“Park Shinui-ssi!”
His eyes snapped open at someone’s voice. Park Shinui squinted as he stared at the strange letters floating before him.
《When That Day Comes Side Story》
‘When That Day Comes Side Story?’
Before he could even question it, the vivid letters gradually blurred, then shattered like bubbles and disappeared. Park Shinui blankly gazed at the unfamiliar scenery that appeared where the letters had been, then slowly blinked.
‘What? What was that just now?’
“Park Shinui-ssi!”
Along with the voice calling his name once more, a strong floral scent brushed past his nose. Only then, as if understanding the situation, Park Shinui slowly nodded his head.
‘Ah, it was a dream. I entered the dream again.’
“Park Shinui-ssi?”
But this dream felt strangely off somehow. Everything was excessively realistic, as if he could reach out and touch it at any moment. Even the air brushing against his skin felt vividly real.
“Park Shinui-ssi, what on earth……”
Park Shinui, who had been lost in thought, turned his head toward where the voice came from. At the rapidly approaching presence, he reflexively pulled his body back.
‘That startled me, I thought he was coming toward me.’
“Why are you here?”
No. He really is looking at me.
He had been seeing this person in his dreams for a month. But he was always far away. In a world Park Shinui couldn’t intervene in, at a distance only an audience member outside the story could see. But now those eyes were looking directly at him.
“Me?”
Park Shinui, who had been half out of it, was startled when a foolish sound came from his own mouth.
‘What? How can he hear my voice?’
“Then who else would it be?”
The man’s expression hardened as if asking what nonsense he was spouting, and he let out an annoyed sigh. His blunt but dignified voice contained coldness.
“You can…… hear my voice?”
When Park Shinui asked back in a surprised voice, he received a look of disbelief.
“Of course I can hear you.”
“And you can see my face too?”
“I can see you. I spent quite a while looking for you, not knowing you were here.”
“For me?”
“Then who else would it be?”
“Who…… am I?”
“Look here, Park Shinui-ssi. Now is not the time to be playing around like this.”
The man wore an expression that said he was wasting time on questions not worth answering. From his reaction, it seemed Park Shinui’s appearance was visible, his voice audible, and he even seemed to know him very well.
“I mean, I am Park Shinui, but……”
‘I’m not the Park Shinui you’re thinking of.’
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but there’s no time right now. Just move.”
The man cut him off without hiding his annoyed demeanor. Then he spun around as if he didn’t want to hear any more.
Park Shinui blinked dumbfounded for a moment, then raised his hand to feel his own face. The soft, squishy texture of skin touching his fingertips felt surprisingly real.
‘My god. Did I really enter into the dream? Even though I dreamed every day, I’ve never actually gone inside before.’
“This is……”
‘Was this even possible?’
“Hurry up. The person who should be in the waiting room—why on earth are you all the way out here?”
“……Good question.”
Why am I here? Muttering the foolish response, Park Shinui followed after the man who had started walking ahead.
So this is a dream. And at the same time as being a dream, it’s also inside a fantasy novel. Because this middle-aged man in front of him was one of the characters appearing in that book.
A month ago. Park Shinui had coincidentally purchased a fantasy novel called 《When That Day Comes》 from a neighborhood bookstore in the middle of closing down. From that day on, every night without fail, the content he had read unfolded in his dreams. The stories that had been nothing but text flowed as vivid images, and the characters from the novel moved before his eyes as if they were actually alive and breathing.
However, Park Shinui was merely in a position like an audience member watching it all. Until the novel ended, he had never once directly appeared in the dreams himself.
But now it was as if he had become a character who had been in that story all along. Seeing as he was making direct eye contact and having conversations with people he’d seen in his dreams.
When he first started reading the novel, Park Shinui discovered himself with the same name inside it. Celebrity Park Shinui. Though it was only a few lines of appearance, the excitement of discovering that name remained vivid even now.
‘Could it be that I’ve become that Park Shinui?’
Park Shinui, who had been blankly staring at the butler’s back, slowly blinked.
‘……Jackpot.’
“Um…… where did you say we’re going right now?”
“Where else would it be? The ceremony hall.”
“The ceremony hall?”
Park Shinui, unable to grasp the situation, repeated the butler’s words. He couldn’t recall which part of the novel this content was from, even though he had read it to completion.
“Didn’t I ask you several times? Please, just for today, refrain from any impulsive actions.”
The man, who had stopped walking, looked at Park Shinui with reproachful eyes before coldly turning his gaze away.
Park Shinui couldn’t hide his flustered state and just gaped. He didn’t know what was what, but from the atmosphere, it seemed like quite a difficult situation had been caused because of him.
“I’m sorry.”
The middle-aged man before him was Kang Taejun’s butler from the novel. A person who, no matter the situation, remained unwavering and was thoroughly loyal only to his master. A stubborn person who had stoically done only his duty even as the characters dropped dead one by one in the endless battles. He had seen this face countless times in his dreams, but directly conversing like this gave him a strange feeling.
“I’ll say this one more time, but I hope no more troublesome situations arise for the master because of Park Shinui-ssi.”
“Yes…… I’ll do that. That’s what will happen.”
Park Shinui mumbled while firmly suppressing his bewildered feelings.
“This way. Follow me.”
Following behind the butler who started walking ahead, Park Shinui carefully observed his surroundings.
The interior of the building spread before him was dazzling and splendid to an excessive degree. On the high, soaring ceiling, intricately crafted chandeliers shone like the Milky Way, and the walls were filled with antique marble and delicate relief decorations.
Park Shinui walked down the corridor covered in red carpet while looking at the flower decorations placed at regular intervals. It didn’t seem to be Kang Taejun’s mansion that he had seen several times in his dreams. That place had a grand but restrained atmosphere, but this space was different. Like a stage carefully decorated to welcome someone, there were no gaps.
‘Where is this place to be so splendid?’
“Park Shinui-ssi. Hurry up.”
The butler walking ahead urged Park Shinui, who was hesitating.
“Ah, yes!”
Park Shinui, who had been entranced by the corridor scenery where crystal fragments undulated while finely shattering the light, realized the distance between him and the butler had widened and hurriedly moved his feet. Anyway, since this was the first time he had entered the dream, it didn’t seem bad to try enjoying the current situation.
“Enter through here.”
The butler, who had stopped in front of a massive door, opened it and tilted his head toward the inside. He had said there was no time, and impatience seeped into his every gesture.
“Yes.”
Just from his appearance, the butler’s face was reminiscent of his high school senior year homeroom teacher whose mouth corners were always frozen in a straight line, and it had the power to make people naturally respectful. Park Shinui suppressed the questions filling his head and obediently stepped inside the room.
“If you wait for a moment, your name will be called soon. This time, you absolutely must not go anywhere else. Do you understand?”
“Ye-es, I don’t know where this place is anyway, so……”
As soon as Park Shinui nodded his head, the butler left the room without looking back. Park Shinui, who had opened his mouth a beat too late, awkwardly mumbled toward the closed door before shutting his mouth.
“……He must be very busy.”
Kang Taejun’s butler, while maintaining propriety throughout, gave off a somehow hostile atmosphere. Stiff throughout as if reluctantly dealing with an uncomfortable person, his gaze was cold too. It was clear to anyone that he didn’t like ‘Park Shinui.’
‘But why was ‘Park Shinui’ with Kang Taejun’s butler?’
They should have absolutely no connection. Park Shinui, who had been slowly looking around the room, tilted his head. Without any clues, there was nothing he could guess.
The place where he was left alone was decorated without gaps with flowers whose names he couldn’t identify. There were enough to be quite distressing for someone with a flower allergy. Though he had come here following the butler, he could be certain of one thing. The scenery before his eyes now was an unfamiliar place he had never seen anywhere in the dreams he’d had over the past month.
“Huh?”
Park Shinui, who had been peeking around the room, stopped dead in front of a large mirror filling one wall.
“Uh, uhhh……?”
And then he leaned his upper body forward as if sticking to the mirror and opened his eyes wide as if they would pop out.
“……”
Park Shinui slowly straightened his body then leaned forward again, tilted his head to the side then straightened it again. Then he stared at the face reflected in the mirror, entranced.
“I’m…… my face is……”
Every time he spoke, the man in the mirror opened his mouth, and when he frowned, the expression distorted together. In the mirror was a face that seemed familiar yet unfamiliar, looking back at him. The face of a tremendously, quite, very— dazzlingly handsome man.
