“Yohwan! I’ve been discharged from the military service. We should play a game, huh?”

“Is it that time already? And are we even on the same level?”

“Hah, you’ve grown a lot. It seems like only a few days ago that I contained you on an island map, and now you say that we're not on the same level? Come out! Let’s have a match!”

“All right, but what I received that time, you're going to definitely receive a payback.”

Kim Jinsuk – he is the friend that took a decisive role in my becoming a progamer. It’s because he was the friend that taught me Starcraft for the first time. While I was actively working as a progamer, Jinsuk was in the military. He had gone to the military a bit early in comparison to our other friends, and one day I received a phone call. Spending the time only playing games, I kept in touch with my old school friends irregularly, and could not meet with them often. When I thought about seeing a childhood friend after such a long time, I was in high spirits. When I arrived at the agreed location, I could not see Jinsuk. But then a certain guy waved at me. When I looked closely, it was Jinsuk. I was so surprised I could not speak properly. That Jinsuk who used to be so sturdy was now scrawny, and his face looked swollen.

“Are you Jinsuk? You’re him? What happened to your face?”

“They say the unlucky idiot breaks his nose, even when he falls backwards- that’s me. It wasn’t even time for me to be discharged, but they told me to leave. They say it’s leukemia…it seems something went wrong while I was donating blood.”

I could not believe it. Jinsuk with leukemia? That wasn’t a disease one could easily cure. Looking at Jinsuk, it seemed that his hair was going to turn white. Jinsuk kept on asking me to play a game with him, but I was opposed to taking him to a PC bang where the air wasn’t too clean. Looking at Jinsuk, it didn’t seem like it would be fun playing games.

“What do you mean, a game? I haven’t seen you in a while, let’s talk and catch up.”

Jinsuk seemed to understand, and agreed. And so the revenge battle that I had waited for three years would have to be pushed to another day. We could always play later when Jinsuk got healthier. Though it was a difficult disease, he was such a strong friend, and I thought he would fight through it. I wanted to believe it was so.

We met up a few more times after that, but because my schedule was so tight, I could not see him often. My life was hectic with game tournaments, and I could almost never meet anyone other than my family members. I participated in game tournaments whenever I was outside, and had to practice when I was at the living quarters, so my 24-hour schedule was filled with games. There were more people that looked for me, and my cell phone frequently received unknown calls. A lot of the calls were prank calls, so if it was a number that I did not know, I hardly picked it up.

But one day I received a voice mail. It was Jinsuk’s younger brother.

“Yohwan-hyung, it’s me, Jinsup. My brother is at the funeral chapel right now. I looked for you a lot, but I totally could not contact you. If you get this message, come and see my brother go on his way.”

I was so shocked that it seemed I was frozen stiff. I could not believe what I had just heard. ‘Jinsuk is dead, my friend Jinsuk died? It can’t be.’ I ran to the hospital. Even after looking at Jinsuk’s portrait photograph, it did not seem real.

“Yohwan-hyung. Jinsuk-hyung looked for you a lot. He wanted to see you. He said he wanted to see you once more…”

This could not be. Jinsuk had been calling me while he was dying, and I was just spending the time casually practicing and laughing. I could not forgive myself.

Sitting in the funeral chapel and looking at Jinsuk’s photograph, the moments I spent with Jinsuk flashed through my mind. The times when we ran about the alleys, playing cards and marbles; quarreling over a trivial thing when we were a little older; getting into a fist-fight after saying he smelled of fish, because his parents ran a fish store; the cheerful feeling of playing games together during the summer break of 12th grade; and his swollen face when I last saw him. Jinsuk and I shared unforgettable memories.

They said that Jinsuk was receiving cancer treatments, but he wanted to go to the retreat with his church. His church and his family dissuaded him from going, but he was stubborn. At the church retreat, he briefly went into the water, but because his immune system was at a weak state, he could not last for a moment.

The moment I heard that, I became very angry. I wanted to just curse at him. But I felt terrible thinking how much Jinsuk wanted to go there, how he wanted to go play with his friends. He may have for a moment wanted to forget that he was a patient. How could I not know Jinsuk’s desire to play with his friends at the beach. But it could not be this way. If he was to leave this world so easily, what about me. What about me, that I could not even watch over my friend that was leaving.

Letting go of my friend like that, I made a greater effort towards the dream that my friend gave me. I wanted to carry Jinsuk’s portion as well and try harder. And after a year, I drove alone to the cemetery where Jinsuk rested. After asking for directions here and there, I arrived at the gravestone of the person that enabled me to meet my ‘destiny.’

“Jinsuk! I’m here. You like that spot? Thanks to you, I even get the opportunity to come to a cemetery. Did you want to go to heaven that soon? It was fun when we used to play soccer at the field. Do you remember when we went to the Boramae Park swimming pool? It was so fun when I was learning to play the game from you. Hey! Even though I’m a progamer like this, isn’t it strange that I’ve never been able to beat a commoner like you? You just wait. When I see you in heaven later, I’m going to definitely beat you. Just wait. What if I can’t wait until then, and want to see you? You can come whenever you want to see me, right? You’ve given me such a precious dream, but it seems there’s nothing I’ve given you. I’m going to try hard. Because you’ll be watching over me.”

I’ve heard it said that a true friendship is like one’s health. It’s because one cannot understand its true value before losing it. Now that I could not see Jinsuk, I wanted to see him all the more. I missed him all the more. I blamed myself for not being able to spend more time with Jinsuk, and even today the Jinsuk that I used to run around with in the alleys crosses my mind.