“Donghae, calm your man-s.”

Ryeowook continued shovelling toast in his mouth as Sungmin kept a firm hold on Donghae’s bag to prevent him from accidentally bumping into anyone in his excitement. They were walking towards their respective lockers, a usual morning routine. Except this time, there’s a slight change in their plans.

You see, after showing off his character’s skills to Hyukjae’s geeky friends and helping him with his quests, Hyukjae had told him he’d meet him up at the younger’s locker. Donghae enthusiastically agreed, and they logged out of Maplestory. The boy had jumped out of his chair and squealed in delight before he proceeded to face-plant onto his bed. Donghwa had probably knocked his door (loudly, repeatedly) to tell him to shut his trap, but Donghae had just ignored him.

Hyukjae had told him he’d (willingly!) meet up with him in real life.

HIs crush actually wanted to see him.

Oh dear Lord Donghae could hear the wedding bells already.

Ryeowook’s next bite of his breakfast was interrupted by a loud squeak coming from his love-sick friend. He peered at Donghae, who was staring in the general direction of his locker. Ryeowook followed his gaze, and sighed when he understood. Hyukjae, in all of his blonde glory, was leaning against his friend’s locker. The elder had his small laptop tucked underneath his arm and was glancing around the hallway, probably in search for Donghae. Sungmin loosened his grip on the boy. He shoved him lightly when Donghae refused to acknowledge so.

“Go and get your man, idiot,” the eldest said.

Ryeowook noticed Donghae nodding. “Oh, I will.” He then straightened out his uniform to appear more representable and tried to casually walk towards his locker.

And ended up tripping over his untied shoelaces before falling ungracefully onto the unforgiving floor.

Like I said, tried.

The sound of a 65kg teenage boy tumbling into a heap caught Hyukjae’s attention (plus everyone else occupying the hallway at the moment), and he quickly went over to help the Donghae up. Donghae’s face, neck, and ears were blushing bright red as Hyukjae grabbed his hand to pull him back onto his feet.

“You okay?” Hyukjae asked as the boy brushed off dirt from his shirt and trousers. “That fall looked like it hurt.”

Donghae chuckled nervously. “It… It was nothing. Wasn’t paying attention to my shoes,” he replied before he bent down onto one knee to tie his shoelaces. 

‘My God can I get any more embarrassing than this?!’ Donghae bitterly thought to himself as he harshly tugged at the laces even tighter to make sure it stayed. 

Hyukjae was still looking at him a bit warily when he stood up. Donghae rubbed the back of neck nervously. “I… uh, need to get my b-books…” He silently cursed himself for stuttering like a fool.

The elder politely moved out of the way and the boy quickly did his combination to access it. Hyukjae leaned against the locker next to Donghae’s casually. Donghae tried to muster all of his wits to not drool at the way his crush’s (lack of) arm muscles pulled taut as he shifted his laptop from underneath his arm to hold rather carelessly in his left hand. The boy quickly grabbed all of the books he needed for science class before shutting the locker door. Hyukjae led the way for the lab, followed by the flustered younger. The crowd inside the small hallway started to expand as more and more students tried to make their way to their lockers, and Donghae squeaked in surprise when he felt a hand find it’s way into his left hand. He nearly fainted when he realised it was Hyukjae’s, holding tight to make sure the boy didn’t get separated. 

The trip from the locker room to the Science lab took shorter than Donghae thought, and the warm hand in his was gone way too quickly. Hyukjae pushed the laboratory door open for the younger to walk through first. Donghae blushed as he quickly shuffled through, not stopping until he sat down on his usual seat at the back of the class. Hyukjae followed him, and planted himself right onto the chair next to Donghae. 

‘Stop it you beautiful human being,’ the younger thought as Hyukjae placed his VAIO onto the table in front of them. ‘Before I end up jumping onto you like a dog in heat—‘

“Lee Donghae!”

“YES SIR!” Donghae stood up so fast his seat toppled over. Laughter filled the air, and Donghae’s entire face burnt bright red before he clumsily turned around to pick up the fallen stool. He turned back around and noticed the Science teacher rubbing his temples.

“I was just doing attendance. You don’t need to stand up,” the middle-aged man informed. Donghae quickly sat back down, before he grabbed his books and tried to use them to cover his blushing face.

The teacher sighed and turned to the rest of his class. “Alright, quiet down. Today, we’re going to continue with yesterday’s topic. I hope all of you like your seat partners, because you’re going to do this in twos.”

Donghae’s brain stopped functioning for a second. ‘Partners…. with Hyukjae?!’

His partner turned towards the younger to flash a gummy-filled smile that melted the boy’s heart in record-breaking time. 

Hyukjae sat in front of his laptop with a frown. He was trying to get back on track with the issue of the Mercedes who had screwed with his kill. Hyukjae admitted, the search was going nowhere. The geek leaned back against his chair and thought it through.

‘Alright, well, how about we start with listing all of the female Mercedes’ that I know?’ Hyukjae thought to himself as he quickly started researching. There weren’t many Mercedes’ on the game, since the class was rather rare. It’s debut only lasted about a couple of hours, and many people didn’t manage to get one because of the high traffic the website was experiencing from the amount of players logging on at the same time. Those who got their hands on one were treated like legends.

It only took a few minutes for the list of the characters to pop up on the website. It was ranked by level, highest to lowest. At the top of the list stood a beautiful Mercedes with it’s typical platinum hair and powder-white skin. The player hadn’t overdone the character, which made her look professional. It’s username was Bada_

“Huh,” Hyukjae said to himself. “Why does that sound familiar…”

He quickly clicked the tab that lead him to the Top 5, a list of five players who had reached the maximum level that could be obtained, along with the biggest inventory, skills, pets and everything else. They barely get spotted in-game because of their ability to go invisible to other players, a special gift from Maplestory. All of the players in Top 5 were practically Maplestory royalty, everyone in every server knew who they are.

The fifth person is 1changgming, a Battle Mage from the Galicia server. He went by the name of Changmin. He was also rumoured to be the younger brother of a previous Top 5 player with the username yvnho, who later quit when he revealed he was engaged. His spot was later given to Changmin. The man preferred to be invisible as often, and was rarely seen by other players.

At fourth was a friendly woman that was loved by everyone in Nova server. s00s00, also known as Sooyoung, was a Chase. She was always seen with her pets, playing party quests with strangers and making everyone’s day better. Leaked selcas on Maplestory forums revealed that Sooyoung reached the Korean beauty standard; tall, fair-skinned, big eyes. She even had her own fanclub.

bamitzamber took third with pride. Her class was Zero, which could be male or female with a click of a button. Amber, as she was usually called, had attitude and skills that could make anyone bow beneath her. She was from the Bora server, and Amber was never afraid of going visible whenever she played. Even when other players would surround her because of her 

The player who earned himself the first spot went to a Xenon by the name of GDRAGON from Demethor. No one knew his real name. Everyone just dubbed him as his username, and it stuck. Unlike Changmin, GDRAGON never went invisible. If you asked anyone in the Demethor server, they would tell you that GDRAGON would always be sitting in Leafre. He never moved or talked, it was as if he was a statue. It scared the new players to bits, which made the whole thing even more entertaining.

It was the person in the second place that got Hyukjae’s attention. It was the exact same Mercedes that he saw in the list of all female Mercedes’. She was from Windia, which made Hyukjae even more suspicious of her. Similar to GDRAGON, her real name remained a mystery. Hyukjae had never seen her whenever he played in Windia, which was weird because of the amount of time the teenager spent on the game. 

Alongside the username of the Top 5 were also their preferred weapons. Next to Bada_ was the rarest and most expensive custom-made bow with equally high-priced and remarkable golden arrows. Hyukjae watched with fascination at her choice of weapons. They seemed familiar.

With swift fingers, Hyukjae hurriedly change the tabs back to Maplestory. He tapped ‘I’ on his keyboard to open up his inventory. The geek darted his eyes around until he found the arrow.

When the Mercedes killed the gargoyle and the monster exploded it’s prizes out, the bow that she used was also released. Hyukjae noticed it laying in between the numerous mesos and potions and went to pick it up.  The arrow was shiny, fatal-looking, and costed millions in the Marketplace. 

Exactly like the one Bada_ owned.

A/N - INTERNET HALLELUJAH

Alright, since my internet is finally up and running, do expect more updates otw! Do comment, for it helps me a lot when I get pointers from people on how I can improve my writing.