Chapter Text
Munich in late December is always gripped by a bone-chilling cold during both day and night. Far from the city center, the building blocks of the Olympia-Schiessanlage complex stretch out under a hazy, leaden sky, appearing modern yet carrying the lingering air of a golden era. Covered in a thin veil of ice, the vast parking lot sits desolate and entirely detached from the frantic pace of everyday life.
Chou Tzuyu pushed the front doors open, an aluminum gun case in one hand, while the other clung to a takeaway tea for a fleeting bit of warmth. At that hour, the shooting range remained mostly empty. Walking beneath the quiet hum of ceiling heaters, she passed the reception desk, offering the old security guard a familiar nod and a murmured "Morgen."
Halting at shooting bay number 08, she prepared her equipment with a slow, deliberate rhythm, carrying the lazy lethargy of winter. Shedding her bulky puffer jacket to reveal a thin fleece shirt, Tzuyu donned her shooting suit, a heavy and stiff canvas armor. As always, an unconscious frown touched her face when the collar's leather trim grazed her sensitive neck. A minor sting, perhaps, but a deeply ingrained habit. To her, that unwieldy gear was nothing less than a personal office uniform.
Tzuyu leisurely assembled the Walther LG400 rifle. Visible on her long, slender hands, faint calluses across the index finger and the web of her thumb stood as a silent testament to tens of thousands of hours pulling the trigger. She raised the rifle in one fluid motion, the stock finding its home against her shoulder. With one eye narrowed, she let her instincts take over; the iron sights aligned with the distant target as naturally as breathing.
Three consecutive warm-up shots tore through the silence. The electronic screen blinked with the returns: 10.2, 10.5, and 9.8.
Tzuyu lowered the gun with a soft click of her tongue. That out-of-place 9.8 was a small ripple disturbing her perfection. A slight crack of the neck to both sides, a deep, steadying breath, and the rifle was raised once more. That time, the world narrowed down to a single point of focus.
The practice session dragged on in a tedious, repetitive rhythm. After every twenty shots or so, she rested her eyes by removing the blinders. With a sip of the lukewarm tea, her gaze wandered toward the small window high above, wondering if the snow had started to fall.
By half-past nine, a familiar dull ache crept into her right wrist. The nearly five-kilogram weight of the rifle was unforgiving on muscles and ligaments, especially when standing motionless for hours. With a quiet sigh, Tzuyu packed the weapon away. Rummaging through her backpack for Arnica gel, she adeptly massaged a thin layer into the crease of her wrist before wrapping it in blue Kinesio tape. The one-handed application made the job look messy, almost like a light cast. A fleece sleeve was pulled down to hide the tape as she finished packing. At that moment, the shooter’s calm mind had moved on from bullseye scores to a far more pressing concern: whether the Olympic Village would serve grilled chicken for lunch or subject her to another day of pasta and tomato sauce.
If the morning exhausted a shooter's concentration with barrages of bullets, the afternoon tortured them with physical weight. Many people mistakenly believed that shooting was a sweat-free sport, but to shoulder a heavy rifle and stand as still as a stone statue for two hours straight, the core muscles and legs had to be forged as solid as concrete pillars.
On the faded, dull blue yoga mat, Tzuyu was tightening her abdominal muscles in a plank position. Beads of sweat dotted her skin, sliding down the bridge of her nose before throwing themselves onto the mat. Dressed simply in a frayed sports t-shirt and her favorite black shorts, she seemed to detach herself from the noisy world around her. Ignoring the harsh clanking of weights from the track and field athletes and the booming bass echoing from the central speakers, she didn't even need noise-canceling headphones. All of her focus was pinned on the brightly lit phone screen on the floor, where the numbers patiently counted down: 00:45... 00:44...
Her right arm began to tremble slightly. The aching pain radiating from the crease of her elbow and wrist signaled that her muscles were overloading. Slightly gritting her teeth, she tightened her core, stubbornly keeping her spine perfectly straight for the final ten seconds.
When the timer rang, Tzuyu instantly relaxed her entire body, collapsing onto the sweat-soaked mat and letting out a heavy sigh. Wiping the sweat dripping from her forehead with the back of her hand, the shooter frowned and muttered to herself. Tomorrow, she had to stuff her stomach with a massive portion of salmon to reclaim the calories that had just been drained out of her.
Her eyes aimlessly stared at the gym's high ceiling, and a slightly resentful question mark unconsciously popped into her head: "Where did Jeongyeon go?" According to the schedule, her strict coach should have appeared with a bottle of electrolyte water and a few complaints about her overtraining again, but today, that familiar corner of the room remained empty. Before she could figure out the answer herself, a rather strong perfume scent rushed straight into her nose.
"Coach Yoo was busy in a meeting with the coaching staff. And before you plan on sneaking back to your room to poorly slap on those cheap bandages, get on the treatment bed right now."
Tzuyu let out a soft groan in her throat and looked up. Minatozaki Sana was standing with her arms crossed in front of her, wearing a suit paired with an elegant cream-colored blazer. The clipboard in her hand swung back and forth impatiently.
Knowing she couldn't argue, the shooter sullenly dragged her feet to curtain number 04 and obediently held out her right arm. The moment Sana’s fingers, carrying a decisive force, pressed along the crease of her wrist, an excruciating pain shot all the way up to her shoulder, making Tzuyu instinctively pull her arm back, her eyebrows knitting tightly.
"Oh, so you do feel pain?" Sana scoffed coldly, pulling the girl's arm back without mercy, skillfully applying a layer of freezing ultrasound gel onto the reddened skin. "Four thousand trigger pulls in a month. Chou Tzuyu, do you plan to exchange a gold medal for this mangled mess of ligaments?"
"I still have it under control," Tzuyu replied quietly, her eyes darting over to the ultrasound monitor where wavy lines were dancing.
"Under control by biting your tongue and enduring it?" Sana moved the ultrasound probe in circular motions over her wrist, her voice softening slightly but remaining full of strictness. "The human body is not a gun, Tzuyu. If a gun breaks, you can replace the stock; if the firing pin snaps, you can lathe a new one. But your muscles need to breathe. Look at your resting heart rate; it's strung as tight as a bowstring."
Sana used a clean cotton towel to meticulously wipe the gel off Tzuyu's arm, then began the muscle-relaxing massage. Under the older girl's magical hands, the stiffness in her arm was gradually soothed, replaced by a pleasant warmth seeping in.
"Rest tonight. No guns, no tactics." Sana applied a specialized medical patch to her arm, gently patting the back of her hand in consolation. "There's a Christmas market at Marienplatz square these days. Go out and get some fresh air. Who knows, if your head is less grumpy, your hands might be less stiff."
Tzuyu looked at the smooth patch on her wrist, muttered a tiny "Thank you," and grabbed her backpack to stand up. She arrived back at her room in the Olympic Village at three in the afternoon. The hot steam from the shower seemed to have washed away some of the coldness from the shooting range that morning. Tzuyu's tall frame was now swallowed up by a baggy ash-gray sweatpants set, which she always told herself was the most comfortable "uniform" in the world, one she always threw on whenever she returned to her own territory. Her hair, having only been roughly towel-dried and still carrying some moisture, was hastily tied up into a bun on top of her head.
Strolling over to the window, she pulled down the dark shades to block out the harsh streaks of the afternoon sun, then dropped herself onto the fluffy rug in the middle of the room. It was time for the most meditative ritual of the day: gun maintenance.
The aluminum alloy case was opened, revealing the glossy black rifle lying neatly amidst the foam padding. Tzuyu laid out around her a clean microfiber cloth, a bore cleaning pull-through cord, specialized cotton pellets, and a bottle of lubricating oil. Her long, slender fingers deftly detached the counterweight and loosened the cheek rest with such proficiency that she wouldn't make a mistake even with her eyes closed. Before long, the distinctively pungent and heavy smell of machine oil had seeped into every corner of the air.
While diligently threading the pull cord, carrying a pure white cotton pellet through the barrel to clear out any lead residue, Tzuyu reached out and randomly played a podcast episode on Spotify to fill the empty space. It wasn't some profound chamber symphony or fiery motivational speech; the steady sound that echoed out was a storytelling channel about the history of pastries in Europe.
Just as the tip of the screwdriver tightened the positioning screw of the gunstock, a familiar sharp pain shot up from her right wrist again. Tzuyu frowned slightly and put the screwdriver down. Her fingers lightly traced the edge of the specialized medical patch that Doctor Minatozaki had personally applied that afternoon, feeling the aching sting beneath the skin. She had ordered a ban on firearms, yet Tzuyu had dragged it out to disassemble it just because of a hard-to-break habit.
"I'm definitely going to have to listen to Sana nagging again tomorrow," she muttered, picturing the grimacing face and the menacing, hands-on-hips stance of her physical therapist if she found out her patient hadn't been resting obediently. That tiny, somewhat guilty voice was quickly drowned out by the melodious voice of the podcast host, who was endlessly talking about the legendary origins of croissants.
The Olympic Village dining hall in the evening was always buzzing with chatter and laughter. Tzuyu carried her tray of standard-issue food: a slightly dry piece of pan-seared chicken breast, a portion of unsalted boiled broccoli, and a bowl of pumpkin soup. She chose a small table in a hidden corner near the window, eating while scrolling through some sports news on her phone, occasionally pausing to watch a funny video of silly dogs chasing after a ball.
Right at that moment, a fully loaded food tray, standing in stark contrast to Tzuyu's frugal meal, was set down on the table opposite her. She didn't even need to look up to know who it was. Only Hirai Momo had the ability to carry a miniature feast from the serving counter all the way here without dropping a single grain of salt.
"Tzuyu, if you aren't going to eat that broccoli, let me take care of it for you. Leaving it all wilted like that looks so pitiful."
Momo said this while swiftly snatching Tzuyu's bright green broccoli, chewing it voraciously with a look of pure satisfaction, as if it were a rare delicacy. She was still wearing the track and field team's windbreaker, but her messy hair from practice had been brushed and pinned back with a small, dainty peach-colored bow.
"Aren't you going to eat more? I thought the dining hall had that braised pork trotter dish you love today?" Tzuyu looked in surprise at the older girl's speed in clearing the tray, which looked like a movie on fast-forward.
"I have to go, it's urgent!" Momo replied while trying to swallow the last bite of potato, her eyes glued to her wristwatch. "Mina just texted; she's waiting for me at Marienplatz. There's a night market today, and we're planning to go drink hot chocolate and take pictures with the Christmas tree."
Tzuyu could hardly believe what she was hearing. How come the Japanese shooter who often practiced near her had a lover without her knowing? More importantly, why would someone who seemed as calm as her date someone as loud as Momo?
Momo stood up, her tray wiped so clean it barely needed washing. Before leaving, she didn't forget to wink, her voice still slightly muffled from eating too fast:
"Don't just sit here stubbornly with this pile of broccoli forever. It's starting to snow, so go outside and breathe in a little bit of 'human life.' Who knows, you might meet someone who makes you willing to give up a whole portion of pork trotters just to run off and see them, like me!"
Momo's silhouette quickly disappeared behind the doors, taking with her that boisterous energy and her signature cherry blossom scent.
An athlete's life, once stripped of the competition uniform and the blinding glory of the shooting podium, was essentially just a loop of discipline. Normally, Tzuyu would clear her tray, trudge back to her room, and let her physically exhausted body sink into a dreamless sleep. But seeing Momo's happy demeanor earlier, a sudden wave of restlessness washed over her. Looking at the path branching off toward the dormitories, the shooter took a deep breath and made a decision. Returning to her room, she opened her wardrobe, hesitated for a moment, and then picked out a long black puffer jacket, slipped her feet into low-cut boots, and wrapped a thick, bulky wool scarf that covered half her face.
The moment she stepped through the main lobby doors, the biting cold of the winter night rushed in, piercing straight into her lungs and making her shiver slightly; her breath turned into white plumes of smoke that quickly dissolved in the air. But this time, she felt relieved. Tzuyu shoved her hands deep into her pockets and walked straight toward the main gate, where the sallow streetlights cast their glow onto the slick pavement dotted with thin patches of ice. Tonight, she absolutely had to see what was so interesting about Marienplatz square that everyone had been telling her to go try it out all day.
The U3 subway train glided through the night, carrying the steady chug-chug sound clashing against the tracks. Tzuyu sat huddled in the last row of the carriage, looking like a solid black mass swallowed up amidst the vibrant colors of the holiday advertising posters. Outside the glass window, Munich's negative two-degree cold was freezing every tree branch, but the heating system inside the train blew out a suffocatingly dry heat. That contrast made her head spin slightly. She pulled her wool scarf a little higher.
The world around her was operating on an entirely alien orbit. A group of German teenagers wearing bright red scarves were laughing boisterously, their arms full of Christmas gifts wrapped in glittering paper. Right opposite, a couple was snuggled up together, sharing a single pair of gloves. The chaotic noise, the heat from human breaths, and the faint smell of beer made an indescribable nausea rise in Tzuyu's chest. Everything was too messy, too spontaneous, and out of control for someone who only placed her faith in margins of error measured in millimeters.
When the automated voice rang out announcing the Marienplatz station, Tzuyu stood up. As soon as she stepped above ground, she was instantly submerged in a hurricane of sound and color. Festive Christmas music blared from loudspeakers, the clinking of glass mugs from the mulled wine stalls mingled with the crunch of boots stepping on fresh snow. The flashing yellow lights from hundreds of wooden booths felt like needles of light piercing straight into her retinas, eyes far too accustomed to freezing all movement to focus on a single, static bullseye.
A drunk man reeking of beer suddenly bumped hard into Tzuyu's shoulder. Instead of tumbling over, her body reacted naturally with an athlete's instinct: her feet planted firmly into the snow, her core tightened to neutralize the impact, making her stand as solid as a pillar amidst the bustling crowd. But that very stability made the collision feel even more brutal to her. Without a single word of apology, the man simply brushed past.
Amidst the sea of strangers chatting and laughing by her ears, a fleeting pang of regret twisted in her chest. Why had she impulsively left her room to throw herself into this mess?
Unconsciously, Tzuyu's eyes darted through the crowd. Momo and Mina were here too. Somewhere among these thousands of people was someone who brought a familiar, noisy yet warm presence. She stood on her tiptoes slightly, her gaze sweeping past the steaming Glühwein stalls, instinctively searching for a dainty peach-colored bow or listening for a familiar burst of hearty laughter. But Marienplatz was too vast, and miracles didn't fall as easily as the snowflakes drifting in the air.
Realizing the absurdity of clinging to such a hopeless probability, Tzuyu gently bit her lip. She buried her chin deep into her thick wool scarf and trudged on. That was until a small shape sitting in the hidden corner of a nearby wooden stall caught her focus. Nestled among dozens of intricate ornaments was a wooden keychain carved into the shape of a small dog with soft, floppy ears. Its shape and gentle expression looked exactly like the rescue dog waiting for her back home.
"I'll take this," Tzuyu cleared her throat softly, simultaneously pulling a credit card from her pocket.
The Bavarian vendor, sporting a thick bushy beard, blinked at the card and vehemently shook his head. He boomed in heavily nasal German: "Nur Bargeld, Fräulein!" (Cash only!)
Tzuyu frowned slightly, her breathing starting to lose its rhythm. "Sorry," she tried to keep her voice calm, articulating each word clearly. "I don't have cash. Can I use a card? Or phone?"
The man continued to wave his hand decisively. The line of people behind her began to swell, impatient whispers echoing along with breaths condensing into white smoke. Tzuyu hated being the center of attention. The suffocation pounding against her eardrums made her feel like she couldn't breathe. She was about to turn and walk away when a scent suddenly wafted past her nose.
"Fünf Euro, richtig? Ich bezahle für sie." (Five Euros, right? I'll pay for her).
Tzuyu startled slightly and turned around. Standing right beside her was a woman in a crisp, wrinkle-free camel coat, her round wire-rimmed glasses slightly fogged up from the cold. One hand was cupping a steaming mug of Glühwein, while the other deftly placed some shiny coins onto the wooden counter.
Along with the warmth radiating from the stranger, Tzuyu's sharp sense of smell caught an incredibly pleasant blend: the warm, spicy scent of cinnamon and star anise from the mulled wine, intertwined with the freezing mist of the Munich winter night clinging to the coat collar. Faintly beneath it all was the crisp, clean scent of fabric softener belonging to someone with an extremely disciplined lifestyle.
Taking the keychain from the vendor, the stranger turned to Tzuyu. Her monolid eyes curved into a smile, chasing away some of the square's biting cold.
"At Bavarian Christmas markets, they aren't big fans of technology. Most of them refuse to swipe cards." The woman switched to English smoothly, holding the puppy keychain out to Tzuyu. "Here you go."
Tzuyu hesitated before reaching out. As she took the tiny object, her freezing fingertips accidentally brushed against the lingering warmth on the other woman's hand, creating an indescribably tingling sensation. "Thank you. I will... pay you back. Do you have... PayPal?"
"It's just 5 Euros!" The woman waved it off, her eyes behind the thin frames crinkling playfully. "Tell you what, I'm Kim Dahyun. If you really want to pay me back, just buy me a pretzel next time we meet. Deal?"
Without waiting for Tzuyu to react, Dahyun winked and then spun around, slipping into the bustling crowd. Her camel-coated silhouette wove through the wooden stalls, heading straight toward a girl in a red scarf who was holding two servings of grilled sausage and calling out from afar. The way they disappeared was so fast that Tzuyu thought the woman was merely an illusion born from the Glühwein fumes in the air. She stood rooted to the spot in the snow-covered square, the wooden keychain seemingly still holding onto a faint trace of warmth. She pressed her lips together, taking a few seconds for her central nervous system to fully digest the chain of events that had just unfolded. Perhaps tonight, the Munich cold wasn't so hateful after all.
The Olympiazentrum subway station was already deserted by this time. On her walk from the train station back to the dormitories, Tzuyu's footsteps suddenly halted in front of a tiny bakery stall illuminated by sallow yellow lights, packing up to close. She stood rooted outside the glass window, staring intently at the last tray of pastries on the shelf. In her head, dozens of rules regarding an athlete's nutritional regimen were screaming: No empty carbs at night. No excess salt causing water retention. No foods that spike blood sugar levels.
But fifteen minutes later, Tzuyu pushed the door open and stepped into her accommodation with a brown kraft paper bag radiating a cozy heat in her hand. Returning silence to her ears, she shrugged off her heavy puffer jacket, tossed it aside, and walked over to the long table set in the middle of the room. The table's surface was completely bare and wiped sparkling clean, except for where the aluminum alloy case containing her specialized, multi-thousand-dollar rifle reigned.
Tzuyu reached into her coat pocket and carefully placed the wooden dog keychain onto the table, right next to the edge of the aluminum case. Then, she pulled an object out of the kraft paper bag that completely clashed with the room's atmosphere: a slightly charred pretzel sprinkled with large, coarse salt grains.
Tzuyu pulled out a chair and sat down, resting her chin on her hand as she stared at the two cheap items sitting proudly next to the expensive gun case. Even though she knew perfectly well that the probability of running into a stranger again in a city of one and a half million people was even lower than her shooting a perfect ten bullseye with her eyes closed. But Tzuyu had always been someone who absolutely hated owing favors. Or perhaps... deep down, she was clinging to the silliest excuse to rationalize why her heart had just skipped a few beats for a complete stranger.
Tzuyu's finger, with a layer of calluses on the second joint, lightly traced the edge of the paper pastry bag. Her deep gaze drifted toward the window, where the Munich night sky was glowing brightly from the white snow. The cold no longer enveloped her. The empty room, usually filled with the scent of metal and gun oil, now seemed to be invaded by the lingering remnants of cinnamon and star anise, and a radiant smile hidden behind fogged-up lenses.
"Kim... Dahyun."
Tzuyu silently repeated that name to herself, pronouncing each syllable slowly, tenderly, and with the exact precision she used when aiming her gun.
The salty taste of the coarse salt grains on the pretzel seemed to still linger on the tip of her tongue, dragging along the belated regret of an athlete who had just broken her nutritional rules at midnight. Tzuyu let out a long sigh, slid herself under the thick quilt, grabbed her phone, and hesitantly typed each letter into Instagram's search bar: Kim Dahyun.
But ironically enough, the vast online world was nothing like a shooting target with a pre-defined bullseye. The screen displayed hundreds of accounts bearing that common name. From high school girls and office workers to completely private accounts, or ones with just a blurry cluster of flowers as a profile picture. After scrolling through the feed for a while longer, Tzuyu's eyebrows furrowed slightly. Being someone completely clueless about social media and lacking patience for uncontrollable variables, she turned off the screen and tossed the phone onto the empty half of the bed next to her, sporting the dejected look of a large puppy whose toy had just been confiscated.
To soothe her taut nerves, Tzuyu reached out and grabbed the phone once again, put on her earbuds, and pressed play to finish the podcast episode she had left off earlier that afternoon. She squeezed her eyes shut. The warm, steady voice of the host, murmuring tales of sixteenth-century bakers, gradually guided her heart rate back to its familiar, relaxed rhythm. Drowsiness began to wash over her, covering her mind in a soothing layer of fog.
Right up until the very last minutes, as the background music transitioned into a melodious outro tune, the host's voice rang out clearly once more: "...And to wrap up today's episode, we would like to extend a special thanks to our academic advisor, PhD candidate Kim Dahyun in European Anthropology from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich..."
In the darkness, Tzuyu's eyes suddenly flew open. The newly budding drowsiness vanished in an instant, giving way to the sharp alertness of a shooter who had just heard the starting whistle. She hastily sat up, frantically searching for the phone glowing faintly amidst the tangle of blankets and pillows. Her fingers nimbly rewound that audio segment, listening to it three times in a row to make sure her hearing wasn't playing tricks on her.
Once certain she hadn't misheard, Tzuyu threw off the quilt and walked over to the long table set in the middle of the room. The streetlight filtering through the crack in the curtains clearly illuminated the wooden puppy keychain lying silently next to the cold aluminum case. For the very first time since setting foot in Munich, the lips of the typically stern-faced shooter unconsciously curled upward into a smile.