# Chapter 60
## Encounter
The sky was still dark when he pulled back the curtains. Lee Hwan wiped away the cold sweat that had soaked his nape beside the pale night light.
“Ugh…”
A pained groan escaped without him realizing it. He curled up, whimpering. His stomach, no, his side hurt terribly.
Was this why he had awakened before sunrise? When he carefully felt his side with his half-awake mind, suspicious fluid was seeping out. Lee Hwan let out a long moan as he slowly got up and left the bed.
“Argh, ugh…!”
For a moment, in this sudden situation, he wondered if this was also a dream, but it hurt too much to be one. The pain was overwhelmingly vivid.
What now? He was screwed. Even amid his hazy consciousness, panic swept through his mind, making his heart feel like it had stopped.
Beyond the wound not healing, now it seemed his side was starting to fester.
‘Why suddenly…’
Was it because his immune system had weakened from his recent irregular lifestyle? Or had he applied the antibiotic ointment for too long? It seemed to be getting better for a while, so why was it like this again?
Click. As the bathroom light turned on and his reflection appeared in the mirror, Lee Hwan sighed in dismay. The t-shirt he was wearing had red and yellow stains on the side. A visual he needed to check but didn’t want to see.
Taking a deep breath, he lifted his clothes. The reddened area, inflamed and swollen, was clearly visible. When he pressed around the wound, an intense pain like having an iron skewer stabbed in and twisted struck his body.
“Ah, ugh…”
His legs nearly gave out, almost making him collapse. Struggling to clear his dizzying vision, Lee Hwan staggered out of the bathroom.
At this quiet hour when everyone was asleep, the brightly lit living room felt like another world. Lee Hwan took out antiseptic from the first aid kit and slumped down on the floor. When he tore open an individually packaged alcohol swab meant for gates, a sharp scent stung his nose.
“Urgh…”
As he rubbed the swab, the wound throbbed and stung. When he poured disinfectant over it, bubbles fizzed, bringing unbearable pain. Lee Hwan kept sniffling as he dabbed away the flowing foam with gauze.
His vision kept blurring. When he blinked, tears rolled down his cheeks. Throughout the process of applying medicine to every corner with a cotton swab and sticking a patch over it, Lee Hwan felt like his side was on fire.
“Haah… haah…”
After roughly finishing the treatment, his body was drenched in sweat. Too exhausted to return to his room, Lee Hwan lay down in the living room and fell back asleep, thinking quietly:
Fortunately, it’s a waterproof patch. I’ll need to shower and go out later.
When he woke again, it was 7 o’clock. The brightness made his eyes open naturally without any alarm. Lee Hwan rubbed his stiff, dry hair and rose from the hard floor.
‘Why was I sleeping here…?’
At that moment, seeing the used alcohol swabs and gauze, Lee Hwan suddenly remembered what had happened before dawn.
When he lifted his stained t-shirt, the patch was still firmly attached. The pain had subsided considerably, and his body felt much lighter, so if not for the mess on the floor, he might have thought the dawn incident was all a dream.
‘…Well done, my body.’
Lee Hwan sighed in relief at his condition that had improved significantly within a few hours. Only then did he remember his schedule. He took off his dirty clothes and tossed them into the laundry basket, then began tidying up the living room while picking up his phone to check the calendar.
“Haah…”
Today was the day he had taken half a day off to visit the research building. Last week, he finally received the message he had been waiting for from Kang Dongha.
[TF team contact. Will let you know the schedule soon]
[Next Friday, 4 PM. Basement floor 1.]
Looking at these brief messages that had arrived days apart, Lee Hwan felt once again that incidents never ceased in his life. With something happening almost every month, he felt like he had been running at maximum output for months now.
If he included the battles after the monster wave, he had been fighting recklessly for quite a long time.
In the two weeks that felt both short and long, the weather had gradually gotten warmer, entering full summer. Considering that when he first regressed, it was early spring with cutting winds, time had truly flown by.
Accordingly, Lee Hwan’s showers gradually changed from steaming hot water to lukewarm water. Though his body supposedly didn’t react much to heat or cold, there was still a matter of preference.
Whenever water poured over his head, all sorts of thoughts came to mind. Am I doing the right thing? Have I stepped in too deep? Perhaps if I had just waited quietly, would Kang Taesung’s memories have returned someday…?
But when he passed through his room and saw the family photo on the wall after drying off, he felt a little determination filling his anxious heart.
“Ugh.”
Lee Hwan groaned again while getting dressed. Moving his arm widely made the wound throb. Though much better than dawn, he shouldn’t overdo it.
It usually hurt moderately and then quickly got better, so he hadn’t paid much attention, but he never expected it to suddenly worsen like this. It seemed he would have to make an uncomfortable request to Kang Dongha.
But after today. Today, he needed to make it to the research building in one piece.
* * *
He hardly knew how time passed until the end of work. Lunch got stuck in his throat and wouldn’t go down. At various points, his side throbbed, making him lean against the partition, groaning.
Usually starting his day with coffee, everyone seemed to think something was wrong with him when he was suffering all morning. Thanks to that, Lee Hwan could stay in the bathroom longer and more easily.
Lee Hwan entered the bathroom stall for the fourth time today and bit the hem of his shirt. When he carefully removed the patch, the wound area was swollen again. It seemed to get better while resting but worsen when moving.
‘Damn, it’s not like it’s tonsillitis.’
Lee Hwan swallowed his groan as he tore open an alcohol swab. He cleaned the wound area again and applied a new patch. The deep, piercing pain made even his head hurt.
Before the regression, whenever he got injured at work, he would go to the hospital for examination and have the treatment costs covered by a card issued by Naru. A very ordinary method. As a result, Lee Hwan knew nothing about illegal medical treatments, making his future knowledge useless in this regard.
This wouldn’t do. Tomorrow… no, this evening, he would have to press Kang Dongha hard to find even an unlicensed doctor. With that determination, Lee Hwan sat on the closed toilet lid and slowly caught his breath.
2 o’clock. As Lee Hwan was picking up his bag to leave, a phone call came in.
—Kang Taesung isn’t with the TF team.
“What?”
Lee Hwan raised his voice unconsciously as he left the building. Kang Dongha, who said he was calling to confirm, delivered unexpected news.
Here he was, suffering while walking all the way to the research building site because of someone, and now Taesung wasn’t there? Somehow, it felt like a letdown.
But even as Lee Hwan questioned this accusingly, deep down he was actually feeling relieved.
‘Right, there’s no way that guy would be in such a place.’
Every time Taesung was involved in these matters, Lee Hwan felt like he was drifting further from the past. It felt unfamiliar. He suddenly feared he might have made a big mistake by turning the clock hands wrong. He kept getting anxious, feeling as if he might not even be able to return to the future he knew.
So Kang Dongha’s words just now felt somehow triumphant, as if they were a declaration of innocence.
—That’s why he’s not attending the meeting, but he is coming to the research building. This isn’t just an excuse.
It took less than a minute for that emotion to deflate like a punctured balloon.
After ending the call, Lee Hwan pouted and grumbled as he turned his steps. Though there was plenty of time left, he didn’t particularly want to enter the research building. The only place he could stay would be Kang Dongha’s office, and that didn’t seem like a good idea no matter how much he considered it.
Naru headquarters occupied a vast area in a prime location. Entering the nearby electronics building and looking around, he noticed an open-style café on the first floor, unlike the research building which had creepily hidden its café indoors.
Lee Hwan, wanting to grab a snack too, found a seat at what looked like the best outdoor table in the quiet café. Sipping on a cool, sweet coffee, he felt his trapped mind waking up, even though he knew it had no real effect.
Resting his arms on the table and staring blankly ahead, the bright sunlight illuminated his view. Lee Hwan finally realized that it was scorching summer now, and that non-Awakened people would have no reason to leave air conditioning to come outdoors.
‘Should I pretend to sweat?’
His long-sleeved shirt wasn’t just dry; it was so heated by the sun that it seemed it might crackle. He had sweated a bit in the bathroom earlier, but even that had evaporated long ago.
It was fortunate that he wasn’t wilting from the heat… Since his Awakening, his body, different from others, always gave him mixed feelings beyond just convenience.
‘Kang Taesung doesn’t seem to think that way.’
He accepted everything naturally, as if he had possessed abilities since birth. That was roughly after at least 8 years of Awakening, so Lee Hwan had thought he would naturally become proficient after that much time too.
But what had Kang Taesung said back then? He said that sometimes he felt like Lee Hwan was still living in the past. He hadn’t understood those words at the time… but now, thinking about it, he vaguely seemed to know what they meant.
Slurp, the sound of coffee running out. Lee Hwan woke from his thoughts and stirred the straw. The ice rattled, keeping rhythm with his bored ears.
The sun was hot, the wound was throbbing, and his body was languid in the afternoon. How much longer would he have to wait here before going in?
Lee Hwan pressed his tongue against his cheek as he rested his chin on his arm, mindlessly casting his gaze into the distance, when suddenly he spotted a tall, striking figure even from afar.
‘That’s tall. Not common for an ordinary person to have that height.’
After thinking casually, he realized something. Given that this was headquarters with a separate Hunter department, the person might not be ordinary.
“…”
Lee Hwan suddenly had a strange sensation. A peculiar feeling of déjà vu, like attraction or repulsion.
When he recognized that the face he was seeing, even from a distance, was too familiar, Lee Hwan felt the blood drain from his face.
Crash, clatter!
The cup containing only ice overturned with a loud noise. Lee Hwan hesitantly stood up and cast his gaze forward again. Thanks to his exceptionally good eyesight, he could clearly distinguish facial features even from a distance.
And the same would likely be true for the person who had just made eye contact with him.
‘The Strike Team… no, the Support Team… shouldn’t have any reason to come this way at this time…?’
‘That’s why he’s not attending the meeting, but he is coming to the research building.’
Suddenly, Kang Dongha’s voice echoed in his head. Had his sense of danger dulled after commuting so casually for the past few months? Lee Hwan blamed himself for his mistake as he slowly backed away.
Then, out of habit, he touched his face, and his fingertips met a soft, warm cheek.
‘…I’m screwed.’
Right now, Lee Hwan wasn’t Kim Jeongshik; he was the crazy stalker who had attacked Taesung twice, standing inside Naru headquarters.
