Delusive Fate

#003

‘What’s wrong, Ki Baek-woo? Why are you so frozen? It was just a joke… You didn’t really think I wished I was Jung Yi-dam, did you?’

I brushed off my earlier sincere ramblings about wishing the person lying in bed wasn’t me but Jung Yi-dam as just a joke. After staring at each other for a while in silence, as if having a staring contest, I laughed and said that. Ki Baek-woo then collapsed as if he was crumbling.

‘What the heck, hyung…! You really scared me…!’

‘Oh my, Ki Baek-woo, this is very suspicious. Why are you so surprised? Is it a case of the guilty conscience?’

‘No! It’s not like that, I would never… How could I, when you’re here… Don’t make such jokes anymore, they’re not funny.’

Bullshit. How can you say you would never after already doing it? Such a shameless and detestable bastard… I looked at Ki Baek-woo, who was babbling shamelessly, with contempt and just nodded slightly. Anyway, there was no point in trying to act like I was in a horror movie scene saying, “I know what you did last night.”

I wouldn’t even know how to explain how I knew if he asked. Even if I told the truth, Ki Baek-woo wouldn’t be able to comprehend it due to the shitty system. There’s no need to waste energy on pointless arguments on an empty stomach in the morning.

Listen well, Ki Baek-woo. I’ve lived through today more than twenty times, and I learned about you kissing Jung Yi-dam yesterday during those previous lives. How have I lived more than twenty times, you ask? Well, that’s because this world is a goddamn game world. What kind of game? Haha, don’t be surprised.

Have you ever heard of a pretty boy dating simulation? They also call it bishōnen dating sim for short.

‘Dating sim my ass, more like dating shit. I can’t believe such a fucking embarrassing genre exists…’

Anyway, to cut to the chase, Ki Baek-woo, you’re one of the pretty boys to be pursued, I’m like a prop prepared for Ki Baek-woo’s attractive narrative, and the pretty boy who will pursue you and the true protagonist of this world is Jung Yi-dam. Got it?

Was it my fourth life or fifth?

Anyway, after learning that this world was a game, there was a time when I grabbed Ki Baek-woo and spilled everything.

I told him that his attraction to Jung Yi-dam was all because of the game story, and begged him not to abandon me this time. That you and I were real. That the original you loved me. That your feelings for Jung Yi-dam were all manipulated and fake, please Baek-woo…!

I clung to Ki Baek-woo and told him everything with such desperate feelings.

Then the world paused for a moment.

‘Baek-woo… Baek-woo? Ki Baek-woo, Baek-woo…!’

I shook Ki Baek-woo, who had stopped moving and wasn’t responding at all. Ki Baek-woo’s large body swayed lifelessly like a machine with a dead battery. An enormous fear struck instantly. I instinctively felt that something had gone wrong. I could intuitively tell that this happened because I had said something I shouldn’t have said.

I reached out with trembling hands and hugged Ki Baek-woo. I felt like I was going to faint at how lightly he fell into my arms, like a doll. I desperately rubbed Ki Baek-woo’s back and shoulders, trying to preserve his gradually cooling body temperature. I cried loudly, not knowing what to do.

‘Baek-woo, what’s wrong…! Baek-woo, snap out of it, I’m sorry, hyung was wrong, I’m sorry for saying such things, I won’t ever mention games again, okay? Baek-woo, please breathe, okay? Don’t do this, please, Baek-woo…’

Not knowing who I was begging to, I pleaded to the empty air.

‘I’m sorry, I was wrong, I won’t ever say such things again, I’ll just stay like this forever, please save our Baek-woo, please please please… Waaah.’

I rubbed until my hands were worn out. I buried my forehead on the ground and cried loudly. That moment was more terrifying than dying, dying again, and dying yet again only to resurrect tediously. It’s funny, but that’s how it was then.

‘Waah, I’m sorry, God Buddha Jade Emperor Zeus General Yi Shun-sin, I won’t ever say such things to Baek-woo again. I won’t mention this being a game or anything like that, so please bring our Baek-woo back to life… Save him, just kill me instead, I can die again but please save our Baek-woo, you bastards, waaah…’

How long did I wail like that? Suddenly, like a rebooted robot, life returned to Ki Baek-woo, and he opened his eyes wide, seeing my tear-soaked face.

‘Hyung, what’s this? Why are you crying? Weren’t we just eating breakfast a moment ago? Why are we sitting in the room? Hyung, why are you crying like this? Did something happen? Hyung, come here. Don’t cry, okay?’

That’s when I realized. Looking at Ki Baek-woo’s innocent face with drooping eyebrows, as if he hadn’t heard anything. Ah, I shouldn’t say it. It can’t be said. Even if I say it, Baek-woo won’t hear it.

In the end, there’s nothing I can do…

Since then, I’ve never tried to tell him even once. It’s the same this time. It was clear that even if I told the truth, Ki Baek-woo wouldn’t understand. So it was easier to just say everything related to the truth was a joke.

Finishing my reverie and returning to reality, I said lightly while chewing a mouthful of perfect toast:

“Don’t nibble, eat heartily. You’re going to have a tough time this time, aren’t you?”

You don’t know, but your affinity with Jung Yi-dam is going to skyrocket in this raid. After all, feelings tend to sprout in times of crisis. Of course, you, Ki Baek-woo, are an S-class hunter and Jung Yi-dam is the world’s only S-class healer, so you’ll eventually come back alive, but anyway, the gate you’re going to today will be a bit dangerous. That’s what I was thinking inside.

Seeing Ki Baek-woo looking puzzled as if wondering how I could be so sure about the hardship ahead, I smirked.

Baek-woo, you bastard. Hyung knows everything. So,

“Be careful of water today.”

“Water? Suddenly?”

“Listen carefully, you punk. Hyung’s a shaman.”

“What’s a shaman now? What’s going on, really. Hyung, today you’re a bit…”

“A bit what?”

“Nothing… You’re saying all this because you’re worried about me, right?”

Think whatever you like. I didn’t answer and stuffed the remaining toast into my mouth in one go.

***

I’ll admit what needs to be admitted. Ki Baek-woo is fucking handsome. As much as it twists my guts, this bastard’s beauty was an undeniable logical proposition, an absolute truth.

Ki Baek-woo and I became acquainted when this punk was still running around with a runny nose and sucking his thumb. ‘Hy-hyung, hello… I’m Baekwoo…’ Child version Ki Baek-woo, blushing and twisting his body as he greeted me. Even then, looking at him, I thought: Wow, what a pretty baby.

Ki Baek-woo’s face has been extraordinary ever since, always, every day. When he was young, he looked like a baby angel who had just descended from heaven, and when he grew up, he became a breathtakingly handsome man. With such looks, even if Ki Baek-woo’s height was 160cm, people would surely swarm around him. This is just my personal thought, but shouldn’t someone with a face like that be short to fit the world’s logic and standards?

But Ki Baek-woo was an existence that defied the world’s principle of ‘if you have one thing, you can’t have another.’ This guy even grew tall. His legs are almost like tree trunks. When we measured two years ago when Ki Baek-woo had just turned twenty, he was 185cm, so he might be close to 190cm now.

If the heavens tried to be fair, Ki Baek-woo, who is handsome and tall, should have been either a stick or a pig. But based on my lifelong experience, fairness and equality were illusory concepts. Especially in a game world designed by someone’s hand, it would be even more so. This meant, in other words, that Ki Baek-woo’s body was amazingly good. Ki Baek-woo’s firm and smooth body was incredible, as if someone had deliberately sculpted it to be pleasing to the eye.

In the past, I always regretted the world’s collapse as I watched Ki Baek-woo grow up. If it had been a normal world before the apocalypse, Ki Baek-woo would surely have become the strongest model in the universe, conquering the world. He would have raised our country’s status in the world through his perfect beauty, continuously supplying the drug of national pride to fifty million South Korean citizens. It was an eternal regret that we couldn’t ask “Do you know Baek-woo-ki?” because the world had thoroughly collapsed.

Anyway, Ki Baek-woo was that dazzlingly handsome, and he even awakened as one of the world’s few S-class hunters, making him a truly perfect guy.

I always thought while watching Ki Baek-woo, who seemed to live in a world of his own:

‘Does a human need to be that perfect? Isn’t it… a bit excessive?’

And I was always puzzled:

‘Why is someone like that mine?’

I wasn’t particularly expecting anyone to answer or curious about it, but at some point, I was forced to get an answer.

“I thought he was just incredibly talented, but it turns out it was because he’s the game’s main character. Right, the protagonist should be the best in the world. No wonder it seemed a bit excessive.”

And he wasn’t mine either.

“I thought he was mine… Damn it…”

It took me over twelve deaths to accept this fact.

Twelve times! Are you crazy, human? I could deny it once, maybe. But we’re talking about ‘death’ here. Not natural death, but literally miserable, dog deaths, and I couldn’t accept that Ki Baek-woo wasn’t mine even after two, three, up to twelve times. The more I think about it, the more foolish it seems, to the point where I’m losing affection for myself as a person.

“……”

This morning, Ki Baek-woo ate his toast reluctantly with a face that clearly said, ‘Today, Han-sol hyung is too weird. He’s suddenly going on about Jung Yi-dam… and talking about being a shaman and whatnot. What if he’s possessed by a ghost? Are there hunters with exorcism abilities? Maybe a mental-type hunter could do it…’ Then he lingered around me for a long time.

The sight of a young, fit man with killer looks carefully watching me and whimpering was bound to be distracting, regardless of affection. Because the presence of a handsome man is remarkable, whether positively or negatively… Just as I was starting to get annoyed because it was too bothersome, he fortunately received a call from the center and left the house.

‘Hyung, I’ll be back.’