Chapter Text
Yoo Joonghyuk was what people would call an NPC. A non-player character.
Player? What player?
Yoo Joonghyuk was an NPC inside a video game, a dating one at that. An endless loop where he had to try and romance the heroine, AKA the player. The player was supposed to be the only one with the knowledge of the world’s true identity. So how did Yoo Joonghyuk manage to gain self awareness?
He didn’t remember.
Something inside him just clicked .
This world is a game.
I’m an NPC.
I’m not real.
He didn’t exactly understand how the game worked though. If he was really in a game, did that mean there were thousands of ‘him’ inside different ‘rounds’ of the game at once, all trying to reach the same goal of escaping this horrible fate?
Yoo Joonghyuk was forced to remember every round he ever ‘played’. His endless attempts to capture the heroine, only to watch as they fell in love with his fellow NPCs. Forced to remember the times where he succeeded in capturing the heroine’s heart, only for them to mysteriously disappear one day. Above everything else, his memories always featured the heroine.
It was almost impossible to remember a time where he wasn’t near them. It was as if he only existed because of them.
And he hated that.
He was desperate to see a world where he wouldn’t be bound to the heroine - a world where he could live freely and just do what he wanted.
That was the problem.
He was programmed to act the way he did. Sure, he had some freedom in what he could to say, but the only times that he could speak were when the heroine was around.
For example, Yoo Joonghyuk take his time eating dumplings in the cafeteria and bam . He was suddenly back in a classroom before he could finish eating. He didn’t have to eat, though. It was just one of his scenes.
The scenes always felt so fake. Events that assisted the heroine on her journey to fall in love, fate did not exist in this world. Everything played out almost exactly the same each time.
A fated meeting in the hallway. A brief but sweet encounter in the rose garden. A magical outing at the festival. These were some of the events Yoo Joonghyuk was supposed to endure time and time again.
Most of his events depended on the ‘affection points’ he and the other capture targets had for the heroine.Whoever had the most points at any given time inevitably had the most scenes. Ultimately, it was the heroine’s choice who they would spend their time with in the first place.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s character was the aloof ice prince which was explosively popular. Miles ahead of the gentle giant Lee Hyunsung, who was the second most popular.
Luckily for him though, it seemed as though it was the rare round where he was not the main target. Phew.
The only times where he would ever exist would be in scenes, though only as a mere side character who would occasionally say a few lines. It was finally time to relax.
That was what he was expecting anyway.
“Yoo Joonghyuk!”
In the current scene, the heroine and capture target were supposed to be matched together for a partner project. Since Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t the main capture target, he was paired with someone else.
His partner seemed to be particularly chatty.
Yoo Joonghyuk had learned that no one besides himself seemed to remember anything from any of the previous rounds, not like he cared about what people thought, so he openly observed the boy before him.
Nothing remarkable. Black hair, black eyes, a blurred face. Typical mob character.
Mob characters were other NPCs that existed in order to populate the world inside the game. They were often seen crowding the hallways and taking up space in the background.
“Yoo Joonghyuk! Make me your companion”
Companion? Yoo Joonghyuk tried the whole ‘companion’ shebang before. He tried to inform a fellow NPC about the world's true nature in an attempt to open their eyes and instead ended up as their lackey for the rest of the round due to a series of events he tried to forget.
“Yoo Joonghyuk, I know of the same things you do. Actually, I know more.”
Yoo Joonghyuk was baffled to say the least.
“We’re called ‘bugs’ in the game. Anomalies that aren’t supposed to exist”
The mob character, whose name was Kim Dokja was explaining what he knew about the game.
“Something went wrong in our programming, which in turn made us the way we are. For example you remember all the previous rounds. I’m the same, but as a mob character I’ve had more freedom and have been able to investigate this.”
Yoo Joonghyuk hummed, urging him to continue.
“There’s only one other bug in the game besides us, this other mob character called Han Sooyoung. She only remembers the older rounds so we think she was in the beta version of the game.”
“Beta?”
“The early version of the game before players started to join. Do you not remember?”
“Nope”
“Huh, strange. Continuing, Han Sooyoung is really weird, her consciousness lies in multiple mob characters across the campus, like she has a bunch of avatars”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s head hurt even thinking about that. Remembering the hundreds of rounds he went through alone was painful enough, he couldn’t imagine having multiple versions of yourself every round.
“How come you’re only talking to me about this now?”
“Well, if you weren’t flirting with the heroine all the time maybe I would actually have a chance to talk to you, you handsome bastard”
It was a joke, they both knew that it ultimately wasn’t Yoo Joonghyuk’s choice. Yoo Joonghyuk had to admit, the cheeky grin Kim Dokja had on while telling the joke was nice.
It was the most enjoyable round Yoo Joonghyuk ever played through. Thanks to Kim Dokja, he was able to learn of what happened whenever he wasn’t around. Kim Dokja was a mob character so he was in every scene watching the whole time.
It was interesting to learn about scenes from an outsider’s perspective, sure, but what he really enjoyed was Kim Dokja.
Kim Dokja had a warm atmosphere around him. While describing different scenes Yoo Joonghyuk watched as his eyes crinkled and lips turned up, and how he seemed to glow as he chattered endlessly about things that Yoo Joonghyuk would not care less about if they were told by anyone else.
How could he bear to live without seeing that face? Was he ever actually living in the first place?
Kim Dokja seemed to notice that his companion had stopped paying attention, and started to wave his hand in front of Yoo Joonghyuk’s face. When he finally reacted, Kim Dokja continued to talk.
“Don’t worry about those things, who knows when the next time you’ll get this much freedom will be?”
Like that, a spark of determination lit in our capture target’s heart.
Over the past few scenes, Kim Dokja had noticed something strange. Yoo Joonghyuk seemed to be acting as he normally would.
As in, he was flirting with Kim Dokja as he would with the heroine.
Through multiple runs of experience, Kim Dokja had a pretty solid understanding on how Yoo Joonghyuk was supposed to act whenever he was the main capture target. He would get more possessive and threaten almost everyone who came towards his person of interest, no matter if they were together or not.
Of course he would still act like his emotionless but not actually emotionless self around the heroine but subtly perform acts of kindness.
This was what Kim Dokja was experiencing. And it got even weirder.
Floating above Yoo Joonghyuk’s head was a small heart, if he were to stare at it for a few seconds he would later hear a strange voice in his head.
[Capture Target Yoo Joonghyuk’s affection points: ◼️◼️◼️]
It was all too strange. Almost as if Kim Dokja himself had taken the heroine’s place, which he knew wasn’t the case, watching from the corner of his eye as Lee Hyunsung caught on fire after the heroine’s science experiment went terribly wrong.
Was it another bug? Or perhaps….
“You bastard, are your capture target instincts kicking in? You can’t go a single round without attempting to romance someone, can you?”