# Chapter 13
Wonyoung slowly raised his gaze from the elaborate dragon tattoo, examining the white face and delicate features as he thought.
‘If I pursue this guy, I might get caught in the middle of a gang war, be taken hostage, or find my life threatened.’
Though his face was pretty, Wonyoung couldn’t risk danger just for looks. Siyeon probably wouldn’t consider such a dimwit who couldn’t even understand the point of a question as a romantic prospect either.
‘I went through all that trouble to save him, and now it’s useless.’
Is this one also a failure? Wonyoung felt bitter as he stood up. Siyeon, who had been looking around the house like a child visiting an amusement park for the first time, followed him with his gaze.
“Hyung, where are you going?”
Instead of answering, Wonyoung walked to the clothes rack and pulled out an especially large sweatshirt. When he turned around to hand the clothes to Siyeon, a fierce dragon was staring him right in the face.
“Whoa! You scared me.”
When Wonyoung jumped in surprise, Siyeon giggled. Wondering when this guy had approached so silently, Wonyoung stepped back a little.
“Here, at least put this on. The clothes you were wearing have too much blood on them.”
Taking the dark green sweatshirt, Siyeon said with a mischievous face:
“Why? Don’t you want to see more of my nice body?”
“Oh, come on.”
Wonyoung was about to explode in anger but remembered the penalty and suppressed it.
“Don’t tease me. That’s not how you should talk to your hyung.”
Siyeon smirked unpleasantly again and then said, “You’re right, I shouldn’t do that to my hyung,” as he obediently reached for his pants.
“I owe you my life, and since you’re my hyung, I should show you more of my nice body on my own—ouch!”
“Are you in your right mind?! Or did you hit your head too? Did you get hit hard on the head? Huh?”
“That hurts, hyung. They say small peppers are spicier, and it’s true.”
At those words, Wonyoung’s face turned bright red as he pummeled Siyeon’s back.
“Don’t! Talk! About! Peppers!”
“Wow, hyung, despite appearances, your thinking is completely perverted!”
“Get out, get out right now!”
As Wonyoung was trying to kick Siyeon out with foot stomping, suddenly an ominous colored window appeared before his eyes.
[Statement incompatible with character traits. With 3 warnings, a penalty will be imposed.]
[Penalty Level 1 ‘Lucky Pervert’ has been activated.]
“What?”
Wonyoung felt considerable anxiety at the terribly named ‘Lucky Pervert’ that sounded awful just hearing it. But before Wonyoung could do anything more, suddenly his perfectly fine legs tangled as if dancing on their own, and his body tilted forward.
“Oh, hyung!”
Poof.
The smell of skin. And… an inexplicable sense of security.
That’s how Wonyoung ended up with his face buried in the man’s chest. Though he didn’t want to think about it, the chest was so large that his face was more accurately buried in the cleavage.
‘I’m jealous. And this is BS.’
Even Siyeon, who had been constantly making snide remarks, seemed to find the current situation quite absurd as he fell silent. Wonyoung mumbled in embarrassment.
“S-sorry. I’ll get up right away.”
But no such luck—whether his legs had lost strength or not, Wonyoung just flopped around like a squid. Realizing this was that damn ‘Lucky Pervert’ penalty, Wonyoung still struggled as best he could. He just wanted to die of shame.
“No, I’m really trying to get up, but my legs just won’t listen…”
“…Hyung, I’m sorry, but could you stop rubbing so much? And talking too, if possible…”
“Huh?”
When Wonyoung looked up at Siyeon with wide eyes, Siyeon bit his lip and slightly turned his head. Somehow, his ears were bright red.
“Your breath is, touching me.”
“Ack, sorry! Just push me away! I think I got a cramp in my foot!”
“If I push you, you’ll die.”
“What do you take me for?! …Wait, why is your chest getting hard…”
Suddenly noticing the change in the texture against his cheek, Wonyoung muttered with genuine curiosity, when Siyeon suddenly flared up and shouted:
“Because you keep rubbing against it! How am I supposed to stay relaxed? Are you really a pervert, hyung?”
“What? This, this isn’t me touching on purpose… I’m sorry, alright! So push me away! Just push gently!”
“Oh, for real!”
Siyeon ruffled his hair vigorously, then lightly pushed Wonyoung’s shoulder. Surprisingly, Wonyoung staggered backward like a leaf fluttering in the wind. Siyeon quickly approached Wonyoung and asked:
“Hyung, are you okay?!”
“Uh, I’m fine. It was just a cramp in my leg, that’s all.”
“…My job is beating people up, so I can’t control my strength well.”
“Yeah, yeah. You did well this time.”
Wonyoung unconsciously patted Siyeon’s head, then flinched and quickly lowered his hand. Though there was quite an age difference in reality, it wasn’t apparent in appearance, so Siyeon wouldn’t like being treated like a child.
Embarrassed that he’d patted Siyeon’s head without thinking after warning that gangsters were dangerous, Wonyoung turned around and cleared his throat. Siyeon stared at Wonyoung intently before smiling slyly and saying:
“Hyung, I’ll put on clothes now. We can’t have you bumping into my chest again.”
“Want another hit?”
“So, what did you think of my chest?”
“I had no thoughts whatsoever.”
Wonyoung snapped back in the gentlest tone possible to avoid getting another warning. If he got another penalty, he’d just have to die. The one good thing was that the Level 1 penalty seemed to be a one-time thing.
Siyeon chuckled to himself as he put on the clothes. While complaining like an old fogey about “kids these days,” Wonyoung suddenly looked at Siyeon.
“Are you going to wear it out by staring so hard?”
“No amount of staring would wear you out.”
“Right, then look all you want.”
When Wonyoung couldn’t hold back and snapped, Siyeon spread his arms as if he’d been waiting for it. Wonyoung frowned and glanced at Siyeon. He felt conflicted seeing that the clothes—far too large for himself—fit Siyeon just right.
Still, perhaps because his intimidating body was now covered, his bright smiling face finally looked his age. And when he was embarrassed earlier, he looked like a child too.
‘How did a young guy like him get involved in that kind of world?’
With that face, he could have done anything.
As Wonyoung was feeling somewhat sorry for him, Siyeon suddenly burst out laughing.
“Hyung, do you like my face that much too?”
“…What?”
Wonyoung responded in disbelief to the preposterous question. Unequivocally, Siyeon was not Wonyoung’s type. He was a bit pretty, but first of all, he was a man, and probably a gangster, and anyway, not his type. But Siyeon was still grinning.
“You keep staring at my face like you’re entranced whenever you get the chance. You might start drooling soon.”
After saying that, he even closed Wonyoung’s gaping mouth. Wonyoung, confused about when his mouth had fallen open, defended himself:
“I was just spacing out.”
“Suuure.”
“It’s true!”
“Yes, I believe you. Rae-hyung is a kind and transparent person who lets any stranger into his home, cares more about abs and pecs than tattoos, eats triangle kimbap himself while buying porridge for me.”
“…”
Wonyoung closed his mouth, at a loss for where to start refuting. Whatever meaning Siyeon took from that silence, he lowered his head to meet Wonyoung’s eyes and said kindly:
“But next time, don’t save anyone but me. The world is too dangerous these days. No matter how pretty their face is, don’t do it. Understand, hyung?”
“I didn’t save you because of your face.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
“Really! It was dark then, so I couldn’t see your face or anything.”
“Right, I understand.”
‘This guy…’
Wonyoung gritted his teeth and glared at Siyeon, but it amounted to nothing more than a puppy’s expression after being denied a walk. Nevertheless, the game coldly prohibited even that glaring with a warning message: ‘Behavior incompatible with character traits.’
What’s left for me at this rate? Where are Heo Wonyoung’s self and individuality going? Feeling despondent from the “no glaring” restriction, Wonyoung excused himself to take a shower.
While getting drenched with cold water due to shower temperature control failure, Wonyoung calmly organized his thoughts. The fact that Siyeon seemed to have taken a liking to him wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, if he could reach an ending and safely escape this game, all problems would be solved.
In that process, he could tolerate being teased a bit by a gangster whose head was barely healed. Heo Wonyoung’s self and individuality would naturally be restored once he left the game.
‘Right. Regain your rationality, Heo Wonyoung. This is just a game, and I’m the player. In the end, I’m the one who leads the game. If I let the game drag me around, I’ll be neither fish nor fowl.’
It’s all just data anyway. It was time to put aside shame and misery.
When Wonyoung, shivering but newly determined, finished his shower and came out, he saw Siyeon sprawled comfortably as if in his own house, reading a comic book. Wonyoung narrowed his eyes and thought:
‘Anyway, since a character to be pursued is a character to be pursued, it would be better to maintain a favorable relationship with that guy too.’
Romance, that’s nothing he couldn’t do. After having had his pants pulled off, what was there to fear?
With such a resolute face, Wonyoung approached him but belatedly questioned the existence of the comic book. If his memory served him right, he had never seen anything like a comic book in this house. So where did that come from?
And as if answering that question, Siyeon looked at Wonyoung over the comic book and smiled mischievously.
“Hyung, this is interesting. I didn’t know your taste was like this.”
“…What?”
Wonyoung asked incredulously at the unexpected question. Categorically, Siyeon was not Wonyoung’s type. He was a bit pretty, but first of all, he was a man, and probably a gangster, and anyway, not his type. But Siyeon was still grinning.
“I was wondering. There was something suspicious about you suddenly falling.”
At that moment, in Wonyoung’s mind, the image of two men stickily attached to the comic book cover connected with the phrase “bullet delivery” he had seen while buying BL comic books for research yesterday. If so, that was what I bought yesterday…
