By Zephyria 
Faced with this unbelievable reality, Mo Yeon-hu felt as if his vision were turning yellow.
‘Miu was Kwon Mi-eon?’
Why hadn’t he known? Self-reproach flooded over him, but in truth, it would have been difficult to notice.
In reality, while Kwon Mi-eon acted strangely at times, he was basically a gentle boy who clung to him. But what about Miu in the game?
‘Their personalities are way too different!’
Miu had an icy personality, with a hidden barb in every word; it was simply impossible to imagine they were the same person.
But what good was analyzing this now? The milk had already been spilled, and there was a more urgent problem at hand.
‘Then… have I been doing that to Kwon Mi-eon all this time?’
The things he had done to Miu in the game flashed before his eyes like a panorama.
[(General) 0momo0: You’re the one who made me like you first—so why are you playing innocent now!!]
[(General) 0momo0: Me too!!]
[(General) 0momo0: I wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t so cute and like a baby rabbit!!]
[(General) 0momo0: I reaaaally reaaally like you, so whyㅠㅠㅠ]
Me, who had bombarded Miu—no, Kwon Mi-eon—with confessions time and time again…
[(Alliance) 0momo0: You’re seriously so pretty and cute]
[(Alliance) 0momo0: Miu-nim is truly a total pretty-cutie-tiny baby rabbit >_<]
Me, who had diligently called Kwon Mi-eon a baby rabbit…
[(CH03) 0momo0: Hi..]
[(CH03) 0momo0: Miu-ya]
Me, who had been so fluttered and overwhelmed by the thought of speaking informally to Kwon Mi-eon…
[(CH03) 0momo0: Then]
[(CH03) 0momo0: Perhaps..]
[(CH03) 0momo0: Could you call me Oppa?]
Me, who had acted all sorts of coquettish, asking a fully grown adult man like Kwon Mi-eon to call him… Oppa…
[(CH03) 0momo0: Oppa can do anything for you hehehe]
Had he really been doing those things to Kwon Mi-eon? Mo Yeon-hu froze with a pale face, then staggered.
“Excuse me?”
“…….”
“Are you alright?”
Seeing Mo Yeon-hu suddenly go silent and sway with a ghostly pallor, Kang Mi-yeong asked worriedly, sounding flustered.
“Are you feeling sick?”
At her kind voice, Mo Yeon-hu looked up. Her face was filled with concern.
Normally, he would have been happy enough to feel like he owned the world at Mi-yeong’s attention, but now he didn’t even have the mental capacity to look at her closely.
‘Miu is Kwon Mi-eon, Miu is Kwon Mi-eon, Miu is… Kwon Mi-eon…’
Mo Yeon-hu stood there, his face still pale, and held out his card.
“I’m fine. Please… just take the payment.”
“Oh, yes!”
Remembering that they had drifted into small talk while ordering, Mo Yeon-hu paid for the coffee.
“Here is your receipt. I’ll have it ready for you right away!”
“You don’t have to prepare it.”
Mo Yeon-hu shook his head. Right now, he didn’t want to drink a latte or anything else. However, since he had come all the way to the cafe at this hour, it felt odd to just walk out. As Kang Mi-yeong looked at him bewildered, Mo Yeon-hu added an explanation.
“Something urgent came up, so I think I have to leave immediately. Please have whatever you’d like with that. If you don’t want anything, you can give it to another customer.”
Kang Mi-yeong’s eyes widened. Mo Yeon-hu bowed his head apologetically and stepped back.
“What? Wait a moment. Then I’ll just refund this… .”
“I’ll be going. I’m sorry.”
“Excuse me!”
Kang Mi-yeong shouted in surprise, but Mo Yeon-hu did not look back. He left the building in an instant, as if he had never even entered the cafe.
Clunk, slam!
“Ah.”
The moment he opened the car door and slumped into the driver’s seat, all the strength left his body. He leaned his forehead against the steering wheel and gasped for air.
“Crazy, how does this even make sense… .”
He was confused. All those moments he had spent happily playing the game with Ms. Mi-yeong were actually spent with Kwon Mi-eon.
‘Was the phone I saw back then Kwon Mi-eon’s?’
He clearly remembered seeing the screen at the cafe counter where Zombie Village was running under the nickname ‘Miu,’ so why on earth…
‘Charging…’
Thinking about it, there had been a charger plugged into the phone. It’s common to leave phones to charge at cafes, and besides, the two of them were family.
‘But that’s strange. Miu and Kwon Mi-eon had different numbers.’
Yeon-hu, who had been roughly messing with his hair, suddenly snapped his head up. He searched through his phone contacts. As expected, the numbers for ‘my young love’ and ‘Kwon Mi-eon’ were distinctly different. If they were the same, he would have known when saving them.
‘How…? No, wait. I think Kwon Mi-eon had two phones last time.’
It was when he met Kwon Mi-eon at the cafe early in the morning. Mo Yeon-hu had been distracted by a notification that the 47 Alliance was being raided, but thinking back, Kwon Mi-eon had also checked his phone because of a call or something.
‘Sorry. Just a moment, Hyung.’
It was a different phone!
‘He probably received the same alliance raid notification as I did! Ah, I should have realized it then…! If I had only noticed then, I wouldn’t have left behind such a mountain of dark history!’
Mo Yeon-hu wailed, slamming his head against the steering wheel again and groaning while clutching his hair.
‘But why did Kwon Mi-eon tell me he doesn’t play the game?’
The more he chewed over it, the stranger the behavior seemed.
‘You… play this, Hyung?’
‘Yeah. Zombie Village. Do you know this?’
‘No. I have no idea.’
He had definitely said that then. That he didn’t know Zombie Village. Since he looked at the monitor with eyes that seemed to be seeing it for the first time, Mo Yeon-hu had explained his necromancer character and even showed him Miu on his friend list.
‘How could he lie with such a straight face? Why did he deceive me?’
It made no sense. There was no reason to lie in the first place, and there were plenty of opportunities to reveal his identity. So why did he remain silent until the end? Since when did he know that I was 0momo0?
‘Could it be that he knew everything from the start and was just teasing me?’
Was it intentional that he had treated him like a servant, making him do all sorts of things as a spy, and even making him sign that strange slave contract? If so, every time he approached him calling him a baby rabbit or asking to be called Oppa…
‘He must have found it incredibly amusing.’
Imagining Kwon Mi-eon giggling behind the screen, Mo Yeon-hu’s eyes sharpened. But to say he deceived him with that intention…
‘…Is this your character, Hyung?’
‘Yep!’
‘Why? Why… Hyung…’
He seemed quite surprised when he saw the character at his house. Did he find out then?
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what’s what.’
Mo Yeon-hu let out a deep sigh.
His thoughts returned to the starting point. That Kwon Mi-eon was Miu. And that Miu knew 0momo0 was Mo Yeon-hu…
But regardless of what it was, Mo Yeon-hu…
‘…feels a bit off.’
He didn’t feel great. To think he had played the game together for so long, and they even saw each other’s faces offline, yet he kept his mouth shut until the end.
‘I thought we were quite close, both in the game and in reality.’
As soon as that thought occurred, Mo Yeon-hu paused and his eyes widened.
“Upset…?”
I’m upset? Over Kwon Mi-eon? Over that guy who used the excuse of friendship to contact me burdensomely and annoy me?
‘No. It’s just because it’s embarrassing. I’m just embarrassed that I was mistaken.’
Mo Yeon-hu denied his emotions. Even from the opposite perspective, it couldn’t be more embarrassing. He had believed the other person was a woman, told them to call him Oppa, and sometimes called them Noona, acting as if he would give them his heart and soul. To find out the target was a dark-skinned man—he was just acting this way because he was mortified by the embarrassment.
‘But why do I feel… so bad.’
The embarrassment was one thing, but why did his heart sink more and more the more he thought about it? Mo Yeon-hu stared blankly out the car window with a confused expression.
Ding. In the silence of the car, the phone rang. The name appearing in the preview window was the three characters he least wanted to face in this world right now.
Kwon Mi-eon Now
Hyung, what are you doing today?
They say a tiger comes when you speak of it; he contacted me like a ghost. While Mo Yeon-hu glared at the screen, another message arrived.
Kwon Mi-eon Now
There’s something I want to tell you, do you want to meet for a bit?
“Ah, seriously, am I an idiot… .”
Staring blankly at the preview, Mo Yeon-hu dropped his head. Now that he knew everything, it felt as if he could hear someone’s voice in every message.
“The way he talks is exactly the same.”
Kwon Mi-eon is Miu.
With even the smallest grain of doubt—which he had tried to deny until the end—completely gone, Mo Yeon-hu burst into a series of hollow laughs.