chapter two / i
Ddaeng
(002)

After meeting the last member of the group, Jungkook, we ordered food and some coffee to fill up our energy bar before going out to do anything.

"Tell us a little bit about yourself," Jimin instructs me, resting his chin on top of his hands. At that moment, a waiter drops off our food and drinks, so I wait awkwardly for him to finish before I begin speaking. We all thank the waiter before continuing our conversation.

"There's not really much to know about me," I sip on my latte and shrug. I'm amazed that I'm able to taste the liquid. I know that the headset for the game sends signals to your brain so that you can feel, smell, hear, and taste things, but the complex technology still baffles me.

"Oh, c'mon! Unless your just a bot, you've gotta have something in your life to share," Namjoon remarks, crossing his arms.

I set my mouth in a tight line, trying hard to think of something they might be interested to know. "Well, I'm nineteen years old," I start, "I'm about to start my first year in college, I live in Chicago, and I have a pet snake named William Snakespeare."

Yoongi snorts. "Clever," he says with an approving smile.

Hoseok shivers beside me. "I hate snakes," he trembled.

"But my snake is really cute and nice," I exclaimed, "look, I'll send you a picture I have upload-"

"Do it and I'll kill you with this straw," the boy deadpans. My mouth is left agape at his response, and I begin to shift uncomfortably in my seat.

Jungkook laughs. "Hyung, we both know you couldn't kill her."

Hoseok slumps in his chair and pouts. "Fine. Yoongi, kill her with a straw!"

"No."

"But Yoongi," the red haired boy whines loudly.

"I'm not killing our new teammate," Yoongi states in an exasperated tone. "If you want it done so badly, do it yourself."

"But I don't have the guts to do it," Hoseok complains.

Yoongi lifts his eyebrow, "And you think I do?"

All of the boys awkwardly look down at the table, avoiding eye contact with the boy as the air grows silent, everyone hesitant to answer.

"Well..." Hoseok shifts in his chair, "yeah."

Yoongi narrows his eyes. "I hate all of you."

"I still like you, Yoongi," I say in a reassuring voice.

"I appreciate that," he smirks, taking a sip of his steaming cup of tea. Jungkook copies Yoongi's response to me in a mocking tone and laughs. Yoongi simply looks up from his cup of tea and throws a threatening glare to the younger boy.

"S-sory, Hyung," Jungkook quickly apologizes, taking a large gulp. The other boys all chuckle in response.

I only furrow my eyebrows and tilt my head. "Hyung?" I've never heard that word before, so Jungkook's use of it leaves me confused.

"In Korea we use that to refer to someone who is your older brother," Jin explains. "We're not related, but we're all like brothers here."

Namjoon then goes on to explain honorifics to me. It's used for people that are older than you. Since, apparently, I'm older than Jungkook, Taehyung, and Jimin, they would call me Noona.

"What would I call you?" I asked Namjoon.

Namjoon laughs nervously and scratches the back of his neck, a shade of red painting his face. "O-oppa," he stutters.

"Oppa?" I repeat, feeling a bit unsure of if I'm saying it right or not. Yoongi chokes on his tea, Namjoon turns a deeper shade of red, Hosoek spits out his lemonade, Jin looks like he just learned all of the secrets of the universe, and all of the younger boys giggle. "What? Did I say it wrong?"

"No," Namjoon says, looking anywhere but at me, "You just sounded really cute when you said it." I look down at my hands, like I suddenly found something very interesting about them, and try my very best to hide the smile creeping up on my face.

While we finish eating our food, we discuss what challenges we could do together in the game. Jimin opens the display from his arm band, which the boys informed me was called a 'Holopad', and scrolled through all the challenges for group players. Jimin read a long list of options before the boys finally settle on playing man hunt. I chuckled at the name. I guess calling it hide and seek was too childish.

When we're done at the cafe, we pay for the meal with the video game currency, Eleuro. Jimin sends an invitation to play man hunt. My arm band lights up a bright blue color, and the Holopad appears in front of my eyes. I see that everyone else has already accepted the invitation. I tap the 'accept' option, and almost immediately, we're all transported to a bright white room.

I squint my eyes, trying to adjust to the harsh lighting in the room. The floor, walls, and ceiling are all painted white. On the side of the room opposite to us, is a blue panel and a tall, white door next to it. Hoseok is the first of us to excitedly run to the panel. As soon as we all gather around it, a face of a middle aged man with a flat nose and thin lips appears.

"Please tap the button on the bottom right corner of the screen to apply the man hunt garb," the man instructs us, "if you would like to exit, tap the button on the bottom left corner." Jungkook presses the button on the right with no hesitation. At that very moment, my white dress begins to turn black, and the shape morphs into long, skinny pants, a t-shirt, and a nice fitting jacket. Black sneakers form over my dirty feet. I walk a bit in place to find that the shoes are very light and quiet, perfect for sneaking around. I look up to see that the boys are all dressed in similar clothes.

"The rules for this game are simple," the man on the screen states, "your group will split up into two groups; hunters, and the prey. You will all be randomly placed into a team. Hunters will be supplied with a laser gun. The prey will each be rewarded with 5,000 Eleuro if at least one of them can last until the timer runs out. The hunters will each be rewarded with 5,000 Eleuro if they can find and hit each person on the other team with their laser gun before the timer runs out." Sounds easy enough, I thought to myself. "Please play safely, and enjoy the game."

The man on the screen disappears, and the door that once closed off this room slides open. I bring a hand over my eyes to shield them from the overwhelming light coming from the exit.

We walk into the newly accessible area. Lush, green grass covers the ground, and a tall canopy of trees stands plentiful over us. Here and there are a few wooden buildings, I'm guessing to hide in. A holopad suddenly appears above us, showing a list of our names. Before, there was only one list of names, but one by one, our names either move to the right or left, forming two different lists. The list of the names on the left turn blue. I glance over it to see my name, Jungkook, Hoseok, and Yoongi. The list of names on the right turns red. That list has Namjoon, Jin, Taehyung, and Jimin.

"Blue team will be the prey, and red team will be the hunters," the familiar voice of the man that was in the white room boomed. I looked to my right to see a laser gun appear in Jimin's hands. He meets my eyes and smirks, wiggling his eyebrows. I swallow harshly and slightly step away from him, suddenly feeling a bit nervous.

"Blue team, you have one minute to hide. Once that time runs out, a timer of fifteen minutes will begin to countdown. That will be the time the red team has to find and tag the blue team," the man announces. I nod my head and prepare my body to run as fast as possible. "Blue team, your timer starts counting down now." And with that, me, Junkook, Hoseok, and Yoongi take off. A sphere like shield forms over the other team, and then turns an opaque black color, I guess to keep them from seeing where we go.

We all decide that it'd be best to split up, that way it'd be more difficult for the other team to find all of us at once. I decide to hide in one of the buildings, but not before I find a second escape route in case someone comes through the door. There are no windows in this room, so I tap on my arm band and select an option on the holopad that allows me to make modifications to the gaming room. I take out a small section of the wall, only big enough for me to slip through. Once that's done, I take a glance at the time on my holopad. Only five seconds left. The red team will be coming for me soon. I try to calm my breathing and my pounding heart, adrenaline courses through my veins, making that task difficult.

"Ready or not," Taehyung sings.

"Here we come," Namjoon finishes, his deep voice sending chills up my spine. Who knew that such a sweet, soft boy could be so intimidating.

I clasp a hand over my mouth to muffle the sound of my breathing. Suddenly, I hear a scream and loud cursing. It's Hoseok. Did someone find him already? I tap my arm band again and connect my holopad to his. His face appears on the screen, his breathing is heavy, and he looks like he might've just wet his pants.

"Be careful, Wren. There's jump scares in this game. They're probably set up to make us scream so the other team can find us easier." I swear under my breath. Thank you to the game announcer for letting us in on that useful bit of information. I only hope I can keep quiet if I run into something. I thank Hoseok for the information and suggest he find a new hiding spot before one of the hunters get to him.

I turn off the holopad and listen carefully to my surroundings to make sure no one is approaching my hideout. I stiffen when I hear a tree branch crack right outside the small shack. I don't know whether I should get ready to bolt out of the door, or jump out of the window I made. I'll have to wait and see which entrance they decide to look through. I wait anxiously until I hear a hand grab the door handle. As soon as I see the door open, I quickly slam the door back and hit whoever was standing on the other side with it. Taehyung.

I hear him hiss in pain as I bolt towards the window. Taehyung scrambles to pick up the gun he dropped when I hit him with the door, but I've already made it to my exit. Before I can spring myself up and out of the window, a jump scare activates. A woman with dirty, tangled, black hair, rotting skin, and a mouth gurgling with blood jumps up through the other side of the window and shrieks at me. I return her scream with one of my own, much louder and intense than hers. I lift myself up on the window and kick the woman's face away from me. I jump out of the window and over the decaying woman's body, all while still screaming. I decide to keep running straight forward where the ground starts to go downhill. I keep running, not daring to look behind me, but then someone grabs my waist. I start to scream, still feeling unsettled by the woman from the building, but another hand covers over my mouth before I can let anything out.

"Don't scream, it's Jungkook." I feel myself relax a bit which causes Jungkook to release his grip on me. "Come on, before Taehyung catches up." Jungkook extends a hand towards me. I take it, and suddenly, a sphere forms over us. It can only be seen by ripples in it that resembles light shining through water. I turn to Jungkook and tilt my head in a questioning look.

"I found some very convenient cheats before joining the game," Jungkook explains smugly. "No one can see us, even though we can see them." As if to confirm what he said, Taehyung comes running in our direction. He scans the area, but keeps running. Right past us.

I laugh in amazement. "Have you been hiding here the whole time?"

Jungkook nods in response. "I would've told everyone else about it so we could hide together and get the reward, but it can't hold four people... yet, that is," he says proudly. "I didn't want anyone to argue about who got to hide with me, so I just didn't say anything. Then I saw you run past me for dear life, and decided to help you out, but this stays between us, okay?" I nod my head in compliance, just happy that I was able to get out of there without being hit.

"Thanks for the help,"

"Anytime." Jungkook winks at me.

I looked at my holopad to see that there was still five minutes left to the game, so I decided to ask Jungkook about how he found the shield. I learned that Jungkook is somewhat of a gaming genius. Whatever there is to find in a game, he's already found it. Any cheats and hacks, he knows them. I decide that Jungkook is someone I want to team up with whenever possible. He tells me how he wants to be a video game designer once he graduates, and how important video games are to him.

"The real world kind of sucks, ya know?" He says, a sad and dark tone to his voice. "It's nice to just leave it all for a while." I agree with him. There's a lot of things I can't do in the real world, but here, I feel more free. Here, I can be better, and no one judges me. In this world, I've made more friends in one day than I have in my entire life inside of the real world.

I'm snapped out of my thoughts when I hear a loud shriek. A few seconds later, our arm bands light up, announcing that Yoongi was taken out. Then the timer goes off, a loud blaring sound coming from all around.

"Time's up," the announcer tells us, "Blue team wins!"

Jungkook deactivates his cloaking shield and grins mischievously at me. "We make quite the team, don't you think?"

I laugh and shake my head. "Quite the team of cheaters."

"Hey, you very skillfully got away from Taehyung, and I very skillfully got the shield to use as a cheat," Jungkook puts his hands on his hips, defending the both of us. "We're a team that knows how to use whatever is at their disposal. We're a team that knows how to win."

Both teams are then transported back to the white room. Everyone on blue team's holopad appears, and the number in our bank account goes up by 5,000.

"Not bad," Jin congratulates us. "Only one person on your team was taken out." I look over at Yoongi, his head hanging down as his bottom lip cutely pokes out.

"He was too easy," Jimin laughs. "I found him in one of the buildings taking a nap. He didn't even get up to run, he just screamed as I shot him."

Yoongi rolls his eyes. "Whatever," he mumbles.

"Nice game, guys, but I gotta go," Jungkook gripes.

"Already?" Taehyung complains. "We haven't even been online for an hour."

"My dad sent me a message to log off," Jungkook says quietly, sounding a bit nervous. The boys grow a bit silent and awkward.

"You'll be back tomorrow, yeah?" Namjoon inquires, patting the boy's shoulder. Jungkook smiles fondly at the older boy and nods his head before bringing up his holopad to log off. Jungkook tells us a quick goodbye, and then his body dematerializes.

"His dad is a bit strict," Jimin explains. "That's why he's usually late to meet us and quick to sign off." I look downcast thinking about how sad Jungkook looked.

Before I can think about it any further, my arm band lights up with a red color, signalling that the alarm I set to log out has gone off.

"I actually have to go too," I tell the boys. "Thank you for letting me join you, I had a lot of fun!

"Of course," Namjoon smiles sweetly at me. "Will you join us tomorrow, too?" He questions with hopeful eyes.

I grin, feeling grateful that they enjoyed my company enough to ask me to come back. "I'd love to," I reply, waving goodbye to everyone. They all wave back in response, except for Jin, who blows me a kiss. I chuckle before I hit the log out button.

I open my eyes and take off my headset, once again finding myself in my dark, quiet bedroom. I sigh to myself before I hear a knock on my door. I call out for whoever it is to step inside.

"Hi sweetie," I hear the soft voice of my mother call out to me. "It's time to take your medicine." I thank her for bringing my medicine to me as she helps me sit up in my bed.

"Did you have fun?" She asks as I down my pills, quickly followed by a glass of water.

"I did," I sigh, happily. "It was nice to be able to walk and run again."

Mama smiles down at me as she takes my now empty glass. "I know. I just wish you could walk in the real world."

"Me too," I whisper.

__________

A/N -

Wow, I can't believe I've updated my stories three times in two days. This has gotta be some record. It's because I'm just really hyped about this story, okay? I couldn't sleep last night because I kept thinking about it.

This is a filler chapter, but not completely pointless to the plot. There's a lot of important information that comes into play later through the story. I won't tell you what that is yet though ;)

Also, sorry I didn't explain Wren's condition. There will be more of an explanation later, but I just wanted you guys to know that she can't walk because she isn't able to use her legs. That's all I'll say for now. That's why the first thing she decided to do in the game was run. She's not just a weirdo lol.

Yes, Wren is portrayed as IU (Lee Ji-eun). This doesn't mean that the character is supposed to be like IU, obviously since she didn't understand the terms "Oppa", "Hyung", and "Noona". It's also mentioned that she's from Chicago. The only similarities are in their appearance. IU is only used in this story as a character reference.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Don't forget to comment, vote, and all that good stuff. It's much appreciated ✌🏻