༺ Denial Phase ༻
[oppa, are you asleep?]
Should I interpret these four words just as they were?
I doubt that she was genuinely curious whether I was asleep or not.
It was past 1 AM, a very late hour of the night.
For so, it was already ti to be in dreamland; for others, it might be the middle of the day, but for , it was quite late.
[No. Why?]
Deciding to refrain from overreacting, I chose to observe the situation a bit longer.
[so, about the pictures we took back when we went to the experience center…]
[Yeah?]
Normally, I would have replied with a ‘?’, but since it was Doah, I responded with a complete word.
[can i get the ones that you didn’t upload to the group chat?]
I didn’t upload every picture we took to the group chat.
Only the most relevant ones, or those that seed helpful for our project. I kept the rest in my phone.
[Sure, I’ll send them. Wait a sec.]
I opened my cara roll and tapped on the related folder. Traces of Doah from back then remained untouched inside.
There was one of Doah wearing a headset, playing a rhythm ga while waving her arms around wildly, and another of her standing in front of the center’s entrance holding a gun.
Huh? When did I take this one?
What caught my attention was a video that I hadn’t properly checked because I was in a hurry to send the rest to the group chat.
The thumbnail was just a dark background, so I skipped over it, thinking that it was irrelevant to our project.
Said video was thirteen seconds long.
Guess I should see what it was before deleting it…
「Kyaaaaaaa! Oppa!」
“Oh shit, that scared .”
Because my phone’s volu was set a little bit high, both Doah’s and the ghost’s scream surprised .
Right… This was from that ti… Back when we played that horror ga…
I turned the volu down and resud the video that I paused.
「It’s okay, Doah!」
You know, I always found my voice disgusting whenever I got to hear it.
That was already bad enough, then there were also the cringe-worthy lines I said, as if I was a male lead in a self-insert ani, which added to my disgust.
「I’m here.」
Seriously, Han Taemin, what the fuck were you doing?
Back then, in the middle of my fluster, I was trying to reassure Doah, but watching the video again made want to crawl into a rat hole.
If Luka-tan had heard it while sober, would she have fainted?
「Sigh~ Otaku guys~ If you do that to a girl, she’ll really like it~」
「Everyone~ Life isn’t 2D, you know?」
Thinking back, that would definitely be her reaction.
Like a total degenerate…
Though I the cold reality was hitting , I still managed to group all the pictures with Doah in it and send them all to her.
[That should be everything.]
[thank you!]
Still, did she really contact just to get these?
It wasn’t like I was expecting anything big, but her first text made hope a little, you know?
She asked , ‘Are you asleep?’ after all. No way it would end just like this, right?
[Doah.]
[yes?]
Because it felt disappointing to end our conversation like that, I called her na.
Her reply ca much faster than I expected, which wasn’t a good thing because my mind was refusing to work properly.
After a while, she sent another question mark since I failed to co up with a reply.
In the end, I succumbed to the psychological pressure and typed whatever ca to mind.
[Do you like rhythm gas?]
Fuck. What kind of question was that?
I felt like an idiot for sending it, so I tried to delete it, but the delivering ssage bar had already disappeared.
It seed like my question caught Doah off guard. The ‘read’ indicator was there, but she hadn’t replied to .
Putting aside the fact that Doah was Luka, from her perspective, wouldn’t she be thinking, ‘What’s this guy on about?’
But this girl wasn’t just any girl.
She was a VTuber who happened to be my favorite, so I thought it was weird that my words were coming out so smoothly while talking to her.
After all, when you saw people at fan signing, so would start crying just by seeing their idol’s faces.
[yes. do you also like them, oppa?]
Huh, really? She actually responded to that question?
I swear this was the type of question that made want to tear my hair out, but she sohow answered it properly.
W-Wait, since that was the case, I shouldn’t let her hanging!
[You seed really good at it that day.]
[It was my first ti playing a rhythm ga, and I found it fun, so I’m thinking of going back again.]
That was a lie.
I’ve played rhythm gas before, but I didn’t really enjoy them.
You literally just moved your fingers to follow the beat, what was so great about it?
[which ga do you wanna play?]
To Doah’s rather proactive reply, I had to rack my brain in the middle of the night, which I normally wouldn’t do.
[I’m not too sure actually, so I thought I’d get a recomndation for a rhythm ga from you and try that.]
Was that the right thing to say?
I managed to write a response sohow, but I couldn’t decide if it was a smart move.
[wait.]
She told as such… But she didn’t send a reply even after ten minutes had passed.
…Maybe she went to sleep?
I waited because she asked to, but I wouldn’t hate her even if she fell asleep here.
While I was giggling in my room, chatting and watching the stream, Doah had actually been working.
She must have been tired.
Talking to your viewers for hours wasn’t an easy job.
Sigh. Guess I should just brush my teeth, then go to sleep—
[New ssage has arrived!]
[New ssage has arrived!]
[New ssage has arrived!]
[New ssage has arrived!]
[New ssage has arrived!]
The insistent ringing of notifications made sit up in bed again, eyes wide.
Each of the many ssages ca with a video link and footnote-like explanations.
[this ga is called dj tech, and the chanics are a bit diff from the one we played that day…]
[this is called jubeat, you just hit squares to the beat. it’s not too hard for beginners…]
With a glance, I could tell that these explanations weren’t sothing she copy-pasted off the internet.
After all, they included her personal opinions on what was fun.
I managed to read through everything, but that left with a problem. What should I reply?
Since I’ve received such a thoughtful barrage of responses, it felt like I should reply to her seriously and give the explanations a more thorough look.
[Hmm… Looking at the videos, Jubeat seems the most interesting?]
As I picked out what seed to be the best ga, Doah quickly responded again.
[the thing with jubeat is… unless you own the machine yourself, you have to go to an arcade to play it.]
Well, I guess this one was no good.
Just as I was about to reply, ‘What a sha, I’ll try sothing else’…
[there’s one near our neighborhood!]
Arcade, huh…?
While I liked gas and all, most of my gas were PC gas. I barely went to the arcades.
[if oppa wants to learn, i can help.]
↳[ssage deleted.]
Sadly for her, she seed to lack the skill of deleting a ssage before it was seen; the skill that I desperately wished to have just a mont ago.
Unaware that I had already seen her ssage, Doah bravely continued.
[here’s the address of the arcade, it would be nice to go and try it out!]
Doah sent a map link.
Hesitating on how to reply, I moved my fingers, using her deleted ssage as an inspiration and sent her a reply without a thought.
[Let’s do this. If you’re going there, I’ll join you and learn how to play from you. What do you think?]
That should be a good reply, no?
This way, it’d feel like I was the one who wanted to follow her along instead of her inviting to go with her.
I thought that was a good reply, but despite the sending bar disappearing a while ago, Doah hadn’t given her reply. Maybe my reply wasn’t as good as I thought?
[how about this weekend?]
[This weekend sounds good. Saturday? Or Sunday?]
[i have work on saturday, so sunday would be better.]
Ah, right.
I literally just heard about her schedule, but I completely forgot about it already.
[Then let’s et on Sunday!]
[yes! anyways, im going to sleep now. see you at school oppa!]
She sent a sticker of a cat holding its phone while sleeping.
I sent a sticker of a dog waving a ‘sleep well’ as a reply. Honestly, I didn’t know how to feel.
The only thing I knew was that I had beco wide awake.
Until just before we started texting, I was craving for a good sleep, but now I couldn’t even close my eyes.
My heart seed to beat a little faster.
I knew these symptoms well.
No, it wasn’t because I had experienced it before.
Rather, I never even imagined that I would experience sothing like this.
I thought I would never have to deal with it in my life, and I also thought living the rest of my life alone wouldn’t be so bad.
However, my sixth sense, honed from devouring everything from romantic cody ani to pure love manga and romance web novels, was pointing in one direction.
Wow… Did I really just say that…?
A chuckle escaped .
Han Taemin’s disease.
It was precisely the ‘Denial Phase’.
You can rate/review this serieshere.
Illustrаtiоns on our discord – discord.gg/genesistls
/genesisforsaken
Reviews
All reviews (0)