BLBJ 11.1

An Unexpectedly Pure Top

After dinner, Eizen was plunged into another dilemma.

He had managed to get Bartholomew and Tennes on the broadcast, but what about the other three? On top of that, meeting Jeremiah was incredibly difficult.

‘Ugh…’

Still, it would be ridiculous to go and explain everything in detail every single time he streamed. He needed to come up with some kind of solution.

The rule that all five of them had to appear before the broadcast could end was fair enough in theory, but from a streamer’s point of view, it was an utterly dreadful restriction.

“What’s got you so troubled?”
“Ah, it’s nothing.”

Eizen shook his head.

“Are you thinking of returning home?”

Should he lie and say no? Or be honest?

Considering everyone already knew exactly what had happened to Eizen anyway, it seemed easier to just come clean.

“I want to see His Majesty.”
“The Emperor?”

There was no question of ‘Why?’ His eyes, usually smiling, merely narrowed slightly.

Eizen pursed his lips. Tennes, who had been watching him silently, said without further comment that he would prepare the carriage.

Departure for the Imperial Palace was swift.

Inside the carriage, Tennes asked quietly, “Do you have feelings for His Majesty the Emperor?”

“Huh?”
“I was just wondering who you truly like.”
“Well, that’s…”

💬Isn’t it about time to pick the main route? 👀
💬Nooo, don’t decide that yet! 😂
💬Just seeing SixthSense’s username cracks me up lol
💬But seriously, are you planning to keep stringing everyone along like this?
💬Those poor fish in your love tank… 😭🎣
💬Might as well become the official harem master at this point 😂💞
💬You haven’t even tried all the other capture targets’ Secret Shops yet! At least finish using them all before ending the game!

Even without viewers reacting this strongly, Eizen never intended to choose just one. He’d always thought it was far better to keep them competing.

And to be more honest, Eizen still couldn’t even figure out his own feelings. Who he liked more, who he loved, who he wanted to accept.

‘Right now… it’s just a game.’

He roughly organized his feelings with that thought.

Since it’s a game, he had no choice but to meet multiple people. And usually, in this kind of game, choosing just one person happens after reaching the ending, doesn’t it?

Eizen glanced sideways at Tennes sitting across from him.

“I don’t know.”

He laid it all out honestly.

Tennes gave a cryptic smile.

“So you’re saying I can’t catch you just by sleeping with you?”
“Should I be happy you slept with me?”
“You’re a bad man, Eizen.”

Tennes’s long fingers slowly traced Eizen’s jaw. Eizen flinched, straightened his back, and blinked. Tennes smiled faintly.

“So you’re saying you can get that excited even without any feelings?”
“That’s…”
“Does it matter who the other person is?”
“…”
“Or… can I hold onto a little hope?”

Tennes’s lips drew slightly closer. His exhaled breath was thick with heat.

Eizen couldn’t say anything.

Was it really okay to meet just anyone?

Or was it that he actually liked them?

“Um, I’m not that kind of… lewd person…” 

Could he say otherwise?

It was true that Eizen was lewd.

But that didn’t mean he’d sleep with just anyone. Back when Pike saved him in that alley, when other men groped him, he’d only felt disgust. Yet Eizen didn’t even bring that up.

“Anyway, it’s not just anyone.”
“That means I’ve made some kind of impression on you, right?”

Tennes’s lips touched his gently before pulling away.

But Eizen couldn’t bring himself to nod. If he affirmed anything here, he feared he’d be drawn into Tennes’s path. In the end, he simply shifted his gaze slightly.

“We’ve arrived.”

At the coachman’s words, Tennes smiled faintly and gave Eizen a brief kiss. A lukewarm, soft tongue moistened his lips, sweeping over them.

“…With the… Emperor.” Tennes’s voice sank low. “Are you planning to do something?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Tennes smiled brightly at Eizen’s feigned ignorance.

“Well, we will find out soon enough.”

Tennes stroked Eizen’s hair before helping him down from the carriage.

The sound of the carriage turning away could be heard, but Tennes’s gaze remained fixed, unable to look away.

Eizen touched his hair and glanced back briefly. Tennes’s carriage was receding into the distance.

“Haa…”

Eizen let out a long sigh and slowly began walking.

A quick meeting with Jeremiah, Christian, and even Pike was all that was needed before turning back.

“If not today… Do you plan to come crawling to me on all fours next time?” He remembered promising Jeremiah he’d go to him.

But when Eizen turned away without a word, Jeremiah unexpectedly let him go without protest. As if he’d sensed this wasn’t the time for that.

At least it meant he could turn off the broadcast.

The viewers were disappointed, but what could he do? He couldn’t just keep having sex with two or three people every single day.

Eizen took a long, leisurely rest at home for the first time in ages.

Eizen had developed his own knack for it, you could say.

Even after just a few days of broadcasting, he’d figured out how to wrap things up and part ways appropriately, and was progressing in his own way.

‘Come to think of it, I must have saved up some money. I should start thinking about what to do next.’

He knew how much his skills were worth, but what about his abilities?

He’d saved well over 30 million won, but that was precisely why he couldn’t stop broadcasting. Charm and XX skills would increase automatically upon completing hidden quests, but he had no idea how much each point was worth.

‘Ah, I forgot to check what XX ability actually is.’

Eizen scratched his head.

Even setting aside all those minor reasons, there were plenty of reasons to keep streaming. He’d built a sort of familiarity, not quite friendship, with the viewers. And since he’d started the game, he definitely wanted to see it through to the end.

Eizen checked the time and turned on the stream.

“Hello.”

He bowed his head. The now-familiar nicknames filled the screen.

Eizen smiled and exchanged greetings with everyone.

💬Seriously, his face just gets more radiant by the day ✨
💬Not kidding, he’s literally glowing rn 😭💫

“Haha, thank you.”

💬Lately I’ve just been waiting for his streams – nothing else matters 🥺
💬By the way, when’s this game coming out?
💬At least tell us the title! 😭

“It’s still a secret.”

Now he could even keep up with the viewers’ comments.

When Eizen gave a slight wink, the chat window filled with laughter. Seeing that quite a few viewers had joined, Eizen declared firmly,

“From now on, we’ll only do it once.”

💬Why not! That’s literally what we come here to see! 😭💦
💬Nooo! You can’t stop!!
💬There are five of them, if he rotates through them, that’s only once every five days
💬What is this, a weekend market schedule or something 😂

“It’s tough in many ways. And the content gets consumed way too fast, right?”

💬What are you talking about? There are so many Secret Shop items! 😤💎
💬And have you seen how many capture targets there are?! 😭💞

No matter what the viewers said, he was going to do them one by one. Content consumption was half an excuse. But he was getting so worn down by the daily grind, morning and night, he was starting to fear his backdoor might never close again.

Eizen calmly persuaded people. After all, he was the one running the game, so anyone unhappy could just stop watching. But that didn’t seem likely. Supporters for each capture target were already swarming. Most viewers tuned in not for the game’s fun, but because they enjoyed watching sex. 

‘Hmm, thinking about it that way feels weird.’

Using sex to attract donations. His conscience pricked a little, but what could he do? This was how the game flowed. It wasn’t like he could just decide not to do it because he didn’t want to.

Eizen decided to just relax his mind.

“I’m going out now. I’ll exclude Bartholomew for the date, and I’ll do it with someone other than Tennes for the rest.”

💬Pike. Only Pike. 😤💞
💬Honestly, it’s been way too long since he XX’d with Pike 😭💦
💬What are you even talking about? Does that really matter? You just gotta hit the right number of times, that’s all 😂

Sure enough. As if it were only natural, competition flared up alongside the donations.

‘Just as planned.’

More money is always better. It’s not just about leveling up skills; it’s about solidly boosting abilities too.

Eizen added that if he happened to meet a capture target today, he’d go for that person, then slowly stepped outside.

“Come to think of it, I wonder how much it costs to raise an ability by 1.”

Eizen opened the [♥Shop – Abilities♥], which he rarely ever opened. He selected Stamina from the options: Stamina, Strength, Luck, Charm, and XX. Charm and XX were already fairly high.

[Stamina]
➤ Increases physical stamina.
➤ Costs 500,000 won per point.

“Gasp…”

It costs 500,000 won to raise one point.

Eizen gasped. That meant all the Charm and XX points he’d been doling out were worth millions of won. No, tens of millions.

‘I thought it was cheap since it just kept handing out points.’

Then again, the only stats he’d been lavishly boosting were Charm and XX.

Eizen considered checking the description and selected XX.

[XX]
➤ Improves XX ability.
➤ Costs 500,000 won per point.

Is it filtering again? Eizen couldn’t tell what kind of ability it was.

Viewers kept saying all sorts of things, but Eizen just let it slide. After all, it wasn’t hard to guess it was an ability related to sex.

More than anything else, he was curious how much he needed to raise it for the effect to show. How much had his charm already increased? He hadn’t checked exactly, but it was close to 100. Only then did the viewers notice the change. So, it was obvious that raising stamina by just 1 or 2 wouldn’t produce any noticeable effect.

‘I really need to raise a lot of donations.’

It wasn’t enough to just raise one skill. Just like raising sex skills also raised XX, he had to raise things like stamina and strength together. Eizen sighed and swept his hair back.

Anyway, the important thing was that he needed to raise more money.

The moment Eizen absentmindedly rounded the corner from his house, he nearly collided with someone.

“Eizen.”

The man called his name and grabbed his arm. Eizen, already knowing the voice’s owner, clamped his mouth shut.

“I was worried.”
“If you were worried, you should’ve turned me back into a human sooner.”

💬Is he gonna XX with Bartholomew now? 👀💦
💬Eizen doesn’t look mad, does he?
💬Honestly, angry XX can be good too 😳🔥
💬But I bet Eizen’s not feeding him the Affinity Potion this time 😂

Bartholomew. He stepped back into Eizen’s line of sight.

He seemed slightly gaunt, as if he’d been worrying. Not terribly obvious, though.

“I was afraid you might have been mauled to death.”

The face that always wore that strangely composed smile twisted. Eizen’s shoulder ached from the tight grip.

The moment Eizen tried to pull away, he was roughly pulled back into an embrace.

Bartholomew’s heart pounded against him, the sound thudding clearly.

He should have been angry. And he was, truly angry. But seeing Bartholomew like this, so unlike himself, why did it ease his mind? Could it be magic?

💬He looks really worried—cut him some slack 😭💞
💬He lost so much weight overnight too…
💬But how’d he even know he was at home?
💬The capture targets literally chat with each other here 😂
💬Fr?
💬Bro, I’ve got a really nice heated mat for sale, you interested? 😏🔥
💬AHAHAHA 😂😂😂

Eizen slowly placed his hand on Bartholomew’s hunched back. He had only thought it strange that the capture targets loved him. But upon quiet reflection, he couldn’t say that he had no feelings at all.

He recalled the conversation he’d had with Tennes yesterday.

“I was just wondering who you truly like.”
“Does it matter who the other person is?”
“Or… can I hold onto a little hope?”

Eizen was certain he couldn’t decide. That much was true.

But he realized it wasn’t because he disliked anyone; it was because he liked them all equally.

‘Otherwise, how could he possibly forgive them all after what they’d done?’

Eizen pressed his lips tightly together. Bartholomew’s body heat felt scorching.

When he thought about the situation, Eizen should have hated the capture targets. Hadn’t things happened that couldn’t be summed up with just the word perverted?

Yet, Eizen couldn’t bring himself to hate any of the five. No, he didn’t even feel resentment.

Even if he couldn’t call it love, couldn’t he at least call it fondness?

“Ha… Ha ha.”

A chuckle escaped him. To realize it only now.

When Eizen started laughing, Bartholomew lifted his head, looking slightly flustered.

“Why are you laughing?”
“No reason.”

Bartholomew’s golden eyes narrowed. As if trying to decipher the meaning behind Eizen’s laughter.

Eizen gently patted Bartholomew’s shoulder and lifted his head. Calling it a date felt a bit off, but since they’d spent time together yesterday, they couldn’t meet today either. Unless they had sex, maybe.

Eizen slowly stroked Bartholomew’s cheek. He liked the feel of the cold silver frame of his glasses against his fingertips.

“Bartholomew.”

Bartholomew’s blue eyelashes slowly lifted, revealing golden irises. In the midday sun, his golden eyes flashed.

💬Wait, don’t tell me this is supposed to be a date?! 😳💦
💬You said you were cutting Bartholomew off! 😂

Ignoring the viewers’ backlash with a shrug, Eizen smiled faintly.

Admitting that he had feelings for all the capture targets actually made Eizen feel lighter. He could finally let go of the delusion that he was sleeping with people he didn’t even like.

Eizen pursed his lips. He hesitated, unsure what to say.

“Would you… like to have some tea before you go?”
“Where?”
“…”

The words “at my place” simply wouldn’t come out. Just asking if he’d stay for tea had already squeezed every last bit of courage out of Eizen.

His face burned hot. This was the first time he’d ever spoken so directly.

‘That promise with Jeremiah really weighs on my mind.’

Why on earth did he promise to come to me on his knees? He must have been possessed by something then.

“If not today… Do you plan to come crawling to me on all fours next time?”
“Yes, I’ll do that.”

Eizen sighed inwardly.

Still, a promise was a promise. He figured it was better to get it over with quickly, since it was bothering him.

‘Should I go see Jeremiah tomorrow?’ 

As he waited silently for an answer while pondering this, Bartholomew pressed his lips to Eizen’s palm. He felt the soft lips part slightly and a tongue lick the inside of his palm. 

“Alright.”

He smiled faintly, his expression relaxing again, as if he knew Eizen had already forgiven him.

💬Can’t go on a date with Bartholomew, so I’ll just XX instead 😏💦
💬Uh… fair enough 😳😂
💬Then who’s the date gonna be with with, Eizen?
💬Tennes, maybe? 👀
💬Dates are kinda boring anyway, but starting the morning off spicy? I approve 😭🔥

Eizen tried to lead the way home. Bartholomew firmly grasped his hand and interlaced their fingers.

“We can’t lose each other again.”
“There’s no need to run away today.”

A chuckle escaped him.