# Chapter 104
## Unexpected Assistance
It had been a long time since he’d felt this sick. In his hazy state, Lee Hwan recalled the last time he had been seriously ill.
Back then, unable to endure the cold treatment any longer, he had followed his uncle’s wishes. He enrolled in a high school far away and found a room using what little was left of his parents’ inheritance. Wearing his school uniform all day and eating lunch and dinner at school meant his basic needs were somewhat taken care of.
Since he mostly just slept at home, there wasn’t much to clean. Living alone was lonely but peaceful in its own way.
Then he fell terribly ill once. It was a mild case of meningitis.
When told outpatient treatment was possible, Lee Hwan immediately chose that option. He had no desire to be hospitalized, and even if he wanted to, hospitalization required a guardian.
On his way home, Lee Hwan bought an armful of instant rice porridge. He contacted the school to report his absence due to illness, then shut himself in his room and suffered for three days and nights.
That was when he first learned that chills could occur even in the middle of summer. Every time he walked, it felt like bells were ringing in his head. Groans escaped his lips even though there was no one to hear them.
The porridge he managed to heat up had a strange, greasy smell that made it impossible to swallow. The water he had prepared in advance smelled fishy. Still, desperately wanting to live, he forced himself to swallow, only to feel nauseous for a long time afterward.
After suffering terribly, he woke up with a clear head at 3 AM when the neighborhood was deathly quiet. The first thing Lee Hwan did was wash his body with hot water and put his sweat-soaked clothes in the washing machine.
Then he opened all the windows for ventilation and, breathing in the lukewarm night air, thought to himself that he shouldn’t get sick again until someone was by his side.
Blink. When he opened his eyes, his body felt much lighter. Lee Hwan put his hand on his forehead and realized his fever had gone down considerably.
Then he noticed that he wasn’t in his own home. When he suddenly sat up, a cushion fell to the side with a thud.
A simple design with two black diamonds overlapping on a white background.
‘…This.’
Lee Hwan forgot to look around and instead picked up the cushion, placing it on his knee. He pressed it firmly and suddenly found himself overcome with nostalgia.
This was the cushion that had always been on Taesung’s sofa. Before the regression, he used to lean on it whenever he had the chance.
Whether this cushion had originally been here, or if Taesung had bought an identical one later, Lee Hwan felt deeply happy to see it.
So much so that he momentarily forgot why he was sleeping here.
‘Ah, the drug…! I gave it to him, I think.’
Lee Hwan traced his last memories and recalled that he had followed Jade to his home to deliver the drug. And then, as instructed, he had lain on the sofa and fallen asleep without any sense of danger.
Now fully alert, he hurriedly sat up, causing the blanket to fall to the floor with a soft thud.
Startled by this, he reached out with his left hand to pull the blanket back up, and noticed a smiley-face bandage twinkling on the back of his hand. What’s this? Lee Hwan made a stupid expression as he gently rubbed it.
That’s when he heard:
“If you’re awake, eat something and get out.”
A dry voice pounded his ears. Lee Hwan turned his head, still clutching the blanket, to see Jade sitting in a chair at the kitchen table.
He was speaking without looking at Lee Hwan, his gaze fixed on a book.
“I’m not giving you the cushion, so leave it and get up.”
Had he already seen Lee Hwan fumbling around after waking up? He thought he had fixed his posture in an instant.
Feeling his face grow warm, Lee Hwan got up from the sofa. Then, chewing his lips, he clumsily placed the blanket and cushion back on the still-warm sofa.
Why had he slept here? Heat rose up his neck in embarrassment.
“I, I’m sorry for the intrusion.”
As Lee Hwan looked around for the bag he had brought, Jade, who had somehow stood up and was taking a bowl out of the microwave, gestured toward the table with his chin.
“Eat something before you go, as I said.”
Lee Hwan hesitated as he was about to leave. Why was this person suddenly trying to feed him since last time? While the offer was appreciated, he couldn’t help feeling confused.
Having to eat dinner after taking a nap at the home of someone he wasn’t close to—someone he actually felt extremely awkward around—was quite an ordeal, though he couldn’t say so.
With an obviously confused expression, Lee Hwan made an excuse:
“No, I, I don’t have much appetite.”
He never thought he’d be picky about food when it was right in front of him. Before the regression, it had been difficult to have safe and peaceful meals, so he ate whatever was available, and it was the same after the regression.
As his stress increased, his desire to eat constantly decreased, but he had still been diligent about having regular meals because eating was part of living.
But even those thoughts came to an abrupt halt when he saw Jade’s mouth corners slightly drooping in displeasure.
“You were a Hunter before the regression, right?”
“Huh? Well… yes.”
“Then you should know a few basic rules. Especially about managing your condition before combat.”
So it was a lecture. Lee Hwan finally read the room and dutifully walked over to sit at the table as instructed. In front of him, Jade placed a strange-colored porridge that was steaming vigorously, as if it had been overheated in the microwave.
‘What kind of porridge is this?’
The appearance was quite odd. It seemed to have seafood in it, and mushrooms were visible… but the color looked black sometimes, and greenish at other times.
Still, unable to disregard the effort, he blew on it repeatedly and savored a spoonful. Although it wasn’t necessarily bad-tasting, an indescribably peculiar smell and strange umami flavor lingered in his mouth.
Lee Hwan looked at Jade with an expression that asked what kind of food this was. Jade, who had sat back down and was about to return to his book, couldn’t ignore Lee Hwan’s gaze and raised his eyebrows.
“I ordered porridge… but when I went to receive it, it seems ‘someone’ had placed another order. Since both intestine-abalone porridge and nutritious mushroom porridge are good for you, I mixed them half and half.”
“…But you don’t eat like this yourself.”
“That’s right.”
It had become a truly strange dish, but it was still food that someone had prepared for him. As long as it wouldn’t kill him to eat it, it was precious nourishment.
From that point on, Lee Hwan ate the porridge bit by bit, cooling it as he went, without complaint. The bowl was so deep that it seemed endless no matter how much he ate. Lee Hwan guessed that Jade had combined both portions into one.
After swallowing for quite some time, finally seeing the bottom of the bowl, Lee Hwan felt strength gradually returning to his previously limp body. As his fever subsided and food entered his system, his body faithfully began working again.
Only then could he pay attention to his appearance. As Lee Hwan stretched out his flattened hair on one side and tucked it behind his ear, his eyes met Jade’s.
At some point, Jade had stopped pretending to read his book and was staring at him.
“If you’re mostly done eating, let me ask you one thing. You said it before, right?”
“Pardon?”
“That Kang Taesung… ahem, was kind.”
“Yes, well…”
Lee Hwan licked his lips once before answering. Though it was now in the past, Taesung had been the best person he’d ever met. Even considering everything he’d endured after the regression, Taesung was someone whose flaws he could completely overlook.
Even if Taesung wasn’t actually the perfect person he appeared to be here, Lee Hwan would always keep him as a good memory.
“On weekends at Kang Taesung’s place, I often got to eat steak too. Did I mention that before?”
“Steak…”
“You know? It’s cooked with lots of butter, almost like it’s fried, and it’s really savory and…”
“Cooking. Kang Taesung. Right… no, I don’t know.”
Perhaps he learned it separately later? After all, four years wasn’t a short time. Even though Lee Hwan himself felt like he’d been here forever, it had only been half a year.
Despite Jade’s firm denial, Lee Hwan didn’t mind. He had plenty to say about Taesung.
“He was very considerate too. I was living with practically nothing, but thanks to him, when I had just become a Hunter with no money, I got to visit expensive places…”
“…Just the two of you?”
“Yes, well. We went to watch the sunrise, saw movies together. That was the first time I learned you could rent out an entire theater.”
It was funny. Originally, in front of Jade, he only felt awkwardness, intimidated by his inscrutable expression, but when talking about Taesung, suddenly words flowed freely from his mouth.
“He also bought me really nice combat suits, and when I checked the price… whew. He said he got them on a buy-one-get-one deal so I accepted, but expensive items really do have fewer flaws and are more comfortable. Haha.”
Lee Hwan inadvertently let out a laugh, but seeing Jade’s face visibly tense up, he quietly wiped the smile away.
“I see. Um. Friends…”
“But mostly we just hung out at his place. Watching TV. It was really fun. When I came back through regression, I thought there wouldn’t be any emergencies right away, so we could hang out like that again… or so I thought.”
Lee Hwan subtly let his words trail off. Suddenly, mid-conversation, he recalled the dream of watching TV with Taesung. He had been so happy to see him, even if only in a dream.
Could it be like that again? Lee Hwan suddenly felt a deep nostalgia, as if he’d left his hometown behind, and bit his lip.
Back then, after waking from a long dream, Jade had been there. Taesung was sitting in the living room. Since the two often stuck together, was Taesung perhaps here this time too?
Lee Hwan briefly indulged in hopeful thoughts before letting his words fade and erasing those thoughts completely. If Taesung had been here, he couldn’t have slept so comfortably and woken up like this.
Lee Hwan’s lips drooped back to their original position.
At that moment, Jade suddenly brought up his own story without warning.
“I’ll be honest with you.”
“What?”
“When you first disappeared through that window, I thought Kang Taesung was making a fuss about fans whose existence I couldn’t even understand.”
“Ah, that day…”
“So I said that. That it was too much like your taste. Then he admitted that he might have met you at a bar.”
“What?”
What did he just hear? When Lee Hwan put down his spoon with a clang against the empty bowl, Jade slightly furrowed his brow. As if he was hesitating about whether to say this or not.
