Chapter 376
Chapter 376
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: crow
Chapter Title: 376. As Always
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Ugh..."
As soon as I opened my eyes, the pain in my stomach started up again.
That's weird. I wasn't feeling any of this pain just a little while ago.
And the moment I opened my eyes,
"Jaeheon!"
"..."
"Hey!"
Everyone turned to look at me.
Seeing their reactions, each one fitting perfectly...
"Looks like everyone's back to normal."
"You're in pain, and that's the first thing you say?"
Song Arin muttered in disbelief, and as I glanced at the others, Yoo Daon began to explain.
"So, um. Jaeheon suddenly collapsed? And that's when our bodies all returned to normal."
"Yeah."
"Then the other patients and nurses who saw Jaeheon collapsed helped carry him back to the room... and now here we are."
"..."
I turned my head to check the clock.
Six in the morning.
"About two hours unconscious, then."
Two hours, right?
I looked at the others to confirm, and they all nodded.
"Time started flowing normally again right after Jaeheon collapsed."
"..."
By now, the issue was pretty clear.
I picked up my phone to check, and sure enough, there were seven missed calls.
One from the branch chief, six from Eileen.
Park Ye-eun, this kid—I called her, but she didn't call back. This is why the young ones these days...
-Bang!
At that exact moment, the door flew open as Eileen stormed in like a hurricane.
"What happened?"
"..."
She spoke in a frantic voice, and as we all turned to her, Eileen raised one eyebrow.
"This isn't a prank call, is it?"
*
After explaining the situation to Eileen as well, she fell deep into thought.
"I've never heard of anything like that."
"Well, your memory—Guh!"
Song Arin started to speak, but Jang Chaeyeon deftly covered her mouth.
"So the reason you called..."
"Probably, yeah."
People walking around fine, and calls going unanswered.
"Seems like time freezes at certain points."
"Time freezes? What does that mean?"
Eileen looked at me puzzled, but I turned to Yoo Daon,
"...That's it."
Yoo Daon murmured in realization upon catching my gaze.
She and I had done something like this before.
One of our combined techniques: Preservation.
Thinking about its mechanism, it was similar.
Just that now, we could move around inside it.
I explained my reasoning to the others, and once I finished, they all fell silent.
"Time stops?"
Song Arin furrowed her brow slightly.
"Hey, that's no joke. We should call in the Containment Team right now."
"Yeah... you're right."
Just as she said, this was the kind of problem where calling the Containment Team immediately wouldn't be overkill.
"..."
Yoo Daon chewed her lip, but in the end, even I had my limits in helping her.
"Sorry, Daon."
"Ah, no."
Yoo Daon hurriedly shook her head at my words.
"There's no need for Jaeheon to apologize! I was just uncharacteristically pushing my own opinion."
"..."
Watching Yoo Daon say that made me feel a needless bitterness.
"...Let's wait just a little longer."
"Are you insane?"
Song Arin stared at me in disbelief at my words, and Eileen looked at me with a face full of worry.
"You're hurting right now."
Jang Chaeyeon glanced at my abdomen with a concerned expression.
Honestly, none of them were wrong,
"...Still, just in case."
"..."
Song Arin clenched her fists and bit her lip at my words.
"There's something that's bugged me for a while."
Then, in a calm voice, she spoke up.
"You've always been good to black-haired girls."
"..."
I didn't affirm or deny Song Arin's words.
She wasn't wrong.
"The you who always makes rational judgments and the most reasonable decisions turns inefficient the moment a black-haired girl is involved."
"..."
Yoo Daon quietly looked at Song Arin, then at me.
Her eyes were emptier than I expected, leaving me momentarily speechless,
"You're really..."
Before Song Arin could say more,
"Jaeheon."
Yoo Daon's calm voice reached my ears.
I looked up at her.
"...I know you think you owe me."
"..."
She knew.
"But if you're only listening to me because of that..."
Yoo Daon looked down.
"I'd rather you didn't."
"..."
"Jaeheon, I'm not that person."
I knew exactly what Yoo Daon meant.
We'd talked about it before, but every time I saw her, I was plagued by an inexplicable sense of debt.
Last night's words from the manual came to mind.
She'd called me someone who carries unnecessary burdens in his heart—maybe she wasn't wrong.
So, I couldn't say anything, and as I stayed silent, Yoo Daon's face grew even more downcast.
With me keeping quiet, Song Arin slowly spoke again.
"Honestly? If you say you want to save those people, fine, I'll save them with you. Tricking the Containment Team? Not hard. That stuff's nothing to me anyway."
Then Song Arin looked up at me.
"But at least don't prioritize her in front of me. ...Okay?"
"..."
Jang Chaeyeon widened her eyes slightly as she looked at Song Arin, and Eileen raised one eyebrow while watching her.
Yoo Daon seemed unbothered by Song Arin, simply staring at the floor.
"...Hoo."
I let out a long breath at Song Arin's words, and she slowly stepped back.
"...Mad?"
She glanced up at me, gauging my reaction.
"If you're gonna ask if I'm mad, why say it in the first place?"
"...People can't always hold back their anger."
Song Arin muttered in a crawling voice at my words, and I looked up at Jang Chaeyeon.
"Chaeyeon."
"Yeah?"
Jang Chaeyeon looked at me as if it were nothing.
"Uh..."
"It's fine."
Before I could finish, Jang Chaeyeon cut me off and shook her head.
"Don't worry about it."
"..."
"You're the type who does that."
She murmured calmly, then gave a small smile.
"Uh..."
"But that's why I can be with you."
"..."
"Right?"
"..."
As I didn't know how to respond,
"I'm for observing one more day."
Eileen muttered calmly.
"Because we have to see it first."
"See what?"
"I mean, um."
Eileen paused, opening and closing her mouth as she chose her words.
"It could be a helpful containment object. Or an anomaly. If time really stops or freezes like you said, we could use it for emergency procedures on critical patients."
"...Never thought of that."
Come to think of it, yeah.
"It's surprisingly—or blatantly—full of potential."
As she said that, Eileen turned her gaze to my abdomen.
"But your body was fine until yesterday, and now it's suddenly hurting. That's even stranger."
"Hmm, yeah..."
Honestly, I had no idea about that either.
Why?
"..."
I slowly placed my hand on my stomach, and the sharp pain was still there.
"Anyway, just in case, go get checked out."
Eileen grabbed my arm and pulled.
"Come on."
"Ah, wait, Eileen."
"Out. Now."
"Wait...!"
Before I could finish, Eileen hit the nurse call button, and I was dragged away by the nurse who appeared.
*
The man was escorted out by the nurses, leaving just the four women in the room.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
An awkward silence lingered.
"You..."
Song Arin was the first to speak.
She slowly turned to Yoo Daon.
"What do you think of him?"
"...Pardon?"
Yoo Daon looked up at Song Arin, who raised one eyebrow.
"What I said. What do you think of him?"
"Well, Jaeheon is my lifesaver... I'm always grateful..."
"That's not what I'm asking. By your logic, no one's saved his life more than him here."
"Uh..."
Yoo Daon trailed off, looking flustered at Song Arin's irritated tone, and Song Arin gritted her teeth.
"How does it feel to be loved just because of what you were born with?"
"..."
Yoo Daon shut her mouth,
"Do you think you don't get love because you weren't born with it?"
Jang Chaeyeon spoke up, looking at Song Arin.
"...What?"
Song Arin stared at Jang Chaeyeon, who continued.
"Don't take out your anger from your own shortcomings on someone else."
"..."
Song Arin gritted her teeth, and Jang Chaeyeon quietly looked down at her.
"It doesn't look good. On you, or on her."
"This is insane. Is this your daily life?"
Song Arin gritted her teeth, and Eileen, who had been watching, sighed as she looked at Yoo Daon before asking calmly,
"...Who knows."
Yoo Daon simply smiled and held back her answer to the question.
What emotion was it?
He didn't love her.
He was still just superimposing another Yoo Daon onto her.
And she... that man...
With Jang Chaeyeon and Song Arin's noisy argument as background music, Yoo Daon closed her eyes.
I don't know.
Just forget it. Like always. Like how she'd endured the pain all this time.