Chapter Text
jo had always thought of himself as a nobody.
a certified no one.
an npc.
someone you couldn’t play, pick or care about for long.
background only, filler dialogue at best.
he always thought the world worked like a game. everything followed a script. every person already had an ending assigned to them as long as they made it past the beginning.
some people were given important roles.
flashy ones that came with theme music.
and then there were people like him.
asakura jo.
easy name. two words. somehow still impossible to remember.
he knew he wasn’t the main character because nothing about him ever demanded attention. he grew up normal. painfully normal. no tragic backstory. no insane talent. no secret charm waiting to bloom.
everything he did landed right in the middle.
average grades. average looks. average life.
in school, he barely made friends. when people did talk to him, they rarely got his name right. not even wrong in a creative way.
just wrong.
jo became j once. joe once. kenjiro gojiberry somehow, which still made no sense to him. some people didn’t even bother with names at all. just “dude” or “bro” before moving on like he was a temporary loading screen.
people didn’t tend to forget him.
they just never remembered him to begin with.
even teachers mixed him up with other guys who shared the same tall build and generic face. he learned early that correcting people only made things more awkward, so he stopped.
a simple family. a simple upbringing. a life that never made noise.
an npc.
jo learned early that standing out wasn’t an option and eventually stopped trying. didn’t get remembered. didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.
and somehow, he was fine with that.
he grew up hating unwanted attention despite never really receiving any. maybe it was preventative. maybe it was instinct. maybe he just didn’t want to test what would happen if he stepped out of line.
university didn’t change that.
he's still existing quietly.
that belief shaped how he sorted everyone else too.
npcs.
protagonists.
heroines.
antagonists.
years of gaming didn’t help. somewhere along the way, he started narrating his own life in game terms. he talked like it, thought like it, coped like it.
the only person who genuinely remembered him was byun euijoo. someone he randomly met in his first year of university. they shared almost nothing in common, which only confirmed that euijoo had to be an npc too.
that was the only explanation for why they got along.
nobody said npcs couldn’t have friends.
“jo, you have to help me with mr. tanzaki’s assignment,” euijoo groaned, sliding down in his chair until his spine looked like it gave up on life. he stretched his arms over his head, joints cracking loudly. “i swear it’s actually killing me.”
jo didn’t even look up. he lifted his chocolate milk, took a long sip, then shook it once like he was checking how much patience he had left. “i can’t,” he said calmly. “you know i struggle too. i’m the average npc, not the nerd npc or the secret smartass npc.”
it wasn’t even coffee. jo hated coffee. this was survival milk.
euijoo squinted at him. “you talk like a freak.”
“we’ve been friends for three years,” jo replied, finally glancing over. “at this point, that’s on you.”
“that’s the problem,” euijoo said, nudging jo’s shoulder with his elbow. “i am used to it. that’s why it’s weird.”
“that’s because you and i spawned with the same difficulty setting.”
euijoo froze. “whatever that means, it sounds rude.”
“it’s accurate,” jo said, scrolling through his notes. “that’s why the fashion major you’ve been crushing on since last year still hasn’t noticed you.”
“hey—!”
euijoo shot upright so fast his chair screeched, slapping a hand over jo’s mouth in blind panic. jo blinked once, then immediately smacked it away.
“dude,” jo said flatly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “get your hands off me. you’ve been touching your laptop for two hours. i don’t know what kind of bacteria lives there.”
“we don’t talk about him,” euijoo hissed, sinking back into his seat and glancing around like snipers were hidden in the plants. “we’re not on the same level. he’s popular. i’m—”
“a nobody,” jo finished for him, shrugging. “see? you get it. different roles.”
“oh my god, shut up,” euijoo muttered, burying his face in his hands.
they worked in silence after that.
then the cafeteria shifted.
jo didn’t even need to look up.
a moment ago, the place had been dull.
gray tables, gray noise, gray existence.
then suddenly, it wasn’t. laughter spiked. voices layered. something bright cut through the room, sharp and impossible to ignore.
there he was.
blue hair.
piercings catching the light.
ripped jeans like fabric laws didn’t apply to him.
nakakita yuma.
the protagonist.
“man,” euijoo scoffed, pushing his glasses up his nose. “if i looked like that, i could get literally anyone.”
“yeah,” jo said, deadpan. “but you don’t.”
euijoo slowly turned to stare at him. “you didn’t have to say it like that.”
“sugarcoating isn’t in my dialogue options.”
“you could’ve lied.”
jo leaned back, clasped his hands dramatically. “ah yes. the most handsome npc in existence, byun euijoo. you’ll be married to wang yixiang by tomorrow and i would be honored to be your best man.”
euijoo stood so fast his chair almost tipped. “have you completely lost your mind?!”
“relax,” jo said, unfazed. “we’re background characters. no one’s listening. you could fall three floors and the game would render you late.”
“my friend is actually insane,” euijoo muttered.
“and yet,” jo said lightly, “you’re still sitting here.”
the cafeteria that had been empty earlier was now crowded. jo watched from his seat. yuma sat near the center, effortless, magnetic like the space around him adjusted automatically.
jo wasn’t in love.
obviously.
this was just how it worked. protagonists were built to shine. people like jo existed to make that shine visible.
except jo didn’t like that role and that felt dangerous.
not because he was jealous.
he just didn’t know how to play it.
“life’s unfair,” euijoo muttered, chin propped on his hand. “he even got a pretty girl.”
jo followed his gaze.
aira minazawa.
the heroine.
she fit beside yuma perfectly, like she’d been rendered with him in mind.
“i’m not even into girls,” euijoo added, clicking his tongue, “but you can’t deny she’s pretty.”
“she is,” jo admitted.
long caramel hair. graceful posture. expensive clothes that looked casual because money didn’t matter to her. she laughed softly, covering her mouth, leaning toward yuma like the script told her to.
they suited each other.
and jo hated that they did.
like the world had adjusted its colors just for them.
and jo was just something meant to pass through and disappear.
“3d sculpting soon,” euijoo said, snapping his bag shut.
“i hate that class.”
“same,” euijoo sighed. “he said my sculpture looked like ‘picantropus erectus,’ which i’m pretty sure is an insult.”
jo snorted. “that’s kind of funny.”
“for you.”
they stood to leave. jo glanced back once more. yuma laughed. everyone laughed with him like it was instinctive.
“i don’t think i’d ever fit in there,” jo said quietly.
euijoo adjusted his bag strap. “yeah. me neither.”
and that was that.
-
in class, jo unpacked his things slowly, lining them up with the same quiet care he always did. his laptop went first, then his notebook, pencil case, tablet, and finally the half-finished chocolate milk he’d brought from the cafeteria. he placed it to the side like an afterthought, though he knew he’d finish it before the lecture ended.
he chose a seat that didn’t stand out. not too close to the front, where professors made eye contact and asked questions and not too far back either, where students looked like they were trying to disappear on purpose.
jo preferred the middle. the safest place. visible enough to exist, invisible enough to be ignored.
a girl slid into the seat beside him.
he recognized her immediately.
last semester, she’d texted him at three in the morning, frantic over a pdf she couldn’t compress before a deadline. they’d sat together once or twice after that. she’d thanked him repeatedly, offered to buy him dinner as a thank-you. jo had declined. it felt unreal, like an event meant for someone else.
npcs didn’t get asked out to dinner.
so he’d said no.
politely.
of course.
“hey,” jo said, after a moment of hesitation. “how did that assignment go? it went okay?”
the girl paused, pulling one airpod out. she tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing not in annoyance, but confusion.
“uhm…” she hesitated. “i think you’ve got the wrong person.”
she put the airpod back in and returned to scrolling through her phone, humming softly to whatever song was playing.
jo opened his mouth.
then closed it.
right, he thought.
he’d forgotten who he was for a second. forgotten his place. gotten a little too confident that someone might remember him.
of course she didn’t.
even if they’d eaten together, gone to karaoke, shared drinks, kissed under bad lighting and worse decisions.
it still hadn’t been enough to make him memorable.
she wouldn’t remember.
that was just how it worked.
jo had accepted that this was the kind of life he lived. maybe it was better this way. quieter. simpler. expectations set low enough that nothing really hurt when it failed.
it wasn’t like he stood out. he was tall, sure, but not unusually so. half the guys in the room were around the same height. he still wore the same blocky glasses he’d had since his first semester, refused to change them even when euijoo nagged him about it.
his clothes were always plain. hoodies, joggers, neutral colors chosen for efficiency rather than style. his bangs were too long, falling into his eyes, but he never cut them.
he said it was because he didn’t like looking people in the eyes.
euijoo said it was because jo was a coward.
jo didn’t correct him. he just kept refusing.
the lecture began.
the professor did his usual routine, reviewing concepts before the practical session. questions were thrown around casually, names called out with ease. jo noticed, not for the first time, that almost half the class got picked.
not him.
never him.
not once.
maybe it was a good thing. maybe it wasn’t. jo didn’t dwell on it anymore. when he didn’t understand something, he looked it up later, watched tutorials, figured it out on his own. it was safer than raising his hand and risking the professor stumbling over his name again.
sakura.
asakusa.
usakara.
never right.
the lecture stretched on. jo finished his assignment early and submitted it, receiving a brief nod from the professor that meant nothing more than acknowledgment of existence. he packed his bag, said goodbye to no one in particular and left the classroom.
his phone buzzed as soon as he stepped into the hallway.
euijoo, again.
typical.
jo replied that he’d come by later, preferably after dinner. he didn’t feel like eating euijoo’s soggy instant noodles tonight.
as he walked down the corridor, someone bumped into him hard enough that his phone slipped from his hand. it clattered across the floor and slid under a vending machine.
“fuck,” jo muttered.
the guys who’d bumped into him didn’t stop. didn’t apologize. didn’t even look back.
it was like they’d collided with air.
jo sighed and crouched down, reaching under the machine. people stepped around him without comment, some stopping to buy drinks, feet inches from his hand.
no excuse me.
no acknowledgement.
he stretched farther until his fingers finally closed around his phone. it was dusty, grimy, covered in things he didn’t want to identify.
still working, at least.
he stood up and went home.
-
jo left the building through the side exit, the one most people ignored because it added an unnecessary thirty seconds to their route. protagonists didn’t care about thirty seconds.
npcs did.
the afternoon air was cool, campus soaked in that soft lighting that made everything look nicer than it actually was. students passed him in groups, laughing loudly, arguing about nothing important, clearly progressing through their own quests.
jo walked alone, hands buried in his hoodie pocket, steps perfectly unremarkable.
he was halfway down the path when the universe did something weird.
not a full glitch. more like a lag spike.
someone sprinted past him.
fast.
why are you running, he thought distantly before his shoulder collided with something solid.
“shit.”
it wasn't jo who cursed.
jo stumbled back half a step, blinking. his bag slipped off his shoulder and smacked against his side. instinct kicked in immediately.
“sorry,” jo said, already lowering his gaze, already preparing to be ignored.
except.
the person stopped.
jo frowned.
that wasn’t right.
people didn’t stop. they bumped into jo like he was a decorative plant.
he looked up.
blue hair.
piercings.
nakakita yuma.
the protagonist himself had turned around and was looking at him.
not through him.
not past him.
at him.
npc acknowledged. processing…
“…you okay?” yuma asked.
jo’s brain bluescreened.
this wasn’t in the script.
main character initiating dialogue with npc: rare event unlocked
npc response options:
A. panic
B. say something weird
C. accidentally derail the plot
jo chose D. lie confidently.
“yeah,” he said too fast. nodded once. maybe twice. “i’m fine.”
yuma tilted his head, eyes flicking over jo like he was trying to place him in the environment. jo had the sudden, horrifying thought that he might get remembered.
“sorry,” yuma said. “i wasn’t looking.”
jo froze.
apology received.
from a protagonist.
that was illegal.
“oh— it’s fine,” jo said quickly, stepping aside on instinct, clearing space like a movable object. “no damage. uh— take care. enjoy the rest of your day."
why did i say take care.
yuma blinked. then smiled.
casual like this wasn’t a cutscene at all.
“thanks,” he said, then jogged off like nothing had happened.
and just like that, the world resumed.
jo stood there, staring at the empty path.
npc status: unchanged
quest log: empty
heart rate: concerning
“…okay,” jo muttered.
that was it.
no follow-up quest. no dramatic music. no slow-motion eye contact.
just a shoulder bump.
except jo had the uncomfortable feeling that something had shifted slightly out of place.
like a background prop that wasn’t supposed to move had twitched.
he adjusted his bag strap and kept walking.
this meant nothing, he told himself.
npcs got bumped into by protagonists all the time.
probably.
right?
-
jo told himself the shoulder bump meant nothing.
that was what background characters were supposed to do.
smooth over irregularities, ignore anomalies, keep the world stable. the protagonist had probably already forgotten about it.
jo was sure of it.
people forgot him all the time. this wouldn’t be any different.
still, his shoulder felt strangely warm.
jo shook his head as he walked, adjusting his bag strap. no reason to dwell on it. minor collision events happened constantly. the world didn’t break just because a protagonist briefly acknowledged an npc.
probably.
he repeated this logic to himself as he crossed campus, successfully calming his heart rate back to normal levels.
then he reminded himself of the rules.
jo learned two things very early in life.
one: protagonists always had important scenes in public places.
two: npcs should avoid public places at all costs.
unfortunately, jo was terrible at following his own rules.
he took a shortcut through the campus courtyard because the sun was nice and his legs were tired. it was a wide open space with benches, trees and a fountain that definitely existed for cinematic purposes.
jo clocked this immediately and considered turning around.
courtyard detected.
probability of cutscene: high.
he sighed and kept walking anyway.
sometimes avoiding things only made them worse.
he was halfway across when he noticed the vibe shift.
it was subtle at first. the air felt quieter. the chatter softened, like someone had lowered the volume slider. students slowed down. some stopped. some pretended not to stare while very obviously staring.
jo’s steps slowed.
near the fountain was...
nakakita yuma.
and beside him...
aira minazawa.
standing close.
too close.
framed perfectly by sunlight filtering through the trees. her hair caught the light like it had been styled by the graphics department. yuma had one hand in his pocket, posture relaxed, expression soft.
romantic event detected.
cutscene in progress.
recommended action: leave immediately.
jo stopped walking.
then realized stopping was worse.
he resumed walking, staring straight ahead, pretending he was simply a background asset moving on a preset path.
do not interact.
do not breathe too loudly.
do not exist too hard.
aira was saying something. jo couldn’t hear it, but her body language screamed confession arc. yuma leaned closer, listening, the way main characters did when something important was about to happen.
this was bad.
this was very bad.
jo tried to take a wider path around them, adjusting his trajectory slightly and stepped directly onto something slick.
“—fuck!”
his foot slid out from under him.
the world tilted.
his bag flew.
his body reacted too late.
and jo fell.
not gracefully.
not cinematically.
he fell like a tall idiot with poor balance, arms flailing, momentum completely wrong. his knee hit the stone edge of the fountain. his bag smacked the ground. his tablet slid out, skidding across the pavement like it was trying to escape the narrative.
water splashed.
loudly.
every sound echoed.
cutscene interrupted.
cutscene obliterated.
“holy shit—!” someone yelled.
jo groaned, pushing himself up on his elbows, already wishing the ground would swallow him whole.
“are you okay?” aira’s voice cut through the noise, startled and sharp.
jo didn’t look up.
he absolutely did not look up.
“i’m so sorry,” he blurted out, words tumbling over each other. “i didn’t see the water and my shoe— i mean the algae— or maybe it was fate—”
shut up. stop talking.
yuma had stepped forward.
again.
why was he always stepping forward?
“hey,” yuma said, crouching slightly. “you hurt?”
jo finally looked up.
big mistake.
yuma was right there. concern written plainly on his face. aira hovered behind him, confusion mixing with annoyance in equal measure.
two protagonists on screen.
npc should not be here.
“i’m fine,” jo said quickly, scrambling to his feet and immediately slipping again but yuma grabbed his arm.
firm.
steady.
jo froze.
npc touched by main character: critical error.
“careful,” yuma said. “you almost ate the fountain.”
aira blinked.
once.
twice.
“…yuma,” she said slowly. “we were in the middle of something.”
jo straightened so fast his glasses nearly fell off. “i’m so sorry. i’ll go. i was never here. please continue your… uh… emotional progression.”
aira stared at him.
yuma stared at him.
a silence fell so thick jo could’ve drowned in it.
“…did he just say emotional progression?” aira asked.
yuma coughed. “i think he did.”
jo wanted to die.
immediately.
and quietly.
“i’m leaving,” jo said, backing away. “i swear. i won’t interrupt again. i’m an npc. this isn’t my route.”
aira’s eyebrow twitched.
“…what?”
“nothing,” jo said. “nothing. forget i spoke.”
he turned to leave and his tablet chose that moment to loudly announce:
LOW BATTERY. PLEASE CHARGE YOUR DEVICE.
the sound echoed through the courtyard.
someone snorted.
someone else laughed.
aira sighed, rubbing her temples.
yuma covered his mouth, shoulders shaking.
oh no.
no no no.
“i’m so sorry,” jo said again, scooping up his tablet and shoving it into his bag like it had betrayed him personally. “i hope— uh— everything works out.”
yuma lost it.
he laughed.
hard.
bending forward slightly, eyes crinkling, completely ruining the romantic tension.
aira stared at him, stunned.
“…seriously?” she said.
“sorry,” yuma said between breaths. “that was— wow.”
jo took that as his cue to run.
he fled the courtyard at maximum npc speed, heart pounding, dignity left behind near the fountain.
behind him, the cutscene did not resume.
strike two: main route destabilized.
- tbc.