Leon was dead exhausted when he finished work for the day. It was 3am at night and he reached into his bag to search for the key to his apartment. Unlocking the door and entering his cramped space, he dropped his bag carelessly and entered the bathroom to wash himself. Coming out with just shorts, he slumped into bed. He reached for the cord and plugged in his phone. With excitement, he tapped onto the game he had religiously played for almost a year now.
The game was called, Chrysanthemum Love. When he first laid eyes on the game's advertisement, he thought it was full of battles and action. Only to be disappointed when he downloaded and loaded the app. It was a dating adventure game that had trash settings and options. When he was about to press confirm and delete, the bell signaling the end of lunch break sounded and he had forgotten it for a while. A week later, he had some free time from his stressful work schedule and had finished his homework for the day. So he carelessly scrolled through his phone and noticed the game.
Seeing no harm in trying it out, he played for a few minutes since he had nothing else to do. A few minutes turned into an hour. An hour turned to a few hours and then he was hooked. Coincidentally, on that day, the game developers had released a new limited time character. It was not an original character but one that was based off of an uprising male celebrity. As a facecon, he was obsessed in collecting all the shards to obtain this special Ultra Rare Character. He spent days working and earned enough to purchase gems to summon character shards. His luck was good recently and he was able to summon the character an hour before the end of the event.
Many people have downloaded this game but got bored within the first 15 minutes. Calling it a trash game. There were only 6 original characters to summon after collecting enough of their shards. Leon had collected them all after crazily purchasing gems to summon more character shards. He was bent on getting that limited time character. There were 3 males and 3 females. The 7th character was a limited edition event with a time limit. He had pressed on the summon button like a maniac. The satisfaction of getting what he wanted after all that work and time was gratifying. Within the game, the player had the options of training their character's skills, collecting supplies and items to create the only 3 outfit choices for your summoned character to try on, crafting weapons to give to your summoned character, cooking the same 5 dishes and leveling up the player's cooking stats, and using gems to purchase crystal bearing trees.
Just like its name, these crystal bearing trees give you a 100 crystals max per tree. The players only need to tap on the trees to collect the crystals. Then they have to wait until the end of the duration to collect again. Within the year that Leon had played the game, there were no updates or events for new things. He also found a glitch with the crystal bearing tree. He was able to buy an infinite amount of trees. Letting him collect a large amount of crystals. The use of these crystals are all to buy and do all the actions options within the game. You had to use crystals to buy supplies, crafting materials, cooking ingredients, and gifts to give to your summon character to increase their heart value. It was only recently that he discovered the glitch. Before, he had used all his money to pay rent and the rest on the game to buy crystals with his gems. The players have an option of purchasing gems with real currency and then exchanging gems for crystals.
And so, that was how he became a rich man within the game. Everyday for an hour, he would do all his daily tasks, check in, and talk with his summoned character. For some reason, the game developers created an option to type and send chat bubbles to the characters the players wanted to chase. He was able to type up to 2000 characters per chat bubble. Everyday, he would chat about everything he saw, did, and felt that day. The characters were only programmed to reply with simple text bubble responses.
Back to the present, Leon tapped the bedroom tab and the screen shifted to a room with a bed and a small table in the corner with a single chair. He scrolled the screen left and right with his finger to find where his character was. Not seeing him in the bedroom, he tapped out of the bedroom and pressed onto the kitchen tab. Again, he scrolled the screen left and right. He found his summoned character sitting on the chair, eating a scrumptious meal. All given to the other by him and also cooked by him. His cooking and crafting skills are all maxed out.
"I'm back hubby~."
Leon typed and sent a chat bubble. Like always, the other was expressionless. Always having a cold and unamused face. But Leon didn't mind. He had maxed out the other's heart value, at 100%.
"Un."
Was what his husband replied with. Leon was happy to get a response from him. For every 10-15 chat bubbles he sends, his husband will respond with "..." or "Un." Leon felt warmth grow within his chest. He was committed and he never planned to quit playing this game. He only hopes that the game developers won't erase this game from the app store. He was probably the only loyal customer the gaming company has now. After an hour of brushing up with his husband, he said good bye and went to sleep.
Leon woke up the next day and checked the time. He immediately screamed in fear. He had overslept and was late to work! Leon rushed to get ready. Leon tapped his feet impatiently and was waiting for the lights to turn green so that he could cross the street. He pulled out his phone from his pocket and checked the time for the nth attempt as he started walking forward, thinking that he had seen the red light turn green. All of a sudden, he heard a blaring honk to his left as tire screeches from friction with the ground. The next moment, all his senses were filled with insufferable pain.
'Ah, I haven't checked in for the daily mission today.'
He thought in grievance and unwillingness before everything turned dark.