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I had dinner with Jung Haekyung and then headed to a PC room. We worked in teams of two to shoot and kill various demons in Zone 27. It was fun in the past, but for some reason, it felt like an extension of training now. Jung Haekyung was an excellent marksman, both in real life and online. I glanced at him, and he was focused on taking careful shots. He worked hard for things like this as well, huh.
“You’re good.”
As I said some words of admiration, Jung Haekyung laughed.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
It seemed like he had reached the rank of a general. Both in reality and in games, we had a big difference in ranking. While I was distracted by Jung Haekyung’s precise marksmanship, I took a few hits from a group of bats. My blood was rapidly depleting, so I took out some pills and ate them to try to save myself. Jung Haekyung asked, with his attention still fixed on the monitor, “What did you just eat?”
“Pills.”
“What colour?”
“The red one.”
“Woah…”
Suddenly, an influx of gifts rushed at me. Blue pills that could recover almost more than 20% of the blood I lost. You could only buy these with real money. It was a gift sent by Jung Haekyung.
“No matter how much your salary is cut, how could you use the red ones? Can that even recover your blood?”
“……”
Yeah, even when I played this game back outside, I wouldn’t have eaten them and would’ve just thrown them away instead because the red pills only took up inventory space. My quality of life had somehow dropped drastically. I clicked “accept gift” and consumed the blue pill Jung Haekyung gave me. Then I used my strength and started shooting again. The stage ended. It’d been too long, so I wasn’t of any help, but it seemed to have worked out somehow. I tried to take a break by milling about the neutral zone, but another gift popped up.
‘Anbaek’-nim has sent you <Rainbow Pistols-2> as a gift. Do you accept it?
Accept Reject
“Where did you get this?”
The rainbow pistol was something I couldn’t buy even if I wanted to. It was an item that was temporarily released with the absolute worst pull rate during event periods, but its power was only a little better than other high-ranking guns; however, when you shoot with it, one of seven colours would randomly shine. I looked at Jung Haekyung with the sincerest admiration since I met him. Jung Haekyung chuckled.
“Back when I bought over seven hundred lucky bags.”
“Damn… I also bought five hundred of those…”
“It showed up around the 670th.”
“Should I have bought another 170…?”
While I marvelled at that, the acceptance time passed, and the gift was automatically declined. Jung Haekyung sent it again.
“Hey, this kind of…”
“I prefer machine guns over pistols. Multi-firing is important as well.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Still, I couldn’t press accept. It didn’t feel like we were close enough to exchange these kinds of gifts yet. As I hesitated, it was automatically declined again. Then, Jung Haekyung said, “I’ll be sad if I get declined three times.”
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“I equipped it.”
It was only when I spoke that Jung Haekyung looked at me.
“Next time, accept what I give you the first time.”
“…Huh?”
“Whatever it is.”
Jung Haekyung moved on to the next stage. I followed him in the confusion of the moment, but something felt off. When I fired using the gun, the bullets shone in multiple colours, but somehow, I didn’t feel all that good about it.
After finishing the game, we left the PC room. The long summer sun was tilting downward and darkening our surroundings, and the streetlights standing at various places shone orange, casting multiple shadows. The atmosphere as I walked back to the dormitory with Jung Haekyung was somewhat awkward. Silence hung in the air as Jung Haekyung, who would always cheerfully start conversations, remained silent. It had been quite a while since I had initiated a conversation first, so it was a bit difficult to talk to him. As expected, being treated like an outcast fiercely intimidated people. While internally cursing the bullies, I asked Jung Haekyung, “What’s your hobby?”
“Hobby?”
After having said that, I felt embarrassed; it sounded like a blind date question. Still, I wanted to know what Jung Haekyung’s hobby was. I was told not to play into his hands, that it was his hobby. What did it mean not to be fooled by him? Was there another reason why he was spending time with me? Come to think of it, there was no reason for Jung Haekyung, who had everything, to hang out with me, who had nothing. The rumours surrounding him were too turbulent for him to simply be spending time with me out of pity.
“Yeah. What do you find fun?”
“Why are you curious about that?”
“Just because.”
“I…”
Jung Haekyung thought hard. He tilted his head before saying, “I think I find my missions fun enough. But it’s my job, so can that be considered a hobby?”
“Missions… are you talking about being deployed on-site?”
“I guess. I like making things that escape my control move my way.”
“Really?”
“So, it’s fun being with you, too. Since you don’t act the way I want you to.”
When Jung Haekyung suddenly brought up what I had been curious about, I felt my heart drop for no reason.
“What do you mean?”
“Abilities don’t work on you, right? I’m uselessly strong, so I can make everything move my way, but it’s fascinating how my abilities don’t work on you.”
“……”
“Does that bother you?”
To think he was being friendly with me because he found me fascinating. Those words definitely did not make me feel good. Still, it didn’t worsen my mood all that much either. There were an abundance of fascinating people here. S.E.’s top ability user told me I was fascinating. That, in itself, was even more fascinating. Plus, I kept looking at Jung Haekyung because he was pretty. Wasn’t that somewhat similar? Or was it a bit different from this?
“Is it your hobby to play with things you find fascinating?”
I got straight to the point. I couldn’t just brush off the words I heard today. Something somewhere accurately stimulated the area that made me feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t ask the person who had spat out those words, so I had to check, even if it was with the person in question.
“I don’t know what you’ve been hearing.”
Jung Haekyung let out a small sigh. He briefly glanced at the night sky before continuing, “Are the rumours about me bad?”
“……”
“It’s okay, I’m used to it.”
“I’m not asking because of rumours…”
I stopped speaking. I’m not asking because of rumours. It was true that my question had been prompted by the things I had heard about him from others. What made Jung Haekyung give off a strange and bizarre feeling was the contrast between his actions towards me and the rumours surrounding him. When I couldn’t continue speaking, Jung Haekyung smiled a little.
“I said it’s okay. It was a bit rude to say that you were fascinating, right? Since we’re both ability users and all.”
“No, well, I do find you fascinating too. You can even break iron into pieces…”
“Yeah, everyone thinks that’s fascinating.”
“…Sorry.”
“…Really?”
“Yeah. You’re right. I heard some weird things and needlessly… I’m really sorry.”
“Thank you for apologising.”
I looked at Jung Haekyung. As expected, were the rumours concerning him depicting his cruelty on the field? No, the rumours themselves could be wrong as well, so why did I keep trying to rationalise them? I had to trust the person in front of me rather than the rumours, though. I made up my mind.
“I’ll ignore the false rumours from now on.”
“Really? You’re really going to do that?”
Jung Haekyung suddenly grabbed my hand. It was a bit of a sweltering midsummer night, but as S.E. was buried deep within the mountains, the night air was much colder and clearer than during the day. Jung Haekyung’s hand was as warm as when I first met him. I nodded my head. I felt that, as strong and beautiful as he was, he must have been the subject of just as many rumours and had a hard time because of them. It didn’t sit well with me. Even if I was just one person, I wanted to accept Jung Haekyung for who he was. I made another resolution to myself as I looked at him.
∞
I waited for the weekends to come, just like how I waited for Christmas back when I was a child. Just like Christmas in the middle of summer, when Saturday finally arrived, I got in Haekyung’s car, and we headed to Cheonwol. It was a vast improvement from my first outing, where I had to run, walk, and finally hitch a ride on an old truck. It’d been a long time since I last went outside, so I was feeling good. The trees appeared greener, the sky seemed higher, the air felt fresher, and the sunlight appeared to shine brighter. The world felt beautiful. Haekyung, who always shone even within S.E., looked almost like an angel in the outside world. We hadn’t even done anything yet, but I was already feeling excited.
“Is that a Bentley Continental? When’d you buy it?”
There was the unique smell of a new car coming from the leather seats. I looked around the interior, which seemed to show almost no traces of being touched, and Haekyung said, “Want me to give it to you?”
“What’d you say?”
“I have plenty of other cars. I’ll give it to you as a celebration of you getting your licence.”
“Is an SS-Class’ salary that great? No wonder Director Baek cries about taxes.”
I gazed out of the car window, watching the swiftly passing scenery of the outdoors. It was an extremely common summer scene, but for some reason, the sentiment felt new. I might never be able to leave the military for the rest of my life, so it’d be nice to have a lot of outings. Although I was having such saddening thoughts, Haekyung suddenly parked the car on the shoulder of the highway. He then got out of the driver’s seat and opened the passenger-side door. I looked around our surroundings, thinking something had suddenly happened. However, the morning highway was especially calm.
“Haekyung-ah, isn’t this dangerous?”
“You drive.”
“What?”
“You already have your licence.”
I was speechless for a moment upon hearing his words. Director Baek had instructed me to obtain a Korean driver’s licence, which I had done not too long ago. I had driven with my driver beside me a few times back in the U.S., too. This car was nice, but I had driven more expensive cars before. Still… was it alright to drive on the highway without any insurance? Though, money wouldn’t be the problem if we got into an accident.
“No thanks.”
“It’s okay. Give it a try.”
“.…..”
“Didn’t I say I’d give it to you? It’s yours now, so what’s the problem?”
“No, what do you mean, ‘give it to me’? Suddenly giving a car…”
“I want to give it to you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you refusing?”
“…Because…”
Of course I’d refuse it, who would accept? When I couldn’t continue, Haekyung spoke again, “This much isn’t burdensome to you, is it?”
“…No, it is burdensome.”
My family had a few cars like this. Even so, we didn’t give them to friends as gifts. I hadn’t purchased them with my own money, and I certainly didn’t have any friends to give them to. However, Haekyung fell silent for a moment. Then, he said in a sharply lowering voice, “I told you to accept whatever I give you the first time.”
It wasn’t as if it were a game item or anything, how was I supposed to immediately accept a car? It was ridiculous, but something seemed difficult about Haekyung, who wasn’t smiling, so it was hard to refuse him another time. I hesitated for a moment before telling him, “Then, I’ll just drive it.”
“I want to ride in your car.”
I was at a loss for words. Did ability users have a different sense of money than regular civilians? If I had a friend I wanted to give things to, I’d be able to gift them a car as well. However, it hadn’t even been a few months since we met. It wasn’t that the time we knew each other had a lot of importance or anything, but still, it was too early to exchange something like this. Honestly, I didn’t even need a car. I was prohibited from going out, so what was the use of having a car? However, Haekyung, leaning against the car with the passenger seat door open, didn’t seem to share my sentiment. Haekyung hated me refusing things, and I hated it when Haekyung hated things. Anyhow, it wasn’t as if this car was so expensive that I couldn’t pay for it. Then, how about I just accept it and give him something in return?
“…Then, should I give you a different car?”
“I don’t want to make any exchanges with you. I just want to give you something.”
It seemed like we’d only spend more time on the road if we stayed like this, so I conceded first and got down from the passenger seat to sit in the driver seat. I adjusted the seat and side mirrors a bit to fit me and stepped on the accelerator. Driving wasn’t difficult. It was just that I had gotten my licence recently, but I’ve driven a lot before. However, I felt a bit of regret. For needlessly holding interest in Haekyung’s car. I felt uncomfortable receiving a gift that I didn’t want. Seeing his reaction just now, if I made it obvious, he’d probably hate it. He probably didn’t want me to return it either. If I were to give him money… I didn’t want to think about it. I focused on driving.
orcinus comments:
creep….
Finally some real obvious signs of him being a weirdo Σ(‘◉⌓◉’)
The red flag is slowly being raised
Oh no
It could see that Euijin comes from a wealthy family, I don’t understand why his father allow him be experimented on by the military. He’s going to university studying sth related to nuclear physics, as I know it requires very good grades.
+1000