Chapter 60: The Gap in Temperature

“I guess. Don’t you go with your girlfriend?”

“I don’t have one….”

“Ah. Because you’re busy studying.”

Coming from anyone else, it might have sounded rude, but Na Eun-hyeok said it quite refreshingly. His tone, voice, and attitude—everything about him was as smooth and clear as a spring breeze.

“You…”

My lips parted. The question stuck in my throat threatened to burst out. Do you have a girlfriend? But I wasn’t the kind of person who could ask such a thing as casually as he did.

“Hm?” Eun-hyeok tilted the end of his right eyebrow.

I stared at his face for a moment before swallowing the question with great effort. I awkwardly threw out a different one instead.

“Do you think the assignment will be hard?”

“Hmm… I’m not sure. I haven’t tried it yet.”

Well, obviously. It was a stupid question. Ugh. I let out a low groan and went back to sucking on my mocha latte. Eun-hyeok, oblivious to my internal struggle, just hummed contentedly.

“Can I contact you if I get stuck while doing it?”

“No, no. I mean, yeah.”

I really needed to fix this habit of reflexively saying “no.” I wanted to bite my tongue. Without thinking, I tapped my lips with my palm. Watching this, Eun-hyeok let out a small laugh. If there were a hole nearby, I would have crawled in and hidden. Heat flared up in my face.

Eun-hyeok kindly pretended not to notice. Today, he was carrying a navy leather clutch. As I watched him fold the assignment paper in half and slide it into the clutch, his voice drifted into my ears.

“Shall we head out then?”

“Ah, yeah.”

What was I doing, just spacing out? In the meantime, Eun-hyeok had finished packing his light belongings and stood waiting for me. Seeing him look like he was about to say “I’ll see you later” made my heart race with urgency. Not yet.

“W-wait. Eun-hyeok-ah. Just a second…”

“Yeah?”

Having stopped him, I hurriedly reached into my bag. My hand caught a stiff piece of paper between my textbook and the bag’s fabric. I pulled it out. A small box, just big enough to hold two slices of cake, sat in my hand.

“This, it’s nothing big, just some baked treats.”

“Hm?”

“J-just… since we’re in the same group, I wanted to say I look forward to working with you….”

I’d overdone it. The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted it. But I had already stopped by that famous little bakery on my way home yesterday and bought a mix of madeleines and canelés. The hand I held out to him was trembling slightly.

While I prayed he wouldn’t realize my true feelings, they were so massive that they kept leaking through the cracks. Like a sneeze, these lumps of emotion kept popping out uninvited—sometimes clumsy, sometimes half-baked. I prayed desperately that he wouldn’t notice the color of these shattered fragments of affection. Losing confidence, my hand started to pull the box back toward me.

Eun-hyeok watched me intently. He let out a small “Hm,” as if weighing something, and then reached out. His warm hand touched mine as I tried to pull away in mid-air. That was the second time today we’d touched.

I knew the heat blooming at my fingertips wasn’t actual physical heat, but the temperature of my own heart. A temperature so hot it could burn, yet one Na Eun-hyeok could never be scorched by. The unbridgeable gap in temperature between us drifted away into the distance along with the cake box.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Eun-hyeok took the box from my hand and smiled as brightly as a flower. Looking at that face, I suddenly felt a sense of futility. Even though he was this close, I still felt like Na Eun-hyeok was miles away. Like the distance between a TV screen and the chair in my room—the distance between us was still just as vast.

“Why are you so out of it today?”

Gyu-tae spoke to me as we walked toward the Capsule Room. If even Han Gyu-tae, who usually has zero intuition, was noticing, I must have really been walking like a ghost. Then again, not a single word of the conversation Seong-jin and Gyu-tae had been having for a while now had registered in my brain.

“Ah, sorry. What did you say?”

“I said we’re doing the 6:6 PVP starting today.”

“Right.”

“I asked Han Gyu-tae why he isn’t doing PVP, and this jerk won’t give me an answer.”

“Ah, it’s personal. Mind your own business.”

Gyu-tae waved his hand dismissively like a handkerchief. Seong-jin slapped the back of that hand with a loud smack.

“Ah, you crazy bastard! Why are you hitting me!”

“Geez, our Gyu-tae sure has a foul mouth.”

“No, you hit me first!”

Bark! Snarl! To anyone else, it looked like a dogfight. It seemed they wouldn’t be satisfied if they didn’t bicker at least once a day. Han Gyu-tae and Park Seong-jin usually got along great, but they always had to have these little spats. My mind was already scattered enough; their bickering only made my head ache. I changed the subject to make them stop.

“Anyway, I wonder if we’ll do well in the 6:6 PVP.”

“True. Eon-ha, didn’t you just reach the level where PVP becomes available?”

“Yeah. I’ve never done it before.”

“Hey, you cleared the Nightmare tutorial. How hard can PVP be? You worry too much.”

Gyu-tae said nonchalantly.

“Besides, you’ve got Sephiroth.”

“That’s true. Is Sephiroth really joining our guild?”

“Uh… apparently.”

I gave a vague answer to Seong-jin’s question. Why? The follow-up question came, but I couldn’t answer. To be honest, I didn’t know either. Why on earth did Sephiroth join our guild? On the internet, there was even a crazy rumor that I was Sephiroth’s girlfriend. It was insane. What kind of woman would be crazy enough to date someone with such a trashy personality? I felt so wronged that I wanted to create an alt account and scream at the top of my lungs that it wasn’t true. If I knew it would actually fix the rumor, I would have rioted like a madman.

“Who can understand what Sephiroth is thinking? Anyway, he said he won’t kill us all, so that’s good enough.”

“Must be nice to be as simple as you, Gyu-tae.”

“Why overcomplicate it? It’s not like Sephiroth is going to give us an extra treat for thinking hard. Maybe he just grew fond of Eon-ha while playing together.”

“What?”

I’d been listening quietly to Seong-jin and Gyu-tae’s conversation until I suddenly snapped. Who grew fond of whom?

“Hey! Anyone else can say that, but not you guys! Fond? What do you mean ‘fond’!”

“But haven’t you been hanging out only with Sephiroth for nearly a week? Except for when we go to help for a bit, you two are always together. If that’s not a date, what is?”

“How is that a date?! It’s a party play!”

“I heard some people meet in Zelpia and start dating, and others are dating and have dates in Zelpia.”

“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?”

Why were there so many people around me who only heard what they wanted to hear? Thinking of Han Gyu-tae and Sephiroth, I ground my teeth. Seong-jin, apparently thinking I looked pitiable, patted me on the shoulder.

[Guild] NinjaBuffPls: Oh, he’s finally here

[Guild] BlueberryWhiskey: Hello.

[Guild] JujiyukLim: Hi~

[Guild] Nago-Rang: Hello!!

The moment I logged in, the guild members’ greetings flooded in. Perhaps because my name had been mentioned several times regarding the PVP participation, their reactions were much softer than before.

[Guild] Nago-Rang: Everyone’s here now!!

[Guild] JujiyukLim: Me, Gorae, Ninja, PpoongPpoong, Blueberry, Sephiroth. That’s six, right?

[Guild] Nago-Rang: When is Ho-ppang unni coming?

[Guild] JujiyukLim: She says she has to stay late for a while because she’s being watched after taking so much leave ㅋㅋㅋ

[Guild] PpoongPpoongLove: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[Guild] OneHitOppa: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Did she finally use up all her leave?

[Guild] JujiyukLim: She says not all of it, but ㅋㅋㅋ who knows.

[Guild] BlueberryWhiskey: So what’s the team composition?

[Guild] BlueberryWhiskey: I don’t know everyone’s classes yet.

[Guild] JujiyukLim: Well, for now, PpoongPpoong is Main Tank, Gorae is Sub-Tank. Melee DPS is you, Ninja, and Sephiroth-nim. I’ll do the healing.

[Guild] Sephiroth: 3 Melee? No Ranged?

I saw the status indicator showing he was logged in, but seeing Sephiroth’s name in the guild chat required mental preparation. A composition of one main tank, one sub-tank, three melee DPS, and one healer did seem a bit risky. We were missing a Mage who could provide explosive burst damage. It was NinjaBuffPls who answered Sephiroth’s skeptical reaction.

[Guild] NinjaBuffPls: No, we have a Ranged DPS.

[Guild] NinjaBuffPls: Ninja.

[Guild] Sephiroth: ? Since when is a Ninja a Ranged DPS?

[Guild] NinjaBuffPls: Ninja.

[Guild] NinjaBuffPls: We have shurikens.

[Guild] NinjaBuffPls: I’m a shuriken damage master.

[Guild] Ris: ;;;;

[Guild] Nago-Rang: Ninja-nim is doing it again…

[Guild] NinjaBuffPls: Ninja, the hybrid god-tier class that does assassination, melee DPS, and ranged DPS.

[Guild] NinjaBuffPls: Sephiroth-nim, why don’t you play Ninja too?

[Guild] Sephiroth: No.

[Guild] NinjaBuffPls: T_T

In response to the sharp rejection, NinjaBuffPls sent a crying emoticon. My heart pounded, worried that Sephiroth might fly into a rage over the triple-melee setup.

[Guild] JujiyukLim: Sephiroth-nim.

[Guild] JujiyukLim: Do you need a Ranged DPS?

[Guild] Sephiroth: Nah.

[Guild] Sephiroth: Don’t need one.

[Guild] Sephiroth: Ninja says he’s doing Ranged.

[Guild] Sephiroth: Let’s go.

[Guild] Nago-Rang: Really? A Ninja Ranged DPS???

[Guild] NinjaBuffPls: I’ll show you my skills!