Dusk (BL Light Novel)

If Gang Jaegyung had been a little kid, I might’ve felt guilty watching him cry like that. But he was an adult man, so maybe that’s why I didn’t feel anything of the sort. All I thought was that, for a guy, he looked way too pretty.
Too bad for him—if he looked up right now, he’d see I was smiling. But he didn’t know that. Still sobbing and unable to meet my eyes, Gang Jaegyung kept pouring out all his excuses about why he’d shown up as Gonyanyanya. I couldn’t even count how many times he’d said “really” to emphasize that it hadn’t been on purpose.
In the middle of a café, in broad daylight, with people around, a white-skinned guy crying and letting tears fall from his lashes made for a pretty dramatic scene—but I was starting to feel more embarrassed than him. It was a good thing it was a weekday afternoon and not that crowded. If it had been any other time, this would’ve gone viral on social media in minutes.

I’d gotten all the fun I wanted out of it, so I tossed him a line—more out of mercy than anything.
“What the hell are you crying for?”
Gang Jaegyung flinched at my words and wiped his eyes with his sleeve in a panic. It didn’t show because his shirt was black, but it was obviously soaked.

“S-Sorry. I just panicked. I’ll stop, I’ll stop right—”
He mumbled quickly and lowered his sleeve—then finally looked up at me. I was still smiling.
He stopped mid-sentence, like someone whose program had crashed. Propping up his chin with one hand, he saw me grinning and blinked at me with wet eyes like he was finally understanding what was going on.

“Huh? Jaegyung.”
“…Yeah?”
“What are you crying for? You didn’t even do anything that bad.”
I asked again, this time like I was comforting a kid, and brushed the side of his flushed, damp cheek with the back of my hand. He just sat there, totally dumbfounded. When I couldn’t hold it back anymore and finally burst out laughing, he let out a long, anguished sigh.

And then, as if his sadness had just doubled, he burst into full-blown tears again.
“You… you’re so mean. You’re the worst… How can anyone be like this?”
He slumped back into his seat and covered his face with both sleeves. Even the tip of his nose, poking out between his arms, had turned red.

Still giggling, I tugged at one of his sleeves and asked if he was seriously crying. He shoved my hand away in annoyance. That only made me laugh harder. I kept poking at him, and even though he swatted me off a few more times, he eventually gave up and just kept covering his face with his sleeves, letting out a big sigh.
“You’re the worst… Seriously, you suck…”
“Uh-huh, yeah you cried a whole damn river.”

“You suck…”
“Why’re you even crying? You’re a grown-ass man.”
“What do you know, Goyoung…”

Now he was even stomping his feet in frustration. Poor guy had no idea that just made me laugh harder.
While I was busy finding him adorable, Gang Jaegyung just kept sobbing, and eventually, I had to go to the counter and ask for some tissues.
When I came back, I gently pulled down the arms covering his eyes and showed him the tissues. Without a word, he took them and wiped at his face. Every time he dabbed at his now very red eyes, the tears slowly disappeared.

Before they could dry completely, I tore a long piece of tissue and stuck one under each of his eyes. Gang Jaegyung gave me a blank stare, like he couldn’t believe this shit, but he was too drained to protest and just muttered,
“Is this fun for you?”
“Yeah.”

“You’re seriously the worst…”
I snickered, grabbed another tissue, and started blotting the moisture from his wet sleeves. He’d cried so much that the wide, loose sleeves were soaked through.
As I gently dried them, Gang Jaegyung stared at me sulkily. Then he started whining again, this time in a voice that sounded a little more relaxed than before.
“You’re so mean. When did you figure it out? Shouldn’t you have just told me right away? Yelled at me or something? Why’d you drag it out like this? Do you have any idea how miserable I felt? I was leaving so many clues, and you, the one person who should’ve figured it out first, didn’t even notice. You even said I was worse than Retaking a Class. After meeting Gonyanyanya, you didn’t even care about me anymore. You said I was deceiving you, being a dick, pissing you off, that I disgusted you—yelled at me over and over. But when I said I wasn’t Retaking a Class, you suddenly started being nice…”

Guess he’d been holding all that in. His eyes welled up again. I tapped his chin like I was telling him to knock it off and said,
“It pissed me off that you lied. Honestly, what I said back then wasn’t entirely wrong.”
“Then you should’ve gotten mad for lying! Why’d you hold it in for two weeks and wait just to get back at me?!”

“I wanted to make sure you got properly wrecked. And it sounded fun.”
“You’re awful. I seriously thought you were gonna throw me away…”
Ridiculous.

“Why the hell would I throw you away? Even if I got another good Combat Medic ally, I’d still use them to beat you. Even if I started playing team comps, it’s not like I even do that much team play.”
Sure, it’s great to have another strong player. But ultimately, the reason I wanted that was because I needed them to beat Gang Jaegyung more easily and more often. He, of all people, should know no one else could really face me. And yet he didn’t even /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ consider that and just sat there spiraling over nothing.
“We’ve been playing together for a year. I figured maybe you were getting tired of me. No matter how many strategies we try, when you’re locked into one class, your thinking starts to feel predictable.”

…Was that true? Back in the day, we used to just brute-force each other with raw mechanics. These days, we had a general idea of each other’s moves, so the focus shifted to outmaneuvering the other mentally.
Now it was about beating the other’s move, then surpassing that, then beating the counter to that. Over and over. And there was a certain satisfaction in feeling like you’d overcome a wall. That was fun too—but if things kept going this way, I could see us eventually getting bored.
Gang Jaegyung was already worrying about that. But I thought it was pointless. When new content dropped, and the level cap was raised, and new skills were added, everything would change again. And a major update was coming soon anyway.

“Just play well now. Stop trying to bait me with dumb tricks that piss me off.”
Sure, creative provocation was fine—but that kind of humiliation bait like before? Hard pass.
“I only did that ‘cause I wanted to see you.”

“Then hang out with your real-life friends. Isn’t being game friends with me enough?”
“I don’t have friends.”
“Quit bullshitting.”

The tissues I’d stuck under his eyes fell off, so I picked them up and wadded them together with the rest of his tear-soaked tissues, placing them off to the side.
Sniffling with his pink nose, Gang Jaegyung asked,
“So seriously, when did you figure it out?”

“After the second boss in Orbashin.”
“…Do you know how excited I was back then?”
He snapped so fast I burst out laughing. Reactions like his made teasing him too fun to resist.

“I was seriously wondering what to do—should I just tell you right then and beg for forgiveness? I was planning my work schedule and Gonyanyanya logins just to set up an alibi. I was changing my personality in-game to make Retaking a Class and Gonyanyanya seem different. You weren’t answering my messages so I couldn’t focus on anything else and just kept folding butterflies all day. And then, finally, you asked to meet up… and all you talked about was Gonyanyanya…”
“Oh yeah. Gimme that butterfly box again.”
I cut him off mid-rant and demanded it confidently. Gang Jaegyung grumbled,

“You’re seriously asking for that while I’m talking?”
“You brought it up and reminded me. Hand it over.”
Grumbling under his breath, he pulled out the box from beside him and handed it to me. His eyes were a little puffy and his face was grumpy, but he didn’t look like he minded giving it to me.

“Can I put these in a jar or something?”
“Whatever. Do what you want.”
Nice. 280 butterflies folded by Retaking a Class—mine now.

I opened the box and picked up another butterfly to admire. The bright red shimmer of the paper made it look like it was meant as a gift. Even if he claimed otherwise, it felt like he had brought it just to give to me. Cute.
I turned it around in my fingers, then, curious how it had been folded, started to gently open it up. Suddenly, Gang Jaegyung rushed to stop me, grabbing my hand.
“Why are you trying to unfold it?”

“I wanted to see how it was folded.”
“I’ll show you with new paper. I worked hard on that one—don’t mess it up. It’ll ruin it.”
“…Yeah? Is that so?”

But my instincts told me otherwise. There was something in there.
His voice was calm, but there was no mistaking it—he was way too desperate to stop me. If it were nothing, he might’ve just waved his hand and said, “Don’t.” But instead, he was physically grabbing me to stop it.
“It’s okay. I’m good at folding paper.”

“…Still. Isn’t it kind of lame to unfold something just to fold it again?”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.”
I tried again to open it while soothing him, but he was still blocking my hand. I looked at him like, What the hell are you doing, and Gang Jaegyung, wearing an awkward smile, finally said after a pause,

“I’ll just go buy more paper. Right now.”
“Hey.”
So this fucker did put something in here.

“Move your hand.”
“Please don’t…”
“What did you write in here?”

“Goyoung, I—”
“Hey. Let go.”
I gently pried his hand off, careful not to crush the butterfly. He must not have wanted it wrinkled either, because he didn’t resist much. Freeing both hands, I began unfolding the butterfly with care.

Gang Jaegyung watched in devastation as the butterfly in my hand was slowly dismantled.
The folds were intricate, but I was careful not to tear the paper. Soon, I saw the writing—neat, but not exactly elegant:
[Meow-Meow Dumbass]

Meow-Meow Dumbass.
…So basically, he called me a dumbass. Lovely.