Chapter 28: Voices in the White Space

…He had a dream.

In the dream, he opened his eyes in a dark space devoid of any light.

He tried to get up, but as if pressed down by sleep paralysis, he couldn’t move so much as a single finger.

“…….”

His throat felt completely blocked, and he couldn’t even make a sound.

Or perhaps, maybe his ears weren’t working properly.

Was it a nightmare?

Or…

Naturally, his thoughts turned to his real body—the one in the original world, not inside the game.

What if he was dead?

If so, this place might be hell.

Would he then have to suffer the punishment of eating trash made from all the food he’d ever wasted in his life, as he’d heard since he was a snot-nosed kid?

“…Huh?”

Suddenly, sound burst from his throat.

His tightly clenched fingers twitched and moved.

At the same time, light exploded before his eyes, so bright it felt white.

His eyes, unable to adjust to the brightness, squeezed shut.

He raised his now-functioning hand to shield his eyes.

After a moment, he lowered his hand, and a large screen floated in the air right in front of him.

The screen showed a space painted entirely white.

Within that space on the screen, another screen was turned on, and amazingly, inside that one was him.

It was himself right before falling asleep, clutching and shaking the white blanket on his dorm bed, muttering something.

[Team Leader, the player has surrendered—crackle—has surrendered.]

Then a mechanical voice, mixed with heavy static, was heard.

No, it wasn’t the ordinary sensation that could be described with a familiar word like ‘heard’.

It was a very unfamiliar sensation, neither clearly seen nor clearly heard, impossible to distinctly categorize.

[Surrendered?]

It was a different person from before.

It seemed two people were having a conversation.

[He says he’ll obediently—zzrt—follow orders.]

[Oh, I thought he wouldn’t—crackle—but that’s pretty fast.

What happened?]

[It seems there was temporarily a status effect due to a—zzzt—mistake.]

A mistake?

Status effect?

Wait, the player they’re talking about now is me, and the status effect that occurred by mistake couldn’t possibly be the thing that kept pushing me around earlier, could it?

[—zzzt—status effect?

What kind?]

[‘Invisible Hand’—crackle.]

[What?

Haha, so that’s why—zzzt—the surrender came quickly, you must have had a hard time.]

‘Invisible Hand’—so that thing earlier really was a status effect.

No, if it happened because of their mistake, they should retract my surrender too.

Suddenly, a strange sense of rebellion surged up.

[Well, this time it was our mistake—crackle—but these things were going to happen—zzzt—anyway.]

[That’s true, I suppose.]

Does that mean I have to go through that again? His vision went white at the thought.

Having to experience again that embarrassing, troublesome thing where he was forcibly pushed over whenever someone was near him—the feeling was utterly devastating.

[What should we do?]

[Hmm, make this one an official status—crackle—and cancel the next one—zzzt.]

[Yes, understood—crackle.]

His eyes shot open at the conversation, though the static made it unclear.

Piecing together the words, it sounded like they were saying they’d trade this incident for the next status effect that was supposed to happen.

[Team Leader, but currently the player’s favorability—crackle—progress is slow—zzzt—.]

[Really?

Then instead—crackle—activate 2x boost—zzzt—trigger—crackle]

Activate what?

But suddenly the static got worse, and he couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Up until now, the static had been on particles or verb endings that you could roughly figure out, but now they were putting static on important nouns—it was absurd.

He was blankly staring at the screen when, along with a response of acknowledgment, the sound cut out and the screen abruptly turned off.

Left alone standing in the dark space, he panicked and shouted.

“No!”

At the same time, his eyes shot open.

Ignoring Lee Chan-seo, who was staring at him with wide, startled eyes right in front of him, he fumbled for his phone and picked it up.

He urgently launched [Please Take Care of My Idol] and looked around, but nothing had changed, and no message appeared indicating new content.

Phew.

He finally let out a sigh of relief and put down the phone.

It must have just been a crazy dream.

“…Jae-seo hyung, are you okay?”

Only then did Lee Chan-seo, whom he had ignored, come into view.

One hand was near his shoulder, so it seemed Lee Chan-seo had been about to wake him when Jae-seo’s shout startled him.

“What’s wrong?

Did you have a nightmare?”

Jang Young-bin, who had apparently been in the middle of changing clothes, approached his bed with one sleeve still not properly on.

“No, it’s nothing.”

Feeling like he was causing all kinds of trouble, he smiled awkwardly and apologized to Lee Chan-seo, who was still standing by his bed, for startling him.

Lee Chan-seo shook his head, saying it was fine, but his face still showed signs of bewilderment.

From right next to him, Jae-seo must have looked like a crazy person, so it was understandable.

It was all because of that crazy dream.

Dreaming is one thing, but who has such an absurd dream?

Muttering to himself, he raised his hand and roughly rubbed his face.

***

Trying to forget about the dream, he quickly washed up and went down to the cafeteria.

Just as he sat down next to his already seated teammates and took a large spoonful of rice—

“Sim Jae-seo!

You doing better today?”

A hand suddenly slapped his back, making him choke and burst into coughing fits.

As he coughed violently, covering his mouth with his arm, a chair screeched beside him and a water cup was slid toward him.

“Here.”

Seo Jun-jae, with his usual bright face, handed him the water cup.

Jae-seo grabbed it urgently and gulped down water between coughs.

Even after that, he kept coughing lightly, and the culprit who had slapped his back, Ha Jin-woo, sat across from him and apologized.

“Sorry, man.”

“It’s o—cough—okay.”

“Ah!

Jin-woo hyung, he’s not a kid, why are you bothering someone while they’re eating?”

Chae Han-ul, who had been following behind, frowned deeply and yelled at Ha Jin-woo.

Getting scolded by the youngest for acting like he was the kid, Ha Jin-woo slumped his shoulders.

“Jae-seo hyung, are you okay?”

It was just a little choking, isn this reaction a bit much?

But well…

“I’m fine, Han-ul.”

Though it was quite embarrassing to say it himself, Chae Han-ul clearly liked him.

Enough that just having his name called softened his angry expression and made the corners of his mouth twitch.

Now that he had decided to accept the ‘crazy pervert’ part of this crazy perverted psycho game, he could no longer pretend not to know what 50% favorability meant.

…Of course, that didn’t mean he was accepting Chae Han-ul’s feelings or anything.

Actually having feelings for a seventeen-year-old would make you a real crazy person.

Still pretending to cough as if he hadn’t fully recovered, he tilted his head to avoid Chae Han-ul’s gaze.

“Jae-seo, I’m really sorry.

I was worried about you leaving early yesterday, and seeing you seem okay today, I was just happy and did that.”

Then he asked, “Want to hit me back?”

Jae-seo shook his head, saying it was really fine, but Ha Jin-woo suddenly raised both arms as if being punished and opened his mouth with a determined face.

“As a sign of reflection, I’ll stay like this until you finish eating!”

What kind of useless thing is that?

His head hurt from the absurdity.

Judging by the atmosphere, they probably wouldn’t listen even if he said it was fine a hundred times, so he decided to take it seriously instead.

“I’m going to get seconds.

And thirds.”

“…What?

Really?”

Ha Jin-woo, who had looked genuinely troubled by Jae-seo’s implication to put his arms down and eat, hesitated for a moment before slowly lowering his arms.

Seeing this, Lee Woo-rim let out a snort and started teasing Ha Jin-woo.

“Hey, Jin-woo hyung!

That’s so lame!”

“Yah, this guy wasn’t joking—he really eats a lot, continuously.

I’m just trying to live too, I need to secure my meal time….”

Jae-seo had said it first, but he thought, What’s with the big deal about eating that much? as he picked up his chopsticks.

Jang Young-bin, eating beside him, suddenly joined the conversation with a laugh.

“If there was a game about eating a lot, we’d definitely get first place.”

“Not just Sim Jae-seo, but this Lee Chan-seo kid is no slouch either,” Jang Young-bin added.

Lee Chan-seo, who had been eating with his head practically buried in his tray, shot his head up.

Seeing his cheeks bulging and moving, it didn’t seem like a wrong observation.

“I wonder where all that food goes.”

“I’m growing… I’m still in my growth period.”

It probably wasn’t intended as a sarcastic comment, but Lee Chan-seo’s oblivious answer made Jang Young-bin, the shortest in the team and, unlike Lee Chan-seo, a twenty-two-year-old past his growth period, make a face like he’d eaten shit.

“Ah, I grew 1cm more than during the first filming too!”

Even Lee Woo-rim obliviously joined in, proudly boasting.

Jang Young-bin, with an expression of indignation, grabbed the back of his neck and pretended to faint.

As if to tease Jang Young-bin, Ha Jin-woo, barely holding back laughter, started with, “Jae-seo is tall too, seems like he might still be growing….”

“I guess the growth period just passed by our Young-bin.”