Chapter Text
Office work was probably the worst type of job ever, but it was a safe job. A lot of the work was easy, at least what Shen Yuan did, if sometimes a bit overwhelming. He got a good pay and his schedule was quite flexible since he could work from home.
However…
Shen Yuan hated it! It was boring! Absolutely the worst! He’d rather rot his brain reading a poorly-written stallion novel rather than rot his brain with office work. Alas, he had to eat and pay rent, so he had to work.
The best part of the workday was leaving. As Shen Yuan commuted back home via train, he scrolled through social media. He was so excited to get back home, eat some takeout and then just do something for fun. He wasn’t sure what to do, really, hence why he was scouring the internet for something new to rot his brain too. Preferably a novel, but anything would do.
Luckily, social media delivered exactly what he wanted.
'Doki Doki Immortal Dating Way'
It was a new visual novel by Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, a name that Shen Yuan unfortunately recognised because he had the misfortune of being Airplane’s friend.
Airplane was someone Shen Yuan frequently saw on Zhongdian. The guy seemed to only be interested in 1 thing; hot and buff stoic guys who seemed to be more emotionally constipated than google translate’s voice itself. If there was a stoic guy in a novel, you would 100% see him in the comments, thirsting after said stoic guy. It was honestly as sad as it was hilarious.
The two became friends after arguing in the comments of a homoerotic cultivation novel (Shen Yuan wants to interupt to say that he is not gay! Not at all! Not that he had anything against gay people as Airplane was evidently very gay, but Shen Yuan just wasn’t! He only read it because it was well written!). Shen Yuan had offered his two cents about a background character, who was unsurprisingly the stoic-type, when Airplane popped up and started arguing with him. After 2 hours of a heated debate publicly, whilst getting reprimanded by other commenters to move it into the private messages, they actually moved into private messages to argue for another few hours.
They became friends after that day.
Not that he admitted it of course.
Shen Yuan knew that Airplane had been working on something, but he hadn’t expected it to be a fully developed game. Shen Yuan wondered where Airplane even got the money from considering that just a couple days ago, he was ranting about how he could barely pay his electricity bill. Though perhaps that’s why he was struggling financially, he had spent all of it working on his game.
Yeah, Shen Yuan nodded, Airplane would be the sort of guy to spend all his money on developing a game to a point where he barely can cover food and bills.
Opening his private messages with Airplane, he shot him a message.
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Peerless Cucumber: I heard you made a game.
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: uh oh
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: dont play it
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: not ur type of game
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: （＞人＜；）
Peerless Cucumber: We both know that that’s a lie and you know it.
Peerless Cucumber: You’re just scared of my critiques.
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: (っ °Д °;)っ
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: pls dont be mean to my game cucumber-bro
Peerless Cucumber: There’s no such thing as mercy, Airplane-bro.
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: im so cooked
Peerless Cucumber: Very cooked.
Peerless Cucumber: Loser.
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky: ( ╯□╰ )
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Shen Yuan booted up his computer, the noodles he ordered waiting patiently for him to eat them. It didn’t take him long to buy Airplane’s game; it was a bit expensive but Shen Yuan didn’t mind. He would never dare admit it to anyone but he didn’t mind helping Airplane out, especially since he knew that his friend wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth like Shen Yuan was.
The game loaded up. The music was a bit obnoxious but the menu was cute.
Before Shen Yuan even started a new game, he pressed on a button labelled ‘♡~Characters~♡’. There was information on only 6 characters. There was Ming Fan, the protagonist. Shen Qingqiu, Ming Fan’s Shizun. Ning Yingying, Liu Mingyan and Sha Hualing, the romanceable characters. And finally, Luo Binghe. He was the most intriguing out of the cast, since his role was hidden by a ‘???’ label. The information on each character was minimal. It was obvious that the more you played the game, the more information would be unlocked on every character.
There was also another character, a secret character, but unlike the other 6, there was no information about them. There was no name, no age, no race. Nothing! Not even how they looked like!
Shen Yuan was intrigued. He was excited to see how this game would turn out.