A TIDE OF FRIEND INVITES

"AH JIN!" Luo Yan called.  

Luo Jin was about to punch the punching bag but stopped his movements when he heard that familiar voice.  He turned around and just as he expected, he saw Luo Yan coming in from the entrance and then walking towards him.  He furrowed his brows.

"Why did you come down here?  What if you fell while climbing down the stairs?" he scolded.

"Listen now, Ah Jin, the doctor didn't say that I couldn't climb a stair.  He just said that I should be very careful when I do," Luo Yan said, putting both hands on his waist.  "You couldn't possibly expect me not to climb a stair all my life?"

Luo Jin didn't know how to answer that, because his second brother did have a point.  But still.  "Just don't do anything careless.  You know your body right now is much weaker compared to normal people."

"You make it sound like I'm not normal," Luo Yan said acting sad.

"T-that's not it!  Just… just be careful, okay?" Luo Jin could only say at the end, he didn't really want Luo Yan to be sad.  

"Maybe it would be better if Ah Jin could teach me kickboxing.  It would definitely make me stronger." 

"What are you saying?  Kickboxing is not suitable for you."

Luo Yan's big peach blossom eyes suddenly filled with water.  "Ah Jin, why are you being so mean?"

"N-no!  It's not like that!" Luo Jin said in a panicked said.  How could this second brother of his cry at the drop of a hat?  "If you really want to learn some kind of martial art, then I think Jiu-Jitsu would be the best pick."

"Jiu-Jitsu?"

"Yeah.  In my opinion, it's the best one for beginners trying to learn self-defense." It would definitely be helpful to his second brother if he managed to learn some Jiu-Jitsu moves.  "But before you go and ask Dad to let you learn, your health should be completely back to a hundred percent first.  The kind where the doctor could give his complete approval to you.  Okay?"

"Okay!" Luo Yan nodded.

Jiu-Jitsu, huh?  It would really be good if he could learn.  But just like Luo Jin said, his health should be back to a hundred percent first.  

"What did you come down here for anyway?" Luo Jin changed the subject before Luo Yan talked about martial arts again. 

"I just want to ask if you're going to play Arcadia today," Luo Yan said.

Because last night, after dinner, Luo Jin didn't want to play for some reason.  He also decided not to play and just take a break and sleep early.

  "I will.  I'll just take a quick shower first, then the both of us could play together."

"Okay.  Then I'll just wait for you so we could log in together.  Ah wait- where did you log out yesterday?"

"Outside the Class Bureau."

"Then I'll go to you.  I logged out some place else, you see.  Just make sure not to move in front of the Class Bureau before I arrive, okay?"

"Why can't I just go to you?"

[Because you're directionally challenged.]  Well, not really completely.  Probably just a little bit.  He noticed it when they started to play together.  Luo Jin would sometimes go off the wrong direction whenever he's flustered.  So just to make sure, it's better if he was the one who went to him.

"Because I like Ah Jin so much, I couldn't let you do such a trivial thing," he said, smiling sweetly at Luo Jin.

As expected, Luo Jin's face turned bright red.  

----------

When Luo Yan entered Arcadia, he appeared in front of the Moonriver Restaurant.  He immediately started walking towards the Class Bureau.  But he hadn't taken a single step yet and the notification bell for friend invitation suddenly sounded.  After that first time, it sounded again and again and again.  It almost felt like there's an alarm repeatedly ringing inside his head.  

Annoyed, he opened his Status Window and was extremely shocked when he saw that he received almost a hundred friend invitation.  "What the--?"

Why did he suddenly receive so many friend invites?  The rule of inviting another player to be your friend here in Arcadia – at least in this VR version - was pretty lax.  You only need to know their game account name.  Since no two account name were the same.  

How did these people know his game account name then?  

Then he suddenly remembered that fight at the Arena the other day.  If he remembered correctly, his game account name was posted on a screen for everyone to see right before the fight.  But the number of audience then weren't that much.  It couldn't even fill half of the audience area.  Could it be all those players send him a friend invite?  No, he didn't think that was the case.

So what could it be then?

Anyway, the more important thing now was to stop this.  There's no way he'd approved the invitation of these players he didn't know about.  He went to the settings of the Friend List option and disabled the function where he could receive friend invites.  

After doing that, he continued walking towards his destination.   

On his way, he could feel the gaze of other players on him.  Which, of course, he thoroughly ignored.  Soon, he arrived at the Class Bureau.  He immediately saw Luo Jin's tiny figure standing there.  He quickly ran towards him.

"Ah Jin, did you wait long?" he asked when he reached him.

"No.  What should we do today?"

"Let's buy weapons, then go to the Task Hall to look for some task we could do."

"That's fine by me."

They were about to walk when a female player suddenly approached them.  Her gaze focused on Luo Yan.

"Excuse me, are you that player 'Noctis'?" she asked, her eyes shining.

"Ah… yes?" Luo Yan just said, not really sure for the reason of this sudden approach.

"I knew it!   Wow.  You're even more beautiful than the photos posted in the forum."

Forum?  Suddenly, Luo Yan felt like he finally had the answer on why he received that much friend invites.

He smiled sweetly at the female player.  "Could you tell me more about that?"