# Chapter 61
Even as he pointlessly looked around, that pair of black eyes was undeniably fixed on his face. The man approached the café with steady strides, neither running nor stopping.
Lee Hwan hastily picked up the cup he’d dropped and placed it on the table, then covered his face with his wet hands. Only after hiding his entire lower face did he quickly realize how foolish this was. The man would have seen everything already.
‘How… can I explain this…’
Yes, he’d prefer if this were interpreted as stalking. Normally he would have emphasized it was a coincidence, but he was currently inside the company.
To claim he’d randomly encountered someone after sneaking into Naru’s heart? That would be admitting he worked here.
As his hesitating feet caught on a chair with a clatter, his panic only grew. Taesung, who had been in the distance, was steadily approaching and had now come close enough that his face was visible to the naked eye.
Lee Hwan hurriedly grabbed his bag and then widened his eyes again.
A briefcase filled with clothes and masks instead of papers or electronic devices. Unfortunately, it looked exactly like an office worker’s bag. Come to think of it, his clothes were also perfect office attire…
‘Ah…’
Lee Hwan squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. Something was going wrong. Unless Taesung was a complete blockhead with no awareness, he had probably figured things out to some extent. While Lee Hwan was fidgeting anxiously, Taesung was steadily getting closer.
‘What should I do?’
What else? Run away.
The voice echoing in his mind. In the end, the solution he came up with was, as always, escape.
The eternal truth for a long and thin life—running away is the best of the thirty-six stratagems. Lee Hwan backed away cautiously before suddenly turning his upper body, firmly planting his calves, and kicking off the ground. Hunching his shoulders forward and launching at maximum power, his body shot forward as if flying.
Pak! Tak, tak, tak!
With each footstep, his field of vision changed rapidly. After instantly covering dozens of meters, the belated realization hit him—this was clearly not a civilian’s speed. However, he felt relief at having gotten away rather than regret.
Whatever. He’d been exposed as an Awakened to that guy from day one of his regression anyway. Fortunately, there was no one around, he rationalized as he rushed away.
Taesung didn’t pursue Lee Hwan any further. However, looking back from a distance, he could see that Taesung’s face was still turned toward him, indicating he was still watching.
Lee Hwan imagined those eyes staring at him as his heart pounded loudly. His stomach churned again, and for a very brief moment, his attention wavered.
It was a stupid mistake. While running, he should have been checking the ground.
“Ugh…!”
Before even making it out to the main road, his left foot wrongly stepped on a protruding block. Unable to overcome his momentum, his body shot off in a strange direction. When he hurriedly planted his right foot with a thud, his side twisted sharply as if it had been waiting for this moment, and Lee Hwan lost his balance and tumbled along the ground at his full speed.
“Kuh, aagh!”
It was as if his body had been loaded into a cannon and fired. Though he barely avoided hitting his head on the ground, the bad landing left various parts of his body scraped against the pavement. An intense pain that nearly took his breath away followed immediately.
“Argh…!”
His side… his side hurt so badly.
Amidst the tearing pain, Lee Hwan couldn’t even get up and quickly felt for the wounded area. The scrapes on the back of his hand stung, but they weren’t worth worrying about. Gently touching his side, he felt the sticky surface of a patch under his shirt.
Thankfully, if the patch was still holding the wound, it probably hadn’t torn open further. However, the surging pain was similar to what he’d felt at dawn, nearly bringing tears to his eyes.
At the same time, anger welled up. Self-reproach for having been too careless.
Idiot. He shouldn’t have walked around the company so carelessly. He shouldn’t have taken the news of Taesung’s possible arrival so lightly. No, even if it meant swallowing his pride, he should have grabbed Kang Dongha and begged for help before the wound worsened.
Then this situation wouldn’t have happened.
‘But still, until recently, I was really doing fine…’
As he turned his head, suppressing the urge to complain about the unfairness of having beaten himself up, he saw something even worse than the pain.
“…?”
From far away, a black dot was rapidly getting closer.
‘!’
Kang Taesung. Taesung, whom he thought would just watch him escape, was somehow running toward him. As if seeing Lee Hwan fall was the perfect opportunity.
“Wha… whaaaaaat!”
It felt like watching a horror movie. Lee Hwan unconsciously screamed and sprang to his feet. He was so startled that his legs moved automatically despite the tingling pain that reached his brain.
He limped along with his slowed body, terrified of being caught. He quickly left the main road and slipped between buildings, suppressing any sign of his presence.
“Ugh… haa, haa…”
If Kang Dongha was right, Taesung would soon be heading to Building D as well. With a meeting coming up, surely he wouldn’t think of searching the entire building for someone in such limited time.
Lee Hwan darted into a random building and rushed into a bathroom, hurriedly locking the innermost stall. In the quiet bathroom, only the faint sound of the ventilation fan could be heard. After confirming there was no one around for a good while, Lee Hwan collapsed onto the toilet seat, panting.
He still clutched his bag in one hand, its edge scraped by the pavement. His hand gripping the handle was stiffly tensed. Fortunately, he hadn’t let go of it while falling. If he’d left the bag behind, truly terrible things might have happened.
As Lee Hwan tried to calm his pounding heart, he realized his clothes felt damp. With a foreboding feeling, he swallowed hard and looked down to see one side of his shirt gradually soaking red.
“S-shit…”
Blood was seeping through the patch bit by bit. Only then did the unpleasant sticky sensation follow.
“Argh, after all the trouble I went through to put it on…”
Resentment toward Taesung suddenly surged. If he was going to chase him, he should have done so from the start. Why the hell would he follow someone belatedly? Of course, he probably wanted to catch and teach him a lesson, but still…
Grumbling anxiously, he lifted his shirt, and his fingers trembled finely with tension as they gripped the fabric. The wound looked serious. Blood kept flowing through the tattered waterproof patch.
If there was one thing he’d learned from countless injuries before his regression, it was that wounds don’t hurt as much when they’re still bleeding. He didn’t know why, but that was the case. Crazy pain always came when the bleeding stopped.
Which meant this throbbing was just a preview of what was to come.
Lee Hwan sighed and rummaged through his bag. Since he couldn’t go out like this, he had to treat the wound first. Three remaining alcohol swabs and two regular patches. With no clean gauze or cloth, it would be best to stop the bleeding by applying a patch.
One hour of freedom left. It was a long time or a short time, depending on how you looked at it.
‘Haah…’
Thinking about the pain that awaited him, he could only sigh. Only after taking a deep breath did Lee Hwan steel himself again.
‘No time, so let’s do this in one go. On the count of three, hold your breath… one, two.’
Three. Simultaneously, Lee Hwan spread his hand over the patch and pressed down on the wound with all his might.
“Keu, keuk… ah…!”
His legs trembled like they were having a seizure, and the sound of his heels hitting the floor rapidly echoed. Pain that could make his vision go white stabbed and twisted his side.
He barely held back from screaming “Waaaah!” at the top of his lungs. Can’t let go. Just endure the pain once. Rather than doing this twice, he’d prefer to faint. Lee Hwan stubbornly persisted, refusing to relax his hand. His vision blurred with tears.
And then, a wave of sadness he hadn’t recognized until now suddenly poured out.
He had built this body by punishing Kang Dongha and eating only the best foods. Because of this wound, he couldn’t train or exercise freely, resulting in muscle loss. The constant nagging pain caused him stress too. It clearly wasn’t a deep wound, so why had it become like this?
When he finally released his hand after what felt like an eternity, Lee Hwan found his entire body drenched in sweat again.
“Th… this crazy… haah…”
Lee Hwan forcefully steadied his still-trembling legs and carefully removed the blood-soaked patch. Examining it while cleaning with an alcohol swab, the wound area didn’t seem to have grown larger.
Apparently, he had unfortunately hit a blood vessel inside. Who knows how he had tumbled and rolled.
After roughly cleaning his hands with plenty of toilet paper, he took off his wet shirt. The blood had spread everywhere, making it look unlikely to be properly cleaned.
‘Let’s just throw it away.’
In the empty bathroom, Lee Hwan staggered out to wash his face and hands, then soaked the shirt in water. Returning to the stall, he roughly wiped his body, which was smeared with sweat and blood, and then shivered as he dried off.
The shirt, which appeared beyond salvation, fulfilled its final duty before going into the trash bin along with a pile of toilet paper.
Bloodstained waste… What would the janitor think when emptying the trash?
‘…I hope they think it’s hemorrhoids.’
Lee Hwan changed into the spare clothes he’d brought and slumped down on the toilet. Though he knew no one would come in as long as the door was locked, he still didn’t feel at ease and put on a mask. He instantly transformed into a rather bizarre and comical figure.
‘Anyone who sees me would really be startled.’
The continuing pain could be endured with medication. However, after swallowing painkillers to the limit and spending time sitting in a bathroom, Lee Hwan somehow felt like he had truly become the protagonist of an urban legend.
‘Damn… I had ordered cheese toast and quesadillas too.’
Amusingly, he remembered the food he hadn’t been able to eat before leaving. Though he had no appetite and felt no hunger at all. Lee Hwan clenched and unclenched his fists while waiting for the medication to take effect, and at some point, exhausted, he drifted off.
* * *
The watch on his wrist vibrated. Lee Hwan awoke to the sensation and slowly opened his eyes.
White ceiling, round doorknob. Metal lock attached below.
Only after the gray partitions on all four sides came into view did he realize he had fallen asleep in the bathroom. Quickly checking his watch, it was 3:48 PM.
[Building D, basement level 1. Building D. Do I need to specifically say Building D?]
An annoying message from Kang Dongha had arrived.
When he stood up abruptly, his side gave a sharp twinge. The injured area felt warm to the touch. However, either the painkillers were working well or his head was foggy and his vision distant, because the pain itself had significantly decreased.
‘Fortunate, I guess.’
Lee Hwan hurriedly gathered his bag, tidied his disheveled hair, and left the bathroom. As it wasn’t a situation where he could leisurely type on his phone, he even tried the voice recognition feature he had never used before.
“…Message to Mulju. I’m coming now.”
Then, just in case, he checked his phone:
[Now auditorium]
[What nonsense? I said basement level 1.]
A random location had been transmitted, and Kang Dongha was going crazy.
“Message to Mulju. I’m. Coming. Now.”
[I’m riding now]
Stupid AI bastard. Lee Hwan gave up on communication and hurried toward Building D.
