how long does it take for their irl lives to become the main focus? like when in the story do they meet irl for the first time?
that’s actually kind of a complicated answer because it varies depending on who you ask LMAO
but for story purposes the answer is at their mutual acquaintance (jihan’s friend & yoochae’s teammate)’s wedding. they trade numbers there and the irl stuff starts to come more into focus bit by bit as they start to interact as people outside the game. let me go back and check the chapters for a proper sense of the when
okay they meet irl in chapter 62! so about halfwayish through the main story because it’s 117 chapters. it starts becoming more irl focused as jihan suspects yoochae and yoochae’s irl self are the same person (he keeps it a secret) and yoochae tries to push for an irl friendship with him to replace their online one so it starts shifting after that point
i see, guess ill have to let this marinate for a while then lol
they end up leaning way more into the IRL side of things as the story goes by btw.
i will note that the later section of the story is actually surprisingly heavy! the tonal whiplash is immense. yoochae has some severe mental health issues (he gets into the history of why) and a heavy attachment to jihan due to it and he goes to some crazy lengths to try and hide his being yoochae Because he thinks jihan doesn’t care about his game self & he just wants to know him as his IRL self. he does show some impressive self awareness as well because when he catches himself dipping into obsessive territory he shuts himself down, but he’s definitely attached in a way that gets concerning and would not in any capacity make for a healthy long term relationship
anyways instead of rolling with it or normalising his attachment problems jihan tells him flat out they can’t continue to see each other unless he improves because their relationship would be severely unhealthy due to his inability to trust yoochae at this point and yoochae’s dependence on him to be happy. and cuts him off. and quite a bit of time goes by and yoochae does put in the effort to work on things and his mental health and attachment issues significantly improve and they end up getting together after about an entire year or so of no contact at the very end of the main story.
i was very surprised in a good way by how it was handled & respect the story quite a bit for the direction in which it handled things i just want to note that it gets wayyy heavier than you might expect it to lmao so keep that in mind if you’re interested in following the story to the end!