[FIC] It's Complicated

Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 1/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.

- - - - -

It all started with my mother forcing me to get out of the house. According to her I ‘spent entirely too much time behind that terrible computer and should go out with friends more often.’ Now let me tell you that going out and friends are two things that totally do not apply to me. Let alone in the same sentence. I was known in school as ‘the shy girl who never talks’ and certainly no one would find me at parties. Ever. I don’t see the use anyway of jumping up and down on music that can make your ears pop while getting drunk to happily throw up in someone’s backyard. No thank you, I rather spend my time playing games.

Yet, mother-dear was inconvincible of the fact that I had a perfectly happy and cosy life as it was. She didn’t listen when I tried to tell her about the useful things one could learn from games and only laughed when I told her I had lots of friends. Even my desperate attempt at making her play my favourite game as well to prove it was fun failed miserably when she noticed there was actually blood coming out of the people when you shot them. So in the end, I was still the one having my computer taken away for a day so that I would, for once, do something else.

‘Kaykay..’ I therefore wrote that same evening to one of my best in-game friends. I was not going to let them steal my precious baby (aka my computer) without warning the one person who would come closest to a friend to me: K-world, also known as Kaykay. I neatly killed another person with a headshot before moving back to the base to be able to talk without having to fear for my life.

‘What’s up, snipe?’

Ah yes, my nickname was snipe since I was the best sniper on the game and he loved to rub it in. I say rub it in, because, seriously.. I was the best sniper out of one million lifeless nerds spread out over the entire world.. Hurray..?

‘I won’t be here tomorrow.’

‘What!? Don’t tell me you have to visit family again? You went to see them three months ago!’

‘Well that could perfectly be possible then, couldn’t it?’

Of course not. Why would anyone want to visit their family more than once a year when it consisted of a few boring aunts and uncles and a pair of noisy cousins that didn’t even know what a game boy was?

‘Of course not. So where are you really off to?’
‘Getting my computer stolen. Mom says I have to go out with friends.’

‘Say what?’

‘You read me.’

‘Oh please, snipe. You’re a grown up woman! Why would they still take such useless measures? Isn’t it time for them to like..kick you out of the house or something?’

‘Beats me. All I know is that when I wake up tomorrow, my computer will be gone. I could hardly hide a screen and a block in my tiny wardrobe.’

‘I don’t know, have you ever tried?’

‘Actually, yes, but it didn’t fit.’

I faintly remembered the time when I had wanted to hide my computer a few years ago because my mom had been keen on taking it away from me. Even the block on its own hadn’t fit in the wardrobe, so I had ended up sneaking onto her computer when she was gone and surfing anyway. That was before I started playing the one person shooter game I was so addicted to. For about one year I have been playing that game now and K-world has been my constant companion since the start.

There was a long silence, or should I say, a long time where no words appeared on my screen. Suddenly, K-world walked into the base as well and sat down next to me. I turned my view a little to be able to look at the graphical good looks of my friend. Thinking about it, I was even drooling over pixels back then. Dang, I was a pathetic person. Anyway, a few moments after sitting down, Kaykay wrote again.

‘Go out with friends, huh?’

‘Yup.’ I hesitated a moment before adding: ‘Don’t ask me where she got that crazy idea from.’

‘Let’s meet.’

‘Say what?’

‘Come on. We’ve known each other for so long now. Do you still think I’m a rapist? We know we live close to each other. If we meet, you’d be going out and I’d be the friend you went out with, no?’

‘Err.. I guess?’

‘Great. That’s a deal then. Tomorrow in front of the cinema in the city at noon. I’ll see you then. Don’t let me down. Let’s go kill some more men now so that you can live through tomorrow. I don’t want to have to drag you into a cybercafé to feed your addiction.’

‘Hey! I’m a social person as well!’

‘Yah, sure, that’s why you’re on this game every day from the moment you get home from university until you go to sleep..’

‘Says he who’s always there to play together with me.’

Like that he had arranged our meeting. After one year of me protesting against meeting him, he had simply told me to do so and, really, nothing was wrong with it, was it? We had played the same game together for a year, becoming quite good friends because of it, and we lived maybe 10 kilometres away from each other. Meeting was something that could obviously be done. If only I hadn’t. If only I had a little guardian angel stopping me from going back then.

Yet I didn’t. So the next day, there I was, standing in front of the cinema in the middle of the city like we had agreed upon. But after looking around for a minute, I realized that I had no idea whatsoever about what my newfound going out buddy looked like. (In real life, that is, because I knew his in-game character from head to toe.) Apart from that, I also did not know his phone number or anything to the likes of that. To make a long story short; there was no way I was ever going to be able to find him. I was about to sigh and sit down when a loud voice called out through all the people, making me turn to look at the person.

“Yah, Snipe! What are you standing there for? Get your butt moving! We don’t have all day! This movie won’t wait for us! Let’s go, go, go. Think of this as an emergency operation where the person you need to find is in the movie theatre.”

Everyone stared at him as he made his way towards me and he just didn’t care. Everyone stared at me when he waved and I wanted to shrink to the size of an ant and hide in between two tiles of the pavement. When he reached me, he immediately gave me a hug, making me blush and pull away. I looked up at him, only to notice that he looked an awful lot like his in-game character. Including its goodlooking-ness.

“What are you looking at, Snipe?” he asked when he noticed my staring. I blushed again. A smirk appeared on his face, but soon disappeared as he checked me out as well. “Yah! What am I to you that you dressed this casual? Couldn’t you at least find something pretty in that tiny wardrobe of yours? You look like you’re going to the fashion show for beggar’s clothes.” When I remained silent, he went on talking. “What’s wrong? Did you lose your voice? Must be because of my good looks. You’ll have to get used to it when you’re going to spend time with me, Snipe.”

“Kaykay.” I managed to finally get out. Yes, after one year of knowing him I still didn’t know his name I loved calling him Kaykay. “We are standing in the middle of the city.. Can’t you at least keep your voice down a little? People are staring.” My words did nothing to my friend apart from making him smile even wider. He chuckled a little before replying to my hissed words.

“You’re such a silly girl.” He grinned and ruffled a hand through my hair. I looked up at him with my best deadly stare, but it only made him laugh at me. I had to repress the urge to growl at him when I pulled free from his grip.

“Shut up and let’s go.” I said. My words made him grin again.

“That’s more like the Snipe I know.” he replied, happily guiding me towards the building.

I thanked the Gods I would only see those people outside once in my life as I made my way towards the desk where they sold tickets. I was halfway when I realized I had no clue whatsoever about the movie we were going to watch, the rest of my friend’s plans for the day or the amount of money I was going to need.

“Kaykay, how much does a cinema ticket c-”

“What are you talking about? I already bought the tickets. It’s my treat. Let’s go buy some popcorn.” he interrupted, happily dragging me into a totally different direction than I had planned on going. I could only sigh and follow, for I didn’t feel like using my taekwondo skills on him just yet. Besides, he looked like he was decently trained himself. I might have lost against him and what an embarrassment would that have been.

After buying a humongous amount of popcorn and a coke with the size of my upper leg, Kaykay dragged me towards the right theatre hall in the city’s gigantic cinema. He made his way through all the people and I simply followed him around. When he looked back at me once to check if I was still following, he burst out laughing upon seeing me carry all the food and the coke. Once he stopped laughing, he ruffled my hair and said that I looked like his servant. I blushed and felt strangely complimented wanted to strangle him because of the insult.

It took us seven more minutes to walk all the stairs and enter the theatre, yet the movie hadn’t started yet and it was only a bunch of advertisement we got to see. With a little smile I walked up the stairs to our respective places where I sat down to enjoy my popcorn. Kaykay had other plans, however.

“Don’t I look familiar to you?” he asked, giving me a hopeful look. I glanced up at him and nodded, making him look satisfied.

“You look an awful lot like your character in game.”

His satisfied look totally disappeared and he hit me on the arm.

“Babo!” he exclaimed. “Of course I do. I made that character so that it would look like me. Oh you are so dumb!” He turned to the movie screen and I realized that he had expected a different answer from me. Unable to control my curiosity about the matter, I put a hand on his arm.

“Why would you look familiar to me?” I asked. He only huffed and pulled his arm away from my hand, making it clear that he didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I felt a little stupid for annoying the only person who was crazy enough to go out into the city with me, but decided to just let him cool down. He needed about half a minute before turning back to me. When he did, I looked up at him and he smiled widely like nothing happened.

“Tell me about yourself.” he said. I simply raised an eyebrow in reply. “I know how old you are, what village you live in and how irritating your parents are. What else?” I chuckled.

“That’s all there is to know about me.” I replied, making him shake his head in disbelief.

“Nonsense. Tell me some of the things you like and dislike.”

“I like playing The Last Call and talking to you while playing..” I started, but he already interrupted me.

“Something a little less obvious maybe?”

“Don’t interrupt me or I’ll stop talking.” I said. I gave him a short deadly stare before continuing. “So playing and talking to you. I also like reading, listening to music, baking, lying outside in the sun on a beautiful day while listening to the birds sing, jogging, riding a bike,.. Yah, that’s about it.” With every thing I summed up, he looked like he wanted to interrupt me, but he didn’t. When I finished, however, words came rushing out of his mouth again.

“Reading what books? Listening to which music? Baking what?” I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Mostly fantasy books, but I’ll read anything recommended to me. Or at least I try to. Same goes with music. I like songs, not bands or genres. As for the baking: cookies, cakes, .. Let’s say I like making desserts, but I dislike eating them. I also dislike going to parties, crowded places, heights, insects and nosy people who interrupt me the whole time.”

It was his turn to laugh.

“I see. I’ll make sure to interrupt you a lot then.” He showed me the grin I had already seen quite a few times in the fifteen minutes I knew him, before turning his head to the movie screen again. “Well, it’s starting.” he mumbled. I looked at his side profile a moment, before turning my head to the screen as well.