Chapter 112 |
Jung Inho said that he couldn’t communicate with Lee Jaehun, but in fact, Lee Jaehun felt much the same.
“No… No, no, no, wait a minute.”
He spoke in disbelief.
“Honestly, shouldn’t you be wary of me?”
“…Please say something that makes sense, sir. We’re all going to get traumatized at this rate.”
“It seems you’re having trouble grasping the situation because your eyes are all messed up, Mr. Doctor.”
“There are minors present, so please use kind and gentle language.”
“No, that’s not it, no. Oh, seriously.”
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“Do you really not understand that you guys are the strange ones in this situation?”
No matter how badly he messed up the plan, the basic premise remained.
He had said with his own mouth that he could kill anyone at any time, and who knew when or how the influence of the green algae monster would manifest. Honestly, if they locked Lee Jaehun up or tied him down, the setting would justify it.
But what was this?
“I told you, now’s not the time to worry about me.”
Look at this situation, telling a person who could turn into a monster at any moment not to dⁱㅌ. Even if they were just chicks, he never thought the dⁱsgʊstⁱng protagonist would be like this too. The protagonist wasn’t this s*upid in the original novel.
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He had felt a strange sense of foreboding since he talked to Kwon Yeonhee, but he never thought everyone would act like this even after they gathered.
“The person who you should worry about is yourself, Manager….”
“Yeonhee, are you making fun of me now?”
“I’m just stating facts….”
As she said that, Kwon Yeonhee stealthily hid behind Kang Mina. However, the way she still held her head high revealed her true feelings, prompting Lee Jaehun to put a hand to his forehead and let out a sigh.
“…Insubordination….”
“You don’t even care.”
“Who says I don’t care.”
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“Anyone can see….”
“Oh, really.”
Light banter was exchanged, but the group’s expressions didn’t easily loosen up. He tried to gloss over it with jokes as usual, but it always seemed to backfire when he deliberately tried to do so.
Especially with the protagonist staring at him with those jet-black eyes, Lee Jaehun swallowed a sigh, his head throbbing.
“…Well, okay. Let’s say that’s the case.”
“It doesn’t seem like something we can just brush off.”
“If you’re going to mumble, come out and announce it, Ms. Kwon.”
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She still continued even after speaking some nonsense.
“Honestly, at this point, shouldn’t you be asking at least one more question?”
Yes, he wanted to change the subject.
This topic was extremely disadvantageous for Lee Jaehun. Their inherent ways of thinking were different from the beginning, and it was pointless to argue about who was right or wrong. The problem was that only Lee Jaehun knew that, and it would likely remain that way.
Frankly, he felt that the chicks who didn’t change their way of thinking even after all this were more at fault, but Lee Jaehun just shook his head, thinking that it would only lead to wasted energy without a conclusion. He had to change the subject first.
Fortunately, there was one topic left that could divert the group’s attention even in this situation.
“…Um….”
Park Dayoung, the student with curly hair, glanced around cautiously a few times before slowly raising her hand. She looked like a student trying to give the right answer to the teacher’s question.
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Looking up at Lee Jaehun as if asking ‘Is this right?’, she asked.
“In the original world, what… happens to us?”
“…….”
What happens if you dⁱㅌ in the other world?
“…Hmm.”
And Lee Jaehun was taken aback.
‘Is that the way they’re supposed to think first?’
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Actually, they had both thought of similar things. Both were asking how their state of being eaten in the otherworld would manifest in reality. However, Park Dayoung asked about the state of the living, while Lee Jaehun thought of the case of the dead.
Lightly touching his lips at the subtle difference, he answered.
“…Right, you guys. If I’ve given you this much information, shouldn’t you have asked this first? How can you have less sense than a 19-year-old?”
At Lee Jaehun’s words, Park Dayoung didn’t bother hiding her widening smile, while Park Dahoon sighed with his arms crossed. The others, not seeing the siblings, furrowed their brows at Lee Jaehun in disbelief.
The first to speak was Dr. Ha Sungyoon.
“…The reason our minds aren’t working is probably because the visual information we can confirm from your body is so shocking.”
“It’s really inefficient of you to be shocked by this when you’re not even hurt. You have very high empathy.”
“Please, can you refrain from even mentioning the word efficiency? I have a strong feeling that it will become a trauma for all of us.”
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“It feels like you’re getting more and more disrespectful to me these days. Is that okay for a doctor?”
“I can’t help it if you don’t want to be treated like a patient.”
“It’s hard to make a living.”
After his lament, Lee Jaehun continued in a light tone.
“It stays the same.”
“…Yes?”
“…Didn’t you ask what would happen to your absence in the original world?”
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He reiterated.
“It stays the same, everything.”
Outside of the otherworld, in reality, nothing changed.
Lee Jaehun would still be nagging his subordinates as the grumpy department manager. Assistant Manager Jung Inho would be diligently smiling and doing his work. Kang Mina would be occasionally helping Intern Noh Yeonseok with his tasks. Kwon Yeonhee would also be doing her job as a marketing department employee.
‘And the same goes for the rest.’
‘Someone’ was filling in for their absence.
Of course, to tell them what that ‘someone’ was….
“…It stays the same?”
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“…….”
“That’s impossible….”
It would be difficult to explain now.
‘The topic of conversation has definitely changed.’
Lee Jaehun inwardly hid his satisfaction as he looked around at the group. The protagonist and the doctor seemed to have realized that Lee Jaehun was trying to change the subject, but with the shocking revelation, the atmosphere was too agitated for them to bring it up again.
Ignoring their stares, Lee Jaehun continued.
“It’s highly likely that once you leave this world, nothing will have changed. You won’t be reported missing.”
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“…….”
After a moment of contemplation, Student Park Dahoon spoke.
“…My parents won’t know either?”
“Probably not.”
“…I see….”
It was a rather calm voice, a mixture of anxiety and relief, it was hard to tell which was stronger.
And the same was true for Park Dayoung, who was next to Park Dahoon. Perhaps relief was stronger in her case. She tightly gripped her brother’s sleeve at an angle where the other adults couldn’t see. Park Dahoon put his arm around Park Dayoung’s shoulders, his hand leaving her sleeve.
She quietly accepted the gesture, the look of relief on her face growing stronger.
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Amidst the restless group, a quiet voice emerged.
“Then….”
It was Kang Mina, her head lowered.
“What about you, Manager?”
“…Me?”
“For you, it must have been like that all along.”
Lee Jaehun couldn’t immediately understand what she meant. He was dumbfounded that the conversation returned to him after he had managed to divert their attention, and above all, he couldn’t grasp what Kang Mina was getting at.
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She quietly observed Lee Jaehun with her head raised, then continued.
“No one would have noticed you were gone.”
“…….”
Why were things turning out this way…?
‘D⋏mn it, why is the focus constantly on me?’
He was happy that the setup worked, but he was also so bewildered that he bit his lip and then released it. He couldn’t openly show his anxiety because the protagonist was intently watching him.
But even that small reaction seemed to give Kang Mina some kind of answer.
“…….”
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With her lips tightly closed, she didn’t say anything more.
For Lee Jaehun, it was maddening.
* * *
To Kang Mina, an ‘adult’ was someone who took responsibility for everything within their sphere of influence.
If they met someone they loved, they took responsibility for that love. If they gave affection to someone and that someone followed them, they took responsibility for that affection. If someone was hurt because of them, they had to take responsibility for that person and the resulting aftermath. That was what Kang Mina considered an adult.
In that sense, Manager Lee Jaehun was neither an adult nor a child. He was too indifferent to be an adult, and yet he took on too much responsibility to be a child. Witnessing him bleeding throughout the whole ordeal, Kang Mina had always struggled to define him.
But now, one thing was certain: Lee Jaehun was always doing his best.
“…Then….”
Kang Mina met the gaze of the man who was looking at her with a frown.
“What should we do now?”
“…We have to do something.”
Saying so, Lee Jaehun finally averted his gaze from Kang Mina.
She had often seen that contorted expression on his face back at the company, but it didn’t feel as oppressive or frightening as it did then. After all, she now knew that everything she had seen back then was just an act. Even if she went back, she wouldn’t be intimidated by that expression.
However, she felt uneasy.
“We can either join up with the people we met over there, or we can wander around some more.”
“…….”
“Personally… I would like to see that statue again, the one that supposedly did something to our doctor’s eye.”
This man had adapted to all of this.
He was accustomed to being forgotten by many, and just as easily as things returned to normal as if from a dream, he was used to treating his own body roughly.
‘He said it’s been like that since he was young.’
What if it had been Kang Mina instead? What if she had fallen into this world at a very young age, like Lee Jaehun, threatened by monsters, repeatedly surviving in a world where no one would know if she dⁱㅌd?
I….
“…….”
I would have just dⁱㅌd.
Alone and quietly, in a world where no one remembered her…
“…For now, shouldn’t we meet those people? The police officers who you met, sir.”
“…….”
“I’d like to at least say hello to them.”
It was a terrifying thought.