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Contrary to the desperate pleas of my inner self, my voice and attitude remained as sharp as a person with a lifelong grudge. I had no idea how to handle the wave of tension crashing over me. It was maddening. I wasn’t this bad in the past, but after years of just watching him from afar without actually speaking, the condition had worsened.
I’m doomed. While I was mentally tearing my hair out, Eun-hyeok’s nonchalant voice reached me.
“Then, do you want to do it with me?”
“No.”
Ah… wait… stop… you @#$[&!%[!^@$#!*
Inside, I was weeping. Really, Eun-hyeok? Then I’ll solve all the problems, organize the reports, submit them, and even do the presentation if I have to! My heart was screaming, but my mouth was a traitor. Of course, saying that working with a genius like Na Eun-hyeok wasn’t intimidating would be a lie, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to do it.
“Ah… I guess you already have someone else in mind.”
Seeing Eun-hyeok looking slightly flustered, I hurriedly tried to tack on an excuse. I had to explain this, even if it killed me.
“It… it was just sudden.”
Fck, what is wrong with my tone…*
I wanted to cry. The more I wanted to cry, the more my face contorted, making me look like a furious guardian deity. My face was bright red, which only completed the look. The tragedy of the gap between my ideals and reality was peak fiction.
“Sorry. Was it too sudden?”
“Yeah.”
Honesty is a sin. I didn’t need to spit out my truth that bluntly. Besides, that wasn’t even my actual truth…
Every time Na Eun-hyeok tossed a word my way, my mental state stiffened like a wooden puppet. Like a broken doll, my words were chewed up and my true feelings were wrapped in a bizarre package. This was exactly why I tried not to talk to him. Eun-hyeok actually spoke to me first for once, and I ruined it. If there was a hole nearby, I would have crawled into it.
Gyu-tae and Seong-jin, who had been exchanging looks beside me, grabbed my arms from both sides.
“Eun-hyeok-ah. Sorry, but we have to go eat. If you’re done talking, can we head out?”
“Sure. Sorry for holding you up.”
No! You don’t have to be sorry! Guys, let go of me! Let me clear up this misunderstanding!
My heart was burning in a complex mess, but my locked lips and pounding heart worked in total opposition to my intent. My expression grew stonier; my words refused to come. Gyu-tae, seemingly convinced I was uncomfortable, dragged me away with a grim look on his face.
I didn’t even know how my legs were moving. As I was being hauled away like a creaking machine, Eun-hyeok’s voice trailed after me.
“Oh, by the way, Eonha. Can I ask one more thing?”
Come to think of it, this voice… it sounds a bit like that Sephiroth guy…
Because I wasn’t looking at his face, the most sacrilegious thoughts started to form. Your mental state is really suffering, Eonha. How could I compare an ethical person like Na Eun-hyeok to a piece of human trash like Sephiroth? If Eun-hyeok found out, he’d have every right to sue me for defamation.
“Do you… play games?”
“No.”
Chae Eonha remained a malfunctioning robot until the very end.
My first proper conversation with Na Eun-hyeok in nearly two years ended in a total disaster because I couldn’t produce a single normal reaction.
The line at the Ag-Tech cafeteria was already beyond capacity. Seong-jin, who had a class next, agonized for five minutes before declaring a self-imposed “cancellation.” Economics professors, who valued efficiency, often didn’t even take attendance. Their philosophy was that it was wise to choose the path with the lower opportunity cost. They were truly the final bosses of economics psychopaths.
Gyu-tae was the one who most wanted the salmon steak and pasta on the third floor. Normally, he’d be fidgeting and chanting about the steak running out every ten seconds like a rapper. But today, Gyu-tae just sighed as he looked at me, then sighed again.
“Hey, Eonha. Do you… hate Na Eun-hyeok?”
After sighing for ages, Gyu-tae lowered his voice to ask. Standing in the long line on the stairs, I wondered what he was thinking, and it turned out he was analyzing my relationship with Eun-hyeok. The conclusion was miserable. I answered with tears in my eyes.
“Did it look like that…?”
“It didn’t just look like it, it was obvious! Did something happen? Is he dating your crush or something?”
“It’s not that…”
It’s not that, it’s that Na Eun-hyeok IS my crush…
I couldn’t possibly say that out loud. I just wanted to die. Even the warm spring sunlight felt resentful. If it were mid-winter, I could have blamed my frozen expression on the cold.
No you couldn’t have, Eonha…
“Na Eun-hyeok is weird too. He must have seen you were uncomfortable, so why was he so tactless about holding you back?”
“Huh? No, it wasn’t that bad.”
“What do you mean ‘no’? You looked like you were about to throw up from sheer misery. If he didn’t notice what even I noticed, that’s on him.”
I appreciate the support, but you’ve got it all wrong too…
Regardless, the fact that even the normally thoughtless Gyu-tae was talking like this meant my attitude was absolute garbage. Every word was a reminder of how much of an idiot I was.
As I tried to bang my head against the wall, Seong-jin stopped me. He sighed quietly and patted my shoulder.
“Eonha, I understand how you feel.”
“You don’t understand anything…” I muttered bitterly.
It had been like this since I was a kid. I got so nervous in front of people I liked that I didn’t feel like myself. My attitude became curt; my answers became short. I’d been studying how to control my freezing facial expressions for years, but it never went the way I wanted.
“But you didn’t get along badly with him when you were a freshman.”
Gyu-tae, still convinced I hated the guy, tilted his head. He was talking about our first year. Back then, I didn’t like him this much, and since we ran into each other in the lounge often, I was less tense. But technically, it wasn’t that different from now.
I couldn’t explain that, though. I shook my head, chewing on my sorrow.
“Stop talking about Na Eun-hyeok. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Sure. Got it.”
Seong-jin nodded, catching the hint. Gyu-tae also chose to change the subject naturally rather than pry further.
“You’re going to the capsule room today, right?”
“Today… I have to.”
Today was the day I promised to clear the Hidden Quest with Sephiroth. Even without the promise, the quest time limit probably only had 24 hours left, so I had to log in and finish it as soon as possible.
Gyu-tae grinned, satisfied with my answer.
“Level up quickly, Eonha. Right now, I can’t even carry you, and there’s nothing the guild can do to help.”
“Why are you always so busy wandering around? You look like the busiest person in the game.”
“This guy? He’s busy being a ‘Net-kama,’” Seong-jin chimed in.
“Please use the more refined term: ‘fleece-the-suckers,’” Gyu-tae corrected.
“How is that refined…?”
I let out a faint laugh at Gyu-tae’s nonsense. Being with my friends made me forget my stupid behavior from earlier, bit by bit.
Since things with Na Eun-hyeok seemed to be over before they started, I might as well be good at the game. I didn’t know if life worked on a trade-off principle, but I wanted to succeed at something.
By the way… playing with Sephiroth in this sh*tty mood… nothing bad will happen, right?
“You’re in.”
“Yeah.”
Less than five minutes after I logged in, Sephiroth moved to my location. Perhaps because our two-day trek was burned into everyone’s memory, people were actively avoiding me today.
I liked this part.
While I think Sephiroth’s habit of killing innocents deserves a permanent ban, I honestly enjoyed the secondary benefit. Two days of being swarmed by crowds was more than enough.
“Just got on?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s do the Hidden first. I’ll clear the main quest slowly on my own.”
“You’ll just get surrounded by people again and you won’t be able to handle it.”
Maybe because I’d just spoken with Na Eun-hyeok, Sephiroth’s voice sounded exactly like his today. If I accounted for a slight voice modulation, it was almost identical. Even his manner of speaking started to sound a bit like Eun-hyeok’s.
I’ve gone crazy.
It seemed Na Eun-hyeok had acted like a natural disaster on my psyche. There wasn’t a single corner of my daily life his remnants hadn’t swept through. To think I was seeing reflections of Na Eun-hyeok in Sephiroth. No matter how big the trauma was, this was wrong.
Eun-hyeok, I’m sorry.
As I was mentally apologizing to Eun-hyeok, Sephiroth tilted his head.
“Not going to curse at me?”
“What am I, a neighborhood foul-mouthed granny?”
“You were just quieter than usual.”
“Just… had some things on my mind.”
“What things?”
“Just things.”
I shrugged it off. Sephiroth stared at me intently.
What. What? Why? Like you could ever understand how I feel.
Maybe because I’d fumbled the conversation with Eun-hyeok earlier, I had no energy. It wasn’t even a conversation. Eun-hyeok spoke, and I dug a grave in front of him. My best bet was to not let my sadness show on the outside.
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