Virtuality Complex (1 / 2)
ʚ Title: Virtuality Complex for bluedreaming ♡
ʚ Pairing(s): Kyungsoo/Minseok, minor Kyungsoo/Jongdae, brief mentions of other pairings
ʚ Rating: PG-13
ʚ Warnings: situation that could possibly be interpreted as infidelity
ʚ Word Count: 11k words
ʚ Summary: Kyungsoo exists at the border between two worlds: the reality that everyone else lives, and the one he has created for himself.
ʚ Message for your recipient/author note: I apologize for choosing a prompt so far down your list, but as an avid Nell fan I was immediately drawn to this prompt. I took the "open interpretation" part of your prompt to heart, and I hope you enjoy the results :)
Kyungsoo is sitting in a cafe.
Well, technically, the one sitting in the cafe is Kyungsoo’s avatar. Kyungsoo himself is sitting at the desk in his bedroom, with his laptop open in front of him and his simulator helmet on. He’s plugged into DateMe, the largest massive multiplayer online dating simulation game, which makes it seem like Kyungsoo is sitting in a cafe regardless of his actual location.
Kyungsoo keys in the commands for his avatar to take a drink of coffee. The avatar sitting across from him is handsome, as far as pixels can be: slicked-back hairstyle, a three-piece suit clothing set that Kyungsoo knows for a fact costs a small fortune in the game’s currency. This simple but refined look was what first attracted Kyungsoo to player kjmsuho when he spotted him in the shopping district server the week before.
kjmsuho’s avatar blinks back at Kyungsoo and smiles mildly. “Don’t you have something more exciting to do than spending your time hanging out on an online game? It’s Saturday night, after all.”
The words are mere politeness - the two of them had, after all, agreed to meet at this time. So Kyungsoo shakes his head, knowing the motion will trigger his avatar to do the same.
“I like to spend the nights I have off from work relaxing at home,” he replies into his headset mic. It’s the most basic of conversation, nothing but small talk, and yet it’s so crucial. Baby steps, the beginning of establishing a possible “relationship,” the first tactical moves in a game. Kyungsoo has memorized all the mechanics of how to create a successful dating experience on here. He can guess the next words kjmsuho will say, even before they come out of his mouth.
“So what’s your job, then?” kjmsuho asks, and Kyungsoo smiles beneath his helmet. Completely predictable, and therefore perfect.
Kyungsoo is just about to reply when there’s a loud banging on his bedroom door. He jumps and lets out a curse, almost falling out of his chair. If he actually had been at the coffee shop, he probably would have knocked his coffee mug off the table. As it is, his avatar just jerks slightly.
“Is everything okay?” Kyungsoo can hear kjmsuho’s voice asking, concerned.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Kyungsoo hastily replies. He presses a palm against his chest in an attempt to calm his racing heart. The pounding on his door doesn’t let up, but Kyungsoo ignores it. “It’s just my roommate.”
As if on cue, Chanyeol starts to yell from the other side of the door. “C’mon, Kyungsoo,” he whines plaintively. “You promised you’d go out to eat together today.”
“Go away,” Kyungsoo calls back, with his hand over the helmet mic.
“If you’re busy, you can go,” kjmsuho says, and Kyungsoo immediately starts to panic.
“No, no, it’s fine, I’m not busy,” Kyungsoo rushes to say. But kjmsuho is already standing and moving to push in his chair.
“I don’t want to bother you,” he says. “Let’s meet again some other time, okay?” All Kyungsoo can do is sit there and watch him disappear. His avatar dissolves into pixels as he logs out.
“Fuck,” Kyungsoo says. He selects the keys to log out with more force than necessary, then pulls his helmet off and plunks it down on his desk. On the other side of the door, Chanyeol is still making a racket. Kyungsoo takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his hair before yelling, “I’m coming, calm down.”
Chanyeol lets out a whoop, and Kyungsoo can hear him scurrying away from the door. Kyungsoo squeezes his eyes shut one last time before standing and making his way out to where Chanyeol is waiting.
---
“You’re addicted to that stupid game,” Chanyeol likes to say with such frequency that Kyungsoo has given up even trying to deny it. “Why do you spend so much time on relationships that aren’t even real?” Kyungsoo had tried to explain, once, but Chanyeol hadn’t understood. Of course he hadn’t - he is, after all, human. He didn’t spend his entire life being told that he was fake, unreal, inhuman. There’s no way he could comprehend the comfort Kyungsoo finds in virtual reality.
According to official records, Kyungsoo is an “Artificial Intelligence Specimen.” He was confiscated from his birthplace during a government raid back when he was barely a year old. Such raids on laboratories producing black market androids, cyborgs, and humanoid AI units like Kyungsoo are common, but the one that Kyungsoo was seized in remains one of the largest to-date: 500 AI units, ranging from Kyungsoo’s age to almost five years. The government is terrified of these labs and the things they create - things the government can’t regulate, things they can’t control.
The government wants little to do with the units they seize after they have them in custody. Outraged riots had ended the practice of mass-extermination, but humanity’s kindness had ended there. Kyungsoo grew up in the government-sponsored and poorly funded foster program. He spent his childhood bouncing between houses, being told how lucky he was to have been saved, considering that he isn’t even a real person. He’s lived enveloped in the same refrain: that his emotions and feelings, his hopes and dreams, are all fake because he isn’t a true human. That nothing about him is real. Kyungsoo had tried to deny it at first. His emotions feel real, and isn’t that enough?
No, he starts to answer for himself over the years. It’s not enough, not when “artificial” is right there in the very definition of your being.
Maybe to someone like Chanyeol the dating simulator game Kyungsoo plays seems stupid. After all, what is the point in spending time on a fabricated relationship set in a world that doesn’t even truly exist? Yet that is exactly what Kyungsoo finds so appealing about DateMe: virtual reality is fake, just like Kyungsoo’s emotions are fake, and in that way it feels almost as if virtual reality is more real to Kyungsoo than actual reality is. A pseudo-world for a pseudo-person. That is what Kyungsoo takes comfort in, and is what Chanyeol could never understand.
---
kjmsuho never contacts him again, and although Kyungsoo is a bit disappointed, he isn’t surprised. DateMe has countless servers and millions of players; when there are so many options, there is no reason to waste time on someone who seems uninterested. Kyungsoo doesn’t dwell on it. After all, it’s equally as easy for him to find another date.
One of the main points that attract people to DateMe is the ability to customize an avatar to look however they want and the high quality graphics that bring that avatar to life. People can build their ideal appearance, giving themselves a complete virtual makeover with just a few clicks. Kyungsoo, however, prefers to keep his avatar close to his real appearance: a little bit short, large eyes and thick lips, usually wearing cardigans and jeans. More than narcissism, it’s a calculated choice. As much as Kyungsoo may loathe being called cute in real life, the truth is that this appearance ensures that he is never short of virtual suitors.
In the week following the kjmsuho fiasco, Kyungsoo first hooks up with x_SensitivePanda_x for a few days and then moves on to chenchen. Then, on his second date with chenchen, the speakers in Kyungsoo’s helmet start cutting out.
“Wait, what was that?” he asks when he sees chenchen’s avatar’s mouth moving but hears nothing but white noise. Within a matter of minutes, what had started as only small blips leads to chenchen having to resort to manually typing a message to say that maybe they should meet up again another time.
Kyungsoo pulls his helmet off and stares at it balefully. “Piece of shit technology,” he mutters, fingers twitching with the urge to throw it across the room. He paid good money for this helmet, though - two whole paychecks - so he settles for putting it down with more force than necessary and resolving to take it by a small tech repair shop on the way to work later.
---
Kyungsoo starts his workday at the same time that most of the population ends theirs. He works as a cram school teacher, five to midnight, Monday through Saturday. He’s another rope in the net that catches students from joining everyone else on the way home and forces them to stay in school until late. Kyungsoo spends his evenings drilling Japanese into the heads of indifferent high school students, repeating ka, sa, ta, na over and over and feeling like the robot he could easily have been if his creators had decided to put him into a mechanical body instead of an organic one.
It’s an insult, really - Kyungsoo is designed for the purpose of language learning. He can pick up any language in a matter of days, and have it mastered in less than two weeks. He should be working for the government, the military, or at the very least a high profile international business. Yet he’s stuck in a tiny room on the ninth floor of a high-rise in Gangnam with students who don’t want to be learning any more than he wants to be teaching. And Kyungsoo is thankful for this miserable job, for the kindness of a friend of a friend that had landed him here and gotten him out of the endless hell of menial labor that most AI units and ‘borgs get trapped in. The anger and sense of injustice fester inside of him, burning on his tongue has he spits out his cram class lessons as if they’re acid.
No matter how many negative sentiments he holds towards his employment, though, Kyungsoo has to admit that there are some benefits to working abnormal hours. For example, beyond some conflicts with commute, he rarely gets caught in crowds because he’s out and about at the times when most other people are busy. So when he pushes open the door to a tiny tech repair shop at four p.m. with his helmet tucked under his am, the only other person in the entire store is the guy sitting behind the counter. The worker looks up when the bell attached to the door jangles and offers Kyungsoo a smile before glancing back down at whatever he’s tinkering with.
Shops like this one started appearing in conjunction with the growing popularity of virtual reality gaming. The equipment - headsets, helmets, even things like sensor gloves - is expensive to buy, and only slightly less expensive to repair. People quickly started to search for other options beyond the big companies, and ended up turning to students and programmers who were looking for some extra cash and willing to charge less exorbitant prices.
The guy behind the counter looks like a college student. His hair is a bit messy, dyed a shade of auburn and flopping into his eyes, and he’s wearing an unbuttoned flannel shirt with a graphic tee underneath. In short, he looks exactly like the human form of an avatar Kyungsoo would jump at the chance to hook up with in DateMe. It’s a bit disconcerting, like he’s looking at a space where two separate worlds overlap. It throws him off-kilter, and has Kyungsoo on edge as he approaches the counter.
“What can I help you with?” the guy asks when Kyungsoo is closer. He looks up at Kyungsoo as he asks, but his eyes quickly slide to the helmet still wedged under Kyungsoo’s arm.
“The speakers are acting up,” Kyungsoo says, placing the helmet down on the counter. The guy whistles quietly as he picks the helmet up and turns it over in his hands.
“This is a nice model,” the guy says. Kyungsoo shifts on his feet, uncomfortable. It was an indulgence for sure, one that Chanyeol still judges him for. “Pretty new, but it has a lot of wear. You must be a pretty hardcore gamer.”
“Yeah, kind of,” Kyungsoo replies. The guy is just trying to make conversation to break the awkward silence while he inspects the helmet, and Kyungsoo knows that, but it’s not like Kyungsoo is going to admit that his helmet is worn down because he averages six hours a day on a dating simulator. The conversation dies after that, and Kyungsoo continues to stand at the counter awkwardly as the guy carefully dissects the helmet and inspects the parts.
The final verdict is that the speakers are blown, the display screen is on the way out, and some of the other circuitry needs some fine-tuning. “It’s nothing too major,” the guy says with another gummy smile. “I can have it all done for you by Thursday.” He has Kyungsoo sign a waiver, then gives Kyungsoo a copy to keep. Kyungsoo glances at the sheet before shoving it into his briefcase, making a mental note to put Thursday into his phone calendar, then hurries to work.
When he pulls the paper back out later during a break, Kyungsoo notices that below his own signature is another line of neat characters in the spot designated for the technician signature: Kim Minseok. Kyungsoo stares at it for a while, then puts the invoice away and files the name away in his brain just as he files the date away in his phone.
---
Kyungsoo picks up his helmet on Thursday and mournfully empties his wallet to pay for it. Minseok is there again, and he gives Kyungsoo another bright smile as he hands the helmet back over. Kyungsoo’s originally not paying much attention to Minseok, too concerned with his decidedly thinner wallet, but when he looks up from his wallet to take the helmet back he’s struck by the way Minseok’s smile lights up his entire face.
Kyungsoo’s not sure where the thought even comes from - it’s not like he’s never seen Minseok smile before - but for some reason the image sticks in his mind. For the rest of the day, whenever Kyungsoo lets his thoughts wander he ends up remembering that smile and the pleasant ring to Minseok’s voice when he told Kyungsoo to have a good day.
Friday morning Kyungsoo logs onto DateMe and meets chenchen on a server programmed to look like Central Park in December. Kyungsoo’s helmet works like new. Everything is perfect again, and Kyungsoo can seamlessly slip back into the virtual fantasy he’s created for himself. Or at least he should be able to, if he could just manage to focus. While chenchen rambles about the beauty of urban parks, Kyungsoo finds his mind wandering back to Minseok again.
Just like the day before, it’s not a conscious decision. Kyungsoo is enjoying his time with chenchen, and this is his chance to make up for the losses he had to cut with kjmsuho. This is a situation where Kyungsoo would usually be completely submerged in the game. Yet when chenchen’s avatar reaches out to grab the hand of Kyungsoo’s, Kyungsoo finds himself imagining his avatar holding hands with an avatar version of Minseok instead.
It’s disconcerting. Kyungsoo is good at focusing, at compartmentalizing. His mind shouldn’t be drifting while he’s in the game. An uneasy feeling settles into the pit of Kyungsoo’s stomach. He’s only even met Minseok twice, yet for some reason Minseok seems determined to worm his way into Kyungsoo’s head. It’s not like Kyungsoo is completely opposed to the situation - Minseok’s smile is quite nice - but he isn’t thrilled with it either. Kyungsoo likes logic, and this isn’t logical at all.
Kyungsoo’s palms start to sweat, and for some reason his heartbeat quickens. He looks out at the virtual park through his helmet display screen. The screen that Minseok had fixed. The feeling in Kyungsoo’s stomach intensifies and he hastily keys in the command for his avatar to lean up and plant a kiss on chenchen’s cheek. “Let’s go to a different server,” he suggests. He needs to get out of here and get Minseok out of his head. “This park is nice, but I want to see one with flowers.”
---
On Monday morning, Kyungsoo’s phone stops working.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Kyungsoo says, jabbing the lock button once more. The screen flickers on, then returns to black.
“Did you try taking the battery out and putting it back in?” Chanyeol asks from across the kitchen. He’s got a spoonful of rice in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. His backpack is sitting on the floor by the door, waiting for Chanyeol to finish his food and rush off to his 9 a.m. class. Kyungsoo swallows down a wave of jealousy.
“Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious,” he bites out with more acidity than necessary. “That was the first thing I did.”
Chanyeol shrugs and gulps down one final bite of fried spam. Then he drops his dishes in the sink with a guilty look in Kyungsoo’s direction and scurries out the door. Kyungsoo takes a gulp of his own coffee; but though the sweeteners he’s dumped into it can mask the bitterness of the drink, they do nothing for the bitterness rising in his chest. Kyungsoo is usually better at controlling it, but maybe because he’s already in a bad mood this morning he can’t seem to calm his resentment.
Kyungsoo would give anything to be in Chanyeol’s place. It’s an impossible dream, though. He tried before - there’s not a single university that will take him.
Kyungsoo sighs and pokes his phone one more time. The screen turns on just long enough to give Kyungsoo a shred of hope, then flickers back to black.
---
Minseok’s eyes widen with surprise and recognition when Kyungsoo enters the shop Monday afternoon.
“Back so soon?” Minseok asks as Kyungsoo shuffles up to the counter. He throws Kyungsoo an easy grin. “Is there something wrong with the helmet again, or did you miss me that much?” The words are lighthearted, more meaningless banter between employee and customer, but even so Kyungsoo feels a tightening in his stomach. He’s nervous, for whatever reason.
“The helmet is fine, actually,” Kyungsoo says. He needs to distract himself, get down to business, and keep his confused thoughts in check. “I was just wondering if you fix phones too?”
He holds his phone out and Minseok cocks his head to the side as he takes it. “I don’t usually do phone repairs,” Minseok says and Kyungsoo’s stomach starts to sink. “But,” Minseok hastens to continue, probably having noticed Kyungsoo’s expression, “I’ll take a look at it for you.”
Kyungsoo tries not to fidget as Minseok looks the phone over. Minseok’s hair is styled up today, and he’s wearing a hoodie with a logo Kyungsoo only vaguely recognizes on it. It’s nothing fancy, but he still looks nice. Kyungsoo balls his hands into fists at his sides. His palms are sweaty. There’s a phone store at the end of the block that Kyungsoo could easily have stopped by, but he had chosen to come to the video game repair shop instead. Minseok must know this, but he doesn’t comment on it, just carefully pries the back of the phone off to look at the circuitry.
An agonizing five minutes later, Minseok pops the back of the phone into place and holds down the power button. Kyungsoo holds his breath as the phone turns on - and stays on.
“You’re amazing,” Kyungsoo breathes out, mixed with a sigh of relief, and Minseok laughs. Realizing what he said, Kyungsoo snaps his mouth shut and feels heat rush to his face. He reaches for his wallet and asks, “How much do I owe you?”
“It’s fine, you don’t owe me anything,” Minseok says. Kyungsoo looks up from his wallet in surprise. Minseok smiles his gummy smile again. “All I did was poke around inside your phone a little bit, it’s no big deal.”
“Are you sure?” Kyungsoo asks. His hand hovers over the cash tucked into his wallet. On one hand, he really wants to pay Minseok. On the other, his wallet is still hurting from the repair fees from his helmet the week before. While he hesitates, Minseok pushes the phone back over to Kyungsoo’s side of the counter.
“Yeah,” Minseok says. “Just be sure to come back here again the next time you need something fixed.” His smile widens, and there’s… something. Something other than just hope of creating a returning customer. Something more like a more personal investment, like he wants Kyungsoo to return for the sake of seeing him again. Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to make of that, so he forces a smile in return and all but flees the store with his phone in hand.
---
A few years before, Kyungsoo had gone directly to a university admissions office after receiving yet another rejection letter on top of the nearly thirty he already had. It made no sense. In terms of academics and capabilities, Kyungsoo should have had universities begging him to attend. So he had put on his nicest clothes and tucked all of his credentials into a clear file folder - school transcripts, awards and achievements, aptitude tests the government had run on him - and marched right into the office.
He had left not even five minutes later. None of the committee members would see him.
“Our university only reviews cases of real, natural intelligence,” the secretary had told him when he requested an appointment. She had given him a cursory once-over before turning back to her computer. “We have no interest in intelligence grown in a lab.”
That night Kyungsoo didn’t scream or cry or wreck his apartment. No, what he did was open his laptop with shaking hands and log in to DateMe. Maybe it would have been better, healthier, to find some way to vent his frustration and anger, but Kyungsoo has never been good at dealing with emotions. Instead of even trying, he found a way to temporarily shed away the world that never wanted him to start with, and immerse himself in a world he could actually connect with.
He’d made his account before, set up his avatar and wandered through some of the servers, but Kyungsoo had so far not made any effort to interact with other users. He had downloaded the game on a whim, driven by mild curiosity, and unsure if he actually wanted to play it. But that night Kyungsoo logged in and marched right up to the first cute avatar he saw.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo said into his headset. He didn’t even own his helmet yet - that came much later. “You’re cute, wanna hang out?”
And that was how Kyungsoo met Nini94.
---
“You’re doing it again,” Chanyeol whines. Kyungsoo doesn’t deign him with a response. In fact, Kyungsoo isn’t even sure when Chanyeol had come into his room, or how he had ended up sprawled across Kyungsoo’s bed.
Kyungsoo himself is at his desk, furiously hitting different key combinations on his laptop keyboard. DateMe is “An Entire World at Your Fingertips!” as the advertisements so enthusiastically claim, and as such Kyungsoo’s avatar also has a job “working” as a lounge singer. There’s no actual singing involved on Kyungsoo’s part, of course, but the mini-games he has to complete to get his “salary” are a pain in the ass. There is a lot of digital currency at stake here, and Kyungsoo isn’t about to lose it over idle conversation with his roommate.
“The obsession thing,” Chanyeol clarifies as the silence stretches on without any acknowledgment from Kyungsoo.
Kyungsoo finally finishes his game, and he lets out a sigh of relief as the score figures calculate on the screen. He stretches his fingers and rolls his shoulders. He’s only wearing his regular headset today - the strain of the helmet display screen had caught up with him briefly earlier, making his vision swim in and out of focus.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kyungsoo finally replies. His neck pops as he stretches. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Chanyeol cringe.
“You know, where you put all your time and energy into that stupid game and a relationship that doesn’t even exist,” Chanyeol says. “Soon I’m going to have to pry you out of your room just to make sure you don’t skip meals. Fuck, last time you almost fainted-”
“I’ll be fine,” Kyungsoo cuts in. He hadn’t earned quite as much as he wanted from the mini-game, and he irately clicks into another. There’s a new clothing pack out that chenchen had said looked cool, and Kyungsoo almost has enough to buy it. “Don’t worry about me.”
Chanyeol inhales sharply, then slowly lets it out again. “Okay, you know what? Fine.” Chanyeol stands up and walks to the door. “Sorry for being concerned about you.” He closes the door behind him with a click, but Kyungsoo doesn’t hear. He’s too busy feverishly smashing keys.
---
Kyungsoo has really bad luck with technology. At least this is what he concludes when his laptop crashes not even a month after the problems with his helmet and his phone.
This time he hauls himself to the repair shop in jeans and the cleanest hoodie he can find. Actually, he can’t remember when he last did laundry. Maybe Chanyeol had done it. Lately Kyungsoo has been forgetting to do a lot of the chores he normally takes care of.
Kyungsoo isn’t expecting to run into Minseok again - it’s the middle of the day, not the afternoon, and Minseok had seemed like a student. He probably has classes. But Minseok is there, sitting behind the counter and looking every bit as surprised to see Kyungsoo as Kyungsoo is to see him. Minseok’s surprise quickly turns into one of his gummy smiles, and Kyungsoo’s stomach flops. Kyungsoo thought he’d been doing a good job of erasing whatever strange… thing he has for Minseok from his mind. Throwing himself into DateMe and his “relationship” with chenchen had helped, but now it all comes rushing back. Emotions- no, Kyungsoo chastises himself. Not emotions. Not real emotions.
“Long time no see,” Minseok greets him, and there’s something in his eyes that looks suspiciously like hope. Kyungsoo swallows.
“Yeah, I, um,” Kyungsoo stutters, and is immediately horrified. Kyungsoo never stutters. “Laptop,” he manages to get out. To cover his embarrassment, he plunks his laptop down on the counter.
Minseok laughs, teasing but not malicious. Kyungsoo furrows his brows and drops his gaze to the laptop case. He focuses all his attention on carefully removing the laptop and placing it in front of Minseok. His movements are measured and methodical, allowing him time to gather back his composure. When Kyungsoo looks up again Minseok is looking at him, not at the laptop. Minseok’s face is contemplative, but quickly brightens into another easy smile when Kyungsoo meets his gaze.
“So, what seems to be the problem?” Minseok asks, and Kyungsoo tries to ignore the way his entire body feels several degrees too warm.
---
Chanyeol wasn’t wrong about the obsession thing, not that Kyungsoo would ever openly acknowledge it. The actual truth, though, is that Chanyeol doesn’t even know the half of it.
It started with Nini94. Kyungsoo had poured his everything into the game, bypassing eating and sleeping for the chance to spend a few more minutes chatting with his “boyfriend” or earning game currency. Kyungsoo’s fixation on his virtual life ran much deeper than just the surface “relationship” he was involved in. He completely immersed himself the entire DateMe universe, painstakingly piecing together the details that made up his “life” there: his avatar’s job, house, clothing, all the way down to trivial things like which servers he liked to frequent.
The DateMe world became more real to Kyungsoo than his grungy one-room apartment or the fast food job he had at the time. He spent all his time in the real world counting down the seconds until he could go back to his world.
Then Nini94 broke up with him, and everything fell apart. Kyungsoo ended up in the hospital - dehydration, malnourishment, sleep deprivation. His body had given up, collapsing at work one day.
That had been a solid two years before Kyungsoo met Chanyeol. Kyungsoo has been more careful since then, managing at the very least to keep himself a step above a medical crisis. Nini94 had only been the beginning, and he was followed by a series of relationships progressing up until chenchen: Byun_Baek, yehetttt, G4L4XY, xingstar, soccerfan0420… the list stretches on further than Kyungsoo cares to even try to remember. Although not all of them lasted for long, each time Kyungsoo had to carefully adjust his balance between the real world and virtual reality. The longer he spent online, the further Kyungsoo had to edge away from reality, but still be careful to figure out which roots he needed to keep in place to stop himself from toppling over into the virtual world completely.
Kyungsoo is always methodical. Logic is his strong point, even if that logic doesn’t necessarily make sense to anyone else. Kyungsoo knows what he’s doing, knows that his obsession is unhealthy. He just figures that the danger is an acceptable trade-off for the ability to build a world for himself, a place where being artificial actually makes him more real.
Awareness and acknowledgment of his obsession do nothing to make Kyungsoo any less antsy during the two weeks it takes for his laptop to be repaired. He nearly wears a hole in the floor from the amount of pacing he does - or at least that’s what Chanyeol claims - and forces Chanyeol to download DateMe temporarily so that he can send chenchen a message to let him know what happened.
Kyungsoo is so wrapped up in his own head that he barely even processes the fact that it’s not Minseok, but rather a middle-aged man, behind the counter when he stops by to pick his laptop up. There’s a lingering sense of something in the back of Kyungsoo’s mind as he signs for the payment, maybe a sense of relief or disappointment or both, but it’s overwhelmed by his greater sense of urgency.
Kyungsoo all but runs home, and in his haste to get his laptop set up again almost completely misses the note tucked into his laptop case. Assuming it’s just another copy of the invoice, he pulls the envelope out of his laptop case and sets it on his desk. He then promptly forgets about it until the next morning, when it catches his eye while he’s getting dressed.
Kyungsoo grabs the envelope and wanders out to the kitchen. Chanyeol is already chomping his way through a bowl of sugary cereal. Kyungsoo wrinkles his nose in disgust; he likes sugar well enough, but that cereal is the definition of too much of a good thing. Kyungsoo starts the coffee and then opens the envelope still in his hand. It is, as he expected, a copy of the invoice. What he hadn’t anticipated was the small yellow sticky note attached to the page.
“Woah,” Kyungsoo says as he stares at the note. It’s from Minseok, signed in the same neat handwriting Kyungsoo had seen the first time he stopped by the shop. The note starts off simple, apologizing that he couldn’t be there when Kyungsoo picked up his laptop because he doesn’t work on Wednesdays. But after that-
“He left his phone number,” Kyungsoo says with his eyes still trained on the paper. He’s not talking to Chanyeol really, but Chanyeol cranes his neck around to try to get a look anyway.
“Who gave you their number?” Chanyeol asks. This is enough to snap Kyungsoo out of his reverie, and he jerks the paper away from Chanyeol’s line of vision. “Is he cute?” Chanyeol presses. Kyungsoo doesn’t respond, which Chanyeol takes as a confirmation. “Dude, you should totally text him.”
“Should I?” Kyungsoo muses, thumb smoothing over the edge of the sticky note. He tunes out any further comments from Chanyeol and goes back to his morning routine.
Long after Chanyeol has dashed out the door and the pan Kyungsoo used to fry up eggs has cooled, Kyungsoo once again picks up the invoice and attached note from the counter. He stares at the note for a few seconds, the tidily written digits of Minseok’s phone number swimming before his eyes, before shaking his head and walking over to the trash can.
Right as Kyungsoo is about to toss the invoice into the trash, Minseok’s face materializes in his mind. Kyungsoo blinks, hard, and the image disappears. Kyungsoo blinks again, then looks between the invoice and the trash can. He pauses before sighing and heading back to his room, invoice in hand, to search for his phone.
“What the hell am I doing?” Kyungsoo mumbles as he pulls up a new text message and inputs Minseok’s number. His fingers hover over the screen for a moment before he types out a simple, Hey, this is Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo hesitates again, then quickly presses send. A few seconds later he adds another message: The guy whose tech keeps breaking. Just for the sake of clarity.
Kyungsoo sets his phone aside, turns on his computer, and logs into DateMe. For the next hour and a half Kyungsoo is almost as apprehensive as he had been for the two weeks he was without his laptop. Even as he completes mini-games, strolls through the servers, and chats with chenchen, Kyungsoo periodically stops to pull off his helmet to check his phone.
When his phone finally lights up with a notification, Kyungsoo all but pounces on it. Minseok’s response is simple, Hey! Sorry, work was busy. What’s up?, but it leaves a strange tingling feeling spreading through Kyungsoo’s body. Relief, mostly, that Kyungsoo hadn’t been figuratively stood up through text message. There’s another thing too, though, prickling under his skin. Kyungsoo could probably put a name to it if he cared to, but he doesn’t so instead he swallows it down and types out a reply.
---
Minseok works in the daytime and Kyungsoo works evenings, so they arrange to meet on a Wednesday morning - Minseok’s only day off. They’ve been texting for a little while, about two weeks, so meeting up is the next logical step. Kyungsoo knows that, but he’s still a mess of nerves the entire day before. Texting is one thing, but meeting in person is another. With texting there’s a barrier created by distance and a filter made from typed words and emoticons. Meeting in person, though, makes everything seem so much more… real. That alone is enough to put Kyungsoo on edge.
Kyungsoo arrives ten minutes early to the coffee shop Minseok had texted him directions to. Minseok is already there, waiting just outside the front doors. Today Minseok is dressed up more nicely than Kyungsoo has ever seen him before, in dark jeans with a blazer pulled on over his t-shirt. He looks nice. Really nice. Kyungsoo swallows, suddenly feeling self-conscious of his own simple cardigan.
Minseok smiles brightly as soon as he spots Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo’s anxiety causes his stomach to flop around. This is a date. Kyungsoo isn’t always good at picking up on subtleties and details that are not explicitly spoken, but he’s certain of this. He’s actually known since Minseok first asked to meet up - or, truthfully, since he first found the note with Minseok’s phone number. Seeing Minseok dressed up and waiting for him confirms it.
Kyungsoo’s expression must look a little odd, because there’s a smile playing around the corners of Minseok’s lips as he holds the door open. “Hey, nice to see you again,” Minseok says as he ushers Kyungsoo inside. Kyungsoo feels lightheaded as he steps into the shop. It’s like all of his nerves have coalesced into a sense of giddy dizziness. Is this how one is supposed to feel on dates? Kyungsoo’s never been one before in the real world. Kyungsoo turns the thought over in his head as they walk towards the counter.
The coffee shop is a large chain store, one with multiple levels of seating and altogether too many students slaving away behind laptops despite the fact that it’s not yet even noon. Minseok and Kyungsoo place their orders, then head over to an empty table by some windows with buzzers that will let them know when their order is ready.
To Kyungsoo, the entire thing feels almost surreal. He goes to coffee shops all the time - on DateMe, that is. He rarely ever comes to coffee shops in real life, and most certainly not on dates. As they sit down, Kyungsoo has an unnerving feeling, almost like déjà vu, that he isn’t sitting in the coffee shop at all but rather is at home sitting at his desk. He digs his fingernails into his palms and forcibly reminds himself that this is real life, not a game.
Even as they idly chat while waiting for their coffee, Kyungsoo can’t quite shake a sense of uneasiness. It crawls up his spine, keeping him ramrod-straight in his chair even as Minseok relaxes. The closest thing Kyungsoo can think to compare it to is a sense of being watched.
And then he hears it - faint, like it’s coming from a distance, but unmistakable. Chanyeol is calling Kyungsoo’s name.
Kyungsoo jumps and whips around, scanning over the coffee shop. Chanyeol is nowhere to be seen. Of course he’s not; he’s a good thirty-minute bus ride away, slaving his way through a chemistry lab. Goosebumps run across Kyungsoo’s skin as he slowly turns back to Minseok. Minseok, for his part, is giving Kyungsoo a concerned look.
“Is everything okay?” Minseok asks. He flickers, and for a second it isn’t Minseok sitting there, but kjmsuho, with his hair slicked back and wearing a three-piece suit. “Kyungsoo?” Kyungsoo blinks, and he’s looking at Minseok once more. Kyungsoo feels dizzy, but it’s a different kind of dizziness from what he felt before. There isn’t anything pleasant about this lightheadedness. Nausea pulses in Kyungsoo’s stomach.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Kyungsoo says. He blinks again, rapidly, and shakes his head to rid the last ringing echoes of Chanyeol’s voice from his ears. “I just thought I heard someone call my name.” Kyungsoo’s attempted smile isn’t quite up to muster, but luckily he’s saved by the buzzers going off. By the time Minseok comes back with their drinks, Kyungsoo has managed to shore his expression up into something more convincing. Minseok buys it, but Kyungsoo can’t shake a lingering sense of unease until long after they’ve left the coffee shop and parted ways.
---
Even if they had tried, it is unlikely that Kyungsoo and Minseok could have created two more incompatible schedules. The only real overlaps of free time they have are Wednesday mornings and Sunday afternoons. Even so, they find ways to make it work. They start out meeting once a week, then after a while move up to both free days, and then, after about a month, Minseok starts coming out to Gangnam every now and then to hang out for a bit after Kyungsoo gets off of work. They spend most of their time at restaurants, cafes, and bars, chatting until the early hours of the morning.
Eventually these after-work meetings become more frequent as well, until Minseok and Kyungsoo are meeting several times a week. Kyungsoo starts getting used to coming home at 4 a.m. smelling of grilled meat and soju. To spending the hours at work counting down until he can meet Minseok, instead of just until he can haul himself home. To having something to look forward to.
Kyungsoo and Minseok aren’t dating, really, at least not in the relationship sense of the word. They’re dating in the sense of “going on dates together,” and that’s fine; it’s fun, casual, and easy. Minseok is fun, casual, and easy. When he’s with Minseok, Kyungsoo smiles a little more than usual, laughs a little more than usual, tells stories about his shithead co-teachers that he hasn’t even told to Chanyeol. Kyungsoo thoroughly enjoys the time he spends going on dates with Minseok.
A relationship, though, is something completely different from dating. Relationships involve deeper emotions, real emotions, that are expected to both be given and reciprocated. The very thought is enough to turn Kyungsoo’s blood to ice. He’s already terrified that Minseok will notice that Kyungsoo isn’t quite right, will see him for the fraud he is. If he’s put into a situation where he not only has to show, but prove, his emotions, he knows that his fragile guise will crumble.
So Kyungsoo shies away and throws up barriers every time the topic seems like it might come up. They’ve been going out for, what, four months now, five? It makes sense that Minseok might want to put some sort of official label on what they have. But although Minseok seems a little perplexed by the ferocity of Kyungsoo’s aversion, he never pushes the topic. Kyungsoo just washes down his thankfulness with another glass of beer, and tells himself that he isn’t being selfish.
---
Chanyeol doesn’t comment on Kyungsoo’s change in schedule, just pulls his lips into a tight line as he watches Kyungsoo yawn over his fourth cup of coffee of the morning. Usually the shift to later nights wouldn’t affect Kyungsoo, since his work starts in late afternoon. He could, theoretically, simply adjust his sleeping schedule so that he gets up later. That would be the most logical solution and would save him the extra caffeine intake that seems to have Chanyeol so worried. The problem with this plan is chenchen.
Kyungsoo learned early on that chenchen, like Kyungsoo himself, works later shifts. Kyungsoo doesn’t remember what job chenchen has - he never remembers details about the people he “dates” on DateMe. When he’s in the game, real life matters are irrelevant to Kyungsoo. This is one of the longest in-game “relationships” he’s had for a while, but even that isn’t enough to provoke Kyungsoo’s curiosity. Kyungsoo only has interest in chenchen, the cute avatar who holds Kyungsoo’s avatar’s hand and helps to boost Kyungsoo’s in-game ranking, not in some guy sitting behind a computer who has to leave at 2 p.m. every day to go to work.
Besides, the people behind the avatars Kyungsoo “dates” feel the same way. DateMe is, at its core, a game; the players are gamers. There are countless sites for people interested actual relationships. DateMe, however, is not one of them. “It’s just simple fun,” chenchen said early on, during one of the somewhat rambling conversations he’s prone to. Kyungsoo isn’t sure about the “fun” part of chenchen’s statement, but who is Kyungsoo to deny him that?
So Kyungsoo maintains his schedule. He wakes up just in time to watch Chanyeol run off to class, then spends his morning draining mug after mug of coffee as he plays on DateMe. Then he heads to work and, if it’s a day they’ve planned to meet, spends his time after work with Minseok, then returns home close to dawn.
Kyungsoo is averaging three hours of sleep a night and it’s fine, really. It’s more than enough to keep him going, and he’s survived on less before. It just means that when he finally crawls into bed he passes out almost immediately. No tossing and turning, no lying awake worrying about the past or the future, just a deep sleep. And if the circles under his eyes get deeper by the day then, well, it’s worth it.
---
Kyungsoo is sitting in a cafe.
Well, technically, the one sitting in the cafe is Kyungsoo’s avatar. Kyungsoo himself is sitting at the desk in his bedroom, with his laptop open in front of him and his simulator helmet on. Or, actually… maybe Kyungsoo isn’t sitting anywhere at all. He can’t really tell.
Kyungsoo keys in the commands for his avatar to take a drink of coffee. The avatar sitting across from him is extremely good-looking, as far as pixels can be: auburn hair a bit messy, and wearing an unbuttoned flannel shirt with a graphic tee underneath. He’s not an avatar at all, Kyungsoo realizes with a start, but Minseok. Minseok is sitting there, across from Kyungsoo’s avatar, but Kyungsoo is stuck… somewhere - behind the computer screen, or maybe in another world entirely - watching.
Minseok blinks back at Kyungsoo and smiles mildly. “Don’t you have something more exciting to do than spending your time hanging out on an online game? It’s Saturday night, after all.”
The words are mere politeness - the two of them had, after all, agreed to meet at this time. Wait, no, that’s not right. They hadn’t agreed to meet here, not in the game. Minseok doesn’t even play the game. Kyungsoo tries to say as much, but he finds himself shaking his head instead, triggering his avatar to do the same.
“I like to spend the nights I have off from work relaxing at home,” Kyungsoo replies, even though that’s not what he wants to say at all. Kyungsoo can feel panic setting in, tightening his chest and drying out his mouth. He wants to rip his helmet off, but he can’t move. It’s like someone else is controlling him, cuing in the commands from a distance, just like how Kyungsoo controls his DateMe avatar.
“So what’s your job, then?” Minseok asks, and Kyungsoo smiles beneath his helmet. Everything is perfect, going according to plan. What plan? Kyungsoo doesn’t remember making a plan.
Kyungsoo opens his mouth to say something more when there’s a loud pounding from somewhere behind him. He jumps and lets out a curse, making his avatar jerk slightly.
“Is everything okay?” Kyungsoo can hear Minseok’s voice asking, concerned.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Kyungsoo hastily replies. It’s not fine. Kyungsoo’s heart is pounding in his throat. The banging sound doesn’t let up, but Kyungsoo is forced to ignore it. “It’s just my roommate.”
As if on cue, Chanyeol’s voice comes out of nowhere. “C’mon, Kyungsoo,” he whines, voice permeating into Kyungsoo’s very being. “You promised you’d go out to eat together today.”
“If you’re busy, you can go,” Minseok says, and Kyungsoo immediately starts to panic in earnest.
“No, no, it’s fine, I’m not busy,” Kyungsoo rushes to say. Minseok can’t go, he can’t. If he goes he won’t come back. Kyungsoo doesn’t know why he knows this, but he does, and he’s frantic now, but Minseok is already standing.
“I don’t want to bother you,” Minseok says. Kyungsoo wants to scream that he isn’t a bother and beg him to stay, but when he opens his mouth no sound comes out. “Let’s meet again some other time, okay?” Minseok smiles his gummy smile that Kyungsoo has come to know so well, and then turns away. All Kyungsoo can do is sit there, paralyzed, and watch him disappear, dissolving into smoke as he walks out the door-
Kyungsoo wakes with a gasp. His chest is heaving, and he’s stuck to his sheets with sweat. His heart continues to pound in his ears as Kyungsoo stares at his ceiling, trying to orient himself. There’s enough light seeping in around the curtains that he can make out the vague shape of his room. Distantly he can hear the clatter of pans as Chanyeol putters around the kitchen, presumably attempting to make breakfast.
Kyungsoo takes a deep breath and feels around for his phone. He finds it tucked halfway under his pillow and unlocks it, squinting at the blindingly bright screen. 7:42 a.m. Kyungsoo sucks in another breath and tries to steady his shaking hands. He still has about fifteen minutes until his alarm will go off.
Just as he’s about to lock his phone again, Kyungsoo gets a text from Minseok. Kyungsoo isn’t sure why, but a sense of dread settles over him as he opens it.
Good morning! Did you sleep well? :)
Nausea crashes into Kyungsoo like a freight train at full speed, and he barely manages to make it to the bathroom in time to empty his stomach into the toilet.
PART 2
ʚ Pairing(s): Kyungsoo/Minseok, minor Kyungsoo/Jongdae, brief mentions of other pairings
ʚ Rating: PG-13
ʚ Warnings: situation that could possibly be interpreted as infidelity
ʚ Word Count: 11k words
ʚ Summary: Kyungsoo exists at the border between two worlds: the reality that everyone else lives, and the one he has created for himself.
ʚ Message for your recipient/author note: I apologize for choosing a prompt so far down your list, but as an avid Nell fan I was immediately drawn to this prompt. I took the "open interpretation" part of your prompt to heart, and I hope you enjoy the results :)
Kyungsoo is sitting in a cafe.
Well, technically, the one sitting in the cafe is Kyungsoo’s avatar. Kyungsoo himself is sitting at the desk in his bedroom, with his laptop open in front of him and his simulator helmet on. He’s plugged into DateMe, the largest massive multiplayer online dating simulation game, which makes it seem like Kyungsoo is sitting in a cafe regardless of his actual location.
Kyungsoo keys in the commands for his avatar to take a drink of coffee. The avatar sitting across from him is handsome, as far as pixels can be: slicked-back hairstyle, a three-piece suit clothing set that Kyungsoo knows for a fact costs a small fortune in the game’s currency. This simple but refined look was what first attracted Kyungsoo to player kjmsuho when he spotted him in the shopping district server the week before.
kjmsuho’s avatar blinks back at Kyungsoo and smiles mildly. “Don’t you have something more exciting to do than spending your time hanging out on an online game? It’s Saturday night, after all.”
The words are mere politeness - the two of them had, after all, agreed to meet at this time. So Kyungsoo shakes his head, knowing the motion will trigger his avatar to do the same.
“I like to spend the nights I have off from work relaxing at home,” he replies into his headset mic. It’s the most basic of conversation, nothing but small talk, and yet it’s so crucial. Baby steps, the beginning of establishing a possible “relationship,” the first tactical moves in a game. Kyungsoo has memorized all the mechanics of how to create a successful dating experience on here. He can guess the next words kjmsuho will say, even before they come out of his mouth.
“So what’s your job, then?” kjmsuho asks, and Kyungsoo smiles beneath his helmet. Completely predictable, and therefore perfect.
Kyungsoo is just about to reply when there’s a loud banging on his bedroom door. He jumps and lets out a curse, almost falling out of his chair. If he actually had been at the coffee shop, he probably would have knocked his coffee mug off the table. As it is, his avatar just jerks slightly.
“Is everything okay?” Kyungsoo can hear kjmsuho’s voice asking, concerned.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Kyungsoo hastily replies. He presses a palm against his chest in an attempt to calm his racing heart. The pounding on his door doesn’t let up, but Kyungsoo ignores it. “It’s just my roommate.”
As if on cue, Chanyeol starts to yell from the other side of the door. “C’mon, Kyungsoo,” he whines plaintively. “You promised you’d go out to eat together today.”
“Go away,” Kyungsoo calls back, with his hand over the helmet mic.
“If you’re busy, you can go,” kjmsuho says, and Kyungsoo immediately starts to panic.
“No, no, it’s fine, I’m not busy,” Kyungsoo rushes to say. But kjmsuho is already standing and moving to push in his chair.
“I don’t want to bother you,” he says. “Let’s meet again some other time, okay?” All Kyungsoo can do is sit there and watch him disappear. His avatar dissolves into pixels as he logs out.
“Fuck,” Kyungsoo says. He selects the keys to log out with more force than necessary, then pulls his helmet off and plunks it down on his desk. On the other side of the door, Chanyeol is still making a racket. Kyungsoo takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his hair before yelling, “I’m coming, calm down.”
Chanyeol lets out a whoop, and Kyungsoo can hear him scurrying away from the door. Kyungsoo squeezes his eyes shut one last time before standing and making his way out to where Chanyeol is waiting.
---
“You’re addicted to that stupid game,” Chanyeol likes to say with such frequency that Kyungsoo has given up even trying to deny it. “Why do you spend so much time on relationships that aren’t even real?” Kyungsoo had tried to explain, once, but Chanyeol hadn’t understood. Of course he hadn’t - he is, after all, human. He didn’t spend his entire life being told that he was fake, unreal, inhuman. There’s no way he could comprehend the comfort Kyungsoo finds in virtual reality.
According to official records, Kyungsoo is an “Artificial Intelligence Specimen.” He was confiscated from his birthplace during a government raid back when he was barely a year old. Such raids on laboratories producing black market androids, cyborgs, and humanoid AI units like Kyungsoo are common, but the one that Kyungsoo was seized in remains one of the largest to-date: 500 AI units, ranging from Kyungsoo’s age to almost five years. The government is terrified of these labs and the things they create - things the government can’t regulate, things they can’t control.
The government wants little to do with the units they seize after they have them in custody. Outraged riots had ended the practice of mass-extermination, but humanity’s kindness had ended there. Kyungsoo grew up in the government-sponsored and poorly funded foster program. He spent his childhood bouncing between houses, being told how lucky he was to have been saved, considering that he isn’t even a real person. He’s lived enveloped in the same refrain: that his emotions and feelings, his hopes and dreams, are all fake because he isn’t a true human. That nothing about him is real. Kyungsoo had tried to deny it at first. His emotions feel real, and isn’t that enough?
No, he starts to answer for himself over the years. It’s not enough, not when “artificial” is right there in the very definition of your being.
Maybe to someone like Chanyeol the dating simulator game Kyungsoo plays seems stupid. After all, what is the point in spending time on a fabricated relationship set in a world that doesn’t even truly exist? Yet that is exactly what Kyungsoo finds so appealing about DateMe: virtual reality is fake, just like Kyungsoo’s emotions are fake, and in that way it feels almost as if virtual reality is more real to Kyungsoo than actual reality is. A pseudo-world for a pseudo-person. That is what Kyungsoo takes comfort in, and is what Chanyeol could never understand.
---
kjmsuho never contacts him again, and although Kyungsoo is a bit disappointed, he isn’t surprised. DateMe has countless servers and millions of players; when there are so many options, there is no reason to waste time on someone who seems uninterested. Kyungsoo doesn’t dwell on it. After all, it’s equally as easy for him to find another date.
One of the main points that attract people to DateMe is the ability to customize an avatar to look however they want and the high quality graphics that bring that avatar to life. People can build their ideal appearance, giving themselves a complete virtual makeover with just a few clicks. Kyungsoo, however, prefers to keep his avatar close to his real appearance: a little bit short, large eyes and thick lips, usually wearing cardigans and jeans. More than narcissism, it’s a calculated choice. As much as Kyungsoo may loathe being called cute in real life, the truth is that this appearance ensures that he is never short of virtual suitors.
In the week following the kjmsuho fiasco, Kyungsoo first hooks up with x_SensitivePanda_x for a few days and then moves on to chenchen. Then, on his second date with chenchen, the speakers in Kyungsoo’s helmet start cutting out.
“Wait, what was that?” he asks when he sees chenchen’s avatar’s mouth moving but hears nothing but white noise. Within a matter of minutes, what had started as only small blips leads to chenchen having to resort to manually typing a message to say that maybe they should meet up again another time.
Kyungsoo pulls his helmet off and stares at it balefully. “Piece of shit technology,” he mutters, fingers twitching with the urge to throw it across the room. He paid good money for this helmet, though - two whole paychecks - so he settles for putting it down with more force than necessary and resolving to take it by a small tech repair shop on the way to work later.
---
Kyungsoo starts his workday at the same time that most of the population ends theirs. He works as a cram school teacher, five to midnight, Monday through Saturday. He’s another rope in the net that catches students from joining everyone else on the way home and forces them to stay in school until late. Kyungsoo spends his evenings drilling Japanese into the heads of indifferent high school students, repeating ka, sa, ta, na over and over and feeling like the robot he could easily have been if his creators had decided to put him into a mechanical body instead of an organic one.
It’s an insult, really - Kyungsoo is designed for the purpose of language learning. He can pick up any language in a matter of days, and have it mastered in less than two weeks. He should be working for the government, the military, or at the very least a high profile international business. Yet he’s stuck in a tiny room on the ninth floor of a high-rise in Gangnam with students who don’t want to be learning any more than he wants to be teaching. And Kyungsoo is thankful for this miserable job, for the kindness of a friend of a friend that had landed him here and gotten him out of the endless hell of menial labor that most AI units and ‘borgs get trapped in. The anger and sense of injustice fester inside of him, burning on his tongue has he spits out his cram class lessons as if they’re acid.
No matter how many negative sentiments he holds towards his employment, though, Kyungsoo has to admit that there are some benefits to working abnormal hours. For example, beyond some conflicts with commute, he rarely gets caught in crowds because he’s out and about at the times when most other people are busy. So when he pushes open the door to a tiny tech repair shop at four p.m. with his helmet tucked under his am, the only other person in the entire store is the guy sitting behind the counter. The worker looks up when the bell attached to the door jangles and offers Kyungsoo a smile before glancing back down at whatever he’s tinkering with.
Shops like this one started appearing in conjunction with the growing popularity of virtual reality gaming. The equipment - headsets, helmets, even things like sensor gloves - is expensive to buy, and only slightly less expensive to repair. People quickly started to search for other options beyond the big companies, and ended up turning to students and programmers who were looking for some extra cash and willing to charge less exorbitant prices.
The guy behind the counter looks like a college student. His hair is a bit messy, dyed a shade of auburn and flopping into his eyes, and he’s wearing an unbuttoned flannel shirt with a graphic tee underneath. In short, he looks exactly like the human form of an avatar Kyungsoo would jump at the chance to hook up with in DateMe. It’s a bit disconcerting, like he’s looking at a space where two separate worlds overlap. It throws him off-kilter, and has Kyungsoo on edge as he approaches the counter.
“What can I help you with?” the guy asks when Kyungsoo is closer. He looks up at Kyungsoo as he asks, but his eyes quickly slide to the helmet still wedged under Kyungsoo’s arm.
“The speakers are acting up,” Kyungsoo says, placing the helmet down on the counter. The guy whistles quietly as he picks the helmet up and turns it over in his hands.
“This is a nice model,” the guy says. Kyungsoo shifts on his feet, uncomfortable. It was an indulgence for sure, one that Chanyeol still judges him for. “Pretty new, but it has a lot of wear. You must be a pretty hardcore gamer.”
“Yeah, kind of,” Kyungsoo replies. The guy is just trying to make conversation to break the awkward silence while he inspects the helmet, and Kyungsoo knows that, but it’s not like Kyungsoo is going to admit that his helmet is worn down because he averages six hours a day on a dating simulator. The conversation dies after that, and Kyungsoo continues to stand at the counter awkwardly as the guy carefully dissects the helmet and inspects the parts.
The final verdict is that the speakers are blown, the display screen is on the way out, and some of the other circuitry needs some fine-tuning. “It’s nothing too major,” the guy says with another gummy smile. “I can have it all done for you by Thursday.” He has Kyungsoo sign a waiver, then gives Kyungsoo a copy to keep. Kyungsoo glances at the sheet before shoving it into his briefcase, making a mental note to put Thursday into his phone calendar, then hurries to work.
When he pulls the paper back out later during a break, Kyungsoo notices that below his own signature is another line of neat characters in the spot designated for the technician signature: Kim Minseok. Kyungsoo stares at it for a while, then puts the invoice away and files the name away in his brain just as he files the date away in his phone.
---
Kyungsoo picks up his helmet on Thursday and mournfully empties his wallet to pay for it. Minseok is there again, and he gives Kyungsoo another bright smile as he hands the helmet back over. Kyungsoo’s originally not paying much attention to Minseok, too concerned with his decidedly thinner wallet, but when he looks up from his wallet to take the helmet back he’s struck by the way Minseok’s smile lights up his entire face.
Kyungsoo’s not sure where the thought even comes from - it’s not like he’s never seen Minseok smile before - but for some reason the image sticks in his mind. For the rest of the day, whenever Kyungsoo lets his thoughts wander he ends up remembering that smile and the pleasant ring to Minseok’s voice when he told Kyungsoo to have a good day.
Friday morning Kyungsoo logs onto DateMe and meets chenchen on a server programmed to look like Central Park in December. Kyungsoo’s helmet works like new. Everything is perfect again, and Kyungsoo can seamlessly slip back into the virtual fantasy he’s created for himself. Or at least he should be able to, if he could just manage to focus. While chenchen rambles about the beauty of urban parks, Kyungsoo finds his mind wandering back to Minseok again.
Just like the day before, it’s not a conscious decision. Kyungsoo is enjoying his time with chenchen, and this is his chance to make up for the losses he had to cut with kjmsuho. This is a situation where Kyungsoo would usually be completely submerged in the game. Yet when chenchen’s avatar reaches out to grab the hand of Kyungsoo’s, Kyungsoo finds himself imagining his avatar holding hands with an avatar version of Minseok instead.
It’s disconcerting. Kyungsoo is good at focusing, at compartmentalizing. His mind shouldn’t be drifting while he’s in the game. An uneasy feeling settles into the pit of Kyungsoo’s stomach. He’s only even met Minseok twice, yet for some reason Minseok seems determined to worm his way into Kyungsoo’s head. It’s not like Kyungsoo is completely opposed to the situation - Minseok’s smile is quite nice - but he isn’t thrilled with it either. Kyungsoo likes logic, and this isn’t logical at all.
Kyungsoo’s palms start to sweat, and for some reason his heartbeat quickens. He looks out at the virtual park through his helmet display screen. The screen that Minseok had fixed. The feeling in Kyungsoo’s stomach intensifies and he hastily keys in the command for his avatar to lean up and plant a kiss on chenchen’s cheek. “Let’s go to a different server,” he suggests. He needs to get out of here and get Minseok out of his head. “This park is nice, but I want to see one with flowers.”
---
On Monday morning, Kyungsoo’s phone stops working.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Kyungsoo says, jabbing the lock button once more. The screen flickers on, then returns to black.
“Did you try taking the battery out and putting it back in?” Chanyeol asks from across the kitchen. He’s got a spoonful of rice in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. His backpack is sitting on the floor by the door, waiting for Chanyeol to finish his food and rush off to his 9 a.m. class. Kyungsoo swallows down a wave of jealousy.
“Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious,” he bites out with more acidity than necessary. “That was the first thing I did.”
Chanyeol shrugs and gulps down one final bite of fried spam. Then he drops his dishes in the sink with a guilty look in Kyungsoo’s direction and scurries out the door. Kyungsoo takes a gulp of his own coffee; but though the sweeteners he’s dumped into it can mask the bitterness of the drink, they do nothing for the bitterness rising in his chest. Kyungsoo is usually better at controlling it, but maybe because he’s already in a bad mood this morning he can’t seem to calm his resentment.
Kyungsoo would give anything to be in Chanyeol’s place. It’s an impossible dream, though. He tried before - there’s not a single university that will take him.
Kyungsoo sighs and pokes his phone one more time. The screen turns on just long enough to give Kyungsoo a shred of hope, then flickers back to black.
---
Minseok’s eyes widen with surprise and recognition when Kyungsoo enters the shop Monday afternoon.
“Back so soon?” Minseok asks as Kyungsoo shuffles up to the counter. He throws Kyungsoo an easy grin. “Is there something wrong with the helmet again, or did you miss me that much?” The words are lighthearted, more meaningless banter between employee and customer, but even so Kyungsoo feels a tightening in his stomach. He’s nervous, for whatever reason.
“The helmet is fine, actually,” Kyungsoo says. He needs to distract himself, get down to business, and keep his confused thoughts in check. “I was just wondering if you fix phones too?”
He holds his phone out and Minseok cocks his head to the side as he takes it. “I don’t usually do phone repairs,” Minseok says and Kyungsoo’s stomach starts to sink. “But,” Minseok hastens to continue, probably having noticed Kyungsoo’s expression, “I’ll take a look at it for you.”
Kyungsoo tries not to fidget as Minseok looks the phone over. Minseok’s hair is styled up today, and he’s wearing a hoodie with a logo Kyungsoo only vaguely recognizes on it. It’s nothing fancy, but he still looks nice. Kyungsoo balls his hands into fists at his sides. His palms are sweaty. There’s a phone store at the end of the block that Kyungsoo could easily have stopped by, but he had chosen to come to the video game repair shop instead. Minseok must know this, but he doesn’t comment on it, just carefully pries the back of the phone off to look at the circuitry.
An agonizing five minutes later, Minseok pops the back of the phone into place and holds down the power button. Kyungsoo holds his breath as the phone turns on - and stays on.
“You’re amazing,” Kyungsoo breathes out, mixed with a sigh of relief, and Minseok laughs. Realizing what he said, Kyungsoo snaps his mouth shut and feels heat rush to his face. He reaches for his wallet and asks, “How much do I owe you?”
“It’s fine, you don’t owe me anything,” Minseok says. Kyungsoo looks up from his wallet in surprise. Minseok smiles his gummy smile again. “All I did was poke around inside your phone a little bit, it’s no big deal.”
“Are you sure?” Kyungsoo asks. His hand hovers over the cash tucked into his wallet. On one hand, he really wants to pay Minseok. On the other, his wallet is still hurting from the repair fees from his helmet the week before. While he hesitates, Minseok pushes the phone back over to Kyungsoo’s side of the counter.
“Yeah,” Minseok says. “Just be sure to come back here again the next time you need something fixed.” His smile widens, and there’s… something. Something other than just hope of creating a returning customer. Something more like a more personal investment, like he wants Kyungsoo to return for the sake of seeing him again. Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to make of that, so he forces a smile in return and all but flees the store with his phone in hand.
---
A few years before, Kyungsoo had gone directly to a university admissions office after receiving yet another rejection letter on top of the nearly thirty he already had. It made no sense. In terms of academics and capabilities, Kyungsoo should have had universities begging him to attend. So he had put on his nicest clothes and tucked all of his credentials into a clear file folder - school transcripts, awards and achievements, aptitude tests the government had run on him - and marched right into the office.
He had left not even five minutes later. None of the committee members would see him.
“Our university only reviews cases of real, natural intelligence,” the secretary had told him when he requested an appointment. She had given him a cursory once-over before turning back to her computer. “We have no interest in intelligence grown in a lab.”
That night Kyungsoo didn’t scream or cry or wreck his apartment. No, what he did was open his laptop with shaking hands and log in to DateMe. Maybe it would have been better, healthier, to find some way to vent his frustration and anger, but Kyungsoo has never been good at dealing with emotions. Instead of even trying, he found a way to temporarily shed away the world that never wanted him to start with, and immerse himself in a world he could actually connect with.
He’d made his account before, set up his avatar and wandered through some of the servers, but Kyungsoo had so far not made any effort to interact with other users. He had downloaded the game on a whim, driven by mild curiosity, and unsure if he actually wanted to play it. But that night Kyungsoo logged in and marched right up to the first cute avatar he saw.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo said into his headset. He didn’t even own his helmet yet - that came much later. “You’re cute, wanna hang out?”
And that was how Kyungsoo met Nini94.
---
“You’re doing it again,” Chanyeol whines. Kyungsoo doesn’t deign him with a response. In fact, Kyungsoo isn’t even sure when Chanyeol had come into his room, or how he had ended up sprawled across Kyungsoo’s bed.
Kyungsoo himself is at his desk, furiously hitting different key combinations on his laptop keyboard. DateMe is “An Entire World at Your Fingertips!” as the advertisements so enthusiastically claim, and as such Kyungsoo’s avatar also has a job “working” as a lounge singer. There’s no actual singing involved on Kyungsoo’s part, of course, but the mini-games he has to complete to get his “salary” are a pain in the ass. There is a lot of digital currency at stake here, and Kyungsoo isn’t about to lose it over idle conversation with his roommate.
“The obsession thing,” Chanyeol clarifies as the silence stretches on without any acknowledgment from Kyungsoo.
Kyungsoo finally finishes his game, and he lets out a sigh of relief as the score figures calculate on the screen. He stretches his fingers and rolls his shoulders. He’s only wearing his regular headset today - the strain of the helmet display screen had caught up with him briefly earlier, making his vision swim in and out of focus.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kyungsoo finally replies. His neck pops as he stretches. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Chanyeol cringe.
“You know, where you put all your time and energy into that stupid game and a relationship that doesn’t even exist,” Chanyeol says. “Soon I’m going to have to pry you out of your room just to make sure you don’t skip meals. Fuck, last time you almost fainted-”
“I’ll be fine,” Kyungsoo cuts in. He hadn’t earned quite as much as he wanted from the mini-game, and he irately clicks into another. There’s a new clothing pack out that chenchen had said looked cool, and Kyungsoo almost has enough to buy it. “Don’t worry about me.”
Chanyeol inhales sharply, then slowly lets it out again. “Okay, you know what? Fine.” Chanyeol stands up and walks to the door. “Sorry for being concerned about you.” He closes the door behind him with a click, but Kyungsoo doesn’t hear. He’s too busy feverishly smashing keys.
---
Kyungsoo has really bad luck with technology. At least this is what he concludes when his laptop crashes not even a month after the problems with his helmet and his phone.
This time he hauls himself to the repair shop in jeans and the cleanest hoodie he can find. Actually, he can’t remember when he last did laundry. Maybe Chanyeol had done it. Lately Kyungsoo has been forgetting to do a lot of the chores he normally takes care of.
Kyungsoo isn’t expecting to run into Minseok again - it’s the middle of the day, not the afternoon, and Minseok had seemed like a student. He probably has classes. But Minseok is there, sitting behind the counter and looking every bit as surprised to see Kyungsoo as Kyungsoo is to see him. Minseok’s surprise quickly turns into one of his gummy smiles, and Kyungsoo’s stomach flops. Kyungsoo thought he’d been doing a good job of erasing whatever strange… thing he has for Minseok from his mind. Throwing himself into DateMe and his “relationship” with chenchen had helped, but now it all comes rushing back. Emotions- no, Kyungsoo chastises himself. Not emotions. Not real emotions.
“Long time no see,” Minseok greets him, and there’s something in his eyes that looks suspiciously like hope. Kyungsoo swallows.
“Yeah, I, um,” Kyungsoo stutters, and is immediately horrified. Kyungsoo never stutters. “Laptop,” he manages to get out. To cover his embarrassment, he plunks his laptop down on the counter.
Minseok laughs, teasing but not malicious. Kyungsoo furrows his brows and drops his gaze to the laptop case. He focuses all his attention on carefully removing the laptop and placing it in front of Minseok. His movements are measured and methodical, allowing him time to gather back his composure. When Kyungsoo looks up again Minseok is looking at him, not at the laptop. Minseok’s face is contemplative, but quickly brightens into another easy smile when Kyungsoo meets his gaze.
“So, what seems to be the problem?” Minseok asks, and Kyungsoo tries to ignore the way his entire body feels several degrees too warm.
---
Chanyeol wasn’t wrong about the obsession thing, not that Kyungsoo would ever openly acknowledge it. The actual truth, though, is that Chanyeol doesn’t even know the half of it.
It started with Nini94. Kyungsoo had poured his everything into the game, bypassing eating and sleeping for the chance to spend a few more minutes chatting with his “boyfriend” or earning game currency. Kyungsoo’s fixation on his virtual life ran much deeper than just the surface “relationship” he was involved in. He completely immersed himself the entire DateMe universe, painstakingly piecing together the details that made up his “life” there: his avatar’s job, house, clothing, all the way down to trivial things like which servers he liked to frequent.
The DateMe world became more real to Kyungsoo than his grungy one-room apartment or the fast food job he had at the time. He spent all his time in the real world counting down the seconds until he could go back to his world.
Then Nini94 broke up with him, and everything fell apart. Kyungsoo ended up in the hospital - dehydration, malnourishment, sleep deprivation. His body had given up, collapsing at work one day.
That had been a solid two years before Kyungsoo met Chanyeol. Kyungsoo has been more careful since then, managing at the very least to keep himself a step above a medical crisis. Nini94 had only been the beginning, and he was followed by a series of relationships progressing up until chenchen: Byun_Baek, yehetttt, G4L4XY, xingstar, soccerfan0420… the list stretches on further than Kyungsoo cares to even try to remember. Although not all of them lasted for long, each time Kyungsoo had to carefully adjust his balance between the real world and virtual reality. The longer he spent online, the further Kyungsoo had to edge away from reality, but still be careful to figure out which roots he needed to keep in place to stop himself from toppling over into the virtual world completely.
Kyungsoo is always methodical. Logic is his strong point, even if that logic doesn’t necessarily make sense to anyone else. Kyungsoo knows what he’s doing, knows that his obsession is unhealthy. He just figures that the danger is an acceptable trade-off for the ability to build a world for himself, a place where being artificial actually makes him more real.
Awareness and acknowledgment of his obsession do nothing to make Kyungsoo any less antsy during the two weeks it takes for his laptop to be repaired. He nearly wears a hole in the floor from the amount of pacing he does - or at least that’s what Chanyeol claims - and forces Chanyeol to download DateMe temporarily so that he can send chenchen a message to let him know what happened.
Kyungsoo is so wrapped up in his own head that he barely even processes the fact that it’s not Minseok, but rather a middle-aged man, behind the counter when he stops by to pick his laptop up. There’s a lingering sense of something in the back of Kyungsoo’s mind as he signs for the payment, maybe a sense of relief or disappointment or both, but it’s overwhelmed by his greater sense of urgency.
Kyungsoo all but runs home, and in his haste to get his laptop set up again almost completely misses the note tucked into his laptop case. Assuming it’s just another copy of the invoice, he pulls the envelope out of his laptop case and sets it on his desk. He then promptly forgets about it until the next morning, when it catches his eye while he’s getting dressed.
Kyungsoo grabs the envelope and wanders out to the kitchen. Chanyeol is already chomping his way through a bowl of sugary cereal. Kyungsoo wrinkles his nose in disgust; he likes sugar well enough, but that cereal is the definition of too much of a good thing. Kyungsoo starts the coffee and then opens the envelope still in his hand. It is, as he expected, a copy of the invoice. What he hadn’t anticipated was the small yellow sticky note attached to the page.
“Woah,” Kyungsoo says as he stares at the note. It’s from Minseok, signed in the same neat handwriting Kyungsoo had seen the first time he stopped by the shop. The note starts off simple, apologizing that he couldn’t be there when Kyungsoo picked up his laptop because he doesn’t work on Wednesdays. But after that-
“He left his phone number,” Kyungsoo says with his eyes still trained on the paper. He’s not talking to Chanyeol really, but Chanyeol cranes his neck around to try to get a look anyway.
“Who gave you their number?” Chanyeol asks. This is enough to snap Kyungsoo out of his reverie, and he jerks the paper away from Chanyeol’s line of vision. “Is he cute?” Chanyeol presses. Kyungsoo doesn’t respond, which Chanyeol takes as a confirmation. “Dude, you should totally text him.”
“Should I?” Kyungsoo muses, thumb smoothing over the edge of the sticky note. He tunes out any further comments from Chanyeol and goes back to his morning routine.
Long after Chanyeol has dashed out the door and the pan Kyungsoo used to fry up eggs has cooled, Kyungsoo once again picks up the invoice and attached note from the counter. He stares at the note for a few seconds, the tidily written digits of Minseok’s phone number swimming before his eyes, before shaking his head and walking over to the trash can.
Right as Kyungsoo is about to toss the invoice into the trash, Minseok’s face materializes in his mind. Kyungsoo blinks, hard, and the image disappears. Kyungsoo blinks again, then looks between the invoice and the trash can. He pauses before sighing and heading back to his room, invoice in hand, to search for his phone.
“What the hell am I doing?” Kyungsoo mumbles as he pulls up a new text message and inputs Minseok’s number. His fingers hover over the screen for a moment before he types out a simple, Hey, this is Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo hesitates again, then quickly presses send. A few seconds later he adds another message: The guy whose tech keeps breaking. Just for the sake of clarity.
Kyungsoo sets his phone aside, turns on his computer, and logs into DateMe. For the next hour and a half Kyungsoo is almost as apprehensive as he had been for the two weeks he was without his laptop. Even as he completes mini-games, strolls through the servers, and chats with chenchen, Kyungsoo periodically stops to pull off his helmet to check his phone.
When his phone finally lights up with a notification, Kyungsoo all but pounces on it. Minseok’s response is simple, Hey! Sorry, work was busy. What’s up?, but it leaves a strange tingling feeling spreading through Kyungsoo’s body. Relief, mostly, that Kyungsoo hadn’t been figuratively stood up through text message. There’s another thing too, though, prickling under his skin. Kyungsoo could probably put a name to it if he cared to, but he doesn’t so instead he swallows it down and types out a reply.
---
Minseok works in the daytime and Kyungsoo works evenings, so they arrange to meet on a Wednesday morning - Minseok’s only day off. They’ve been texting for a little while, about two weeks, so meeting up is the next logical step. Kyungsoo knows that, but he’s still a mess of nerves the entire day before. Texting is one thing, but meeting in person is another. With texting there’s a barrier created by distance and a filter made from typed words and emoticons. Meeting in person, though, makes everything seem so much more… real. That alone is enough to put Kyungsoo on edge.
Kyungsoo arrives ten minutes early to the coffee shop Minseok had texted him directions to. Minseok is already there, waiting just outside the front doors. Today Minseok is dressed up more nicely than Kyungsoo has ever seen him before, in dark jeans with a blazer pulled on over his t-shirt. He looks nice. Really nice. Kyungsoo swallows, suddenly feeling self-conscious of his own simple cardigan.
Minseok smiles brightly as soon as he spots Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo’s anxiety causes his stomach to flop around. This is a date. Kyungsoo isn’t always good at picking up on subtleties and details that are not explicitly spoken, but he’s certain of this. He’s actually known since Minseok first asked to meet up - or, truthfully, since he first found the note with Minseok’s phone number. Seeing Minseok dressed up and waiting for him confirms it.
Kyungsoo’s expression must look a little odd, because there’s a smile playing around the corners of Minseok’s lips as he holds the door open. “Hey, nice to see you again,” Minseok says as he ushers Kyungsoo inside. Kyungsoo feels lightheaded as he steps into the shop. It’s like all of his nerves have coalesced into a sense of giddy dizziness. Is this how one is supposed to feel on dates? Kyungsoo’s never been one before in the real world. Kyungsoo turns the thought over in his head as they walk towards the counter.
The coffee shop is a large chain store, one with multiple levels of seating and altogether too many students slaving away behind laptops despite the fact that it’s not yet even noon. Minseok and Kyungsoo place their orders, then head over to an empty table by some windows with buzzers that will let them know when their order is ready.
To Kyungsoo, the entire thing feels almost surreal. He goes to coffee shops all the time - on DateMe, that is. He rarely ever comes to coffee shops in real life, and most certainly not on dates. As they sit down, Kyungsoo has an unnerving feeling, almost like déjà vu, that he isn’t sitting in the coffee shop at all but rather is at home sitting at his desk. He digs his fingernails into his palms and forcibly reminds himself that this is real life, not a game.
Even as they idly chat while waiting for their coffee, Kyungsoo can’t quite shake a sense of uneasiness. It crawls up his spine, keeping him ramrod-straight in his chair even as Minseok relaxes. The closest thing Kyungsoo can think to compare it to is a sense of being watched.
And then he hears it - faint, like it’s coming from a distance, but unmistakable. Chanyeol is calling Kyungsoo’s name.
Kyungsoo jumps and whips around, scanning over the coffee shop. Chanyeol is nowhere to be seen. Of course he’s not; he’s a good thirty-minute bus ride away, slaving his way through a chemistry lab. Goosebumps run across Kyungsoo’s skin as he slowly turns back to Minseok. Minseok, for his part, is giving Kyungsoo a concerned look.
“Is everything okay?” Minseok asks. He flickers, and for a second it isn’t Minseok sitting there, but kjmsuho, with his hair slicked back and wearing a three-piece suit. “Kyungsoo?” Kyungsoo blinks, and he’s looking at Minseok once more. Kyungsoo feels dizzy, but it’s a different kind of dizziness from what he felt before. There isn’t anything pleasant about this lightheadedness. Nausea pulses in Kyungsoo’s stomach.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Kyungsoo says. He blinks again, rapidly, and shakes his head to rid the last ringing echoes of Chanyeol’s voice from his ears. “I just thought I heard someone call my name.” Kyungsoo’s attempted smile isn’t quite up to muster, but luckily he’s saved by the buzzers going off. By the time Minseok comes back with their drinks, Kyungsoo has managed to shore his expression up into something more convincing. Minseok buys it, but Kyungsoo can’t shake a lingering sense of unease until long after they’ve left the coffee shop and parted ways.
---
Even if they had tried, it is unlikely that Kyungsoo and Minseok could have created two more incompatible schedules. The only real overlaps of free time they have are Wednesday mornings and Sunday afternoons. Even so, they find ways to make it work. They start out meeting once a week, then after a while move up to both free days, and then, after about a month, Minseok starts coming out to Gangnam every now and then to hang out for a bit after Kyungsoo gets off of work. They spend most of their time at restaurants, cafes, and bars, chatting until the early hours of the morning.
Eventually these after-work meetings become more frequent as well, until Minseok and Kyungsoo are meeting several times a week. Kyungsoo starts getting used to coming home at 4 a.m. smelling of grilled meat and soju. To spending the hours at work counting down until he can meet Minseok, instead of just until he can haul himself home. To having something to look forward to.
Kyungsoo and Minseok aren’t dating, really, at least not in the relationship sense of the word. They’re dating in the sense of “going on dates together,” and that’s fine; it’s fun, casual, and easy. Minseok is fun, casual, and easy. When he’s with Minseok, Kyungsoo smiles a little more than usual, laughs a little more than usual, tells stories about his shithead co-teachers that he hasn’t even told to Chanyeol. Kyungsoo thoroughly enjoys the time he spends going on dates with Minseok.
A relationship, though, is something completely different from dating. Relationships involve deeper emotions, real emotions, that are expected to both be given and reciprocated. The very thought is enough to turn Kyungsoo’s blood to ice. He’s already terrified that Minseok will notice that Kyungsoo isn’t quite right, will see him for the fraud he is. If he’s put into a situation where he not only has to show, but prove, his emotions, he knows that his fragile guise will crumble.
So Kyungsoo shies away and throws up barriers every time the topic seems like it might come up. They’ve been going out for, what, four months now, five? It makes sense that Minseok might want to put some sort of official label on what they have. But although Minseok seems a little perplexed by the ferocity of Kyungsoo’s aversion, he never pushes the topic. Kyungsoo just washes down his thankfulness with another glass of beer, and tells himself that he isn’t being selfish.
---
Chanyeol doesn’t comment on Kyungsoo’s change in schedule, just pulls his lips into a tight line as he watches Kyungsoo yawn over his fourth cup of coffee of the morning. Usually the shift to later nights wouldn’t affect Kyungsoo, since his work starts in late afternoon. He could, theoretically, simply adjust his sleeping schedule so that he gets up later. That would be the most logical solution and would save him the extra caffeine intake that seems to have Chanyeol so worried. The problem with this plan is chenchen.
Kyungsoo learned early on that chenchen, like Kyungsoo himself, works later shifts. Kyungsoo doesn’t remember what job chenchen has - he never remembers details about the people he “dates” on DateMe. When he’s in the game, real life matters are irrelevant to Kyungsoo. This is one of the longest in-game “relationships” he’s had for a while, but even that isn’t enough to provoke Kyungsoo’s curiosity. Kyungsoo only has interest in chenchen, the cute avatar who holds Kyungsoo’s avatar’s hand and helps to boost Kyungsoo’s in-game ranking, not in some guy sitting behind a computer who has to leave at 2 p.m. every day to go to work.
Besides, the people behind the avatars Kyungsoo “dates” feel the same way. DateMe is, at its core, a game; the players are gamers. There are countless sites for people interested actual relationships. DateMe, however, is not one of them. “It’s just simple fun,” chenchen said early on, during one of the somewhat rambling conversations he’s prone to. Kyungsoo isn’t sure about the “fun” part of chenchen’s statement, but who is Kyungsoo to deny him that?
So Kyungsoo maintains his schedule. He wakes up just in time to watch Chanyeol run off to class, then spends his morning draining mug after mug of coffee as he plays on DateMe. Then he heads to work and, if it’s a day they’ve planned to meet, spends his time after work with Minseok, then returns home close to dawn.
Kyungsoo is averaging three hours of sleep a night and it’s fine, really. It’s more than enough to keep him going, and he’s survived on less before. It just means that when he finally crawls into bed he passes out almost immediately. No tossing and turning, no lying awake worrying about the past or the future, just a deep sleep. And if the circles under his eyes get deeper by the day then, well, it’s worth it.
---
Kyungsoo is sitting in a cafe.
Well, technically, the one sitting in the cafe is Kyungsoo’s avatar. Kyungsoo himself is sitting at the desk in his bedroom, with his laptop open in front of him and his simulator helmet on. Or, actually… maybe Kyungsoo isn’t sitting anywhere at all. He can’t really tell.
Kyungsoo keys in the commands for his avatar to take a drink of coffee. The avatar sitting across from him is extremely good-looking, as far as pixels can be: auburn hair a bit messy, and wearing an unbuttoned flannel shirt with a graphic tee underneath. He’s not an avatar at all, Kyungsoo realizes with a start, but Minseok. Minseok is sitting there, across from Kyungsoo’s avatar, but Kyungsoo is stuck… somewhere - behind the computer screen, or maybe in another world entirely - watching.
Minseok blinks back at Kyungsoo and smiles mildly. “Don’t you have something more exciting to do than spending your time hanging out on an online game? It’s Saturday night, after all.”
The words are mere politeness - the two of them had, after all, agreed to meet at this time. Wait, no, that’s not right. They hadn’t agreed to meet here, not in the game. Minseok doesn’t even play the game. Kyungsoo tries to say as much, but he finds himself shaking his head instead, triggering his avatar to do the same.
“I like to spend the nights I have off from work relaxing at home,” Kyungsoo replies, even though that’s not what he wants to say at all. Kyungsoo can feel panic setting in, tightening his chest and drying out his mouth. He wants to rip his helmet off, but he can’t move. It’s like someone else is controlling him, cuing in the commands from a distance, just like how Kyungsoo controls his DateMe avatar.
“So what’s your job, then?” Minseok asks, and Kyungsoo smiles beneath his helmet. Everything is perfect, going according to plan. What plan? Kyungsoo doesn’t remember making a plan.
Kyungsoo opens his mouth to say something more when there’s a loud pounding from somewhere behind him. He jumps and lets out a curse, making his avatar jerk slightly.
“Is everything okay?” Kyungsoo can hear Minseok’s voice asking, concerned.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Kyungsoo hastily replies. It’s not fine. Kyungsoo’s heart is pounding in his throat. The banging sound doesn’t let up, but Kyungsoo is forced to ignore it. “It’s just my roommate.”
As if on cue, Chanyeol’s voice comes out of nowhere. “C’mon, Kyungsoo,” he whines, voice permeating into Kyungsoo’s very being. “You promised you’d go out to eat together today.”
“If you’re busy, you can go,” Minseok says, and Kyungsoo immediately starts to panic in earnest.
“No, no, it’s fine, I’m not busy,” Kyungsoo rushes to say. Minseok can’t go, he can’t. If he goes he won’t come back. Kyungsoo doesn’t know why he knows this, but he does, and he’s frantic now, but Minseok is already standing.
“I don’t want to bother you,” Minseok says. Kyungsoo wants to scream that he isn’t a bother and beg him to stay, but when he opens his mouth no sound comes out. “Let’s meet again some other time, okay?” Minseok smiles his gummy smile that Kyungsoo has come to know so well, and then turns away. All Kyungsoo can do is sit there, paralyzed, and watch him disappear, dissolving into smoke as he walks out the door-
Kyungsoo wakes with a gasp. His chest is heaving, and he’s stuck to his sheets with sweat. His heart continues to pound in his ears as Kyungsoo stares at his ceiling, trying to orient himself. There’s enough light seeping in around the curtains that he can make out the vague shape of his room. Distantly he can hear the clatter of pans as Chanyeol putters around the kitchen, presumably attempting to make breakfast.
Kyungsoo takes a deep breath and feels around for his phone. He finds it tucked halfway under his pillow and unlocks it, squinting at the blindingly bright screen. 7:42 a.m. Kyungsoo sucks in another breath and tries to steady his shaking hands. He still has about fifteen minutes until his alarm will go off.
Just as he’s about to lock his phone again, Kyungsoo gets a text from Minseok. Kyungsoo isn’t sure why, but a sense of dread settles over him as he opens it.
Good morning! Did you sleep well? :)
Nausea crashes into Kyungsoo like a freight train at full speed, and he barely manages to make it to the bathroom in time to empty his stomach into the toilet.
PART 2