Chapter 245. Putting It Off
“I need a little more time to think.”
“What?”
“I can’t make a decision right now.”
Ryu Min didn’t reject Min Juri’s confession.
Saying he needed time, he put it on hold.
‘If I reject her here, Min Juri’s mental state won’t survive it.’
It took courage, yes—but it was also a confession made with at least a sliver of hope.
And if he were to reject her coldly?
Wouldn’t she collapse like a sandcastle, crumbling all at once, beyond mere disappointment?
And if her mental state shattered like that—
Could she survive until Round 20?
Ryu Min was skeptical.
‘She might even turn her back on Black Scythe too.’
Rejection would be the worst possible outcome for Min Juri.
And it might negatively affect both Ryu Min and Black Scythe.
That was why, if a confession was coming someday, he had secretly hoped it would come as late as possible.
‘But to think it would be today…….’
Judging that rejecting her immediately could become the worst choice, he decided to postpone it.
That was the best option for both of them.
“You’re asking me to give you more time……?”
“Yeah. It was too sudden…… I need time to sort out my thoughts.”
“……Alright. I’ll give you time. When you’re ready to answer, contact me.”
With that, Min Juri stood up and left the café without even looking back.
Watching her, Ryu Min tilted his head.
‘Did I do something wrong?’
A silent room.
Ryu Min stared blankly at the wall clock.
Tick-tock— tick!
The minute hand pointed exactly at twelve.
‘In twelve hours, Round 15 starts…….’
Ryu Min looked at his phone and fell into thought.
‘The person who needs it more should be the one to contact first, right?’
He scrolled through his texts with Min Juri.
-3 weeks ago-
[Min Juri: Are you done thinking?]
[Ryu Min: Not yet…….]
[Min Juri: I’ll be waiting for your answer.]
-2 weeks ago-
[Min Juri: Min. Do you still need more time?]
[Ryu Min: Uh-huh. Please wait a little longer.]
-1 week ago-
[Min Juri: What about your answer?]
[Ryu Min: Ah, just a little more.]
[Min Juri: It’s been more than half a month and it’s still “not yet”?]
[Ryu Min: Sorry. I want to decide carefully.]
Three weeks ago.
Ever since Min Juri confessed unexpectedly, Ryu Min had kept avoiding giving an answer.
And today, with twelve hours left until Round 15,
Ryu Min had to decide.
‘Today, I have to meet her no matter what.’
Because he couldn’t keep putting it off forever.
‘And I have to tell her the Round 15 strategy and hand her the invisibility potion, too…….’
Under the name of Black Scythe, Ryu Min had told the Reaper Church believers the strategy.
He had also handed invisibility potions to Seo Arin and Yamtwi.
‘The only one who hasn’t heard the strategy now is Min Juri.’
Min Juri hadn’t even shown up to the Reaper Church’s regular meeting.
That meant her mental state was unstable.
‘Did I put it off too much?’
He felt sorry, but it had to be better than rejecting her cleanly.
If he did that, Min Juri’s mind might truly snap—clean off.
‘At this point, even Min Juri must have realized. That I’m rejecting her indirectly.’
Unless she was an idiot, she would know.
Unless she had no sense, she would know.
Because you can just feel it.
‘And yet she keeps asking because she wants a clear answer—something like yes or no.’
But he didn’t have the courage to say it.
Right now, with it on hold, there was still hope, at least.
But if he rejected her—
Wouldn’t he be destroying even that hope?
‘It could become worse than it is now. She might not even speak to me at all.’
Well, she didn’t have to speak to him in reality.
As long as her relationship with Black Scythe didn’t fall apart.
‘I want to keep our relationship as teammates, but if she hears rejection, will Min Juri really be okay mentally…….’
That was what scared him.
Losing Min Juri as a teammate.
Losing Min Juri as a friend.
‘Either way, I have to ask her to meet today. If it gets any later, there won’t be time—’
Just then, a text came in on Ryu Min’s phone.
[Min Juri: I want to see you.]
Ryu Min replied immediately.
[Ryu Min: Okay, let’s meet. How about the café we met at before, by 2 o’clock?]
[Min Juri: Okay.]
‘I wanted to see her anyway, and she contacted me first.’
Ryu Min grinned and put on his coat.
1:30 p.m., the perfect time for coffee.
Normally it would’ve been noisy, but the café was quiet inside.
The street outside, visible through the show window, wasn’t much different.
‘The survival game changed a lot.’
Now, finding young people on the street was harder than finding Mr. Kim in Seoul.
Cafés had all switched to unmanned operation too.
‘This is better, actually. For a serious talk in a quiet place.’
She had sent reminders that were almost like pressure, but she’d been rejected every time.
Maybe because of that, there was a kind of resolve in Min Juri’s eyes today.
‘Today, I’ll definitely get an answer.’
A resolve to hear Ryu Min’s answer to her confession.
Of course, Min Juri wasn’t an idiot either.
She wasn’t unaware that Ryu Min had been subtly showing his answer all along.
‘Maybe I already know the result. Even so…….’
Even so, she wanted to hear it from Ryu Min’s own mouth.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to escape this torture of hope that would go on forever.
‘He’ll probably…… reject me.’
Her mind was complicated, but it was fine.
She had plenty of time to think, and that was why she had come early to the meeting spot.
Jingle—
When the café door opened, she saw the face of the man she loved.
Ryu Min—her high school classmate, the one she’d loved unrequitedly for four whole years.
Now that she’d gathered her courage, she wouldn’t give up.
“You’re here?”
“Yeah. You came early.”
“Mm.”
“What do you want to drink? It’s on me.”
“No. I can’t keep getting treated forever. I’ll pay. Sit down. Double espresso, right? With an extra shot.”
“Yeah.”
When she brought the coffee back, Ryu Min took it with a dazed expression.
“Here.”
“Thanks.”
For a while, the two of them only drank coffee in silence.
‘W-what do I do? Now that it’s time to ask, I don’t have the courage.’
She was scared, but she still had to do it.
Even if she heard rejection.
Min Juri barely opened her mouth.
“Um…… don’t you have something to say to me?”
“Ah.”
Ryu Min gave an awkward smile.
No—maybe it was more like a troubled smile.
“You want to hear the answer to what you asked before, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, but I need more time—”
“Again?”
As he tried to postpone it again, something surged up in her chest without her meaning to.
“How much more time do I have to give you?”
“…….”
“Isn’t three weeks enough? That’s plenty of time to sort out your thoughts.”
“It’s not something you can decide that easily—”
“Ryu Min!”
Min Juri shouted and looked him straight in the eyes.
“Stop dragging it out and decide. How long are you going to stall? Don’t you realize this hurts me more? It’s basically torturing me with hope.”
“…….”
“While you were stalling, I thought about it a lot too. Whether my feelings for you were false. Whether it was just a brief spark.”
Min Juri’s gaze was dead serious.
“But the more I thought, the more certain I became. That my decision wasn’t wrong. Even if I regret it, I thought I should at least tell you my feelings clearly.”
Everything is hardest the first time.
Once she opened her heart, Min Juri revealed her true thoughts without hesitation.
“So now I want to hear it. Your honest feelings. I can’t wait anymore.”
“…….”
“Answer me. Do you like me?”
Ryu Min lifted his head and said with serious eyes,
“I do.”
Min Juri froze in shock at that answer—but only for a moment.
“But I only like you as a friend, not as a woman.”
At the firm rejection, Min Juri’s expression hardened.
It was the answer she expected, but hearing it still felt like a dagger twisting into her chest.
“I’m sorry. It’s not the answer you hoped for.”
“N-no. Thank you for telling me honestly.”
“…….”
“…….”
Silence returned between them.
It was more awkward than before, a suffocating silence that made it hard to breathe.
‘It hurts.’
So this is what it feels like to be rejected by someone you love.
Min Juri didn’t know what she was supposed to say anymore.
Her mind went completely white, like it had been formatted.
As the awkward atmosphere kept tightening around her throat, Ryu Min broke the silence first.
“I’m sorry. But you really are a good friend to me. Someone I don’t want to lose.”
“…….”
“So can you forget what happened and go back to being friends, like before?”
‘Friends……?’
It felt strange.
Why did a word that had felt so close just moments ago now feel so far away?
‘Can we really go back to being the same as before? Like the confession never happened?’
Min Juri felt doubtful.
Maybe she had opened Pandora’s box.
Maybe, just like Ryu Min said, postponing it again and again had actually been the right answer.
“Juri.”
“Mm?”
“You’re not answering. We’re still friends, right?”
“O-of course. Friends. Friends.”
Suddenly, Min Juri became curious.
Was there even a case where someone confessed, got rejected, and then went back to being friends?
Was it really right to pretend everything that just happened had been erased?
“I’m glad. That we can stay friends.”
“…….”
“Then I’ll tell you the Round 15 strategy now.”
“Y-yeah…….”
Min Juri was left confused, as if her confession had become something that never existed.
‘Did she really hear it properly?’
After parting with Min Juri, Ryu Min felt uneasy for no reason.
Because she hadn’t seemed to focus the whole time he was explaining the strategy.
‘She didn’t look like she would back down anymore, so I had no choice but to reject her…….’
But he couldn’t say for sure he had done the right thing.
He had heard Min Juri’s complicated thoughts too—about whether they could return to being friends.
‘Whatever. As long as we clear the Round.’
He had given her the invisibility potion, and he had told her the strategy for Round 15.
Even if she was hurting after being rejected, Min Juri would have no choice but to move forward for survival.
‘To be honest, I even thought about erasing her memories with a Memory Erasure Potion. But using such a precious item to erase a confession feels a little wasteful.’
Contrary to what he feared, Min Juri didn’t look that shocked.
It wasn’t something that required erasing memories.
‘If we keep being friends like before, Min Juri will eventually get her feelings under control.’
With that thought, Ryu Min returned home and lay down on his bed five minutes before midnight.
And when midnight came, his eyes slid shut before he even realized it.
When he opened his eyes again, a completely different world had unfolded.
‘Round 15 has begun.’
In the colorless space, people began to appear one after another.
Ryu Min stood still and reviewed, in his head, what he had to do this Round.
‘The five key members who received invisibility potions should be fine in the first mission. The second mission will be easy if I use the Church of Despair believers. And for the third mission, more than anything, Christine’s performance is crucial.’
Since there was a heal obtained as a temporary skill, protecting Christine wouldn’t be a problem.
And he planned to keep monitoring that bastard Berber, so nothing should happen outside expectations.
‘But if there’s a variable this Round, it’s the angels…….’
He didn’t know when an archangel might appear again.
They might have hired Players again, like last time.
‘I can’t let my guard down.’
As he stayed alert, watching his surroundings—
“Ah, hello, Black Scythe-nim.”
Someone approached and greeted him.