……What is this about now?
I examined Banye’s face. But Banye wasn’t crying endlessly like me, nor did he even look haggard.
Looking at Banye’s perfectly fine face, I got upset. Most of all, wasn’t he the one who rejected me! It’s different from me!
Even while watching me frown, Banye didn’t add anything more. Then he grabbed my arm as if nothing was wrong.
As he shamelessly tried to lead me to the dining table, I got angry and shook off his arm.
“Don’t tease me!”
Banye looked at his arm that had been shaken off once, then looked back at me and said.
“I wasn’t teasing you.”
“I, I’m really……”
I tried to speak but felt like crying again, so I shut my mouth.
Banye looked at me, let out a big sigh, and spoke in a tone where I couldn’t tell if he was trying to soothe me or pick a fight.
“Hyung might not know, but the person who rejected someone has a hard time too.”
“……”
“When hyung is looking like death, do you think I’m comfortable?”
I was dumbfounded by his calm retort. Of course Banye wouldn’t be comfortable either, but I wondered if that was something to say right now in front of me, the one who got rejected.
I was about to snap at him but gave up, thinking whatever I said would be useless anyway. I used to like Banye’s selfish attitude like that too…… but after being rejected, it was really the worst.
‘Damn it. Why did I like such a guy? No, why only guys like that……’
Now that I think about it, my eye for men might be terrible.
As soon as I had that thought, Banye interrogated me as if he’d read all my thoughts.
“Do you regret liking me?”
“Yeah.”
I answered without hesitation. But Banye’s expression, which I thought would sneer saying he knew it, crumpled for a moment.
I didn’t want to argue with Banye anymore, so regardless of what he said, I just sat at the dining table.
A gloomy meal began.
I ate the hangover soup gloomily. I definitely used to enjoy eating it…… I had no appetite, and thinking that Banye bought it made it even less appetizing, so I forced it down. If only Banye wasn’t in front of me, it would be more comfortable to eat.
‘Can’t we eat separately?’
The dining table was like sitting on thorns.
Then, Banye, who had been eating silently, glanced at me.
“Who were you on the phone with earlier?”
“……I wasn’t on the phone. I was just listening to music.”
“……”
“I was just on NewTube.”
I reflexively lied. At the same time, I flinched, wondering if Banye had heard the entire phone conversation.
I lowered my voice tremendously while talking with Nanneokeo, worried that Banye might hear, and I even crawled under the blanket to talk…… I thought I shouldn’t do voice chats or phone calls at home from now on.
But Banye seemed to have immediately noticed the lie and didn’t take my excuse seriously.
“Hyung, you don’t even have anyone to call.”
“Why don’t I have anyone to call?”
“Then who did you call?”
“I said I didn’t! No, even if I did, I won’t tell you!”
Why are you interrogating me like this when you don’t even like me? I glared at Banye while fuming.
Banye stared at me with a completely undisturbed attitude.
“Did you call Nanneokeo?”
“N-no!”
Surprised by Banye’s ghostly perception, my voice rose. One of Banye’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
“Why do you keep hanging out with him?”
“Wh-what does it matter to you who I hang out with or not?”
You already rejected me anyway.
I shoved all the remaining rice into my mouth as if sweeping it in. Banye frowned seeing that, but I didn’t care. Then I immediately came into my room.
As soon as I did, I trembled with tension in my room, worried that Banye might have heard the entire phone conversation and was interrogating me.
Actually, while talking with Neokeo-ssi earlier……
‘I know I should stop here too……’
[Yes.]
‘Why do I still like him……’
I had said that.
If he knew the phone conversation, how pathetic would I look to Banye?
“Ah, shit……”
I got choked up again and buried my face in the pillow, sniffling.
My feelings toward Banye change a dozen times a day. I hate him, I like him, I hate him…… If only Banye would treat me carelessly like Sisi did, believing in my affection, at least my feelings would cool off. Rather than doing that, Banye seems to want to…… remain friends with me forever.
“……I don’t want that. I said I don’t…… such an ambiguous relationship……”
I rubbed my stinging eyes again on the pillow stained with tear marks.
* * *
“I’m going out.”
From far away, I heard Banye’s voice along with the sound of the front door opening and closing. When I peeked out of my room and looked around, there was no one in the house. It seemed Banye had gone out.
Banye’s outings had become frequent lately. I heard him say he was going out a few times, and when I responded with “uh-huh” and half-ignored him, now he left without waiting for an answer.
I couldn’t interrogate him when I was the one who ignored him first, but I was secretly curious where he was going. And for good reason—recently, Banye had quite frequently been going out in the afternoon and coming back late.
I wondered if living in the same house with me was uncomfortable, but at the same time I thought, then why not move out…… While Banye was out, I wanted to just change the password, but since all of Banye’s stuff was inside, even that wasn’t feasible.
I gave up on thoughts I couldn’t execute and just kept sighing deeply.
“Haaah……”
I rolled around on the sofa that I hadn’t properly used recently because I’d been avoiding Banye. Even though it was my house alone after a long time, I didn’t feel comfortable. My heart was too heavy to feel free.
Well, it hadn’t been long since I was rejected, I couldn’t cleanly give up either, and Banye’s attitude was shameless……
It was a situation where my heart couldn’t possibly be at ease. Every love song sounded like my story. Just sitting still, my head only got more tangled and complicated, not comfortable at all.
“……Should I play a game?”
I told Nanneokeo that I might have to quit Card of Fantasy, but if I could quit that easily, I wouldn’t have transferred servers in the first place.
Thinking that way, I reached the thought that if I had quit when burned by Sisi, I wouldn’t have met Banye either……
Would it have been better not to have met Banye?
I didn’t want to think that far. Because it was true that I had fun meeting Banye. Of course, liking Banye wasn’t exactly a good thing……
‘Ugh, I don’t know……’
It was a problem that didn’t have an easy answer.
I tried to shake off the heavy feelings and turned on the game. Since Banye went out, I logged in with the Aang character for the first time in a very long while.
[Guild][Anajokiwojo] Is that Banye?
[Guild][Aang] No
[Guild][Jorangi] Oh Aang-nim hi
[Guild][Anajokiwojo] Aang hi
[Guild][Haeyam] Hiyam
[Guild][Haeyam] It’s been a while since you came lol
[Guild][Suckeot3] Nice to see you Aang lol
[Guild][Nanneomukeoeyeowo] Hello!
[Guild][Aang] Hi
When I said it wasn’t Banye, seeing the welcoming greetings pouring toward me, I felt a bit happy that they were welcoming me.
[Guild][Haeyam] Why have you been logging in so rarely yam ㅇㅅㅇ?
[Guild][Nanneomukeoeyeowo] Were you not feeling well?
Nanneokeo, who knew my whole situation, asked first with a plausible reason. Thanks to that, I could lie without awkwardness.
[Guild][Aang] Yes, I caught a cold
[Guild][Anajokiwojo] You’ve been sick for a while
[Guild][Jorangi] Gasp, are you okay now?
[Guild][Nanneomukeoeyeowo] I heard colds are bad these days
[Guild][Aang] I’m okay now
[Guild][Suckeot3] Take care of yourself lol
[Guild][Aang] Yes I will lol
I was glad I logged into the game. Because I could forget about Banye even for a moment.
But as soon as I had that thought, the topic of Banye came up in the guild chat.
[Guild][Jorangi] Then you probably couldn’t properly watch the videos Banye-nim uploaded?
I couldn’t get upset at the tone that assumed I would naturally watch. Because the old me would have enthusiastically watched everything and even praised him……
The guild members agreed with laughter.
[Guild][Neda] He’s been uploading diligently lately
[Guild][Haeyam] Really diligently yam ㅇㅅㅇ lol
[Guild][Anajokiwojo] He’s always on the game too
[Guild][Jorangi] The content is also much more serious!
[Guild][Jorangi] It’s so good ><
At those words, I checked the inventory once. The equipment was a bit different from when I last logged in. The gold had increased quite a bit too.
I sneakily entered Banye’s NewTube channel. I didn’t know because I had turned off notifications, but in the meantime, Banye had really been steadily uploading videos.
‘When he so easily told me he’d give up being a creator.’
Somehow my heart became complicated.
