Lovers Don't Mind the Pain of Sacrificing for Each Other
Right after I’d cleanly locked down one win, I queued up the next round without missing a beat.
“Hey, Vini-Vini-Vini.”
“Heehee~ Why?”
“Why are you grinning like that? It’s annoying.”
“Because we won, duh. Aren’t you happy?”
Well, sure… I was happy we won, but not happy enough to start humming to myself.
“I’m not that happy.”
“What? We won!”
Was winning really such a difficult thing? Did it deserve this kind of celebration?
“How many wins have you even had?”
“I dunno… maybe around ten?”
“Sorry. I’ll try harder.”
“What is that apology even supposed to mean?”
“Poor soul…”
How had she only managed about ten wins in Shooting Ground? Even if she was bad, with that much playtime she should’ve had twenty or thirty by now.
“I’ll… try harder… our poor Vini… sob sob…”
“You’re suddenly getting on my nerves. Just wait.”
“Yep~ We’re starting the next round~”
Since Yebin had already hit ready, we just jumped straight into the next match.
She looked a little sad that she couldn’t come over and beat me up right away, but the viewers seemed delighted by the whole thing.
There were also a few weirdos who had latched onto the strangest part of all.
What was I supposed to do with those insane Real Dating shippers?
Other rooms only had a few WGM shippers. Why the hell did my room have Real Dating shippers?
“All Real Dating jokes are banned. I’m cutting them down, one and all.”
I found a few of the Real Dating jokers and made an example out of them, of course only in that one-minute-respawn WWE kind of way, and the viewers happily played along.
“You jerk flipping me off. I saw you, bastard.”
Somehow, while I was doing this WWE nonsense, one idiot had barged in without reading the room.
“How can you be so cruel to your viewers?”
“Our Vini.”
“Ugh.”
“Okay, fair?”
“Fair. Then cut them down even harder.”
“Nope. Now that you told me to do it, I don’t feel like it anymore.”
“You lunatic.”
Yebin’s curses came flooding in, but my viewers were praising me even harder instead.
Yeah, yeah. I’m the man, kids.
“And you, the one who said ‘girlfriend’? You’re dead.”
The second I kicked that guy out for a minute, the viewers started complaining all over again.
Whatever. They kept babbling about WGM this and WGM that, but I was only going to listen to what I wanted to hear.
This was a place ruled by fear, and I was the king here. If they didn’t like it, they could start streaming themselves.
Whether they liked it or not, the game had started, and this time Yebin had set herself to follow me with almost unnerving obedience.
“Boring~ Boring~ Boring~ Boring~”
“Ah, jeez.”
“You’re being way too obedient with that follow-up.”
“If I wasn’t, I figured you’d kill me again. Why?”
Fair enough.
She had a point, so I couldn’t argue.
I silently started looting while Yebin, just as quietly, began asking me about gun attachments.
“Dodo, is it good if I put this here?”
“No, that’s a sniper grip. Anything else is fine.”
“Okay~”
“Dodo-do-do, how about this?”
“Don’t you think a bolt-action is a little much to carry?”
“I want to carry it.”
“If you’re going to carry something that hard to use, then carry it.”
“Yesss~”
“Cut the crap.”
After that brief looting stretch, I handed Yebin the parts for the gun she was holding.
“Hey, equip this. A suppressor and an extended mag.”
“Huh? Wow… how did you know I needed those?”
“Because the parts for your gun are all the same. You don’t need a cheek pad. It doesn’t matter on a bolt-action anyway.”
“Yesss~”
Yebin grinned from ear to ear as she started attaching the parts, and while she did that, I checked the circle and figured out where we’d have the best chance of winning.
After deciding on one spot, I told Yebin, “Vini-Vini.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Vini-Vini-Vini-Vini.”
“Why are you doing that?”
“Vini-Vini-Vini-Vini-Vini-Vi—”
“One more word and I’m shooting you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Anyway, let’s go there.”
I pinged the spot for her, and Yebin nodded right away.
“Got it. But do we really have to move? We’re already inside the circle.”
“We are, but I want to grab a better position.”
Honestly, in most games I wouldn’t have moved at all here.
We were basically dead center, so if we just sat quietly and hid, there was no way we’d die before the final circle.
It was the kind of start that sent your whole run straight into the stratosphere.
But I still told her to go elsewhere.
Sure, we were in the center, but the ground here was too low. We could get eaten alive by anyone on higher ground.
So I wanted us to take the building on the high ground instead and ride that advantage all the way up.
If things went south, we could even turn around and punish the guys who took the low-ground building we were in now.
After hearing me out, Yebin moved without complaint, and together we reached the building on higher ground.
Then she quietly started camping in a room.
The viewers were giving me crap for camping, but I said it with absolute certainty.
“Hey, I still have to let Vini win, don’t I?”
If this had been any normal match, I would’ve sprinted out there and done some one-man-army hero nonsense. But I had Yebin with me now. I had to get her that win.
And somehow, that line hit the viewers right in the feelings.
Seeing those reactions, my head actually spun a little.
And Yebin, for her part, leaned into it even harder.
“I can get carried too! He said he wants to carry me to a win! Dodo wants to carry me to a win!”
Fine, sure, that was my real intention.
…But hearing you say it out loud makes me deeply uncomfortable.
“Right? With that much playtime and only about ten wins, someone’s gotta spoon-feed her the victory.”
“Hey, lie down once and see what happens.”
“If you come in here, I’ll shoot you on sight.”
Hate-love WGM. Man, that phrase fit us perfectly.
Right, this was WGM, but it was hate-love. What a beautiful combination.
What, not true? So what. They liked it too.
After enough back-and-forth with Yebin and the viewers, the final circle arrived before I knew it.
But then…
“…… Wow, the circle actually chose us? That’s insane.”
The zone had picked us.
“Huh? Isn’t it always like this?”
“No, not usually… Wait, usually? You mean when you play, it was like this?”
“Yeah, pretty much?”
……What was she, a smug little RNG goblin?
Just when I was getting irritated, I cut myself off.
“...Let’s get ready to fight.”
“Huh? Ready to fight?”
“Listen to the sound. Hear it?”
It was about time we started fighting for real.
“Ah… yeah, I hear it.”
“Don’t die on me. We’re definitely favored here.”
“I know that~ You’re the one who shouldn’t die~”
And so the fight began with Yebin at my side…
“Kyahhh!!”
And, as expected, Yebin died again.
Of course, I made quick work of the guys who killed her, but I didn’t have time to bring her back.
The last team left knew Yebin was down and were already trying to push into the house.
“Tch… damn, this is a bust.”
“Hey, hey…! Can’t you save me somehow?”
“If I revive you here, we’ll both die.”
“They’re still a little far away...!”
That was true enough. If I just blocked the door and revived her, I could probably buy us a little time.
But then… a better idea came to me.
I opened the door Yebin had closed earlier when she’d tried to save herself.
“Hey, what are you doing—!”
Without saying a word to Yebin, I started working the house over.
“Hey, Vini.”
“What is it, you crazy b—”
“Normally, lovers don’t hurt when they sacrifice themselves for each other, right?”
I said it as sweetly as I could, a little too smooth, a little too silky.
And Yebin’s response was an enraged shout that nearly blew the roof off.
“Quit talking crap, you insane bastard Aaaahhh!!!!!!”
I didn’t care. I just sprinted out of that house and put as much distance between us as I could.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Ratatatatat!
The enemies fired at me as I ran, but since I was only trying to escape on purpose, none of them could land a shot.
Of course they were chasing after me, but that wasn’t the important part.
The important part was that I’d run out alone—and that there had been a corpse in the house a second ago.
Because of that, they paused for a moment at the building and started to push inside.
And just as the sixteen-second countdown I’d been keeping in my head hit three, I called out in a bright, cheerful voice, “Three, two, one!”
Beep—!
Then came the vicious warning siren, and with it—
BOOOOOOM!!!
The entire building blew sky-high.
Yeah, the bomb I’d planted there was none other than C4.
It was the worst, most vicious bomb in the game, the kind that could wipe out an entire building in one shot.
DodoDa eliminated ViniVini
DodoDa eliminated GangCEO1234
DodoDa eliminated ManagerKim
With that, I’d wiped out Yebin and the last two enemies still standing, and I congratulated myself with complete confidence.
“Nice work, Vini.”
But there was no answer.
A chill ran down my spine, and I immediately went to lock the door and hole up, but I was already too late.
Creaaak.
There was Yebin, smiling.
And in her hands, nothing at all.
Instead, she was simply lifting one leg.
Whoosh!
Baaam!!
“Aaaaahhhhh!!!”
Her brutal kick slammed perfectly into my calf, and then she started stomping on me.
“You, crazy, absolute lunatic bastard Aaaahhh!!”
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurtsaaaaa!!!”
Even while I was taking her relentless assault, I was laughing.
I was just laughing.