“What does that mean? I can’t go on like this so convince me. Or I won’t go anywhere.”

“If you leave? You’ll just distract me again, cloud my judgment by kissing me… and touch me…!”

“If your judgment gets clouded, then stay that way for a while. Don’t try to pull yourself together!”

“What are you talking about? Nothing is working out because of you, sunbae!”

“Why aren’t you getting what I’m saying?!” Jaeyoung yelled out, while hitting the back of his head on the door. Then he slipped down.

Perhaps it was foolish to do anything with this guy. He kept walking on the familiar path and didn’t take a single step towards a strange one. He was a coward who only did things he was used to.

“Live that way for the rest of your life. Just do what you always do, wear what you always wear, eat what you always eat, and don’t even stray one bit from your perfect plans.”

“I’ve lived well that way, until you intervened, sunbae.”

This time as well, he hadn’t done anything wrong, and everything was Jaeyoung’s fault. Jaeyoung’s head was pounding. His head hurt even more since it was true that he had been intervening in his life and confused him. However, it wasn’t that much of a one-sided relationship. If Jaeyoung had ruined Sangwoo’s daily life, the opposite was also true. Jaeyoung paying attention to Sangwoo, his time and effort in producing the game and being influenced by him, had interfered with his daily life as well. That bastard couldn’t perceive the fact that it was mutual at all, though. All he saw was a perpetrator and a victim. All he wanted was to consider his own daily life. Jaeyoung couldn’t stand this because it made him feel bad.

“Come out so we can talk, you asshole.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Come out while I’m being nice.”

“Just get out of here.”

“Don’t provoke me. If you don’t come out in 10 seconds, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Bad bastard, if you as much as…”

“If I as much as, what? Do you think I won’t be able to break down the door?”

“Try it. We’ll see if you’ll be this confident at the police station.”

No matter how he looked at it, it was as if Chu Sangwoo had been placed on this Earth to enrage him. Jaeyoung looked around the room with an irritated glance and said, “the computer looks expensive.”

“No! You can’t check the computer!” Sangwoo quickly responded.

“10.”

“Ah…. I already refused to, didn’t I?”

“Eight. It’s already too late. You should’ve told me before I came inside.”

“My judgment was clouded. I drank a lot since you kept giving me free drinks, sunbae.”

“I can’t hear you. Seven.”

“No one can force unwanted sex.”

“Five. Just come outside for now. I’m going to talk to the one that’s in your underwear.”

“It’s already retreating now, you know.”

“Three seconds left.”

“Ah, really… I want to kill you.”

Despite what he was saying, he was still a naive guy. The door flew open before the time was up. Jaeyoung, who had been dodging it in advance, sat against the wall and looked up at Sangwoo, whose face had turned red from rage. Three buttons from the top were barely fastened, but no others  below them were, so the shirt was fluttering.

He looked funny, but with a serious face he said, “I’m being serious. I’m so stressed out because of you, sunbae, that I might get in big trouble if this keeps going.”

‘What the hell is wrong with this bastard?’

Jaeyoung looked into his eyes and didn’t move for a while. He was taken aback since he, after cold-heartedly pushing him away, had been so bold by coming to the restaurant and telling him he had something to tell him. The same was true when he calmly declared that he’d agree to become sex partners. That’s why he thought that he clearly would experience the same thing again. He was the type who tended to push ahead as long as you convinced him. So why did he suddenly behave this way?

“Explain it properly. Don’t forget that I’m a person as well. I’m not an NPC.”¹

“…”

“It means that it is something that isn’t very simple to explain.”

Sangwoo, who had been staring at the floor with an agonized look, raised his gaze while saying that.

“Sim…ple?”

“Then isn’t it? You tried to instantly do it as if you were exiting a website. Do you think human relationships are that simple?”

“Everything is easy for you, sunbae, isn’t it?! So adept, as if it were nothing…While not knowing what kind of state I’m in, you fucking thug.”

Footnote:

1 In a game, an NPC is a non-player character.