A/N: Phew, this is a monster sized first chapter. I wanted to lay the foundation for the rest of the story. Following chapters may be super short by comparison, or may not be. I edit all the time so who knows what we'll end up with. Reviews are loved and help to encourage me.
I proofread and forever edit, but, of course I make mistakes and with such a long chapter, I may have made quite a few. If you see any glaring typos or mistakes, please feel free to let me know and I'll do my best to correct them.
I don't own Mystic Messenger or the characters, apart from this particular MC and any OCs that may or may not crop up.
Warning: Spoilers ahead since I don't tend to censor content.
He didn't know how it started, nor exactly when, but it felt so natural. First he was simply existing, but then he was actually living. Self aware. The transition was so smooth, he honestly couldn't say it was shocking to him. Maybe that was how life for sentient beings began. Like a baby who slowly discovers the world around them and comes to understand they are not the center of all things, nor are they alone.
Seven, real name Saeyong, and also known as his baptismal name of Luciel, was now fully aware of being a thinking, feeling being living in a world that wasn't what it seemed. He observed this world as he watched events play out and participated in them, only to wake up with things back where they started, forcing his participation once more.
It always started with MC's appearance in the RFA chat room. Sometimes the day started at different times, early morning, late afternoon, sometimes he had a few hours to work or do other things before he participated in the chat that the MC first joined, sometimes he was already in the chat when things reset themselves, but every time it happened. No matter what he did to try to change things up, MC would always come, and he would always need to do his best to keep everyone safe. Again and again. But. For a while, he thought this was normal life. To repeat these days over and over again in various ways. Maybe that's what life was. A world that reset itself time and again. He had nothing to compare it to, though it felt strange to him.
He noticed that the world he lived in was different to what his expectations had originally been. If he even had any to begin with. But he did now. Even if it was natural for this world to reset, it didn't really set well with Seven's feelings about how things should go. It felt to him that things did best when they progressed and continued forward, rather than going back. Erasing all the progress that was ever made, just didn't feel right to the hacker. But this world had it's own rules and through trial and error, Seven was learning he could only do so much to push against them.
As the world he knew reset itself repeatedly, he became aware of a number of things. Nobody else remembered anything from before once a reset happened. He was alone. There were hints at times that a couple of the others in RFA and this world, might be vaguely aware of some sense of deja vu from time to time, but nothing substantial enough for him to gain any hope from it. The times he tried to prod at this potential knowledge, or hint at it, the others just thought he was weird, laughed it off, or questioned his sanity.
Another thing he noticed was that each time events played out, things ended differently almost every time rather than the same. Most of the conversation remained the same or at least fairly similar, with a few changes here and there at the start, but that changed too after about four days. He noticed something else. Things seemed to center around the MC. He couldn't help but pick up on the fact that by the fifth day, each time, the MC picked someone different to be with,, and this appeared to determine how events would unfold from then on. Every time, she chose someone different to lavish attention and affections on, changing her responses toward that person, and often everyone else within the RFA to some degree. She didn't just chose someone to be near. It seemed she was choosing someone new to love. And it wrecked Seven inside.
Not so much at first, since he hadn't had her for the first couple of remembered resets. He'd watched her though. He had always watched her, from the very beginning. And he became attached as he learned her habits. Not really the times he could catch sight of her on CCTV, but her actions towards those in the RFA, and even those beyond the RFA, if he thought about it. No matter whose affections she was trying to earn, he noticed she couldn't bear to treat others cruelly. She might poke fun and joke around more against certain members at certain times, but when they were truly distressed or needed her, she came through for them, even if they weren't the one she was trying to love. She was oddly loyal in spite of having a heart that was clearly easily swayed. Apart from that ever changing heart, he couldn't help admiring this kind hearted quality of hers. No matter what, it felt like the core of who she was, remained, and that was very reassuring.
She was someone who he came to care deeply for, at the very least, though it always felt like more than that to him. But once she chose him, there was no going back for the hacker. He loved her from then on, fully and absolutely. She was in his heart and no matter how many times his world reset and she seemed to forget him, he could never forget her.
But because of that, because love finally found him, only to be lost to him once again, Seven started to finally deeply question the way this world of his worked. It was causing him pain. Far too much pain. He questioned why this was happening. Why he had to watch her fall in love with others time and again. Why he had to fall in love with her only to lose her so cruelly. To watch her from so close, yet feel so distant was a special kind of torture. And then there were the bad endings. The ones he prayed for a reset after. The ones where he failed to protect her. The ones where she was kidnapped, hurt, or worse.
This most recent one really shook the redhead to his core. Because the ever sweet and innocent Yoosung really had found his yandere side. When MC was in danger, Yoosung ended up enraged. He showed up at Seven's home demanding to know the address of where MC was even though it was dangerous. When Seven refused and stalled him for MC and Yoosung's own safety, it shocked him to learn that Yoosung betrayed his trust and stole the information from him anyway.
By the time he realized what happened, he was too late. All the alarms alerting him to a problem at the apartment were blaring. But no security cameras were working in the building and all of the sensors he had set up, were no longer functional. Panicked, Seven had abandoned all and dashed to the apartment, making it there in record time. But. There was no apartment. Just smoke, charred chunks of objects, and ash. She was gone. Dead. Killed by the very security system that Seven himself had implemented at Rika's insistance. It didn't matter that Rika had demanded it though. He didn't have to install it, but he did. It was his responsibility. His fault. The bomb. He'd killed everyone in the building including one of his dearest friends, Yoosung, and the love of his life, MC.
Seven had fallen to his knees, letting out gut wrenching screams at the universe for taking the most precious person in it away from him. He didn't care about anything else and had prayed immediately for a reset. He decided he didn't care if she never chose him again. She could even hate him, so long as she was alive, safe, and happy, then he could live with that. But not this. He couldn't live with this. He couldn't live in a world without her in it. And to be the cause of her death was overwhelming. He couldn't bear the weight of the guilt of that.
Much to his utter relief and elation, a reset did happen not long after her death. Though it had taken a few hours, hours so hellish that Seven refused to think of them. It was as if he were trying to reset his own mind just so that he could never think of such things again. But, never had Seven felt more giddy then when her name popped up in the chat room to announce her presence once more, as the familiar conversation flickered by on his screen. It was automatic for him to respond as was expected of him and he didn't even care about the repetitive conversations that were happening now. He was just so relieved and happy that she was back, alive, seemingly unaware of the fate that had befallen her, that he couldn't care about anything else.
But having lost her in a way that he couldn't reconcile in his mind, something different happened this time around. His relief at her survival started to calm and his heart started to ache for her. He wanted her. He wanted her to be his. Was it too greedy? Probably, but he didn't care.
As day four came near and it became very painfully obvious to Seven that MC was focusing her attentions on Jumin, the hacker dared to send off a simple, private text to MC. The messenger was set up that private text messages really couldn't be sent apart from after chats, a feature that Seven wasn't sure why he would implement in the first place, and couldn't remember ever having done so. Therefore, he opened up the messenger server and messed around with some settings to change it enough to allow for texts to be sent more freely instead of at such rigid, set times.
Normally he would never go so far. Much less to send a text to MC. It was best to keep her at a distance anyway. But he couldn't stand still after having her die last time around. She'd already gotten a happy ending with Jumin before from what he could tell, both parties sure seemed happy, and experience told him that meant she would end up with a less than stellar ending with him this time around. At least if she had chosen Seven again, he was aware of the situation and had every intention to fight any potential horrific endings this new reset might have brought on. But that couldn't happen because she wasn't choosing him. So he typed out the text and hit send.
Why? Why him? Why not me?
And there was no response. Not for minutes, not for hours, nor ever. But worse than that, MC didn't show up in the chat room at all the following day. Had he scared her off? That had to be it. Ever since Seven had become aware of himself and his world, he noticed that MC came into the chatroom every single day. She may not have been there for every conversation, and she didn't always pick up for every call, but she did make it in every day, and was available most of the time when he'd called her. But the next day there was nothing. She missed all the morning and afternoon chats. By evening, Seven became deeply concerned. He'd tried calling her three times this day. She had missed a call or two from him before, but never three in a row. Never. Why wasn't she answering? Was she safe?
He checked the CCTV footage carefully. There was footage of her leaving the apartment and coming back a couple hours later with shopping bags, but otherwise nothing. Nothing suspicious, no strange activities. Nothing of any consequence to worry him. But he was worried still. He used his hacker skills as he always did, only this time he churned his skills to dig much deeper. Specifically, into her messenger application itself. Normally he just scanned for viruses and signs that someone may have altered the coding from his end, on his server, the one that ran the messenger application in the first place. He did scan more often lately, particularly since someone did hack in. His own twin brother. Another loss he could hardly bare. Losing his brother time and again and knowing that he was suffering because he'd failed to protect him, was just another nail in Seven's heart.
But none of the coding had been altered. Nothing to indicate anyone had hacked very recently. So he dug deeper. He wasn't sure what he was searching for. An answer of some sort. He didn't think he would find one. He almost hoped he could find out that on her end, somehow the chat rooms weren't working to explain her absence. So he checked. And that's when he found it. Deep within the files that he hadn't ventured into before, an open server that connected MC's messenger to his server, to allow her to interact. But...Every RFA messenger was only supposed to run off of his single server. There shouldn't be a secondary server. This secondary server was connected and interlaced to his programming, along with being interlaced directly with MC's messenger. He noted that this secondary server didn't connect to the messenger on his own phone. He checked it out and found it didn't connect to any of the other RFA members' phones either. Only MC's.
And that's when he realized something that shook him up. Something horrible. Somehow, MC's messenger app was intrinsically different to the other RFA members' apps, apart from being based on another server entirely. One that he hadn't even been aware existed until now. But it was worse than that. Digging into the coding within her messenger itself, which he accessed via the secondary server, he saw a serious problem, along with other random things.
The random things didn't disturb him, though they did make him curious. Her messenger was set up unlike any other messenger he'd ever seen. It was strange, and even had features like hourglasses and hearts to collect, the purpose of which wasn't entirely clear to Seven. Though, those features themselves seemed kinda cool and he wouldn't mind adding them to the others' messengers just for a novelty effect, but that wasn't the problem.
Her messenger did not allow her the freedom to speak her mind in any way. Instead, it gave her pre-programmed choices to respond to RFA members with. Two or three, occasionally more, but only a small selection of responses could she use to ever speak with them in the chat rooms. In some cases, the responses available only allowed MC to hurt someone's feelings by either choice. Often she could only greet and say goodbye to one person in a chat room, even if there were others. This...Was bad. Very.
She had no access to her phone's keyboard while in the messenger app's chat rooms. Not only that, but as he dug deeper, Seven was horrified to note that the same rang true for her private messages and her phone conversations. It didn't access her keyboard nor her phone's microphone. She wasn't even allowed to use her own real voice to speak with them?! Apparently the system had an automated response for her, allowing her only to choose from what was written on the screen to respond to their voices. So...The voice he and the others heard and thought of as MC's, was just some computer generated feminine voice, not her real voice?
His heart sank. Who the hell would do this to her? To them all? Who would make it impossible for her to be herself, to express her true thoughts and feelings to everyone and to not even allow her a way to tell them this? Was it Saeran? Why would he go that far when he was the one who lead her to Rika's and RFA in the first place?
What was more, he and the other RFA members had no way of knowing about this virtual censorship of their dear MC. All along, he, right along with everyone else, thought she was speaking her mind just like everyone else did. They'd been so terribly wrong. Which meant...Did he even know this girl he loved? And love her, he did. He loved her with all he had. For her sweet, kind ways, for her utter hopeful support, and care. Even if her responses were programmed, the girl behind them clearly had a big heart and wasn't afraid to use it. Otherwise, why would she ever even bother? This much, Seven felt he knew and could believe in.
But all of this just made him far more curious and concerned. Who was she really? What did she truly think and feel? Why did things not work the same with her, and for her, as they did for him and the others? If someone was stopping her from speaking, that was very worrying to Seven. If it was for some other reason, it was still a problem. It wasn't right. He needed to get to the bottom of this. He needed to make sure she was okay.
This lead the hacker on a search he never expected to go on. He set aside a project to try to alter her messenger so that MC, too, could speak her mind as she pleased. But that would take time since he didn't understand the coding that lay deep within the application itself on the other server. It was very heavily secured. He could get through it, but it would definitely be a challenge for him.
Even if he was meant to be the one who created her messenger, he had no memories of doing so and the programming itself was foreign to him. Though his memories weren't always perfect, sometimes things were quite fuzzy to him, he was highly suspicious that MC's messenger wasn't created by him. But he was the greatest hacker in this world, after all. So he knew he could do it, get into the heart of her messenger and free her from such crazy censorship. It was only a matter of time. But he also had to deal with the other hacker, his brother, and keeping RFA safe, and dealing with his boss and work as an agent, so he didn't have full time to devote to it.
He worked on it as much as he could in the following days. This time things played out in a way he could not stop them from going. MC did come back into the chatrooms a day later, and didn't have any reaction to Seven's strange text message, but now he knew she couldn't respond to it even if she wanted to. He watched helplessly as Jumin locked MC away once more in his home. No matter what the others said, it seemed that MC was fine with being locked away by him though. He kept her there and they decided that was what made them both happy, it seemed. She hardly had access to the outside world, even as members of the RFA begged to meet with her. It was worse than the first time. The whole thing was unhealthy as Jumin appeared to control the MC in more ways than he had in his previous 'life' with her. She had very few freedoms, but she didn't complain. The redhead hated this. Not that he could do a thing about it. At least, Seven thought, she didn't die or get hurt or kidnapped. It was a small bit of solace but it beat trying to find bits of her body in a burned out, exploded building. That was an experience he could never wash out of his mind even if he refused to fully face it.
It wasn't until the next reset, somewhere around the third day, that Seven made any progress with his own side projects. He couldn't quite tell whom she was leaning towards this time as yet. It seemed like it might be Zen though. Either way, he was secretly thrilled that MC no longer belonged to Jumin.
But Seven focused on getting more answers. It was around this time that he managed to hack his way into an impossibly hidden file within the MC's own messenger that allowed him direct access to her app and to the other server. It was a real security weakness. As if whomever created it, didn't think anyone would ever try to hack into it from Seven's side. Strange. But, he was happy with this breakthrough. Seven let out a yell of triumph and grabbed himself another bag of Honey Buddha chips and a Doctor Pepper to celebrate before continuing on.
Strangely, this file was unlike anything the hacker had ever laid eyes on before. It wasn't that it was super complex, but it was very different. Once he made his way through the strange coding, he found an easy weakness from the secondary server's side. A way into her phone directly from his computer. Originally, he had no intentions of hacking MC's actual phone, but now that he knew she couldn't fully access the other RFA members, including him, through the messenger, he'd felt that getting into her phone was important. He had to make sure she was truly safe and that nobody was keeping secrets from him by making her keep quiet. That might be harmful to MC.
So he used the weakness he found to create a harmless little virus that infiltrated her phone. It allowed him access to everything on her phone, from her photo gallery, to her contacts, to her microphone and camera. He didn't access these features right away. Though he did take a peek at her photo gallery. And was shocked and amazed.
He thought he already hacked information about her online, and plenty of it from his own computer and internet connection. He had her name and information and had seen the pretty pictures of the girl with long, simple brown hair with bangs, who liked to wear oversized sweaters. Her background was unremarkable and that had made him trust her right away. But...This wasn't what he was seeing here. Most of her photos were bright, vibrant, in colors that Seven had never before witnessed. It was like his eyes were seeing color for the first time. He had to spend some time coding his own laptop so that it could really detect these new, strange colors. What kind of thing was he even seeing here?
She had a lot of random photos,, but he had to assume that the girl in most of the photos he found was MC. She...Didn't look a thing like he thought. It was alarming to him because it wasn't just that she didn't look like the photos he had originally accessed online. No. It was that she didn't resemble the girl he watched on CCTV footage either. Not. At. All. It was a completely different girl altogether.
Even her name was different. The name he knew her as, was one single, simple name. But on her phone there was information indicating she had two full names, three if he counted her middle name. She also didn't seem to live anywhere near where he thought she did. May not have even spoken Korean as her native language. Not that it mattered since as a secret agent, Seven was a polyglot, speaking and writing in multiple languages with ease. But it just raised so many more questions. Like how she could be at Rika's apartment, yet not be there at the same time. How she was in his world, yet not, at the same time. It was disturbing, upsetting, worrying, angering, and curious.
"What the hell is going on with you MC…." Seven muttered to himself as he tapped his way through each photo, and then checked out more information on her phone. As he did so, the RFA app flashed that a chatroom had opened. He glanced at it to see that among the people there, MC was one of them. He didn't enter. Instead, he accessed her phone's front facing camera, getting him a live feed of the girl in question to assure himself it really wasn't the same one he saw in Rika's apartment. Something was definitely wrong here.
Nope. It wasn't the same girl at all, yet he had no doubts that it was MC since she was accessing the RFA chat room just now. But...The one gazing innocently down at her screen and reading the RFA chat, looked nothing like the MC that everyone knew. Her face was very different, her eyes, her hair, even her body shape. But…
She was beautiful. She truly was beautiful in his eyes. It was only now that he noticed how vibrant her own eyes really looked. For as long as he'd known MC, her eyes weren't something he focused much on, and hadn't been anything that stuck out to him. Not until now. Now he saw that they were full of life. Not only that, they were stormy in a way that caused his breath to hitch. Chaos reigned in those eyes. Everything from hope and care, to anxiety and sadness. The sadness stuck out quite a bit. He saw it there, deep in those eyes of hers. What was she so sad about? And was there anything he could possibly do to ease her pain? Seeing it there, raw, before his very eyes, hurt the hacker.
She couldn't see him, of course, couldn't hear him nor have any clue that he was seeing her now. But he could see and hear her very well. He heard her sigh softly. And his heart nearly beat out of his chest to see a smile flicker across her face and hear a cute giggle escape her at something she was reading in the chat. It made Seven smile and stare. She was so much more lively than he had ever seen her before. The MC he knew may have made his heart jump, but nothing like it was doing now.
"So...So sweet…" He murmured, clutching at his chest and wishing he could touch her. Hold her. Kiss those lips of hers. Such thoughts weren't going to do him any good so he shook them off.
He shut down his access to her phone after a while, not wishing to completely violate her privacy, but also feeling like if he watched her nonstop, it would drive him insane. The love he felt for her threatened to drown the redhead. He didn't know what to do. He just knew that he wanted her more than he ever had before, and that hardly seemed possible. He had fallen for her before ever laying eyes on her, without even realizing that was the case. Not only that, he realized he'd fallen for a girl who he'd never actually spoken to. Whose voice he'd never heard, not with his ears, nor had he seen her before now with his eyes in the CCTV live footage, recorded footage, and more than that, since her messenger was censored, he'd also never truly spoken with her on any of the chat screens. She'd been silenced by someone or something. Whomever created her messenger. That was deeply troubling to the redhead.
Throughout the day, and night, and the following day and night, Seven continued to spy on MC off and on while digging up information. He couldn't seem to help himself, in spite of knowing it was only going to drive him crazy. By the end of the fourth day, and the realization that she'd definitely chosen Zen as the guy she was falling for this time around, the hacker came to the realization that the world he lived in was vastly different to the world MC lived in. Accessing her phone browser, among other things, using that other server, he found the internet she had access to was so much richer than the one on his end. Full of information he hadn't known could exist.
The colors of her world were so much brighter than anything he could hope to see in his world. Even the messenger app didn't work the same or look the same, nor was it named the RFA messenger….It had some strange name. Mystic messenger. He didn't understand it fully but he was starting to come to grips with the fact that MC was a stranger to them all, from a world they did not know, somehow able to enter their world via the messenger app. Not only that, but the MC they thought they did know, the one at the apartment, seemed to be some kind of proxy, acting only on the other world MC's whims, as if they were one and the same, even though they really didn't seem that way.
There was no way to interact fully with the MC in the apartment, without the MC from that other world being aware of it and responding, Seven observed. He watched her reactions, saw that she knew and understood and didn't miss things that were happening here in his world. Yet, the same couldn't be said for the MC in his world. The one in Rika's apartment, didn't seem at all aware of the MC that existed outside of herself. The one that lived in another world. Was the MC in his world, even real? How much of his world was real? How much of her world was real? It was all very confusing for Seven. But if the MC of his world was truly just a proxy of sorts for the MC of the other world, it made a lot of sense.
It explained how she could survive death. Because she never actually experienced the dying part of it. Not first hand, anyway. The more he watched her, the more intrigued he became. This girl...The one who held his heart, had never been in danger in the first place? He wasn't sure how he felt about that. But there was no way that Saeran, or anyone else from his world, could harm her, right? He worried about that, even as he felt some relief to think that she wasn't locked in Rika's apartment with a bomb and Unknown after her. Though he had some concern about the girl who was locked up there. Did she have a mind of her own or was she simply MC's proxy? He needed answers and it seemed the only one who might have those was MC herself.
This was when he once more deviated from the script that was his life. Seven waited until Vanderwood was sleeping before he made his move. He hurried out and over to Rika's apartment unexpectedly. It was the beginning of day five and it was pretty obvious now that MC was heading towards Zen's love in this particular 'lifetime'. Seven tried not to think of that. He showed up at the apartment a short while later and knocked rather than barging in. "It's me. It's your local friendly hacker, God Seven." He called out lightly through the door, keeping up his known persona even though he wasn't currently feeling it. MC pulled the door open a moment later and let him in. He turned to face her, looking her over. Indeed this MC looked nothing like the one he couldn't stop staring at secretly through her phone's camera. But he needed to test just how the two were connected.
He turned to face her. "Do you have any questions for me?" She blinked and stared at him uneasily. There was no response. "I'mmmmm….Gonna take that as a solid no." He spoke jovially. "Then…" He went around checking the security systems while he was here as he chatted with MC, but...He noticed she didn't really speak back to him. This was when he casually pretended to still be checking security, but really he was pulling up the hacked file on his laptop to check in on the other MC.
He watched her staring down at the messenger app on her phone, currently checking out her private text messages, but instead of the usual curious and content look she had when interacting with everyone, she looked...Scared. Really scared. And confused. He didn't like that at all. He frowned a bit and glanced at the MC in the room with him. She was seated on the sofa and looking down at her phone, but not interacting at all with him. It seemed she was chatting on the messenger the way the other MC appeared to be doing as MC entered the newest chat room after checking private messages.
He didn't bother to check to see whom she was chatting with or about what. The more he tested things out, the more he noted that it seemed this MC really didn't, or couldn't, speak with him without the other MC's input which was, for some reason, very unavailable just now. The silence was eerie. The normally bubbly MC simply sat there, stoic and unresponsive for the most part, apart from some simple head nods that seemed more like she was programmed to do so when spoken to, rather than she was responding directly to him. It was almost like she was some kind of robot. It was creepy to Seven.
As he dug into the matter, what he was learning wasn't very encouraging concerning the current MC in the room with him. The normal application that allowed the other MC to make choices, wasn't working since there were no pre-selected responses for this particular scene considering he had just shown up here out of the blue and there were no outside influences that could have seen it coming and prepared anything for her to do so. This made him realize all the more how desperately he needed to make it so that she could speak freely. Then maybe he could really get some answers.
He minimized the screen that allowed him to spy on the other MC and started to dig through the files on the messenger app of her phone. It took him only a few minutes since he already did quite a bit of hacking prior to this visit. He found what he was looking for. The files that allowed MC access to things like Rika's apartment. It seemed somehow a lot of them were called 'Visual novels' and as he started digging, he found an interesting file called "Main Character". He started toying with it and heard a loud crackling noise that caused him to jerk and look up and over at MC worriedly.
Much to his shock, the girl in the room with him looked like static, as if she were a digital print that was fading out of existence into nothing more than pixels before his very eyes. "M...MC?" He called out to her softly. She didn't respond. He quickly went about toying with the strange file, and tried to temporarily void it out. As he did so, the MC in the apartment with him, vanished from his sight. He stared at where she had once been. "..." She was...A program? Not a real being? She didn't seem sentient in and of herself and her programming is very basic. "She's not even a full or even half AI…" A few seconds after she vanished, he heard the other MC murmuring in confusion to herself. He paused and opened up the window to view her. She was tapping at her screen and frowning. "Why's it not working…" She murmured.
He stared a long moment before he pulled the 'Main Character' file back up and retracted the tinkering he'd done on it. The instant he finished, the MC of his world reappeared in the apartment with him once more. He glanced at her, shook his head, and then looked through the functions in the file. He attempted his own programming and looked up to see her stand up and smile and wave at him, just as he had programmed her to do. He stopped messing with her and allowed her to sit down and go back to messing with her phone. "So that's how it works…" He murmured to himself. He tried not to freak out about the fact that he'd basically just seen some kind of 3D version of a program appear before his eyes without any kind of virtual reality glasses. He couldn't dismiss the idea that his own world may have been some virtual reality, but honeslty this wasn't the first time Seven had such thoughts, so it wasn't too shocking a concept for him to accept.
"She's not real." She was just a program used to be the real MC's proxy after all. To serve as herself in his world, and do the things she needed to do. He could program her to do as he liked, but also if he interfered with her functions, it meant that the real MC wouldn't be able to interact with his world as easily. So he decided to leave it alone. The real MC seemed to calm down when he stopped, and from what he could see, was now back in a chat room. He decided to spy on the chat without joining it.
"That's new…" He noted a slight panic was happening in the chat. That would explain the worry he saw on the real MC's face. MC herself couldn't interact with the chat at hand. It wasn't a programmed chat so her unique messenger didn't allow for any responses. But she was obviously watching over it. It seemed Yoosung, Jaehee, and Zen were worrying over Seven because nobody had been able to get a hold of him in the last few hours. They were also now extra anxious because MC was in the chat room but not responding. So now there was speculation that the messenger had been hacked and fear that Unknown was after MC. That had been his doing, he knew. Plus, he'd been so busy with this, he hadn't realized how much time had passed.
He'd seen on MC's messenger that when it glitched for her, those of his world, probably apart from himself, didn't seem to notice anything. So the fact that they were now not only noticing that he was missing, but that MC wasn't responding in the chat, was somewhat concerning. Then again, not entirely. Seven suspected that his fellow RFA members had some semblance of sentience as well, even if they didn't hold the memories of the resets. Their messengers allowed them to chat freely. They just rarely did so beyond what was meant for each 'lifetime', but Seven had a suspicion that the more things were adapted and messed with in their world, the more those of his world would 'awaken' consciously to the changes. That was what he had observed, in minor ways already over time, so this wasn't too surprising to him. He would keep an eye on this development, just in case there were any problems.
He quickly entered the chat room and reassured everyone that all was well. He told them it had only been him running some tests. It seemed to calm everyone down, but he noticed on his laptop screen that MC looked worried and anxious all the same. "...Sorry…" He murmured to her, knowing she couldn't hear him. He was sorry all the same.
He finished up and thanked the MC in Rika's apartment. He carefully locked the door before heading back to his place. He didn't need to thank a program that was barely even what could be called a program, that couldn't hear or be aware of herself, much less of him. Nor did he really need to concern himself with her physical safety. But she was the real MC's proxy. The real MC's connection to his world. And that wasn't something he was willing to lose or mistreat. He needed to be careful with her. He also still had every intention of protecting her, by any means necessary.
Thankfully, Vanderwood was still asleep and hadn't missed him at all. That meant no tasering would be happening this day, and that he also still had some time to himself.
Seven couldn't let things stand the way they were, so he went to work on trying to finish up his programming. The very programming that would allow for MC to interact freely with everyone via her messenger. As he worked, he did what he often did this days. He kept the camera and audio on her phone open for him to keep an eye on her. He knew he was spying on her and that it was wrong. He knew he shouldn't do it. But it was the only way he could assure himself that she was okay. He couldn't trust the messenger since her version didn't allow her to warn him if she was in any kind of trouble except for whatever usually happened in his world. Even then, it was very limited and he was now highly suspicious of it.
Her phone only let him see the ceiling of her bedroom just now, which was common when she likely set it down to charge it while she did other things. He wasn't concerned about that. He could hear what went on, on her end, which was usually pretty quiet, save for sounds of movement. He focused in on his work until a new sound filled his headphones from her phone and caused his heart to drop. Slow, quiet sobs. She...She's crying…
He stopped and stared at the blank ceiling her camera allowed him to view, wishing he could see her, talk to her. Well, he supposed he could. He saved his work and picked up his phone. He hadn't done this yet. Hadn't dared. But he couldn't stand listening, knowing she was crying all alone, and not do something about it. He clicked on the saved number he'd gotten from her phone. It wasn't anything on the messenger. It was a separate thing all together and he couldn't dial it simply through his phone alone. He had to open a special connection to that secondary server he'd noted a while back that somehow had access to the messenger app, to dial out to her.
He'd figured that much out a while back, that he couldn't contact her in her world, through his world through normal means. Nothing in his world connected him to her. She had no way to be here other than through that proxy and the app, he now knew. He couldn't simply go visit her or call her up either. But accessing this backdoor through the server, helped him gain a connection to her world and allowed him to call her. Which he did. He hit call and waited anxiously as he glanced at the screen of his laptop.
Ring...Ring...Ring.
The sound rang through on his laptop. He reached over and muted it so he could focus on this call. At least it was confirmation that his call was getting through to her end. But...It was taking so long that he was starting to think she wouldn't pick up.
Suddenly the ringing stopped. He glanced at the screen. It was black now instead of a view of a ceiling. A hesitant voice spoke up. The sweetest, most gentle voice hit Seven's ears, even if it was muffled a bit by a stuffy nose from crying. "H...Hello?" She greeted him with uncertainty.
His number surely showed up as unknown on her phone. Though not 'Unknown' the person. She was speaking in her native tongue, but that wasn't a problem for Seven. He matched her language smoothly, having no problem transitioning to it from his own. He was also silently grateful to his own genius skills that he'd made certain the RFA messenger app had a translation system to and from Korean, from and to multiple languages. It helped in dealing with foreign guests to the parties, or that had been the original idea, but it was very useful now, he realized, for MC being able to interact with everyone. Even when he managed to allow her free access to speak her mind, it should translate over fairly well thanks to his awesome programming skills.
"Hey." He spoke up softly, a smile in his tone in spite of his worry for having heard her crying mere moments before. "It's me. Seven, Defender of Justice, at your service." He chuckled, trying to keep things light. There was a long pause on the other end. "...What?" She sounded suspicious and confused. "Who is this? What kind of joke is this?"
He supposed she was aware that he wasn't of her world and couldn't contact her so easily. That must have been why she couldn't believe what she was hearing, he concluded. She had to be aware of that since she wasn't literally in Rika's apartment herself. "It's me. Luciel." He repeated patiently. "The one and only Seven. Zero. Seven. I have a better sense of humor than to pull that kind of prank." Or not really but he could say so anyway. "It took some time, but I finally got through to you, the real you!" He exclaimed happily. "Had to bypass a hella ton of security and migraine-inducing coding, but it was well worth it to reach an outside line to your worl-where you are."
Another long pause greeted him. "If you're going to try to prank somebody, at least use something realistic. I won't fall for it." Click. "She...She hung up?!" Seven's eyes widened in disbelief. Not only that, but she'd sounded upset...Hurt, even. "No...Can't let that happen." He murmured to himself. Determined, he hit redial. This time she picked up after only one ring. "...Hello?"
She sounded all the less certain now. He needed to fix this. "Hey, hold up, hold up!" He spit the words out, lest she hang up again before he could explain anything. "Listen to me, don't just hang up, please." He pleaded with her. After a moment, she spoke up. "...Fine. What do you want?" He sighed in relief that she was at least willing to hear what he had to say even if she didn't want to believe him.
"Then, first...Are you okay?" He asked, glancing at the current blank screen. It was pressed up against her head, so naturally he couldn't see anything, but he wished he could see her now. "What?" She sounded confused by the question. "Why are you asking me that?"
He gripped the phone tighter as he recalled the sound that compelled him to make this call in the first place. "You're crying...At least you were...You won't cry over an attack of fluffy Elly-like aliens or random hugs, so...I'm worried. I wanted to make sure...Are you? Okay, I mean." There was a sharp intake of breath on her end. "W-What?! How-Why...You can't...Why do you know something like that?!" She demanded.
"Well...I'm Seven Zero Seven, best hacker you'll ever meet. Finding out secrets is kind of a thing with me, you'll remember." He said this jokingly even though he felt very serious about worrying over her. "So, naturally, knowing you're crying, I need to make sure you're A-okay. Though I guess...You'd rather Zen be the one contacting you right now, but he can't."
He wouldn't even know how to begin to explain this situation to Zen and he had no intentions of doing so unless it became absolutely necessary. He didn't want to traumatize his friends by revealing this strange truth about MC and about their own world. Plus...He didn't want to share MC with anyone. Even her current love interest. "So I guess I'll have to do. Hope that's okay."
The pause this time was so long he thought she hung up again until her voice, weak and shaky now, came through the line. "That's impossible." She sounded accusing. "You can't know that kind of thing. Nobody knows that! I'm the only one playing it and I haven't shared it with anybody. Nobody but a few online friends even know I play mystic messenger and they sure don't know who's route I'd be on now! So how the hell do you?!"
Seven blinked. "...Mystic messenger? I've been meaning to ask you about that. What that even means. Why is your messenger named mystic? It's supposed to be named RFA. Where did you even download it from in the first place? You made it sound like you picked it up in the online app or play store, but…" He trailed off, running fingers through his wild red hair as he tried to sort this mess out. "Of course I know who you're with. I don't know anything about 'route' or whatever, but it's pretty obvious to everyone that you and Zen are hitting it off in the chatrooms." He pointed out, chuckling even though it hurt his heart to think of her belonging to someone else.
"The two of you have been flirting like crazy the last few days especially. I'd have to be blind not to see it. Even Elly would be able to see it. At least it's not Jumin this time. I...Don't like the way he treats you…" He murmured, thinking back to how Jumin basically imprisons MC.
"Th-That…" He could imagine her blushing right about then, but he wasn't sure and wished once more he could see her face while they talked. "I'm...That...How...Wait." She paused. "...S...S-Seven?" She whispered his name and it sent shivers across the back of his neck. Even if it was only his alias, he was thrilled to hear her say it. "It...You can't. It can't be real! You're just...Seven is a character in the mystic messenger game. It's just a game. The app you're talking about is a game I downloaded to play. A...Uh...A dating simulation game. That's all. Seven, Jaehee, Jumin, Yoosung, V, Zen, Saeran, Rika...Everyone...They're not real. Just made up game characters the developers came up with. You-You're not real. So this is a joke, right?"
Seven's eyebrows practically lifted off his forehead. "Heh. Funny. You say that, but I look and feel pretty damn real to me. Anyways, if this is a joke, then it's totally on me." He spoke a lot more carefree than he was feeling. "Don't I sound real enough to you? Do you really think I'm just some made up game character?"
MC responded immediately, sounding hyper now. "Of course, because you're not really Seven! You're a real person. He's not!" She insisted, causing Seven to chuckle once more. Is that what she thought? Well, he supposed if she downloaded this messenger app and it was designed like a game, it would make her think he wasn't real. Even if there were some kind of programmers who created a game based around them all, it didn't matter much to Seven since he was well aware he was a sentient being now.
"I'm very Seven and I'm very real. I promise you that. I'll prove I'm not some prankster pretending to be me, or a computer program responding to you right now, if you like! Put on some headphones so you can see your screen and open up the RFA-I mean your mystic messenger app-game-whatever. Go on. Trust me. You always have to this point, don't lose your trust in me at a time like this." He glanced at the screen and waited anxiously to see if she would obey his instructions.
She was silent but he could see the screen lighten up on his laptop as she moved her phone away from her head and faced it. He could see her face and it caused his heart to skip a beat. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying and her cheeks had tear stain tracks. He reached out toward the screen and brushed a finger over one of her cheeks. She looked more pale than usual just now. Her expression was one of shock and curiosity. Maybe a bit of fear, he noted as he watched her put earbuds in her ears and mess with her screen. She didn't know he could see and he was afraid to tell her, for fear she would insist he stop looking and...He couldn't. He wouldn't.
"O-Okay…" She spoke up after a moment. "I...I opened the messenger. What do you want me to do?" So she was trusting him still. Seven smiled softly, relieved that even in this still unfamiliar form and interaction, MC believed in him. "Good. Just you wait. God Seven will show you something interesting." He laughed as adjusted his own headphones and plugged them into his phone. He opened up his RFA app and sent her a private text directly from it. "I know you can't answer me on the messenger, but trust me. It's me. I'm me. I'm Seven." He assured her as he hit send and glanced at his laptop screen to watch her reaction. He couldn't get enough of her.
Boo. Told ya. It's me, God Seven, Defender of Justice lover of cats and HB Chips. I'm on the phone with you right now. I'm not lying to you. It's really me. I promise. Believe me now?
He watched and heard her gasp, her bright eyes widening. "It...It's...Impossible! I only ever get the same programmed responses from you in text. From everyone. In the texts, chats and calls on the messenger. I've never seen anything like this. Well, except that one time recently, and in one strange chatroom before...Things have been acting differently on the game lately..." She trailed off. "You...You're Seven? You're really Seven! But how? How can you be real?! How can you be talking to me right now?!"
He grinned. Her excitement was so adorable. "Dunno. I'm cool like that?" He joked. "As for the messenger, I've been tinkering. Made it so we RFA members can talk to each other at unscheduled times. You can't yet, but...I'm working on that." He assured her. "As for me being real...Well...How does anything exist? I guess I just got lucky. Either way, when I figured out that things kept repeating themselves and that it didn't feel natural, I started digging. I figured out you aren't the girl I thought I knew, and I wanted to know the real you. I'm still not sure how that works, but I've been doing some mega hacking lately to get to you. I accessed things from your messenger and that's how I'm able to use your server's connection to get in touch with you."
She made a squeaking noise that caused Seven's grin to widen as she answered. "I can't believe this! You...Seven, you're real! Oh my god! That whole reset theory is true! You really...Remember everything?" Suddenly her excitement waned and the look on her face darkened. That worried Seven. "You...Remember the resets. Every time I reset the game and go on another route, you're aware that it's happening, you remember the past resets? You...Know who unknown is?" She asked sadly.
Seven's own look softened at her words. So she, too remembered? She knew herself when his world reset back and she started on another journey that started out nearly the same every time? He was sad, realizing she was also dealing with that, and that was her only way to connect to his world and the people there. "Yep...I do. But what's this about a reset theory? I'm guessing since your messenger seems to be set up to make this all a game for you, that you mean you start again and pick another route on this 'game' each time?" He wasn't quite sure how it all worked, but he was getting a much better idea now.
"Y-Yeah...I reset the game and it starts back with me meeting Unknown in a chat room and him telling me to go to Rika's apartment. I don't literally go anywhere. I just pretend...It's...It's just a game. But I go there in the game and play it out in the game with all of you in RFA and everything. I...Oh god, Seven, I'm sorry..."
Seven glanced at the screen and saw her eyes tearing up. He panicked. "No! Don't do that! Don't cry! I'm okay! You're okay! We're okay!" He practically shouted into the phone before calming himself down to speak more gently to her. "Really. Don't...Please don't cry…" He couldn't stand it when she cried. "You crying is why I called you in the first place. I...Don't want you to cry. You crying all alone by yourself is too sad. I can't allow that."
She froze. "You...That reminds me...How did you know I've been crying before you even called me?!"
Oops. Busted.
"Uh. Heh. Wellllll…..I'm the hacker god, remember? I hacked your phone. I can hear things and...Stuff, on your end." It was then that realization crossed her face. MC seemed to understand now that he had full access to her device and utilized it to spy on her. He waited for the inevitable anger.
Instead, he was surprised to see her cheeks turn bright pink. "I-I...You've heard me...You've been listening to me? And...Seeing me?" She self consciously brushed a hand through her hair and glanced around then back at the phone. "Well, yep. I have." He didn't know if he should start apologizing or not, but he was too busy being mesmerized by how adorable her blush was.
"O-Oh. I...Wow." Somehow she looked shocked and anxious, along with curious at the same time, rather than angry that he was spying on her. "You know...You're only encouraging me more like this. That's dangerous." He affirmed in a teasing tone.
Hearing a little giggle from her just warmed Seven's heart. "Man…" He murmured to himself as he watched her biting her lip. "S-Seven...I'm…" She pulled at her hair and suddenly the picture went black. "You there?" He asked quickly. "Y-Yeah. I'm still here. I just...Can't let you see me. I know I'm not like you imagined. I'm pretty ugly. I'm not like the cute MC in the game at all…"
Seven's heart broke a little hearing her speak about herself like this. "Hey, hey, hey...That's not the girl I know. Have more confidence! You're right that you don't look a thing like the MC in the game, but you're the true 'player' of this 'game', and you're really, really cute. Trust me on this. I've got a great cuteness radar. You...Don't hide from me. Come on. I'll get mad and never share any of my Honey Buddha chips with you if you hide from me." His teasing, coaxing tone seemed to be enough to bring her back out. A hesitant hand left the phone where she'd been covering it up and her face reappeared. Blushing once more. He grinned. "Cutie." He accused playfully, enjoying the way her blush burned it's way all the more across her face at his teasing. "You really need to relax more, you know that?"
She laughed nervously. "Yeah...So I've been told." She was smiling now, which relieved Seven quite a bit. He'd managed to cheer her up some! His mission was accomplished. "So back to my original question. Are you okay? Why were you crying?"
She paused, her smile looking a little teasing. "That's two questions." He chuckled. "So it is. Humor me?" Sighing, she nodded. "I'm okay...I was crying because I had a bad day. I don't really want to talk about it...It's got nothing to do with the game." She tried to assure him, but that only worried him even more.
Something was going on in her life that he didn't know about. She had her own life outside of his world that he wasn't a part of and that made him very anxious. "...Even so, I'm here if you want an ear. I'm good for that." He didn't want to press her though so he let it drop for now. "So I guess I don't really need to worry about you being hurt in Rika's apartment. Although I better keep an eye on that proxy of yours. She's a tricky thing, but she's your way of interacting in my world so I don't want anything to happen to her either."
She nodded. "Yeah...I mean I've never been in physical danger from the game...Your world…" She was changing her wording, he noted, picking up on that he didn't see his life as any kind of game, it was a world all of its own. "I can't believe you really heard me here and got worried enough to break the fourth wall majorly and contact me...Then again, you're the one that always breaks that fourth wall anyway. People really do have a theory here in the real world...Uh my world...That you are the one character in the game that remains aware and doesn't forget after the resets, and that you are in lo-I mean that you know the MC, m-me, every time." She blushed again, and Seven looked at the screen with a quick, confused smile on whatever she'd cut herself off from saying, but her blush distracted him.
"Wow. So you're saying we're all kinds of famous in your world thanks to this game of yours!" He chuckled. "Awesome possum! Zen'd be jealous sharing the limelight with the rest of us." He said jokingly before growing serious again after they both stopped laughing. "Your world may be real to you, but mine's real to me. It's kinda hard to say that one world is real and another is false when we're both living and existing. Just differently is all." He pointed out thoughtfully. "But yeah. I'm aware. Just as you are. I know what happens. Sometimes things feel more vague than at other times, but I've been here for every time you've picked a different route." Even though he hadn't fully realized that was what was happening until now.
She looked at the screen with guilt in her eyes. "Seven...That means you really…." Oh god, did she know? Did she know he loved her? His eyes widened as he stared anxiously at the screen, waiting for her to continue. "I'm sorry. I know you'll stop me from saying it, but I mean it. I'm sorry. I chose your route only once so far. It's not that I don't want to...It's really not that I don't want to be with you. I love being with you. But the game only allows me to go to just after the party on the eleventh day, really and then it doesn't let me do much else other than reset...Eleven days is all I get. There are some after and secret stories and extras, but that's different and this is all I get, eleven days with you. It's the only way I can keep seeing you all and being with you all in any way...Plus I like to save the best for last, even though I played your route like third, I knew I didn't want to play your route again until I did all the others again because I like yours the best."
Seven took all of this in, thinking it through. He had tried not to think too much about what she was saying when it came to him and his 'route', but it was impossible not to. So to MC, this all really was just a game...This made his heart do all kinds of uncomfortable things. It was sad that she could only see him for eleven days before having to do a reset, but that wasn't her fault. Of course she couldn't love a game character. Most people wouldn't. She wouldn't get attached to him beyond feeling fond of his 'character', he supposed. It hurt to think this way, but it was true. "...So you like my route best, huh? Good for my route." He meant to sound lighthearted, but couldn't keep the bitterness from his tone.
She flinched and he instantly regretted sounding like that. "Seven…" She looked away from the screen. "I'm so sorry...I...You're more than a route. You're a person. I didn't know. I couldn't. I had no way of knowing this until now, that you're real. That you exist somehow…" The obvious guilt she was suffering struck Seven hard and he wanted to do all he could to erase it. "I don't know how you can be so real, but I see that you aren't just some AI or joker. I-I like all of you in RFA. I care about each of you. E-Even if in my world you're just characters, I've always cared about each of you and wanted what was best for you. I even feel sick when I get a bad ending sometimes, but I wanted to check out and collect all of the endings...I didn't mean to hurt you...I know I must have. I really care about you, Saeyoung. I mean it."
Seven felt his chest constrict at the sound of his real name on MC's lips. It was almost too much. So overwhelming. She knew him, really and truly, beyond anyone else in RFA or in his life right now. Even those who spent constant time with him, didn't know his deepest secrets, yet she did. She knew who he was, what he did, she knew about Saeran, she knew his childhood, she knew it all. It was a frightening, but freeing feeling.
As for this situation...He understood her position. It wasn't her fault. She couldn't love him the way he loved her. He had always only ever seen her as a real girl, but she had only ever seen him as a programmed game character and nothing more. Maybe now she could see him as differently. Though he doubted it would lead to anything more than friendship. But maybe that would be enough. Even though he couldn't feel it was enough in his heart, he clung to the idea. He didn't dare hope for anything more than that. "Well, it's not your fault. It's all good, so don't sweat it. We all care about you too." He kept it vague. Even though he pledged his undying love to her ever since she'd been through 'his route', both to her face back then, and secretly to himself ever since, he wasn't willing to openly show his heart to her anymore.
"Yeah…" She smiled a little, though it looked sad. "I can't believe I'm talking to you for real! Do you know how many times I imagined something like this? Well, not like this exactly, but that you guys were all real and that the RFA was real and the in-game stories were really happening? I'd sit here in my room, imagining myself in Rika's apartment, being involved in party planning and all of your lives." Her smile was growing nostalgic. As long as it was growing, Seven was content with that. "It's helped be a great distraction from my own life and troubles. I find it really soothing and feel like I really know you guys. As...As characters. But here you are, being real...I don't know what to think. How can a game character suddenly come to life like this? Aren't you just a series of coding, programmed responses and stuff like that?"
Seven cleared his throat and flopped back on his couch, pulling his phone beside him and his laptop on his chest. It was upsetting to hear that she had troubles in her life and used the RFA 'game' as an escape in coping. Kind of like how Yoosung was addicted to LOLOL as his means of coping with Rika's death and dealing with growing up. Yoosung escaped into a game too. It seemed that was what MC was doing. Though it was not just a game. At least not anymore.
"Nah. Well, that's all DNA is, right? A series of coded cells imprinted with info from the parent's DNA, onto the child's DNA. Maybe my cells aren't flesh DNA like yours...Maybe they're just strings of numbers encoded into a program someone made themselves with their own hands, but who the hell knows how consciousness happens? Isn't that up to the big guy above?" He thought so anyway. He was a believer in such things.
"Some animals seem to have consciousness, or I guess I mean sentience, and others don't appear to. A consciousness itself really is just a living being, or person's screen to the world. Like a phone screen, our way of interacting with the world around us. Even some plant life can show signs of responding to their environment, ya know." He smiled at the thoughtful look on her face. She was really listening to him. He liked that.
"Not just sunlight and water, but to sounds, physical attacks like being cut up, and emotions. There are studies showing that trees 'talk' to each other through fungi in their soil, and can warn each other of environmental changes and help sick and dying trees by sending nutrients to one another. Interesting stuff." At least, Seven thought so. "So if a tree can do that kind of thing, there's no reason I can't be real, feeling and thinking on my own, right along with you. I guess my 'programming' just surpassed itself somehow more than usual programming would, by becoming self aware. The idea isn't new. Some of the brightest minds in the world have proposed this possibility. Maybe the programmer of this so-called game of ours, was too clever for their own good." He chuckled. "Maybe more computer programs are alive than we know already, and they just have no way of letting you know about their own awareness in ways you would understand." He shrugged. He was a hacker. Computers and programming were his life, so he had thought of these kinds of things and plenty more. "Either way, I was 'born', became aware, and here I am. Just like you."
She listened, and seemed to be doing so with care. "What about the others? The other RFA members, and Rika and V and your brother and all…?"
He shrugged, a confused, thoughtful look coming over his own features.. "Dunno. Feels like they have varying levels of awareness, but...It's like it's fleeting compared to my own. Feels like it especially resets for them right along with the actual resets. Some things may trickle through, but not to the level it does for me…." He sighed. "I think that for most of them, even if they are aware of themselves and the world to some extent, they won't remember after each reset for the most part. But I'm not sure. I know the proxy of you is only a program and doesn't have a living consciousness of it's own, because I tested her myself. That's what I was doing with that confusion in the chat room earlier when you got booted." He explained. "Oh! So that's why!"
"Yep. But she's a different thing to everyone else. She was always only ever a shell, with no real meat to her programming. The others are likely different. So that doesn't mean the others don't have any conscious or can't become conscious and more aware like I am, at some point. Either way, it doesn't make them any less real. But...I'm not gonna go digging around to see if I find their programming and tinker with that to find out what's what. I'm just not. Don't want to know what I'll find." He frankly didn't want to know if his dear friends were truly conscious or not at all. It hurt a lot to think they might not be capable of caring about him for real. They had always been there for him. They were real to him either way, he decided, and that was enough.
"That's complicated." She spoke up after a few minutes of mulling over what he said. "I'm sorry that you're the only one who seems to really remember though...It must be torture to have to relive these things over and over again. I...I'll reset the game right now. I'll go down your route this time." She offered up, which caused Seven to sit back up and nearly knock his laptop onto the floor.
"Wait! Don't do that. Don't reset yet!" She frowned at her phone. "Why not?" Seven readjusted his laptop onto the coffee table and moved his phone onto his lap. "Because I'm not done. I need to finish what I started to get you full access to the messenger and every time there is a reset, I lose some information, and have to rebuild it. Plus, I don't want you to...I mean...I want you to stay on the route you want to be in." He didn't want to guilt her into choosing his route. He wanted her to come to him of her own free will, if she came to him at all ever again. It...Was probably best if she didn't anyway, he considered. Best that she kept skipping around so that she didn't become too attached to any one of them. Yeah. That was better. Or so he decided to keep telling himself.
"O-Oh. Well, I don't want you to lose what you're working on so I'll wait. But...I don't want to hurt you by going down Zen's route, or anyone else's…" Her voice was so caring, so kind. It really dug into the heart of Seven. "It's no big. I'm not hurt by something like this." He forced a laugh. "It's nothing to me." He lied. "I don't really care, so do what you want. Don't rush to my route, have fun with everyone else for now. It'll give me time to work on things on my end anyway."
She hesitated. Seven wasn't able to read the look on her face and that was troublesome. Unlike the programmed MC in the game, and the way she came across in the chats and all, the real MC was a lot more complex and not easily read the way he imagined. In one way, he was kind of afraid to be faced with such an MC, but in another way, he thrived on the challenge. It sparked a light in his heart that he couldn't begin to express.
"Oh...Um. Okay. If you say so…." She didn't sound so sure, but he wasn't about to go out of his way to reassure her either. Even if he wanted her to come to him of her own free will, he knew it was a bad idea. But he couldn't exactly feel good about begging her to go be with any of the guys too much. Of course, it didn't hurt him to know that they couldn't actually physically touch or kiss her either, and that he was the only one who knew the true MC, could see and hear her with his own eyes and ears, unlike the others. That's how it had always been. He'd seen her picture and knew her background before the others, even if that had been false and for the 'game', he now knew for sure he was witnessing the real MC. Even if she let that narcissist fall for her, if the hacker had his way, Zen would never get to see the real her live like Seven could. She was for his eyes only. "But, if you change the programming so that I can interact better, will it be okay? I mean, the others...If...If they're just programmed…"
Seven started tapping away at his computer, having brought up the coding again, wanting to work on it and get it fixed for her. "That shouldn't be a problem. Whether they're conscious or not, they have more complexity to them than your proxy does. They at least have responses they can give to interactions and things that happen around them. I've noticed I'm able to draw out reactions from them even if I say things spontaneously that don't fit. Even if it's usually everyone laughing me off and telling me I'm nuts." He chuckled and she laughed too. "That's true. They really think that a lot of the time because they don't understand you, but they adore you, Seven."
He smirked. "Adore, huh? They might like me okay, but you're the one everyone really adores." He pointed out, glancing at the small window that showed her phone screen. He felt a warmth in his chest to see the way she blushed once more. "You're so cute…." That just caused her to cover her face with both hands. "Noooooo, don't hide from the great godly Seven! I must know all and see all!" She slowly lowered her hands, looking shy. Man, he really just wanted to kiss her. He shook the thought away.
"Any way the chips crumble, you'll soon be able to talk to the others and me directly through the app and say what you want. So it'll be worth it."
A smile lit up her face and it really drove right into the hacker's chest, making him want to hug her to death. She was going to be the death of him. He knew it. Without a doubt. "I'm glad. I like talking to you. I want to be able to talk to you all the time, Saeyoung. Uh, if I can call you that? Or would you rather I call you Luciel or Seven?" He'd rather her call him anything, so long as she was talking to him and calling his name. "Saeyoung is fine. Just be sure only to call me that in private. Nobody else in RFA knows my real name. At least, not usually. Okay?"
She nodded. "Okay." There was a knocking sound on her end and she looked up. "Just a minute!" She turned her focus back on the screen. "Saeyoung, I have to go for now. But I promise I'll be back later. Can we talk again? Can I call you at this number?" She looked anxious, and Seven couldn't decipher if her anxiety was caused by worrying about whether or not he would allow her to call him, or if it was about whomever was knocking and whatever she had to face on her end. He wanted to ask. To ask what was up, what she needed to go do, or take care of, or whom she was interacting with. But he didn't want to bombard her with questions just now.
"Sure. I'll make sure the server connection stays open on my end, but you'll have to use your regular phone to dial me back for now, until I sort the messenger out. And I may be suuuper busy later. Especially if Mrs. Vanderwood gets up any time soon, I may not be able to talk for long, but you can call me anytime you want." He assured her, watching her smile blossom all the more, though she still looked anxious and kept glancing away from the phone to some other source, likely the door. Was she really okay?
"Kay. But don't you keep spying on me. It's okay to check in sometimes, but don't just stay connected. Es-Especially now. Please turn it off." She pleaded and he frowned. She seemed overly anxious about this all of a sudden when she hadn't seemed to care much before. Why? "See you later, then, Saeyoung. Bye…" She appeared reluctant to end the connection, but she did it and the phone call ended. So did his visual on her because she stuffed her phone into a pocket.
He didn't want to invade her privacy too much anyway, even though he wanted to hear it, even if he couldn't see it, the reason why she seemed so anxious. If it wasn't because of him, then it was likely due to whatever was going on, on her end just now. Still, he couldn't do it, invade her privacy after she specifically requested that he not do so at this time. He'd check back in with her again later.
She would hopefully share more about herself with him if he gave her a little time. Seven disconnected the audio and visual from her phone and sighed, getting back to work on his side projects before Vanderwood could wake up and make him get back to work for the agency. But his mind didn't stray far from MC. What would happen now that he could communicate directly with her? Fear and excitement for the future warred inside the redheaded hacker.
I'm not completely happy where I ended this chapter, but it was getting so long that I had to find some place to stop! But the story shall continue soon...