Netkama Punch!!!

After coming back home, I stood across from Shin Heejae, who was perched casually on my desk chair.
He stared at me like he had a thousand things to say. His expression was tense, borderline menacing. But somehow, I felt like this was the only moment I’d get to speak honestly. So I deliberately chose a calm tone, hoping not to trigger another fight like earlier.
“Hey. Shin Heejae.”

“……”
“First of all… sorry about kicking your car.”
But Heejae didn’t say a word. He just kept glaring at me.

I waited a moment, expecting at least a grunt, but when the silence dragged on, I forced myself to continue.
“But still, you gotta admit you’ve crossed the line too… I mean, maybe this kind of shit won’t happen again if we both—”
“What exactly did I do that crossed the line?”

His sassy little retort got under my skin. Still, since I had kicked his car, I tried to stay calm one last time.
“I mean the way you’ve been acting. Honestly, just punch me if that’s where this is going. You keep doing this shit I can’t understand, and it’s messing with my head.”
But of course, Heejae took that the wrong way too and said something so absurd that I ended up yelling without meaning to.

“You into getting hit, noona?”
“What the fuck—of course not!!”
He didn’t back off. If anything, he seemed to be waiting for that response, answering coldly.

“Then why do you keep asking me to hit you?”
“What?”
“You want me to hit you so we can pretend none of this happened, right? You think I don’t know?”

His words hit harder than they should have. I froze, caught off guard by how accurately he’d hit the nerve. Heejae sneered at my reaction.
“Stop asking me why I’m acting like this. You already know. You want me gone.”
“As if I—what the hell do I even know—”
“Wow. You fake not knowing like a pro. Sure. Just keep pretending you don’t get it.”

Then he stood up and walked to the bed. Without another word, he flopped down and turned his back to me, making it very clear that this conversation was over. I stared in disbelief.
“Hey! Why’d you stop mid-sentence?”
“So you’ll die of curiosity.”

“You crazy—”
I really wanted to slap him on the back, but I didn’t.
That night, I lay awake replaying everything he’d said. But no matter how much I turned it over in my head, I couldn’t come to a clean conclusion.

* * *
Hyejin
Eh… So are you guys living together now or what?

The next day, I ended up doing the only thing I could—asking someone else for advice. And that someone was Hyejin, obviously.
I told her everything in detail, skipping only the part where Heejae tried to headbutt me. After I finished, she went quiet for a while after I replied [yeah…] to her message.
Hyejin

Seriously though, I don’t get that guy at all;; He’s acting totally normal in his videos.
Really? He’s still uploading?
Hyejin

Yeah, he updated just this week. He filmed another dungeon run… with Yuna.
I hadn’t even checked that.
Just like Hyejin said, Heejae’s YouTube channel had a new video up. It was a straightforward dungeon clear with Yuna. Judging by the setup, it looked like it had been filmed in his own house as usual—same camera angles, same hands occasionally showing up. So he’d probably been going back home during the day to record whenever I left for work.

Which… honestly just made him harder to understand. Hyejin agreed with me.
Hyejin
I mean, what is he even trying to say? That you harassed him and gave him trauma and now he wants compensation or some shit?

Nothing about him seems off.
Hyejin
It just feels like he wants to fuck with you for fun ㅠ

See?! I’m not the problem here!
I nodded to myself like I was yelling it in my head.
I don’t know what to do anymore. He won’t even accept my apology.

I even braced myself to get hit or something… ha…
Hyejin
Why the hell are you apologizing?? ffs…

Seriously, talk to a lawyer. Like for harassment or something.
I can’t afford that…
Hyejin

Ugh ㅠ Why did you even refund him for the staff ㅠㅠㅠㅠ
After lamenting like it was her own problem, Hyejin paused, then asked, kind of sheepishly:
Hyejin

I guess I should give back the tip, huh…
Nah… forget it.
Hyejin

I was going to, but my paycheck’s delayed ㅠㅠ sorryyy
No seriously it’s fine
She kept apologizing, clearly feeling guilty that she’d connected me with Yuna and it had ended like this. No matter how much I reassured her, she insisted on making it up to me.

To be honest, thinking about it now, even if I hadn’t sold the staff to Yuna—if I’d just sent it back and cut contact—there’s no guarantee Heejae would’ve accepted that either. I told Hyejin not to feel bad and wrapped up the chat for now.
“You’re taking a half-day today?”
“Yeah… Not feeling great.”

Thanks to the joys of being a quasi-civil servant, I used some of my personal time and got off work early that afternoon.
I got home around 1:30 p.m. As expected, Shin Heejae wasn’t there. I booted up the computer and logged into [Arcadia], first on the character [Saenyang].
When I saw that [Seyoung’sHusband] wasn’t online, I logged back out and came in on [Sesam]. Sure enough, [Heejae] was logged in. He really did play from his own place during the day.

“He’s not streaming?”
I opened YouTube to check, but he wasn’t live.
Then I checked the guild list. It was daytime, so not many people were online—but [Yuna] was.

Just in case, I searched [alYuna] on YouTube. She was indeed live. I joined the stream to watch.
“Hey! Stop dragging!!”
The moment I entered, Yuna was shouting at someone. And then, through Discord, I heard a familiar, gruff voice reply bluntly:

“I told you we had to max out today.”
It was Shin Heejae.
Does he not know I’m logged in?

I debated whispering him but he looked busy, so I stayed quiet.
Through Yuna’s stream, I watched Heejae melt through the new dungeon boss. Despite it being a weekday afternoon, there were a lot of viewers and the chat was flying.
Most of it was praise for Heejae.

LIVE CHAT
● Lollin: Holy crap
● hot: Did he memorize the pattern? He dodged that AoE like it was nothing;

● ILoveHeejae: He’s flexing for his girlfriend lol
● daumdaum: Yuna and Heejae are such a good team
● Haeboro: Wow the speed;; legit fastest Behi clear I’ve seen

Yuna casually read comments and responded with cheerful banter.
“‘Flexing for his girlfriend’? Ahaha! Totally. He is a show-off.”
“Thanks for the compliment, daumdaum!~”

“Thanks, Haeboro! Yeah, I kinda messed up last time, so I changed up my gear and skill tree a bit for today.”
The way she rolled with being called his girlfriend was so smooth, I couldn’t help thinking, So they really are dating, huh?
But then, while they had Behemoth down to half HP, Heejae suddenly muttered with a sharp edge in his voice:

“How many times do I have to say she’s not my girlfriend.”
His tone was irritated—almost disgusted.
“What, am {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} I too good for you?” Yuna teased back without missing a beat, brushing it off so easily the chat didn’t even slow down.

LIVE CHAT
● JeapBbi: That kinda setup always ends in marriage lol fr
● Basasak: Haven’t they already, like, done it?

● MelonCurry: lololol “not yet” dating, huh
● ILoveHeejae: Okay okay Heejae is ours lol
● InseongDealer: But they do look good together

● Dekku: Heejae, are you going tank stats or full DPS? ㅠㅠ
Heejae didn’t say anything else. In a way, it seemed like he’d said it firmly up front to avoid problems for Yuna. When female streamers played with male players, there were always rumors.
But for that, Yuna didn’t seem uncomfortable at all.

She didn’t seem annoyed. Didn’t shut it down.
I kept watching, a strange mix of emotions swirling in my chest. About five minutes later, the Behemoth was nearly dead, and Heejae just needed to land the final hit.
But suddenly, he stopped moving.

“What the… since when…”
His voice cut off, clearly confused. Yuna noticed and ran up to shield him.
“What’s wrong?”

I stared at the stream, wondering if something had gone wrong. Even the chat was flooded with nothing but [?].
After a few tense seconds, Heejae suddenly resumed attacking like a man possessed. He soloed the boss in a flash, and they moved into loot distribution—
Ding—

Suddenly, my phone buzzed.
I looked at the name on the screen—and froze.