I absolutely have to do it with hyung.
Hyung did participate in one-on-one PvP, after all. Unless he had some romantic ideal of winning fights under unnecessarily disadvantageous conditions, it seemed obvious that he would have to participate in the event.
While Haein’s heart pounded with yet another sense of anticipation, Yeonjun had returned home, eaten dinner, finished showering, and settled in front of his computer with an almost solemn determination.
I’m definitely logging off at twelve-thirty tonight.
No matter how interesting an opponent challenged him to a match, real life had to come first.
He played games because they were fun, not because he needed them to make a living.
Sometimes, even Yeonjun thought that since he had been so good at gaming, perhaps making a career out of it would not have been such a bad idea.
However, his interests were somewhat removed from the AOS genre, where professional leagues were well established. He also disliked the atmosphere peculiar to AOS games, where players were expected to turn a blind eye to whatever appeared in the chat window.
If someone insulted Yeonjun, he needed to pay them back. He also disliked how difficult it was to put together the other four members of a party exactly the way he wanted.
In the end, he had simply followed a path that suited his temperament.
Still, working for a game development company had not been bad either. If he had not been driven out of Studio Cloud, his satisfaction with his current life would undoubtedly have been well above average.
There was little point in dwelling on things that had already happened.
In any case, it was clear that he needed to exercise restraint, so he had to draw a firm line starting today.
He had even swallowed his embarrassment and asked Haein for help.
With renewed determination, Yeonjun double-clicked the icon on his desktop.
The Erha Online logo spread across the screen, and the selection menu appeared.
As usual, Yeonjun entered the character selection screen, logged in with his familiar ID, typed a brief greeting in guild chat, and opened the marketplace.
[Guild/Ignis: Hello.]
More messages seemed to appear afterward, but they did not look particularly interesting, so he ignored them.
After monitoring the marketplace thoroughly again today, he unfortunately found nothing that seemed worth bringing to public attention.
Hmm…
After more than a month of monitoring the marketplace board, his overall assessment was that there was nothing suspicious.
For example, suppose there was a cash-shop item that randomly added between two and four special options to a piece of equipment.
Equipment with decent options in two of four slots, or one decent option in two slots, was fairly common.
However, equipment with good options in three or more slots was exceedingly rare. Some pieces were valued at amounts comparable to an ordinary office worker’s monthly salary.
Most of the items currently available at the auction house were equipment that could be obtained without much difficulty or crafted with relatively modest spending of less than 100,000 won.
Occasionally, there were pieces that appeared to be worth around 500,000 to 1,000,000 won when converted into real money, but what difference would amounts like that make?
There was nothing particularly suspicious about them.
Even when a single player listed several similar pieces of equipment at once, it merely looked as though they were selling the byproducts accumulated while trying to create equipment worth hundreds or thousands in the relevant price units.
Isn’t there anything more suspicious than this?
Yeonjun naturally propped his chin on the back of his hand and stared at the screen.
Bzzzz.
When he noticed his phone vibrating on the desk, he checked his open messenger.
[DoHaen] Hyung? 9:13 PM
What?
Yeonjun set down his phone, exited the marketplace, and read through the messages that had accumulated in chat.
[Whisper/DoHaesal: Oh right hyung]
[Whisper/DoHaesal: Something I want to ask you]
[Whisper/DoHaesal: came up]
[Whisper/DoHaesal: It’s not very hard]
What is it?
Yeonjun instinctively drew his brows together and stared at the screen.
He did not know when the messages had arrived, but judging by how much guild chat had accumulated beneath them, enough to push them far up the chat history, quite some time seemed to have passed.
[Whisper/Ignis: ㅡㅡ]
Yeonjun reflexively sent an emoticon resembling a sideways glare, then immediately asked,
[Whisper/Ignis: What is it?]
He had already made it perfectly clear that he would not go on raids or participate in matches. If Haein started spouting nonsense, Yeonjun would type something that the chat filter would automatically convert into hearts.
Keeping his hands on the keyboard, Yeonjun waited for Haesal’s answer.
Haesal quickly began typing.
[Whisper/DoHaesal: Starting tomorrow]
[Whisper/DoHaesal: You know the Passion Festival is happening right??]
What’s the Passion Festival?
Yeonjun tilted his head while looking at Haesal’s message. Then he remembered that around this time of year, there was an annual event with a name beginning with Passion.
[Whisper/Ignis: Passion Festival?]
[Whisper/DoHaesal: Yep yep]
[Whisper/DoHaesal: The Grand Festival of Passion]
That irritating event he could not afford to skip because of the familiar rewards offered every year.
During the first year after launch, Ignis’s partner had been Emu, and the following year, it had been Nakgeukgom.
The movement-speed boost was nice, but it was annoying that they unnecessarily changed the type of mission every year. He could not even find out what he had to do until the update went live.
[Whisper/Ignis: What about the Passion Festival?]
Yeonjun shrugged, even though he could already guess exactly what Haesal wanted to ask.
[Whisper/DoHaesal: ㅡㅡ]
Seeing Haesal immediately imitate him when he deliberately pretended not to understand something so obvious, Yeonjun let out a small snort of laughter.
[Whisper/Ignis: Want me to do it with you?]
It was nothing more than doing some insignificant event together. How could that possibly count as a favor?
Yeonjun could not understand what kind of mindset would make someone consider such a thing a request worth asking.
Ten years ago, he might have been an exceptionally famous player who stood in a league of his own, but the Yeonjun of today was simply an ordinary, exhausted office worker.
There was nothing left about him that Haein should find worthy of admiration.
He was just a pathetic man in his thirties who had gotten drunk alone, collapsed, and called some guy he had never even met to come pick him up.
What on earth did Haein see in him that made him follow him around so persistently?
Seriously, what a strange guy with strange tastes.
[Whisper/DoHaesal: YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
[Whisper/DoHaesal: ㅠㅠ]
What’s with the crying face?
Yeonjun thought little of it and nodded.
After all, he would also have to complete the quest if he wanted the event costume with the movement-speed bonus.
Haein was fundamentally quick with his hands and meticulous. If Yeonjun was going to look for someone in the guild to complete the event with, Haesal, whom he had interacted with the most, seemed like the best choice.
[Whisper/Ignis: OK]
[Whisper/DoHaesal: !!!!!]
Almost immediately, Haesal’s character appeared in the area where Yeonjun had cast his fishing line, standing there with his ears perked up.
Yeonjun watched him with a disbelieving little chuckle.
Anyway, that’s that.
To accomplish today’s goal, Yeonjun still needed to catch three fishes.
[Whisper/Ignis: Stop running around beside me so restlessly]
[Whisper/Ignis: If you’re going to stay, just sit down]
At the casual party invitation Yeonjun sent him first, Haein immediately slammed his head against the desk.
The slight impact against the desk, which was connected to the bookshelf, caused the surface of the aquarium water to ripple gently.
Hyung! Hyung sent me a party invitation first!
Haein desperately suppressed the urge to boast about it to anyone and everyone.
Hoo.
He took a deep breath.
[Whisper/DoHaesal: Yess]
At this point, it was becoming difficult even to deny it or make excuses.
I think I really do like hyung.
That much had been obvious for some time.
But like and love were different things, weren’t they?
The former was something along the lines of ‘I like Ignis-nim, but I don’t want to date him,’ or perhaps ‘If Ignis-nim said he wanted to date me, I think I’d be okay with it.’
The latter, however, meant that Haein had reached the point where he needed to worry about whether he might confess his feelings to Is-nim himself.
[Whisper/DoHaesal: For the record, I like you, hyung]
Remembering the sentence he had casually blurted out to Yeonjun, Haein grabbed at his hair.
No, I mean, I did say that.
And of course, he really had liked him back then too.
But he had never dreamed that, in such a short time, he would come to realize that he liked Ignis-nim in a much more complicated sense.
No, but I’m a man, and hyung is a man too.
Haein scratched at his head with a foolish expression before another thought occurred to him.
But the person I’m talking about is Ignis-nim. Does gender even matter?
Considering what Ignis represented in the history of Erha Online, something like gender was meaningless.
I mean, we’re talking about Ignis here!
Ignis, the guy who would upload solo-clear videos for practically every major piece of content as soon as a big update dropped! What does gender matter?
This was not something only Haein would think.
Anyone who had admired Yeonjun around that same time could probably acknowledge the sentiment at least once, even if only as a joke.
“What am I really supposed to do now…?”
Before he had become close to Is-nim, Haein had believed he would be happy simply knowing that Ignis-nim had returned to the game and being able to watch him.
But people always said that once you obtained one thing, your desires became endless.
Haein sighed and once again dropped his forehead onto the desk.
Meeting Ignis-nim in the game.
Interacting with him in the game.
Getting him to join the guild.
Meeting him in real life.
Every time he passed another milestone, he found himself anticipating whatever would come next.
I want more.
Deep inside his heart, the desire to have an Ignis-nim who belonged to him alone, one whom nobody else knew, kept surging.
It was not as though he wanted to do anything in particular right this moment.
But I don’t want to just watch him either.
His heart continued to flutter, and the soft warmth that had touched his lips that day kept returning to his mind.
This was unmistakably his first love.
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