A Small Misunderstanding
“Argh!!”
“Hm?”
Jo Yi-hyeon’s foot froze as he stepped into the entrance of the snug villa.
“Yi-han?”
It wasn’t someone else’s voice—it was unmistakably his brother’s. Yi-hyeon turned his head. At the end of the alley, his little brother came running toward him.
“Huff… huff… Hyung… it’s been… it’s been a while…”
Yi-hyeon bent his waist and looked down at his brother, who was panting heavily.
“I thought you were home. Guess you were out.”
“Huff… uh… huff… I was at the school library doing homework… huff…”
“Kid, you can catch your breath and talk.”
“Huff… then for a bit…”
Watching his brother wipe sweat from his face and catch his breath, the corner of Yi-hyeon’s mouth twitched upward.
‘I must’ve missed him a lot.’
For Yi-han, it had been a desperate scramble to avoid being caught embezzling the deposit. Yi-hyeon had no idea what was really going on and took it the wrong way.
Thinking back, he had grown a bit distant toward his brother lately.
‘It’s all my fault.’
With the new job as a prosecutor, he was busy. Caring for his wife and the child they’d made out of love had left him distracted. Now that his brother was an adult, he’d figured he could handle it on his own.
‘Of course he can.’
But he’d forgotten that the brother he’d practically raised from childhood would miss him.
‘I need to visit more often from now on.’
If Yi-han had heard that, he’d have choked on his spit.
“Whew… now I feel better.”
“Why didn’t you take it slow? I could’ve waited for you inside your studio.”
“Ah, haha. Hyung hates it when people break promises.”
“Not just anyone, though—my own brother. How could he hate waiting a little?”
Back when they were kids, Yi-han had beaten the love out of waiting for promises. It still stung a bit, but he just laughed it off.
“Still, you have to keep promises, right? Haha… I wish you’d told me ahead of time.”
“I didn’t get the chance to call early. Besides, standing here talking like this is weird. Let’s go inside my room and finish—”
At the mention of going inside, Yi-han cut him off abruptly.
“Hyung! Your throat dry? Whoa. It’s May, and it’s pretty hot out. There’s a cafe right here. How about we chat over coffee? It’ll cool you down.”
“Um. Coffee.”
“T-there’s AC at the studio, but summer hasn’t hit yet so I haven’t cleaned the filter. Haha. It’s a little messy.”
“Yeah. Then let’s have a cup of coffee.”
Yi-han seized the opportunity to shift his brother’s focus and led him to the cafe he’d spotted while running.
“I’ll get iced Americano. What about you?”
“Iced Americano?”
“No, I mean iced coffee. It’s too long to say iced Americano.”
“These days kids shorten everything. Fine, I’ll have iced coffee too.”
“Hyung is thirty now. What’s with the shortcutting?”
“Order and I’ll grab it.”
“Hmm.”
Watching his brother head to order, Yi-hyeon stroked his chin.
‘Just like Mom said.’
He finally understood his mother’s complaint that her son was strange. He hadn’t noticed earlier because the brother was sweating and panting, but his face looked a bit gaunt.
‘He hasn’t been eating properly.’
He seemed thinner than when they met before the semester started. His dark circles under his eyes raised worries about sleep.
“Hyung, here’s the coffee.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Is it really that tough lately? You look exhausted.”
“Huh? No. What’s so hard about school? Everything’s the same.”
“It’s fine. I was discharged too. My head got rusty and it was tough. Two years without studying suddenly thrown back in… it was hard adjusting.”
Yi-han thought his sunken look was due to being stuck in the basement staring at a laptop all day, but if the prosecutor interpreted it as laziness, that was even better. He nodded.
“Switching to sitting and catching up on classes isn’t easy. Hahaha.”
“Still, you need to take care of your health. Mom worries.”
“When studying I forget to eat… I’ll make sure to eat properly from now on.”
“Yeah. Mom also told me to check your fridge.”
“What?!”
Checking the fridge meant coming home. He shook his head in panic.
“Why would you even check? I don’t eat enough? There’s plenty in the fridge! I’m going to eat properly, I swear.”
“Um… Mom said she’d check with her own eyes—”
“Come on, Hyung. How old am I? Checking my fridge is weird.”
“Yeah, you’re twenty-two now… okay.”
Yi-han secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
But while he thought he’d escaped disaster, Yi-hyeon started feeling something was off.
‘He’s acting like he’s hiding something inside the house.’
As a two-year veteran prosecutor, he’d handled all sorts of cases. His brother now felt like a suspect trying to hide a crime.
‘He avoids eye contact.’
He kept glancing at his watch and his legs were shaking. His whole body was tense.
Yi-hyeon thought he was faking it well, but his brother’s body screamed suspicion.
After watching him for a moment, his doubts turned into certainty. He asked bluntly.
“Yi-han, there’s something you’re hiding.”
Gulp.
His brother spilled the coffee he was drinking.
“Uh, uh?”
“You’ve never been able to lie since you were little.”
A cold sweat ran down Yi-han’s back.
In his mind he pictured himself locked in the house crying sadly.
“W-what are you talking about? Where would I be hiding anything?”
“No. You’re definitely hiding something.”
Only now did Yi-hyeon understand.
As his older brother, he couldn’t miss the change in his little brother. He had also roughly guessed what he was hiding.
“You have a girlfriend.”
“Eh?”
“It’s fine. I went through the same thing.”
His face looked exhausted, but his eyes sparkled.
It was the look of a man in love.
‘He must be tired after falling for her.’
Yi-hyeon had experienced the same early stages with his current wife, so he understood his brother’s state.
‘Kid really grew up.’
The reason he kept him from entering the studio was probably because he didn’t have time to clean up traces of his girlfriend.
“You’re not living together, right?”
“Eh? Uh…”
“Use protection. As someone just starting out, I’ll sound like a nag, but—”
“No, hyung. I… I will. I’ll definitely do it.”
Why hadn’t he been getting calls from Mom? Because he had to talk to his girlfriend.
Why hadn’t he visited home often? He had to go on dates.
All things Yi-hyeon had experienced.
“Who is she?”
“Um… um…”
Yi-han, dazed by his overprotective brother, realized this was his chance. He described a nonexistent girlfriend.
“Sweet and pretty.”
“Haha. Probably. Same school?”
“Uh… yeah?”
“How old is she?”
“S-same age.”
“Where does she live?”
“No, hyung. Am I under interrogation? Where she lives is none of your business.”
“Oh, sorry. This habit just stuck. As her first girlfriend, my curiosity got the better of me.”
It was a great time.
He truly celebrated his brother’s first love.
“I’ll keep it a secret from Mom for a while. If she finds out, she’ll drag you home. I know from experience. It’s still too early for her to know. But when the time comes, I’ll introduce you to your girlfriend.”
“Um… if the opportunity arises.”
“Love is great, but don’t neglect your studies either. Balance is key.”
“Of course, hyung.”
He had originally planned to visit his brother’s place after dinner, but now that he knew the reason, there was no need. Thinking about it, even if it was Mom’s request, checking on his grown-up son’s house would be disrespectful.
“How about eel for dinner?”
“Eel? I don’t care what it is.”
“Yeah. Then eel it is. Haha.”
It was a wonderful time.
*
“How is it?”
“It’s good.”
“Haha. Eat up. This is the best way to replenish your energy.”
After eating eel with the brother who had a strange misunderstanding, they parted ways.
“I almost got caught.”
The biggest crisis while developing a game wasn’t a bug or insufficient funds—it was his parents finding out.
‘I didn’t think Mom would notice so quickly.’
Thanks to the brother’s misunderstanding, he barely escaped. If he hadn’t, he would’ve been caught.
“I’ll tell Mom I was studying.”
That was the line Yi-hyeon gave him.
With just one sentence from his brother, Mom would probably stop suspecting him for a while.
“It was a stroke of luck.”
He hadn’t been caught embezzling tuition or the deposit, and he’d enjoyed a hearty meal. Yi-hyeon even gave him 300,000 won to spend as he liked.
“Still, I need to make the game as fast as possible.”
It was May now, so there was a buffer until the December deadline. But even with his brother’s cover, he couldn’t be sure when trouble would hit.
He opened his laptop and checked the engine he was working on.
“Where was I…”
Long, complex code greeted him.
“Ah, right here.”
He had been optimizing steadily, but memory leaks were still an issue. He was fixing that part.
Tap tap tap.
He drummed on the keyboard like playing piano.
He checked the code on the monitor.
“Why did this bug appear?”
A new bug had appeared.
Irritated, he punched the air a few times, fixed it, or checked the code he’d just written and quickly patched it.
After repeating this,
“Whew… it’s done.”
Time passed and the engine was complete.
“It was hard. So hard.”
He stretched after twisting his chronically stiff neck.
The days he had toiled alone to make the engine came back.
Nights he ate instant ramen crushed into his mouth because he couldn’t spare time to eat.
A whole week locked inside without showering or stepping outside.
As code grew, new bugs multiplied like taxes. He got so frustrated he nearly smashed his laptop.
It had been tough, but seeing the finished engine made his mouth curl up.
“It feels good.”
But this was just the beginning.
He had only taken the first step.
A mountain of things remained to be done.
He had to implement the playable characters, monsters, and backgrounds he’d imagined in his head. He also had to create random items gained upon clearing stages and stat cards chosen during level-ups.
Even after making all that, it wasn’t over.
‘I need sound too.’
He had to make sound effects needed during the game.
Since sound effects alone would be boring, he also needed background music.
But he felt uneasy.
He could make sound effects for character attacks and hits. He never planned to include anything spectacular anyway.
But each stage required different BGM.
‘I don’t think my music will please my ears.’
His ears for listening were better than his skill at composing.
Eternal Tale, the game he directed, received anti-fans criticizing its lack of gameplay, but its BGM always got praise.
‘The sound team did a good job and now this is a problem.’
He lightly learned composition from the sound team leader before regression and tried recording MIDI.
“This doesn’t feel right…”
Stage 1’s background was a city being attacked by hostile alien creatures after crossing a gate.
He composed a melody imagining it, but it sounded terrible.
“This won’t work. Outsourcing is the way.”
If he spent days or months creating songs, he might find one he liked. But as someone who also had to draw dots and program, outsourcing only sound would stall progress.
Focus was needed.
The problem was cost.
‘How much is left in the account?’
He opened his account book.
Fixed expenses like rent and utilities had been deducted. He bought a paid library for the engine, so after three months he had about 1,200,000 won left.
‘It’s a long way short.’
Hiring a professional would probably get one song for this amount.
‘I’ll have to outsource to an amateur.’
For an amateur, 800,000 to 1,000,000 won per song should be fine. He visited a free sound-sharing site to find a good composer.
“Um…”
He expected at least one track worth finding, but nothing caught his eye.
‘If I hear a song that feels right, I’ll ask that person to compose…’
He searched for a long time and only got a headache.
Jiiing—
While stuck on the BGM problem, his phone rang.
“Mom.”
He stopped the music he was listening to and answered.
“Hello?”
[My son~ Are you busy?]
“Yes. What…”
[Aigoo. You’ve been working hard studying, haven’t you?]
“No. I enjoy it.”
Though it wasn’t really studying.
“What’s the matter?”
[How rude. What kind of talk is that? Do you only call when something comes up?]
“No, that’s not it…”
[Just kidding~ Anyway, Mom’s church is having a bazaar this time. If you have time, could you help a little? Dad says no because he’s busy. Seung-su has to work too. He needs to rest on weekends. So I thought about my precious son.]
“Mom, I’m sorry, but this time it’s a bit hard—”
He was about to politely decline but stopped.
‘If I just refuse and give Mom an excuse to visit, what then?’
As if saying “time is short,” he had skipped a day but risked his suspicion and making game development impossible.
The day his brother suddenly appeared, he’d been careless and almost got ambushed.
“Then I can go this weekend, right?”