Is the black haired guy competing to take everything away from the blonde haired guy/putting up a fight? Not sure what’s happening, but from the looks of it, black haired guy is very skilled and did not seem to be a “nerd” in the past. He got average grades, had a lot of friends, and ended up being just like everyone else towards blonde haired guy. Was he putting on the “nerd” act to attract the MC? Idk why, it just feels too calculated, and I don’t like it. From skimming, I feel like the blonde haired guy is just trying to put on a “cool guy” mask to feel valid enough to stand next to/be with the MC? We see that since they were freshman, MC is highly sought after and there is a lot of hostility from upperclassmen towards blonde haired guy for getting closer to her. We also see that since he was younger, he’s had a hard time making friends. We can say that he’s spoiled and a snob for acting out/not wanting to be friends with people that “aren’t as smart as him,” but deep down, I feel like one of the downsides to being an introvert is that you push everyone away from you even though you want to be thought of/have friends of your own. That’s why, when black haired guy came to/transferred into the blonde haired guy’s school, blonde haired guy thought that he would finally have the chance to make a friend, but since he never built a relationship with anyone before, he reverted back to the same tactics that pushed everyone away to begin with again. I know he’s acting like a jerk sometimes around the MC, but idk, I kinda feel bad/sorry for him.
Okay. So, Doha knows how to end the game. We know this, because he found that piece of paper that he or Seongchan probably wrote during their past/original memory/tape save, and tears it up so Bada doesn’t find it. He also keeps manipulating the game and other players, so that Bada doesn’t find clues to bring the game towards completion. Bada is an NPC, like the NPC that Seongchan, a player, taught to guard the room with all the tapes and the multi-tape player. Bada is there to help the players along the way so they can complete the game, just like the other NPC. It doesn’t matter if Bada’s memory is wiped and a new save tape is made, Bada always figures out or finds something new to keep progressing the game. I.e. Bada is the key towards completing the game. Here’s what I’m thinking. Seongchan stopped playing all the other players tapes, so he could go off on his own and finish the game by himself. The only thing that he didn’t take into mind was the fact that Bada would possibly start or stop other tapes from playing. I have a feeling that Bada somehow stopped all the other remaining players tapes through his attempts of trying to escape the game (when he would find a tape and then put it in a tape player), then at some point restarted Seongchan’s last play-through and one of Doha’s early/mid-game play-throughs. I have a very bad feeling that Seongchan is hiding a very big secret. Kind of like how, in Wreck-It Ralph, King Candy is actually Turbo from TurboTime that changed the code in Sugar Rush to take over Vanellope’s role as the ruler in the game, and basically erase her/cause a glitch in the game? What if Bada is the true player of the game and has now become an NPC, because the actual NPCs became sentient and switched their “code” with Bada’s? What if Seongchan found out that only one person, the player that completes the game, is the only person that will be able to leave the game? Maybe Doha found this out as well, and, at first, wanted to manipulate Bada into helping him finish the game, but then decided to abandon the idea altogether, due to his growing obsession for Bada. Would that count as some kind of a reverse Stockholm syndrome kind of thing? Idk fam, I’m just here hoping that this isn’t just someone completely random playing the game, and what we are witnessing is their multiple play-throughs/game saves.
I like this theory. I also think that maybe the game was distorted by some hacker aka one of the players.