Chapter 9.1

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‘Let’s make a game together. I need a skilled designer.’

‘Ok…ay. Got it.’

The mission was a success.

Sangwoo had killed two birds with one stone. He found the most talented designer at school, and he simultaneously got Jaeyoung back in his life. It was the best development he could think of. If it went as expected, he would now be able to resume game production again while also controlling his odd behavior.

It was a somewhat valid prognosis, as the small problems that had arisen when Jaeyoung was gone, gradually disappeared when he began to see him regularly. He went back to being able to concentrate in class again and study at a pleasant library for hours. Sangwoo studied until 4 p.m. and spent all his other time developing the game.

The sole reason for his energy to be replenished until the morning was an upcoming meeting in the afternoon. Sangwoo always woke up in a bit of a good mood. Then, as the meeting approached, his mood gradually worsened, and when there was about half an hour left, he felt so bad that his hands would sweat and his heart pound.

He put a lot of effort into the first meeting. He researched the latest information and meticulously printed out the necessary data. He bought a bunch of snacks at the snack shop and ripped them open. However, Jaeyoung’s attitude had been disappointing. Even though him being late for 12 minutes or so was a mere habit, his expression and tone had been very curt. Fortunately, he wasn’t as friendly or clingy as before, but he showed an uncooperative attitude toward the project.

No matter how many times he refreshed the inbox page at the appointed midnight deadline, the draft proposal still didn’t arrive. The following day, the art concept that Jaeyoung had drawn had obviously been done without consideration, adding to his disappointment.

‘I’ll do it again and come back.’

Still, Sangwoo wasn’t able to refuse Jaeyoung’s request. The entire day was a sad affair, and it was time to quickly proceed, but he gave him the weekend just because he had made eye contact with him and asked for more time.

Agenda: Veggie Venturer

However, Jaeyoung had brought something great to the Tuesday meeting: a vertical scrolling shooting game  based on jump action. The material wasn’t unfamiliar, yet it was unique, and the art was nearly completed, as if it were something that had already been released. Also, all the elements were reasonably described in the document. Sangwoo loved Jaeyoung’s proposal.

A character from one of the three proposals had caught Sangwoo’s eyes. It was one with impressive hair and a pretty face. He thought that if Jaeyoung was made into a character, it would look precisely like that. Jaeyoung seemed to like another one, but Sangwoo insisted that people would like it if such a pretty and cute character were in the game.

The plan had been sorted out, so things went by in a flash. Even if Jaeyoung cared about only specific things, his skills were impeccable. The problem occurred somewhere outside of the project.

‘You’ve never seen an art school, have you? Go check where I work and have a cup of tea.’

The problem was entering that dirty den. A simple, five-minute meeting that went by without any issues was enough. And Jaeyoung’s studio? He had just followed him out of useless curiosity. Although he had been expecting the absolute worst, Sangwoo had opened the door and seen the most horrifying place in the world.

The room was a mess. There seemed to be more stuff in place than not, however, most of the clutter was of unknown objects. In one corner, a person with naturally furrowed brows wore a dog collar around her neck and shook her head to the loud music. He felt like crumpling up the entire room and throwing it in the trash. How on earth could someone get work done in such a madhouse?

There was a good-for-nothing and attention-seeking lazy psycho/sadist/trash/swindler/bully/thug with a shifting dual personality who, on top of that, was messy. The only parts he liked were his skills in design and illustration. If only he hadn’t been broken, he wouldn’t even associate with this kind of bastard. Sangwoo had muttered inwardly and helped him clean up.

After roughly organizing the place, the studio became more tolerable. It was only then that he saw the poster on the wall. Since it was something he’d often seen, it stood out as if other things were black and white and only Jaeyoung’s work was the only thing in full-color. By this time, Sangwoo had studied Jaeyoung, so he could even recount which year the posters had been produced.

The glasses hung on the tip of his nose, and when he yawned with hazy eyes and began to work, he became a different person. Both hands controlling different keys seemed to move in the most efficient way. His eyes, which usually contributed in making various facial expressions, were like a supervisor who sharply monitored the process and the results. The unsmiling lips were serious and stopped moving.  It was only then that Sangwoo felt that he had come to the studio of an expert.

No matter how he looked at it, he thought that five minutes for the meeting was too short. As a result, the five minutes increased to an hour and an hour increased to three and a half hours. Even if he was aware of the danger of how it may cause his body to have an abnormal reaction every time they got close, even though he got dizzy from the constant state of messiness and chaos despite cleaning up, even though he constantly quarreled with Jaeyoung, and even though there was a really strange woman who often was in one place, Sangwoo gradually came to not want to leave the studio.

During the two weeks of them collaborating, new information had piled up into the database. He learned about the part where Jaeyoung has a twin brother, the part where was close to his maternal grandfather, the part where he not only speaks Korean, Chinese, and English, but also Cantonese and French, the part where he doesn’t like to play in the water, the part where the desktop wallpaper of female celebrities often changes, the part where he prefers mangas over books and movies over mangas, the part where he can stand anything except for tasteless food, the part where he prefers dogs over cats, the part where he was crazy about the cyberpunk theme, and the part where he was bad at gaming.