Delusive Fate

#051

A sticky shadow fell under Ki Baek-woo’s smoothly standing nose tip. I frowned one eye and stretched my head forward. Then I could see a little more clearly.

Crazy. He really does everything, does everything. I snorted.

After swallowing a lump of almost chewed flour dough, I called him again.

“Hey. Ki Baek-woo.”

Ki Baek-woo, who had been holding a spoon in style and blankly staring at what I was eating, straightened his back and corrected his posture.

“…Yeah? What? Do you need something?”

“Your nose is bleeding.”

“Huh?”

Ki Baek-woo’s eyes, which had been as hazy as pastel rubbed on paper, suddenly became clear. There was a sharp sound.

Ki Baek-woo quickly put down the spoon and hastily reached out with his ragged hand. His hand, with all ten fingertips messy from who knows what kind of biting, grabbed my face and turned it this way and that. For a touch made in such a hurried panic, it was careful. It wasn’t enough to make me angry, but it wasn’t welcome either, so I narrowed my eyes.

Ki Baek-woo’s finger, which had been quietly feeling around my cheek as if checking something, now touched under my chin. A delicate force that was almost ticklish slightly lifted my face.

“Hey, what are you doing now?”

Ki Baek-woo acted as if he couldn’t hear my question. He just kept examining my face this way and that with a strange look in his eyes, without answering. I looked at Ki Baek-woo too.

Ki Baek-woo’s pupils were dry as if carved from wood and inserted. The whites of his eyes moved dryly and were red with bloodshot. The flesh under his eyes that bulges out when he smiles or frowns, and his eyelids, were also barren without a hint of moisture. The area under his eyes is dark. Anxiety and worry could be read in his irises, which had become clear for once after being listless all this time. It wasn’t funny at all.

Ki Baek-woo is moving further and further away from ‘normal Ki Baek-woo’ with each passing day. Continuously, steadily, without stopping. At this rate, this Ki Baek-woo and normal Ki Baek-woo might become as distant as our galaxy is from another galaxy. The extent to which Ki Baek-woo is not normal now is not just strange to my eyes, which know the past and future, but would seem abnormal even to ignorant ordinary people who don’t know anything. If you grabbed anyone on the street and showed them the current Ki Baek-woo, they would all be shocked like this.

What is this? Why isn’t such a critically ill patient in the hospital instead of wandering outside? No, wait. Looking closely, isn’t this Hunter Ki Baek-woo? No way, to think that an S-class hunter, a precious asset and important military force of the country, is in this state…! Our country is doomed now!

While imagining people despairing and pulling their hair out, Ki Baek-woo muttered nonsense.

“No, no, hyung. It’s okay. No blood. It’s okay….”

“No, it’s not okay. You are bleeding.”

“No, it’s okay. No blood. Thank goodness. I must have just felt like it. It’s okay, so you don’t need to worry, hyung.”

Does your nose hurt? Does it sting inside? Do you feel like you’re bleeding? It’s not like that, right?

Ki Baek-woo, who had been staring into my nostrils for a long time like an elementary school student observing an ant hill, spouted nonsense. As if tension had been released, he blinked his eyes quickly a few times and then let out a low, long exhale like a sigh. Only then did his hand retreat from my cheek. Ki Baek-woo looked unwell. He was already haggard, but now he looked like someone who had just calmed down after being scared out of his wits.

It’s okay. Thank goodness. I’m glad it’s okay. Sorry, I was a bit surprised…. If you’re in pain at all, you have to tell me right away, hyung. You understand? Don’t be in pain. Don’t be in pain….

Ki Baek-woo muttered like an obsessive-compulsive patient, pressing both his temples hard with his left thumb and middle finger. Both fingers were messy with scabs around the nails. His muttering doesn’t stop. “It’s okay, hyung is okay… It’s okay. No blood, it’s okay.” The small voice that continued miserably sounded like a spell for himself who wanted to be okay, rather than words for me.

This Ki Baek-woo looks really serious. He seems determined to become a textbook example of ‘the appearance of a human species with both body and mind broken simultaneously.’

What on earth is okay and what’s not bleeding? Has he really gone crazy?

I jerked my chin briefly towards him and said,

“What nonsense are you talking about? Of course I’m fine. You’re the one who’s not okay, so why are you telling me not to be in pain?”

“Huh?”

“I’m saying you’re bleeding. Not me, you.”

“What?”

“I’m telling you your nose is bleeding right now. Can’t you feel it? Are you paralyzed in the face?”

Oh, now it’s starting to flow- ugh, get your face away! The nosebleed is dripping into the sujebi!

As Ki Baek-woo belatedly felt under his nose, the nosebleed that had been vaguely forming began to flow as if it had been waiting. The blood flowed instantly like a faucet being turned on, following the curve of his lips and dripping down. A round, dark red dot appears on the table. Another one appears.

“Uh….”

“What do you mean ‘uh’? Hey, quickly lower your head. Your nose is wailing, wailing. You’re sitting there shedding bloody tears through your nostrils.”

“Sorry, ah, why is this happening. It’s disgusting. I’m sorry, hyung.”

“I said lower your head, not raise it. Try bunching up some tissues and stuffing them in your nostrils.”

Even though he was covering his nose with his hand, so much blood was flowing that blood stains eventually marked Ki Baek-woo’s chest. Ki Baek-woo awkwardly raised his head, then lowered it at my urging, then blinked his eyes a few times as if thinking of something, and then got up from his seat. Ki Baek-woo, who staggered for a moment as if dizzy, hurriedly left the kitchen.

“What the hell.”

Is he terminally ill? He’s making such a fuss even over a nosebleed… Is he an attention seeker? I stared at where he had disappeared for a moment, then picked up my spoon again. Whether Ki Baek-woo’s nose was bleeding or not, I scooped up sujebi and potatoes together and pushed them into my mouth. Delicious. I chewed and swallowed thoroughly, and was about to drink the hot broth next.

Bang! There was a sound of something bursting somewhere. It was the sound of something enormously large falling.

“What the hell….”

Where did that sound come from? Should I go check? Ah, shit… it’s annoying. I glanced beyond the kitchen entrance with my upper lip twitching in displeasure. Silence. I waited for a while, but there was no sound of something being cleaned up.

The dead silence following a loud noise tends to make people feel a bit uneasy. Should I go or not? I was conflicted. No matter how much it sounded like something bursting, it couldn’t have been the sound of Ki Baek-woo’s skull cracking. Because this world wouldn’t crack open the head of Ki Baek-woo, who is the precious protagonist and Jung Yi-dam’s man. Of course, there’s no reason to kill him either. So can’t I just ignore it? Ki Baek-woo will take care of it himself.

I grabbed the spoon I had put down for a moment and stirred inside the soup bowl again.

But the silence continued.

Ah… this bastard is really annoying me. Why is this guy with a body as big as a bear acting like this?

I clicked my tongue in annoyance and forced myself to get up. It was bothering me, so I eventually walked leisurely into the living room. The living room was quiet and there was no sign of anything having fallen. I walked leisurely again and this time opened the bedroom door. Apart from the dehumidifier and air purifier running, there was no particular abnormality here either.

Then is it the bathroom?

“Ki Baek-woo, are you in here? What’s going on?”

I grabbed the slightly peeling bathroom doorknob and asked once. Just in case he’s in the middle of taking a dump. I don’t want to commit the nuisance of suddenly opening the door during such an important moment. Even if it’s Ki Baek-woo, I want to respect that much. Just from one human to another. Well… this world and system don’t treat me and him as equal humans, but anyway.

“Hey, Ki Baek-woo.”

I gently shook the doorknob and called his name again. But there was still no response from beyond the door. I pressed my ear close to the door but couldn’t even hear the ventilation fan running.

“Hey, I’m asking what’s going on? Did you spill something? Why was there a loud noise? You’re not destroying the bathroom, are you?”

No answer returned.

“Our Baek-woo is too young to be hard of hearing, so why aren’t you answering…? If you’re like this, hyung has no choice but to barge in, privacy be damned.”

After urging alone for a while, I finally roughly turned the doorknob and pushed. The door that opened suddenly, contrary to its momentum, opened about a third of the way before getting stuck on something with a thud. What the hell is this? I pushed my head through the open gap to look inside.

“Oh, shit….”

The sight I saw was shocking.

Surprisingly, Ki Baek-woo was dead.