Nayeon pursed her lips, indecision written all over her face. It caused me to worry about the subject of this secret.

Her eyes had shined brightly only hours ago, and she had been so smiley, but at that moment, her smile didn't show up once and her eyes looked cloudy, totally unreadable. Plus, if she felt like she couldn't tell her own best friends about this, then clearly something awful had occurred.

“Okay, before I begin,” Nayeon said, interrupting my thoughts, “I have a question for you: do you know what grinding is?”

I shook my head. “Like...the dancing kind? When you basically rub yourself against someone?”

Nayeon made a face. “No… what the hell, man, I meant grinding in a videogame!”

I raised my arms in defense. “Alright, alright, tell me what grinding is!”

“Jeez, Chaeyoung… Grinding is like when you do something over and over in a videogame so that your character can level up bit by bit. That way you can unlock newer content and stuff like that. Not too long ago, Jeongyeon, Jihyo and I were very low level, so we planned on fighting waves of enemies inside a broken and abandoned castle, hoping to gain EXP that way. We were gonna do that repeatedly, just hack and slash away until we got to level 20.”

“Ah! Okay, I get that… Why did you ask, though?”

Nayeon paused and rubbed her chin.

“Something happened in that crumbling castle…We got separated after a horde of skeletons suddenly attacked us. I tried pushing them away, shouting for Jihyo, but soon I found myself in the west wing of the castle. I called out for both of the girls, but I never got a reply. I was frustrated and scared, but mostly frustrated. Skeletons weren't strong enough to separate three higher level players. It seemed very... off. I tried to find my way back by retracing my steps, but I felt more lost than I had before. All the hallways looked the same to me. My heart kept beating faster and faster. I felt like I was going to pass out. I felt so alone...

"Being an Assassin in such small and cramped hallways was terrifying. Jeongyeon was always the one leading the way when it came to walking in narrow areas, as her skills as a Ranger were more useful in that situation. A crossbow is too much of a hassle to hide and pull out often. I regretted not choosing a dagger to fight with. I fought a small horde of skeletons with my bulky crossbow and after defeating them, I expected them to fade away and leave some drops. But they didn't. Their remains stayed there, and I was given the prompt to loot their bones. That was weird, since AI enemies always turn to dust and leave behind orbs of EXP and maybe some leveled items. I looted them and found that they had some weird items. Stuff that I had previously only found in the bodies of summoned creatures, like demons. Only enemies summoned by players have cool alchemy ingredients like those that these skeletons had.

"I didn't think much of it, though. I was too paranoid about getting ambushed by stronger enemies to focus on a small detail like that. I let myself believe that I was just wrong about the behavior of defeated enemies. I only started getting really suspicious when the only type of enemy attacking me was the skeleton. Tons and tons, just rushing towards me with their clubs raised.  At one point, I was jumped by 10 of those bony jerks as I was checking this treasure chest I had spotted. I was sure that that would be the end of me, that I was going to die a really painful death. I mean, they caught me by surprise and I didn't have my crossbow loaded, nor could I load it in time. I killed maybe one of them by kicking them over, but since they caught me off guard, the others overwhelmed me quickly. They drove me into a corner and, as you know, The Phenomenon affects me in this game, just like you, so I felt every battle axe strike and slice my chest, every spear penetrate my skin.

"I thought I was done for. I couldn't defend myself, so I assumed I'd be dead within a minute. Then… the pain stopped. I looked up and saw a pretty girl fighting off the skeletons, kicking them and blasting them with her magic staff. When she finished killing off the horde, she came to me and asked if I needed healing, or if I had my own potions. I didn't have anything on me, so I asked her to heal me. She waved her staff around and did exactly that. I immediately asked her for her name. She told me her name was Mina. She asked me for my name as well. I introduced myself and thanked her for saving me. She admitted that it wasn't her intention to save me; she hadn't even seen me! She was just grinding, the same as 3Mix had been doing, and she had spotted the chest I had gone through earlier and decided to risk fighting the skeletons.

"I decided to repay her for her trouble. I took out the rare item I’d found inside the chest and offered it to her. She shook her head and refused to receive compensation for her good deed. After a minute of insisting and failing to get her to accept my offering, I asked her if she had seen two other girls around. I explained my situation to her but to my dismay, she hadn't seen either of my friends. She did ask me if I wanted to join her on the quest that had led her there, though, telling me that if we worked together we could defeat any enemies and maybe find my friends along the way. That convinced me to join her. I really didn't want to be alone. As we walked around the hallways, wary of any skeletons, I noticed that the girl, Mina, was seriously pretty. Even with her back turned to me, I felt attracted to her. Her dark hair looked great in the low lighting; her armor accentuated areas of her body that, almost like a magnet, attracted the eyes."

I rolled my eyes. “Are you going to tell me about all the ual fantasies you had about her?”

Nayeon frowned. “It's important to the story.”

“How is that important? If you happened to meet the same Mina that I know, then I'm listening to you talk about the curves of my best friend. I really don't want to hear any of that, thank you very much.”

Nayeon narrowed her eyes. “Why not? You don't know if this is crucial information or not.”

“I doubt it's imperative for me to know that you thought she was hot.” I crossed my arms across my chest and avoided looking at her. The last thing I wanted was for her to see how jealous I was getting.

Nayeon stepped into my view.

“You like her, don't you?” She stared at me intently, making me very self-conscious.

“It's okay. I get it. You're in love with your best friend. It happens.” She mirrored my stance and crossed her arms as well. “But I swear there's a reason I'm telling you this. Let me continue, please.”

I wasn't going to mention the accuracy of her first statement, so I swallowed away any bitterness and breathed in deeply. “Yeah, okay, continue.”

Nayeon nodded.

"She was crazy good looking. It felt like every step we took, I fell more for her. It was strange. It felt like I was under some sort of spell. The only time I wasn't t