Chapter 57

I nodded in affirmation at his question.

There was no way someone who only knew my nickname and name would recognize me the moment our eyes met... Did I stare at him too rudely? But I could say with confidence that absolutely wasn’t the case. I’d been taught how to manage my gaze and expression since I was young, so I would never look at someone I was meeting for the first time with a rude stare.

“Ah... About that.”

Kang Jegyeong hesitated, looking oddly embarrassed. Seeing him like that only piqued my curiosity more, so I even neatly folded the paper bag I’d been eating roasted chestnuts from, met his eyes, and urged him to answer.

“...If a cat walks toward you, don’t you usually end up looking?”

“...”

If I used the <Shield Bash> skill in real life, I’d probably get arrested for assault, right?

Reading my suddenly serious expression, he laughed awkwardly and tried to patch things up.

“I’m kidding. It’s just that if someone got off on the thirteenth floor, there was a high chance they were Honey Bun, so I looked to see whether it really was Honey Bun or someone else. And you were so good-looking that I was suspicious...”

...Well, if I were sitting there waiting for Retake and someone like this came striding over, I’d probably stare too.

But if your eyes meet someone else’s and you don’t look away, instead glaring at them the whole time, doesn’t that mean you want to fight?

“For that, you were staring way too hard. It’s not like you were picking a fight, and it’s not like you fell in love at first sight...”

“That’s...”

Kang Jegyeong trailed off again, gauged my reaction, then muttered in a voice that grew smaller and smaller.

“Because the other person didn’t look away...”

Ah, right. This guy was the type who absolutely couldn’t stand losing.

“Well... I can’t say I don’t understand that, but still. If you look at someone with eyes like you’re about to kill them, that’s just picking a fight.”

“Eyes like I’m about to kill someone? It wasn’t that bad.”

Kang Jegyeong flared up at my words, then soon seemed to deflate as he fiddled with the corners of his eyes. ...Could looking fierce be a complex of his?

Looking at Kang Jegyeong, who seemed to have grown gloomy, I naturally changed the subject as if talking to myself.

“Still, looking fierce must make work easier. You said you were a bodyguard.”

I said it remembering how my uncle, who’d apparently been worked to the bone at a security company for a few years, had said that for bodyguards, looking strong was the best. But when Kang Jegyeong heard that, he smiled ambiguously and mumbled.

“Yeah, well... If you only look fierce, it’s convenient.”

I stared at Kang Jegyeong, wondering what he meant. Then Kang Jegyeong realized I was waiting for an answer and continued.

“In my case, they say I stand out too much before my face even looks fierce. So there are a lot of times it gets troublesome...”

And I understood at once. It was a face that left me no choice but to be convinced.

“After that, I started wearing a hat or mask no matter what, so the fierce impression doesn’t really show much either. It’s not like I especially want to look fierce.”

“...Hmm.”

But it wasn’t as if a hat covered his whole face. Would wearing one really hide that face? Definitely not. Even if you cut out just those lips and that jawline to look at, they were anything but ordinary, so they’d surely draw attention.

A mask was the same. A mask didn’t cover the entire front of the face, so there was no way that beauty would be hidden just by covering the lower half. If anything, it was worse than a hat. People were originally drawn to the eyes first, and Kang Jegyeong’s eyes in particular had such unusual charm that even if you took a photo right now and cropped out only his two eyes, you’d be able to tell he was no ordinary guy.

“Isn’t a mask pretty meaningless? It can’t cover the most important part, your eyes.”

“I can’t wear a baseball cap with a suit.”

“Ah.”

Aha. A suit. Right... Wearing a casual baseball cap with a suit would be awkward, after all.

I nodded and murmured with a hint of pity.

“The part that looks the fiercest is your eyes. But unfortunately, the prettiest part is also your eyes, so you can’t walk around openly, and you can’t completely cover them either. That must be tricky.”

After saying that, I waited for him to respond, but for some reason, he was quiet, without saying a single word or making any particular movement. Wondering what was wrong, I turned my head to look beside me and saw Kang Jegyeong staring at me with his eyes sparkling.

I wondered if I’d misspoken, but his eyes were too bright and clear for that, which made me feel even more awkward.

In the end, I had no choice but to ask Kang Jegyeong directly.

“...What?”

As soon as I asked, Kang Jegyeong asked me back as if he’d been waiting.

“My eyes are pretty?”

...What did he suddenly get hung up on?

“Yes.”

“Even though I’m a man?”

Ah, was this that he didn’t like being called pretty because he was a man, despite everything? But wasn’t it kind of unfair for someone who looked pretty himself to ask whether he could look pretty even though he was a man?

“Is there some law saying men can’t have pretty eyes?”

“Usually you say men are handsome. Isn’t it gross?”

“Even so, isn’t it rare to describe eyes as handsome...? Especially on someone who looks pretty?”

“...I’m pretty...”

“Honey Bun, Retake, please come this way!”

Just then, a staff member called us from afar. It was a good chance to naturally escape Kang Jegyeong’s strangely persistent barrage of questions.

I sprang up from my seat, grabbed Kang Jegyeong by the arm, and pulled him along. He followed obediently, and though he’d closed his mouth after the staff member called us, I could still feel that he was watching me.

When we showed the invitation tickets to the staff member who’d called us, they said we needed to log into our accounts at the stadium in advance and told us to follow them. Since they said we had to go toward the corridor, I gestured for my uncle, who had been waiting behind us, to come over. I had told them in advance when I received the invitation tickets last time that I would be moving with a bodyguard, so the staff member didn’t stop him.

Even as we followed the staff member through the bustling corridor, Kang Jegyeong was looking at me. He was so persistent that I wondered if this place was really inside a game and he could lock onto a designated target.

“...If you have something to say, say it.”

Unable to endure it any longer, I opened the way for him to speak, and Kang Jegyeong quickly asked.

“Am I pretty?”

Ah, so it wasn’t that he disliked being called pretty, but the opposite?

He looked like someone who must have heard he was pretty to the point of being sick of it in his life, yet he was going this far because he wanted to hear it. The thought did cross my mind, but there was nothing I couldn’t do for a pretty guy.

“Yeah... You’re pretty.”

“Go Yeong, you’re pretty too.”

...So that wasn’t it. He’d been trying to get revenge for being called pretty.

Without a word, I pinched Kang Jegyeong’s hard forearm and twisted.

* * *

The stadium we entered after going up the emergency stairs was spacious enough to hold seven hundred people—well over eight hundred if the staff were included. The first and second floors were separated, so the view looking down from the second floor seemed like it would be quite a spectacle too.

At the center of the broad electronic display hanging over the stage, the Dusk logo was shining large and clear. And on both sides of the logo, the silhouettes of characters I had never seen even once while playing Dusk were dimly visible.

They’re new classes. Having gotten a sense of it, I examined the two silhouettes carefully. Since neither of them was wearing large armor, they were probably classes that wore leather, light armor, or robes. Unlike the silhouette on the left, which was holding something like a staff, the one on the right had that tiny speck... the spirit’s silhouette visible beside it.

The left is definitely melee, and the right is ranged. My gamer’s intuition was telling me so.

Kang Jegyeong, who had been watching the electronic display beside me as well, spoke to me in a voice brimming with excitement.

“I’ve never seen those before. They’re definitely new characters, right?”

“If you don’t know them, then it’s one hundred percent.”

“Ah, I want to see them already. It feels like a spirit master...”

Kang Jegyeong showed more interest in the one on the right, which I guessed was a ranged character. It made sense.

His preferences for ranged and melee were so firm that even before playing Dusk, in FPS games he had shown a particular fondness for snipers who settled things from long range. Thanks to his preference for healers, his main champion was a sniper-type healer, but whenever his party members threw and said they wouldn’t play anymore, he would solemnly take out his sniper and pull off free-pass comeback victories, contributing to raising the pick rate of snipers in the game.

Not only in FPS games, but also when he dabbled in other RPGs or MOBAs, it was either healer, support, or ranged DPS. He mainly picked one of the three. He had almost never operated a melee character of his own accord, probably. At most, he’d pick a melee character with long reach?

While we were talking, a staff member came running toward us from a distance. It was someone I remembered seeing last year.