I was standing in my usual spot, dozing off as the bus moved along, and before I knew it, we’d arrived. I stumbled off sluggishly.
This kind of exhaustion can’t be fixed with instant mix coffee.
With that thought, I headed in the opposite direction of my office. If I walked that way, there was a fast-food place that sold cheap coffee and breakfast toast, so I frequented it often.
“Your hot Americano and egg toast are ready.”
Carrying the strong Americano and warm toast, I sat by the window. Outside, people were still bustling about on their way to work.
I took a bite of the toast and chewed absentmindedly, like a cow chewing cud. The coffee was hotter than I expected, and I nearly burned the roof of my mouth—that was what finally snapped me fully awake. Most people probably don’t wake up from the caffeine in an Americano, but from the sudden “Ow, that’s hot!” instead.
As my mind gradually cleared like morning fog lifting, I heard the man sitting two seats away talking on the phone.
“Hey, don’t even get me started. I was there too, and I dropped an item.”
He had been speaking loudly in excitement, but after glancing at me, he lowered his voice. Still, he didn’t hang up or stop talking.
“I’m telling you! At least it was a cheap one, so that’s a relief. Yeah. Huh? You didn’t know? Dude, they were fighting over who’d get the Guide……. Yeah, I’m serious!”
The hand that had been rubbing between my brows suddenly froze. My eyes flew open. I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but after catching a few keywords, it didn’t feel like someone else’s business anymore.
Pretending not to listen, I pulled out something I had printed yesterday from the briefcase I always carried for show. My hands flipped through the pages, but I wasn’t reading a single word.
“No, one of our guild members tried it out of curiosity, and he says it’s insanely good. Yeah, yeah. I might switch to a male Guide this time. Oh, but the guy who linked with ShutUp? They say he’s actually gay. If that rumor spreads around, he won’t be able to show his face. Right?”
I kept flipping the pages back and forth, and my body stiffened.
Gay……? Me?
To regain my composure, I pulled out a fountain pen I never even used and scribbled meaningless lines on the paper.
While I was doing that, the man—perhaps feeling self-conscious about how long he’d been talking—kept glancing at me before suddenly saying, “Huh?” and walking over.
“Good morning.”
“O-Oh, hello.”
It turned out he was one of the people I’d seen at that real estate gathering before. Not an owner, but a licensed agent affiliated with a fairly sizable office. I hadn’t memorized everyone’s faces that day since I’d met so many new people, but he approached me first as if we were acquainted.
“Busy from early in the morning, I see.”
“No, not really.”
I hurriedly stuffed the papers I’d taken out back into my bag. He said, “Well then, I’ll be off,” and resumed the call he’d paused before heading out the door.
Wow, the world really is small.
I knew there were a lot of people who played games, but I hadn’t expected someone in the same line of work—on top of that, in a similar area—to be playing on the same server.
And if he found out that the person he’d just been talking about was me……. Even if it wasn’t my real estate business number, if even one person who knew me got wind of it, it’d only be a matter of time before my real name got exposed. There were plenty of people with the same name, so I could flat-out deny it—but I didn’t have the guts for that. It’d probably show on my face.
Ha…….
Cold sweat broke out. This industry was small—rumors would spread in an instant, and I might end up walking on eggshells under the pressure of those strong-willed real estate owners.
I might even have to shut down business in this area…….
But I had just opened my office not long ago, and I still needed to recover my initial investment. The one small relief was that the number I used for real estate and the one ShutUp knew were different, so even if rumors spread, I at least had an escape route.
With a sigh, I lifted the coffee and took a sip.
“Ah, hot!”
It hadn’t cooled down yet—I properly burned the roof of my mouth this time.
As these thoughts tangled in my head, it felt like the best option would be to quit the game as soon as possible—or at least switch servers. I wasn’t even gay, but the thought of being labeled one in real life scared me. One wrong match, and I’d end up pinned up in the village as a laughingstock…….
I never should’ve picked up that ring in the first place. No. I never should’ve started this game at all.
Yeah. Let’s meet him.
ShutUp was 23. I was 28. Maybe if he met someone older, he’d get a little intimidated. That was the hope. I thought I’d meet him and get some kind of written agreement. If I scolded him a bit—throw around words like “Personal Information Protection Act” and “Is this how a student should behave?”—maybe he’d get the message. But on the other hand, we’d had sex in the game. Wouldn’t it be awkward seeing each other in real life?
That’s not what matters right now. My real life is on the line.
If this reached Han-woo’s ears—who loved teasing me over the smallest things—it’d be brought up every time we met with friends.
Carrying my half-finished coffee, I slowly walked toward the office, sorting out my thoughts. But for some reason, the black car wasn’t parked there.
I entered the office, turned on the PC, and logged into my internet account. Before anything else, I searched for the file where I’d written down ShutUp’s address and phone number in-game. I wanted to look up roughly where he lived.
It’s Jamin-ro around here too, but…….
New addresses labeled “—ro” were often duplicated in different regions. Even something like “Gangnam-ro” could show up in Yongin or Jinju in Gyeongnam, so I’d assumed it wouldn’t be nearby.
But surprisingly, there was only one “Jamin-ro” in all of South Korea—and it was here.
Calmly, I entered the detailed address.
“Jamin-ro 54-gil……, 24, Unit 701. Feels like I’ve seen that before. This is…….”
At first, I thought I’d searched it wrong. The destination pointed to the building right across from my office. I stared at the screen again and slowly wrote each character onto the notepad on my desk, spacing them out carefully. Then I checked the map again.
Ha……. What is this?
Something was going very wrong. This had to be some kind of cruel joke from God. Unit 701……. That reminded me—there’d only been one front door on the seventh floor.
Cold sweat trickled down my back like when you realize you’ve filled in your exam answer sheet one line off. My fingertips trembled, but I tried to steady myself by talking out loud.
“N-No. It’s too early to jump to conclusions. The phone number—yeah, the number’s different. The numbers are different. Right. Of course.”
ShutUp’s number and Jun’s number were definitely different. Then was he a roommate? Living together? Maybe. Just because the address was the same didn’t mean they were the same person.
With shaking hands, I took a sip of the Americano I’d bought that morning. Rolling it slowly over my tongue, I carefully wrote ShutUp’s and Jun’s phone numbers side by side on the notepad. I’d contacted Jun through a business two-number line, and ShutUp through a personal number.
Right then, his black car smoothly pulled up and parked in front of the office. Watching it, I picked up my phone, deciding to confirm the truth with one call.
Yeah……. I’ll call ShutUp with my real number.
Crouching low behind my monitor, I pressed the call button. The driver’s door opened, and I saw his long legs step out onto the ground. But there was no sign that he was about to answer a phone. The call was connecting, but his hands were empty.
I—I’m saved…….
Right. The heavens hadn’t abandoned me. No matter how unlucky I was, there was no way I’d be tangled up with that bastard in a game too. I forced my pounding heart to calm down, set my phone down, and leaned my head back against the chair.
“Whew…….”
I’d been so tense since morning that a headache started to throb. I got up to rummage through the drawers for some painkillers when I heard the office door open behind me.
“Welco—”
“I’ve got something to discuss.”
It was Jun. The guy who wouldn’t step foot into my office no matter how much I begged—what could’ve brought him here?
“……P-Please, have a seat first.”
I told him to sit and pulled out a coffee stick, pouring it into a paper cup.
Meanwhile, Jun took his phone out from his inner pocket, glanced at it, then placed a call somewhere. I set the coffee down on the sofa table and straightened up—just as I heard my own phone vibrating on the desk behind me.
Jun glanced once toward my desk, then picked up the coffee I’d handed him and took a sip. I couldn’t even fully straighten my back as I shuffled toward the desk.
“O-Oh, I, I’ve got a call.”
No way. The guy sitting in front of me drinking coffee couldn’t possibly be the one calling…….
[Big Mouth]
“…….”
The screen clearly displayed [Big Mouth].
No way. Was Juni really ShutUp?
To get out of this crisis, I quickly switched the phone to silent. Then I pretended to answer it.
“Ah! Yes, you’re the client who looked at the one- and two-room units yesterday, right? Yes, yes. You’d like to sign the contract? R-Really? When would you like to come by?”
Was that natural enough? I was so flustered that my words came out awkwardly. Even as I stepped outside the office pretending to be on a call, my heart pounded so hard my voice trembled.
Without even reentering the office, I moved to a corner without window film and observed Jun’s actions. I saw his stiff back, and then the hand pressed to his ear dropped down. At the same time, my phone screen went dark again.
The bastard I’d clung to last night, whining and moaning, was the unlucky owner of the building across from me. And not only that—he was so damn young.
The only silver lining was that he didn’t know my true identity. I hadn’t used a face photo for my profile, nor had I mentioned real estate. I hadn’t even used my real name for the profile. There were always guys who liked to tease.
Alternating between two different numbers when contacting him had been a godsend. God hadn’t abandoned me yet. The heavens were still on my side.
“Calm down, calm down…….”
I had to ask why he’d come today, so I composed myself and went back inside. He was still looking at his phone while sipping the coffee I’d made.
When I sat across from him, he finally lifted his gaze and looked at me. Then, without preamble, he asked:
“Errands. How far are you willing to go?”
“Do you need me to travel somewhere far?”
He was openly using informal speech now, but I couldn’t point it out. ShutUp in the game and Jun in front of me felt like they were merging into one person. He’d been tall with large hands in the game too, and in reality it was the same—maybe that was why it felt even more convincing. If he got angry, it felt like he might start shooting electricity.
“No, not going somewhere……. Can you find someone for me?”
“……I said I could run errands. I didn’t say I ran an errand agency.”
“Fair point. I just thought, since you’re in real estate, if you had someone’s contact info, you might be able to find out where they live. The real estate offices around here all have my contact information, don’t they?”
“That’s because you’re the landlord.”
Who was he trying to find, anyway?
I almost let out a snort at the absurdity of asking a real estate office something like that, but my body stiffened. Jun was staring at me with a cold gaze, as if he’d caught the hint of ridicule. I quickly resumed my poker face and held out my hand.
“Why don’t you leave the contact number with me? If it turns up in a search, I’ll let you know.”
Jun gave a small nod and pulled his phone from his inner pocket. It was a fairly large model, but in his hand it looked like a toy.
Tap, tap—he turned on the screen and handed it to me. I carefully copied down the number that appeared onto the small memo pad on the sofa table. I usually jotted down numbers there during consultations with clients; at the top was the number of a designated driver service.
Beneath an advertisement slogan that said the number was the same forward and backward, I wrote down the number Jun had given me.
But…… it was exactly the same as my own number. Every digit.
010, 2928, 5……, oh. Fuck.
The tip of my pen trembled. Was he asking me—to find myself—with my own phone number?
As I wrote the final “0,” my hand shook so badly it came out looking like a little flower.
Clearing my throat, I handed his phone back.
“Then, contact me if you find out.”
“Y-Yes…….”
He set down the coffee he’d been drinking and left the office.
He was seriously terrifying. What did he plan to do by finding me? I’d linked with him properly last night, and even though he’d died during a PK with Moment, it hadn’t been my fault. Well, I had been the reason he’d fought Moment in the first place…… but still. There was no reason for him to track me down for revenge.
“……Don’t tell me he’s going to blackmail me for the Relax fee?”
That couldn’t be it. The ring I returned was worth a fortune, and even if I’d given him some boosts, trading it for Relax still meant ShutUp had gotten the better deal.
As Jun walked back to the building across the street, he must’ve called Gentle again—my personal phone started ringing nonstop. Of course, I kept it on silent and ignored it.
