Death is Fair to All
Death is fair to all. Even the countless great figures who left their marks on history cannot escape death as long as they are human. Immortality does not exist in this world. Death is the natural order of living things, an absolute rule that never changes. However, it does not apply to me. That was why I could clean the blood-soaked isolation chamber of H-I-01 once again.
I dragged the corpse with the same face as mine, its neck broken, out of the isolation chamber and loaded it onto the cart.
"S-Suho... are you okay?"
Kang Naram noona peered in from outside the chamber, her face etched with worry. Having watched the entire process from the moment my neck snapped, her expression had gone deathly pale.
"It's not the first time I've died while cleaning. Don't worry about it."
"I'm sorry. It's because of me..."
"You don't need to apologize to me. If anything, I'm the one who's sorry. Showing you such an ugly sight... More than that, I'm worried about you, noona. What if this gives you trauma?"
Over the past year, I had shown noona all kinds of things, but this was the first time she had seen me die. For an ordinary person, it could easily leave them in shock. Witnessing someone's death was not a common sight, and watching a neck snap from a Hwanjong must have looked like a scene from a gore film.
This was the second time I had died to H-I-01. About six months ago, once I had grown somewhat accustomed to cleaning the isolation chamber, I had entered H-I-01's chamber while humming a tune. It happens sometimes, doesn't it? Like when you're walking home after finishing work or doing a simple task like gluing doll eyes—before you know it, your body is already home instead of on the street, and the doll eyes are all attached. Psychologists call this automatic processing, I think. My automatic processing had, as usual, induced breathing and summoned death.
The pain I felt then was so horrific that I had made it a habit to read the data before cleaning. I never expected a hidden variable like Kang Naram noona to appear...
Noona's expression looked gloomy. She was clearly blaming herself for my death. The fact that she worried about me was something that brought me great joy. But unlike Dupal, it was unacceptable for our kind, gentle, and caring Naram noona to feel depressed. Her smiling face was the prettiest, after all.
"I want to see you eating the miso soup I make every morning."
"!?!?!?"
"There's a small village surrounded by forests and a lake on the twelfth floor of the institute. Let's move there and get married."
"W-w-w-what are you suddenly saying? A-and our institute doesn't even have that many floors, you know...?"
Noona's face turned bright red. For the record, my face was not particularly handsome. Just an ordinary, average-looking guy you could find anywhere—though I was fairly tall. At 185 cm, I towered 15 cm over Dupal's mere 170 cm. I was not particularly accomplished either. My salary was about a third of Dupal's, and even I thought I was uneducated and not very bright. The reason noona blushed at my clumsy flirting was probably because she was easily embarrassed. She had followed an elite path with little interaction with men—dropping out of middle school, passing the qualification exam, attending a women's university, earning a master's degree, and working at a women-dominated company. Naturally introverted and quiet, she seemed to have little tolerance for men. Of course, the way she coldly rejected Dupal's persistent advances showed she had standards.
"Don't worry about what just happened. I was just being stupid."
"Ah, okay."
Only then did Kang Naram noona's expression soften. Her bright, beaming smile felt like looking at a small, plump creature. Though I was relatively numb to pain and death compared to most people, the moment I saw that smile, the incident with H-I-01 vanished from my mind.
"Suho, I bought snacks and chocolate you like on my way to work today. I left them in front of your door, so eat them after you're done. Got it?"
"Yes."
"Senior Kwak will be here soon. Hurry inside! He always has something to say whenever he sees you. H-he's not a bad person... but for some reason, he really seems to hate you!"
'That bastard is a complete piece of shit.'
Unable to say anything harsh to noona, who always gave me small moments of warmth, I swallowed the words. I pulled the cart and headed for the incinerator. My steps felt light—not just because I had met Kang Naram noona.
The incinerator was outside. It was the only time I could leave the facility. A special moment when I could escape the suffocating white-painted space and breathe fresh air. Humming the melody of the song noona had shared, I walked down the corridor and passed several staff members. As always, their gazes were far from kind.
'Monster bastard.'
Their eyes were filled with contempt. After receiving such looks countless times over the past year, they no longer bothered me. Ignoring the researchers' sneers, I quickened my pace toward the incinerator.
"Serial number [0_4_138] Woo Suho, incinerator access granted. Time limit is 15 minutes. For details, please refer to special rule R-12."
I adjusted the choke collar around my neck. If I did not return to the institute within the time limit, it would unleash high-voltage current—a ticking time bomb. I dumped the corpse and other trash into the blazing furnace and closed the lid.
"12 minutes remaining."
Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I looked up at the sky. It was an impossibly clear blue. Since the institute had no windows, it was a view I could never see from inside. A cool breeze blew beneath the open sky. The crisp, cold air filled my lungs. As my locked mind awakened, the knot of something heavy in my chest seemed to loosen, if only a little.
"0138."
People often say indifference is the worst thing, but I was not grateful for the special attention Dupal showed me. Dupal tossed an empty can into the incinerator and spoke to me. Could he not see the recycling bin? My face twisted in annoyance, but since I had bowed my head, he probably could not see it.
"Hello, Senior Kwak."
"You died again just now, didn't you?"
As a researcher, Dupal had no business visiting the incinerator for work. As always, the fact that he had gone out of his way to come here was surely to tear me down and boost his own self-esteem. The bastard had nothing better to do.
"No matter how stupid you are, this isn't your first or second time cleaning an isolation chamber. With your experience, shouldn't you be getting used to it by now? If you only had one life like the other 4th-class cleaners, you would have been incinerated long ago. Lucky bastard."
Without realizing it, my expression hardened. Normally, I could have ignored this easily enough. Why was I getting so irritated now? Or had my patience finally run out after all this time? Was it because he had dumped shit on me without warning when I was already feeling down after showing noona something she should not have seen? Neither, probably. My patience was dozens of times more tenacious than most people's, and Dupal's shitty morning greetings had become familiar enough that I could let them go in one ear and out the other.
The reason was probably in the conversation I had with Naram noona yesterday.
"W-what the hell."
I walked steadily toward Dupal. He was smaller than me. When I looked down like this, his balding crown was clearly visible—my height was overwhelmingly superior to his. It was only natural that my body was in better shape than a researcher who sat in an office tapping at a keyboard all day. I stared down at Dupal with a cold gaze.
"0138, you—you bastard, are you rebelling against me right now?!"
Dupal's face twisted in confusion. Come to think of it, this was the first time I had openly ignored him. Kang Naram noona had told me that fighting with coworkers was not good—especially with superiors—and that I should avoid it at all costs. So what I chose was not simple violence, but...
"Senior Kwak."
I grabbed Dupal's shoulder as he yapped like a chihuahua. At the same time, his body shrank back. His terrified gaze looking up at me was rather amusing.
"There was dust on you."
I calmly brushed off Dupal's shoulder. His face flushed red, and he shook off my hand before backing away.
"S-say something like that out loud! This is why those clueless 4th-class bastards are a problem! No education, no manners—you're just a bunch of ape bastards!"
After hurling a string of insults at me, Dupal scurried away. Several institute staff members who had been smoking by the incinerator began snickering behind their hands. It seemed Dupal was disliked by many people besides me. Well, he was the kind of person who got rejected even by the famously kind Naram noona.
Wait, did I just commit insubordination? I had tried to be as polite as possible while hiding my emotions. Hmm. What should I do from now on?