“Are you referring to me?”

His voice was deeper than I would’ve guessed, the black coat almost reaching the ground. It was like a trench coat but fancier, with a lot of buttons and small details, amplifying quite a bit its fantasy tone.

The man himself was also Asian, the first I had seen so far. Made me feel a sort of kinship, despite myself. His black hair was a bit longer than mine, his eyes as black as they could be.

“Hey, mister! Remember us?”

I turned to face Hil, unblinking.

‘Mister’?

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

“Oh, I remember you two. Glad to know you survived the fall.”

“This older mister helped us—he already saved us twice!” Hil made a ‘two’ with her fingers, smiling all cheerfully.

…older?

“I assume he was the one you were waiting for before.”

The twins nodded, the man giving a nod of acknowledgment.

To them. Not to me.

“Did the rest of your group use the Store all right?” Hal asked, stepping closer to him.

For some reason, the boy was not scowling at him—much less had his guard up.

“They did, thank you for advising me. Some of them got good items.”

I kept staring at the three of them, trying not to yet feeling left out all the same.

Hil finally remembered I existed, looking up to me while giving some tugs on my pants.

“This is the cool mister with the cool coat! We met him at the Shop. Thanks to us, he got a lot of potions, too!”

Me and the cool mister finally exchanged glances. He eyed me for a few seconds, his gaze scanning me briefly before focusing back on the twins.

“Let me know if you want to join our group, later. We don’t have many resources yet, but the members are reliable. We can take good care of you.”

My eyes twitched.

Surely, I must have understood him wrong.

I took a step forward, putting myself in front of the twins—closer to him. “You don’t have to worry about them. I may not be in a group, but I’m quite reliable myself.”

The man’s eyes came back to meet mine, his expression revealing nothing but a cold demure.

“If you children are well, and none of you have any business with me, I will take my leave. My offer still stands, if you two ever change your mind.”

I could almost hear one of my nerves snap, the thread responsible for my patience floating away to oblivion.

“Wait. I have some questions.” I held the stranger by his sleeve, making him frown in response.

He pulled away.

“Yes?”

“Seeing you are so confident about being dependable, you wouldn’t mind sharing the reasons, right? Otherwise, I’m not sure the children would be able to make an informed decision.”

He squinted his eyes, their gaze colder by the second.

“I’m not fond of sharing 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 while averting his gaze.

“As I presumed, you are clearly inexperienced. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be making such a ridiculous statement. When used correctly, potions can perform better than your above-average weapon.”

Oh…! As he presumed?

I see.

So even in another world, I still encountered people whose native language was bullshit.

“Oh, I played a lot of games back in our world. In most cases, potions were quite a waste of time and resources. Not only the best ones were far too expensive, I only saw lazy players relying on them. Sure, they work well as support items…yet rather than spending all my money on healing potions, I prefer to fight better and use my money for good equipment. So in my eyes, a guy that decides to spend that many points with consumables…must be pretty stupid.”

“Is that so?” He took a step closer to me, a new sharpness appearing in his voice. “I am certainly curious about the kind of sloppy games you were used to playing. Mediocre games call for mediocre players.”

“From my experience, whenever players are complaining about their game performance, it’s their fault for playing in a sloppy way. They never took time to learn the mechanics, you see.”

“And from what I observed, plenty of players seem unable to understand the mechanics to even use them. Yet they still feel justified to give lousy lessons to others.”

We were breaths away from one another, the air between us heavy and static.

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

“No.”

Me and the stranger replied at the same time, our eyes locked with each other.

Any kinship and familiarity I ever felt with him had rotted and perished without any formal ceremony. Were it due that stoic expression of his, the nuances of arrogance and pretension in his voice, or the simple fact he kept looking at me from above because he was taller—I wanted to punch him at least one.

“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.

The man glanced at me through his shoulder, his voice smooth and deep. However his words, they were as sharp as daggers.

“You better not behave as if you were playing one of your games. Especially when there are people depending on you.”

Then he left, crossing the crowd until he met with a small group, everyone rushing to his side with hopeful smiles and joyful gazes. Whenever he talked, whenever he moved, people’s eyes followed him—they listened.

I only realized I was clenching my fists when Hil touched my arm, stealing my attention.

“What did you think? Isn’t that mister super cool?!”

Inside me, there was this sense of dread. “But hey, Hil, you think I’m cool too, right?”

She nodded with a bright smile, giving me some comfort.

Which was absurdly short-lived.

“But that mister is cooler!”

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

Hal was holding his stomach, laughing so hard the kid there was finally some color to his face.

“You may want to close your mouth, otherwise you may drop more than just drool,” Hal spoke between giggles, after taking a few deep breaths.

“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 with a better light. That boy was no adorable angel—he was a cute demon.

“Hal, don’t be being mean with mister!”

Oh, I was back to being just ‘mister’…?

…I wasn’t even that old.

I sighed, passing my hand through my hair. It really 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.

Not only he had enough points to fill two bags with potions and get himself a nice armor, he formed a contract with—most likely—a good Benefactor. That was the most logical reason for how he landed without a single scratch on him.

If I had to guess, that man ranked first place in his group during the pre-trials. And on top of that all, the twins seemed to believe he had a good enough character to be trusted. He certainly didn’t give the same air as Giorgio and the man who was harassing the twins.

Still…

He irks me…

“Why is mister pouting like that?”

For the first time, I ignored Hil.

“I think we wasted enough time, right? Go on and see if you guys can find some useful information—we will need it later.”

Hal seemed to see right through me, not bothering to hide the sly smile, while Hil gave me a brief salute before both rushed into the crowd. I rubbed my face, feeling ashamed.

You may not be that old, but you’re still a grown man, Eun-Woo…

I sighed, watching the kids from a distance.

All things considered, I was dealing with the twins better than I thought. I rarely interacted with children, much less considered having my own. Most of my stress and worries would go into finding a good, reliable—a pressure that did not come from me.

What I truly struggled with was living and getting by, day by day. I had a couple of close friends who I confided in; like Hyeon, Jiho, and my sister. And when Hana left to study abroad, I only had Hyeon and Jiho.

The only people who could somewhat understand the things I went through, with a lot of Hyeon’s situations mirroring my own. And while 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, 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 still had some memories to get us by that day, to make us smile.

I kept watching the twins, watching their smiles and closeness, recalling the times I saw shadows and darkness crawling in their eyes. I kept wondering if they had friends back in our world, someone who helped them get by the days and make those shadows go away.

What things they had seen, what life they had led, to carry such dense shadows in their backs? And how Hal could still laugh, and Hil could still smile, in such an earnest way?

Back in my old life, I had lost the will to laugh and smile like a long time ago. Which only meant that, whoever those kids were, they were far stronger than I had ever been. And that the more time I spent with them, the more unpleasant things I would recall; moments it hurt to remember and relive.

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.