Press Start! (Mystic Messenger: Yoosung Kim/Reader)

Chapter One: Unwind

"Thank you for shopping at Daily Mart~!"

"You're so robotic, [First Name]. Sometimes I think our customers confuse your greetings with the door chime."

Your mouth is affixed in a wide grin, and a single hand remains in the air, a lingering salutations to a customer that has long since departed. You look the part of a perfect customer service representative, cheerful, polite, and poised. Of course, this is simply how you look to the world.

Twitch. Twitch. 

"Eh? Has our Cashiertron 3000 malfunctioned? My, my, and just what will I tell the manager--?"

"I will literally force-feed you your own entrails, Park," you scowl at the ever-present thorn in your side, Park Minjun. Your place of work was not an expansive one, so there were only two possible coworkers to pair up with you for the morning shift. Unfortunately, it just so happened that Minjun was the most common candidate. 

An infectious chortle escaped Minjun at this seamless transition from light to dark--oh, how he loved to tease his junior. 

"Relax, [First Name]," he dismisses with a wave of his hand. "Your fuse is delightfully short these days. Maybe the long hours are getting to you?"

Your cheeks darkened at the embarrassment of having been caught in his trap once more, and so you made a mad grab for a spare rag and some cleaning supplies in an effort to distract yourself. 

"That's another thing," you murmur, spritzing the counter top with something lemony-fresh. "Who told you it was okay to be so informal? I may be younger than you, but we're not close."

Zap. Minjun recoils from the sting of white-hot lightening to his fragile heart. His held tilts downwards, shadowing his chocolate brown eyes from view as you, seemingly unfazed by the consequences of your remark, rub tirelessly at any smudge that dare burden the perimeter of the checkout area. 

"So mean..." Minjun mumbles pitiably as he slinks towards the back of the "employee only" zone, probably seeking to check stock in his downtime.

Despite your often calloused and comical correspondences, Minjun and yourself maintain a decent friendship. Unlike yourself, who maintains a lifestyle one letter away from a N.E.E.T-like existence, Minjun balances his work hours with a full roster of university courses, and a semi-flourishing social life. With such a well-rounded balance of activities, it's no wonder that he always seems to be in a better mood than you.

"Childish pretty boy," you snort, attempting to swat away the visualization of a smirking Minjun surrounded by friends, academic awards, and piles of money. "But still..."

Minjun may have been juvenile, but he was not far from the mark in regards to his "long hours" quip. After all, you were now working considerably more than you used to thanks to the newfound shift of available convenience store workers. In the past, your small store had been outfitted with one manager and six employees to balance the 24/7 store hours. However, one of the other workers, a woman in her mid-thirties who often alternated days with you on the first shift, had been out of commission on maternity leave. Rather than higher a part-timer to pick up the slack, your cheapskate manager had been pawning off the necessary extra hours on you.

"Okay, overstock at 100%!" Minjun calls after thirty minutes or so of your silent reverie and tidying up. Typical to a Sunday, there has been nary a customer in any more than, say, once per hour, affording plenty of time for the two of you to busy yourselves with menial labors.

Somehow, his cheesy thumbs-up and accompanying grin are a welcomed relief from your inner-monologue of vocational woes. 

"Say, Park," you begin casually, running a hand through your [h/c] locks. "Just what is it you do to unwind?"

Taken aback by your inquiry, Minjun covers his face with his hands.

"Goodness, [First Name], I never knew you to be so forward!" 

~○~

"L-League of Loneliness?"

Your mouse quivers above a button that proclaims in emboldened letters, "Start Download!"

"Loneliness, are you serious?" 

Your right eyebrow twitches in disbelief at the webpage before you, heralding the existence of what has been deemed Korea's #1 top-rated MMORPG: League of Loneliness of Life. 

"Well, no wonder Park simply called it LOLOL," you murmur quietly to yourself, concluding that such an abbreviation was apt for something that was, firstly, far too embarrassing a title to utter out loud, and, secondly, so pathetic sounding that it it did, indeed, make you want to LOL. 

Swallowing every inch of pride your twenty-something self had accrued in life, you gave the download prompt a swift click of approval. After all, it wasn't as though you had anything better to do on your day-off, right? Outside of work--which, by the way, was so life-consuming that you hardly had the time to consider anything "outside" of it--you were the sort of person that kept quietly to yourself. You lived a life without much fuss, went to bed at a healthy time, stayed in on weekends, never ate junk food, and spent entirely too much recreational time engrossed with reruns of popular K-Dramas of years past. 

If you were to take a look at yourself from a stranger's perspective, you would regard this life as nothing out of the ordinary. You would regard yourself as little more than another face in the crowd. Until recently, you had thought you were fine with that assessment. Perhaps there was something about working with Minjun and his perpetual zest for life that had left a dissatisfied taste in your mouth. It didn't quite sit well with you how somebody as carefree as he could lead such a rewarding, multi-faceted life whilst you burned out quietly in the corner. Perhaps it was this covetous sensation that led you down the rabbit whole of unwinding the Minjun Park way, thirty-thousand won per month.

"Choose your character!" 

Whilst your computer sluggishly surged through a few hours' worth of downloadable content, you feasted on an affordably-priced carton of kimbap purchased from work the day before. When the game finally came to life with the singsong declaration of character selection, you found yourself considerably more excited than you expected. 

As far as MMORPGS went, you weren't very familiar with the format. Judging from the options allotted, though, it seemed like there were a vast range of playable character types ranging from mecha archetypes to cold-blooded enchanters. Feeling vastly under-qualified to make such a serious decision so early on in your LOLOL career, you opted finally for the "Healer" character which you had tentatively concluded to be the safest choice.

After the character you had selected released a cutesy battle cry, the game transitioned to a screen of available servers--my, there were so many choices to be made, weren't there? 

"What's a server?" You blinked owlishly at the screen before reading through each possibility. Some of the "server" names were a bit more euphonious than others, but when your eyes at last found the words "Shooting Star" you felt immediately relieved.

"Well, doesn't this one sound nice?"