“Mine is really nothing special. I don’t know if this will have any meaning, but on the other hand, I thought you’d never had one before.”
Soon, what he took out by opening the box was a Polaroid camera.
“If you return to reality, photos might be meaningless too, but…… even with that head I was so proud of, I couldn’t think of anything better than this.”
“……”
“Oh, and this is something I took as a trial……”
Taerim said that and held out a photo. Probably taken while he was washing, it showed Heegang with a blank expression, Siyeon making a V sign, and Taerim awkwardly stretching his arm to hold the camera.
A photo of the three people.
Utterly unnatural, yet the faces that Wonyoung loved endlessly soon blurred with water.
“Wonyoung-ssi.”
Seeing Wonyoung suddenly shedding tears, Taerim approached in panic.
“Hyung!”
“Wonyoung-ah.”
Heegang and Siyeon also belatedly approached Wonyoung. As he was surrounded by the three men like that, Wonyoung’s tears swelled even more.
“Why would you do something like this…… What for?”
At Wonyoung’s sobbing words, the three people looked at each other. Soon, it was Taerim who opened his mouth.
“Because I want to do it for you. Because I like you.”
“Why, I’m not even Narae and I’m just……”
“I know that you’re not Narae.”
“No, you don’t know. I just did what the game told me to. All I did was act like Narae.”
At the words that came out as if in defiance, Heegang sighed.
“You were tormenting yourself over something like that?”
“What?”
When Wonyoung glared with bloodshot eyes, Heegang snorted.
“If you were someone who only did what the game told you to, you should have gone home long ago. In the end, it was always you who made the choices, and it was also you who ultimately refused even those choices.”
“……That’s……”
“And hyung.”
Toward the wavering Wonyoung, this time Siyeon spoke as if hurt.
“Do we look like such idiots that we can’t distinguish between Narae and Heo Wonyoung?”
“Uh……?”
“I don’t know who my heart is directed toward? Who I like? At the point when all this was revealed to be a game, do you think there’s even one person who didn’t worry about that?”
“……”
“But still, we chose. Wonyoung-i hyung.”
Wonyoung blinked his tear-filled eyes and looked at the three people. Taerim opened his mouth again.
“I won’t say that there’s absolutely no Narae in the you that I love. But isn’t that natural? Because you, Heo Wonyoung, were Narae. Why do you keep trying to think of them separately?”
Taerim continued while carefully wiping the tears that moistened Wonyoung’s cheeks.
“Actually, at the beginning, there was also the fact that I was more interested because you wavered between Narae and Heo Wonyoung. Because you were naive then rational, and I wondered what kind of person this was.”
Then Siyeon also responded as if remembering.
“Me too, it was funny when hyung would say something and then blush yourself. That frustrated expression was cute too.”
Soon, when Siyeon made eye contact as if saying ‘you say something too,’ Heegang shrugged his shoulders.
“I completely separated Narae and Heo Wonyoung. In my case, telling you that way would probably reassure Heo Wonyoung more.”
Wonyoung silently nodded his head. Taerim’s words were right. He had been Narae, and all the actions and words he’d done as Narae weren’t fake, so why had he thought that way?
It must have been because the game creator didn’t acknowledge him as Narae, as the protagonist. He himself had done the same. That Narae and himself were different.
And he had placed Narae and Heo Wonyoung side by side to compare. That Heo Wonyoung, who had never received love even once, would be that way this time too. That he was inferior to Narae.
But it wasn’t so.
The one who was loved more than he deserved, the one who came this far, was ‘Heo Wonyoung’ who was once Narae.
Only then did Wonyoung seem to understand.
That what they all loved together were those memories and emotions. And…….
“Even if I return to being Narae, the three of you won’t be happy……”
“……Wonyoung-ssi. What are you saying? Don’t tell me you……”
Seeing Taerim flustered as he guessed something, Wonyoung nodded his head.
“Originally, I was going to return to being Narae. Because they said I wouldn’t have to see the ending that way. That then…… they would erase Heo Wonyoung and let me stay with the three of you.”
“Heo Wonyoung-ssi, what kind of foolish……”
“Hyung, does that make sense?! Who said that? That game creator bastard?”
Unlike Taerim and Siyeon who were surprised and complicated, Heegang sighed as if he’d expected it.
“You wanted to stay together that badly even by doing that?”
At those words, tears welled up in Wonyoung’s eyes again. He answered with a pitifully trembling voice.
“Yeah…… I wanted to stay together.”
Over the cheeks Taerim had wiped, new tear tracks formed.
“I wanted to stay together even by doing that. I didn’t want to part. I was afraid of being alone.”
“……Hyung……”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was selfish again. I arbitrarily decided that would be better for everyone.”
At Wonyoung’s tear-mixed confession, Taerim said with a devastated face.
“Wonyoung-ssi, that’s not better for anyone, but especially for you…… isn’t that too cruel?”
It wasn’t that he didn’t know how Wonyoung came to think that way. Because he knew, his heart ached even more.
Taerim quietly pulled Wonyoung into his arms.
“Don’t disappear. You must not disappear, Wonyoung-ssi.”
“……Taerim-ssi.”
“Live as the Heo Wonyoung that I love.”
Then, if so.
In the end, we’ll have to part.
Because those words were grateful yet so painful, Wonyoung cried in Taerim’s arms for a long time.
* * *
“I need to talk to the game creator.”
It was the first thing Wonyoung said after crying for a long time and finally stopping his tears.
“……That I won’t return to being Narae.”
The three people simply nodded their heads without adding anything. It wasn’t that the parting didn’t break their hearts. No, even now it hurt as if driving a large nail into their hearts. But they couldn’t lose Wonyoung. That wasn’t a happy ending for them.
However, at least.
“I won’t silently accept our parting. I’ll resist as much as I can. Until the end.”
“You know how tenacious I am, right hyung? Paying back tenfold when wronged once is my iron rule. I can’t stand to see that game creator bastard living well and comfortably.”
“There’s no way I’d let you go easily. Right, Wonyoung-ah?”
The three people just vowed that they wouldn’t sit idle.
That they wouldn’t give up on the connection that Wonyoung had tried to protect even while sacrificing himself.
“Let’s try to avoid the ending somehow! I don’t want to live with these two until I die, but……”
As Siyeon shouted energetically then showed bitter eyes, Heegang said with a dazzling smile.
“Why? I like the feeling of raising a pet monkey.”
“Ah, really!”
Watching Heegang and Siyeon bicker again, Taerim muttered.
“I want to buy a bigger house and separate those two 10 meters apart.”
Wonyoung knew they were deliberately acting as usual for his sake. He was endlessly grateful for that.
So he deliberately spoke more nonchalantly.
“Stop fighting. I’m going to call the game creator now.”
“……Now?”
“Yeah, while we’re all together. I’m not going to decide alone anymore.”
When Wonyoung answered Siyeon’s question like that, Taerim nodded with satisfaction.
“That’s a good thought.”
While saying that, he held Wonyoung’s hand.
“Don’t be afraid. Whatever happens, I’ll be by your side.”
“……Yes.”
Wonyoung answered briefly and looked up at empty space.
“……Game creator. I have something to say.”
But unlike before, the chat window didn’t appear at Wonyoung’s call. Wonyoung tried calling him several more times, but it was useless.
“He must be hiding.”
At Heegang’s comment, Wonyoung’s eyes widened. He’s hiding?
“Then what do we do now? At this rate, in four days I’ll disappear……”
“Four days? Hyung, in just that time you were really going to disappear without saying anything?!”
“S-sorry.”
Siyeon beat his chest saying it would be better to die than suffer like this, then looked back at Heegang and Taerim with urgent eyes.
“So what do we do? You two smart ones think of something.”
Then Heegang opened his mouth in a matter-of-fact tone.
“We need to call a bastard related to the game creator.”
“You mean the System?”
“Yeah.”
At Heegang’s reasonable opinion, Wonyoung nodded and this time called the System.
“System.”
Fortunately, the System responded to Wonyoung’s call.
“Yes, Player-nim.”
Looking at the glowing sphere, Wonyoung asked a bit nervously.
“……You know everything that happened, right?”
“Yes.”
“I need to meet the game creator. I have to talk with him.”
“The connection with him has been severed. Unless you meet directly, it will be difficult to converse through the chat window like before.”
At those words, Siyeon asked coldly.
“Where is the game creator?”
“I cannot tell you that.”
“Are you kidding right now?”
At the System’s firm answer, Siyeon’s brow furrowed. It was Wonyoung who stopped him as he bristled.
“If I meet the creator directly…… I can talk with him?”
“That’s correct.”
“But if it’s the game creator, wouldn’t he be outside the game?”
At Heegang’s natural question, the System was silent again. At that moment, a crack also appeared in Heegang’s expression.
“I think I know.”
Fortunately, before Heegang could cause trouble, Wonyoung made the first move. At Wonyoung’s unexpected words, the three men’s gazes gathered on him.
“You know?”
“……I’m not certain, but there’s one place I have a hunch about. Even if it’s not that person…… he’s an NPC, so if things go well, he might be connected to the game creator.”
Wonyoung moistened his dry lips with his tongue and thought. In a world where everything had changed to Heo Wonyoung instead of Narae, the only remaining trace of Narae.
“……Let’s go for now.”
Wonyoung said that and stood up.
