LS 34

[Party] AssaGo: But I don’t think I’ll be able to make it tomorrow. I’ve got plans around the time you usually log on.

[Party] AssaGo: Even if I come early, I’ll probably be too tired and crash.

[Party] AssaGo: I’ll check how things go tomorrow and leave you a GameTalk message.

[Party] AssaGo: It’s late, so get home safe, and if you get scared, just message me on GameTalk, lol.

[Party] GOingSupporter187: Got it! But I’m not scared though… 8ㅅ8

Not scared, huh. Sure, you’re not.

Watching him agree without even asking what the plans were, Dohee felt a little miffed.

So… you’re not even curious what it is I have going on?

But just as that thought crossed his mind, Knockoff replied again.

[Party] GOingSupporter187: But… what kind of plans do you have?

That lifted Dohee’s mood again. He happily started typing.

[Party] AssaGo: Just… stuff, lol. Anyway, no slacking off, grind story and mobs in Yante.

[Party] AssaGo: If you clear all the story quests, you’ll hit level 50.

[Party] AssaGo: Once you do, I’ll help you get fully geared up and we’ll move on to Valfnich continent.

[Party] AssaGo: If the monsters are too tough, ask the guild for help.

[Party] AssaGo: If someone offers to carry you, just accept the ride, lol.

[Party] GOingSupporter187: Okay…! 8ㅅ8

At least he’s good at responding.

Once Dohee saw Knockoff log off, the fatigue hit all at once. He picked up his phone to check in and make sure the guy got home safe, humming to himself as he did.

For some reason, it was a surprisingly good-feeling kind of dawn.

💎

It was cold. Even without stepping outside the blankets, Dohee could tell the air in the room had a chill to it.

He was pretty sure he went to bed with the heat on, but it must’ve shut off at some point. The sun was already high in the sky, and it was still freezing. Felt like the end of the year was definitely creeping in.

The forecast had promised a white Christmas, but, white Christmas, my ass. It was ridiculously sunny.

His plans to enjoy a snowy Christmas evening with the twins had been completely ruined. The weather service backpedaled and said it’d snow closer to year-end instead.

Isn’t Christmas already the end of the year? What a joke of a forecast.

Reaching out from under the covers, his hand found his phone. When he tapped the screen, he saw he had fifteen missed calls. He groaned.

“…Crap.”

He tapped one of the missed calls, and the ringing began.

— “HEY! BAEK DOHEE!”

Cha Jinhee’s voice rang out loud and clear from the other end of the line. Dohee winced, then finally spoke.

“Sorry. But there’s still some time left before the meetup.”

— “You bastard, I called early because I thought you wouldn’t wake up in time! And now what? There’s still time left? You shameless piece of–”

“Shut up. My head’s pounding…”

— “Yeah, yeah. Stayed up all night playing SoGod again, huh? Typical game junkie. Anyway, I’m leaving my house now, so you better get moving too! And if you pull your usual crap like digging through your closet for a scarf or changing your shoes last minute, I swear I’ll end your life today!”

“Yeah, okay.”

Dohee casually hung up on Jini’s tirade. Finally, the house fell quiet. He forced his sluggish body upright and made his way to the bathroom.

He had met Cha Jinhee back when he was active as a Sword of God streamer.

Jinhee was a fellow male streamer–now playing different games–but back then, the two used to stream SoGod together frequently.

It was before the player base had grown this much, so there weren’t that many popular streamers to begin with.

Back then, Dohee, Jinhee, the current Xeno Guild raid leader “Yapdeuk,” and Baek Yeohoo had been well-known high-ranking players.

Of course, by now it was common knowledge among older players that Dohee had fallen out with Yapdeuk, and that things had gotten rocky with Jinhee when he quit SoGod.

But unlike Yapdeuk, whom Dohee no longer spoke to at all, Jinhee still occasionally met up with him to grab dinner and drinks.

Grumbly as he was, Jinhee had a soft side and a good personality, which was probably why he was still around in Dohee’s tiny circle of people.

From the moment they met, Jinhee always insisted that real friends should catch up every few months and definitely have dinner together at year-end.

So when Jinhee messaged around Christmas, Dohee hadn’t been surprised in the slightest.

Because their names sounded similar, Dohee and Jinhee, Yeohoo always lumped them together and called them the “Hee brothers.”

Even when Dohee complained, “I really don’t want to be called his brother,” Jinhee just laughed and called him an asshole.

Pulling out his favorite cashmere scarf, Dohee cracked a small smile. Either way, it would be nice seeing the guy again after so long.

💎

In the end, he arrived 40 minutes late.

Jinhee clicked his tongue like he expected it, saying he’d stopped by a bookstore for thirty minutes to kill time.

“See? Worked out fine.”

“‘See? Worked out fine.’ You piece of work. Chronic offender, huh?”

“I’ll buy dinner.”

“Well then! Of course! Who cares if Baek Dohee showed up forty minutes late!”

The way he changed his tune so fast, classic weasel behavior.

Dohee unwrapped his scarf and sank into the cushy café chair.

The moment he did, Jinhee wasted no time bringing up the real topic.

“So how’s SoGod these days? Still the same?”

“What do you mean, still the same?”

“Like, are you still having fun with it? Didn’t you stay up late playing again last night?”

“Yeah. But whether it’s fun or not… I’m not so sure anymore.”

“They’re making a huge deal about some winter update. My followers won’t shut up asking if I’m getting back into SoGod. They keep spamming donations, some want collabs with you, others want me to post SoGod vids again. It’s chaos.”

“I was gonna quit anyway.”

“What!?”

Jinhee’s voice boomed across the café, echoing off the walls. Dohee could feel people turning to stare. He had to ruffle his bangs and act like nothing had happened just to play it cool.

“You psycho. Keep your voice down.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry. What’s this now? You, the game junkie, suddenly having a change of heart?”

“It’s just… I was never that into it. I only kept going ‘cause I wanted to clear the Snow Witch full clear.”

“Didn’t your raid eventually do that?”

“Yeah.”

“That was over a year ago though, wasn’t it? You lost interest since then? Why? They didn’t buff supports?”

“I mean… it’d be nice if they did, but that’s not really why. Honestly, even if NGA announced a support buff tomorrow, I wouldn’t have wanted to come back. I was just… burnt out. Even raising alts didn’t feel fun anymore.”

“But you hit max level on your AssaGo character. That doesn’t sound like someone who wasn’t having fun.”

“That just happened while I was messing around.”

“You’re out of your mind… So that’s it? You quit just ‘cause you weren’t having fun?”

“Yeah. That was it.”

“Was it? Past tense?”

“I think… I’m starting to enjoy it again now.”

“Yeah? That’s a relief… What changed?”

“Met someone kinda fun.”

“Ooh. Now I’m curious.”

“I’ll tell you later.”

At Dohee’s “I’ll tell you later,” Jinhee pouted, but his mood quickly bounced back.

“Oh right! Did you hear the news?”

“What news?”

“Seriously, without me, you’d live completely cut off from the world. You know Xeno raid team, Yapdeuk’s crew?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re launching that Demon Hunter raid or whatever in SoGod. Yapdeuk’s already got a full roster lined up, and he’s promoting it hard. He’s been hyping it up like crazy on his stream, saying he’s going for a full clear. Xeno’s got a lot of max-levels now too. They’re planning to rake in donations by streaming the raid and then use that to cover potion and item costs.”

At Jinhee’s words, Dohee raised an eyebrow. Suddenly, the coffee he’d been sipping didn’t taste so good anymore, in other words, he’d lost his appetite.

Dohee and Yapdeuk had once been known as one of the closest duos among SoGod streamers.

Their fallout was infamous, during a live stream of the Corrupted Hana full clear attempt, they had cursed each other out with “you bastard” and “fuck you,” ultimately severing ties.

Yapdeuk–real name Kim Hawon–and Baek Dohee were the same age, and they had hit it off immediately. Along with Baek Yeohoo and Cha Jinhee, the four of them got along famously. People even called them the “Gods.”

Among them, Hawon and Dohee had been especially close. When Dohee’s stream started blowing up, rare as high-level supports were back then–Hawon and Jinhee’s channels also rose in popularity by association.

Honestly, Dohee wasn’t sure where things started to go wrong. There had already been tension between him and Hawon even before Hana was released. Nothing dramatic had happened, but maybe Hawon got hurt over something and just never said it. Dohee never asked.

Back then, they used to hang out two or three times a week, even travel together. They did tons of collab streams too.

Seeing Dohee drift into thought, Jinhee picked up the thread again.

“Don’t people come to my stream all the time asking about you? Like, ‘How’s GoSupp?’ ‘Is he doing okay?’ ‘Can you two do a stream together again?’ ‘Is he ever coming back?’ I get bombarded with that stuff.”

“…Really?”

Dohee had wondered if that might be the case. But until now, Jinhee had never brought it up, and Dohee had never asked.

“Yeah. Lately my stream’s been total chaos thanks to SoGod and GoingSupporter.”

“Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing? The great Baek Dohee, apologizing? That’s new. So, do you seriously have no intention of streaming again? Feels like there’s still a lot of fans who’d come running the moment you announced your return.”

To that, Dohee slowly shook his head.

“I’m not really thinking about it.”

“Yeah? When I checked the SoGod ranking page, your GoSupp character was still holding a solid spot.”

That made Dohee let out a quiet laugh.

“Yeah, that’s just from doing a bit of PvP and pushing the Tower consistently. It’s not like I’m doing anything crazy when I log in. Honestly, I don’t even find it fun anymore.”

“Oh, come on… If you say being a support isn’t fun, even a stray dog would laugh.”

“It’s frozen solid. Still, it’s good for venting when you wanna crush some annoying guy in PvP mode.”

“That’s so typical of you, Baek Dohee.”

Jinhee shook his head in exasperation.

To be fair, once you made it to the upper echelons of the rankings, what people called “heaven tier”, it was hard for anyone to knock you out of place. Unless you completely sold off your gear and quit for good, you could hold your spot just by logging in, doing your weeklys, and maintaining PvP placement. Soon, Jinhee spoke again.

“Honestly, at this point, don’t you think it’s time NGA gave supports a buff already? Right?”