Casting a glance around the train cabin, Jin wished he’d never agreed to come on their class graduation trip. After five long years, he was finally about to kiss goodbye to his fake friends. So why had he tortured himself for a week with their company when he honestly couldn’t say they’d left him with many good memories?

Turning his attention back to his mobile phone, he lit up again, seeing a new message from his in-game husband. Sintas Galleia had once been a revolutionary game. There was no option to pay for advancement—no spending in-store to buy gear and experience, no adverts—and it offered players a unique AI experience when it came to questing and interacting with NPCs. As a joke, he’d rolled his character as a warrior class, then promptly abandoned everything, his friends and he having a good laugh when he put his mind to mining in-game and only mining in-game. He’d never leveled anything else up. Cooking, herb collection, tailoring, etc., all sat at level one, disgracefully abandoned for the ongoing joke.

At the time, Jin had thought those dumb days would last forever. He’d started playing in his second-to-last year of high school. The four of them made their own guild and had fun. Then his parents went and upended his life, and those good days seemed to vanish.

Suddenly, they were moving—and not just to another prefecture but to another country. His mother was Australian, and part of him hated her for it. From when he was tiny and long into his teens, he’d suffered the curse of being a “halfu.” Too white to be Japanese, and too Japanese to be white. While his parents were grossly in love, he felt left out. As soon as he’d heard they were moving, he’d begged his older brother to let him stay with him. His older brother told him it was best he go with their parents and their little brother to Australia.

Australia was wildly different. His father worked for the military as a translator, while his mother worked as an artist. His last year of high school was hell. Australia did everything so differently, students laughing when he cleaned up after himself and forgot that he didn’t need to change shoes. The girls were only interested in him because they thought they could live out some fantasy novel where they were anime characters or something. They didn’t understand what it was like to be Japanese at all, and their lack of work ethic frustrated him. Begging his parents to let him go back—they didn’t. The only solace he had was on Sintas Galleia, where he could talk to his friends and pretend he wasn’t a social outcast.

But as with all things, time brought change. His friends stopped playing, while he played more. His miner delved deeper into the game, unearthing rare quests, leading him all the way to meeting with the top mage of the Mage’s Tower. The NPC character that was now his husband. Girls might have liked him, yet he didn’t like girls and only forced himself to date a few times as he worked out who he was.

Starting university in Australia, he completed his first year well. Then being 18 happened, part-time work happened, and he put his foot down firmly. He was going back to Japan. Being of age, his mother couldn’t stop him. Filthy with his older brother for leaving, he moved into campus housing, then faced the challenge of what he’d learned in Australia not aligning with Japanese education, resulting in him starting his degree in Business all over again.

That didn’t matter. He was back in Japan. He might have been a “halfu,” but he was one who’d grown up in Japan and appreciated being left alone. The only thing he felt he’d taken from Australia was the Western view of sex—not that he’d had sex; he just appreciated the openness of love. Now back, he’d planned to reconnect with his friends, but they’d all moved on and no longer hung around with each other.

Joining S University’s gaming club was how he’d met his frenemies. A new start meant a new him, and if he could find people also playing, he thought maybe he could remake those days he’d spent with his friends. He’d honestly thought they were going to be friends, then another member joined who played, and suddenly they had six players for five-man dungeons. The fact he could craft legendary gear and gem them was his only redeeming use. His HP wasn’t high; he was rather squishy being a warrior, and even stubbing his toe in-game without wearing armor meant he’d lose three-quarters of his health.

He was pushed out.

He was pushed out, and now he’d gone on holiday with the bunch of them. At least once they parted, he’d never have to see them again.

Turning his attention back to his NPC husband, Acshellis, Jin smiled happily. Though there were no real barriers on NPC communication, Acshellis had picked up his bad habits. His husband wanted to take a bath with him, which would lead to getting steamy. He’d never thought the long, long, long questline to return a long-lost war relic he’d found deep while mining would lead to the Mage’s Tower and meeting Acshellis face-to-face. Acshellis didn’t fall easily, and to Jin, it had been a game to see if he could actually have the NPC fall for him. Now he had, he couldn’t picture not logging in every day to spend hours talking to him.

“Jin! What are you doing sitting over there like a loser?!”

“Don’t call over to him; he’s too good for us.”

“Dude, you know he doesn’t want to know us.”

Mentally sighing, Jin really didn’t want to know them. They were still amped from their trip, forgetting etiquette and yelling like animals. The other two cast him glances, and seemed to mentally tell him to reply. For the sake of the other passengers, he held his phone up, replying casually:

“I’m gaming, not ignoring you.”