Episode 27
“……! ……!”
After working out lightly at the fitness center in the building and showering, I returned home to hear someone making a loud ruckus in the living room. It was obvious who would come make such a racket in broad daylight without even needing to look.
I took off my shoes and swept my still-damp hair back as I strode straight into the living room. Then, the familiar noise that had been muffled by the good soundproofing drilled clearly into my ears.
“Wow, I totally love this. It’s amazing, how do you always make it right when I come over like this?”
“I hadn’t seen you in a while, so I was wondering if you’d come soon. I happened to think of you, Seonhwa, this morning and made it, so the timing was perfect.”
Mun Seonhwa, dressed to the nines as if going somewhere to play, was hopping from foot to foot receiving a container of side dishes from the housekeeper auntie. Listening to the conversation, it seemed the auntie had made the quail egg jangjorim that Mun Seonhwa liked. So that’s why there was jangjorim at lunch.
I approached Mun Seonhwa, who was already talkative by nature but now even louder, excited over some jangjorim. Then, though he had been completely absorbed in conversation, he sensed my presence like a ghost and whipped his head around to look at me.
“Oh! Hi, did you just work out?”
“You said you had plans today and couldn’t play Dusk with me; what brings you here?”
“I had some awkward free time, so I came to hang out. I can play Dusk on your computer, right?”
Mun Seonhwa didn’t seem to particularly want an answer; without waiting, he grabbed my arm and dragged me toward my room, waving at the auntie. Then, being his sociable self, he said he’d enjoy the jangjorim and shoved me into the room first. Even though he’d probably yap at her for ages again when leaving anyway.
He entered the room and tried to sit familiarly in front of the computer. Having come and gone through my room like it was his own since childhood, it was a movement as natural as flowing water.
But before Mun Seonhwa could sit in the chair, I snatched his sleeve and pushed him toward the bed.
“Ah, what the hell, why!”
“Wait. I need to send an email.”
“You could’ve just said so, why’d you have to stretch my clothes?”
I ignored his grumbling and sat in the chair. I wouldn’t have cared either way if Mun Seonhwa played a game since Jaesugang wasn’t online at this hour anyway, but I had been planning to send an email after working out today, so I was hesitant to lend him the computer right away.
“But what email?”
Mun Seonhwa, who had been pushed to the bed, pitter-pattered back over and perched on the chair armrest to ask. It wasn’t exactly something worth hiding, so I answered offhandedly as I logged back in with a newly made ID.
“The one I said I’d send Jaesugang.”
“Huh? Didn’t you send that last time?”
I had. Just as he said, five days ago I had already sent the download link for the video I’d uploaded to the drive to the email address listed on Jaesugang’s channel. I sent it, but…….
“Jaesugang said he didn’t get it.”
“Did you send it to the wrong email?”
“No……. I think he couldn’t find my email because of the trolls.”
Since Jaesugang and I weren’t exactly in a relationship where we kept in contact, even though several days passed after sending the email without a reply, I had no appropriate contact info to ask if he’d received the video. He’d said “isn’t this a proposal?” after seeing the chat where I said I’d give him the video, and then didn’t even reply. Four days had passed since I’d grumbled about that.
But then yesterday, Jaesugang suddenly appeared and lunged at me in the early dawn. Late dawn at that, long after his stream had ended.
Knowing full well that Jaesugang never played games after 3 a.m. no matter what, I couldn’t help but be suspicious. I wondered if he’d gotten caught up in a marathon (*since it’s on, might as well beat the king; continuing to play without stopping until achieving the goal) and was streaming late, so I hurriedly checked his channel, but the stream had already ended two hours ago.
Had he been hacked, or did he log on while drunk, venting in the heat of the moment—though his skills were perfectly intact if that were the case—I ran through all sorts of possibilities in my head as we fought, and because I couldn’t concentrate, I slipped up and died.
With a mind to figure out why he’d come looking for me out of the blue at dawn, I waited for Jaesugang’s chat. And in the quickly rising speech bubble, nothing other than an email address was written.
“We made a huge scene out in the open. I said I’d send the video during Jaesugang’s stream. Because of that, people impersonating me sent a ton of weird files, so he couldn’t find my actual email.”
“Ugh. Annoying as hell.”
Even I thought it was really annoying. Come to think of it, this wasn’t the first time. The situation was different, but back in the day, there was even a bastard who sent Jaesugang a link to a porn video disguised as an indie game trailer.
I thought of Jaesugang, swept up by the trolls, unable to receive the video he’d been looking forward to so much, flustered, and ultimately logging into the game to find me, and the corners of my lips twitched briefly.
……Anyway, so what was the email Jaesugang told me? I clicked the compose button and racked my brain. I entered the English letters floating in my head exactly one by one, and after that, I copy-pasted the video download link I’d uploaded to the drive in advance.
Draft saved
Consolation Prize for Defeat - From Kkulppang
https://driving.goodgle.com/file/d/1YdyLisxbAWItPuRqOhcqznqtF8RV/view?usp=sharing
[ Send | ▼ ]
There was no need to write a long, rambling message. I just pressed send as is.
“Why don’t you attach a separate message? You two are close in-game, after all.”
Mun Seonhwa, who’d been quietly watching me send the email, spoke. Attach a message, when we talked in-game all the time?
“We talk every time in the game.”
“Even so, you two have never had a proper conversation. You kill each other, exchange a word, and a few minutes later fight again for a while, then kill each other and say another word. Are you pen pals?”
“Did you go around fighting your pen pals?”
“As if I ever had a pen pal?”
When I talked back, Mun Seonhwa hit my shoulder hard, telling me to forget it. Then he insisted I move since I’d sent the email now. Afraid he’d pinch me here and there, I hurriedly vacated the seat. He took the chair with a satisfied expression. Now the tables had turned, and I watched Mun Seonhwa log into Dusk from the uncomfortable position of resting my legs on the chair armrest.
Originally, I’d bought an extra chair thinking of how often Mun Seonhwa came over. But last time, after watching the video of Jaesugang throwing a tantrum (at least that’s what it looked like to me) over losing to me, I kicked it with my foot and broke it, so I had no choice but to throw it out. After that, I forgot to order a chair, which is why my two legs were suffering now.
Since I’d remembered, I took out my phone to order a chair and was searching for a gaming chair when Mun Seonhwa spoke to me.
“Right, I was going to ask this too. How did you see the hidden story? Do you know what condition triggers it?”
The moment I heard the words “hidden story,” the finger Jaesugang had thrown at me briefly flashed through my mind before disappearing.
“Dunno.”
When I spat out the answer, Mun Seonhwa looked up at me with his eyes narrowed into triangles.
“Why don’t you know?”
“Because I don’t.”
“You don’t have any guesses?”
“Nope.”
“Aren’t you curious about what the condition is?”
“I am curious?”
“If you’re curious, why don’t you ask the CEO?”
At the mention of the CEO, this time I narrowed my eyes into triangles and looked down at Mun Seonhwa.
“Where did that come from, talking about the CEO all of a sudden?”
“Don’t you have his contact info?”
“I do, but we’re not that close. Why would I ask something like that?”
“Isn’t he sort of dating your brother? You’re about to be family; isn’t that something you could ask?”
The CEO Mun Seonhwa was talking about was the CEO of Zero Soft. The representative of Zero Soft. The chief executive of the company that developed the game 《Dusk》. Was he seriously saying I could just go up to such a high-ranking person and ask, “What’s the condition for viewing the hidden story?” just because he maintains a good relationship with my brother, when all I’d done with him was exchange a few greetings and some small talk?
To begin with, those two couldn’t even be called a fling. It was just my brother chasing after him because he likes him.
But I didn’t want to correct the facts while blabbing about my brother’s tear-jerking one-sided love story. Instead, I pressed the corner of my phone against the space between my eyebrows and slightly shifted the conversation’s direction.
“I’d rather ask at the offline event next month.”
“The offline event is ages away.”
“Then submit an inquiry or something.”
“I already did, but they won’t tell me.”
“Then I guess they’re not supposed to tell. Why are you so curious about the hidden condition? You were never the type to care about story.”
“How does it make any sense that I, the very symbol of the Assassin, haven’t seen the Assassin hidden story? I’m the first user in the entire server to reach max level as an Assassin, a cross-server, peerless, ultra-popular Assassin ranker who’s never once let go of first place—me?”
Is he crazy? No, he was always crazy.
“If I get a chance to ask, I’ll ask and let you know. Happy?”
“Hmm…….”
Whether because my answer wasn’t satisfactory, Mun Seonhwa dragged out his sound. Still, he nodded meekly as if he had no choice, then double-clicked the Sillonti character on the monitor, where the connection waiting screen had already turned on.
After the character’s eyes opened, I watched the illustration filling the screen while loading. But somehow, this was an illustration I’d never seen once in the two years I’d been playing Dusk.