Prologue

　　Missed messages were stacking up. Every single one was from Shin Heejae.

　　—Heejae: Noona why’d you leave the clan?

　　—Heejae: Are you quitting??

　　—Heejae: Did I do something wrong?

　　My hand started shaking just from reading that. About five minutes later, Shin Heejae sent another wave of texts, showing his true colors.

　　—Heejae: Pretty sure I didn’t tho… o_o??

　　—Heejae: This is getting ridiculous what are you doing??

　　—Heejae: Why aren’t you answering my calls?

　　—Heejae: Did something happen?

　　When I still didn’t reply to his barrage of question marks, Heejae moved on to threats. That only took him ten minutes, just as I’d expected.

　　—Heejae: Noona lol unless you got into some accident

　　—Heejae: You’re so dead I swear

　　—Heejae: Are you messing with me?

　　—Heejae: I’ll find you

　　Of course, I knew Shin Heejae was all talk and couldn’t actually come find me. I’d never given him my address. But even though I knew every word coming out of his mouth was a total bluff… my knees still felt weak.

　　It was all because of how completely unhinged he was. I had this irrational fear that one day he might actually show up at my place and start ringing the doorbell.

　　—Heejae: Noona get back to me by tomorrow

　　—Heejae: Or I’m tracking you down for real

　　—Heejae: You’re not sitting there feeling safe just cause you never gave me your address, are you? lol

　　My heart stopped for a beat when I read that, but I forced myself to calm down.

　　He’s just bluffing, I told myself.

　　Besides, we’d barely spent two months fooling around in the game. I hadn’t let him hear my voice once during that entire time. So even after reading his last message, I didn’t reply.

　　But Shin Heejae must have been staring at his chat screen all day, because the split second he saw I’d read it, he messaged again.

　　—Heejae: ?

　　—Heejae: Noona talk to me

　　[Block Heejae?]

　　I hesitated, staring at the screen.

　　But when another call from Heejae came through, I hit decline and blocked him as planned. A deep sigh escaped me, though honestly, I felt relieved more than anything.

　　Well… for two weeks, anyway.

　　Right up until Shin Heejae actually showed up on my doorstep.