Chapter 122: Friends

After hearing Doah’s sneeze, Gyuho and Seongjin stared at each other.

“…Huh?”

The slightly surprised voices they let out made my body freeze in surprise.

“Oi, that’s…”

Seongjin said, trailing off.

At that moment, an ominous feeling washed over me.

No way. There was no way they’d figure that out just from that…

“…Um?”

Meanwhile, Doah, completely oblivious that she caused this strange atmosphere, turned to look at me.

“Wow… Han Taemin…”

Gyuho didn’t stare at me with wide eyes, but I could see the clear hostility in them.

“We need to talk. Just us and you.”

Hearing that, all sorts of thoughts raced through my mind.

“Huh? Why?”

Still not grasping the situation, Doah asked that, but those guys just waved their hands, saying that it was nothing.

Meanwhile, I was basically sitting on pins and needles, so I had to consider the worst case scenario unfolding from here on.

But, seriously, though?

I didn’t know that they were such a hardcore Pink Army that they could tell just from hearing that.

My already weakened mental state now started to shatter apart.

“Ah, it’s nothing, Doah-ssi~ By the way, what is it that you like about Taemin?”

Meanwhile, Hyunsu, the only one who hadn’t seemed to have caught on, just stared blankly at the other two.

“What I like about Taemin oppa…? U-Um… Well, first of all, he treats me really well…”

As for Doah, she didn’t even have the leisure to worry about the possibility that those guys found out about her identity.

Those guys kept throwing questions at her while she struggled to answer them. She was totally on the defensive here.

“Ah, yeah, most people in our department know about us.”

“Oho, really? I bet Taemin was popular there too, yeah?”

I rarely said anything about what happened in college in front of these guys, so when they brought it up, it felt like they were uncovering a secret of mine somehow.

“I…think yeah…? Um, it’s a little embarrassing to say this, but… Oppa is…quite handsome, after all… so…”

Meanwhile, Doah seemed to be embarrassed to brag about me as she fidgeted with her fingers. As she did that, I had to watch my friends’ faces rot away in real-time.

“Hold up, so all that shit about you being a total nobody and living like a hermit was a complete bullshit, huh?”

“Meh, knew it. Guess we’re the fools for believing his words. Oh, well.”

No, you guys got the wrong idea!

I really, really fucking tried to live quietly!

Fuck, did you think it was easy to maintain a cold and detached attitude towards others, huh?!

Maintaining an expressionless face constantly was fucking tiring, you know?!

Just as I was about to let out a deep sigh thanks to my predicament, our food finally arrived.

A bowl of pasta for each person.

And a large 8-sliced pizza, shared among everyone.

Of course, without waiting for anyone’s cue those three immediately gulped down their food while Doah watched them while blinking.

“U-Um… I-It seems like everyone is very hungry…”

Eating without saying a word was normal for us.

But Doah obviously wasn’t used to this kind of interaction.

“Huh? What’s wrong, Doah-ssi? You should eat too!”

Gyuho told that to her while stretching out the cheese in his slice.

Before those fuckers could thoughtlessly take Doah’s share, I immediately placed a slice on her plate.

“Just relax and eat, Doah.”

By the way, these bastards had been like this ever since we were back at school.

And honestly, I wasn’t much different from them.

Even if we were going to restaurants, we’d chat a lot, but the moment the food arrived, we wouldn’t speak a  single word.

It was partly because we were too busy eating. Also, if there was a shared menu, the place would turn into a battle to secure our portions.

“Mmm… It’s delicious…”

Anyway, I gave her a slice of pizza to eat, but she was just munching on the bread appetizer instead.

I thought about teasing her about it, but seeing her grin, I just picked up my fork silently.

“Ah, that was good.”

Seongjin said that, showing his completely empty bowl.

His bowl was so clean that there was barely any sauce left at the bottom.

“Huh…? You’re already done?”

Meanwhile, Doah still had about half her pasta left.

Knowing that she’d try to eat quickly after seeing this scene, I immediately assured her so that she wouldn’t feel bad about making them wait.

“Don’t worry, Doah, just eat slowly. These guys normally eat quickly.”

“But…”

“No, no, Doah-ssi, just take your time!”

Even after that, Doah still seemed conscious of it, focusing on eating rather than talking. Meanwhile the guys already moved on and started their weeb talk.

“So, any good anime came out this year?”

“Hiki the Rock was decent.”

“Huh? Isn’t that just an average cute girls doing cute things?”

Once a topic they liked came up, these guys would lose all their brakes.

If it was just the four of us here, I’d join in on this overly enthusiastic talk, but today I had someone I needed to look for.

I refilled Doah’s empty glass with water.

“Drink some, you might choke.”

“Thank you.”

See, this girl had been so focused on eating that she didn’t even notice the sauce on her mouth.

Guess she still felt bad about being the only one who hadn’t finished her food.

“Hold on.”

When I wiped her mouth with a napkin, silence fell on the other side of the table, even though it had been noisy up until that point.

“…What?”

This chilly atmosphere only doubled the previously existing awkwardness.

“Ah, seriously, Han Taemin… Why can’t you have some manners? We came out of here because you invited us, you know?”

“Ugh, it’s so infuriating to see… Fuck, I’m so jealous…”

Seongjin said so while biting his lip hard and glaring at me as if he really wanted to kill me.

Fine, I got it! Sorry, I won’t do it again!

Thankfully, Doah soon finished her meal. She then got up, saying she’d go to the bathroom for a moment.

After my friends confirmed that she had disappeared down the corridor…

The atmosphere around us changed drastically.

As if they had rehearsed it already, the three of them interlocked their fingers before placing their elbows on the table, making a pose just like the Three Admirals from a certain manga.¹

“…Taemin-kun.”

Gyuho, who was sitting in the middle, lowered his voice.

“I thought you were at least human, but…”

While I knew that what they’d say was all bullshit, I could still feel the tension rising up.

“See? I told you! I knew this bastard would pull something someday! He had been planning something like this all along, using that face of his!”

As baseless accusations flowed from Seongjin’s mouth, Hyunsu, who was sitting on the right side, also chimed in.

“Poor Doah-ssi… What should we do…”

…What? Doah?

What were they on about?

How did she become the pitiful one so suddenly?

Their following words made me understand everything.

“I know you’re a crazy Luka simp, but how could you get a Luka-tan knockoff as a girlfriend?!”

Gyuho slammed his fist on the table, making the cola in the glasses rippled like waves.

“Yeah! What are you going to do if she finds out, huh, Han Taemin?! Do you think this is right?!”

Seongjin also started to protest against me strongly, as if he couldn’t forgive my misdeed.

“I know we’re friends and all, but… Haaa… You shouldn’t do this, dude.”

Well, this was better than them finding out that Luka was actually Doah, but…

Having them misunderstood me like this didn’t feel exactly pleasant at all.

“It’s not like that. We go out because we get along well, it isn’t because she resembles Luka.”

“Remember yesterday when we saw her pic? We were like, what the hell did Han Taemin see in her? But now that we’ve met her, it all made perfect sense.”

I could easily get out of this situation by telling them that she was the real deal, but there was no way I’d do that.

So I resigned myself to be their punching bag, closing my eyes, as if telling them to just keep on hitting me.

“What if Luka-tan actually appears in front of you someday and says she likes you? What are you going to do then?”

“As if that would ever happen, though.”

I didn’t fucking know either!

How would I know that something like this would happen to me?!

After that, they went on a passionate rant on a hypothesis that had already happened.

As they went on and on, they looked as if they were about to spit on my face.

“Hey! At least tell Doah-ssi that you like Luka-tan!”

At that moment, a familiar silhouette stopped in front of our table.

Time seemed to slow down.

The four of us froze like a paused video.

Our reflections were captured in Doah’s deep brown eyes.

“…What were you talking about?”

The three otakus who had been ranting passionately just moments ago were now silent.

Then, Doah’s face turned towards me, as if demanding an explanation.

“So, Oppa? What were you talking about?”

Her informal speech felt like a knife, cutting through me.

I swallowed hard.

“Ah, well, there’s this streamer called Luka… We were just talking about her a little…”

“But why was my name mentioned? I’m pretty sure I heard ‘Doah-ssi’.”

“That’s…”

My brain short-circuited, I couldn’t say anything to her.

It seemed like Doah was misunderstanding something too… Fuck… Should I just leave it at this…?

“Doah-ssi.”

At that moment, Hyunsu lowered his voice and looked straight into Doah’s eyes.

“…We have something to tell you.”

Dude, what the fuck? Stop! Don’t do that!

What the fuck were you trying to say anyway?!

Wipe that dying comrade making his final stand from a shonen manga look off your face, you bastard!

You see, otakus sometimes have a tendency to think they sound cool when they say things like this.

And most of the time, they ended up sounding extremely cringe if anything!

…Meanwhile, Doah’s eyes widened at Hyunsu’s words.