Dusk (BL Light Novel)

If it were up to me, I’d go for an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and then some. Multiply the payback by two to really drive the point home. That way, I’d feel better, and everyone else would learn not to mess with me or crawl all over me.
But there’s a problem.
Gang Jaegyung has no sense of shame.

Sometimes, when he’s in a good mood and someone asks him to sing some cutesy song in the chat, he does it without a shred of embarrassment. Even if people hurl the most humiliating insults at him, he just brushes them off.
So, if I tried to humiliate him the way he humiliated me, he wouldn’t even bat an eye. Hell, he might even enjoy it. Or worse — he’d just shrug it off like nothing.
That kind of payback wouldn’t work on him.

So, let’s adjust the approach a little.
“Hm, it’d be nice if you got a taste of your own medicine,” I said, leaning back and pretending to think about it.
“…Would that be enough?”

Nope. There was no way I was going to let him off that easily. This was just a bait.
“I’m not as shameless as you, pulling off those ridiculous impersonations while dancing on someone else’s corpse, so no, that’s not it.”
“So, I’m shameless?”

“Why? Want me to be shameless? Want me to really lay it on thick?”
“No, no, keep going.”
I smirked at him, letting him stew for a bit while I pretended to be deep in thought. Humiliating him wouldn’t work, so what could I do to really get under his skin?

“Okay, here it is,” ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) I said, snapping my fingers. “For the rest of today, you’re going to do everything I tell you. No backing out, no skipping anything.”
Gang Jaegyung was the kind of person who got all twisted up inside if things didn’t go according to his carefully laid plans. He was the type to give up a kill in the middle of a big tournament just to test a new skill’s damage coefficient.
And once he sets a goal, he can’t not do it. He’d die trying.

“My self-esteem took a hit because of your little stunt yesterday,” I said, crossing my arms. “So, for the rest of the day, every time I kill you in Dusk, you’re going to shower me with praise. Real, genuine compliments to fill up that gaping hole you created.”
“…Compliments?”
“And that’s not all,” I continued. “It still wouldn’t feel fair, so on top of that, you’re going to roast yourself. Trash-talk yourself, really lay it on thick, just like you did when you were pretending to be me yesterday.”
Gang Jaegyung’s brows furrowed. “That’s all?”

“Yep. And no repeating the same compliment twice. No intentionally losing to rack up the deaths either.”
I tilted my head and smiled. “Want me to write it all down for you in case you get confused?”
Gang Jaegyung just stood there, his face twisted in thought. Good. If he had just said, “Sure, I’ll do it,” without a second thought, it wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying.

“I can do the compliment part,” he said, looking a bit lost. “But how am I supposed to trash-talk myself? What should I say?”
“Why? You seemed to manage it just fine yesterday.”
Yeah. When you were pretending to be me, you had no problem running your mouth.

I must’ve looked pretty pissed off because he shrank back a little, his eyes darting away. Then he reached out and tapped my hand gently, his voice soft and coaxing.
“I’ll do it.”
“Not ‘I’ll do it,’” I said. “You have to do it.”

It’s not a request; it’s a demand.
“And I want you to write it all down in advance. Fill up a whole A4 sheet, 10pt font, no margins. Every single line packed with self-deprecating garbage and over-the-top compliments for me.”
Knowing him, he’d go all out. He’d probably spend hours planning and writing it out, meticulously organizing each line. The guy doesn’t know how to half-ass anything.

The longer he spent on it, the sweeter the payoff would be for me.
“…If I do it,” he said, his voice small, “will you hang out with me again?”
“Hm,” I said, pretending to think it over. “We’ll see how you do today.”

“If I do really well, will you?”
“Maybe.”
I came here today planning to knock Gang Jaegyung down a few pegs, but honestly… we did have some fun. And thanks to him talking my ear off, I hadn’t felt as tense as usual walking around outside. He hadn’t caught on to the fact that I was anxious, either.

If things could keep going like that — if I could keep hanging out with him without him realizing how much I hated being outside — then I wouldn’t mind hanging out with him again. Maybe. After he properly grovels and eats a heap of humble pie.
Gang Jaegyung seemed to come to some sort of resolution. He nodded, his eyes fixed on the floor, shoulders tense. “Okay,” he said, voice suddenly full of determination.
He wasn’t looking at me, though. He was staring into space, probably already planning out how he was going to pull this off.

I watched him for a moment, a devious grin spreading across my face. Then I leaned back and said casually, “Wanna grab a drink or something? Let’s rest a bit.”
What I really meant was: Let’s sit down so you can stew over your little assignment and come up with the perfect way to humiliate yourself.
“Yeah, sure!”

He looked so eager, like a golden retriever that had no idea its owner was planning to ditch it at the vet. I just nodded, pretending to listen to him babble as he led me further inside.
Keep talking, Gang Jaegyung. Keep running that big mouth of yours.
Because when we get back to Dusk tonight, I’m going to make you eat every single word.

***
Title: Retaking a Class is Still Breathing
Author: [Jeoja] KleoPissedOff
I thought Honeybread would kill him after that IRL fight.
At least a four-week recovery, minimum.

(Comments: 17)
[Best Comment] If he beat someone up, he’d have to go to the police, so he probably can’t play the game.
└ Is that it?
└ Sounds about right.
└ LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
What happened?
└ [Author] If you don’t know about the conquest humiliation incident, check this out: [Link to Dusk forum post]
└ Thanks.

He got blindsided by Genocide, lost the conquest, got his territory wiped, got teabagged, and then got flamed to hell and back for messing up the orders. If someone beat the crap out of him, he couldn’t really complain.
Honeybread is such a saint.
└ Still people sucking him off even after he tanked the market with his screw-up. You really wanna praise him?
└ ? What are you on?
└ Just hang in there for this week. Who’s been holding down the server against Retaking a Class all this time? Honeybread. This time, Retaking a Class just happened to play well, but everyone’s acting like Honeybread did nothing.
└ If he messed up, he should take responsibility. How long are we gonna baby him? If he doesn’t want the heat, he should step down from shot-calling. It’s not like he’s the only one who can do it.

└ Dude, why so pressed? Yeah, they lost, but did anyone see through Retaking a Class’s strat beforehand? This time, it wasn’t that Honeybread played badly; it’s that Retaking a Class played well. You people are wild. └ So what, he can just go out and hang while everyone else is gathering resources? That’s hilarious. Dude loses a conquest, tanks the market, and still has time to chill outside? └ Honeybread was out gathering resources from dawn till noon. What are you on about? He even reclaimed Base 35 at 11 AM.
└ Third server has basically become the Honeybread and Retaking a Class simp board. If you’re sick of it, just move to the gallery. Nothing but cultists here.
Title: So What Exactly Happened with the Conquest Humiliation Incident?
Author: [Viajok] GGGGGGH

They were getting along fine. Why’d they suddenly start fighting?
(Comments: 4)
No idea.

Retaking a Class started acting weird after the offline event. Something must’ve happened then.
Maybe Honeybread started it. Wouldn’t be the first time.
└ Not surprising… Honeybread’s the type to hit first and ask questions later.
***

TIP: You can exchange reputation points for class-specific gear and various items.
***
Be careful, though — if you don’t leave enough points to maintain your rank, it will drop.

“Oh yeah, so I got my ass handed to me today. If you hear rumors about some guy getting beaten up at a cafe in Banpo-dong, that was me and Honeybread.”
Gang Jaegyung was whining. Not to me, obviously.
As soon as he started his stream, he went off like he was bragging about some major accomplishment, telling everyone how he met up with me today, what we ate, what we did, and how we made a bet and who won.

And now, the conversation had somehow veered into how he supposedly got the crap beaten out of him right after our meetup.
He was going on and on, complaining like a kid tattling to a teacher about how Honeybread beat him up without mercy and how it hurt sooo much.
Fortunately, the viewers weren’t buying his exaggerations and were siding with me.

“How bad was it? Look, see this? I even have a mark on my arm… oh. Never mind.”
He’d been trying to play the sympathy card, pulling up the sleeve of his T-shirt to show a non-existent bruise. The skin was so unmarked and clean it could’ve been used as a blank canvas. Well, of course, there were no marks. I hadn’t actually hit him that hard.
Gang Jaegyung awkwardly rubbed his arm and tried to laugh it off.

“I know you’re all thinking I probably deserved it, but no, no. Honeybread admitted that if the roles were reversed, he would’ve done the same thing.”
Now he was straight-up lying. I never said he didn’t deserve it. I just snorted and went back to clicking away on my mouse. Just a bit more and I’d be done with this.
“Anyway, since Honeybread won the bet, he told me that for the rest of today, I have to swallow my pride and only say nice things about him. Oh, and in addition to that, I also have to trash-talk myself like I did to him yesterday.”

Gang Jaegyung held up a sheet of paper and waved it in front of the webcam. The tiny text was crammed together in neat rows, looking like he’d spent ages working on it.
“He said to write it all out in 10pt font, fill an entire A4 sheet, and really make it sincere. It took me two hours to come up with this,” he said, emphasizing the “two hours” like it was some kind of major sacrifice.
I couldn’t see what he’d written since the webcam was mirrored and the font was so tiny, but it definitely looked like he’d poured a lot of effort into it.

Yeah. Knew it. There’s no such thing as “half-assing” in Gang Jaegyung’s vocabulary.
I smirked as I clicked the final confirmation on my screen. Everything was going according to plan.