Same Bed, Different Dreams
What the hell is wrong with this crazy woman?
…Oh. It’s me.
Mu Yeonghui evaluated herself with that exact thought.
‘Your life and death are both in these hands’? What the hell is this cringey line even supposed to mean?!
The fact that she had spoken such a line with her own mouth—and to no one other than herself—filled her with utter shame. And the other party was a woman she had literally just met. She wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.
“This one shall take her leave now.”
She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Ryeonhwa’s face. She quickly set the woman down from her arms and tried to flee, but—
“Wait a moment.”
Ryeonhwa’s hand caught the hem of her dress and refused to let go.
“You can’t leave like this!”
With her face buried deep in the fabric, Ryeonhwa raised her voice in a desperate plea.
“Why are you avoiding us like this? You need to at least meet our squad leader for a simple statement. Otherwise we’ll have no choice but to keep following you!”
‘This is getting troublesome.’
Hearing Ryeonhwa’s earnest appeal, Mu Yeonghui inwardly grimaced. Since Ryeonhwa wasn’t exactly an enemy, forcibly shaking her off felt wrong, and her warning was also concerning.
‘If she says they’ll keep following me, that probably means a master from the Deep Flow will show up too, right?’
A state-backed organization and a Deep Flow expert who presumably belonged to it. Rather than continue antagonizing them, wouldn’t it be better to just talk?
After a brief internal debate, Mu Yeonghui reached a decision.
‘If they’re going to keep this up, I have no choice. A conversation should be fine.’
“To think you would continue begging in such a pitiful manner. Very well—this one shall graciously bestow upon you the honor of speaking with me.”
The moment she agreed to accompany them, Ryeonhwa lifted her head. Her expression had brightened to an almost suspicious degree.
“Really? Then I’ll contact our squad leader right away!”
Ryeonhwa called her leader, Sobeom, and informed him they would be arriving soon. However—
—Sorry, but could you wait until tomorrow?
“Wait until tomorrow…?”
It’s too late now, and headquarters is packed with patients. We’re in no condition to conduct interviews while treating the injured.
The very person who had told them to come over had suddenly changed his tune, leaving only Ryeonhwa in an awkward position.
“Haha… what should we do now?”
She tried to laugh off the uncomfortable atmosphere, but Mu Yeonghui honestly didn’t mind.
‘We can just wait until tomorrow.’
She nodded without much concern.
“This one shall permit a single night’s grace.”
“Then will you be staying at a hotel? If you tell me the name, I can come meet you tomorrow…”
“This one has no intention of staying at a mere hotel. The night sky itself shall serve as my ceiling.”
The words “I don’t have money for a place to sleep” came out sounding ridiculously elegant. Caught off guard by the unexpected answer, Ryeonhwa’s eyes widened.
“That won’t do! No matter what, a woman sleeping outside by herself is unacceptable!”
“There is no place worthy of this one’s dignity, so it cannot be helped.”
“T-then… would you like to come to my house for now? I live alone, so there’s plenty of space.”
Mu Yeonghui was inwardly shocked.
‘She’s inviting me—a woman she just met—to her place where she lives alone?’
Wasn’t that ethically questionable?
For a brief moment Mu Yeonghui felt a twinge of discomfort, but she quickly shook it off.
‘Come to think of it, I’m a woman now too.’
Since they were the same gender, there shouldn’t be any problem. Besides, she wasn’t exactly in a position to be picky.
‘Lucky me. I’ll take her up on that.’
“You have exhausted a lifetime’s worth of fortune. This one grants you permission to host me.”
And so Mu Yeonghui followed Ryeonhwa all the way to her home.
The place they arrived at was an officetel—a rather luxurious one at that.
She removed the black gothic boots that perfectly matched her dress and stepped inside the unit where Ryeonhwa lived.
“It’s not anything fancy, but it should be comfortable enough to stay in.”
Ryeonhwa spoke shyly, as if embarrassed to show her home, but Mu Yeonghui couldn’t really agree.
Ryeonhwa’s house was ideal.
It was exactly the kind of place a man would fantasize about when imagining a woman’s home—bright, charming, spotlessly clean, and cute. A pleasant fragrance lingered in the air at all times.
“Is there anything in particular you’d like to eat?”
Having invited her over, Ryeonhwa tried to play the gracious host and asked in a cheerful tone what she wanted to eat.
“Just say the word! There’s a really good tteokbokki place nearby—how about that? Or chicken? If you want something more upscale, I can order grilled eel too.”
Mu Yeonghui shook her head.
“None of it appeals to you? …Well, I suppose those dishes wouldn’t suit someone as refined as you.”
‘No, I’m just exhausted.’
Only this morning she had been eager to try some hometown food after so long, but now she didn’t even have the energy left for that.
‘So much has happened in less than a day.’
She had killed Sama Hon, who came for revenge, then immediately performed her ascension. Upon returning home she fought a strange gun-toting organization, demanded cheers from people she had never met before, and even uttered that nauseating line to the woman in front of her.
No matter how strong Mu Yeonghui was, even she was worn out.
“…This one requires a period of repose.”
“Pardon?”
“This noble vessel of mine wishes to linger for a time in the realm of dreams.”
The simple statement “I’m tired and want to sleep” had come out sounding unnecessarily luxurious.
“Ah, you want to go to bed!”
Ryeonhwa, bless her heart, somehow managed to decipher the filter’s ridiculous nonsense perfectly.
The place she led her to was her own bedroom. She pointed straight at the bed she normally used.
“Here, you can sleep right here.”
‘Then what about you?’
When Mu Yeonghui gave her a strange look at the offer to hand over the entire bed, Ryeonhwa hurriedly explained.
“I can just make a bedroll on the floor next to you. You’re a guest, aren’t you? So don’t feel burdened and sleep here!”
It felt wrong to drive out the actual owner of the house and claim her bed. But Ryeonhwa kept insisting she was fine and tried to get Mu Yeonghui to lie down.
In the end, Mu Yeonghui lay on the bed while Ryeonhwa made a separate spot for herself on the bare floor beside it.
‘Is this really okay?’
And, naturally, Mu Yeonghui couldn’t fall asleep easily. She tossed and turned all night.
‘Hiding my identity, occupying a woman’s bed in a house where a woman lives alone, while she sleeps right next to me on the floor!’
Even telling herself it was fine because they were both women now had its limits. She felt too guilty to sleep. In truth, Ryeonhwa—who was lying on the floor—couldn’t sleep either.
‘My heart… my heart is acting weird!’
Her heart was pounding so violently she couldn’t possibly fall asleep.
‘Why is this happening?’
She pretended not to know the reason, but deep down she already had a pretty good idea.
It was because of the black-haired woman lying in the bed beside her.
‘She’s on my mind, she’s so much on my mind I can’t sleep at all!’
Why was she on her mind?
There were several reasons.
The fact that the other woman was a powerhouse who had single-handedly slaughtered multiple Anomalous Beings. The overwhelming beauty and charisma she possessed. And—
“Your expression is poor. If you have lost your reason from facing the terror of death, be at ease. You are within these hands. It was not the Grim Reaper but this one who has taken you. Even your life and death are in these hands!”
—because she had said those words to her.
‘Why? What was she thinking when she said something like that to me?!’
Your life and death are in my hands.
It sounded almost like a declaration that she would possess her.
Although she hadn’t shown it much, the first time she heard those words she had frozen in shock. In the midst of her mental chaos she had barely remembered her original purpose and grabbed onto the woman…
…Wait, was that really all it was?
Ryeonhwa began to doubt her own motives.
Had she truly only been flustered?
Had she only grabbed her for work-related reasons?
If so, then why—
‘Why can’t I stop thinking about that person’s face from that moment?!’
Ryeonhwa kept replaying the instant Mu Yeonghui had saved her. The moment she had been held in those soft arms. The moment she had stared directly at that face from mere inches away.
The reason she had lost her mind back then wasn’t because she had been terrified of nearly dying.
It was simply because Mu Yeonghui’s face—while holding her—had been so breathtakingly, painfully beautiful that it had stolen her soul.
After that sudden dramatic line, Mu Yeonghui’s face had continued to haunt her, as if time itself had stopped in that moment.
‘No way. It can’t be!’
At this point even Ryeonhwa couldn’t deny what she was feeling.
‘Don’t tell me… I’ve fallen for her? But she’s another woman!’
She had been completely captivated by Mu Yeonghui.
‘We’re the same gender, and we only met today. I don’t even know her name!’
Only now did Ryeonhwa realize she still hadn’t learned Mu Yeonghui’s name. She had been so distracted she had completely forgotten.
‘I fell for someone I barely know just from seeing her face? Was I really that shallow?!’
At first she scolded herself for losing her heart to a stranger, but—
‘All I know is that she’s as beautiful as a noble queen of the night, that she’s strong enough to leave people speechless just by looking at her, and that she might actually be a kind and righteous person!’
—she soon began rationalizing that there were plenty of reasons to feel this way.
After all, during the fight with the Wendigo she had saved people who feared her. That alone was enough to convince Ryeonhwa that she was truly a righteous and gentle soul.
‘Tomorrow when we wake up, I should ask her name…’
‘Where the hell did all my money go?’
A sleepless night.
The two women, each lost in completely different thoughts, lay awake waiting blankly for morning to come.