#165
What Ki Baek-woo said afterward plunged Lee Han-sol into serious contemplation.
‘…How do you fix a crazy person? I still don’t know since I haven’t fixed myself yet.’
The day after the incident, at noon, in the recovery team’s waiting room with its cold air flowing—not the hospital room. Lee Han-sol was deep in thought, leaning against the nurse station in the center of the spacious area. Resting his chin on the light gray artificial marble countertop, he finally spoke up, feeling he couldn’t figure it out on his own.
“Excuse me.”
Kim Seo-won, the recovery team staff who was sitting inside the station writing numbers on a Post-it, answered.
“Do you need something else?”
“Do you know… how far an S-rank healing type can fix a person?”
“Pardon?”
Kim Seo-won questioned back at the sudden inquiry. Lee Han-sol persisted as he took the Post-it with six digits that Kim Seo-won handed him.
“S-rank healing type. I’m asking if you know how far an S-rank awakened healer can fix a person.”
“How far… even we don’t know that.”
There’s no S-rank healing type except for Jung Yi-dam Healer, so how would we know? Kim Seo-won’s disgruntled eyes seemed to say. Lee Han-sol, with a face like a solitary sage, hmmed and paused again. Kim Seo-won added:
“You’re asking because of Hunter Ki, right?”
“Well…”
“Still, Hunter Lee, you’re amazing. Hunter Ki has been adamantly refusing to meet Jung Yi-dam Healer all this time. He could have ended everything with just one treatment from the Healer, but he’s deliberately suffering like this… Actually, if he just hadn’t gone on raids in that condition… why choose such a hellish path for himself…”
Lee Han-sol nodded quietly at Kim Seo-won’s words, which subtly turned into criticism of Ki Baek-woo. He wasn’t the type to deny facts by asking, “Who are you to badmouth our Baek-woo?!” since Ki Baek-woo had objectively caused tremendous trouble. And the assessment that he had entered a path of hell by himself was also entirely accurate. No, Lee Han-sol thought to himself. He didn’t enter it—he seems to have been in hell from the beginning. I didn’t know, but he’s been there alone, it seems.
When Lee Han-sol didn’t respond, Kim Seo-won became embarrassed and awkwardly changed the subject.
“Anyway, seeing that you’re asking for Jung Healer’s call number, I guess you’ve convinced Hunter Ki? The team leader was happy, saying everything would be fine now that Hunter Lee is here, and it seems he was right. And although we don’t know exactly how far Jung Healer’s abilities extend, don’t worry.”
“Hmm…”
“He can definitely heal Hunter Ki Baek-woo’s current wounds. Jung Healer immediately healed Hunter Ki when his condition was even worse than this. Of course, the problem was that he refused treatment afterward.”
Standing up straight from his position leaning against the station, Lee Han-sol muttered quietly as if talking to himself.
“Seeing that Ki Baek-woo is still like this even after already receiving treatment from Jung Yi-dam once… even an S-rank healing type can’t fix one’s mentality, I guess…?”
“What? Mentality?”
“He doesn’t seem to be in his right mind… I think his head needs to be fixed first…”
Having murmured faintly, Lee Han-sol shook his head as if there was no answer to be found. There’s no point in thinking about it further… let’s just do what needs to be done. With that thought, he clicked his tongue once. He picked up the center’s pager that he had borrowed from the station. He followed the six digits written on the Post-it, pressed them, and then hit the send button. A short, regular series of sending tones was heard.
The moment the sound stopped, Lee Han-sol spoke first, as if he had been waiting.
“Hey. Who do you think you are, not doing your job?”
The person on the other end recognized him immediately and called him affectionately, “It’s Han-sol.” A voice as smooth as if coated with honey came through the transmission. However, Lee Han-sol didn’t let the other person speak any further, regardless of how their voice sounded.
“You can’t even solve one problem in your own life, yet you’re not working? Isn’t your role to be a walking first aid kit? If there’s someone in bad shape, you should treat them whether that bastard throws a tantrum or not. You ask me to take responsibility for your life, ask me to take responsibility for this shitty world, you dump all the important things on others, and yet you don’t do your job and just loaf around?”
After his relentless words, as if he had prepared a script, Lee Han-sol bared his front teeth fiercely and warned, almost like he was making a threat. Although the only one witnessing this was the innocent Kim Seo-won…
“Come to Ki Baek-woo’s hospital room right now while I’m asking nicely. If you dawdle, I’ll make sure you barely survive like this forever.”
He said his piece and resolutely hung up.
“Hunter Lee…?”
Lee Han-sol’s phone manners were shocking. Kim Seo-won seemed appalled by Lee Han-sol’s completely one-sided attitude and utter lack of courtesy. His eyes, which suggested he was witnessing a remarkably uncivilized person, looked Lee Han-sol up and down as he handed back the pager.
The look wasn’t unfamiliar. It resembled the eyes of those who would shout, “This crazy bastard is so fierce despite how he looks!” when Lee Han-sol roamed the alleys of B District, wielding stress-induced violence. Lee Han-sol proudly jerked his chin once.
So what? Is it your first time seeing a mere C-rank speak rudely to the great king general S-rank healing type, Master Jung Yi-dam?
With roughly that meaning. Kim Seo-won, collecting the pager, nodded awkwardly. Having achieved his goal of summoning Jung Yi-dam, Lee Han-sol had no further business here. Thus, he turned around confidently, as if he wasn’t ashamed at all.
‘I can treat Jung Yi-dam like that. He said it himself. That I’m his only savior. If I’m the only one, this level of bullying is acceptable, right? I even gave up on getting revenge.’
He thought as he left the reception area.
‘Besides, no matter how crazy I might be, I’m not as bad as that weirdo Jung Yi-dam. That guy is practically possessed by a demon. And…’
He walks through the quiet corridor toward the treatment rooms connected to the reception and the hospital ward beyond. A row of hospital room doors under dim lighting. Looking at that place still vividly reminds Lee Han-sol of his first life.
The time when Lee Han-sol, who had come all the way here with his injured leg to see Ki Baek-woo, only witnessed Ki Baek-woo and Jung Yi-dam conversing affectionately.
The time when he trembled, feeling as if all his insides were spilling out, as he secretly eavesdropped like a mouse on their tender voices. Back then, Lee Han-sol had to flee like a guilty person, repeating to himself that something was definitely wrong, that this wasn’t the Ki Baek-woo he knew, that Baek-woo wouldn’t do this to him, that this was all a lie.
The Ki Baek-woo I know, he wouldn’t do this to me… something is definitely wrong…
He could only endure by thinking such thoughts all day, every day. It was frightening because Ki Baek-woo seemed to have become a completely different person. The Lee Han-sol of that time couldn’t bear it because the past seemed to have become entirely fake. And only now does Lee Han-sol feel sympathy for the Lee Han-sol of that time.
Even after seeing Ki Baek-woo and Jung Yi-dam’s secret meeting, he had always cursed himself for being a fool who denied reality by claiming it was fake or that Ki Baek-woo was a different person. Now Lee Han-sol finally felt sorry for that Lee Han-sol. Because he now knew that what that Lee Han-sol had said—those things were not pathetic denials of reality but rather the truth.
If the Ki Baek-woo of that time had truly been the Ki Baek-woo that Lee Han-sol knew, if he had been the real Ki Baek-woo not controlled by the system, he would have been pacing anxiously in one of those hospital rooms lined up in a row, desperately waiting for Lee Han-sol to come, rather than facing Jung Yi-dam.
So that Lee Han-sol’s assumption that “this isn’t the Ki Baek-woo I know” was true, and all the self-pitying thoughts he had been having until now were the wrong answer. Now he could be completely certain. Any lingering doubts were swept away, becoming ridiculous. All because of the confession-like revelation that Ki Baek-woo had spilled with his dying face at dawn the day before.
‘Should I be grateful for this, or should I be annoyed….’
Lee Han-sol clicked his tongue. His head shook automatically from side to side. Either response feels ambiguous toward a con artist who’s so different on the inside and outside that he might as well have a split personality. It’s irritating and infuriating to feel deceived by the fact that he’s been perfectly hiding his true self all this time, but by finally revealing his hidden true self, he’s put an end to doubts that might never have been dispelled.
Well, whatever the case, there’s one thing for certain. Lee Han-sol thought as he headed toward the hospital room where he had left Ki Baek-woo. No matter how I think about it, the requirement for being a protagonist in this game is definitely having a mental illness…
***
Even upon further reflection, Lee Han-sol couldn’t define the emotion he felt at dawn that day.
The feeling when he heard Ki Baek-woo’s uneven, tense voice was unfamiliar. It felt scary… and also somewhat trembling, a strange feeling.
‘Hyung, I really wasn’t going to say this… I know I shouldn’t say it, but whenever you talk like the system and I are one, I can’t stand it. It’s too painful. I could never do such things to you that the system did… never, even if I died.’
Begging for Lee Han-sol to listen to him, Ki Baek-woo earnestly laid the groundwork with such words. What could he possibly want to say that requires such a long preamble? Lee Han-sol thought indifferently. To be honest, that day they had already exchanged too many conversations—or rather, a series of monologues—from morning until just before then.
Because of this, Lee Han-sol’s brain had reached its limit for processing information. At that point, he was just hoping that Ki Baek-woo would get tired from crying and simply shut up and fall asleep.
Naturally, he couldn’t have guessed that such absurd stories would flow out one after another.
‘I could never do such things. Really, because I’ve been that way from the beginning. When I first saw you… we were both so young then, and I know this will sound strange, but from the first time I saw you, you were too dazzling for me. Almost too bright to look at directly.’
Hyung, I didn’t even know what a god was back then. But still, I thought of you as my god. I didn’t even know what it was, but I just thought that way. Because you seemed as amazing as a god or the world, I… I wanted you to be friends with only me, that’s what I thought from that moment. You’re the only one I’ve ever thought of that way, from then until now. Only you…. How could I ever do such things to you… I could really die right now if you told me to. I’ll prove it if you want. I’ll die tomorrow if that’s what you want. But even if you ordered it, I couldn’t tell you I dislike you. To treat you badly… I can’t do that. Really.
Ki Baek-woo spoke those words laboriously, as if taking deep breaths. He lowered his head as if feeling self-loathing and buried his forehead against Lee Han-sol’s chest. Hiding his face, he continued with a stiff voice.
‘Actually, when the first gate opened… I was scared because my mother died right before my eyes, but when it was just the two of us… That was the first time you focused only on me, and I thought this might be a stroke of luck.’
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
