Hee-young’s startled eyes went wide and his lips parted, but no words came out.
“However, it may be a temporary symptom, or it may be a reaction to the serious accident you’ve just experienced — so for now, shall we proceed with a brain scan? It will be alright. You can recover.”
The doctor spoke in very roundabout terms without saying anything directly, and Hee-young frowned.
“So what, like — amnesia? Something like that?”
That can’t be it though…. He had no lost memories whatsoever. There was only a world turned upside down and the body of some young kid he’d never seen before.
“Hmm…. It’s different from that. The details will be explained to you gradually through treatment. So the fact that your common sense and ours don’t match is not so strange. Please try not to stress too much — if there’s something you don’t know, ask without hesitation, and if you’re doubtful, feel free to verify it right away.”
The doctor finished quickly, bowed politely saying he’d see him next time, then called the employees over as though he had something to say, and they all filed out together.
He hadn’t gotten an explanation for the body swap, and he noticed the doctor had deliberately left out the details — but figuring the well-educated doctor must have his reasons for telling him what he did, Hee-young ignored the papers rustling as they slid off the bed and collapsed back down, pulling the blanket over himself. Honestly, even if he’d explained it all right now, this soft excuse for a body probably couldn’t have handled it. Ah, that doctor’s actually quite capable. I take back calling him a quack.
Already exhausted, Hee-young closed his eyes and felt the quiet settle around him as he sorted through his jumbled thoughts.
Actually, come to think of it, there’s no way a doctor would know about a strange phenomenon like this. Right — who’s going to give a medical explanation for a soul dropping into an unfamiliar world and waking up in a different body? Trying to explain a bizarre situation naturally ends in the conclusion that I’m the crazy one.
His body relaxed further with relief. For now — right, for now…. I’ll pretend to go along with what the doctor says while I look for a way back. Didn’t they say there are people who use all kinds of strange abilities?
His eyes snapped open. Right — am I the crazy one, or is this world the crazy one? One of the two was definitely crazy, and he was sane. So that meant the world was crazy. Simple. Thinking it through calmly, a hollow laugh escaped him. Ha, damn…. Me, mentally ill? You’re the mentally ill ones — you lot of lunatics. Can two men just fooling around together really make someone heal and use superpowers? Logically?
Hee-young smiled to himself. Either way, it was none of his business how this broken world kept spinning. All he had to do was get back to his original world — the world where his own common sense applied — and back into his original body.
Of course, his original body had been in quite a precarious state after being stabbed too — and it was entirely possible that his real body had actually died, and that was why he’d woken up in this pathetic one — but he decided not to think about such complicated matters right now. There were too many things pressing right in front of him, and dwelling only on the pessimistic side of things wasn’t Hee-young’s style.
The employees cautiously opened the hospital room door and stepped in, and upon finding Hee-young grinning with his fist clenched, made strange expressions.
Why is he smiling again? I’m starting to get a little scared….
Noticing the employees looking at him with uncomfortable expressions, Hee-young sighed deeply again. Well…. I’m going to have to latch onto some kid, rub up against him, and survive — but it’s not like they’re actually telling me to cross a real line. I’ll just think of it as taking a kid under my wing and raising him — give him a hug and hold his hand. Having been so enormously shocked by the explanation of sexual Guiding, his brain now dismissed hand-holding as nothing worth fussing over.
Hee-young’s past life had not been easy by any stretch. The mind of a man almost fifty who had seen and lived through everything was fairly hardened. Things like holding hands and hugging — embarrassing, cringe-inducing things he had never once done in his life — but if it meant surviving, what couldn’t he do.
“Alright. Go on with what you were saying. What was that about Guiding and what I’m supposed to do?”
At Hee-young’s question, the employees’ faces lit up. Since his resistance to Guiding was so severe, and the state of Hee-young the doctor had just described was quite serious, they had been wondering if they’d have to give up on bringing him to the Center right away — seeing the shift to a proactive attitude, they were reinvigorated.
For now, let’s skip the explanation about physical contact since he shows such strong aversion to it. Shin-yul can handle that on his own. Coaxing his own Guide and getting Guiding out of them — that’s the Esper’s job to begin with. Our role is just to make sure nothing goes catastrophically wrong. Getting him to the Center comes first. They exchanged a silent look.
With no idea what the employees were scheming, Hee-young half-listened as they chattered away with explanations in front of him, thinking to himself — right, does it really have to go as far as lips? Just holding hands is fine. He was being dangerously complacent.
***
The stab wound recovered very, very slowly. This damned body was young, and yet — what made it so weak? The slightest movement left him winded and dizzy. Unable to adapt to the dire state of the body at all, Hee-young did nothing but lose his temper.
Of course, lacking the stamina to do anything more, all he could do was run his mouth — but having lived a life where he freely moved through rough environments with a build that stood over 180 centimeters and was twice as sturdy as the average person, the exact opposite of those conditions left him nothing but frustrated.
The fact that he had run in a panic on the very first day he woke up in this body was practically a miracle. If told to run now, there was absolutely no way.
On top of that, no matter how much he slept, he woke up feeling stiff. As if he’d been crammed into a tight space and slept crushed — he’d wake up with his body rigid and his muscles sore. Sometimes he even had the feeling of being watched. Maybe sleep paralysis? I guess when your body’s this weak, all sorts of things start happening. He thought with a sour expression. Anyway — there was nothing about this body he liked.
The one saving grace was that his brain was intact. When he was told there were no abnormalities on the MRI, how relieved had he been. Right, I told you — it’s not me that’s crazy, it’s this world. Even when the doctor appended an explanation that some patients with the same symptoms showed nothing on MRI or CT scans, Hee-young didn’t listen. He simply made plans to return to his original world.
Even after realizing it was an entirely different world, Hee-young couldn’t let go and had tried to look up information about the organization he had belonged to — only to find that in this godforsaken world, gangs and thugs alike had been wiped out by righteous ability users. He heard that in the chaos of a world thrown into turmoil by monsters, the government had cracked down hard on violent crime to prevent greater lawlessness — resulting in a world where not just gangs but even organized crime of any kind was nearly impossible.
Hee-young had asked them to track down any information on Ryu Gwan-tae, thinking his original body might exist somewhere — but after confirming that the person didn’t exist here at all, he simply hoped to find a way back to his original world as soon as possible.
With psychiatric treatment set on a long-term course and the stabbed abdomen clawing its way to recovery, Hee-young was now on the verge of discharge, walking slowly back to his hospital room. The closer the discharge came, the more complicated his feelings grew.
He worried about how different the world outside the hospital would be from what he knew. A perfectly ordinary person using superpowers like a movie protagonist — that wasn’t even the problem. When he heard that a bizarre phenomenon called dungeons produced monsters that could pour out at any time and any place, he nearly fell out of his skin from shock.
Just from what he’d been told, the outside world sounded like a hybrid hell of chaos and monsters spilling everywhere. And in a world where you never knew when or where a monster might appear, everyone had apparently lost their minds — man, woman, whatever — if two people were compatible, locking lips was apparently no big deal.
My goodness, I can’t believe it….
After barely managing one lap around the hospital for exercise, he opened the hospital room door and walked in — and among the cluster of unfamiliar faces, he spotted a familiar one. The Center employees who visited frequently.
“What’s this. Who did you all drag along?”
“Oh, Hee-young! You went for your walk. Was it tough?”
“Yeah, well…. It was brutal. But who are all these people?”
Seeing Hee-young with a pitiful expression, gasping for breath, Deputy Seong spoke with concern — then snapped to attention at the irritated voice and answered:
“Ah, we spoke with the hospital and they said you can be discharged soon. We’ve come to help with the discharge and show you to the housing.”
“Is that right? Could’ve told me in advance — why come barging in like this all of a sudden…….”
At Hee-young’s words, Deputy Seong smiled awkwardly. Well, of course we’d have liked to take things slowly while watching your condition — but there’s someone here who looks like he’s about to cause a massive scene any moment now….
Deputy Seong glanced briefly at Shin-yul standing tall among the employees, then saw that the other employees had already gotten Hee-young’s signature on the various documents needed for identity verification and proxy discharge — proxy authorization forms, consent forms, and so on — and hurriedly stepped out, saying he’d go handle the discharge paperwork.
Watching with tired eyes as the crowd poured in and out in a frenzy, Hee-young wondered internally what he needed to prepare for the discharge, and shuffled slowly into the bathroom.
Even after all the employees had cleared out, Shin-yul remained in the room, staring blankly only at Hee-young — and then followed him into the bathroom.
Hee-young frowned at the large man who had suddenly followed him in, and looked at him.
“What?”
At Hee-young’s question, Shin-yul smiled softly. His eyes curved into crescents, long lashes fluttering. A languid, unhurried manner, an imposing presence, a high nose bridge complemented by a clean upturn of the lips — the moment Hee-young saw that handsome face break into a grin, his own face only scrunched further. No answer and now he’s just — what the hell, grinning right at my face….
Hee-young looked at the glittering golden eyes and vaguely recalled the foreigner he’d run into on the first day he woke up in this body — but with no response forthcoming and only the enormous figure striding straight toward him, he reflexively shot his hand up, grabbed a fistful of the smooth black hair, and kicked him hard in the shin.
He’d kicked him solidly, yet Shin-yul didn’t make a single sound — just stood there wearing a smile, perfectly docile with his hair grabbed. Then, as if something had clicked, he went ah in realization — and promptly dropped down with a thud onto his knees, tilting his captured head up to look at Hee-young.
“You didn’t like being looked down on? Just say so. You’re feisty, sleeping princess.”
“Wha — what is wrong with you?”
Hee-young stared at Shin-yul, who was still beaming away despite having his hair grabbed, and was too baffled to continue. They stayed in a standoff like that for a while, until rushed footsteps sounded outside the bathroom.
“Shin-yul? Shin-yul? You in there? You swore you wouldn’t cause any trouble—!”
Deputy Seong and Deputy Shin rushed in, and at the scene inside the wide-open bathroom, they clapped their hands over their mouths. Huh? Who’s the one causing trouble here?
The moment Hee-young spotted the employees, he tightened his grip on the hair in his fist and shook it, demanding:
“What’s this one’s problem?”
“Mm, the princess’s husband….”
“Is he mentally ill?”
At Shin-yul’s answer, Hee-young looked at the employees standing behind him and asked, exasperated. He was trying his best to speak as civilly as he could manage, but the rough, aggressive edge to his tone remained.
Who is, exactly? The person who’s currently making an S-rank Esper kneel and pulling his hair?
“I’m the one asking.”
“Ah….”
The employees alternated glances between the young face claiming to be a man in his forties and the face of the Center’s resident disaster, Shin-yul — and finding nothing to say, simply sealed their lips shut like clams.
“Is he from the next ward? Take him back. The young one’s properly lost his mind.”
Hee-young roughly let go and shoved Shin-yul’s head away hard — but he didn’t budge an inch. He only watched the hand pulling away from him with a look of reluctance.
“Um… well….”
The employees made no particular move and only groaned with troubled expressions, so Hee-young flicked the handsome forehead of the person still kneeling on the floor staring up at him, and prodded the employees impatiently.
“What are you just standing there for? I said get rid of him.”
“Wow, princess. That’s genuinely sexy.”
No, but this guy—
“Hey, how old are you.”
“You’re curious about me?”
“Talking back at your age. Going around calling a grown man ‘princess’, ‘princess.’ Hm?”
“Then tell me your name. I’ll call you by your name.”
Shin-yul smiled lazily and caught the hand of Hee-young, whose index finger had been tapping his forehead. His grip was so strong that even when Hee-young tried to pull away, the hand didn’t move at all. Completely ignoring Shin-yul’s wheedling request for a name, Hee-young snapped at the employees.
“Why does he keep hanging around here? If he’s got a screw loose, throw him in the psych ward.”
When Hee-young said that, as if lodging a complaint at the employees — wow, Shin-yul’s actually playing it coy. Seriously, you really do see everything in this life. Well, he did learn a thing or two at the Center. Kid’s grown up watching Espers roll over and act sweet for their Guides. True enough. — the employees, who had been whispering among themselves, startled and straightened up with a jolt.
“Ah, that, um — that person is….”
“You going to let go or not? You brainless brute. Stop standing there and call his doctor or something!”
“No, that person is….”
Your matched Esper, Yoo Hee-young.
Deputy Shin said in a voice that shrank smaller and smaller, and Hee-young’s eyes went wide. What did you say?
“I’m supposed to — mess around with him?”
