Must Have Been a Mad Dog (2)
Bae Do-hyun had always been the diligent type.
But for all that diligence and effort, his talent ran lopsided in one direction, and that imbalance kept pinning him in place.
How far can a plane fly with one wing shattered?
"~♪"
Bae Do-hyun had also always been the optimistic type.
Even knowing one wing was broken, he kept pouring fuel into the engine, determined to fly.
In the end, though, that same optimism was what drove him into despair. All those thoughts of it'll work out someday, somehow it'll be fine — when he finally met a real genius, they snapped the one wing he had left.
"No matter how weird it seems~ I can't help it, 'cause I'm falling for you! You are my Heart Shaker Shaker~"
That diligence and that optimism were exactly what let Bae Do-hyun adapt to his new life within a single day of becoming Jin Gyeo-wool.
Yesterday he'd gamed his heart out and flopped straight into bed. The moment he woke up, he did his usual morning stretches like always — and right after that, he started humming the idol song he'd been listening to just a few days ago to lift his mood.
A voice that used to come out thin and cracked now rang out bright, bouncy, and full of life, and his confidence surged right along with it. The old Bae Do-hyun used to glance around self-consciously whenever he hummed to himself. Jin Gyeo-wool's voice was so perfect it killed even that long-standing habit.
"Haaah—! Done. Seriously, what kind of girl lives with this much trash piled up in her room?"
He gathered up the garbage strewn all over the place and stuffed it into the trash bag by the door. The hundred-liter bag filled right to the brim.
Jin Gyeo-wool grunted and strained, hauling the bag to the front entrance in a body that had gone soft. Normally he would have hoisted it clean off the floor rather than let it drag — but unlike Bae Do-hyun, Jin Gyeo-wool's raw strength was pathetic.
Good athletic instincts and actual muscle power were two entirely different things.
Back in the room, he pushed the window open even wider than before and let the wind pouring between the high-rise apartments air the place out.
"Ahh~ that feels amazing!"
Anyone watching would have sworn she was completely unhinged. Calling the vicious, skin-freezing early-January wind refreshing? Even the middle-aged guys who sit in scalding bathhouses and call it invigorating would have shaken their heads at that.
But this was Bae Do-hyun, who had spent years crammed into a tiny studio — a semi-basement, no less. A high-rise view, actual sunlight, and clean wind with no mold stink in it was a luxury in a class all its own.
Jin Gyeo-wool bustled around shaking out the blankets, wiping the dust off the desk with wet wipes, then popping the keycaps off the keyboard and scrubbing out the grime wedged between them with cotton swabs from the vanity.
"Oh my!"
And while he had the door wide open and was deep in a cleaning frenzy, someone spotted him, yelped in shock, and came rushing in.
"Gyeo-wool, you're up…?"
Faint creases at the corners of her eyes and mouth, despite careful upkeep. Hair pulled up tight for a full day of running a household. An apron still speckled with food — she must have come straight from cooking.
Jin Gyeo-wool knew on instinct. This was the lady of the house — his mother.
This was his new life, and at the same time it was Hon Gyeo-wool's life, a life that could reclaim the body at any moment. Hoping Hon Gyeo-wool might finally end the cold war with her mom, he offered a meticulously polite morning greeting.
"Good morning. Did you sleep well?"
What he got back was absurd. His mother bowed even deeper than he had.
"R-right. Sleep well? Good heavens. No wonder the house felt so cold…!"
The woman edged past Gyeo-wool in the doorway, watching her carefully. She shut the wide-open window, then swept a look around the room.
She remembered coming in a few days ago to tidy up while Gyeo-wool was briefly out buying food — and turning right back around because she couldn't even face the mess. The place had been a garbage dump. And now, somehow, it was remarkably clean.
Did she clean all this while I was making breakfast…?
It was neat enough, though nowhere near the standard she kept the rest of the house to. Curious about Gyeo-wool's motives but figuring it was her job either way, the woman ventured a careful suggestion.
"Um… I'll finish the room later, so why don't you go wash up and get ready for breakfast."
Please just don't yell. She half-closed her eyes, bracing for the usual explosion.
But what do you know. Jin Gyeo-wool gave a response she never would have imagined before.
"Ah. Yes. I will."
Gyeo-wool smiled brightly and went to find a change of clothes. The woman stared at the back of her head in pure disbelief.
"……??"
Gyeo-wool paid her no mind, rummaging through the wardrobe in the corner for a set of underwear and a clean sleep dress to change into.
She would never wear something like this outside — but nothing was more comfortable around the house.
The space between her legs felt a little empty, but that was about it. Nothing else really bothered her.
"…Never mind. Leaving this one out after all…."
A bra was still a bit much. Muttering to herself, Jin Gyeo-wool shoved the bra she'd pulled out with the panties back into the wardrobe.
Jin Ju-yeong hadn't noticed in the dark last night, but there had actually been an unfastened bra lying by the head of Gyeo-wool's bed. Amazingly, Gyeo-wool herself had undone it in her sleep — back and chest too tight — and tossed it aside.
"I'll go wash up, then."
"Uh…. Sure. Go ahead."
Jin Gyeo-wool breezed past the woman with an almost gentle expression and headed for the bathroom. Having already mapped every corner of the house in the small hours, her steps were light and quick.
Once Gyeo-wool was out of sight, the woman stepped into the room with a troubled look. In the kitchen, the bacon she'd left in the pan was burning — but the shock of the young lady she worked for turning into a completely different person hit harder than any ruined breakfast.
On any other day, Gyeo-wool would have glared daggers, slammed the wardrobe, slammed the bedroom door, slammed the bathroom door too.
Why today's Jin Gyeo-wool was this docile, she had no idea.
Meanwhile, Jin Gyeo-wool reached the bathroom, started to undress in the makeup room, and froze in hesitation.
"…. Hey? Wool-i?"
She'd let him touch her chest, sure — but was a bath okay?
"Wool-i?"
Unlike in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom, no matter how many times he called for Hon Gyeo-wool, there was no answer.
"……Hmm."
She already let me touch her chest. She's not going to flip out just because I see her naked, right? It's not like I'm trying anything weird. Just a normal shower.
Bae Do-hyun rationalized it to himself, and Jin Gyeo-wool nodded.
"Yeah. A shower's fine."
Besides, having dirty thoughts wouldn't do Bae Do-hyun any favors. Yesterday, the second he'd registered that chest as his own body while touching it, the Memory Erosion Rate had spiked hard.
If he started groping himself all over in the shower with weird fantasies running through his head, the soul erosion would jump several percent for sure.
In a way, that's terrifying….
Put differently, it meant Bae Do-hyun would fully melt into Jin Gyeo-wool's body. As her ego dissolved into his, he would naturally become Jin Gyeo-wool.
Gyeo-wool was a lovely, charming young woman — that much was true. But that absolutely did not mean Bae Do-hyun wanted to be held by some guy in this body, moaning and squirming.
The only reason he'd accepted staying in this body was his dream — and Hon Gyeo-wool's dream.
The goal, for now, was debuting as a pro gamer. He'd figure out the dreams after that later. Right now, that came first.
Looking at how she's friended with Lee Do-jin, Wool-i probably wanted to become a pro gamer like him….
And if Wool-i's ultimate goal was becoming someone like Lee Do-jin, the scale of effort required jumped to a whole different unit. They'd filled in each other's gaps and become a complete gamer, sure — but Bae Do-hyun's best guess was that Lee Do-jin had legendary-tier game sense paired with legendary-tier mechanics.
Who knew about now, but at least a year or two ago, that was Do-jin. Not someone you could even contest with high-grade physicals and game sense.
To stand next to a living legend who'd solo-carried his team more times than anyone could count, you needed legendary-tier ability yourself.
So the answer is just practice…?
Practice was the only way forward. But how to actually strengthen their abilities — that, he had no clue. The Soul Assimilation UI only showed up during games, and it didn't hand Jin Gyeo-wool so much as a hint.
The one thing Bae Do-hyun could guess was that the next ability unlock would only come after a certain amount of soul erosion had taken place.
There was a line he always kept carved into his chest.
Great power comes with a great penalty.
"Haaawwaaaaaahm…."
Jin Ju-yeong stumbled out of his room, yawning so wide his jaw nearly split. In the living room, the smell of burnt bacon crossed faintly with the smell of bacon done right.
Their mother was away on a business trip, and their father had already left for work before dawn, same as always — nowhere in sight.
He suddenly thought of his little sister, who'd been sleeping just fine last night, and drifted toward her room for a peek.
"…?"
Magic had unfolded before his eyes.
Through the wide-open door, the disaster zone of a room had been scrubbed clean. Instead of garbage stench, the place was full of diffuser fragrance and cool, fresh air.
"What the fuck. Am I dreaming?"
Jin Ju-yeong scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. It didn't change a thing.
He registered the sound of running water from the bathroom.
"What the hell. Did she actually come to her senses?"
The theory he'd floated yesterday was coming true. No matter how rotten her personality was, no matter what a selfish little maniac she could be — a little sister was still a little sister.
Siblings could look ready to kill each other one minute and worry the second the other went silent. Jin Ju-yeong couldn't help fretting over her mental state.
"Either she's completely lost it, or she's finally snapped out of it…."
No way to know except checking for himself.
Jin Ju-yeong scratched hard at his head and headed for the kitchen, where the housekeeper was hard at work on breakfast.
"Ju-yeong, you're up?"
"Morning, ma'am."
"Sorry about that. I was cleaning Gyeo-wool's room and burned the bacon a bit."
"Oh yeah? Thought I smelled something burnt. It's fine. Can't say no to a bacon toast."
She set the toast and milk she'd prepared in front of Ju-yeong, then asked casually,
"By any chance… did you talk to Gyeo-wool about something?"
"Talk about what?"
"Well…. The girl suddenly said good morning first thing, so… I was a little startled, that's all."
"……?"
Said good morning? Jin Gyeo-wool? To the housekeeper?
Jin Ju-yeong set the toast he'd been about to bite into back down on the plate.
"Nah, no way. You must've misheard. Probably not a greeting — maybe something fell by her feet."
"But she properly said, 'Did you sleep well?' Just like that."
"Come on~ no waaay~~~"
Jin Ju-yeong waved it off. Impossible. That Jin Gyeo-wool? Absolute nonsense.
"You were probably still half-asleep. There's no way she'd do that. This is a kid who talks back to teachers the second she's in a bad mood…."
"…I suppose so?"
Still, the housekeeper couldn't quite shake it. She kept glancing toward the bathroom where Jin Gyeo-wool was showering.
A little later, freshly showered Jin Gyeo-wool ambled into the kitchen without even bothering to dry her hair properly.
Back when he'd been a guy, a rough shake was enough and the rest dried on its own — but with Jin Gyeo-wool's hair length, that was never going to work. The housekeeper startled once at Gyeo-wool's silent appearance, then startled again at the water-bomb trail she'd left across the floor.
"Oh my goodness."
She rushed to the makeup room, grabbed a fresh towel, sat Jin Gyeo-wool down in a chair, and wrung the water from her hair with the first towel.
Once she'd wrapped the new towel around Gyeo-wool's head like a turban, the steady drip-drip of water finally stopped.
The housekeeper set the prepared breakfast in front of Jin Gyeo-wool, then hurried back with a floor cloth to mop up the mess.
Watching the whole scene, Jin Ju-yeong thought: this useless little sister in front of him hadn't changed one bit.
What is this? Some new form of harassment?
She'd left a flood on the floor and was sitting there smiling at her toast like nothing was wrong. His one and only little sister had evolved from total brat to full-blown psychopath, and goosebumps crawled over every inch of Jin Ju-yeong's skin.
If this was real, they might have to quarantine her from school. Half-afraid of the answer, he ventured a careful question.
"Hey. You can't just walk out with your hair still soaking we— …what are you doing."
Jin Gyeo-wool took a huge bite of bacon toast, stuffed her cheeks full, and answered with a face that was happy — no, ravenous, edged with something almost feral.
"Hmm? I did dry it, though?"
Round wide eyes. A sunny, blank face. She looked like she had absolutely no idea what she'd done wrong.