#sliceoflifefiction

“Now, I guess no one knows the answer for this question?”

Her brain was bouncing—jumping back and forth, racing. She should know it. She does know it.

The motor neurons in her brain fired, muscles tensing faster than lightning, and her hand shot up—ready. Not to hit a buzzer, just to catch attention.

“Alright. Seems like I was wrong. So what’s the answer?”

This is her chance. Her brain shifted into overdrive, like an F1 engine. Her mouth struggled to keep up. She would get it right this time.

“The answer is…”

Oops. Not correct.

A tiny blunder, yet to her mind it felt catastrophic—unacceptable.

Screaming furiously, her Brain radiated heat from every synapse. She could do nothing.

She whispered, “Peace out”, and sat down as quickly as she had risen.

“I guess I was wrong and right. Nobody knows the answer,” the teacher said, continuing with the questioning.

Leaning over to her Brain, her heart said, “Well, that’s another lesson you’ve got to learn. Calm down, stop overthinking, and maybe… admit you don’t know everything for once.”

Her Brain groaned.

When you play a game, you collect gold coins. So many of them.

Realistically, gold should have weight. Carry enough of it, and you should slow down. Your pockets should fill up. At some point, you shouldn’t be able to move.

But games almost never do that.

No matter how much gold you carry, your character runs just the same. No warning appears. No burden is added.

So I like to imagine this instead.

Every time you pick up a coin, it’s quietly transported somewhere else— stacked neatly inside a vault at the town’s bank.

The game lets you keep moving. It takes the weight away and stores it for you, safely out of sight.

Maybe that’s another kindness of the system. Letting you have the reward without making you carry its weight.

And maybe that’s why we can keep going— because some things are held for us, somewhere we don’t have to think about until we’re ready.

When you play a game, you end up collecting a lot of junk items. Useless things. Scrap.

They drop because something has to drop. Every monster needs to leave something behind, even if it has no real value.

So the world fills with items you don’t need— cracked parts, torn cloth, broken pieces of nothing in particular.

Most of the time, you don’t even look at them. You pick them up automatically, sell them, discard them, forget they ever existed.

But I sometimes wonder. What if life is doing the same thing?

Small rewards that don’t feel rewarding. Moments that seem pointless. Things you gather just because you survived something.

Maybe they’re not meant to be useful. Maybe they’re just proof that you made it through another fight.

When you start a game, you’re a newbie. The system gives you a kind of protection— a buff that lets you wander the world safely until you learn how things work.

You don’t get punished right away. You’re allowed to make mistakes. The world feels a little gentler then.

I sometimes think about how nice it would be if life worked the same way.

A brief period where the world holds back, where damage is reduced, where you’re given time to learn before everything starts to hurt.

Not forever. Just long enough to understand where you are and how to keep going.

What if games advanced far enough that, when we entered them, our bodies became beautiful again? What if we were young there—our faces smoother, our skin clearer, our bodies lighter than they are now?

Of course, it would all be fake. Only true inside a virtual world.

But even so, wouldn’t it be nice?

Just for a little while, to forget this aging body, to forget how heavy and worn down real life feels.

Even if it’s only an illusion, even if it disappears the moment we log out, there’s something comforting about the idea.

A place where time loosens its grip, and we’re allowed to be beautiful again— just for a moment.

Disclosure All images, videos, and music used in this work were created using AI.

In Korea, many housewives in their 50s and older love trot music. It’s easy to sing along to, comforting, and doesn’t require special preparation. You can enjoy it anywhere, even if your rhythm is off or the lyrics change a little.

That’s why it feels familiar and safe to them.

I started wondering— what if a trot singer like that promoted an online game?

Would it open a new world for them?

That simple question became the beginning of this story.

In Korea, handsome male celebrities are certainly popular.

But among middle-aged women, singers with a warm, gentle image— someone who seems kind, respectful, and devoted to family— often become even more beloved.

A trot singer who feels reliable and sincere naturally wins their hearts.