Insomniac Player

Martin crossed his arms. "He’s an adult."

"Unfortunately."

"I can decide this myself," Damien protested.

John ignored him entirely. Damien twisted to point back over his shoulder while still being marched forward. "Can I at least think about it?"

"No."

"Why are you even answering, then?"

"Because your brain’s damaged."

"My brain saved Tycho!"

"Exactly. You’ve used it enough for one day."

Damien shot a helpless look toward Noah. Noah crossed his arms. "Major."

Damien caught the tiny smile hiding under it.

"You bastard."

Noah finally laughed outright. John kept steering Damien down the corridor.

Behind them, Martin called out, "The offer stays open!"

John didn’t slow down. "No, it doesn’t!"

"It wasn’t offered to you!"

"I’m rejecting it on his behalf!"

Damien looked sideways at the enormous ginger man beside him. Two years had changed John. Stronger now. More dangerous. Far more influential than the man Damien remembered from the tutorial.

He’d just walked into the Secretariat of Region 21, insulted its President, challenged its whole government, and nearly tore the building down over one pair of cuffs.

But somewhere underneath all of that, something hadn’t changed at all.

Damien sighed. "John."

"Hm?"

"You really did get fatter."

John stopped walking.

Damien regretted it instantly.

"...Kid."

"Ehm. Um. I didn’t mean it."

◇◇◇

The doors of the Secretariat closed behind them. Damien barely had a second to look at the sky.

"Damien."

"Hm?"

John grabbed him. His feet left the ground. "...Mr. John?"

Two arms wrapped around his torso and squeezed.

CRACK.

His eyes went wide. "Mr. John."

The grip tightened further. "My boy!"

"J-John."

"I thought you were dead!"

"John!"

"I looked everywhere!"

"MR. JOHN, I CAN’T BREATHE!"

His face went red, arms pinned flat against his sides, feet still dangling off the ground like a kid.

"I missed you, you little rascal!"

"My... ribs."

"Two years!"

"You’re... killing me."

John finally let go. Damien dropped onto the pavement, doubling over, coughing hard. "Hah... hah."

John wiped his eyes. Damien stared up at him. "You almost actually killed me."

"Don’t be dramatic."

"I fought twelve Hollow Giants today, and you’re the one who came closest."

John laughed, then his expression softened, both hands landing gently on Damien’s shoulders this time.

"Seriously."

Damien dropped the joking. John studied his face for a long moment, and something shifted, the mana gone, the crushing presence gone, the man who’d just threatened a sitting President gone. Just John. The same ridiculous giant who’d watched his back through the whole tutorial.

"I thought you were gone." His voice dropped quiet. "We searched everywhere."

Damien swallowed.

"Every new gate. Every strange system report. Every missing-player rumor that surfaced. I paid for information brokers. Contacted governments directly. Posted on the Worldwide Channel." John shook his head slowly. "Nothing. Not one damn lead."

Damien looked away. "For me, it wasn’t two years."

"Figured as much."

"How long," Damien said, more to himself, then scratched his cheek. "It’s complicated."

"Kid."

"I know."

"You owe me one hell of a story."

"Yeah."

John’s face broke into a sudden grin. "Good." Then his eyes narrowed. "Where do you live?"

"Why?"

"Because I’m hungry."

Damien stared at him. "...Of course you are."

John proceeded to cancel everything. Everything.

They hadn’t even reached the building before his communication window started flooding with notifications.

➤[Raid Coordination Request] — Declined. ➤[Interview Confirmation] — Cancelled. ➤[Guild Executive Meeting] — Cancelled. ➤[Private Gate Clearance, Urgent] — Cancelled.

Another call came through. John answered. "Sir John, the raid team’s already assembled. If we delay—"

"Cancel it."

"Sir, the participation fee alone is—"

"Don’t care."

"You’re contracted for—"

"Send the penalty."

He hung up. Damien stared at him. "How much did you just lose?"

"No idea."

"You didn’t even ask."

"No."

Another message came in. He dismissed it without reading it.

Damien’s concern grew. "Was that an important raid?"

"Probably."

"Probably?"

"Kid." John put a hand on his shoulder. "I spent two years thinking you were dead. Money can wait one day."

Damien went quiet for a second, and then John ruined it entirely. "Besides, I’m disgustingly rich."

Damien rolled his eyes. "There he is."

They reached his residential district. John looked up at the tower, then stopped. "...Oh."

"What?"

"You live in that penthouse?"

"Yeah."

"How."

Damien frowned. "The system gave it to me."

"The system?"

"Yes."

"For free?"

"Yes."

John’s eyebrows climbed. Damien got suspicious immediately. "What?"

"Nothing."

"What."

John started laughing. "Why are you laughing?"

"Lad." John pointed up at the building. "You know what that is?"

"A building?"

John just stared at him. Damien sighed. "Obviously I know it’s expensive."

"Expensive." He laughed harder. "This isn’t ordinary player housing."

They stepped into the lobby, and John looked around at the marble underfoot. "Limited Edition Residency."

Damien paused. "...Limited what?"

"Edition." John swept an arm around the room. "There are exactly ten towers like this in the whole capital. Ownership’s restricted."

Damien looked around again. He’d known the place was nice. He hadn’t known it was that nice.

"So maybe it’s compensation," he offered, scratching his cheek. "For the two years. Whatever happened with the system, maybe it gave me this when I came back."

John stopped laughing. "Compensation."

"Yeah."

"Two years." He held up two fingers. "They took your family. Your friends. Your levels. Every opportunity you would’ve had." He hit the elevator call button hard enough that it clicked audibly. "And they handed you an apartment for it."

"It’s a penthouse."

"Doesn’t matter."

The doors opened. John stepped in. Damien followed.

"I could buy a hundred of these in two years flat."

Damien just stared at him. When the penthouse doors opened, John stopped again, taking in the skyline stretched out past the glass. He walked through slowly, looked around, and nodded once. "Not bad."

Damien flopped onto the sofa. "That’s it? ’Not bad’?"

"What do you want from me."

"I don’t know. You acted like the building was some kind of legendary item on the way up."

"It’s still just a house." John sat across from him.

"Rich people are exhausting."

"Poor people complain too much."

Damien threw a cushion at him. John caught it out of the air without looking.

For the first time since waking up in that field, Damien felt something close to normal.

Eventually the joking wound down. John leaned back. "Alright." His voice went serious. "Tell me."

Damien knew exactly what he meant, so he told him. Started from the end of the tutorial, the strange behavior in the system, everything. For him, the two years had barely registered as time passing at all, not until he’d actually come back and had to stand inside the gap of it.

A world he barely recognized anymore. Regions instead of countries. People who’d lived two full years without him in it.

John didn’t interrupt much, which was unusual on its own. Damien told him about piecing together how long he’d actually been gone. About finding John’s name plastered everywhere. About wondering, quietly, whether John still remembered him at all.

That finally got a reaction. "You thought I forgot you?"

Damien looked uncomfortable. "Your interviews stopped mentioning me eventually."

"...What?"

"The last one I could find was fourteen months old."

John’s mouth opened, then shut again. Damien shrugged. "You talked about me a lot at first. Then less. Then." He glanced toward the window. "Nothing at all."

John’s whole expression came apart. "You absolute idiot."

"...What?"

His eyes went wet. Damien pointed at him immediately. "No."

"Kid."

"No."

"I searched."

"Don’t start crying on me."

"I spent millions."

"Mr. John."

"I thought you were DEAD!"

Tears actually rolled down his face. Damien stared for a second, then burst out laughing. John wiped his cheeks, indignant. "Why are you laughing?!"

"You’re crying!"

"Of course I’m crying!"

"You’re supposed to be a legend!"

"Legends have feelings too!"

Damien laughed harder. John grabbed the nearest cushion and threw it, and Damien ducked, and it sailed straight into a lamp instead.

CRASH!

Both of them froze. Damien looked at the wreckage, then at John.

"...Limited Edition Residency."

John wiped his eyes. "I’ll buy you a new one."

"Apparently you’ll buy me a hundred buildings."

"I will!"

Damien cracked up again, and John joined him a second later.

For a few hours after that, neither of them brought up the system, or the two missing years, or what might have caused any of it. They just sat there, two idiots laughing in an obscenely expensive penthouse.

Then, Ding-Dong.

The doorbell. Damien glanced toward the entrance.

John’s laughter cut off. Damien frowned. "Expecting someone?"

"It’s my house."

"So?"

"No."

He stood and walked to the door, the display beside it showing two visitors waiting outside. He froze.

"..."

His hand hovered above the panel. John watched from the lounge, curious now. "Oh-ho?"

Damien didn’t answer. He knew those faces, older now, changed by two years, but unmistakably familiar.

He opened the door. Two men stood on the other side. One in designer pants and a fitted shirt. The other broader, taller, wrapped in a long black coat.

Nobody spoke for a moment. The one in designer clothes just stared. The other’s mouth slowly fell open.

Rahul Modi. Imran Ali.

Names John himself kept pinned near the top of his favorites list. People from before everything got complicated. Names that rarely made headlines outside their own region, overshadowed by John’s fame, but they’d been there from the start all the same.

Rahul’s eyes went wide. "...Damien?"

Imran looked at him like he was seeing a ghost.

Damien let a slow smile spread across his face. "Hey."

Imran’s gaze moved past him into the lounge, where John stood watching. Rahul’s expression shifted, his eyes flicking from John to Damien and back.

"You." His voice cracked. "You found him?"

John’s mustache lifted at the corner. "No." A grin spread wide. "Our smartest coward found his own way home."

Damien barely had time to react before Rahul stepped forward, Imran right behind him, both arms already opening.

"Wait." He backed up a step. "No."

John started laughing. "Get him."

"Mr. John!"

Rahul got to him first, Imran a half-second later, and Damien vanished entirely between the two of them. "NOT AGAIN!"

John’s laughter filled the whole penthouse behind them, and for the first time since coming back to this stranger, colder version of the world, home finally felt like something real again.