……."
Sanghyeon exclaimed with renewed astonishment. At the realism of this virtual reality world that had recreated the Olympics.
-Uwaaaaaaah……!
-Yu Sanghyeon! Yu Sanghyeon!
-Ah. Player Yu Sanghyeon has stepped up and grasped the bow. What do you think!?
-Player Yu Sanghyeon has been gifted since childhood…….
The cheers of the spectators, and even the voices of the broadcasting team from his player's championship days that mixed in like auditory hallucinations.
He found himself wrapped in a tension as if he were actually competing in the Olympics.
Thump, thump.
The sound of his heart, which definitely shouldn't be audible, resonated in his ears, and his virtual lips that couldn't possibly be dry grew parched.
At the far end of his field of vision, 70 meters away, a familiar target came into view.
Red, yellow, blue.
A target drawn with multiple overlapping circles.
What he had only seen in dreams was now right before his eyes. Just how long had it been since he last stood in this position?
"Huu."
Sanghyeon immediately drew the bowstring. To get a sense of how it felt.
Griiirk.
The familiar sensation and sound of the string being drawn. At that vivid sensation, Sanghyeon's heart began to race even faster.
'I-Is this really happening?'
The moment of Holding after drawing the string.
There was always something that had been a problem around this point. His right hand.
He turned his gaze to his right hand.
'!'
His right hand, which should have been trembling by now, was pulling the bowstring as if nothing had ever happened. Very firmly.
Sanghyeon couldn't do anything for a while, just holding that very posture.
Something hot surged up from within.
'…….'
He struggled to swallow down a complicated feeling he couldn't tell was sorrow or joy, and carefully examined the feel of the bow once more.
'It's a little different.'
The string's tension according to the applied force, the texture of the grip…… If he were to scrutinize each element one by one, there was definitely a sense of dissonance from reality. But such things were no longer important to Sanghyeon.
As long as he could draw a bow with a sound arm…….
Even if it felt like a toy bow, he just needed to adapt to it, that was all.
'Let's do this.'
He took out an arrow and nocked it. Now the actual shooting would begin.
His eyes, which had always been vacant, fiercely glared at the target point.
Now he enters a war between himself and the bow.
Archery is always a fierce and silent war between oneself and the bow.
A player must always make the bow their own through that bloodbath within the silence.
It begins with the Full Draw.
This is a kind of preliminary battle, pulling the arrow to the position most suitable for oneself.
Since precision and solidity of the right hand were essential at the Full Draw stage, it was something Sanghyeon was doing for the first time in a very long while.
Griiirk!
As if it were a draw he had performed just yesterday, the bowstring settled above his nose and lips. His right hand stuck firmly under his chin as if finding its rightful place.
It was a perfect Holding posture.
It was definitely a perfect sequence.
However…….
'The weight of the bow and the tension of the string are much lower than I expected. Did they make it so even beginners could do it easily?'
There was a problem.
That lightness actually felt uncomfortable to him.
Without the familiar sense of weight, he ended up exerting unnecessary force.
His aim began to waver slightly this way and that.
"Again."
Sanghyeon ultimately lowered the bow without shooting.
* * *
At the sight of Sanghyeon, whose gaze changed the moment he nocked an arrow, Juhyeok and the store owner gulped.
"W-Wow. A pro is definitely a pro. Even just the posture is no joke, huh?"
"Y-Yeah. I've only ever heard about it in words, but this is my first time actually seeing it……."
Juhyeok had never known Sanghyeon could make an expression like that.
'That's Yu Sanghyeon?'
He was simply shooting a bow within a game, yet even the viewer felt as if they were being hunted.
It was as if, in the silence that descended like fog, even the blowing wind had stopped to wait.
"Huh……? But why isn't he shooting?"
"……?"
But Sanghyeon suddenly released the bowstring and lowered his bow.
"Could it be that his right hand issue has a mental impact as well?"
Juhyeok clenched his lips. The store owner beside him added a word.
"I've seen scenes like that at the Olympics too. It happens occasionally. Of course, it's not a good sight. But it's not an unusual thing either."
"……Ah. Right."
"He must be too nervous."
Juhyeok remembered too. In the past, one of the Olympic archers had lowered their bow to rest for a moment after nocking an arrow all the way.
The tension and pressure of a match were hard to endure even for professionals.
'That guy, nervous?'
Yu Sanghyeon being nervous in front of a mere virtual reality game. For Juhyeok, who had watched his company life, it was hard to imagine.
The guy who was nothing but nonchalant in everything.
'He really does love it.'
Only then did he truly feel it.
How much Sanghyeon had loved archery, and how much he had longed for it.
That he loved archery could be felt from his every movement, expression, and even his breathing.
He couldn't help but be nervous.
It must feel like seeing his first love again after a very long time.
'Was money just an excuse?'
It didn't seem like Sanghyeon wanted to earn money by playing the game. It seemed like he was using that as an excuse to shoot a bow again.
To break free from the stifling company life and shoot a bow on a vast plain.
'His grandmother passed away recently…….'
The only reason Sanghyeon had been working at the company was because of his grandmother, and her funeral was about a year ago. Sanghyeon was now letting go of that burden and doing what he wanted to do.
'What he wants to do…….'
Even though it wasn't his own life, Juhyeok's heart raced. What did it feel like to do what you wanted to do? And to become the best in that field.
It was something that had never happened in Juhyeok's life.
"Oh. He's drawing again."
The store owner patted Juhyeok's shoulder and said.
"Ooh……."
There was only enough time to utter 'Ooh…….'
Thwang!
To the point where he wanted to complain about how it was possible, Sanghyeon shot the bow as smoothly as flowing water.
"!"
Even to Juhyeok, who knew nothing, his archery was clearly different.
"T-This is insane!?"
The store owner, who was watching together, also exclaimed in admiration.
Even before the arrow arrived. The moment Sanghyeon shot, everyone could already tell.
Thwack!
That the arrow would pierce the dead center of the target.
"Wow!"
"What the, that guy? Th-That's different from the archery I know too!"
The archery that ordinary people know is the best of the best. Unless it's the Olympics, ordinary people have no chance to watch archery.
But Yu Sanghyeon was a cut above even that. Even though they knew nothing, it certainly appeared so.
Just as Kim Yuna's double axel was far more elegant than other skaters' ambiguous triple axels.
Yu Sanghyeon, his archery had an extra layer.
Thwang!
Another shot was fired.
As if it were only natural, the arrow hit the dead center again.
As if it were drawn into that very spot riding the wind, as if it had been connected there all along.
Thwack!
Three consecutive shots recorded 10 points.
Even then, Sanghyeon didn't stop. In an instant, he fired two more shots.
Thwang! Thwang!
From then on, it almost felt pitiful for the target.
[10 points!]
[10 points!]
The resounding voices crying out perfect scores somehow felt deflating. There was no tension whatsoever.
Sanghyeon shot the bow, and the arrow simply went into the dead center of the target.
The saying that something is as easy as flipping your palm—perhaps that phrase was coined after watching Sanghyeon shoot a bow. It was enough to evoke such absurd thoughts.
"……Hyung, didn't you say there's a disconnect from reality?"
"Uh, yeah……. There are quite a lot of players who can't adapt, but this guy is different. Usually, people struggle at first and then get better later. And this guy……."
The store owner scratched his head.
"I don't know anything about archery, you know. But isn't this guy a bit different? It just feels like he's on a whole different track. Is that really the archery we know……?"
Only then did Juhyeok reveal that Sanghyeon was actually the youngest gold medalist in the national championship in our country's history.
"……The youngest?"
"Yes. He told you himself while drinking."
"If it's the national championship, isn't that practically the youngest world champion?"
"That was what was going to happen, probably."
"No kidding……. When you reach that level, it must look different even to ordinary people's eyes……."
At that moment, thunderous cheers erupted from the monitor.
-Uwaaaaaaah!
-All 10 points! Every single one has hit the dead center of the target! What is this!?
-T-This can't be, I can't believe it!
-He's even set the shortest shooting time record! This is impossible!
Sanghyeon buried every provided arrow into the dead center of the target and ended the game.
Hisss…….
The capsule lid slowly rose with the sound of air releasing.
Sanghyeon would step out magnificently with a smile, or so they thought. But Sanghyeon didn't come out.
"Why isn't he coming out?"
Juhyeok approached Sanghyeon, thinking 'Is he stuck not knowing how to get out again?'
But when Juhyeok peered inside the capsule, he couldn't help but freeze.
"Hey. Do you not know how to get out……."
Sanghyeon was crying.
He was bawling his eyes out, his face covered in tears.
As if pouring out ten years' worth of tears from the time he hadn't been able to hold a bow.