“Are you talking about me?”

His voice was deeper than I would’ve guessed, the black coat almost reaching the ground. It resembled more of a trench coat, to be honest. He was also Asian, with short, black hair divided in the middle, and a bit taller than me.

“Hey, mister! Remember us?”

I turned to face Hil with shock flooding my eyes. I thought I was ‘mister’.

Why did I feel betrayed?

The man raised one of his eyebrows when a sudden recognition sparkled in his eyes.

“Oh, I remember now. You aided me with the Store. Glad to know you survived the fall.”

I was staring at the three of them, a few steps away, flabbergasted. What was the meaning of all of that?

“This older mister helped us! He is protecting us.”

I felt my eyes twitching. Why…

Hal glanced at me, replying as if he was reading my thoughts. “Never looked at a mirror? You look more like an old man. I could even call you grandpa if you didn't have such a stupid face most of the time.”

Hah…!

I couldn’t believe the nerve of that kid, who was he calling an old man?! I was still in my twenties, I wasn’t old!

...

... Why did I feel so hurt…?

“Hey, why did you offer to help him but only helped me with the gacha after I asked?”

“Because we met mister at the store. And he is really cool!”

I felt a sense of dread. “But hey, Hil, you think I’m cool too, right?”

She nodded with a bright smile, but then she pointed at the trench coat guy. “Yes, but Mister is cooler!”

At this point, being pierced by that rock would’ve been less painful.

Hal was holding his stomach, laughing so hard the kid was about to fall to the ground.

So that was what being dead felt like…

“Well, it was great to see you children are well, so if none of you have any business with me I will be going—”

“Wait. I have some questions.” My pride had already been shattered to pieces and stepped on it, so why seize the chance?

The stranger frowned, his stance still on the defensive. “Yes?”

“Seeing you are also unscathed after the fall, did you use a skill or was it an effect of your armor? Maybe one of your potions?”

He squinted his eyes, one of his hands reaching for the bags. “I don’t like to share personal information with strangers.”

“Then maybe you can quell my curiosity. Why would you spend so much on potions? Wouldn’t it be better to try to get a real weapon?”

The man smirked, crossing his arms as he averted his gaze.

“You are clearly inexperienced with these types of games. Don’t you know? There is nothing underwhelming about potions. In fact, they can perform better than a common graded weapon, when used correctly.”

Oh, I definitely didn’t like his tone. What, because the twins presumed I was older, he thought it was fine to mock me?

And if I was, indeed, older than him, this guy should speak more respectfully, shouldn't he?

I took a few steps forward.

“Oh, I played quite a lot of games back in our world. In those games, potions were usually quite a loss of time. Not only they are usually expensive, but potions are consumables for lazy players. Rather than spending money on healing potions, I prefer to fight better with skills and good items. In my eyes, someone who spends so many points with this kind of item…must be pretty stupid.”

“Oh, really? I am certainly curious now to see the kind of sloppy games you are used to playing.”

“From what I observed, it’s usually the players’ fault for performing in such a sloppy, sad way. Most times you simply need to learn the mechanics.”

“And from what I observed, a lot of players seem unable to understand the mechanics to even use them.”

The man was already breaths away from me, our eyes locked in furious, annoyed gazes.

“Mister, do you want to stay with us?! You and the older mister can—”

“No.”

Me and the stranger answered at the same time, without averting our eyes.

I didn’t know why, but this guy really got on my nerves. Maybe it was that stoic expression of his, perhaps the nuances of arrogance and pretension in his voice, or the simple fact he was taller and slender than me.

Or maybe it was because he suddenly became Mister 1#.

“Hey, Kurosawa! We need you here.”

Some guy waved his hand, dragging the stranger’s attention. He turned around, giving his back to me and the twins. He spoke as he glanced at us through his shoulder, his voice smooth and deep.

“You better not behave like you are playing one of your games. Especially when people are depending on you.”

Then he left. I still had my mouth half open, staring at the direction trench-coat-man had disappeared into, the potion bags swinging as he moved.

He walked toward a big group, everyone rushing to his side with hopeful smiles and joyful gazes as he seemed to explain something to them.

“You may want to close your mouth, otherwise you may drop more than just drool,” Hal spoke between giggles, trying and—much likely—failing on purpose to keep the laughter in check.

“What more could I drop?” I asked for the sake of irony.

“The little self-respect you have left.”

I was beginning to understand Hal. See him in a better light. That boy was no little angel—he was a cute demon.

“Hal, stop being mean to mister!”

Oh, I was back to being just ‘mister’, wasn’t I…?

I sighed, passing my hand through my hair. It didn’t matter who that man was, nor what the kids thought of him.

Even if my decaying pride hated to admit, what mattered most was that he was a good candidate to form an alliance.

He had used enough points to fill two bags with potions and get himself a nice armor, and also he formed a contract with a Benefactor.

One good enough to provide him with a good skill, since this was the most logical reason for how he landed uninjured. If I had to guess, the man had ranked first place in his group during the pre-trials.

On top of it all, the twins seemed to believe he had a character good enough to be trusted. He didn’t seem to be of the same kind as Giorgio, or the man who was harassing the twins.

Still…

That guy annoyed me.

“Why is mister pouting like that?”

“He just realized how uncool he is and now he is trying not to cry.”

And this older mister is not deaf…

Also, why would I even bother to cry because of trench-coat-guy? It was his points he was wasting by buying potions, I couldn’t care less what he did.

“Didn’t you guys say you would start fulfilling your part of the deal? Go and see if you find some useful information, we are going to need it later.”

Hal tried to hide a giggle while Hil saluted me like a soldier, both running wild amidst the crowd. I rubbed my hands on my face, trying to take away all the hurt those children had done to my pride in that brief amount of time.

However, as I watched the kids from a distance, I felt some warmth inside me. I didn’t usually interact with children, nor did I consider having my own. Back in my world, I used to stress far more about finding a good, reliable partner—there was no time to think about marriage and kids.

...but being honest, I would struggle with living and getting by day by day. I had a couple of close friends who I could confide in; like Hyeon, Jiho, and my sister.

But when Hana left to study abroad, I only had Hyeon and Jiho. The only people that could somewhat understand the things I was going through, shit, Hyeon was even going through something similar. And though Jiho hadn’t shared our experiences, he was the only one who hadn’t abandoned us.

How many times had the three of us stayed until dawn drinking and shouting, laughing until we lost our voices, emptying one soju bottle after another, and sometimes getting kicked out of the establishments?

Because living was far too painful sometimes and that was our way to get through the night; we would drink, we would laugh, we would cry, and console each other. So when another day came, we would still have some memories to get us by, to make us smile.

I kept watching the twins, watching them smile and laugh, recalling all the times I saw the shadows and darkness crawling within their eyes. I kept wondering if they had friends back in our world, someone who would help them get by the days and make those shadows go away.

I wondered about the things they had seen, the life they had lived, to carry such dark shadows on their backs. Most of all, I asked myself how Hal could still laugh and how Hil could still smile the way they did for before I became Park Eun-Woo, I had lost the will to laugh and smile a long time ago.

This only made me think that, whoever those kids were, they were far stronger than I had ever been. And the more time I spent with them, the more unpleasant things I would recall; moments it hurt to remember, while others would simply make me miserable.

Then out of nowhere—

[You received a message from your Benefactor!]

Huh?

[Your Benefactor sent you a gift!]

[You received a message from your Benefactor!]

Now, that…

Was interesting.