Episode 28

A pure white glass floor, walls made of mirrors and glass, and, standing in the middle of it all, a grand and enormous castle gate. It was the illustration of the dungeon entrance from the last update. Considering that loading screens usually showed illustrations related to the area a character was moving to, it seemed Mun Seonhwa must have logged out at the quest location.

Unlike me, who’d had Abrea standing in front of the castle gate, this wasn’t a hidden story, so I was staring at the Ceylonti character standing there all alone when the phone in my hand chimed with a notification.

When I turned on the screen, an alert said an email had arrived. The moment I saw the mail icon, I inhaled softly. If someone was sending me an email at this timing……

I hurriedly dragged down the top bar, and three familiar syllables appeared. <Gang Jaesu>. As expected, it was Jaesugang. But why was it Gang Jaesu instead of Jaesugang? He’d denied it on stream, so was his real name really Gang Jaesu?

I was terribly curious, but first I checked the contents of the email.

I received the consolation money lololol

Gang Jaesu 20XX. 6. 7.

Recipient: Me

I was actually going to ask if you’d recorded the video back then. Thank you.

Separate from that, though, it’s a shame you brought it up first... I was going to kill you and then ask. Heh

The first thought that popped into my head after reading it was simple. “Ah, thank god I landed the first hit.”

Sender　[email protected]

Recipient　[email protected]

Re: I received the consolation money lololol

Weren’t you all happy on stream asking if it was a proposal? Why are you being so prickly now? Heh

Re:Re: I received the consolation money lololol

Gang Jaesu　20XX. 6. 7.

Recipient: Me

Oh... So you even watch the full VODs of my streams?

That…… was true. It wasn’t a big deal to keep up with the streams of the most famous streamer in Dusk, but something about Jaesugang’s email seemed to be tinged with laughter, and I didn’t like it. The nuance was as if he were asking whether I was his fan.

It was true that I was a fan, but seeing Jaesugang act like that annoyed me, so instead of answering obediently, I changed the subject.

[But is your real name really Gang Jaesu?]

This time, the interval before his reply felt a little longer. Sure enough, this email was longer than the one before.

[I told you it’s not;; I made a new account to use for streaming, and I thought that, like in the old days, when you made an account, you wrote your given name first and then your surname after, but at some point it must have changed because it had you write surname then given name. I didn’t know that, so I wrote Gang first and Jaesu after, and this is what happened. Do you want my name to actually be Gang Jaesu?]

Who said anything about his name? I’d only asked if it really was Gang Jaesu. He must have heard that kind of thing so much on stream that he seemed incredibly aggrieved.

[Someone’s name could be Gang Jaesu; There are probably quite a few people in this world named Gang Jaesu, so why are you acting like the name Gang Jaesu is an insult?]

[My name is prettier than that, you know. ‘ -`)!]

Well, look at that. Just how pretty was his name for him to say it so confidently?

[What’s your name, then?]

[When I told you to come to my stream, you said you were shy, but today, now that it’s just the two of us, you’re naturally making moves on me?]

He was the one who made me curious. And in the first place, wasn’t it weird to say asking his name was making a move?

I was so dumbfounded that I let out a hollow laugh. Then Mun Seonhwa, who’d been wandering around the field doing daily quests, glanced over at me.

“Are you texting?”

“Uh……”

It wasn’t exactly texting, but this was technically Talk, too. If I said it was email, he’d probably ask who I was exchanging emails with like that, so I vaguely affirmed, and Mun Seonhwa said, “I see,” before focusing on the game again.

I got up from the vague, uncomfortable position I’d been in, neither quite sitting nor leaning, and flopped down onto the bed. Around the time my body stopped swaying softly with the mattress, I grabbed my phone again and tapped away at the keyboard.

[If you don’t want to, then forget it...]

I’d written and sent whatever came to mind, but somehow it bothered me that I hadn’t denied that I was making a move. It was like I really had been making a move and was tucking my tail after the other person noticed……

Even though I hadn’t been making any moves, I felt needlessly uneasy and was tormenting my innocent hair when his reply arrived.

[If you Talk with me, you can find out my name... My Talk name is my real name.]

He’d called me out for making a move just because I asked his name, yet he himself was now shamelessly making a move on me. Anyone could tell he was coaxing me to Talk with him.

[You do know you’re the one making moves more naturally, right?;]

The moment I sent the email with a baffled snort of laughter, Mun Seonhwa spoke to me.

“Who are you texting to be grinning like that?”

When I lifted my head, I saw Mun Seonhwa staring at me with a strangely displeased expression, leaving his thoroughly shattered black-and-white screen as it was. It seemed he’d died while messing around in the field and, while waiting for the resurrection timer, had seen me snickering.

I considered honestly telling him I was exchanging emails with Jaesugang, but Mun Seonhwa’s curiosity would probably kick in and he’d start asking this and that or interfere with the email contents, so I deliberately answered curtly.

“None of your business. Whether I snicker or not.”

“My surname isn’t None, and I’m not a business.”

“Uh-huh, sure. Student Mun. Is this any concern of yours?”

“Ugh……. You sound exactly like that bastard professor of mine. I hate it.”

He shuddered in disgust as he pressed the base resurrection button. His reaction was unusually entertaining for Mun Seonhwa, so I kept speaking in the same tone as his professor and teasing him until I finally got hit once in the side. At this rate, I felt like I’d get hit somewhere else too, so I stopped fooling around and quietly shut my mouth.

I watched Mun Seonhwa mutter under his breath and focus on the game again for a moment, then lowered my head to check whether another email had arrived. And, not betraying my expectations, the mail icon greeted me.

[So you don’t want to Talk with me?]

Maybe because I’d spent almost the entire day replaying Jaesugang’s streams, every single character naturally played back in his voice in my head. In a voice that was both glum and sulky, no less.

Part of it was because of the voice that automatically played in my head, but I also got the feeling he sincerely wanted to Talk with me, so my thumb couldn’t move as readily as before and hesitated.

Talk with Jaesugang? Were we in that kind of relationship? I thought it over carefully. No, there was no need to think about it. We were in that kind of relationship. I sometimes exchanged Talk IDs and chatted with people I’d only just met in games, so why wouldn’t I be able to do that with Jaesugang?

However, even if we were close, Jaesugang was a celebrity with well over 450,000 subscribers, and from Jaesugang’s perspective, I was nothing more than an unknown variable whose true nature he couldn’t know. In other words, from Jaesugang’s perspective, I could be a nasty attention whore who clung to him to leech off his fame, or a filthy bastard who approached him like this while pretending to be friendly in order to steal his personal information.

Conversely, Jaesugang might also be some guy trying to approach me for his own benefit. Not all famous people were good people, after all.

That was why it was hard to rashly say, “Let’s do it!” to Jaesugang’s suggestion.

[How do you know what kind of person I am?? I might be someone trying to spend time getting close to you, approach you, and then do you harm.]

I wrote and sent the email while hiding any sign that I was wary, and the inbox that had been receiving replies right on time fell silent. Did Jaesugang also think, Oops? Since we couldn’t see each other’s faces or hear each other’s voices, I couldn’t get a sense of how Jaesugang would take it, which made me a little frustrated.

But Jaesugang’s reply arrived earlier than I expected. And that reply was truly absurd.

[So what? Regret is something future me will handle.]

I had no choice but to stare at the email in utter disbelief. Regret was something future him would handle. It wasn’t wrong……

Meanwhile, another email arrived. Out of habit, I moved my thumb and checked the email. Inside, there were letters that were unmistakably a Talk ID.

[I’m not forcing you, so don’t feel pressured. You can just keep it and contact me later when you feel like it. I find you really interesting and I like you, Honey Bread-nim.]

He liked me? Did he just mean he had a simple favorable impression of me? While I was wavering, unsure, another email arrived again.

[AhwhenIsayIlikeyouIdon’tmeanlikeyouknowromantivfeelingsoranythingIdon’tevenknowHoneyBread-nim’sgenderandI’veneverreallythoughtaboutitorcaredIjustmeanIlikeyoubecauseyoufeellikeafriendpleasedon’tmisunderstandㅜㅜ?]

It was blatantly obvious that Jaesugang, who usually sent emails with no typos, periods placed diligently, and proper spelling, had panicked and typed that in a rush. Ironically, when he, who generally had such a neat image, showed such a rare clumsy side, I felt my tension ease a little. Maybe it was because it made me think that he was pretty nervous too.

Perhaps because of that, unlike before, I copied the ID Jaesugang had sent me without hesitation, opened Talk, and pasted it into the ID search bar. For something like this, my heart was beating a little fast.