Dream (1)
Dream (1)
My blurry eyes blinked. It was like looking through a rain-streaked window, but one thing was certain: I could see what was in front of me.
What was going on? I looked around.
Dark mold-stained patches bloomed here and there. Worn-out wooden furniture. Empty liquor bottles scattered over the floor next to black trash bags tied sloppily and left to rot.
A broken window let in a draft so cold it felt like it could slice flesh. Shouts and screams thick with rage drifted in from somewhere.
I stared around blankly, then turned my head. In the corner, an insect was skittering—sh-sh-shk—busily across the floor.
Foul smells assaulted my dulled nose. A nauseating stench, indescribable, born from dozens of different kinds of filth blending together.
The scenery, the noise, the smell—all of it was familiar.
'Ah.'
I blinked vacantly. Come to think of it, this blinking was something I hadn't done in a long while. After entering the game world, my eyes were just kept permanently shut.
So this was my old home, then.
Which meant this was a dream.
The moment I recognized it, the situation just before I lost consciousness came vividly rushing back.
The tackle and apology courtesy of Hong Yeon-hwa.
Baek A-rin, whose smile terrified me.
The Freshman Welcome Party that got started one way or another.
The countless gazes full of interest.
Petty envy and jealousy.
The spar between Hong Yeon-hwa and Yoo Se-i... a supporting-character matchup.
The synergy effect of Spatial Perception, All-Rounder, and Mana Affinity.
The electrifying euphoria and my flickering Spatial Perception.
And lastly... Yoo Se-i's body, hurtling toward me like a baseball and slamming right into me.
'Ugh...'
I was dumbfounded. A sigh escaped on its own.
Of all the rotten luck, she had to fly straight into me and cause a scene. Right at the exact moment I was concentrating on Spatial Perception...
I'd felt like I was on the verge of some kind of epiphany. Then I passed out. The world really seems to have it out for me.
More precisely, maybe Hong Yeon-hwa hates me. Whichever it was, the whole situation was nothing but sigh-inducing.
The other miserable part was that I was having this kind of dream.
'Ah, for fuck's sake.'
Is a dream this sweet really the best I've got? No other episodes in the catalog? I heard dreams mostly come from intense memories.
...Now that I thought about it, if my most intense memories are from childhood, then I guess this was a sweet dream. Things were plenty spectacular after that too, but still didn't measure up to early childhood.
"Cough, cough...!"
Just as I was about to exhale a deep sigh, a dry cough erupted from the sensation of my throat being completely blocked. Through blurry vision, stumpy arms and legs came into view.
My body was stuck in childhood too—the scars and wounds from that time were faithfully preserved. What's more, I was so painfully thin that every bone visibly left its mark.
But there was no burn on my right arm; this must've been before the fire.
'...So, how do I get out of here?'
The strange, wistful feeling of seeing this sight after so long was only momentary.
I tilted my head and looked around.
Normally, don't you wake up once you realize you're dreaming? You know, I once saw a story online about how the moment someone realized it was a dream, every figure in the dream turned to look at them, and it was so creepy they woke up with a chill.
- BANG! BANG!
Right then, the door shook violently.
- BANG! BANG! BANG!
Under the thoughtless, brutish pounding, the rusted iron door screeched—kii-gik—in protest. The hinges, looking ready to fall off right away, sounded almost like they were playing castanets.
"Gah, for fuck's sake. Hey! Get out here, now! It's been days past the deadline."
From that delightful tone, I could tell he was a loan shark. My biological parents went around begging for money and racked up debt everywhere, so visits from loan sharks were basically a weekly ritual.
At first, when my biological parents bent themselves over at a perfect right angle, the sharks would just throw a few threats around and leave. But eventually, their patience ran out, and they started getting rougher and rougher as time went on.
"Hey, this isn't working. Break the door down."
"Huh? You sure, boss? Tearing it off is easy, but putting it back up's the hard part."
"Why's that our problem? Let them figure out how to stick it back up themselves."
- CRASH!
The thudding knocks stopped. Soon after, a noise twice as loud split the air, and the door handle shook like crazy.
'Unbelievable...'
Just how much debt had they racked up that these guys were now trying to rip the door off and barge in? By blood, they were my parents, but they were stupid, worthless, rotten bastards.
And I, who had longed for affection from those bastards, was an even bigger idiot.
It took me far too long to realize it.
- CRASH!
"Whoa~ they sure picked a good house. Sturdy as hell."
BOOM! Ever since I was a kid, I hated the sound of knocking. Whenever someone pounded on the door, something bad happened to me.
- ...Huh?
I hated that old, decrepit door. It couldn't protect me at all from anything outside. If anything, its wobbling, creaking state inflicted a greater psychological terror.
- Ow...
BOOM! Even the walls were shuddering now. The tower of beer cans stacked to one side came crashing down, clattering everywhere.
The busy insect scurrying around bolted for its life across a wave of beer mixed with cigarette ash.
- Clack.
...The handle that had been rattling like crazy stopped dead. Moments later, the warped, creaking handle split right in two and fell to the floor.
- Ha-yul...
A hole yawned open where the handle had been. Through the gaping breach in the door, my eyes met a black Go stone.
"Ain't nothing in here but a brat."
"What? The hell, those bastards owe us money and this is where they go sneaking off to?"
Ah, so that was the moment.
The point where the ballooning debt and the daily loan-shark visits finally drove my blood-relative parents to abandon me and bolt.
The black Go stone vanished. The rusted hinges wept.
The door swung open with a screech—
.
.
.
"—Ha-yul!"
"...! ...?!"
Consciousness jolted awake at the voice hammered right into my ear. Someone had my shoulders, rocking my body gently.
The soft feel of a mattress against my back. The moment I registered my trembling consciousness, Spatial Perception unfolded and information came flooding in.
Red, orange, white, and green.
'Ah.'
It was different from before. This wasn't the green-painted outlines on a black background.
Orange sunset light piercing through the curtains from beyond the window. White and yellow petals and a green stem in a vase, catching the sunset glow. The pristine white space of a clean, well-maintained hospital room.
The scene was so richly colored it almost wrenched an internal exclamation out of me despite myself.
And then there was Hong Yeon-hwa, gripping my shoulders and urgently shouting...
"—Ha-yul! Are you awake!?"
'What is this?'
Here I was, lying on a hospital bed, and Hong Yeon-hwa was halfway on top of me, yelling something.
"Ha-yul! Are you okay?! Breathe! Breathe!"
"...!? ...?"
What did she mean, breathe? A question rose, but when I tried to move, my body wouldn't listen. My chest felt suffocating. Something was gravely wrong—
"Hhk, ukh...!"
"Ha-yul...!"
Ah. I wasn't breathing.
The moment I realized it, my throat locked right up. A horrible, suffocating state where I could neither exhale the air filling my chest nor inhale any more.
"Ugh...! Kkhp..."
Why was I like this? Why was this suddenly happening? My gut churned. My breathing wouldn't obey me at all.
Before I could find an answer, Hong Yeon-hwa, who had been watching in restless distress, abruptly threw herself forward and hugged me tight.
My body went completely rigid at the utterly unexpected action.
"It's okay! You're okay... so breathe in, and out..."
"...Hhh, khhk..."
"That's it. One more time..."
My rigid body relaxed the moment it felt that warmth. Heat spread through my whole frame, as if I'd submerged myself in warm water.
I remembered the setting mentioning Hong Yeon-hwa had a slightly higher body temperature. Even so, this warmth was far too intense.
Puzzled for a moment, I figured out the answer. It wasn't that Hong Yeon-hwa's temperature was high—mine was just extremely low right now.
"Again... breathe in..."
Following the gentle whisper beside my ear, guiding me while holding me tight, I slowly inhaled.
And exhaled again.
It was a basic action done on instinct, yet it was unbearably laborious. Like a heavy boulder sitting right on my chest.
My body was too cold. A terror surged through me, as if I might freeze solid and shatter into pieces at any second.
Without thinking, I hugged the thing in front of me tight. As something soft wrapped around me, a kind of snug warmth I had never felt in my entire life flooded in.
"Uh, hhh...?"
"It's okay."
Wrapped up here, it felt like I could be protected forever. A comfort I had never once felt from that squealing, rust-scrap heap of a door.
"Kkhp... hoo... huhhk, hoo..."
"It's okay. Everything's okay, so..."
While I steadied my breathing, Hong Yeon-hwa kept whispering softly into my ear—what exactly was okay, I had no idea. Her hand had moved to the back of my head, carefully stroking my hair.
The body that had been on the verge of death slowly began to calm. My thoughts, which had been cutting out, were now knitting themselves back together little by little.
"Hoo... haa..."
"Are you okay now...?"
As my breathing steadied with great effort, I studied Hong Yeon-hwa's expression. She was holding me tight and peering down at me with eyes dripping with worry.
'Ah.'
Hue, light, and shadow.
The things I had lost for a span of some ten days.
And even at this very moment, it was nothing but information obtained through Spatial Perception—not my real eyes.
But even so...
Her vivid red bob cut, falling around her face like polished red jade, tickled my face. Meeting the orange glow of the sunset, the sight could have belonged in a masterpiece.
Eyes that looked like what might result if the world's finest artisan poured their heart and soul into crafting the world's rarest ruby blinked.
...A world that had regained its colors was stunningly, achingly beautiful.