Luda immediately fawns over the tulip-shaped art topping the latte that Dawon serves her, much to the taller girl’s amusement.

“Thank you.” Luda takes a sip from the lip of the cup, only to immediately retract with a wince. “Hot, hot!”

Dawon shakes her head before sitting herself on an empty chair. She takes the steaming cup from Luda’s hands and gives her a glass of cold water instead.

“You need to be more careful,” Dawon warns her.

“Sorry, the tulip art got me excited." An apologetic ‘heh’ slips from Luda's mouth.

The taller girl just sighs. “No, for real. I mean stop ‘blanking out’ around Dayoung. You know how…conspiracist she gets sometimes...”

Dawon rolls her eyes when she remembers Dayoung's tirade about the family that lives in the flat above her and how they're spies targetting the government.

“Why can’t we just tell her then?” Luda says with a shrug so nonchalant, it makes Dawon’s nose twitch. It's anything but a simple matter to shrug about. 

“Because she can’t keep anything to herself to save her life,” Dawon grumbles. “She runs that one blog, remember?”

Luda snickers. “No one reads it. Jinsook told me Imspiracies only receives an average of four hits per day and it's all from Dayoung visiting her own blog everyday. No one believes her ridiculous conspiracies.”

Dawon bites her lip to stifle a chuckle. “Still! She’ll take something that’s nothing and blow it up into something. She’d only be a hassle.”

“Alrighty.”

They are interrupted by a loud clap from behind. Dawon jumps up from her seat, startled, and immediately spins around only to find Mei Qi looking at her with crossed arms. So much for being the older one. 

“Taking a break in the middle of your shift?”

“Sorry, just chatting with Luda,” Dawon says sheepishly.

Luda pops up from behind Dawon with a smile. “Good afternoon, Mei Qi.”

“Hello.” Mei Qi returns the smile for only a second before pointing at the shorter girl sternly. “If you leave without paying for your latte again, I’m banning you from this place.”

Luda slightly winces at the word ‘ban’. “Relax. I always make sure money is paid at the end of the day,” she reassures.

“I’m pretty sure Dawon doesn’t actually appreciate money being deducted from her paycheck every time she has to cover for you." Mei Qi glares daggers at Dawon for letting it happen. She’s always been too kind for her own good.

“I pay her back! I said I would, didn’t I?”

Dawon nods, but Mei Qi interjects, “Has she?” to which Dawon gives a small, embarrassed shake of her head.

Mei Qi’s stern gaze returns to Luda, who gives her a nervous giggle.

“I will! Promise. By next week,” Luda chirps, “I’ll conjure up some cash for you.”

Dawon narrows her eyes at the shorter girl, but Luda only gives her a wink before Mei Qi whisks her away.

A part of her worries, but well, a little hope never hurt anybody. Maybe Luda will pull through this time.

01100101

Logging out of Hyperreal and returning to reality feels a whole lot like waking up from a long nap – grogginess and faint disorientation included. But after a good rub of the eyes and some stretching of the limbs, one is usually good to go.

Luda likes to splash some water on her face as a wake-up call, especially if she had just come out of a long session of playing. Her Project Hyperreal sessions usually stretch a few hours at the least. It can’t be healthy, of course, considering that Hyperreal operates in real-time. If she spends three hours in Hyperreal, then three hours pass by in reality.

It’s an unavoidable feature of the game, one that the developers fiercely maintain despite some protests from players who wish they could spend long hours in the Hyperreal world, but only waste an hour in the real world.

But such wish isn’t possible to be granted and Seong Industries finds that a persistent state world contributes to the realism of the game. So while it may be true that one’s actions inside the game have no effect on the real world, it doesn’t mean that it’s completely free of repercussions. Obviously, like with every video game, if one foolishly spends hours and hours playing, there’s certainly a consequence that’ll come along.

For Luda, despite being a fully grown twenty-something with a job, it usually involves being grounded and having the privilege to play Hyperreal stripped from her by her mother.

It started off as humiliating at first, but nowadays, this consequently has her knocking on her friends’ doors asking to borrow their Hyperreal game system for a few hours. It's become so regular that as soon as she suddenly pops up on their front door step, they know what it’s about.

And now that she has “money” to pay back in-game, Luda's a little more determined and a little more hopeful this time around.

“Hey, can I–“

“No,” followed by Yeonjung promptly sliding the door close on her face. She winces.

Okay, Luda expected that. Yeonjung’s always been a bit stingy, but it was worth a try.

“Hi!”

“What is it?” Jinsook’s head peaks from behind the door.

“You see, my mom…”

Jinsook sighs. “My little brother spilled strawberry milk on the console. Sorry.”

“Oh no, is it broken?”

“Well, the hardware is clearly not meant to have strawberry milk on it, so…” She smiles at Luda apologetically.

“Are you sure it wasn’t you who spilled the milk?”

Jinsook huffs and Luda chuckles at her.

Her siblings usually hog the Hyperreal game in their household, but well, it was also worth a try.

Lalalalalalalala nal joh-ahandago~

Luda awkwardly laughs when a pair of teenagers walk by snickering. Turning back to face the door, she cringes to herself and wonders how on earth Soobin’s roommate could possibly put up with her antics.

Lalalalalalalala neol saranghandago~

After the song plays for its entire duration of thirty seconds for a second time, the door finally slides open to a bathrobed Soobin patting her wet hair dry with a towel.

“Oh, hi Luda.”

“Hey,” Luda greets. “Do you really have to have that jingle from old Pocari Sweat CFs playing every time your doorbell is rang? I mean, it’d be fine if it can only be heard from within, but the fact that it can be heard from out here too is…uh...”

 “I know. Embarrassing. Not my idea, believe it or not. I lost a bet against Hyunjung," Soobin drawls. “At least it’s catchy. Do you need anything?”

“I was wondering if I could play Hyperreal for a bit.”

“Oh, I was just about to play though."

Luda purses her lips disappointingly; Soobin’s usually her safest and most willing choice. She concedes, since Soobin should get playing priorities with her own game. Besides, they promised (note; made to promise) each other not to come in each other’s way when it comes to playing. It was worth a try nevertheless.

The Kim mansion is daunting, to say the least, with it being the largest in a neighbourhood filled with houses just as magnificent. Multi-leveled with a sleek design, curved at the edges, glossy white, and Luda sometimes forgets there’s a helicopter pad on the roof when the helicopter isn’t there.

Teetering on her toes, the large floor-to-ceiling door opens just enough for her to see the whole body of the prim lady who answers the door.

“Hello, is Jiyeon home?”

“She is not. Would you like me to leave a message for her?” the lady says.

“Ah, no, no, it’s alright. Thank you anyways.” Luda quickly bows with a sheepish smile before dismissing herself.

While she personally doesn’t find Jiyeon herself intimidating, it does take Luda (or anyone for that matter) an extra bit of courage to approach her house. Still, Jiyeon’s usually pretty willing whenever she's home, which isn't often anyways. Well, it was worth a try.

Luda sits at a bench staring wordlessly at the sky, dejected from being rejected by all of her plan B’s, when a lightbulb switches on in her head. She shoots up from her seat so quick, she almost drops her ice cream.

“Mornin’, Luda.”

“It’s the afternoon,” Luda interjects. “Hey, can you let me play Hyperreal for a little bit?”

Juyeon snickers. “Grounded by mommy again?”

“Yeah,” Luda replies a bit too shamelessly.

Juyeon purses her lips, ruminating on whether she should actually let Luda in. “How much are you willing to offer?”

Luda gives her a scowl and crosses her arms. However, considering their height difference, to say Juyeon is intimidated would be a joke. Luda just barely reaches the girl's nose. 

“You want me to pay you?”

Juyeon breaks into a boisterous laugh. “I’m just kidding. Come in, come in. I won't charge you – not yet anyways.”

They make their way to Juyeon's 'magic room' (Juyeon's own words, Luda would like to clarify) as Luda gathers up the courage to ask for a favour.

“Uh, there’s also something I was wondering you could help me with…” she starts. “See, I’ve got a sort of debt.”

Juyeon narrows her eyes. “What debt?”

“Uh, I owe an NPC some cash in Hyperreal.”

The taller girl laughs at her – exaggerated, in fact, as the crinkled-eye Juyeon obnoxiously slaps her knees. Luda keeps her eyes from rolling to the back of her head.

“And you want me to do what?” Juyeon asks her between chuckles.

Luda blinks at her; she thought her request was pretty obvious from the get-go. “Duh? Can’t you get me the cash or something? You know, some control-alt-delete…money hack whatever.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I asked you,” Luda says, “as a friend. Pretty please? It’s not even real money, it’s just some Hyperreal virtual cash. It’s worth nothing but your time and generosity.” She smiles.

“...Will you pay me real money in exchange?”

Luda sighs. “I’ll buy you dinner. Now please, there must be a way, right?” She pouts, rubbing her hands together.

Juyeon shakes her head; god, how shameless Luda gets sometimes. She wonders if Luda ever feels embarrassed or if she has successfully numb herself from feeling any shame whatsoever.

“Fine, sit down,” Juyeon tells her as she cracks her knuckles and takes a seat in front of her monitors.

Luda squeals in excitement and ruffles Juyeon’s head, much to her chagrin, and doesn’t hesitate to sit down on the recliner in front of the ugly gray rug.

“Do you know how to do it?”

“Of course, I’m Son Juyeon." Said with a smug smile as the obligatory cherry on top. 

As she boots up her computers, the room becomes brighter with each screen that turns on. The whir of the computers is almost like music to both of their ears.

“So…how do you do it?” Luda starts, slipping on Juyeon’s makeshift gameplay accessories.

“Hm, I can probably use a macro script to continuously get money into your hands, but it might take a while. I’ll add little by little to avoid suspicion, make you seem like a waitress getting tips or something,” Juyeon hums distractedly over the clicks of a mouse.

“No, I mean how’d you do it?” Luda asks again. “How’d you get into Hyperreal?”

There’s a pause in the mouse clicks and a short silence before Luda starts hearing the familiar typing of keys.

“That’s a secret.”

“Oh come on, you don’t have to reveal the exact way you did it. Just enough to satisfy my curiosity is what I’m asking for, that’s all.”

“You’re not planning to rat me out to the authorities or anything, are you?”

Luda scoffs. “Of course not! God, Juyeon, what do you take me for?”

“Alright, well,” Juyeon says, “the game operates on the cloud, which makes it more vulnerable than if it wasn’t.”

A fruitless answer. “…In this day and age, basically everything operates on the cloud.”

“Which is why it’s so fun to do what I do!” Juyeon exclaims excitedly, inciting a chuckle from Luda. “While the script is doing its work, I’m gonna log you in. Ready?”

Luda doesn’t hesitate to reply. “Always.”

“Alright, have fun–“

“–in Hyperreal!” Luda finishes for her.

This is only the second time Luda has stopped by, but Juyeon already fears a routine coming along. However, seeing Luda so eager, Juyeon would be lying if she didn't admit that it’d be dispiriting to disappoint her. She's always had a soft spot for her friends.

So she presses her hands together and stares at the screen, praying that the script works. When she hears Luda squeal a few minutes in and sees the money pouring into the virtual bank account from her monitor, Juyeon gives herself a round of applause.

A little hope goes a long way when there’s no guarantee.

01100101

Five rapid knocks is all it takes for Hyunjung to know who it is behind the door. Not that it matters; answering to the knocks is unnecessary since the visitor just slides the door open anyways before Hyunjung could even offer to let her in (or request for her to leave).

“It’s lunch time, get up, let’s go,” Sojung says as she barges in to her childhood friend’s office.

Hyunjung sighs, remaining unmoved from behind her desk. She scrolls through a screen hologrammed in front of her face, unbothered despite Sojung looking over her like a kid waiting for their mother to respond.

“I’m busy,” she grumbles.

“Not busy enough for lunch."

Sojung grabs her by the arm and presses a button on her desk, the hologram disappearing immediately into the device as if it got by a vacuum.

Hyunjung just groans and lets herself be dragged, grabbing her jacket on the way out the door.

“I am not speaking with that weird friend of yours again." Hyunjung shoves a bread roll into .

“She’s not weird,” replies Sojung defensively, poking aimlessly at her gimbap before Hyunjung abruptly grabs her chopsticks and chides her for playing with her food. “She’s your friend too.”

“Acquaintance,” Hyunjung corrects her.

“She just wants you to hear her out.”

“I’m not interested in committing treason.”

“Whoa! Who said anything about treason?” Sojung exclaims, almost choking on her gimbap. “We work for Seong, not the government of South Korea. God, you make it sound like we’re betraying the country. Loosen up a bit, will you?”

She goes back to picking on her food, grumbling something about ‘ridiculous exaggeration’ and ‘you’re no fun’ under her breath. Hyunjung notices her petulant pout and rolls her eyes.

“Oh my god, I was just kidding, Sojung."

Hyunjung slides her own container of gimbap towards the younger girl. She always gives Sojung food when she’s in a bad mood and it usually works, but this time around, Sojung just starts picking with the rolls in Hyunjung’s container instead of her own.

“You know, Soobin's on our side too…”

“I know, she told me. Why are you guys even doing this?”

Sojung finally stops picking on the food to look up at Hyunjung with a sense of seriousness she's not used to seeing. Sojung's always been the playful type.

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“What does?”

“You know what I’m talking about!” Sojung huffs. “Everything.”

Hyunjung doesn't know what to say so they fall into a silence that's only filled by the sounds of chewing and the buzz of city life from the streets below. The rooftop of the building is their favourite place to eat together since the lunchroom is always too chatty for their taste. Not that either of them lack conversational skills, but sometimes you just need to get away from all of it before the corporate suffocation is too much to handle.

“It’s a losing battle, Sojung.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Sojung replies. “If you give it a chance.”

“I just don’t understand why I’m of interest when there’s already you.”

“I’m just an intern in the R&D department, Hyunjung, I can be fired tomorrow for all I know. But you’re a marketing manager. You have influence!”

“Exactly, which is why I want you to leave me out of this,” Hyunjung counters sternly. “Now…finish up the gimbap, lunchtime is over in five minutes.”

But all Sojung does is continue to pick on her food, so Hyunjung helps her finish it in silence.

A little hope isn’t supposed to hurt anybody, but why does Sojung feel otherwise?

01100101

Dipping her fingers in the water, Juyeon watches the waves ripple away from her in childish wonder. The water is lukewarm to her touch, an unusual curiosity to her since this very same pond in the real world is usually kept cold to sustain the koi fish that swim around in it.

An exasperated groan from behind breaks her uncharacteristic silence.

Turning around, Juyeon finds a familiar face and that purple bike that had been unconsciously wheeling into her mind more often recently.

“Hey, girl-who-almost-ran-me-over-with-her-bike,” she greets.

The redhead glances up, startled, only to let out a chuckle when she realizes who it is.

“Please don’t remind me of that near disaster." She chuckes before bending down to inspect her bike. “The chain slipped off again…”

“Oh no... It's a good thing we don’t have that problem anymore, huh?” Juyeon says carefully.

Awkwardly, her comment goes unnoticed (or ignored, Juyeon can’t really tell) as the redhead focuses on figuring out how to fix her bike without touching the chain itself. Juyeon dismisses her own reckless comment.

Instead, she takes the liberty to offer a hand, bending down and immediately reaching for the slipped chain.

“Oh no, wait, that’s–“

Juyeon accidentally lets a quiet ‘oh ’ slip past her lips when she gets grease all over her hands the moment she touches the chain.

“–greasy…” the redhead finishes her warning a bit too late.

She drops her bag immediately and rummages through until she pulls out a crisp white handkerchief. Taking Juyeon’s hands into her own, she begins to wipe off the grease.

Juyeon can’t help but chuckle as she watches the girl hold her hands with a sort of gentleness as if she was handling a fragile animal. Despite that, she scrubs away at the grease with vigor, not caring about the ugly stains it leaves on the white handkerchief (or the fact that she’s cradling a complete stranger’s hands in her own).

“Thanks,” Juyeon tells her when she finishes.

“I’m sorry,” the girl says, noticing that there are still blotches of grease left on Juyeon’s hands. “I told you not to touch the chain!”

Juyeon chuckles. “Sorry, I didn’t know! I just wanted to help.”

“Thank you." She gives Juyeon a sheepish smile before returning her attention to her bike.

Juyeon tilts her head as she watches the other girl, deliberating in curiosity, before squatting down to match the other’s gaze.

“I’m Juyeon.”

The redhead looks up at her in slight surprise. Upon seeing Juyeon’s kind smile however, she can’t help but be put at ease.

“Oh, um, I’m Mei Qi,” she says, offering a hand to shake. But when Juyeon waves her fingers still tainted with traces of black grease, Mei Qi retracts her hand embarrassingly. “Oh, right, I forgot…”

Juyeon grins. “I promise to formally shake your hand when mine is cleaner. Where are you headed?”

“Work,” Mei Qi answers, “I work at a café just a block away outside this park.”

“I’ll walk you there.”

Juyeon grabs the purple bike’s handlebars before Mei Qi could even respond.

They stroll through the park at a leisurely pace with Juyeon pushing the bicycle along and Mei Qi pushing the fact that she’s already late for work to the back of her mind.

She’s too shy to say anything, opting to lend Juyeon a listening ear instead. She learns the latter is quite sociable, talking warmly about how nice the weather is and how she’s not from around here.

Mei Qi answers her questions earnestly; Juyeon’s curiosity has a certain type of charm that captures her fascinated attention.

And when Juyeon turns the subject of their casual conversation to her, Mei Qi finds that she can share more readily than usual. Something about Juyeon's candid honesty makes her feel like an open book, as if her frankness is infectious.

She tells Juyeon she’s from a city called Luoyang in China and how she came here several years ago by herself to study, falling in love with the city enough to remain here longer. Juyeon empathizes with her when she talks about Seoul. The sincerity is contagious.

Mei Qi finds it almost strange that it’s funny. She’s the foreigner, yet here she is speaking about the city to a Korean as if she has lived here her whole life.

Juyeon notices the sparkle in Mei Qi’s eyes when she speaks, how animated her tone gets talking about her favourite parts of the city, and the slight but conspicuous eagerness in her voice when Juyeon inquires about food hotspots.

The places she’s never heard of or don’t exist in the real world piques her interest, but Mei Qi’s zeal to show her the city draws a certain admiration in her.

Juyeon doesn’t notice when Mei Qi decides to take the long way to the café so they can talk longer.

Mei Qi doesn’t notice Juyeon’s attentive gaze every time she looks away.

“You know, I’m kind of glad your bike chain slipped,” Juyeon says to her when they’re nearing the café. “I got to talk to you and learn more about the city.”

Mei Qi chuckles as she looks down at the greasy chain hanging off the gears of her bike, hoping Juyeon doesn’t notice the tinge of red on her cheeks. “Me too. I'm sorry about the grease on your hands."

"It's nothing I can easily wash off, don't worry about it. I hope you can get your bike fixed."

"It was nice to meet you, Juyeon.”

“You too!”

“See you around…?” Mei Qi wonders if she sounds too hopeful.

Juyeon beams at her. “Of course. See you around. I promised you a proper handshake after all.”

A little hope never hurt anybody.

a/n: soobin's (un?)fortunate doorbell song that i know u will all recognize lalalalalalalala nal joh-ahandago~ lalalalalalalala neol saranghandago~