Shin-jae quickly grabbed his phone and hid it under the blanket. It was a somewhat unnatural movement, but Sa-yoon was too preoccupied with the absence of his pair to notice.
[When can you log in?]
Originally, the plan had been to drink just enough last night, log in afterward, kidnap Killer, and run the battlefield for about three hours.
But honestly, that was just wishful thinking. Sa-yoon knew himself too well. There was no way his old friends, whom he hadn’t seen in ages, would let him go early. And once he started drinking, he’d get excited and keep going until dawn…
So, in the end, he wouldn’t have been able to log in anyway.
On the bright side, instead of dealing with a hangover, he was now in perfect condition to play. Maybe if he kept grinding until the evening, he could break into the top 5% today? With that productive goal in mind, Sa-yoon turned back to his screen.
“Huh?”
The “1” that had been next to his message was gone. His message had been read instantly.
Wait, was he actually waiting for it?
Just as a tiny bit of guilt crept in, a charger was suddenly thrust in front of his face. When he looked up, he saw Shin-jae, awkwardly avoiding eye contact, his messy bedhead hidden under a hoodie pulled deep over his face.
“Food.”
“Huh?”
“Have breakfast before you go.”
Food? That wasn’t in the plan. But plans were meant to change. Overnight, it seemed he had become strangely soft when it came to Shin-jae. Sa-yoon found himself nodding instinctively.
Unfortunately, as soon as he agreed, the remnants of last night’s meal in the dining room flashed through his mind. Well, whatever. A meal wouldn’t hurt. A person needed to eat to have the energy to grind the battlefield.
“Sure.”
“Do you want anything in particular? There are a lot of places nearby that deliver breakfast. They have omelets and brunch sets… Oh, and there’s a good onion soup place too.”
Shin-jae’s face lit up as he rattled off the options. If he had to choose, Sa-yoon preferred Korean food over Western, but seeing Shin-jae this excited, he didn’t have the heart to dampen the mood.
“Let’s just get whatever you want.”
Replying casually, Sa-yoon glanced back at his chat with Killer. He tapped a few times to erase what he had originally typed and began re-entering his message.
[I’ll be logging in this afternoon.]
Nestled in the plush blanket, Shin-jae’s phone vibrated once more.
“Huh? Sounds like you’re getting messages.”
“I don’t need to check.”
“What?”
Wasn’t it normal to mute group chats and only keep notifications on for important messages? Before Sa-yoon could dwell on it, Shin-jae’s rapid-fire questions started up again.
“Hyung, do you have any food restrictions? Any allergies? I was thinking of ordering a salad since it’s breakfast and I wanted to keep it light, but they have a lot of different kinds here, so…”
He sounded like an energetic little chick chirping away. Instantly, an image of a tiny, fluffy chick flapping its short wings popped into Sa-yoon’s head. Except… instead of yellow, its feathers were a more tanned shade…
That was enough to make him forget all about the phone vibrating earlier.
A smile naturally crept onto his lips. The kind of smile that only came out when he saw something cute.
“So, uh, the brunch set comes with… um, what was it again…”
Noticing the change in Sa-yoon’s expression, Shin-jae—who was more like a clumsy door than a chick—suddenly short-circuited mid-sentence.
***
“Ah, ah. Can you hear me?”
—Yeah.
Sa-yoon frowned at the short reply. Never mind the strange sense of distance, the static noise crackling over the line was even worse.
After finishing what felt like breakfast disguised as lunch, he had gone straight home and logged in. Shin-jae had looked like he wanted to tag along to a café or something, but Sa-yoon’s generosity had its limits.
The moment he got home, he was bombarded with nagging from Sesame, his now fully-grown delinquent of a cat, for staying out all night. Despite being a kitten, the little thing already had a temper.
It took over ten minutes of baby-talking— “Aww, was our little Sesame lonely without hyung?”—to calm it down. And even then, he had to offer up a few freeze-dried pollock treats from the freezer before he was finally freed to sit at his desk.
At least it was a baby cat that could be bribed with snacks.
Between looking after two young, needy creatures since yesterday, his back wasn’t just aching—it was practically bent over. Neither of them seemed like they’d ever repay his kindness. And yet, here he was, an aging man with no one to take care of him.
Muttering to himself, he massaged his shoulders as the game finished loading.
Without hesitation, he snatched Killer the moment he saw him online and hopped into the voice chat. The only reason was to drag him into the battlefield.
But damn, was his mic this bad?
Pressing his headset firmly against his ears, Sa-yoon spoke up.
“Is your volume actually maxed out? I can barely hear you.”
—Yeah.
“You sure your mic isn’t halfway down your throat?”
—……Yeah.
The volume increased slightly—it was clear he’d actually adjusted it.
This bastard had plenty of money, yet he was using a mic like that? Back when he was going by his temporary nickname, Sa-yoon had assumed Killer was still in school and even worried about his finances. But as it turned out, the guy was quite the bourgeois.
With how freely their guildmates spilled TMI about each other, and the way Killer casually blew through hundreds of loot boxes every time there was a seasonal event, it was impossible not to know.
He had no problem pouring money into the game, yet he was stingy in weird places. Muttering to himself, Sa-yoon opened his settings and lowered the game audio slightly. His voice chat settings had already been maxed out ages ago.
“Say something again.”
—Yeah?
“What, are you some kind of broken chatbot?”
No response.
Killer, who could be endlessly chatty in text, always turned into a mute the second voice chat was involved. He was clamming up harder than the piles of seashells scattered around the lake in front of Hemelton Village, where Chasa was currently stationed.
Sa-yoon still wasn’t used to the contrast. Clicking his tongue, he instinctively opened the match history page.
And just like that, any urge to complain vanished.
“Queue up.”
Win. Win. Win. Another win.
Never mind getting used to the contrast—just looking at this streak of victories was beautiful. Their win rate had shot past 80%.
With results like this, he could put up with Killer’s quirks.
While Sa-yoon was secretly shifting gears, the queue was already rolling, and a message popped up: Match found. Below it, the estimated wait time was displayed.
Then, with a crisp ding!, the matchmaking window disappeared. Less than a minute in the queue. For a server this small, that was lightning-fast.
It meant a lot of players were grinding ranked right now.
To Sa-yoon, they all looked like stepping stones, ready to push him higher. Just thinking about it made his pulse quicken. What color dye should he use on his reward set when he hit rank 1? He was already daydreaming about it.
The screen flickered black, then brightened again. The blurry background sharpened into focus. Out of habit, Sa-yoon spammed the tab key to pull up enemy info—
And froze.
“…Huh?”
A very familiar name appeared.
A name he neither wanted to see nor run into here.
[Guild] Oath’s Vow: Ah.
[Guild] Shokrates: No fucking way.
[Guild] Shokrates: wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf
[Guild] Furple: ???
[Guild] Freedeal: No spamming, please.
And clearly, the other side felt the same.
[Guild] Shokrates: Inseong-nim, why is our guild master there…?
[Guild] Oath’s Vow: Looking forward to the match.
[Guild] Freedeal: Whoa, all four of us got matched? That’s insane lol.
[Guild] Furple: Yesterday’s ally is today’s enemy?
[Guild] Chasa: Lol, kinda nice running into you here.
[Guild] Killer: lol hi hi.
[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: Wait, did you all just greet Inseong-nim like it’s nothing?
[Guild] Shokrates: Right?! I literally got chills just now.
[Guild] Freedeal: They say when people change, a certain something happens…
[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: A certain something that shall not be named.
[Guild] Furple: LOLOLOLOL.
[Guild] Freedeal: LMAO Frog-nim got it immediately.
[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: Of course, of course.
[Guild] Freedeal: Now if only we could just break the ‘ㅇ’ key on their keyboard…
[Guild] Furple: Not even removing the key, just straight-up breaking it??
[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: Why you always gotta do this to me, Free-nim? ㅠ
Despite greeting them, Sa-yoon’s face on the other side of the screen didn’t look the least bit pleased. This was not an easy first opponent.
“No matter how small this server is, how does it make sense to run into the same people every time?”
And of all people, it had to be guildmates.
—Yeah.
Killer quietly agreed. His volume was still so low that it sounded more like a whisper than a response.
Taking a day off had already dropped Sa-yoon’s ranking significantly. There was no way he was losing his first match. It was like a business’s first sale of the day—he had to set the tone.
[Guild] Furple: Oath vs. Killer is gonna be a fun one lol.
[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: Why isn’t there a spectator mode for battlefields? ㅠ
[Guild] GegulGegulFrog: I need to know who’s winning.
[Guild] Shokrates: This is literally my own teammates cannibalizing each other ㅠ. We should be lifting each other up, not tearing each other down! ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
[Guild] Chasa: There are no teammates on the battlefield.
[Guild] Shokrates: So cold… ㅠ
Shokrates wasn’t a core PvP player. But he was a Black Mage, one of the most broken classes in the game, and Oath’s Vow had picked him as their partner, which meant he had to be decent.
“Start with Jeon-gi.”
—Jeon-gi first.
Neither of them had to say more—they both immediately locked onto the same target. No matter the comp, the golden rule in PvP was to take out the magic users and healers first.
