Dazed, Sarah found herself being led by a firm hand to a...dungeon.
Well...it was actually a basent, but whoever built the place must have been a fan of fantasy RPG gas because they decorated the door and the hallway like a dieval castle’s dungeon. Brick walls, torch scones--the whole thing.
Which was weird, because the place itself was an arcade. The dieval interior felt jarring with neon lights, flashing screens, and electronic music. The place was filled with people wearing everyday clothes and costus; mingling and competing, celebrating and bickering; the chaos slamd Sarah in the face the mont she stepped into the room. The dungeon.
"What...is this place?" Sarah blinked in a daze. It was rather over-stimulating for a hobody.
Which was perhaps why Hajin brought her there.
"You need to play gas outside of your room, Master."
At the reply uttered with a grin, Sarah bit her lips. She knew what the place was, but unlike a PC room, arcades were a place that would feel awkward if one were to co alone. And so, while she wanted to, she couldn’t co before.
This ti, however, she wasn’t alone.
"Oof--" Sarah yelped quietly when a cap was pressed onto her head, hiding her red hair. She might not be a celebrity, but who knew who would see her and snap a picture?
"Now," Hajin took her hand again and flashed a cheeky smile. "Why don’t we play to our heart’s content?"
* * *
Sarah had always been living inside a box.
When she was a child, she lived in a box that her family made. In her first adult life, she lived in a box that Mason made. Even in this second life, she still lived inside a box--the box she made herself from bricks of revenge.
Her life, made of nothing but a single goal; so bleak she barely let anything in. Even the friends she made along the way had sothing to do with that revenge. Like the whip coiling her shoulder, the box was trapping her. But she didn’t want to destroy the box, because it was as important as her life. Soone had to gently, very gently, pull her out of it.
"Hajin!"
Sarah scread out the bodyguard’s na as he, once again, shot her without rcy and lowered her health bar to thirty percent. She hid behind a virtual pillar as Hajin’s chuckle ca through her headphones.
"Aren’t you supposed to be my bodyguard?!"
[All is fair in love and war, my dear Master]
Ugh--so annoying. Sarah grumbled while raising her laser gun and shooting at where she thought Hajin would be, before pausing to wonder why she was so worked up about this. It was just a virtual reality ga without any reward even if she--
Pew! Pew!
A stream of red bullets pierced her avatar while her mind was wandering around.
[You shouldn’t space out on the battlefield, Master]
"..."
The screen grew red and then dark, flashing the word [YOU LOST] before the warring world crumbled down gradually, shifting back to the white, empty room.
"Hajiiiin!"
Sarah took out her headgear and twisted her lips as laughter ca from across the room. Hajin walked casually to the sulky-looking girl who at first doubted how imrsive a fake world could be. Ignoring the cute glare, he took Sarah’s headgear and led her outside. "Co, Master. I’ll show you sothing interesting."
Sarah pursed her lips, still vexed about the result--although she didn’t know why. Was it her competitive spirit spurring because she was supposed to be the gar one between them? Or was it because she had been used to getting spoiled by Hajin? It felt like a betrayal sowhat that he didn’t let her win in her first ga...
Ugh...betrayal--
"Look, Master."
Hajin nudged the girl and gently turned her toward a screen, and what she saw there made her forget about anything else. Because there, on the screen, were two people moving around the room with head gears and fake guns, rolling down and ducking behind nothing, shouting and shooting at each other like a pair of lunatics.
"Pfft--" Sarah clasped her mouth before laughing at herself on the screen. "What is that? We looked so silly!"
"Mm...I still think I looked good," Hajin stroked his chin.
"Don’t be a narcissist," Sarah rolled her eyes. "You were an agent--have so sha."
Hajin smirked a smirk and leaned down to whisper in the girl’s ear. "Don’t be a sore loser, Master. You still owed a kiss."
"S-shut up!" Sarah hissed, recalling the bet they made before the ga. A sly bet Hajin made in provocation--right, perhaps that was why she unknowingly beca worked up in the ga. "Who said it’s just one ga?"
With a chuckle, Hajin followed his master, who stomped away to another machine. Sarah said to herself that she wouldn’t get carried away, said she would be mature and not take things too seriously, but...
"Aaah! Once more!"
She soon found herself lost--both in the mont and in the racing ga. She pulled up from the bike controller, squinting her eyes at the smirking man beside her. Perhaps it was her own foolishness for picking a ga in sothing that Hajin was already good in real life, but...she was also good at riding, and it wasn’t in real life!
Hajin shrugged. "You should just give up."
That--the nonchalant tone and arrogant gaze as if he was good at everything was what spurred her competitive spirit. That face was so annoying, no matter how handso he was.
"Never!" Sarah hissed and snapped her fingers toward the machine.
Hajin chuckled and swiped the card--well, Sarah’s card--to the reader, and started the ga again. But truly, it was a child’s play for him. He could win without even trying, and indeed, he won twice more despite Sarah’s hard work and imnse focus.
It wasn’t because of the bet, however. He could have just let the girl win from the start, like a good employee. But would Sarah really like that? If Hajin lost from the start, she would probably realize right away that he was letting her win. There was no point in that case.
And sotis, the fastest way to forget about frustration was to cover it with another frustration.
"Aaargh!" Sarah slamd her fists against the steering wheel before flinching and looking around in embarrassnt. She giggled for a second before glaring at Hajin in the next. "Again."
This ti, Hajin expertly made a slight mistake that sent his virtual bike spinning after grazing the fence during a turn, making it possible for Sarah to overtake him and barely win the race.
"I win! I win!" she raised her arms in triumph, eyes lighting up in elation. "Hey, look at that! I won!"
Hajin smiled. Yes--that was the kind of face he wanted her to make; the kind of excitent and triumph that only ca after a long frustration.
But he retracted the smile before Sarah could see it, replacing it with a scoff. "Hmm...I guess one can be lucky sotis."
"Hey!"
Sarah smacked his arm in annoyance, but still laughed in the next second. "Let’s do sothing else!" she jumped off the machine and pulled on Hajin’s sleeve. "I want to do that thing where I can whack sothing repeatedly."
"And you said I was the one who vented through violence," the bodyguard rolled his eyes.
"Shuddup!"
And that was how Sarah spent twenty minutes in front of various whack-a-mole machines until a few children looked at her while whispering, wondering when they could use the machine next. Sarah left then, with embarrassnt and Hajin’s laughter.
For that transgression, Hajin received a punishnt of getting her so stuff from UFO-catcher on a limited budget. Finally, Sarah could make fun of his failing ass as the machine kept swallowing the coins. Hajin grumbled about how it had nothing to do with skill and more with the rigging, but Sarah couldn’t care less about his reasoning.
As long as she could laugh at the man.
Hajin developed a grudge toward the company afterward, but it was alright since Sarah was smiling widely as she hugged the huge plushie--even though buying similar stuff outside would probably cost less than what they spent on the machine.
Oh, well.
At least, he could redeem himself in the karaoke booth they went in to unwind after all the excitent. Sarah squinted her eyes dubiously at the high score on the screen.
"Why...are you so good at this?"
"I’m just good at everything," Hajin shrugged.
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"How annoying..."
And he even received an unexpected bonus as they walked out of the arcade.
"Oh, I’ve heard about this one," Sarah said when she spotted the photobooth near the entrance.
"Shall we try?"
Hajin already pulled her inside even before receiving a reply. Sarah looked around the booth, staring at the shelf of accessories and the screen with all kinds of features.
"How does this work?"
Hajin leaned down and hovered above the screen, smiling cheekily. "We choose this option here and--" he paused, faking a tense shoulder and looked up to his flinching master. "Oh, I pressed it by accident..."
"What? What now?" Sarah looked around in panic. "W-what’s that tir? What is this beeping?"
"Co, Master--quick!"
Hajin pulled the confused girl close, holding her shoulder and told her to make several poses and expressions. Sarah followed everything in frantic confusion; even after it ended a few seconds later, she was still dazed and confused.
What’s going on? Who am I? Where am I?
"Oh, not bad~" Hajin took the result; two sheets of stickers with four photos each.
"What?" Sarah blinked and finally moved away from the screen, peeking at the pictures in Hajin’s hands. "Oh..."
"Right?"
Sarah narrowed her eyes dubiously as Hajin placed the stickers on her hand. "I feel like I was being tricked..."
Hajin rely chuckled and led her out, holding her small back as they returned to the parking lot while she was staring at the photo stickers. While seemingly grumbling about it, Sarah couldn’t look away from the pictures. It was filled with her awkward and bewildered face, while Hajin was striking cool poses beside her. It was annoying and unsightly, and she would normally chuck the pictures into the bin; and yet...
She couldn’t. She couldn’t throw them away, the faces she made without any pretense. Without any mask. The face of soone stepping out of her box and living her life, not the face of soone who had just faced a big betrayal.
She looked at the back of the man who led her into making those faces, into forgetting what she had gone through that day, even just for a short two hours. During which, he never once asked whether she was having fun or whether she was alright. Truly treating it like a date, instead of a way to distract her tumultuous mind.
As they raced on a real bike, back to the hotel where they parked their car, Sarah found herself laying her head on the sturdy, steady back that seed to know her more than herself. The betrayal she experienced could not be erased, but she didn’t lose the ability to trust thanks to this man. If she were alone back then, would she still have the energy to play around?
Or would she be found drowning in the tub?
Sarah closed her eyes and clutched his leather jacket tight, drowning in a mont where she could continue to forget the pain and sorrow. It was hard to let go of it, the sweet tranquil of forgetting about herself and the box she lived in. She knew she had to return, but like a child who didn’t want to go ho from the amusent park, Sarah found herself clutching the edge of Hajin’s jacket even after the bike’s engine was off.
"We’re here, Master," Hajin patted the girl’s knee. "Do you want to stay in the hotel tonight or go back to the--"
"Do you..." Sarah bit her lips, pressing her head against the broad back. With a trembling heart and dizzy head, she muttered quietly. "Do you want to...eat ramyeon?"
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦
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