[Then come over to Doowon’s place.]
“Yeah. I’ll call when I’m heading out.”
I’d been planning to have dinner with Du-seon today, but since a friend was enlisting soon, we ended up gathering together. I didn’t even realize the meetup was today until I got a call while washing my hands at Du-seon’s house.
The friend who was enlisting was that guy from our guild—Enlistment. His real name was Lee Doowon. He’d been close for years with Wi Sang-jung, who played as a Human.
When I arrived at Doowon’s place, a lot of familiar faces were already there. As I sat down, Sang-jung handed me a glass of alcohol, but I refused. I just picked at the food in front of me when Doowon looked over at me.
“Hey, when are you guys enlisting?”
He glanced back and forth between Sang-jung and me. Unlike Sang-jung, who said he’d go when the time came, I said I’d go as soon as possible. I didn’t want to train under a bastard like him.
“Huh? Then what about Gentle hyung? If the three of us all go to the army.”
I’d been thinking of going either this year or early next year, but now that I thought about it, if three out of four guild members enlisted, Gentle would be left alone. And we were currently at war with the <Haeundae> bastards. Which basically meant they’d bury Gentle alive.
“We’ll just have him withdraw before we go.”
“Juni, you must really like Gentle hyung. You should meet him in person. You never know.”
Sang-jung acted like he knew everything just because he’d hunted with Gentle once. He said it might be exactly my type. The comment that he felt similar to the hyung I used to live with irritated me.
My friends knew I was gay. The only reason I, the sole gay guy among them, could stay so naturally within the group was because we’d known each other since childhood. Plus, I was the safe friend to introduce to their girlfriends. There was zero chance we’d ever fight over the same girl. That alone made our friendship solid.
And there was one more reason.
“Juni, do me a favor.”
“What is it?”
“Look into this for me. Some asshole’s been sending my girlfriend weird DMs. I wanna know if he’s from our school.”
I glanced at the SNS ID sent to my phone and nodded lightly. It wasn’t a difficult request. The reason favors like this were so natural was because my friends knew what I did.
I was a hacker.
In high school, I’d won first place at the Code Gate Junior International Hacking Defense Competition held in Korea, securing my advancement to the finals. The world competition was ahead of me, and after that, I planned to enroll at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the U.S.
My life had been smooth—like a road already paved out for me.
Until that happened.
With my study abroad confirmed and only high school graduation left, my parents were suddenly involved in an accident. Losing them in an instant—those parents who’d always stood firm as my unwavering support—made life feel meaningless.
Even the cause of the accident was infuriating. A truck driver, drunk, had crossed the center line. My parents died on the spot, and the truck driver passed away two days later in the ICU.
I wanted to blame someone—anyone. But the driver was already dead. With the perpetrator deceased, there was no legal ground for prosecution. People around me suggested filing a civil lawsuit to claim compensation, but that brought no comfort.
With nowhere to vent my anger, I decided to find the family he’d left behind and take revenge. I would crush them with every method available to me.
When I tracked them down to a shabby container home, a man a few years older than me stepped out. Before I could even introduce myself, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head before me.
The dead truck driver’s son.
Hyung.
He must’ve secretly come to my parents’ funeral. That was probably how he recognized my face. I wanted to stomp his bowed head into the dirt.
But I didn’t.
It wasn’t because of the tears falling onto the back of my hand. It wasn’t because of his crumbling home or his worn-out appearance. It wasn’t even because his voice carried sincerity.
It was just that chasing him felt like chasing an empty plastic bag blowing in the wind. I thought I’d been pursuing something solid, something tangible—but it was nothing more than a rustling black plastic bag. Tear it, crumple it, throw it away—it meant nothing.
In the end, I left him kneeling there and turned around. I didn’t know the way back home from there, but I walked aimlessly until familiar streets appeared, leading me in the right direction.
I didn’t think he would follow me. When I got tired, I sat on some building steps to rest, then walked again. By the time I’d kept going like that, the once-bright surroundings had grown dark, then bright again.
The damp breath of dawn dried quickly as I stepped inside the house. This home, drained of any vitality, swallowed me like a sinkhole into deep darkness.
I couldn’t even turn my head toward the door on the right. I didn’t have the courage to sort through my parents’ belongings. I just needed somewhere to collapse, so I fell onto the living room sofa. I thought I’d locked the door when I came in, but just before drifting to sleep, I heard the door lock engage.
I’m home.
I said it silently to myself and fell asleep.
I don’t know how long I slept, but the blanket covering me was suddenly pulled away.
“Not eating?”
I was sure I’d closed the blinds, but someone yanked them all the way up. Sunlight stabbed straight into my eyes, forcing me to squint. Backlit by the glaring sun, someone stood over me and spoke. After a moment, as my eyes adjusted, his figure came into focus.
The truck driver’s son.
He stood there, as if this were his own house, staring down at me.
“You haven’t eaten anything for two days, have you…?”
“Get out.”
A prisoner I hadn’t even captured stood inside my house. A prisoner who had persistently followed the path I’d walked. Every time he spoke, I brushed him off with shut up, get lost, things like that. My voice came out hoarse from not even drinking water. As his voice grew louder, my hearing grew dull.
Was I just going to sink like this? Maybe it would be easier that way.
But he blocked that thought. Grabbing me by the collar, he hauled me back above water.
“Eat!!! Right now!!”
My muffled hearing slowly returned at his shout. He yanked my face closer, yelling even louder.
“Get up!! I’m done watching you lie around—go wash up, now!”
He was definitely smaller than me. When he’d knelt before me and bowed until his forehead nearly touched the ground, he’d seemed small enough to tuck into a bundle.
Yet he easily dragged me toward the bathroom. I followed like a paper doll. The clothes I’d been wearing for days were stripped off by his hands. Even having someone undress me didn’t make me feel ashamed.
When he shoved me toward the sink and smacked my back, telling me to wash my face, an annoyed retort slipped out. The moment emotion returned to my voice, he burst into laughter so loud it echoed through the bathroom.
“A guy who says he’s dying gets that worked up from one slap? Wash up. I’ll run you a bath.”
I wasn’t pleased, but once water touched my hands, I found myself washing automatically. As I washed my face and shaved, I realized his tone had changed. The pleading voice from before had turned into commands.
And strangely… that was easier.
After my parents’ accident, I’d been like a blinking cursor on a black screen—doing nothing unless someone input a command.
And now, he was inputting commands for me. I only had to move the way he told me to. No sadness, no joy—just movement. Call it escapism if you want. But I was living.
Living with him like that, I slowly regained vitality. I met friends again and even joked around. Maybe because I hadn’t originally been that bright to begin with, they didn’t notice the change.
Around that time, I began to rely on hyung like family.
No.
He became my axis.
Hyung once said he couldn’t leave me alone after seeing me sitting by myself at the funeral. He said he’d take care of me. He hugged me without hesitation, treated me like a real younger brother, looked after me, even scolded me.
“Juni, you’re not alone.”
Having grown up without siblings, I naturally followed him. Leaned on him.
If only it had stayed there.
Another emotion began to sprout. I’d never wanted attention from anyone—man or woman—but from him, I wanted it. I wanted him to obsess over me.
That was when I first started masturbating while thinking of him. Just like the hand gripping myself, I wanted hyung to control me more firmly.
But to him, I was only ever a younger brother.
“Hyung. Stay by my side. Always.”
I remember the faint smile he gave me. I thought it meant yes. That he would stay, like the year we’d already spent together.
But maybe he knew.
That my feelings were no longer transparent.
The habitual hugs gradually lessened. The nights we’d fall asleep on the same bed watching TV disappeared. The way he’d barge into the bathroom under the excuse of scrubbing my back like brothers turned cold. He stopped patting my butt, calling me “our Juni.”
He stopped touching me.
“…Hyung?”
Then one day, he vanished without a trace. He’d said goodnight and gone to his room like usual, but the next morning his bedroom was spotless.
On the bed was a short note. No “take care,” no farewell—just one line asking me to forget him. I felt betrayed. It hurt my pride to think he’d only stayed out of pity.
For a while, I searched for him like a madman. I dug into everything I could about him, tracked his records—but nothing came up. The last registered address was that same container where we’d first met. Of course, it was empty. It was as if someone was telling me the person I’d met had never existed in the first place.
In one sense, I thought of it as a happy ending. The prisoner who’d been trapped in my house had finally gained his freedom.
So I decided to forget him—to give him that freedom. I thought it was the best thing for him, and the last thing I could do.
Maybe because I’d already grown numb from losing my parents, I accepted losing him too.
After that, I met other people. Lived as usual.
But maybe life felt too empty.
At some point, I started having trouble getting hard. The hospital diagnosed me with psychogenic erectile dysfunction and prescribed medication. I took it a few times, then stopped. It didn’t solve anything.
My hollow life felt like a dead end.
And just when another wave of emptiness began to swallow me, I met him.
Yoo Du-seon.
They say there are no coincidences in this world. Just like how I met hyung.
I was playing Blood Planet like usual when I got tangled up with some strange newbie Guide. He boldly demanded that I become his partner in exchange for returning my ring—and the moment our matching rate hit 91%, we were automatically paired.
After I gave him my real information in-game, I traced GentleTouch’s number too. With just a phone number, hacking the SS7 (Signaling System 7) mobile network let me track location, eavesdrop on calls, even read exchanged messages.
At first, I’d only looked him up out of curiosity—I didn’t like being the only one who’d revealed personal info.
And it was him. Yoo Du-seon. His in-game voice was identical to his real one. It would’ve been harder not to notice. I almost exposed him outright—“You’re the real estate guy, aren’t you?”—just to see his reaction. But I held back. Watching his responses grow more interesting was more fun.
I stared at the darkened real estate office and let my gaze drift to the sofa area. I remembered the way his hands trembled while jotting down a number when I’d asked him to look something up. He’d been ridiculously cute.
The number Du-seon and I exchanged in the game was his main number. But when he contacted me as the landlord, he used a second number. I did the same for real estate matters.
At first, I just watched him because he was amusing and cute. But after that day, something changed.
The link I formed with Du-seon in-game was on a completely different level compared to anyone else. I wanted to keep that connection. Afraid he might run away, I hid the fact that I knew his identity.
In reality, aside from the time he told me not to throw cigarette butts, Du-seon never looked at me like he was trying to control me. Even when I provoked him with errands, nothing changed. That was disappointing.
But in the game, it was different.
In the game, he cursed at me. He resisted just enough. I liked that. I wanted him to reveal his true colors and command me. He knew my home address. I’d even threatened—half-jokingly—to track him down through his number. There was no way he didn’t know I was ShutUp.
And in the game, ShutUp didn’t have to obey him like Seo-mun Jun did in reality. I’d proposed the master-servant relationship to bind him, but sometimes I wanted more than the rewards he gave.
As long as he didn’t know, I could allow myself that.
When Doowon’s girlfriend arrived, I naturally slipped out with the other friends. I dropped Sang-jung off on the way and parked in front of Du-seon’s real estate office. I turned off the engine and slowly stepped out of the driver’s seat.
It was late by the time I returned home. As usual, I parked in front of Du-seon’s office and closed the car door.
Someone had been peeking into his office. The moment he saw me, he turned and started running. Judging by the way he ran and his silhouette, he was a young man with a fairly solid build. He looked suspicious at a glance, so I started to chase him—but there were no boxes stacked near the office.
“Not that guy?”
I stopped, watching the man flee toward the end of the alley. Maybe because I’d suddenly sprinted after him, a breath escaped me like a sigh.
I stepped out from between the dark buildings and walked toward my own building. At that late hour, most shops were closed. A bar sign glowed dimly in the distance. Under the streetlight, my shadow stretched long across the ground.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how long you can keep hiding it, hyung.”
