# Chapter 17
“W-what did you say?”
“Huh? What?”
“Ah, n-nothing…”
Wonyoung, who was about to ask ‘What did you just say,’ came to his senses and closed his mouth. If he heard those words again here, there would be no escape. It seemed better to just pretend he didn’t hear.
He would have done so if a choice window hadn’t appeared.
[What did you just say?]
[Y-you like me…?!]
“…”
He didn’t even feel like cursing the game anymore. No, rather, he’d gotten used to it, or perhaps resigned to it.
Thinking that he’d rather be choosing between rockfish and blowfish again, Wonyoung selected the upper option. The bottom one was the worst choice, only asking for trouble.
“What did you just say?”
If he asked like this, maybe Heegang would be too embarrassed and brush it off…
“I said I like you.”
He came at him that directly?!
Flustered by the first confession he’d received in his life, one way or another, Wonyoung stood up abruptly, banging his knee against the table.
“Rae, are you okay?”
“No no, wait!”
When Heegang stood up and tried to approach him, Wonyoung unconsciously stepped back. At that reaction, a shadow fell over Heegang’s face. Wonyoung mumbled as he averted his gaze from that expression.
“Um, I, bathroom… I need the bathroom!”
With that, Wonyoung rushed out of the room and headed straight to the bathroom. After washing his face with cold water, he frowned at his reflection in the mirror.
“What are you doing, Heo Wonyoung?”
Just as he was about to say something cool like ‘To get back to reality, I’d do even worse…’ Wonyoung punched the air when he saw the system window that appeared before him.
[Statement incompatible with character traits. With 3 warnings, a penalty will be imposed.]
[Penalty Level 1 ‘Lucky Pervert’ has been activated.]
‘Damn it! Why again!’
Can’t a person set the mood a little? A 30-year-old Heo Wonyoung couldn’t very well talk to himself saying, “Oh no, what’s wrong, Wonyoung-ie?”
Lucky Pervert was absolutely not acceptable. Wonyoung tried to call the system to somehow negotiate, but the system, perhaps deliberately, refused to appear until the end.
‘Baek Heegang must be waiting too.’
He was the character with the highest pursuit potential. If he could just get through today well, he might return to reality soon. He couldn’t leave this situation as it was.
‘M-maybe… I should take this as an opportunity for skinship…’
Wonyoung couldn’t stand himself for having to think this way, but he decided to postpone that shame and misery to the game and take action for now.
So with a tearful face, Wonyoung left the bathroom and walked down the corridor toward the room. Sure enough, he saw Heegang waiting outside the room, having been worried about him.
Wonyoung walked toward him feeling a bit guilty. But then, a sliding door right next to Wonyoung opened, and a burly man stumbled out, swaying from alcohol.
Just as Wonyoung reached out his hand as any decent person would to the man who looked about to collapse, it happened.
“Ah!”
The man happened to fall forward toward Wonyoung’s outstretched hands, and Wonyoung’s hands ended up grabbing exactly both of the man’s breasts.
“…”
“…”
A suffocating silence. Then the man glared fiercely.
“What? What are you doing, you pervert bastard!”
“No, no, no, I’m not!”
Wonyoung, more shocked himself, stepped back in terror. He swore he didn’t know that [Lucky Pervert] didn’t discriminate between targets.
Why would they apply it to an extra who’s not even a character to pursue in the first place?
The game developer deserved to die a hundred times over.
The problem was that this [Lucky Pervert] winner was obviously a gangster. Moreover…
[The man before you seems too rough and scary. Rae’s status has become ‘Fear’. It will be difficult to speak due to trembling.]
[Status: Scared o(><;)oo]
His status had changed too. It was truly a dire situation.
“Are you crazy, you bastard? Why the hell are you groping another man’s chest? Are you a homo?”
“N-no, no, I’m not…!”
Wonyoung had so much he wanted to say, but his body froze like a rabbit in front of a tiger, and his lips wouldn’t part easily.
“With a face like a gigoló’s, what, are you trying to get your back door opened?”
“What?”
‘Aaack, no! This gangster! I’ll report you for sexual harassment right now!’
That’s what Wonyoung wanted to say, but due to the fear status, only the first part came out.
“Aaack! No!”
“This is what happens when I keep seeing you around!”
The man, more enraged seeing Wonyoung’s terror, finally raised his fist. True to his gangster appearance, his fist looked quite powerful. Wonyoung closed his eyes tightly, deciding to sue the man for an enormous amount of damages after being hit.
But Wonyoung’s plan was thwarted again.
Crash!
With an unrealistically loud noise, something shattered in front of him, and the man collapsed with a thud.
“Huh?”
Wonyoung swallowed air as he slowly understood what had just happened.
So…
‘Baek Heegang just smashed a piece of pottery on the gangster’s head.’
“Aaaaahhhh!”
Wonyoung was truly in panic. A murder case right before his eyes? First a corpse, and now a murder case? (Strictly speaking, Siyeon wasn’t a corpse, but still.)
As Wonyoung was screaming and almost falling, Heegang caught him. At the same time, a mission window appeared, which had always appeared when meeting a new character but strangely hadn’t today.
[※Mission Alert※]
Objective: Don’t get caught by ???
Reward: Safe return home
‘Police? Is it the police?’
Though confused by the sudden question marks, Wonyoung first thought of the police. The restaurant employees should have all come running at the loud noise by now…
“…Why isn’t anyone coming?”
“There are CCTV cameras. It’s nothing serious.”
“What?”
“But we should leave quickly. Our Rae must have lost his appetite.”
Wonyoung stared blankly at Heegang, who was speaking calmly. Was it because his attitude was like someone who had just seen discarded garbage on the street? Somehow, it gave him chills.
“Want to go somewhere else? Ah, my place is fine too.”
“Uh…?”
“After all, I’m not in a position to move around freely. I’m sorry, Rae.”
“…”
Is the meal the issue here? There’s a person lying with his head cracked open at our feet!
“We should report this first. I don’t know why the employees aren’t coming, but…”
As Wonyoung tried to slip out of Heegang’s arms and take out his phone, Heegang grabbed his hand. Wonyoung soon realized that the hand was trembling slightly.
“I’m sorry, Rae. I know I scared you. But I… I lost my mind for a moment thinking you might get hurt.”
“…”
“The employees will be here soon. Since high-ranking officials and celebrities often come here, they have their own way of handling things. It’s not good for either party to cause a commotion. I’ll contact my agency too, and I’ll definitely apologize when this person wakes up.”
Was that how it was? Wonyoung’s expression finally eased a bit at Heegang’s explanation. Still, when Wonyoung didn’t put his phone down, Heegang added:
“And, once again, I’m really sorry, Rae. I…”
He trailed off, lowering his eyes pitifully. There seemed to be a hint of moisture in his beautiful voice. Seeing Heegang somehow managing to smile despite everything, Wonyoung felt an inexplicable sense of relief.
However, while Wonyoung was looking elsewhere, there was no emotion in Heegang’s gaze as he looked down at the fallen gangster.
Not seeing this, Wonyoung thought to himself:
‘Right, Baek Heegang must have been shocked too. The other guy was a gangster after all. How could he make a normal judgment when the man was about to hit me?’
He must be pretending to be okay even now. Thinking that, the earlier creepiness disappeared, leaving only unwarranted guilt.
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I got tangled up with this person for no reason.”
“Rae…”
“If, just if, we need to go to the police station, come with me. Okay? I’ll definitely testify that even though I’m partly to blame, this person was the first to try to use violence.”
At Wonyoung’s concerned voice, Heegang stared at him intently.
“You really haven’t changed at all.”
“…”
Wonyoung was Narae but not Narae. Hesitating about how to respond to that fact, Heegang examined the fallen man and said brightly:
“Fortunately, there’s no blood on his head. He’s breathing well too. He seems fine.”
“R-really? That’s a relief.”
“Yes, don’t worry too much. But come over here, Rae. Be careful not to step on the fragments. If I had known this would happen, I would have hit him with something other than pottery.”
Wonyoung, focused on avoiding the broken pottery shards, didn’t hear Heegang’s words as he was distracted by the arrival of the employees.
After the employees took care of the cleanup, the two couldn’t stay any longer, so they left the restaurant and got in the car.
“So, what should we do now?”
“Uh…?”
“As I mentioned earlier, do you want to come to my place? I can’t promise lavish treatment, but I’m reasonably confident in my cooking. You must be hungry, Rae.”
At those words, Wonyoung finally remembered what he had completely forgotten. That Baek Heegang had confessed to him!
What would happen if he went to Heegang’s home was obvious even to Wonyoung, who didn’t know BL. And once again, the most dangerous word of the century began circling in Wonyoung’s mind.
’18+!’
‘N-no way. That’s not possible. System-ssi. If you’re the system, humanely, shouldn’t you tell me the age rating for this game?!’
Wonyoung screamed inwardly, but of course, the system didn’t appear. Wonyoung licked his parched lips as he looked at Heegang, who was waiting for his answer with deep eyes.
