Regulation 10: The Disciplinary Committee Leader Shall Not Suffer From the Flu
The first ominous sign appeared the moment I woke up.
The instant I swung my legs out of bed, my skull began to split open with pain. My diaphragm clenched, bringing a wave of nausea along with it.
Like a soldier retreating to safe ground after an urgent bathroom run, I crawled right back into bed.
From then on, the ceiling of my room held my gaze far longer than usual. I swallowed my runny nose back down and stared blankly at the passage of time.
Hunger gnawed and thirst burned, but I couldn't so much as twitch a limb in that bed.
My throat had swollen up. Even the constant swallowing of the lukewarm saliva pooling in my mouth had become agony.
With great effort, I retrieved the thermometer I'd kept within reach.
39.4 degrees Celsius.
My first bout of the flu in a long while.
My stock of over-the-counter medicine had run dry recently. Neglecting it and failing to restock was a regret that now burned like salt in a wound.
At least it was the weekend. That much was a mercy.
A Disciplinary Committee Leader could hardly be seen failing to keep even his own body in order — not in front of his subordinates. Dragging myself to school in this state would have done nothing but chip away at my image. Frankly, even making it to school would have been a struggle.
I didn't expect understanding from my committee members. Perception and understanding are two different things.
Which is to say — the image of me, weakened and helpless, must never take root in their minds.
I had to be an unshakable iron man. I had to reign as the perfect Disciplinary Committee Leader.
Only then could I avoid being swallowed whole by the shadow of a genius like Oh Baek-seo.
Tomorrow... I need to be better by tomorrow.
Somehow, I had to recover before the new day began.
"Cough! Cough!"
If only I could lay a cold, damp towel across my forehead, I'd at least feel a measure of relief. But in this state, even wetting a towel was a task of heroic difficulty.
Bzzt.
The smartphone on my desk vibrated.
Once.
A text message.
Unfortunately, there was no room in me to reply.
Bzzzzt.
The vibration stretched on this time. A phone call.
Can't answer that.
I decided I'd call back once my body decided to cooperate. Right now, I didn't have the strength to lift so much as a finger.
Click.
The vibration ran on for quite a while before cutting off. Silence returned to the room.
"......"
Perhaps it was because I'd been buried in endless work ever since becoming Disciplinary Committee Leader — lying there in pain with nothing but time, memories I normally kept buried came drifting back one by one.
I had been reincarnated into this game as a nameless extra.
One of the common many — born when an AI randomly selected genes from the vast stock stored in a facility and induced fertilization from them. My amniotic sac had been an incubator, and my mother had been a childcare robot.
When I reached the age where I could perceive the world, I completed the standard education curriculum that everyone passed through. That was when the AI drilled the mission into our heads, indoctrination-style: You must lead humanity to its rebirth.
That proposition had since been enshrined as the core value the academy city pursued. Without my knowledge from the game, even I might have embraced it as the supreme ideology.
Beyond that, I learned how to live day to day, and once I hit the equivalent of early elementary school age, I was granted a home of my own.
The beginning of independent life.
Children of that age were subjected to the overzealous protection of the security robots patrolling the streets. In an academy city whose social systems were still incomplete, young children made easy targets for crime.
The security robots were tin cans that normally doubled as cleaning units, but they carried combat functions as well. They had a rather homely, endearing appearance.
I, too, was raised under their overprotective watch.
But no human warmth could be found in heartless machines.
I kept wishing for a friend — or failing that, at least a neighbor.
And then I met a girl.
It was one of the days when snow-white blanketed the academy city, her pale-pink hair streaming in the winter wind.
The girl introduced herself as Kim Eun-ha.
A false name.
I only learned later that she was Kim Dal-bi, one of the Six Sinners.
Knowing nothing, I was simply overjoyed that I'd made a friend who was a human being.
Whether Dal-bi felt the same as I did back then, or whether I was merely a way to kill boredom, she treated me kindly. We grew close quickly.
For the first time since my rebirth into this world, I had someone on my side. That fact alone — that she was the first — made Dal-bi someone special to me.
Using my being a kid as a shield, I told her I liked her constantly, and I often gave her flowers and handwritten letters. I wanted Dal-bi to stay by my side forever.
Perhaps moved by my sincerity, she would often come visit my house and fuss over me in a hundred little ways.
She'd cook delicious meals for me with hands covered in band-aids, saying she'd learned it off the internet, and she'd bring me gifts — a brand-new toy watch, a cool robot figure — claiming she'd "just happened to pick them up on the way over."
Dal-bi loved being held. The moment she found an opening, she'd stretch both arms out to the sides. It was her signal: hug me.
With the winter wind howling around us, huddling together like a pair of penguins, it was only natural that I began to picture a future where the two of us grew up side by side.
A dream that lasted all of three years.
Dal-bi left my side.
All she left behind were the words that she liked how pure I was.
To this day, I still don't understand what those words truly meant.
On the cabinet beside my bed, a peony charm sits framed. All it takes is a small turn of my head for it to come into view.
Why did Dal-bi abruptly abandon me, only to return years later and leave a letter in my house?
Why did she leave a peony behind and congratulate me on my admission to Ahseong High?
That, too, I still couldn't understand.
I'd believed I had finally let go of Dal-bi, but whenever I sat alone gathering up my memories, she still circled through my mind.
Was it because she was the first person to ever take my side? Because she was someone I'd poured that much of my heart into? Or because my body back then had been so young that my mind, without my realizing it, had been just as childish?
The memories of Dal-bi — embers I'd long assumed were burnt out to nothing — would, at some unpredictable moment, quietly flare back to life and linger inside me.
Drowsiness began to swirl up through the pain. I quietly closed my eyes.
"......"
I must have fallen into a deep sleep.
When my eyes flickered faintly open, a woman with pale-pink hair hanging loose was dimly visible.
I couldn't tell whether it was dream or reality. I felt far too hazy. So I closed my eyes again.
Something damp settled onto my forehead. It was cold.
Then the faint scent of rice porridge filled my nostrils.
I could feel someone holding my hand tightly, stroking my hair.
The thought that came to me, out of nowhere, was: I'm not alone.
Before long, a gentle voice settled against my ears.
"I'm sorry for coming by unannounced."
For some reason, she left behind an apology.
My eyes cracked open a little more.
The hand that had been so warm was suddenly gone, leaving an emptiness behind.
Her gaze lingered for a long while on the cabinet beside the bed.
When I closed my eyes, I eventually heard footsteps receding into the distance. Right after, I drifted deeper into my dreams.
......
When consciousness returned, I could hear something sloshing nearby — the sound of cloth being dipped in water. Soon, a cool towel was laid across my forehead.
As my eyes opened by degrees, a familiar face came into view.
"You're awake?"
A kind smile.
It was Oh Baek-seo.
"?"
Why is Baek-seo here?
In that instant, like pure instinct, the memory of a certain hidden folder on my computer's hard drive flashed through my mind. Then, in quick succession, I recalled that I'd password-protected my computer as a precaution — and relaxed.
"Baek-seo...? How did you get in here?"
My voice barely made it out, thanks to my swollen throat.
Baek-seo was seated on a chair she'd pulled up beside the bed. She wore a top with bare shoulders and a loose, flowing skirt that reached her knees. Her coat hung from the clothes rack.
"You weren't answering, so I came to check on you."
I remembered the phone buzzing several times. So that was Baek-seo calling.
"How did you know my door code?"
"Last year, when I needed to drop something off at your place, you gave me the code over the phone. Don't you remember?"
"Ah... right, that happened."
And you still remember it?
"......"
Right now, I didn't have the spare energy to maintain my usual poker face.
This wasn't a weakened version of myself I'd wanted anyone to see. And yet, with Baek-seo here, I couldn't deny how much easier my heart felt.
Apparently, the flu really had been taking its toll on me.
"Would you like me to feed you some porridge, Leader?"
Porridge?
Did she buy it? Or make it herself?
Come to think of it, I did smell porridge in my dream. Had I caught the scent of it cooking while I was drifting off — Baek-seo making porridge?
I am hungry, though.
At the mere mention of food, severe hunger came crashing down on me.
I turned my head toward the window. The sky had, at some point, soaked into a deep twilight blue. It was evening. Only then did it occur to me that I hadn't eaten a single thing all day.
I looked back at Baek-seo.
"Uh... yeah. I'd like that."
"One moment."
Baek-seo returned from the kitchen with fluffy, well-soaked rice porridge and a steel spoon. She'd also brought soy sauce and sesame oil in a small dish.
"Ngh..."
I carefully pushed my upper body upright. A headache crashed over me, but perhaps thanks to being nursed in my sleep, I could genuinely feel that my condition had improved a little.
"Leader."
Baek-seo scooped up a spoonful of white porridge and blew on it gently to cool it down.
"Say ahh~"
"......"
There she was, holding out the spoon like she was feeding a toddler.
For one unguarded second, I almost opened my mouth — before a certain thing Baek-seo had said to me recently flashed through my mind like lightning.
— 'I was thinking, once again, that I really ought to be the one taking care of you, Leader.'
No.
This is not happening...!
"...I'll feed myself."
"Oh, all right."
Taking the spoon and the bowl of porridge from Baek-seo, I ate it myself. Even though it was plain porridge with nothing special about it, it tasted remarkably good.
I added a touch of soy sauce and sesame oil and took another spoonful. The seasoning was just right, and my appetite surged even harder.
Baek-seo watched me eat with a contented, dewy-eyed smile. Was she my mother or something?
"Baek-seo."
Still, there was one thing I had to say.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For coming."
It wasn't a pleasantry. I meant it.
I am not an iron man. I'm an ordinary person who merely has to appear as one in the Disciplinary Committee.
I had rediscovered, after a long while, the simple truth that sickness has a way of making people feel desperately lonely.
I suppose I loved my first friend, Dal-bi, so much precisely because, in the end, I was just that kind of ordinary person.
Granted, my pride had taken a bruising, letting Baek-seo see me in such a weakened state. Even so — having someone come look after you while you suffer alone is a profoundly moving thing.
Baek-seo smiled brightly and shook her head.
"Don't be silly. Of course I'd come if you were sick. Honestly, it's been a while since I visited your place — I'm enjoying it."
"What's so great about my place?"
"It's fun visiting a friend's house, isn't it?"
A short laugh escaped me. Well, fair enough.
"Come whenever you want, then."
"Hm?"
"You're fine. You're always welcome."
The moment I said it between spoonfuls of porridge, Baek-seo abruptly went quiet.
...Why isn't she talking?
Why the silence?
Did I say something wrong?
I stole a glance in her direction. For some reason, she wore the expression of someone wrestling with something.
"Whenever I want?"
Baek-seo echoed my words back. Her eyes had turned serious.
I nodded. "What, is that weird?"
"That's... basically living together, you know...?"
"?"
Maybe the flu was scrambling my brain, because I couldn't for the life of me follow how she'd arrived at that conclusion.
......
Baek-seo stepped out and returned with freshly bought medicine, which I took before lying back down.
Even as the night deepened, she never stopped tending to me with meticulous care. I lost count of how many times I caught myself imagining how happy I'd be, married to someone like this.
She even rested her hand on my stomach over the blanket and patted it softly.
It was easy to see it was her way of trying to distract me from even a fraction of my pain.
At some point, midnight came and went. Baek-seo had fetched a book from my room and was reading it.
"Baek-seo."
"Yes, Leader?"
She'd been absorbed in her book, but the instant she heard my voice, she looked up and answered with a gentle smile. With her index finger, she tapped the book silently, over and over.
"You can head home now. It's late."
"I'll stay until you're better. We're walking to school together tomorrow, after all."
Seriously.
People really can be this kind, huh.
But this is getting to be a burden on me, you know.
She'd have to catch the last train home. And since drowsiness was rolling over me again anyway, I'd better send her off before I fell asleep.
"I'm fine. I think I'll sleep it off now... I owe you a lot today, Vice Leader. The cold compress, the porridge..."
Baek-seo's finger, mid-tap against the book, stopped dead.
For just a moment, her eyes seemed to widen slightly.
Her expression snapped back to normal almost immediately, but I didn't miss the change. It had been far too dramatic.
"What's wrong?"
"...Nothing."
Baek-seo shook her head and closed the book.
That reaction just now — it didn't actually mean anything, right?
"Leader, are you sleepy?"
She rested her hand on the blanket again, patting my body gently as she asked.
"Yeah, sorry, but I need to sleep. You should head home too..."
"You don't need to worry about me."
"Get back before the last train. I'd feel bad otherwise."
Letting her see me this disheveled was more than enough. I didn't want her watching me drift off sick and helpless, too.
"...All right. I'll stay just until you fall asleep."
"Okay..."
"Shall I sing you a lullaby?"
"Please don't."
Something about hearing a lullaby in this state would just make me feel utterly pathetic. Baek-seo grinned — apparently that one had been a joke — and I closed my eyes.
Maybe it was the gentle rhythm of her patting, but before long, I sank into a deep sleep.
"......"
Oh Baek-seo quietly watched Ahn Woo-jin as he drifted off.
Several minutes passed, and Woo-jin fell fully asleep.
Then the gentle smile that had rested on Baek-seo's face began, little by little, to harden.
She headed straight for the kitchen.
When she lifted the lid off the silver pot sitting on the gas range, white porridge came into view.
Lovingly simmered. Perfectly ordinary, unremarkable porridge.
"So it wasn't Woo-jin who made it..."
Baek-seo murmured the words under her breath.
Her eyes slowly darkened.