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I Fell in Love With My Tomboy Friend’s Avatar

6

Chapter 6

“Gwazie, I’ll give you my ID and password, so you can log in every day and do my dailies for me, okay?”

 

She was shoving the bothersome daily quests onto him.

 

“Well no… If I tell you, who knows what you’ll do with poor Ruby. You’re just a superficial, obsessive pervert, aren’t you?”

 

Or rather, trying to shove them onto him but changing her mind, and opting to call him a pervert instead.

 

“Ugh, damn it, Grazie! My pet’s auto-looting is off ! Why weren’t you picking things up?”

 

She even scolded him for not immediately noticing an auto-loot setting on her pet, something he couldn’t possibly know without intentionally checking her status screen.

 

“Graziepoo, what are you doing?”

 

And now, Ruby stood in front of an object inside the dungeon, sounding exasperated.

 

“Why aren’t you picking things up? I turned off auto-loot because my bunny looked tired.”

 

She had completely turned off the pet’s auto-loot feature, and was now using Eunho as her item collector.

 

“Your bunny… is tired?”

 

Ruby took her in-game pet rabbit everywhere with her, using the creature to pick up items for her. There was no way a pet made of data could actually get tired. Such a feature didn’t exist. Eunho, on the other hand, was a human with limits, tapping away at his keyboard.

 

“Yep.”

 

She stood shamelessly before the items littering the dungeon floor.

 

“Well? Pick them up!”

 

And so, Eunho picked them up. As he did, he kept thinking, Am I dreaming?

 

It couldn’t be a dream. He could feel the solid feedback from the keyboard at his fingertips. He picked up each fallen item and brought it to Ruby.

 

“Took you 3 minutes and 57 seconds, Grazie-wacie. You really suck at picking things up.”

 

With each word that left her lips, Eunho felt his cherished memories with her dissolving.

 

“Damn it, Grazie! You’re supposed to actually block if you’re tanking!”

 

With every “damn it,” he lost a memory of their raids together.

 

“Are you an idiot, Gwazie? Are you?”

 

With each “idiot,” he lost memories of doing dailies with her.

 

“If this was how you were going to be, why did I even bring you along? I should have just given my bunny some pet supplements instead.”

 

With every mention of “bunny,” he lost another fragment of his memories of first meeting her.

 

Eunho felt his heart breaking. The goddess Ruby he had once loved and admired was shattering. Using her familiar, lovely voice, she was saying things a goddess shouldn’t say, ruining their special memories.

 

He was starting to lose affection for this Ruby, and even lost respect for himself for daring to feel that way. Listening to her stream of harsh words through the headset, he finally lifted his toe.

 

Click.

 

A weak sound came from the computer tower. Eunho pressed the power button with his toe, shutting the computer down entirely.

 

“I haven’t been sleeping enough. That’s why my nightmares are starting to feel real. Alright Eunho, time to get some rest.”

 

This had to be a nightmare. It was undeniable. There was no way his goddess Ruby would act like that. His stress levels had been high, and being so absorbed in the game had probably left him mentally vulnerable to nightmares.

 

Maybe it was even a case of sleep paralysis. Once he woke up from it, that would be the end of it. Confident in his assessment, Eunho closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

 

Jeongwon Yoo: Why aren’t you logging in?

 

Jeongwon Yoo: Go pick up some items for me, Eunho, haha

 

Jeongwon Yoo: My dailies got delayed because of you

 

Eunho thought to himself dejectedly, I should just quit…

 

***

 

For several days, Eunho lay in bed, lost in thought.

 

He had no choice but to admit that all the fashion items he’d gifted, the time and effort he’d spent on dailies—all of it had not gone to Ruby, but to Jeongwon Yoo.

 

“Shit.”

 

The first day, he cried his eyes out. The next two days, he was furious. And now, Eunho found himself at the stage of resignation. He wanted to grab Ruby and everyone oblivious to her true self, even Jeongwon, and shake them all by the collar, but he couldn’t.

 

“I have to live my real life.”

 

He had to live in the real world. Only then would he be able to forget his memories with Ruby. He needed to meet his friends, take care of his responsibilities at school, prepare for a job, get involved in campus activities, internships, and supporting roles. If he did all that, he would be insanely busy—too busy to think about Ruby.

 

“Let’s go, Eunho Ju. Time to get yourself together.”

 

Today, he absolutely had to go to school. He took his clean, freshly–showered body and dressed in the neatest clothes he could find. After styling his hair, he grabbed his phone and slipped it into his pocket. On his way to the front door, he circled a date on the enormous bank-issued calendar his parents had picked up somewhere.

 

“Damn it, Ruby. I loved you so much.”

 

Then, he scribbled “Ruby’s Memorial Day” on the date he’d lost her.

 

***

 

“Hey, Ju Eunho. Wanna go to the PC café later?”

 

“I quit the game.”

 

“Wow, are you turning into a real boy, Pinocchio?”

 

“But I didn’t quit bowling.”

 

“Fine, let’s go.”

 

Eunho met up with friends constantly. Although he wasn’t gaming, he poured all that time into socializing with his friends. Every day he went drinking, bowled, played pool, and sang karaoke.

 

“Eunho, you didn’t forget about the meeting later, right?”

 

“Of course not.”

 

“Could you post an announcement in the group chat?”

 

In addition, Eunho was involved in the student council for his department. Even when he wasn’t hanging out with friends, he was busy with council work. And since all the council members were students of the same age, they would go drinking after meetings, which kept him busy.

 

“How many bodies does Eunho Ju have? No matter where I go, he’s there.”

 

“Seriously, the guy’s always at the bar.”

 

“Hey, it’s not my fault people keep inviting me!”

 

As the days ticked by, Eunho embraced a full social life, washing away thoughts of Ruby, over and over again. But even as he tried to forget her, someone else kept catching his eye.

 

“Jeongwon, can we please order some fries? I’m starving,” a voice said from another table.

 

Jeongwon, too, was frequently invited to gatherings, and she was popular around campus. The more time Eunho spent at the university, the harder it became to avoid seeing her.

 

Eunho stared silently at Jeongwon. This was the maniac who had taken his Ruby from him. Jeongwon was enjoying life, probably feeling perfectly content—just like she was currently savoring a canned peach as he watched.

 

Without him around, she could freely live her guild life, and the guild members would probably fawn over Ruby, showering her with fashion items since Graze—the rival for Ruby’s attention—was out of the way. She must be thrilled. Jeongwon had cleared away the biggest obstacle to her carefree time as Ruby.

 

Looking pretty smug, aren’t you?

 

And now, in real life too, Jeongwon seemed happy. Lately, she’d been wearing makeup, and trying out clothes she hadn’t worn before. Today, she showed up in a long, denim skirt and a cute ringer tee—a style she never used to wear. The outfit kept her signature sporty style, but the fact that she was wearing “cute” clothes was hard to believe. She looked satisfied with her life.

 

Just then, Jeongwon looked in Eunho’s direction. Their eyes met. Her gaze only rested on him for a moment, then she turned back to her table, ignoring him. Eunho let out an involuntary, bitter laugh. Ignoring her was all he could do too. He simply grabbed the menu from the person beside him and raised his hand.

 

“Boss, another order of fries here, please.”

 

“Eunho, you’re going to be the reason all the potatoes in Korea disappear.”

 

This system worked just fine for Eunho. He wanted to ignore Jeongwon as much as possible, to pretend she wasn’t there. Whenever he heard Jeongwon’s voice, he thought of Ruby. Whenever he saw Jeongwon’s face, Ruby’s features seemed to be faintly superimposed over hers. The prettier Jeongwon dressed, the more Ruby came to mind.

 

A server carrying Eunho’s order of fries approached from a distance. Eunho found himself instinctively glancing over at Jeongwon as he reached for the dish. He reasoned that he couldn’t help it since the server was standing in Jeongwon’s direction.

 

“Jeongwon, are you a kid? Are you just picking out all the jelly bits?”

 

“If you’re mad, order another bowl.”

 

“How would you survive without me?”

 

“Very well.”

 

The guy next to her, who seemed to be a classmate, patted the top of her head with his palm. Jeongwon was digging through her bowl for jelly pieces, her face buried in it like it was the most natural thing.

 

She looked so damn happy.

 

“Damn, Eunho Ju! Are you drunk? You just spilled our fries, you idiot.”

 

The fries had fallen from Eunho’s hand. He barely noticed the mess, his eyes fixed on Jeongwon.

 

“…Then order another one. Sorry, sir, we knocked it over.”

 

He didn’t let his gaze leave Jeongwon.

 

Anger bubbled up inside of him. He felt like if someone stuffed raw potatoes into him, they’d fry perfectly.

 

***

 

Eunho opened the department room door as he usually did around this time. He’d expected no one to be there, but Jeongwon was sitting inside. Their eyes met briefly, then both of them immediately looked away.They went about their business, ignoring one another. Of course, it was natural for Eunho to be in his own department room, but Jeongwon was from a different department.

 

Eunho glanced at the calendar, wondering what had brought her here. Today’s date had “Taekwondo Department Interview 2:00 PM” written on it.

 

Oh, an interview.

 

He vaguely recalled hearing about a project the student council was planning for the school paper, involving interviews with students from the College of Sports and Arts. It seemed that Jeongwon had come as the representative from the Taekwondo Department.

 

Yeah, I don’t care.

 

Eunho had about twenty minutes before his next class. But his pride wouldn’t let him leave just because Jeongwon was here, and it seemed she wasn’t planning on leaving either.

 

So, Eunho sat on a chair far from her, took out his phone, and started up a mobile game with cheerful popping sounds. Every so often, he sneaked glances over his phone at Jeongwon.

 

Jeongwon, leaning against her chair, was staring absently out the window when her pocket buzzed with a notification. She pulled out her phone to check it.

 

…Looks like she’s really enjoying life, huh?

 

With her back turned to Eunho, he could only catch a glimpse of her screen. It looked like Jeongwon was checking a message, smiling slightly as she read it.

 

A guy? Has to be a guy, right?

 

Life must be so good for her right now. Meanwhile, Eunho was still stuck in the mess she’d caused, struggling in the ruins, but not her. He looked down at his mobile game. The character he’d been controlling was already dead. In a fit of anger, he opened his mouth.

 

“Jeongwon, you’ve been getting a lot of attention lately. Wow, you look like you’re really enjoying it.”

 

Jeongwon flinched but kept her eyes fixed on her messenger screen without turning toward him. Feeling more stubborn, Eunho put his phone down and continued.

 

“But as your childhood friend, I’m really concerned. You’re not actually taking all that attention seriously, are you? I mean, if you’d heard more genuine compliments before, maybe you’d know how to tell the difference, but since that’s not the case, it worries me.”

 

Jeongwon turned around. Eunho fought back a smirk, and continued.

 

“All those people telling you that you’re pretty—they’re just being polite. You know that rule, right? If it’s something someone can fix in five minutes, point it out; if not, hold it back as a courtesy. Since they can’t go refund the clothes you bought, they just say you look nice. Like, ‘Oh, she tried, how cute,’ that sort of thing.”

 

Jeongwon stared at him wordlessly, her expression unreadable. Eunho was unable to stop himself from saying more.

 

“But I’m allowed to tell you the truth. I’m your childhood friend.”

 

Jeongwon scowled.

 

“You need someone like me around, Jeongwon. Otherwise, you’ll hear something looks good on you and just go with it because you’re gullible. It doesn’t look good on you, Jeongwon.”

 

Without even realizing it, Eunho had crossed the line.

 

“And, you know, if someone says you’re pretty and you start thinking they really mean it, you shouldn’t go falling in love with them or anything. Guys don’t like your type. They compliment you just for fun, because it’s funny watching you…”

 

Eunho trailed off, glancing at Jeongwon’s face. By now, she should have kicked him, telling him to stop spouting nonsense, or agreed, saying, “Yeah, you’re right; I’m not meant to date anyone.”

 

But instead, Jeongwon just looked at him with trembling eyes.

 

“Jeongwon?”

 

She abruptly stood up, not even glancing at him as she fled the student council room without a word.

 

“…What was that? Is she… crying? No, it’s just a yawn, right? I must’ve imagined it.”

 

Had he imagined the tears in Jeongwon’s eyes? Eunho, now shaking himself, opened the door of the student council room.

 

The hallway was empty.

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