The café was lively and boisterous, filled with customers and conversation. The air smelled like coffee. It was just a little before noon, and business was busy and breathless as ever.

…Except in a corner of the place, where a gloomy-looking man was sitting alone at a table. There was a cap on his head, its rim pulled as far down over his head as possible; the bottom half of his face covered with a surgical mask and the top half with dark sunglasses. He was bent over with his elbows on the table, stirring a glass of water aimlessly with a plastic straw. All-in-all, he looked extremely suspicious.

Behind all the excessive face-coverings was Shin Hyesung, desperately hoping that no one would recognize his features. Out of all places, he thought glumly, I agreed to meet in a café at the peak of business.

He was there for a meeting with a friend – a friend that he happened to know nothing about. Name, face, age; nothing.

Well, he did know the age part. Although, whether or not this friend was actually thirty-four would be confirmed today.

This friend of Hyesung’s was met online in the world of a game called Airia, a new adventure roleplay that connected straight to the internet. The fantasy universe allowed every player to interact with one another through chat systems and player-vs.-player battles. To Hyesung, the appeal had come in the custom avatar – while the gameplay itself seemed like real life, the face of your character wouldn’t be.

And that way, he could be just another gamer without a trace of his famous title trailing behind him.

It just happened to be that Hyesung and this player met when Airia first came out. The two became online friends within a single day, and when the idea to meet in real life came up…

Hyesung still didn’t know why he didn’t refuse the suggestion, because here he was, trying to keep his celebrity identity a secret in a snug building filled with other people. And he could barely breathe with the mask over his face.

Not to mention, how are you going to explain this whole “being-famous” thing to him? he thought to himself.

 “Sir?”

He looked up in alarm to see the waitress standing next to his table. “Would you like to order?” she asked, a little hesitant. She held a notepad in one hand and a pen with the other, poised to write.

“N-no,” Hyesung answered, making his voice sound overly scratchy and elderly. “I’m fine for now.”

“Right…” the waitress said, tapping the tip of her pen a little on her notepad. “Then, can you call me over when you’re ready?”

He anxiously nodded and watched in heart-pounding nervousness as she headed away. He sighed in relief, pushing his sunglasses up the brim of his nose. After his heartbeat settled down, he continued keeping vigilance for anyone who walked in the door that looked remotely like the tall and handsome image Hyesung had already come up with in his brain.

After a few minutes, a person with rather abundant height entered the place. He was donned in a fishing hat, sunglasses, and a surgical mask; the only thing making him more suspicious than the similarly-dressed Hyesung was the trench coat he wore.

Hyesung recognized the man instantly, despite the measures taken to hide the face. He hurriedly lowered his head in a sad effort to hide himself, but it was already too late.

The other man had spotted Hyesung, and after only a moment’s hesitation, marched across the tiles and slid into the seat across from him. “What are you doing here?” he hissed accusingly, bending over the table.

“What are you doing here?” Hyesung replied in the same, hostile manner. He looked around, half-surprised that no one even thought to stare at the – now – two customers who looked like they could be potential kidnappers. Or murderers. Or both.

The opposite person reached up to his face to pull down the mask in order to speak and breathe better, but Hyesung reached right across and slapped his hands away from removing it. “Don’t do that; do you want to get caught…” he snapped. And then, lowering his voice: “…Eric?”

Eric leaned back in his seat, relenting. “Wanna tell me what you’re doing in a café in the middle of the day?”

“Meeting a friend,” Hyesung answered curtly.

Eric snorted. “You have no friends.”

Hyesung glared at him in return, but to no avail. Maybe due to the sunglasses that partially covered it. “You don’t know him,” he said carefully.

The leader shrugged. “And…?”

Hyesung wondered if there was a way to avoid this encounter with him altogether. To which his mind answered: Nope.

“I haven’t actually met him,” Hyesung said. “I mean, I became friends with him over the internet, so I’m going to see him in person for the first time. Today.” He then scowled to himself. “I was all prepared to meet someone with good looks and height, but why did you have to walk in?”

Ignoring the obvious insult, Eric asked, “Wait…you’re here to meet a friend from the internet?”

He had a rather strange tone and atmosphere now, and Hyesung said, “Why? Something wrong with that?”

Slowly, the other shook his head. “No…I just thought it was weird since I came here for the same thing.”

At that moment, Hyesung felt a foreboding, imaginary cloud move over his head. There was something weird about that, but for some reason he didn’t exactly want to push the situation further. “Oh, what a coincidence. Now can you leave to a different table or something to wait for your online fr-”

“Hold on,” Eric interrupted. “Is your online friend from a game?”

Hyesung really didn’t want to answer that. “Yeah…”

“Were they of a warrior class?”

“Eric, there’s no possible w-“

“And he designed the avatar to be kinda plain; maybe a couple tattoos on the arms here and there, right?”

Hyesung had to refrain from leaping up in his seat; he dug his heels into the floor and clung to the chair. Eric only kept on rattling off characteristics, every single one belonging to the in-game character of Hyesung’s internet friend. There was no way that anyone would know all the features of the friend he was meeting, unless –

Eric paused for a moment, his face glowing behind his mask and sunglasses. “Your avatar was the elf race, wasn’t it? With blond hair?”

Hyesung’s heart sank. That was it. “What. The. Hell.”

Eric started cackling, finding the situation to be way too hilarious. Some people in the café turned to look in surprise at his outburst, only to turn back to their affairs after a few strange whispers.

“How do you think this is funny?” Hyesung said, in shock over everything.

“How do you not think this is funny?” Eric challenged, muffling his laughing. “Oh my God. We’ve been best friends over the internet and didn’t even know it.”

The disappointment that finally settled in made Hyesung sag in his chair. “It’s only Eric,” he mumbled to himself. Every single thought about him having a normal Korean citizen as a friend dissipated. Every single time he logged onto the game, he had been talking to Eric. Shinhwa’s leader, who sometimes made questionable advances on Hyesung’s personal space.

“So you pictured me as handsome and attractive and stuff?” Eric said. The grin on his face could be heard. “Not disappointed at all, are you?”

Hyesung gave him a condescending and irritated glare, pulling his glasses down just so Eric would be able to see it. “I kind of want to punch you.”

“Hey, it’s not like you’re the only one who’s upset,” Eric replied, not sounding upset at all. “Do you think I wanted to come here only to see that one of my band members was that perfect friend I had been imagining?”

“What?” Hyesung snapped, shoving his glasses back to their place. “So am I not a ‘perfect friend’ or something? Is that what you’re implying?”

“Well, you do nag a lot.”

“…I’m never going to play that damn game ever again.”

“It’s not the game’s fault. Kinda.” Eric paused for a moment before saying in total seriousness, “This could be fate.”

Hyesung glared at him, hoping that he was joking – but he wasn’t. Hyesung appreciated the glasses that were over Eric’s eyes; he wasn’t sure that he wanted to see the expression behind them.

“I’m out,” Hyesung said abruptly, standing up and readjusting his mask and cap. “No use waiting around anymore.”

“True,” Eric agreed, getting to his feet as well. “Did you drive here?”

“Are you suggesting we walk to the parking lot together?” Hyesung asked dryly, to which Eric nodded as they headed out the door, a gust of wind greeting them with a slap to the face.

“It’d be a little awkward for us as group members to not even accompany each other ten feet out a building, don’t you think?” Eric asked, to which Hyesung mentally had to agree.

The walk outside in the chilly winter weather was bland and uneventful. There were some remnants of snow from the last snowfall. Hyesung suddenly wished that he had lied and said he hadn’t driven there; then he could’ve waited for Eric to leave first before climbing into his own vehicle and allowing himself to lament over the friend that had seemed so perfect…but had turned out to be someone he had known for over a decade.

While Hyesung was lost in thought, Eric suddenly scurried a few steps toward the wall, yanking Hyesung along with him. The latter’s reaction time wasn’t the best, so he didn’t process what was going on until he looked up and came face-to-face with Eric.

Close enough for lips to touch.

Hyesung felt his heartbeat spike – in a good way? He quickly shoved that thought out of his head.

“Feel thankful for the masks,” Eric told him, his breath warm in the middle of the stinging cold weather. Blood rushed to Hyesung’s face as Eric stepped backward.

“By the way, I do think that it’s fate,” he said, tucking his hands into his pockets and looking at the ground. “And maybe you don’t, but…”

Hyesung opened his mouth to say something. Deter him? He didn’t want to. There wasn’t an exact reason why.

Eric turned to head off to his car, and Hyesung called out meekly:

“See you in Airia?”

Eric stopped in his tracks, a tip of one shoe trailing along the ground in midstep. Hyesung sharply inhaled, waiting for a response. It came in the form of a lift of the arm, a curt signal, but a signal nonetheless.

“Fate” had far from ended.

Okay, so we'll see how good this is to all of you T_T I'm kind of tired so it might not connect well. The real fluff and whatnot will come in the second/last part, so stick around?