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endgame

for @neocity-net event #2: neo tech games

PAIRING: game creator!haechan x game creator!reader (female!reader)

GENRE: strangers to lovers au, rivals to lovers au, angst, fluff, suggestive, Black Mirror inspired, humor

WARNINGS: explicit language, semi-graphic scenes (part of a video game), smoking, mention of drugs and (inaccurate depiction of) drug use, suggestive scenes, pet names, far too many elevator scenes, poor attempt at humorous scenes, plot twist, dark twist

WC: 21,8k

‣[PLAYLIST]: formula by labrinth, control by halsey, mount everst by labrinth, genesis by grimes, pink matter by frank ocean

SUMMARY: an ambitious young game creator seeks recognition of her work in one of the largest gaming companies in the world. meeting the senior game creator of the company, a series of decisions and events will determine her journey.

A/N: This is heavily inspired by a mix of a bunch of different Black Mirror episodes, mainly Bandersnatch. Even if you're not familiar with the series, I hope you enjoy this fic regardless!

“Have a seat here Ms L/n, I’ll inform Mr Suh about your arrival,” the secretary gestures towards the small white couch by the wall, as she picked up the phone from her desk to press a few numbers before bringing it to her ear. You sat down with a huff, the couch cushions around you engulfing you as your body sank deeper into the soft material.

The atmosphere inside the Neo Tech Games building was similar to that of a hospital; awkwardly quiet, extremely clean, eerie and bland, with an essence of uneasiness and spookyness about it. You weren’t expecting anything else from a worldwide famous game developing company. When you called to ask for a business proposal to this place, you weren’t exactly expecting the workers to welcome you with open arms and a warm hug.

You tapped your fingers on your knees, watching attentively the secretary, paying detailed attention to her body language. Sitting behind a tall large wooden desk, you could only see her head and the top of her shoulders, wrapped around a very expensive looking blazer. You shivered at the formality of the place, anxiety hitting you suddenly as your meeting with the company’s CEO was approaching. It wasn’t too late to back up and leave. They won’t listen to you anyway, a humble indie game creator in desperate need of a job and some recognition.

The wheels of a chair rolling on glassy tiles brought you out of your obsessive thoughts. The secretary approached you and you jolted up from the comfortable sofa, looking more nervous and desperate than what you intended to show. The lady must have sensed how tense you were by the pathetic smile she gave you. “Mr Suh is ready to see you, follow me, Ms L/n,” she gestured towards the elevator. Picking up your bag and slinging it over your shoulder, you followed behind her, her heels clicking on the tiles with an echo inside the deafeningly silent room. You wouldn’t want to admit it, but if the secretary made you feel this uptight and estranged, you can’t imagine how the CEO and the Heads of the company’s departments are going to be.

Entering the elevator, the secretary pressed the button to the top floor of the building and scanned her employee’s ID card which was hanging around her neck. You noticed that her name was Joohyun and noted it mentally for future reference. A beep was heard from inside the elevator’s speaker before the doors closed and your stomach dropped at the sudden lift. Everything was uneasily quiet.

Joohyun noticed your intense gaze fixated on every single one of her moves. She cleared her throat and you immediately looked at your feet. “The elevator doors open directly to Mr Suh’s office. Scanning is for security purposes, it informs him about who is coming up,” she clarified and you gulped, nodding in understanding with a tight-lipped smile flashed her way. Your fingers were trembling around your shoulder bag and your feet were starting to melt in nervousness.

The elevator stopped with a thud and the signature beep was heard again before the doors slid open. Taking a deep breath, you tried to steady your heartbeat. You’ve done worse things than this. It’s not the first time you present one of your ideas to game companies. You could handle rejection for one more time.

Joohyun stepped out of the elevator to the spacious room in front of you. You took this as a sign to follow, the elevator doors closing automatically behind you once you were fully standing inside the office.

Looking around you, the CEO’s office incorporated the same design idea as the reception hall down at the ground floor. Same bland white walls, glass tiles, eerie lighting and that weird silence. In front of you, Neo Tech Games’s reputable CEO, Johnny Suh, was typing away something on the keyboard, attention fixed on the huge desktop screen in front of him. He looked focused, determined, and successful, which was everything you aspired to become in your future career.

“Mr Suh, your appointment is here,” Joohyun broke the silence with a soft voice, bringing the CEO’s attention from his screen to her. He glanced briefly at you and nodded, standing up from his leather chair. His heels clicked on the tiles too and you instantly regretted your more casual appearance as opposed to the formal business attire that everyone else in this building seemed to be wearing.

“Ah, thank you, dear. You can head downstairs to carry on with your duties,” Mr Suh smiled as he approached you, and Joohyun nodded curtly before walking back to the elevator.

And now you were all alone. Mr Suh turned to you, extending his palm towards you. “You must be Ms L/n, am I right? I’m Johnny Suh, CEO of Neo Tech Games,” he introduced himself and you returned the handshake, the firm grip of his hand adding to your admiration.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Mr Suh. I’m so honored to be here, thank you for taking the time to review my product. It’s seriously such an honor,” you said a bit more excitedly as you wanted, but he didn’t seem to mind. Despite the cold environment in his office, the renown CEO radiated a certain warmth around him.

With a throaty, rich-sounding giggle, he let go of your hand. “The pleasure is all mine, Ms L/n. It’s always so interesting meeting ambitious young creators. Over here, let’s head to the conference room and get started with your presentation, shall we?” he said and you agreed, following him down the room towards the automatic sliding glass doors.

Your nerves had significantly calmed down after the brief interaction with Mr Suh. Turns out the secretary was scarier than him, who would’ve thought? The presentation couldn’t go that badly. You had done it a million times before, you had made all the necessary changes from the feedback you received from other companies, you had rehearsed the words so many times you could even recite them in your sleep. Nothing could go wrong at this point.

Except for the figures of three more men sitting at the conference table behind the sliding doors.

The two of them seemed to be around Mr Suh’s age, they were dressed in similar business casual outfits and were chatting about something you couldn’t figure out from outside the room. The doors must be soundproof, you thought. The third man, however, was familiar to you. Dressed more casually, much like yourself, he was looking outside the floor-length windows, tapping his fingers on the table. Even though he was your age, he had achieved levels of success you wouldn’t even imagine you could achieve yourself.

Your calm heartbeating sped up at the sight of the game developer you looked up to the most.

The doors opened as the motion detector lit up with Mr Suh’s presence, and you entered the conference room with hesitant steps behind him. “Before we begin, I think it’s fair for you to meet my business associates, Ms L/n. This is Kim Doyoung, Executive Leader of all our projects,” you extend your hand to greet him as he gave you a warm gummy smile in acknowledgment. “Then this is our artist Ten, Head of the Creative and Design Team,” you repeated the action as you received a soft greeting and a fleeting wink from the man. And then your eyes landed on the celebrity of the gaming world.

“And this is our most acclaimed game creator, Lee Donghyuck, you may know him by his signing name, Haechan. I guess as a fellow game creator yourself, Ms L/n, you are familiar with him,” Mr Suh said you gave Haechan the most firm handshake you could master, trying to hide your enthusiasm. “Yes of course I know him, he’s the youngest game creator to achieve such worldwide success in the video game world! It’s such a pleasure to meet you Haech- excuse me, Mr Lee. I have finished both USS Chiller and USS Chiller:Into the Dream more times than I can even remember. The gameplay is just unreal, you really are a genius-”

“Not a very professional way to introduce yourself, Ms L/n, don’t you think?” he said sternly and you gulped, saving your praise for another time. His age and casual appearance fooled you into speaking more informally to him, forgetting that his attitude would be in tune with the company he’s working at.

Mr Suh’s voice brought you back to reality, addressing you. “Well, now that you’ve met my most trusting associates, you can begin with your presentation, Ms L/n,” he urged you, sitting at the head of the conference table. Fishing out your flash drive from your bag, you plugged it in the laptop connected to the video wall screen. Sighing, you grabbed the remote control and began your presentation.

You straightened your shirt, fixing your standing posture and cleared your throat. “Before I begin, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Y/n, I am an independent game creator and developer. The project I’m about to show you is called Username:Nellie, a story-driven, interactive simulation game catered for adolescents and young adults, with a greater emphasis on the female gender within this age group,” you gulped, moving on to the next slide of your presentation.

“The game is set into a high-tech fantasy world, a genre that Neo Tech Games is mostly popular for, and it blends different types of gameplays into one: there is a prominent plot line the player follows which can be altered by the decisions they make along the way, hence the interactive aspect of the game. There are escape rooms, puzzles and riddles the player needs to solve which require complex thinking as opposed to passive consumption of the product,” you said carefully, watching the men in front of you nod and hum with great neutrality. Their lack of showing any positive or negative reaction to your words was making you nervous, yet you tried not to worry your head about it.

You click onto the next slide. “The game can also fall under the RPG category. It's third-person gameplay so every player experiences the game as Nellie, our character.

The player can add their own personal touch to the character by customizing her appearance in clothes, mostly armory, and weapons,” upon the mention of weapons, you noticed the men’s faces twist in different forms. Doyoung narrowed his eyes, Johnny tilted his head to the side, Ten crossed his arms furrowing his eyebrows while Haechan raised his. You had caught their attention.

“You heard it right, gentlemen,” you showed the next slideshow, “Nellie’s journey requires engaging in combat with magical monsters and unnatural enemies,” you said but their facial expressions didn’t relax.

“You seem quite confused,” you muttered and Haechan leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.

“See, Ms L/n, you keep on talking on and on about all the random features of the game without explaining how these combinations can work,” Haechan said with a slight annoyance and irony laced in his tone, interrupting your thought process.

With the side of your eye, you caught Doyoung nodding and you straightened your posture once again. “See, Mr Lee, it’s because you interrupted me as I was about to explain the storyline of my game,” your answer matched his attitude and he scoffed. The other men remained quiet.

“My bad then, Ms L/n,” Haechan said as he leaned back to his chair, “you can move on”.

“Thank you,” you said out of typical formality and not because you meant it. Did this guy have a bone to pick with you for no reason? And to think you admired his work a few minutes ago.

“So the story goes like this. Nellie wakes up in a small dark room, pretty normal-looking, very mundane, but she has no idea where she is. She gets up from her bed and notices a riddle and a map with an X mark on it attached to the door. That’s where the escape room comes; the player has to solve puzzles and riddles to get Nellie out of the mysterious room,” you start but no one in the room is moved by your answer yet.

“When Nellie opens the door, she is magically transferred into a fantasy world in which she embarks on a journey to find the mystery spot on the map. The map depicts the place she is at. During her journey, Nellie meets the magical creatures who help her, she battles with the evil ones, and through random small quests she earns crystals and XP which allow her to buy and upgrade armory, weapons and her fighting skills. With every creature she converses, Nellie is met with dilemmas, and the player can help her choose with the interaction feature. The decisions will alter the storyline, however the ending will always be the same. Nellie discovers a forsaken village of which she is destined to become the ruler and restore it back to its civilized form,” you finish and the game experts in front of you seem to think of…a lot of different things at once.

“It’s the journey that counts, not the destination,” Mr Suh mumbled and you nodded with a smile. “Exactly. I didn’t want to make one of many town developing games. There are plenty of those on the market. And don’t get me wrong, they’re adorable, but this one combines all of these interesting things. I wanted to come up with something unique,” you smiled at them, certain with the quality of your product.

Haechan shifted on his seat and you prepared yourself for more contradictions. Was he planted here today to play devil’s advocate?

“And what makes you think your product will have success in such a competitive market, Ms L/n?” he challenged you and fought so hard not to roll your eyes. You were prepared for this question.

“As you noticed Mr Lee, and as a game creator yourself, I strive to create something that will catch the target audience’s attention by bridging something familiar with something novel. I didn’t want to reproduce something that has been done before, but I also took inspiration from multiple components of already existing games that would guarantee a successful result, always keeping in mind the target audience,” you answered, keeping strong eye contact with him, watching him clench his jawline.

Haechan rested his elbows on the sides of his chair, interlacing his fingers with one another. “Well, I don’t think it’s gonna work. It’s too cluttered. Too much going on. Personally, I would never play such a game and I doubt other people would,” he said smugly.

“Are you perhaps a teenage girl, Mr Lee?” you challenged him and the other men tried to suppress their laughter. Haechan’s eyes widened. “Because if you’re not, then you’re not the right person to judge the appeal of my game but you’re here to judge other things regarding it. And help improve it,” you pressed and he fixed his gaze onto you. You swore there were fumes coming out of his nostrils.

A few agonizing seconds passed of you and Haechan maintaining eye contact, his irritated eyes piercing yours. You fought so hard not to blink and break eye contact, as if you were caught in a staring contest. The brims of your eyes started to water and keeping them open started to physically hurt you. The other men in the room remained silent, as if they weren’t even there.

Haechan finally broke eye contact, poking his tongue inside his cheek. “Alright then,” he smacked his lips, “is that all you got for us, Ms L/n?” he asked with a hint of boredom in his voice but you were quick to dismiss him.

“Actually no, I have a short demo of the game in case you want to test it and experience it a little bit. It will only take 20 minutes, if you have some extra time to spare,” you said looking at all the experts in the room.

Ten, the creative designer as you recalled, shifted in his seat. “Well, I guess we could spend some more time. I’m intrigued by the game, but I also need to see the art style graphics to form a complete opinion,” he urged and everyone else agreed, except Haechan who rolled his eyes but eventually mumbled something like ‘sure’ under his breath.

You fish out the USB stick with the game demo out of your bag with ease. You had put it in the front pocket for easy access, always prepared for this turn of events. Other companies didn’t even want to see the demo, they had already rejected your product before you even mentioned it. This was a great difference already, you might actually stand a chance here.

You insert the USB stick into the laptop and wait for the game to load. Once the setup is ready, you turn the laptop screen towards the men and they gather closely to watch you demonstrate the demo.

While playing, you tried to take glimpses of their reactions. It’s safe to say that they were well-trained at keeping a poker face. You explained the game functions, gave them little fun facts about certain design details, you let them take liberty in taking decisions on behalf of Nellie, letting them experience the interactive element. You let them experience the game. Unlike other companies which immediately dismissed you based on a poor presentation of your game, the Neo Tech Games associates knew that in order to actually test a game, you have to play it.

The demo gameplay came to an end and you saw Doyoung pout and then sigh. “I quite enjoyed this. I see the potential here, Ms L/n, you’ve done a great job so far. I can already envision the marketing techniques we could follow for the promotions. This is very promising, actually,” he said and you almost shed tears of happiness. Not yet, Y/n.

The CEO and the Head of the Creative and Design Team nodded in agreement. “This is an interesting videogame you have here, Ms L/n. I think it’s worth taking the risk, am I right, Haechan?” Mr Suh averted his gaze towards Haechan who rolled his eyes subtly enough for you to notice. He sighed, “I mean, yeah, I guess,” he finally said and you smiled at his positive answer, although it wasn’t entirely his opinion.

“So, here’s my offer, Ms L/n,” Mr Suh looked at you, suddenly wearing the poker face he had on while playing the game. “I’lll give you two options: You could finish the development of your game working from home, given a three-month deadline from now. The game will be released under Neo Tech Games, but all profit goes to your name,” he started and the offer already sounded like a dream. “Or, you could start working at the company and receive help in developing your game by working with our team. In this case, the game will be credited as ‘designed by committee’, but you’ll have the chance to work with some of the best professionals in the industry. It’s a guaranteed success, and the game will be released by the end of the year” he finished, stoic and serious.

You had to weigh your options and you had to do it quickly. You bit your lip in thought. “So if I release the game independently, it could completely flop?” you asked and they giggled at your choice of words.

“Not exactly, but the chances of an unsuccessful release are much greater,” Mr Suh mentioned, suppressing a smile.

“But if I work with you, all the profits are distributed across everybody who worked on the game’s development,” you concluded and Mr Suh hummed in agreement.

“Exactly, Ms L/n. So, what do you say? I presented you two different offers, now the call is all yours. The decision is solely based on you,” he said and you felt like a video game character yourself, Mr Suh’s waiting face in front of you, the two options flashing in boxes on either side of the screen and a timer bar ticking, giving you just enough time pressure to decide before the system makes a default decision for you. However, you’re not a character in any game; you’re the player in your game, and you were responsible for the turn of events.

Clearing your throat, you stretched your arm towards Mr Suh and gave him a smile. “So, when can I start coming to the office, boss?” you asked and he smirked, eyes blinking. “8 a.m. tomorrow, come over to my office first to walk you through some of the company’s policies,” he said, meeting your hand in a handshake. “I’m excited to do business with you, Ms L/n,” he said and you bowed softly. “Likewise, Mr Suh,” you said.

You shook hands with the other men too before packing your things to leave. “I’ll assign you your own desk office at the Development & Tech Team Department. Haechan over here will be your right man in command, you can always ask him anything you want,” Mr Suh said, getting up from his chair.

Both you and Haechan moved in sync, heads turning towards Mr Suh with wide eyes. “What?” Haechan practically growled.

“You heard me, Haechan,” Mr Suh places emphasis on his name, “you’re the best in what you do. Y/n over here will be something like your intern. She’s new in the industry, she came over here with a genius game idea, all she needs is the right guidance to learn new things and develop as a game creator. You’re the only one who can train her,” Mr Suh said, leaving the conference room towards his office.

You and Haechan followed behind him, the other two men already back to their respective offices. “Look, Johnny, I didn’t agree to this. You made me agree to giving a chance to this stupid game of hers, but that’s it! Don’t make me have to do anything with it,” Haechan was mad, the aggravation in his voice echoing in the sickly quiet room.

“The offer includes teamwork, Haechan,” Mr Suh said plopping down on his chair, eyes locked on his computer screen, “so you, as the Head of the Development & Tech Team, as well as the rest of the department members will help Y/n with her game. In fact, let’s prioritize this project starting tomorrow. Put everything else on hold,” he said and Haechan ran his hands through his hair. He was so obviously frustrated. He muttered something under his breath before storming off the office into the open elevator doors.

You stood there for a while, replaying the events in your head. You don’t know what made him react like this. You had just met but he had already decided that he didn’t like you. At all. You were such a big fan of Haechan and his work before your encounter with him, but now your view of him changed drastically. Did he feel threatened by you or something?

You called the elevator after a while. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr Suh. Thank you for giving me this opportunity,” you said, turning to leave.

“You made the right decision, Yn,” you heard his voice echo behind you.

You made the right choice.

Walking into the Neo Tech Games building for the second time was relatively easier than the first. The atmosphere wasn’t as unsettling anymore, the clicking of your shoes on the tiled floor didn’t echo as much and the staff smiled slightly more at you. You would either get used to their cold professionalism or you would adapt to become one of them. Only time will tell.

Earlier in the morning, you greeted Joohyun, the familiar secretary at the hall’s front desk, before heading towards the elevator for your meeting with Mr Suh, who actually asked you to call him ‘just Johnny’. During your conversation with Johnny, you reviewed your contract once again before he gave you instructions regarding the company’s policy, your rights and obligations as an employee at Neo Tech Games, and then took you to your desk at the offices of the Development & Tech Department. Your very own desk in the office.

You were the only person in the office at the moment. You came to work an hour earlier than the other employees for your appointment with Johnny, so now you had an extra half an hour to spend trying to acclimate yourself in the new working environment. The offices of the Development & Tech Department were surprisingly a little more lively than the rest of the building; the floors were carpeted and the walls were decorated with posters of the games developed by the company. Upon exiting the elevator to the offices, a ginormous promo poster of Haechan’s USS Chiller, the most popular and successful game of Neo Tech, covered almost the entire left wall of the small hallway. The right side was decorated with a vending machine and a few fake plants, which brought the place to life. Entering the offices, each employee had decorated their own offices, adding personal touches to their workspaces which gave the place a homely essence, and smaller promo posters of games covered multiple spots on the walls. The only thing that reminded you of the high-tech architecture of the building were the floor-length windows which spread all over the left side of the room.

Placing your things on your desk, you roamed all over the room looking at the posters. One day, Username:Nellie would have a poster like this on its own. Perhaps a big one, not as big as Haechan’s, but large enough to catch the eyes of people walking inside. You couldn’t believe your once flight of fancy was one tiny step closer to becoming real.

It was ten minutes to 9 a.m. now and the rest of the employees would start arriving in any minute. The air conditioning in the room was drying out the atmosphere, and you desperately needed a refreshment to soothe the dryness in your throat. You walked out of the offices to the hall outside, inserting a coin to the vending machine to grab a soda. Turning around, your eyes fell on the USS Chiller poster. It required superhuman strength not to notice such an enormous thing. The Chiller spaceship was depicted in all its glory on a solid black background, reminiscent of outer space. The characters of the game were placed on different spots all over the spaceship like stickers, adding a three dimensional effect. On the top of the poster, the catchphrase of the game ‘Cool out, don’t panic!’ was written in a retro-futuristic font. You were staring at it, thinking that one day, everything would be possible. Your game deserved to have a poster of its own, just like this one.

You were lost in your thoughts to the point you didn’t hear the elevator arriving. “Don’t stare too much, I might think you want to plagiarize me,” a voice startled you and you turned to witness the culprit. Speak of the devil.

Haechan looked at you with a pathetic gaze, as if he felt sorry for you. This guy couldn’t even hide his dislike for you at all, his face gave away everything he felt for you and you just wished he was one of those all smiley people who mask every ill-intended emotion for the sake of good teamwork. Unfortunately, Haechan’s case wasn’t like this.

But you wouldn't give into his disdainful comments. You would play it cool and not panic about it, the words of reassurance were literally plastered in front of you in letters bigger than your own head. “The Creative and Design Team did a great job with this. The graphics look amazing,” you said, justifying the reason for your staring at the big poster.

Haechan seemed to be delighted by your comment. Smirking, an annoyingly smug expression on his face, he took a few steps closer to you and leaned towards your ear, his body so close to yours you could feel his coffee-smelling hot breath on your neck. “Actually,” he lowered his voice, “I designed the poster,” he said, leaning back to look at your, expectantly, shocked face. You gulped and looked at him, your eyes twitching in annoyance. “The rest of the team will be here in a minute, don’t you think it’s better you set your computer up now?” he told you and turned his heel, opening the door to the offices and closing it behind him, not waiting for you to join him.

You let out a deep sigh, closing your eyes. You knew that you shouldn't idolize people, no matter what they have done. You knew it wasn’t right. You knew that even if Haechan was a role model to you, a person who you always looked up to, you shouldn't be surprised he was such a jerk in real life. He was the most successful self-made game creator and he was only in his mid 20s. You wanted to be like him, you wanted to learn from him, work with him, you wanted to be a cocreator to him, not a rival. But you guess all the fame and success that comes at an early age automatically makes you an arrogant selfish prick. If you wanted your game to be released, you needed to destroy the perfect image of Haechan you had created in your head and learn how to cooperate with the real-life bitch version.

The elevator doors opened again and a group of people came out, rushing to open the office door. This was your signal to go inside too, walking carefully to your desk to start working.

Everyone seemed very disciplined. As if they were programmed robots, everyone sat down on their desk chairs, turned on their computers and placed their coffee cups on their desks. This was a routine for them. They came here every day and immediately took on their tasks of the day without any enthusiasm. They viewed the office purely as work.

You, on the other hand, held immense excitement about your working experience at Neo Tech. Maybe it was because you were a freelancer working there under a contract, or because as a game creator you were heavily involved in your own work, but either way this new opportunity at such an environment didn’t seem boring or monotonous to you at all. Would you get bored of this routine after a while too?

A loud huff was heard on your left and you turned to see Haechan plopping down on the leather chair next to you. “What are you doing here?” you asked and he rolled his eyes at you.

“I’m supposed to be helping you, remember? Johnny assigned you the desk right next to mine,” Haechan sighed and shifted his attention to his computer screen, grabbing his mouse to start working on something.

Absolutely no way.

You stared at him completely baffled. You knew you were supposed to work with him, it was stated in the contract. But you weren’t expecting such close proximity. And you hated being this close to Haechan, especially at that moment.

You tried to convince yourself that you would get used to him over time. You only hoped this would happen rather soon, or else you would be one step closer to ending it all.

Haechan started typing things in his computer, you would assume it was code, and only took breaks to sip from his coffee cup. You watched him work attentively, eyes narrowing at the screen, slender fingers typing fast on the keyboard. He stopped typing for a moment, hand moving the grab the mouse, scrolling with furrowed eyebrows as he was probably reviewing what he had just typed. He paused his scrolling for a second, his whole body leaning towards the screen and his other hand moving to rest under his chin, same expression on his face. If you didn’t know any better, you would say he looked quite sexy with a concentrated expression like this. He had smooth tan skin, dark brown eyes and the same dark brown hair. Despite having soft round features, his attitude was too aggressive in comparison to his face. If he behaved and talked better, you would say he looked rather cute.

“Take a picture, will you? Make it a poster even, for all I care. I can help you with it if you want, you saw how good I am with graphics,” Haechan said, not looking away from his screen.

Shit, he noticed you staring at him. But you wouldn't allow him to also notice your flushed cheeks. Rolling your eyes with a click of your tongue, you averted your gaze to your own screen. You wouldn’t give Haechan the satisfaction of knowing he made you feel flustered.

A gust of air flew next to you and a whiff of cologne made you turn your head to witness the owner of the scent. Your reaction wasn’t fast enough though; you looked around seeing no unfamiliar face enter the room, everyone was already seated at their desks without even lifting their fingers from the keyboards. Weird.

Haechan cleared his throat and your attention turned to him. Without saying a word, he gestured with his thumb to the desk in front of yours. You stood up from your seat to peek above your computer, only to see the top of a boy’s head.

Sitting back down, you turned to Haechan, expecting him to give you an answer. Luckily, he caught onto it.

“He’s in our team. The guy is a genius,” was all he said which left you even more baffled than before.

Haechan chuckled at your overt confusion. A real, genuine chuckle. “Go on, introduce yourself. You’re new here,” he said and you actually listened to him. You stood up and walked to the boy’s desk, who was already immersed in coding something.

Clearing your throat, you extended your arm for a handshake. “Hi, I’m Y/n, I’m new here at the company. Haechan over here told me we’ll work together,” you said and Haechan gave the boy a finger wave behind the computer screens.

The boy stood up in a flash, returning the handshake. Firm but shaky. Black thin-rimmed glasses framed his face, bangs falling on his forehead. He looked very young. “I’m so sorry about this. My name is Kim Daeyoung, although no one calls me that. Joh- uhm, Mr Suh called me Jaehee by accident one day and then everyone else ran with it. I’m rambling. It’s nice to meet you. I’ll be your coder as far as I’m informed,” the boy you now knew as Jaehee said and you pressed your lips into a grimace that resembled a smile throughout the whole interaction.

“The kid’s a prodigy, our best coder here. You’ll see. Johnny assembled the Avengers of Neo Tech for the development of your game. Don’t know why though, he sees so much potential in you for some reason,” Haechan snickered and you noticed his lips forming a tiny smirk. Did he really have to be so malicious all the time?

“And which Avenger are you supposed to be? Hawkeye?” you snickered.

Haechan rolled his eyes. “More like Iron Man just so you know, Black Widow,” he said.

You gasped at his comment. “On top of being annoying you’re also a misogynist. I should’ve known with the way you’re so scared I’m gonna outshine you with my game. Also, I prefer Scarlet Witch just so you know,” you said.

“Ugh relax, it was a joke. You’re scaring poor Jaehee away,” Haechan defended himself but Jaehee was quick to dismiss him. “No, no, she’s not scaring me away. She’s cool,” he said and you flashed him a thankful smile. This boy was barely 20 years old, how could he land a job at one of the best game developing companies out there and also be a top coder at this age? If anything, you should be the one scared of him.

“Anyway,” you sighed and sat back down at your desk, “it was nice to meet you Jaehee. Let our collaboration go smoothly,” you told him and gave Haechan a side-eye, which was received by, once again, an eye roll and a click of his tongue.

Thankfully, Haechan didn’t bother you for the rest of the day; the two of you worked on different things, keeping a mental distance between you despite sitting next to him. He was focused on coding something, probably a new game he thought of, and you were busy brainstorming ideas that could make your game better. This was your strategy when working. Brainstorm, share the ideas, test these ideas and if they work then you keep them, if not, you revise them. At this stage, you were working on redesigning Nellie’s character. You would make a rough sketch of what you had in mind and then talk about it with your partner from the Creative and Design Team, who you haven’t even met yet.

Packing your things at the end of your shift, you greeted some of your coworkers goodbye, wishing them a good rest of the day. Jaehee invited you for coffee with him and a couple of his friends from the Game Testing Department which you kindly declined, saying you needed to sleep after the long day at work. It wasn’t an excuse actually; you would love to meet and befriend some coworkers, but your social batteries were really running low.

Pressing the elevator button, you tapped your heel on the carpeted floor, waiting for it to arrive at your floor. Soft steps followed after you, stopping right next to you across the elevator doors. The clearing of this person’s throat betrayed his identity.

“Just so you know,” Haechan started, keeping his head hanging low and his eyes fixed on his shoes, “I’m not jealous of you, or afraid of you being a better game creator than me,” he said and you scoffed, clutching the straps of your bag a little tighter.

“But I never got to work with other people before, it was always just me creating and developing my own games. I’m sorry, I promise I’ll start treating you better from now on. I want your game to succeed, we have a whole company’s reputation to preserve,” Haechan said and the elevator doors opened with the signature ‘ding’. He walked inside the elevator but you remained frozen, processing his words. He was a lone wolf, just like you. The main difference, though, was that you were willing to collaborate for a better result. Haechan was used to not asking for help easily.

You didn’t enter the elevator with him. As the doors were closing, you heard Haechan speak to you, just in time for you to hear him. “Good night, Y/n.”

You sighed. He promised to be better from now on.

“Why does your character look like me as a girl?” Haechan blurted out as soon as you showed him the redesign of Nellie.

“No she doesn’t. Don’t be so full of yourself,” you snorted and Haechan’s eyes practically fell out of his face.

“Are you kidding me?” he screeched. “She even has the same mole pattern on her cheek as me!”

“Oh come on now,” you sighed in annoyance, plopping down on your chair. “This design wasn’t completely my idea. Blame Renjun for it”.

And really, it wasn’t the initial design you were going for. A few days after you started redesigning your game character, you scheduled a meeting with the graphic designer of your team, Renjun. You had met him over lunch not too long ago at the company’s cafeteria, and you had briefly discussed your ideas. You greatly trusted his judgement, after you found out how respected he was among all the other graphic designers at the Creative and Design Team; Ten himself hired him because of how talented he was. Maybe Haechan was right, Johnny really assembled the Avengers of this company just to make sure your game development goes according to plan.

So after spending a couple of days over at the Creative and Design Team offices, you and Renjun came up with the final version of Nellie. Vastly different and significantly more high quality than your own initial design, you started seeing some actual potential in your game, the kind of potential that was guaranteed by the eye-catching design on your character. With Renjun on your team, you would slowly start redesigning the whole game aesthetic until it reached the best result possible.

So after finalizing Nellie’s appearance, you came down to your office at the Development & Tech Team Department to show Haechan and Jaehee the character you would be working with. Jaehee’s reaction was wholesome, he kept praising you for thinking about this design and Renjun for bringing it to life in the best way possible. Haechan on the other hand…

He kept seeing himself as a girl in Nellie. Which could be justified because of Nellie’s honey tan skin, her brown eyes and brown wavy pigtails. Sure the moles too. But it was a far-fetched comparison. Why would you want the character of your precious first game to resemble the person you used to idolize but once you met you found out was a jerk? Only an idiot would want that.

But the more you kept looking at Nellie, the more Haechan made sense. She kinda looked like him. Perhaps his annoying ass occupied your subconsciousness more than what you’d like to admit. Great. Now you’re gonna have to think of Haechan every time you talk about your game, your very own creation.

“I swear this wasn’t the intention,” you told Haechan as you ran your hand over your face. “It is purely a coincidence, believe me”.

Haechan was still shocked but significantly calmer than before. “This is ridiculous. I mean, even her name, Nellie, means light, doesn't it? Like my nickname means fullsun, this is identity theft! That Nellie bitch is me!” Haechan yelled.

“You’re so full of yourself, did you know that? And please, you’re taking it too far,” you said, turning to your computer screen.

Haechan paced around the small space around your desks, hands on his waist. “I should’ve known you were one of those crazy fans. Right from the very moment you walked into that job interview. I’m gonna tell Johnny-”

“Johnny has already approved of the design. We’re running with it, there’s no time to make any more changes on that,” you interrupted him and he paused, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

You sighed and twirled your chair around to face Haechan. “Look, Haechan,” you started, catching his attention. He opened his eyes, keeping his hands on his waist and tapping his foot rhythmically. “I am aware of the similarities between you and the character and I see why you might think she looks like you,” you continued with soft voice speaking slowly, so the words would register well in his, despite his gaming genius, pea-sized brain. “But please believe me, it is simply a funny coincidence. I see your stupid face everyday, and Renjun does too. Maybe we have stored your features in our designing brains and used them from our idea banks. Plus I think you have really pretty features. You know, for a girl,” you said and Haechan stiffened, while you heard Jaehee try to suppress his laughter from the other desk.

“Very funny,” Haechan deadpanned and sat down on his chair. “Next time you have such an incredible idea, you should get my permission first before pitching it to Johnny for approval,” he mumbled, attention fixed on his computer screen.

“Maybe you also need to act like my consultant, you know, my mentor, and help me with the game development like you’re supposed to do, but you seem to forget this role and never ask me about the process of my game,” you countered and Haechan didn’t have any reaction at all.

On your first day at Neo Tech, Haechan promised to treat you nicely and actually try to cooperate in a team; both are things he had never done before. He partially kept his word, greeting you every morning and bringing you a soda on your desk, just how you liked it. This only lasted a couple of days, he probably thought that was enough of treating you decently to get you on his good side. But then, you were mostly working with Renjun at his own office, so you didn’t really see Haechan to have any interaction at all. Today, after this incident, all the progress the two of you had made with each other went back to zero.

You had confronted Haechan about this from the very first day you stepped foot into the company. Johnny had assigned him as your partner and that’s what he was supposed to be. He did everything but act like a partner, he more so tried to dismiss your work and criticize it when he was supposed to be helping you improve. You didn’t buy his confession of him being a lone wolf, you liked the narrative that he just hated people.

You really wanted to paint him as the bad guy but his confession also seemed genuine. He made those video games entirely on his own, completely from scratch. He mentioned making the graphics himself, he definitely designed and coded the entire thing, hell, maybe he even had a say in how the company would market and promote his games. Receiving help from the other departments of the company might have been minimal to zero.

You wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. It was still a little early to form a complete opinion of him. If he didn’t want to collaborate properly, you would make him do it, one way or another. If he enjoyed getting on your nerves this much, you should find a way to get a little laugh out of all these encounters with him too.

Haechan sat down on his chair, huffing. You glanced at him from the side briefly, not bothering to continue the conversation. You would stay focused on your work and nothing else. Interacting with anything around you would be a great distraction and no one wants distractions when they’re working on something big.

“She’s kinda cute though, I have to admit,” Haechan muttered, breaking the silence.

“Hm, what was that?” you asked him, not because you didn’t hear him the first time, but because you wanted him to repeat it.

“I said she’s cute. Nellie. I mean, obviously, she looks like me,” Haechan said with a playful eye-roll, as if he stated the most obvious thing.

You half smiled at him. “Now that’s a better reaction, partner,” you emphasized the last word and he gave you a nod before going back to his computer.

He gave you a compliment. He gave your work a compliment. He finally made a positive comment about something. Maybe you’re breaking him slowly, bit by bit, until he breaks out of his shell and becomes a trusting partner and helpful mentor for his less experienced peers. It would take a long way to go, but he had just taken his first step of improvement.

“Good morning, partner! Not a likely place for you to be,” Haechan chirped beside you, as you were standing in line. Your whole body jolted to the sound of his voice, which was particularly cheerful for this early in the morning.

As winter was approaching and the temperatures outside were dropping, you switched your regular cool fizzy drinks for cups of sweet hot cocoa. The vending machine wasn’t famous for having good quality drinks other than the regular sodas, so the Neo Tech cafeteria was the next best option you had.

“Why are you here?” you wanted to know why Haechan had to approach you first thing in the morning, the only morning you decide to change your routine.

“I saw you coming into the company, I was actually right behind you but you didn’t notice me. Or you pretended you didn’t, I guess I’ll never know,” he said.

“Creep!” you half-whispered with a side eye at Haechan. He rolled his eyes at the remark. “Let me finish!” he pressed.

Narrowing your eyes at him, you gave him a small nod. “Go on,” you urged him.

“Well, as you see, I know you always go straight up to your office, every single day. That’s what you do. But today, you stopped at the cafeteria floor. I saw where the elevator stopped. I wasn’t fast enough to get it with you, so when I went to press the call button, I noticed it,” Haechan explained.

You took half a step away from him. “You’re suspicious, you know that? You tried to explain but you sound like a weirdo,” you nudged him.

The line moved and you walked forward towards the counter. “You changed your routine, I had to see what you were up to. I always buy you a soda in the morning, that’s part of my routine too. So, you changing your routine changes my routine,” Haechan defended himself.

“You’re a stalker,” you deadpanned.

“I’m observant,” Haechan countered.

“Fine,” you ended the conversation, averting your gaze to the cashier ringing an employee up before handing him his coffee cup.

“Look, I’m making an effort here. I told you, I’m not used to this. I always worked alone. Me and my computer. I want to develop a relationship with you but I have to do it within the context of work. And I can’t work with others. I don’t like it. But I’m trying. So please, don’t be mean to me. I know we didn’t start on the best terms and it is my fault, but I want to change that. I know you admire my work and instead of being a figure to look up to, I decided to act all entitled. I’m sorry,” Haechan bombarded you with all this information and glanced at him.

“It’s still so early, please, those were too many things for me to process,” you told him and he lifted his arms up in surrender, muttering a soft ‘sorry’.

Walking up to the cash register, you placed your order to the cashier and took your card out to pay for your drink. Haechan shoved your arm to the side right before you placed your card on top of the POS machine. He was quick enough to place his card instead, paying for your drink.

As you waited for the barista to make your hot cocoa, you looked at Haechan and offered him a small smile. “Thanks, but you didn’t have to”.

Haechan shrugged. “We shouldn’t deviate much from the routine, right?” he smirked, giving you a playful glance with his chocolate brown eyes. Looking at him, you noticed how cute he looked at the moment, like a little teddy bear.

You took a moment to really look at him. You had noticed his features before, but he was wearing that particularly sweet expression you always seemed to like in boys. It was like he was drinking you all up, not in a hungry, lustful way, but in a precious, charming way. Oh shit.

“So,” you sighed, breaking eye contact, “you want to develop a relationship with me?” you flirted your nervousness away, continuing your previous conversation. Although it was probably a very bad move. Catching feelings for a coworker should be the least of your concerns. You were here for your career, not for romance.

Haechan scoffed at your question. “You know what I mean,” he trailed off, keeping his head low to hide his smile. The cashier handed you your drink and you quickly thanked him, turning to the elevator with Haechan tailing right behind you like a lost puppy.

“Don’t you want anything to eat or drink?” you asked him, looking back at him. He caught up with you, walking right beside you. “No, I’m fine,” he said and called the elevator.

After a few seconds, the elevator doors open and you both enter. Haechan pressed the button to your floor and stood next to you, shifting in his feet. You noticed his nervousness and you couldn’t help but pry a little.

“I don’t bite, you know. Why are you fidgeting? If anything, I should be the fidgety one. You actually look like you bite. No offence,” you told him.

Haechan put his hands inside the pockets of his pants. “Actually I…” he started and the elevator dinged, doors sliding open. You step out, heading to your offices. “Yeah?” you urged him.

As you were walking to your desks, Haechan spoke to you through the keyboard clicking sounds. “I kinda have- I want- I have an idea. F-For your game. I want to suggest something,” he said and you stopped at your track, thankful that you didn’t drop your drink on the carpeted floor.

Shaking your head, you placed the drink and your bag on your desk, before looking at Haechan, who had quietly sat on his desk, turning on his computer.

“I’m sorry, what? What was that?” you asked.

Haechan saw your profound confusion. “I told you I wanna help, I’m gonna try to, at least. I mean, that’s what I should do anyway…” he trailed off again, twiddling his thumbs.

“I can’t believe this!” you cheered. Jaehee walked past you, nodding as a greeting before setting his own things at his desk. “Jaehee, do you hear this? Haechan has an idea to suggest. For my game!” you filled him in with the newly shared information.

Jaehee rolled his eyes. “Finally! It’s been so boring working on my own without sharing a single word with you guys. We should act like a team, like we’re supposed to be,” he said, putting on his glasses.

Haechan locked eyes with you again, holding eye contact with you for the second time within an hour, giving you the same teddy bear eyes and a grimace that seemed like a smile. “Exactly. It took me some time to realize it but fuck it. We are a team,” he said.

You held eye contact with him again. Haechan’s skin glimmered under the artificial lighting of the office and his eyes shined as the light from the computer screen reflected on them. His bangs were falling on his forehead, and you really got the urge to fluff his hair just to tease him. Oh no.

Sighing, you stored all your probable surfacing feelings about Haechan to the back of your mind. You were slowly getting to him. All your nagging and complaining about his behavior must have altered something in his brain and he snapped into reason. He finally decided to act like the genius he is. That’s probably why you thought you liked him, right? It was a defense, a response to a man being reasonable for once. You shook every thought away and managed to form a smile, as genuine as you could, before shooting Haechan with a question. “So tell us, partner, what is your idea?”

“This game is fucking sick!” Chenle exclaimed, swinging Nellie’s sword to slash the neck of a furry ogre. The ogre’s blood, blue with silver glitter, splashed all over itself before the monster disappeared into thin air. Chenle moved Nellie with his console to hide behind a bush, originally green but due to the dim lighting of the night it appeared dark purple. Switching the sword for a bow and arrow, he aimed at a flying dragon approaching Nellie.

“See, that looks way better. If we used your initial plan of coloring the monster blood red it would be way too violent. It’s cooler if they bleed a glittery substance,” Haechan commented.

“You’re right. Although at first I thought you suggested it because you wanted to make it more “girly”. But it does look pretty cool,” you replied to him and caught Haechan grinning at your compliment towards him.

“BOOM!” Chenle screamed as he hit the dragon with the bow, the mythical creature exploding in a purple mist. “I know your demographic for this game is teenage girls but holy shit! I’m having way too much of a good time now. I really have the dream job,” Chenle quipped.

“Chenle, don’t get too excited, you always act like this. You’re a beta tester, you’re supposed to write a detailed report after the first game trial to give us feedback on what things we need to improve,” you reminded the boy and he scowled.

Chenle was the last member added to your team; the beta tester, the person who posed as the target audience, the possible future player of the games. You had met him before, when you gave him the opening stage of the game and the next story-driven scenes to review. Today he was assigned to test the first battle stage. You didn’t know if it was good or not, but so far Chenle has not written a single bad review about the game. Not even the slightest feedback for improvement. For other people, this would be a total miracle. For you, it felt quite off. You can’t have done everything right, something must need improvement.

Maybe it’s because Haechan finally started getting involved in creating the game. He made great effort in talking with you in order to establish a relationship beyond the coworker status. He actually didn’t enjoy being your mentor and you being his intern, so he tried his best to befriend you in a way and make Johnny and the Development & Tech Team Department see the two of you as equals.

You weren’t gonna lie, but you liked the idea of Haechan becoming your friend. You had completely gotten over your fangirl phase when you were met with his selfish and judging self. After that, you were just neutral towards him. You confronted him about his behavior and, even though you didn’t believe his words at first, he started showing you with his actions how much effort he was putting into doing himself credit. Perhaps, he did see you as a thread initially, no matter how much he denies it. Not as a threat to his fame or talent, but as a threat to his individuality. You preferred it so much more being on good terms with him rather than wanting to avoid him in the company corridors.

“I think I made the first battle stage quite manageable to play. It might be a little challenging for beginner players, but I hope they don’t get discouraged from continuing playing the game if they get stuck here,” Jaehee made an observation.

“I think the graphics will make them stay. I mean, look at it. It’s a battlefield but it looks so pretty,” Renjun added, alluding to his touch in the magical essence of the design.

“Suck my ass, creepy bird!” Chenle shouted, shooting a mutant eagle with his last arrow.

“Hey, language,” Haechan deadpanned but Chenle dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

You didn’t realise how close to you Haechan was now standing until he spoke. His breath fanned the nape of your neck and the scent of his cologne entered your nostrils, a mix of sandalwood and freshness. Has he always smelled that good?

Your heart flattered at the proximity of his body to yours, and you shivered when you actually grasped how close to you he really was.

“Why are you standing so close to me?” you asked him, trying to sound slightly annoyed. Although, you kinda liked the smell of him.

“I wanna see Chenle play the game. If I stand back, I won’t be able to see the screen,” he countered.

“Hello? Personal space? Go stand somewhere else,” you rolled your eyes and he tilted his head back with a click of his tongue, his neck in full exposure, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed.

“See, I can’t stand behind Jaehee because he’s too tall. And Renjun will kill me if I go near him. So I’ve run out of options,” he explained.

“I will kill you too if you don’t move,” you tried to threaten him, but Haechan gave you a smug smile.

“You would never do that, honey. You and I both know that,” he said and focused back on the computer screen to see Chenle finish off the battle.

He called you honey. It was ironic, certainly, but why did the pet name make your breath catch in your throat? Why did he even say that? Despite getting closer to him, Haechan became more and more mysterious day by day.

The pet name caught you off guard, but deep inside your brain there was a small part that liked it.

“Wait, that’s it? Damn, I cleared those bastards so bad,” Chenle sighed, leaning back into his gaming chair.

Haechan and Renjun now both seemed annoyed at Chenle’s vulgar language, but you beat them before they started to scold the boy. Jaehee just laughed at their reactions. “That was the first battle, we haven’t continued on from here. The next few scenes are gonna be story-driven with riddles, and we need to incorporate more of the interactive aspect by giving Nellie, well, the player, the power of making a decision,” you said and everyone in the room nodded.

“You got it, boss,” Jaehee saluted you and you giggled.

“We can leave Chenle now to write his review while we go back to our office to brainstorm the next stages,” you suggested and they nodded again.

“Alright, I have another project to work on now. When you’re done, come over to me to discuss the designs,” Renjun said before leaving, greeting him goodbye.

“Okay, let’s get going then,” Haechan said, folding his arms. “Chenle, we’ll be waiting for your review. An actual one,” he pressed but Chenle was ignorant to Haechan’s reprimand.

You waved Chenle goodbye and you left the room with Haechan and Jaehee, heading back to your office. Walking with Haechan side by side and Jaehee way ahead of both of you, you decided to take the stairs two floors down to your office.

“So the first battle trial was a success!” you breathed out. “I can’t believe we’re one step closer to completing the game. I mean, we still have a long way to go, but the game doesn’t need any changes up to this point. And it’s thanks to you, honestly, ever since you got involved we’ve had great progress. So now I’m thinking we should discuss the plot a little bit, we need the story to make sense. Or, we can talk about the armory and weapon upgrades. As the battles progress, Nellie needs to become stronger in order to be able to beat the stronger monst- I’m sorry, are you even listening?” you stopped your rambling to address Haechan who seemed absentminded.

You stopped right outside the office door. You looked at Haechan who was looking right back at you, no thoughts in his brain and no emotion behind his eyes. His gaze was drilling you, his lips tugging into a grimace. “Are you okay? Do I have food on my teeth or something?” you asked him frustrated.

“What? Sorry, I-I was a little distracted,” he stammered and you gave him a death glare. “And no, your teeth are fine,” he added. Was he looking at you? Is that why he seemed so off?

Sighing, you placed your hand on the doorknob. “Stay focused, Haechan. We have a video game to make,” you warned him, opening the door. You couldn’t afford catching feelings for Haechan now, but you can’t get his stupid face and his blank chocolate eyes staring at you out of your head.

“You can always count on me, partner. You’re welcome,” he said.

It took you a few seconds to realize he was referring to you thanking him earlier for his contribution. So he was listening, he just chose to mess with you. And it was working.

Shaking the image of him looking at you with that dumb expression, you tried your hardest to focus on your work. And now you were starting to think that urging Haechan to become involved with you wasn’t your brightest idea.

“We need to release the game now. It needs to be done within the next two months. The sooner the better,” Johnny deadpanned.

You stilled in your seat. He couldn’t possibly be serious.

When Johnny called you to his office to discuss the progress of your game, the last thing you expected was for him to shorten the deadline to two months.

“But our contract says we have until the end of the year to put it out. We’re not even halfway done yet! How is it gonna be finished in just two months? And, honestly, why?” your frustration was evident in the tone of your voice, but Johnny tried to remain as composed as he could.

“My biggest competitor is releasing a game in two months and we need to draw attention from it. The Marketing Team is already working on how to promote Username:Nellie. The first promotional poster is scheduled to be released next week,” Johnny explained.

You huffed, leaning back in your seat. You felt defeated. It was like all the time you spent and all the effort you gave went in vain. Your team wouldn’t like the sound of a ridiculously shortened deadline. This was the universe speaking to you, telling you that no matter what you do, you will never be able to have a career in this field.

“I don’t understand…” you trailed off after taking a few seconds to think. “Why? Why of all games did they have to target mine? The developing process was going so smoothly, we had planned almost everything out and we were scheduled for an October release. It would give the Marketing Team enough time to promote the game as the perfect Christmas gift, then sales would skyrocket,” you thought out loud and Johnny shrugged.

“Let’s pretend that Christmas came sooner,” he said.

“But I can’t! Do you want me to deliver you a rushed game? Doesn’t sound like a good marketing move to me,” your frustration was growing and it became evident in your face and tone of voice, but Johnny’s temper was now rather short.

“Listen, kid. I know you’re mad but that’s business, baby! I’m not happy either but we have to do this! I have gathered the most talented people of each field to come work with you in a team, that’s a huge investment right here. So this is up to you, we either drop the release of the game entirely and you go back to working independently, or you gather with your team and make a fucking great video game,” Johnny glared at you and you took a deep breath in thought.

Your first time coming into Neo Tech flashed right behind your eyes. You were again met with a decision you needed to make, just like when Johnny gave you the options and the possible outcomes of your collaboration. The imaginary two flashing boxes on either side of Johnny’s face were screaming at you, the timer ticking inside your brain. You couldn’t let the system make a default decision. You had to think and make up your mind quickly.

Johnny was tapping his fingers on his desk. You guessed time was running out. He had faith in you. He trusted you enough to invest in your video game and make or break his company's reputation with it. You were in no position to let him down now.

You wanted to release your game, no matter what.

Letting out a big sigh, you straightened up. “Alright then,” the certainty in your voice had Johnny’s attention. “Tell the Creative and Design Team to do their best with the promotional poster. We have a video game to make,” you said and Johnny smiled, nodding.

“I was hoping you would say that,” he said.

Gulping, you thought about your team. They definitely weren’t gonna like this.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Haechan blurted out with a completely expressionless face. Jaehee’s eyes widened so much to the point they reached the rim of his glasses. Renjun shook his head in denial and Chenle had a complete crashout.

“Two months?” he screeched. It was totally understandable.

“That was my honest reaction too. Apparently we need to compete with Johnny’s nemesis and we have to do it quickly,” you explained and recalled your conversation with Johnny, telling them all the details.

You had kindly asked your team to meet you for lunch at the cafeteria, saying that you had something very important to tell them. When they were making scenarios in their heads about what that could be, they probably didn’t even try to think about something like that.

“But that’s so little time. We’ve been only working on this game for three months, we can’t possibly be finished in 60 more days,” Renjun reasoned.

You nodded. “I know, but Johnny said-”

“I’m about to beat down that motherfucker,” Haechan got up from his seat but you pulled him back down, tugging at his shirt. He tried to yank your hand away but you kept your hold onto him, keeping him down on his seat. “Sit back down, you’re not beating up anyone. We have to think of a strategy,” you scolded him and he scoffed, resting his elbows on the table, head hanging low.

“Who does he think he is? He wants us to work 24/7 just so his greedy ass can get as much money as he can by exploiting our work and our ideas? We had planned everything for Christmas for God’s sake! This is ridiculous,” Haechan whined and this time when he got up, you let him go away. He needed time to think, this wasn’t easy news to take in.

The conversation paused, all of you watching Haechan leaving the cafeteria. Chenle picked up the conversation again, with a hesitant voice. “I think Y/n is right, we need a strategy. And I know I shouldn’t complain too much because my job is the easiest out of all around here but I believe in you guys. I believe in us. I won’t like seeing you spending days and nights working but it’s gonna be over soon. In two months, we’ll have our game out,” he said and everyone nodded.

Chenle was right. In the midst of chaos, you failed to think properly. It would be two very hard months for all of you, but that would be it. The satisfaction of seeing your work being released to the public and receiving, hopefully, the love it deserved filled you with so much happiness already. You didn’t want to do it for yourself, or for Johnny. You wanted to do it for the team. For all the effort each and every one of you put there.

“Let’s not waste any time, right? I’m finished with lunch, so I’m heading back to finish coding the stage I’m working on. We can do this guys,” Jaehee said with a smile, urging you all to go back to work.

“Good luck with everything, guys. We’re going to need it,” Renjun patted everyone on the back, receiving smiles and side hugs by all of you.

“Yes, of course, go back to your offices guys. Jaehee, I’ll meet you there in a little. I need to go find Haechan and get his ass to help us,” you explained and they nodded, turning their heels to leave.

As the boys were walking out, Jaehee grabbed your shoulder gently. “Please go talk to Haechan. You’re the only one he listens to. I don’t know what makes him afraid of you but he hasn’t been this friendly and cooperative around here until you joined our team. So please, for the sake of us all,” he spoke very softly so that no one else could hear. You pressed your lips into a thin line and he squeezed your shoulder.

Haechan was scared of you? That was new.

“I didn’t know you were smoking,” you said, sliding the glass door to the terrace shut behind you.

Haechan whipped his head to the sound of your voice, tapping his cigarette with his finger to shake off the excess ashes.

“Among other things,” he said, turning his head to gaze at the cityscape stretching below him, bringing the cigarette to his lips.

You walked next to him, resting your elbows on the glass railing. You squinted your eyes at the sun hitting your face. Despite the crispiness of the air, the sun was still rising at this time at noon.

“How did you find me? This is a secret area,” Haechan asked, blowing the smoke out.

“I asked around,” you hummed and he shook his head, smirking.

“Chenle can’t keep his mouth shut, can he?” Haechan stated and you giggled.

“I have to admit, I didn’t think of going to him to ask about you. I sent him to his office so that I could come look for you and that little bitch didn’t say anything. I had to go look for him and when I found him he said ‘Oh, I thought you would never ask me!’” you said and Haechan laughed, putting out his cigarette with the heel of his boot.

“Johnny always does this. He starts talking to you about all the great things he will help you accomplish and all the opportunities you will have in the future and a ton of other bullshit only to exploit you in the end. He sees us as puppets, when things get rough for him and he wants to protect his reputation, he uses our games as cover. This time, a rival company is releasing a game. He can’t let them have the spotlight. He wants to draw all of the attention on him, by making something even better. This is how the company stays relevant and it has the reputation it has,” Haechan muttered.

“I don’t wanna finish the game for Johnny. We are a team, Haechan, we have worked so hard up to this point. You started getting involved and we have such a cool project in our hands so far, so don’t let Johnny ruin it. He set an extreme deadline for sure, but we have to deal with it. It’s because we want to, not because we have to,” you tried to reason with him.

“Did you know the main villain in the USS:Chiller franchise is inspired by Johnny? I needed a way to fight him so badly I had to do it virtually, otherwise I would be dead by now,” Haechan gritted his teeth in annoyance, but his features were too soft to express such a deep level of anger, his expression almost made him look constipated. You hated yourself for thinking that.

You giggled. “That’s quite a creative way to express your feelings. Do you want us to add a Johnny-inspired monster in Username:Nellie?” you asked him.

“Hell yeah,” Haechan breathed out, his face beaming. “That bastard has ‘final boss’ energy all over him. We have to make that battle 1v1, it has to be the hardest stage to beat,” Haechan said with determination. He wanted to assert dominance so much, but all you saw in your eyes was a cute boy talking enthusiastically about video games.

You laughed with him, seeing him being so passionately hateful towards someone. He had every reason to be angry with Johnny, though. The expectations he had of you and the team were too high for you to meet, but you couldn’t risk the fate of your game and your career. No matter how many obstacles you had to face, you needed to make sure that the ending of this whole thing would be the same, no matter what; you got to release your game. You came to this company with a purpose, and you had to fulfil it.

Haechan kept on describing ways he would destroy the made-up Johnny monster if we were to actually use it as a battle stage in Username:Nellie. It was times like this where you were reminded of why you admired him so much in the first place. He was passionate about his work and incredibly creative.

Catching your breath in the midst of your laughter, you asked Haechan a question. “If you really want us to add the monster version of Johnny, I can go tell Renjun about it and he’ll come up with the perfect representation. But is this really how you deal with people or situations? You transform them into games or characters you want to beat to death?”

Haechan sighed, leaning his elbows on the railing. He turned his head just enough to catch your eye. “We are the characters in our own game, honey. We are the ones who decide what to do with the things we face, good or bad,” he said, turning his head to the buzzing city below.

You remained silent. You had nothing smart or witty enough to respond to that. He was right. You were the player of your own game. Sure, life brings stuff along your way, but these are just the challenges you have to clear out. Some quests here and there to keep you on your toes, to remind you that you have the ability to face any difficulty that comes your way. The darkest moments are always rewarded with the brightest days.

Haechan leaned back, turning his full body towards you. Searching for your eyes, he spoke loudly. “Okay, I’m gonna do it. We’ll finish the game and we’ll guarantee that you have a major breakthrough in your career,” he smiled.

Your entire face beamed and you screeched in happiness, clasping your hands together. “You are truly amazing, Haechan,” your eyes glimmered with joy and your smile was so wide your face started to hurt. You had the extreme urge to open your arms and throw yourself at him to squeeze him into a tight hug, but you knew better to restrain yourself from doing an action that could possibly humiliate you and cast a veil of awkwardness between you.

Haechan dismissed your comment with a wave of his hand, his head hanging low to hide the smirk creeping up his face. “No, you’re amazing, Y/n. I know I was hard on you at first and saw no potential in your game but you were right all along. This game needs to be released to the public. You deserve to see how much people will love it. And I’m gonna help, for real. I’m doing all of this only for you,” his face grew a serious expression, his eyes locked with yours. Haechan’s gaze held such sincerity behind it, and his words sounded so genuine when spoken in a warm tone. He truly meant what he just said.

You deserve this. I’m doing it only for you.

You cleared your throat, looking at your shoes. Holding eye contact with Haechan became harder and harder each passing day, especially when he said praising words about you. Your heart was beating quite fast and your body was feeling hot despite the chilly breeze.

“So, we should probably head back inside to start working. It’s got quite cold too,” you said and made a move to slide the door open behind you. Reaching for the door, Haechan beat you to it, his hand resting on top of yours to slide the door. You froze, unable to look at him. His hand felt soft and warm on top of your dry cold one, and it was big enough to cover yours completely.

You mumbled a small ‘thanks’ and quickly stepped inside the building with trembling legs. You didn’t wait for Haechan to come in, instead you walked straight to the elevator so you could gain some time away from him. That was enough proximity with Haechan for today, and you had to be with him back to your office for a few more hours before you got to go home. You hoped that with the strict deadline you had to follow now, your mind would be too occupied with work to have time or room to think about Haechan.

Just as you eased your breathing for a bit, his soft voice echoed in the small empty hallway. “Tonight, you and me, my place. We will plan out the entire game, we show it to the guys tomorrow first thing in the morning and we start working. No breaks,” he announced and you widened your eyes.

Haechan stood beside you now. You opened your mouth to protest, but he held up his hand to shush you. “No excuses, I’ll text you my address later,” he said, entering the elevator.

There was no escaping him, was it?

“You’re on time. Annoyingly so,” Haechan narrowed his eyes at you, stepping aside to grant you some space to enter his apartment.

“I want us to finish as soon as possible. I’m already tired after everything today,” you said and Haechan closed the door behind you.

Haechan asked you to meet him at his apartment two hours after you finished work. It gave you enough time to have a shower and freshen yourself up, eat an early dinner and mentally prepare yourself for spending the next God-knows-how-many hours trapped inside four walls with just Haechan.

It was easy to find his apartment location, only a 20-minute walk from the Neo Tech building. Walking around his living room, the only source of lighting came from a lava lamp standing beside his balcony window, which allowed the street lights of the city to illuminate the dark room too. His apartment was a typical gamer’s mancave; his computer setup took up half the living room, while the rest of the space was filled with two small black couches placed across from each other with a short coffee table between them. Decoration was very minimal, and it was so evident that Haechan had cleared up the mess of this place just before you arrived by how all of his laundry was piling up on his gaming chair and the empty pizza boxes he forgot to throw away were hidden behind the kitchen counter.

“Please, sit over there. I have already brought my laptop and a notebook to get us started. Do you want anything to drink? I made some tea earlier,” Haechan motioned you towards one of the couches and you dragged your feet immediately. “Tea sounds great, thanks,” you said, sitting on the empty couch. You realized the one with the laptop on it must be Haechan’s spot.

Haechan roamed around the small kitchen area, grabbing two mugs from a top cabinet, placing them on the countertop. From your position, you had a perfect view of his back, watching his every move. He had apparently showered too, his bangs still a little damp falling on his forehead. He had switched his regular business casual attire for a black t-shirt and grey sweatpants, and it would be a lie not to admit that he looked extremely cuddly like this. You watched him as he put two teabags inside the cups, and you licked your lips instinctively when he lifted the kettle to fill the mugs with the boiled water, his forearms flexing due to the weight of the kettle. You were not going to survive this night.

Haechan turned around holding both mugs and dragged his feet to come sit across from you on the other couch. You shifted your attention to his gaming setup instead to cover the fact that you were thirsting over him just seconds ago.

Haechan sat down, placing the mugs on the table. You thanked him and yanked the mug out of his hand just as he set it down. You took a large sip of tea, ignoring the hotness of the liquid on your tongue. This was awkward.

“What were you looking at, honey,” his question was so innocent, but the use of that damn nickname and the evil smirk adorning his face gave away his intentions.

You set down the mug. “You have an impressive setup over there. A true gamer, indeed,” you said with a nod, and Haechan’s smirk grew, his eyes holding something sinister. He wanted to push you further, but he chose not to do it so early on. He leaned back instead, glancing at his setup. “Oh that, I bought it after my first paycheck. I had just released USS Chiller,” he explained and you hummed.

A few deafening silent seconds passed, with the two of you looking at anywhere but each other. You ran out of small talk topics, but you didn’t want to be the one to initiate the conversation about work. Hopefully Haechan would get the clue and start instead.

“So, should we start?” Haechan said, lifting open his laptop screen, the bright light hitting his face, giving him a ghostly appearance. That man was a mind reader.

Taking out your notebook from your bag, you flipped over to the pages you filled earlier today. You gave Haechan a brief review of what you had decided on so far. “So, Renjun will work on all the graphics. The settings, the weapons, the armory, the monsters, everything is up to him. We’re giving him all the creative freedom he wants, he knows what he’s doing. So we don’t need to worry about that,” Haechan hummed in agreement.

Flipping the page, you continued. “Then Jaehee will work on the development of the battle scenes, and he suggested that we add different difficulty levels to the gameplay. So the player will have the option to choose among easy, medium and hard depending on their skills. The storyline will be the same, but the battles and quests will be adapted to the skill level the player chooses. Now I don’t know how he’s going to do all of that on his own but he’s the genius here, not me,” Haechan giggled at that and agreed. Jaehee was indeed a mastermind.

“And Chenle, well, he can’t do much other than test the demos we give him. His feedback will be very useful once we start giving him stuff to review, so right now he doesn’t have anything assigned to do. He did ask, though, what the reason behind the name choice of the game was. To be honest, I didn’t think much of it when I decided on it, but Chenle made my gears shift a little with his question,” you noted and Haechan remained quiet.

“So that leaves me and you. We are in charge of finishing the storyline and code all the story-driven scenes. We have to keep in mind the interactive aspect, so we need to see where we could add the player’s decision and figure out the outcome of each choice. Keep in mind that the ending is the same,” you reminded Haechan.

You closed your notebook shut, pressing your lips together. Haechan hadn’t uttered a word, too busy looking at something on his computer screen.

“A penny for your thoughts?” you were hesitant to talk to Haechan. He seemed too immersed into whatever it was he was looking at, you were afraid of distracting him.

Haechan set his laptop aside, leaning in to rest his elbows on his knees, locking eyes with you. He seemed intimidating under the eerie atmosphere casted around the living space and his face carried a challenging aura about it. “So if your gears shifted, tell me, what is the reason for choosing Username:Nellie as the name of your game?” he asked you.

Opening and closing your mouth, you tried to form a cohesive answer. You hadn’t thought about it, even after Chenle brought it to your attention. You shifted in your seat. “Well, it sounds fun, intriguing, it’s eye-catching and easy to remember,” you tried to reason but Haechan smirked.

“What?” you raised your eyebrow but Haechan didn’t say anything. Instead, he reached into the pocket of his sweatpants and took out something that looked like a piece of paper. He placed it onto the table between your mugs and leaned back into his seat.

Squinting your eyes, you took a closer look at the table to see what the mystery thing was. You took it in your hand, inspecting it as much as you could in the dim lit room. Upon touching, it didn’t feel much like paper but more like a gelatin sheet. Fuck.

You dropped it on the table again, heartbeat racing. “Are you seriously passing me LSD? You’re insane,” you grabbed your bag with trembling hands and made a move to leave.

Haechan had quick reflexes, catching your wrist to stop you. Looking up at you with his pleading chocolate eyes, your breath caught in your throat. “I’m not gonna hurt you Y/n, please trust me on that. I would never want to do that,” he said.

You didn’t say anything. Your silence prompted Haechan to lick his lips before speaking. “I use it all the time. I’m not trying to drug you, this is literally how I get all these cool ideas for my games. It’s a stimulant for my creativity,” he explained.

You scrunched your nose and knitted your eyebrows, Haechan’s hand still wrapped around your wrist. “What are you even talking about? You’re a regular user?”

“No-Yes-Well, not exactly,” Haechan stood up, letting go of your hand. “Working at Neo Tech has always been very stressful. I told you about all of it, how Johnny acts and treats his employees, the deadlines, the constant pressure to make something greater than the others,” he paused to take a breath. He stood too close to you, a little too close for your liking. His skin looked so smooth, you wanted to just stretch your arm and feel it yourself.

“So I have a friend who knows about this stuff. It’s totally safe to take it, as long as you stay inside. I don’t use it regularly, only under times of extreme stress, when I have to think of something no one ever thought of before. How do you think I came up with the USS Chiller franchise?” Haechan explained further and your features softened.

“So now, we are in an extremely stressful situation. We need to think quickly and innovatively. I don’t wanna take advantage of you or anything. Sorry I scared you, I gave you the wrong idea,” Haechan spoke in almost a whisper, as if he shared his most sacred secret with you and the walls had ears.

“But how can you think clearly if you’re stoned?” you asked confused.

Haechan smiled. “It’s a stimulant, honey. It helps you see things and think of things you would never see or think when sober. It gives you clarity, you just become more aware of things and get a different perspective,” he said.

“You sound like a dealer,” you deadpanned and Haechan threw his head back in laughter.

“I swear I’m not,” he said in between giggles. “Now, do you trust me? We’re gonna make something great,” he said, pleading you with his sparkly brown eyes.

With a lot of hesitation, you nodded and walked with slow steps back to the couch. “That’s my girl,” Haechan said, sitting down as well. Your stomach turned. If he kept on calling you things like this, you wouldn’t need drugs to become all trippy and delusional.

Cutting a piece off the gelatin sheet, Haechan passed it towards you. You picked it up and inspected it under the city lights reflecting in the window. It’s just a piece of paper, what could possibly go so wrong?

You saw Haechan place the little piece on his tongue, washing it down his throat with a sip from his tea. Swallowing, he let out a grunt. “And now we wait,” he said.

You brought the gelatin to your tongue with a trembling hand, mimicking the way Haechan did it. Grabbing your mug, you gulped down all of your tea, the liquid feeling lukewarm now in your mouth. You then set it down again, clasping your hands together on top of your thighs.

“That was it?” you asked, not feeling any effects yet.

Haechan shook his head. “It usually takes a few minutes before you feel it. No matter what happens, you know I’m here. I’m used to it, so I know how to snap out of it if needed. You, however, use it for the first time. So the effects might be a little stronger for you,” he said. Well, what was done was done now.

Haechan shifted again, grabbing his notebook and pen. “About the name,’ he started, “you have specifically used the word ‘username’. To me it seems like you need a username to crack a code, to enter the game or something. And then the name ‘Nellie’, which means light, like, she’s the light to something, an insight, an answer.”

You listened carefully. Haechan noted down in key words his train of thought. You squinted your eyes in thought for a while. “It could be explained as something like this: Nellie is not real, obviously, but she is a cyborg. An identity only existing online. So the player enters her world through her, she is the username with which we can have access to the world she discovers at the end. That’s why we have the choice to make decisions. The player is her consciousness!” you exclaimed when everything hit you.

“Wow, slow down there, little genius. See, the answer was always hidden within you. We can have this be explained in the end or leave clues for the player to find out themselves,” Haechan kept notes of your theory in his notebook.

You laughed, eyes beaming. “Of course I had it in me. Or is it the LSD kicking?” you asked, tilting your head.

Haechan sighed. “I don’t know. But what I know is that the letters in front of me just became 3-dimensional and this pen wasn’t that heavy a few seconds ago,” he mumbled.

“Hey Haechan, why is the room purple?” you wondered. Haechan dropped the pen and notebook, arms falling numb around him, his head lolling back. “Because we’re entering full bliss, honey,” he said with a rasp in his voice.

Your eyes roamed around the previously dark room, which now was coloured neon purple. Haechan gasped. “I see it too! You’re purple! And there’s pink all around you!” he looked like an overly excited kid seeing his new toys. You felt slightly dizzy, and when you blinked again the tea mugs on the table started levitating.

“Haechan look at that! The mugs are floating!” you laughed. Haechan tried to lift his head but he couldn’t. “Cant do that, honey. My head feels so heavy. Come lift it for me?” he whined and you rolled your eyes, which was a bad move because it triggered a soft headache.

You got up, your legs feeling wobbly. You tried to walk but the room was all purple, the walls were spinning very slowly and the table became afloat too. “I’ll try,” you said and Haechan smirked.

“Is it the effect of the LSD or do you just look really good in this lighting?” Haechan muttered and you stilled. He made a great effort to lift his arms, inviting you into an embrace. “Come here, I wanna take a closer look at you,” he said.

Your feet seemed to have a brain of their own, as you started walking towards where Haechan was supposed to be sitting. “Wait, wait, are you coming? I see you walking away from me,” he muttered. You shook your head. Bad move again. “I am, stay where you are,” you said.

After a lot of effort, your foot touched the couch with a thud, forcing a cry of pain out of you. “Be careful, honey,” Haechan smiled. “Our senses are stimulated a lot right now,” he said.

You sighed. Holding onto the back of the couch, you tried to climb up, lifting your leg to sit right on top of Haechan’s lap. Your thighs were wrapped around his waist, and he let out a soft growl at your touch, closing his eyes. “You look so far away from me right now but I can definitely feel you on me,” he whispered.

The truth is, your sense of touch was extremely sensitive too right now. You moved your hands to feel Haechan’s arms, fingers running up and down his skin. He felt a lot smoother than you thought, and you sighed in euphoria.

“Come closer to me, please. I wanna feel you more,” Haechan opened his eyes, lips falling heavy on his droopy expression. Your hands followed along the lines of his arms, finding his fingers. Wrapping your fingers around his wrists, you lifted his arms to bring them around your waist, dropping them on the side of your hips. Haechan closed his eyes again and smirked. “You feel so warm,” he noted.

Looking at him in the purple and pink hues around him, his hair and skin looked darker than usual. His eyes were heavy and locked into your weary ones, his plump bottom lip falling open, he looked like a doll.

You instinctively wrapped your hands around his neck, Haechan’s pulse loud and fast. You blinked, trying to shake away the image of him looking hot and numb under your touch. Opening your eyes, he was still there, looking at what seemed like to be your lips. Curiosity got the best of you, and you closed the gap between you to get a taste of his plumpy lips.

Haechan’s sense of space was distorted, but he tried very hard to move his lips in sync with yours. He couldn’t move his arms, but he squeezed the flesh of your waist right where you had put his hands earlier. Your fingers grazed the hair on the nape of his neck and he growled inside your mouth, your thighs wrapping tighter around his core.

You couldn’t tell how long you stayed like this. The drug’s influence was strong on you, the whole room was coloured in hues of purple, pink and orange, the furniture were floating and your sense of touch was highly stimulated. Haechan wasn’t that immune to the trippiness either, feeling his body heavy, losing sense of space. And apparently his emotions were out of the line too, not correlating with his brain.

“I never realized how much I wanted this Y/n,” he said in between kisses. He dragged his lips down to your chin until he reached the side of your neck. “I probably like you a lot when I’m sober,” he confessed and you froze, suddenly gaining clarity.

You tried to wiggle your way out of his hold, but a subtle sucking of your skin behind your ear had you gasping, the words taken away from your mouth. You blinked and the colored haze started flickering, your head throbbing in a piercing pain. Your body felt weak and numb, and your eyelids couldn't stay open for too long.

“H-Haechan,” you tried to warn him of your vulnerable state, but you weren’t fast enough in doing so. Your eyes were fully closed and your grip on Haechan’s hair softened. The next thing you knew, everything turned from color to total blackness.

“What time is it?” your sleepy voice echoed in the completely silent room. Haechan turned around from his gaming chair, removing his headphones and leaving them on the desk. The bright light of his computer screen washed his features out, but the yellow lava lamp brought back the warmth in him.

“Go back to sleep, I called Johnny and told him we’re sick today,” he whispered but his voice rang inside your head. You sat up, realizing you were still at Haechan’s apartment, currently lying on one of the living room couches with a fuzzy blanket draped all over you. You rubbed your eyes so hard you started to see colors, and you thought that the LSD influence was still strong.

“You’re probably all sobered up now,” Haechan got up, slippers flapping on the tiled floor of his apartment until he reached the rug under the couch on which you were lying. He bent down to the table to take a glass full of water and handed it to you. “You’ve been asleep for 12 hours now. The influence has worn off entirely,” he said. He brought the glass to your lips and you took it with both of your hands, gulping down the cool liquid to ease your thirst. Haechan took it from you and placed it back on the table, sitting on the edge of the couch next to you.

“How are you feeling? Do you remember anything from last night?” he asked you, giving you a lopsided smile.

You shook your head, pouting. “We were talking about the meaning behind Username:Nellie and then the furniture was in the air, the room was purple and you were being a bitch, as usual. I remember you saying how heavy your whole body was and you wanted me to help you lift your head for a reason I can’t remember right now, and then you thought I was far away from you and then- OH MY GOD!” you screamed, lifting the blanket off of you. You pushed Haechan and stood up, pacing around his living room.

It can’t be real. You had kissed Haechan. It felt like a dream last night but it really happened. You were sitting on his lap, wrapped around his arms and kissing him. You should never trust yourself with drugs again. Haechan couldn’t know you – very probably – had feelings for him, especially now that you had to work together every single hour of the day for the next two months. Dating a coworker was off limits now.

Haechan went after you, standing close to you with a hand on your shoulder to steady you. “Hey, hey, Y/n, calm down. It’s okay. It was nothing. I am the one you should blame, I shouldn’t have forced you into taking LSD with me and I am responsible for what I made you do while we were high. I’m sorry,” you looked at him for the first time after your major realization. His eyes were sad, his lips fell into a pout and his hand on your shoulder was too warm for your liking.

“It’s not your fault, Haechan. I agreed to this. C-Can we just forget about it? At least for now. We’ll take the day off today but tomorrow we’re going back to work. We need to rush,” you said and grabbed your things off the floor to leave.

Haechan opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself. You stood by the door, putting your shoes on. Haechan followed you and rested his hand on the wall behind you, his arm stretched above you. “It’s all about work for you, isn’t it? The thing is Y/n, I don’t think I want to forget about last night,” he said, his hot breath fanning the top of your head.

You stood up, slinging your bag on your shoulders. You sighed and looked at him with sorry eyes. “If we talk about this now I won’t be able to concentrate on work which is very important to me right now. As soon as the game is released, I promise I’ll stay and listen to you. But right now, I can’t be thinking about you, okay?” you said, turning the doorknob of his apartment.

Haechan huffed, trying to catch your hand but you opened the door before he could reach you, stepping outside.

“Thank you for taking care of me, Haechan. I’ll see you tomorrow,” you said and climbed down the stairs, leaving Haechan standing at the door, sighing and shaking his head.

“According to my calculations, we’re about 90,6% done,” Jaehee announced, adjusting his reading glasses that slipped down the slope of his nose. He shuffled through the papers in his hands, searching for his notes. From a third person’s point of view, it looked like a bunch of random unorganized papers, but Jaehee had his own way of storing things, to the point he could find anything you asked him for in seconds.

“That’s a weirdly precise number,” you noticed. Chenle sighed. “I’m gonna miss you guys when all of this is over. I can’t believe I only have 9,4% more game content to review,” he said, spinning around his chair.

Haechan looked at you at that moment. You had learned how to read him after observing him so much. His lips were slightly parted, eyes scanning your face and if you had x-ray vision, you would be able to see the gears turning inside his head. You leaned closer to him, speaking in a low voice in his ear. “Whatever you want to say, keep it,” you said and he smirked, turning his attention back to Chenle.

Johnny had given your team access to his conference room so that you could discuss the last details of the game, while he and Doyoung were at the Marketing Team’s offices, reviewing the final game trailers and posters before the game’s official release. One month had already passed and there was only one more month to go before your dream came true.

But the release of the game also meant that your contract with Neo Tech Games would be over. You would stop working at the company and you would go back to being an independent creator. Apart from that, this also meant that your team would split up. You could still keep in touch with the people you grew so close with during your limited time at the company, but it wouldn’t be exactly the same.

It all came crushing down on you like a wave. This would all be over very soon. Who knows when another opportunity like this would come to you. And who knows if the people you meet in different working environments will be as nice as the people you have met here? Even the cold and vast interior of this building started to grow on you. You were going to miss the awkwardly deafening silence of the hallways and the annoying clicking of your shoes on the glassy tiled floors.

You would miss everybody you had met here. You blinked and the face of a certain person appeared in front of your eyes. You tried to shake it away, quickly looking at the huge screen behind Jaehee. The image of Nellie was frowning right at you, her freckles splattered across her tan rosy cheeks, glitter scattered all over her pigtails, a glassy light pink sword in her hands. You hated that Haechan was right, but the resemblance between him and the character was uncanny. This was a failed attempt of shaking him out of your mind.

“Y/n, are you okay?” Jaehee’s voice brought you back to reality. You mumbled something like ‘yeah, I’m here’ and he went back on reviewing each of your tasks. Haechan was supposed to be in charge of this role, filling you all in on which tasks were completed, which ones needed reviewing and which ones were scrapped. But Jaehee had already finished most of his work, so Haechan bombarded him with all the organization stuff. The boy didn’t even have time to complain.

“So we only have the last 1v1 battle, as Haechan suggested,” Jaehee said, flipping the pages in his hands. You and Haechan exchanged a glance at that, lips pressed shut to suppress your laughter. Renjun looked at you confused, but he knew better than to ask.

“This is something I’m in charge of, maybe I’ll need Renjun with me to review how the designs respond to the action, so-”

“There’s no need to, Ten has approved of everything. You won’t have any problems with them,” Renjun interrupted Jaehee but he fought back. “Still, I need to make sure there are no issues before we send them to Chenle for the final review.” Renjun rolled his eyes at that but still grunted an ‘okay’ under his breath.

“Come on guys,” you sighed, “don’t argue now. Let’s keep the group spirit up for one more month and then we’ll all go back to working alone from our cubicles. Well, I’m gonna go home but that’s the same thing,” you said.

Haechan whipped his head at you. “You’ll go home?” he asked, eyes searching for an answer. You licked your lips before explaining. “Well, yeah. My contract with the company ends as soon as the game comes out,” you said.

Haechan’s body tensed and you noticed. He turned his attention back to Jaehee who had just finished packing his papers in his briefcase. You tried to ignore his reaction but it made you curious. Why would he bother so much if you left the company? Even though you two grew much closer, he still didn’t even want you there from the start.

“So that leaves Haechan and Y/n to finalize the ending of the game. You guys are gonna code this together, right?” Jaehee asked.

Haechan stood up from his seat very abruptly, adjusting his blazer. “We will. Are you finished?” he said sharply, turning his heel to leave the conference room. Jaehee gulped, searching your eyes for help. “Uh- Yeah, class dismissed,” he mumbled and Haechan went through the automatic sliding glass doors, leaving the rest of the group still inside.

Renjun and Chenle looked at you questioningly, as if you had mastered the understanding of Haechan’s behavior and sudden attitude bursts. You raised your shoulders and everyone sighed.

“Look, guys, I’ll go talk to him. I don’t know what’s wrong with him now, he was literally fine five minutes ago,” you said and everyone nodded. “Be quick, please. We don’t have time for his moodiness right now,” Jaehee said and you nodded, excusing yourself to go find Haechan after he stormed off your group meetings once again.

You caught Haechan right outside the elevator, a sight too familiar to you. You’ve had most of your encounters with Haechan outside those very same elevator doors, it became boring constantly meeting him there. You called for him but he didn’t bother turning to look at you. “What is it? I’m going for a smoke,” he said, pressing the elevator button to call it.

“Please, Haechan, don’t act all difficult now. What happened to you back there?” you asked him but he ignored you. “Come on, Haechan, please,” you whispered, grabbing his arm to catch his attention. Haechan turned his gaze to you, his eyes glossy. You let go of him, eyebrows knitting. “Are you okay?” you asked and he shook his head.

“I’m not, actually,” he said with a nervous smirk across his lips, running his hand through his perfectly styled hair. “All this talking about things coming to an end…I don’t like it. I don’t like to admit it, but I got kinda used to all this,” Haechan said.

The elevator doors dinged open but neither of you paid them any attention. “I thought you wanted to go back to working on your own after forcing yourself to work with me and the guys,” you muttered but Haechan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“That was before I realized I had feelings for you!” he said and immediately regretted it once he saw your frozen body staring at him in utter confusion.

You opened your mouth to speak but all the words were stuck in your throat. Haechan turned around, pressing the button again to open the elevator doors, as they were closed now. So he was honest when he confessed to you that night in his house, under the LSD influence.

“Forget I said that, you were right. That night I invited you over to my place, the drugs, everything was a mistake. Let’s forget about it and finish with this fucking game once and for all,” he took a step but you stopped him again, holding onto his arm.

“No, stay here until we solve this,” you deadpanned and Haechan closed his eyes, huffing. “I thought I could keep it together and wait until we stopped being coworkers before I started this conversation with you but-,” Haechan stopped himself, taking a deep breath. His voice became softer now. “All this talking back inside about us splitting up and you not working here anymore, I- I don’t- I know I treated you terribly at first but I can’t let go now. I shouldn’t be feeling this way and I wish I could stop it but I can’t,” he strummered upon his words but Haechan managed to get his message across. He liked you. And he liked you a lot.

It would be a lie if you said you didn’t feel the same way about him, but you kept suppressing these feelings for the sake of work. Haechan’s upfront confession wasn’t on your bingo list and you weren’t expecting him to act upon his feelings.

That night at his house, the two of you definitely shared a moment in heat with each other, despite being under the influence. Everything felt so real, so genuine. You both wanted it. Your subconsciousness led you to it. You couldn’t deny the connection you and Haechan had built over all these months, but you kept on ignoring your growing feelings for him just so you could concentrate on the sole thing you came to do at Neo Tech.

You didn’t know what to say to him. It was all too much for you to take in at the moment, so you stood there staring at him, the pools of honey in his eyes filled with agony and anticipation. But this time, you couldn’t find any choice options popping up on either side of Haechan’s face for you to decide on. The timer was clicking, urging you to do something, but this something was completely up to you.

The timer stopped. Haechan shook his head. “I said I’m going for a smoke,” he mumbled.

You didn’t want to stop him again. This time you let him go, walking inside the elevator. He stood there looking at you with that pained expression that made your heart weigh heavy. You couldn’t see him hurt like this, you couldn’t let him think that you didn’t see him the same way.

And that’s all it took for you to finally act. As the elevator doors were closing and Haechan’s figure slowly disappeared behind them, you jolted forward, keeping the doors from closing completely. Entering the elevator, you clasped his cheeks together, pressing your lips on his. Haechan reacted quickly, wrapping his arms around your waist, his lips moving rhythmically with yours. Your hands moved to rest on either side of his neck, head tilting to give him more access to your mouth. After a few seconds, you let him go with a final smooch, both of you breathing heavily.

“This is my promise to you. After all of this is over, we can talk about everything,” you breathed out and Haechan rested his forehead on yours, a small smile on his plump lips.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this but this felt so much better now that I’m sober,” he giggled and you pressed another peck on his lips. The elevator doors dinged and Haechan let go of you, walking out. You let out a whine at the lack of his touch but he didn’t seem to notice.

As he walked towards the terrace with the cigarette packet in his hands, he turned to you one last time. “What are you doing? Go, you have a video game to finish, honey,” he smirked at you and laughed, waving at his beaming face.

“5 minutes left,” Johnny announced and your heart was beating so fast it was about to explode.

You, your team and everyone else involved in the making of Username:Nellie were gathered in the entrance hallway of the building to watch the live countdown before the game’s official release. After all the work, the effort, the obstacles you faced, the crying and laughter you shared with your coworkers, everything came to this rewarding end.

You took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, Chenle patting you on the back. His smile was so big. That boy was so excited about the release of the game ever since he finished with his work. When you were all nervous about it, he just kept on reassuring you with kind words.

Renjun was tapping his foot on the floor, eyes never leaving the big TV screen displaying the countdown. Jaehee was as nervous as you were, droplets of sweat wetting his sideburns. The whole room was staring at the countdown, as if you were about to welcome the New Year.

Among all these people, Haechan was standing by your side this whole time. His eyes were focused on the screen but his attention was entirely on you. He altered from whispering encouraging words in your ear to squeezing your hand, caressing your hair and nudging your shoulder. This was his game as much as it was yours. Without his help, you wouldn’t be here right now.

“2 more minutes, people. Our new child is gonna be here in 2 minutes,” Johnny announced again, smiling.

You let out a nervous laugh and Haechan came even closer to you. “Your dream is coming true, honey. You’re a game creator now,” he whispered, this time searching for your eyes.

You sighed and smiled at him. “I’m not a game creator yet, I’ll be one in 1 minute and 42 seconds,” you said and he rolled his eyes playfully.

The entire hallway was decorated with Username:Nellie posters all over the walls. A Nellie standee was placed at the building entrance, there were balloons in the game’s main colors all over the room and the game’s theme song was playing through the speakers. Everyone was ready to celebrate the company’s new success and you were the person responsible for it. Although you wouldn’t get any personal recognition out of it, you were proud of yourself for achieving such a huge step in your career, especially when you had such great and talented people guiding you in the process.

The countdown came down to single-digit numbers and everyone was counting out loud. Your heart was beating fast and your vision became blurry. When everyone shouted ‘one’, Johnny and Doyoung popped confetti and everyone erupted in screams and cheers. Your ears buzzed at the loud noise and the boys from your team threw themselves at you for a group hug, screaming all kinds of praises. In the midst of this frenzy, you spotted Ten shaking hands with Johnny and then immediately you saw him popping a bottle of champagne open.

Chenle was too loud. He kept screaming in your ear and you normally would be barking at him to stop hurting your eardrums but this was an exception. Renjun ruffled your hair and Jaehee squeezed you into a tight hug. This was your achievement as much as it was theirs.

“Congratulations to us! We did it!” you yelled and they erupted in screams again.

Haechan was looking at you with his brightest smile and the most loving eyes. When the guys’ cheers came to a halt, they took the message to take some steps away from you, allowing Haechan to personally congratulate you. A few teasing glances were thrown at each other before they completely left you two alone and went to grab some snacks at the buffet instead.

Haechan approached you, his smile intact. You wiped a teardrop of happiness that had fallen down your cheek and gave him a tight-lipped smile. He stretched out his arm, aiming for a handshake but he drew it back. “Sorry, it’s not time for jokes. Congratulations Y/n!” he beamed and pulled you into his embrace. You didn’t need time to respond to his touch, wrapping your arms around him. You rested your head in the crook of his neck, taking in his scent. The warmth of his body transmitted to yours and your tears couldn’t stop flowing now.

“We did it, Haechan,” you whispered into his ear. The music became louder now and there were so many conversations going on at the same time among people. Haechan squeezed you closer to him. “You did it, honey. This is all you. We just happened to be there with you. No matter the difficulties you had, you still managed to do what you always wanted to do,” he said.

You drew your head back. Haechan was still smiling, a tight-lipped smile now and his eyes held the same adoration. You closed the distance between you by pressing your lips on his. Haechan smiled into the kiss, moving his lips with yours, his tongue aiming to enter inside your mouth but you stopped him by pulling back. “You know, we could have been like this way sooner if you weren’t such a bitch in the beginning,” you reminded him.

Haechan rolled his eyes. “Come on, you’re still holding a grudge over this? You know what, I wasn’t even supposed to tell you this before Johnny but you made me do this,” he said.

You furrowed your eyebrows, licking your lips. “What aren’t you supposed to tell me?” you asked him.

Haechan sighed and removed one hand from your waist to caress your cheek. “We have an event about the game’s release next week. It’s gonna give enough time to people to play the game before they come to the event and have their games signed by its creator, meaning you,” he said.

You stilled, processing his words. “Wait, so you’re telling me that I will sign the games? But this wasn’t part of the deal, this is a release credited under the company, not my name. It was group work,” you tried to give an explanation.

Haechan shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right, but,” he inhaled, a wicked smile threatening to appear on his lips. “I kinda pressured Johnny into giving you some credit, implicitly. The whole team is gonna be in the event but you get to sign the games. This way your name is gonna be there. Besides, you created it, honey,” he explained.

A nervous laugh escaped your mouth and you hugged him again, Haechan laughing too. “I can’t believe you did this for me, Haechan,” you exclaimed and he whispered into your ear. “Anything for you, honey. You deserve it,” he said and nudged you out of the hug. He grabbed your chin and leaned in, initiating the kiss himself this time.

After a few seconds, you pulled back. “So do you know if Johnny has any intention of keeping me in the company?” you were curious about your future in Neo Tech, especially now that you brought such successful results in the company’s reputation and sales. You were used to being independent, but working here in the past few months has opened up so many opportunities for you. Haechan looked genuinely confused now, the gears inside his head turning. “I don’t remember him mentioning anything about it, but I’m sure he’ll have that talk with you privately. But if you’re gonna be working here we need to figure out how we’re gonna get away with dating as coworkers,” Haechan said.

Your breath caught in your throat. “Dating?” you muttered, cheeks flushing.

Haechan smirked. “The game is out, and you promised we would talk about it. But I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m sure of it. I love you, Y/n. I wanna take you out, I wanna treat you good, I want to be able to hug you and kiss you whenever I want. You’re beautiful, kind, talented and I want to share my life with you. You made me see things differently and you’re a person worth having in my life-”

“Stop it, idiot, I love you too,” you said and kissed him. This time, the kiss shared between you wasn’t flirty, lazy or lustful. It was filled with love. You felt your heart warm up, your lips moved slowly and held a promise between them, a promise that what you and Haechan shared for each other was real.

As you and Haechan were kissing, the music and people’s voices were slowly fading out, the noise getting lost in the far distance. Everyone else around you had stopped moving; the people stood still, the confetti falling stopped mid-air, the clock didn’t tick anymore. You and Haechan were the only ones in motion.

When you felt that something was odd, you stopped kissing the boy you loved to observe your surroundings. With mouth agape and eyes wide, you couldn’t believe what you were seeing. Everything was frozen and steadily was turning into pixels. Haechan rested his arms in his waist, brows furrowed. “What the…” he trailed off.

Soon enough, the entire room became pixelated and one after the other, the pixels were disappearing into the air, slowly leaving you and Haechan standing in a black vastness. An angry whirlwind began out of nowhere, spinning you and Haechan around the void. You looked at each other, not knowing what was going on in the atmosphere.

“No matter what happens, remember I love you!” Haechan shouted in the black void. Even though you were standing in front of each other, he couldn’t tell how far away from him you actually were due to the wind. “I love you too!” you yelled back, the wind taking you away from him.

“Subject51 and Subject52, experiment #127, done,” a man with onyx black hair declared and typed the results in his computer.

Another man with short brown hair, leaned back into his chair, arms resting behind his head. He sighed. “Thank you Doyoung. Ten, can you please disconnect the subjects out of the alternate universe?” the man asked another guy in the room. “On it, Johnny,” Ten said.

Adjusting his lab coat, Ten opened with a touch pad the glass doors, entering the experiment room. The room was completely white and nothing decorated it except for two booths, the so-called simulation access points. On top of the booths, the bodies of an unconscious man and an unconscious woman were lying. Ten went close to the bodies, removing the small circular device attached to each of their temples. As soon as the device was turned off, the lighting in the experiment room dimmed.

Ten left the experiment room, going back to the report lab where the other two men, Johnny and Doyoung were sitting in front of their computers and monitors. “Their vitals are fine and I didn’t notice any visible alterations to their bodies,” Ten noted and Doyoung typed this information into his computer.

“This is the 127th try of this experiment. In every single alternate reality we place them in, Subect51, Lee Donghyuck, and Subject52, Y/N, fall in love with each other. Every single time. I think our research is done here. We have tried all these different alternate universes, different roles, social statuses, historical periods, obstacles and difficulties. These people defy everything,” Doyoung summed up.

“You’re right, but are two subjects enough proof of our research? We have put the same people under different alternate realities but maybe we need to test more subjects in those alternate realities to compare and contrast results. We can’t just prove that true love between two people exists among every alternate universe without enough evidence,” Johnny said.

Ten stepped in closer to the other two men. “We have tested 26 couples for 127 experiments each. I think Doyoung is right. We have proved our research question, true love exists in every alternate universe. The same people who fall in love in this timeline are bound to be endgame in every other timeline and universe. These last two subjects proved it the most out of every other couple,” he said.

Johnny closed his eyes in thought, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. Ten and Doyoung exchanged a glance, waiting for the research’s leader to declare his decision. Johnny opened his eyes again after a few seconds and clapped his hands, standing up.

“Then we did it, guys! Our assumption was true! We proved it!” he exclaimed and all three men cheered, hugging each other. “Let’s go celebrate tonight. Right now, actually. Drinks are on me. Tomorrow, we’ll head back here at the lab to sum up the research,” Johnny said and the other two men nodded, removing their lab coats to reveal their day clothes underneath. Grabbing their things, the men left the lab, locking the door behind them to go celebrate their success.

Walking towards the door, the men patted each other on their backs as a form of giving each other a silent congratulations. Locking the door behind him, Doyoung giggled. “I gotta say Johnny, the role of company CEO really suits you, it works in every single experiment,” he noted and they laughed, their voices inaudible as they were walking further away from the lab.

In the midst of their excitement, the three men forgot to check back on the test subjects. Even though they were removed out of every alternate universe, the human beings inside them weren’t brought back into this reality. So both of them were stuck in the void, waiting patiently for someone to bring them back to the real world.

The researchers were too rushed to leave the lab and failed to document this incident. The two subjects, still lying on each of the booths, were trying to find solace while they were staying inside the void. The monotonous beeping sound of the monitor showcasing the subjects’ vitals was echoing in the empty room. The subjects, with a steady breathing and heartbeat, moved their arms agonizingly slowly towards each other. Their moving only stopped when they managed to touch the edges of each other’s pinky finger, feeling just a pinch of each other’s love and warmth. They were drawn so much to each other, to the point they managed to find their lover even in the most barren state of the mind and the body.

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