0&1 Ch 1.1

A Certain Game

The new school term started, and I took on another part-time job. Thanks to that, school became a place that was only for sleeping.

I sat in the very back row and slept until the end of the day.

Every time I half-woke from a nap, I’d see the back of the kid in front of me, slumped over his desk. He was napping all day too. Feeling more at ease because of this, I lay down to sleep again, but I was the only one who got caught and scolded by the teacher.

After about a week of this, the two of us were known as the guys who slept every day.

The guy in front of me was named Yoo Yeon-ho. When he wasn’t asleep, he was playing games. According to him, he spent tens of thousands of won a month on games. When I commented, “You must have a lot of money,” he just said he didn’t have anything else to spend his allowance on.

Yoo Yeon-ho talked a lot. He spent every lunch break ranting about which games he’d played and how terrible they were. According to him, all the games in the world were garbage. And yet he still stayed up all night trying new ones, which was amazing.

Now and then, he’d recommend a game. But hearing about it didn’t help me understand what made it fun. I simply nodded while he talked.

Then one day, Yeon-ho suddenly asked me:
“Don’t you want to try playing a game?”
“I’m broke.”
“It doesn’t cost much. Even paid games only run you a few thousand won, at most.”
“I said I’m broke.”

Yeon-ho shrugged.

“Come on, you’re too strict. You need some romance in your life. Love! You should play the game, my friend. Everything is in the game.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have money.”
“Unromantic loser,” he grumbled.

Yeon-ho started to whine: “This one’s really fun, just try it once, come on.”

He admitted the graphics were kind of trashy, but insisted real fun doesn’t come from appearances. I just said, “Uh-huh, sure,” but still didn’t play it.

While I was working a shift at the convenience store after school, my phone buzzed. Yeon-ho had gifted me a game. A dating sim. The protagonist was even a girl. Judging by the title screen, it did seem romantic.

What a cute bastard.

I downloaded it out of consideration for his kindness. It took forever. Will it  even run on this old phone? The last game I played on it was Minesweeper, I think.

Since Yoo Yeon-ho sent it, I figured I could beat it.

I played the game in my spare time while working, eventually reaching an ending. The protagonist got murdered for insulting the royal family. Huh, what did I do? Why is a romance game so brutal?

Still, it was fun. I was going to tell Yeon-ho my thoughts about it at school the day after. I’d ask him, “That was harder than I expected. Have you cleared all the endings?”

That’s when I heard a sound. The sound of car tires scraping against asphalt.

Something was coming directly at me. I looked up, and the headlights of a car blinded me.

There was no time to react. My body hit the car, flew into the air, and hit the ground again. It didn’t feel real.

I got hit by a car while crossing the street. My mom always told me not to look at my phone while walking. I was a good son who listened to her. Usually.

The headlight’s glare remained on my retina, and a ringing in my ears came before the pain. Through my buzzing ears, I heard shouts to call an ambulance.

My phone was lying far away.

On the cracked screen, the player character was still getting murdered.

What bad luck…

That was the last thought I had.

When I regained consciousness, my first thought was that this couldn’t be a hospital room.

When my dad died I was too young to understand. I didn’t learn until I was older that his hospital bills had drained our entire family’s savings.

A sharp light pricked my eyelids. It was a hospital after all. This was the worst.

But the light felt like sunlight, not artificial blue lighting. I felt the warmth of the sun and the sensation of grass on my cheeks and limbs.

“Joffrey!”

Noise flooded in as if somebody had turned off silent mode.

My whole body ached. I was being held in the arms of a woman I’d never seen before. She was a striking beauty with black hair, and her face was twisted up as she cried.

“Oh God, thank you, thank you!”

She kissed my forehead and sobbed. I tried to ask who she was, but only a dying groan escaped my lips.

Did the car run me over? My whole body felt broken. If I stayed in her arms like this, I really might die.

“Joffrey, my child, are you alright? Joffrey! What are you doing?! Go get the physician quickly!”

She shouted, and people dressed like something out of old Europe scattered in all directions.

Where was the road? The cars? This wasn’t any neighborhood I knew. Actually… this didn’t look like Korea at all.

I rolled my eyes upward and met a pair of pitch-black ones staring back.

Clear, unreadable eyes with long, beautiful lashes. A breeze blew, and a thick mane rippled down a long neck.

Is this… a horse?

In an instant, reality vanished. I stood with my mouth agape, staring at the horse. Then—

Smack!

A child tumbled to the ground. Golden hair and bright blue eyes were the first things I noticed, then the bright red handprint across his cheek.

“How dare you!”

The woman holding me turned with a terrifying expression and glared at the kid. He didn’t move. She raised her hand again, and I quickly grabbed it, alarmed.

Her face crumpled instantly. “Ohh…” she moaned, pressing kisses to my forehead and cheeks, rubbing her face against mine and sobbing again.

“Thank God, thank God.”

I turned my eyes away, stunned.

The boy was still on the ground. There were people all around, but no one helped him up. They just stood like statues, eyes down.

What the hell? Were they all insane? That’s child abuse.

Eventually, the boy stood up on his own. He brushed off his clothes. He didn’t cry.

And then he looked at me.

From head to toe, his eyes scanned me slowly. Without a word, he took the horse’s reins and walked away.

The horse that had shattered my sense of reality walked off with him.

Wait. Where are you going?

A child was walking away alone and no one seemed to care.

Someone pressed a damp cloth to my forehead. A man lifted me up in his arms. He was super strong, but his eyesight must’ve been poor. Even though I pointed at the boy and mumbled, he just said, “I’m sorry, we’ll be there soon.”

Every step he took made my bones feel as if they were dislocating. I couldn’t even think about where I was or what was happening.

“Joffrey, my baby.”

The woman who’d slapped the kid earlier was now calling me with a voice sweet enough to melt butter. The same hand that struck his cheek now caressed mine, stroked my hair, and held my hand.

It was warm and gentle.
It made me want to cry.