A Reversed Daily Life
I felt my barely recovered mind slipping back into a haze the moment I heard her nonchalant reply. Had I really been dreaming? It had felt so vivid—how could that have been a dream? And if it was a dream, why had Do Ga-bin appeared in it? Was it truly just a dream? The monster’s form was still burned so clearly into my memory.
As my thoughts spiraled wildly out of control, a sound shattered the silence.
“Pfft.”
“Puhahahahat! I’m kidding, I’m kidding. You looked completely out of it, so I thought I’d loosen you up with a little joke. If I pulled that twice you’d probably have a heart attack and pass out, dude.”
Do Ga-bin gave my shoulder a couple of light pats as I stood there dazed, then stretched with a big yawn.
“Haaaaahm. Ugh… Well, getting dragged into anomalies isn’t so bad in itself. No matter how long you spend inside, almost no time passes out here, so it feels kind of unfair. Like I’m losing out. I’ve got an assignment due tomorrow and I’m dead tired.”
Her ridiculously casual attitude after brushing against life and death only made my head spin even more. I asked,
“What the hell happened? Are you okay? How did you escape?”
She answered as if it were nothing, slinging her bag over her shoulder and heading for the classroom door.
“I told you. I can get out on my own. I saw you sleeping, so I shook off that monster at the right moment and came back to the classroom to catch some shut-eye too. Anyway, that’s that. You made me so tired I’m about to drop dead, so I’ll take that poetry critique assignment like we agreed, yeah?”
As she was about to step through the door, Do Ga-bin turned back and asked,
“Oh, right. I need your number if I’m going to contact you. Do you have mine?”
Caught off guard, I answered almost automatically.
“You can probably find me in the first-year group chat on Kakao or Star, but I don’t have your number. Who even uses phone numbers these days?”
“Oh! …Really? I only made a Star account because the freshmen kept asking for it, and I barely use Kakao because I can’t check it when there’s no signal. Just text me.”
Do Ga-bin pulled a sticky note from her pocket, scribbled her number with a pen, and handed it to me.
“Make sure you send that assignment, okay? I basically saved your life, so you have to. I’m off. See you tomorrow!”
I watched her briskly leave the classroom and muttered words that would never reach her.
“…But I never said I’d give you my assignment.”
Once I came to my senses, I followed Do Ga-bin’s advice and kept a wary eye on my surroundings all the way home. Even though I’d been rolling around on the floor inside that anomaly, not a speck of dust clung to my real body. Still, the uneasy feeling wouldn’t leave me, so the moment I reached my one-room apartment I stripped and turned on the shower.
While showering, I suddenly noticed a deep purple bruise on my elbow.
What the hell is this mark? Did I bump into something recently?
No matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t remember doing anything that would leave a bruise here. I hated moving around in the first place. The only time I’d moved violently lately was when I’d thrown myself at Do Ga-bin, thinking she was the monster. I’d slammed my elbow hard into the floor then.
Did damage taken inside an anomaly transfer to the real body?
If so, what about Do Ga-bin? She’d been shoved to the ground by me, then chased by the monster after I escaped. She must have been hurt or attacked. Yet the Do Ga-bin I’d met in reality showed no sign of pain or injury whatsoever.
I forced the growing tangle of thoughts out of my head, finished showering, and collapsed into bed. I’d slept facedown on a desk at school earlier, but lying on my soft mattress finally let the tension drain away, bringing with it a strange sense of relief.
“Ah, what should I do? Do I really have to give her the assignment?”
The assignment due tomorrow was a poetry critique. We had to choose one of the four poems the professor had shown us in class and write our impressions in a three-page document—10pt font, single-spaced, A4 paper. Since it wasn’t a subject with clear right answers like science or grammar, it was about personal thoughts. If I sent Do Ga-bin the one I’d originally written, she’d probably submit it with almost no changes. Two nearly identical critiques would definitely raise suspicions of AI use or copying, and I’d end up getting annoying questions from the professor.
“She did save my life, so I guess I have to help her.”
Rewriting it was annoying, but it was undeniably true that I’d come back alive thanks to her. In the end, I sent her the finished version I’d planned to submit and lightly revised the other critique I’d set aside as a backup for myself.
I stared at the message window for a long time, agonizing over what to send her. In the end I kept it plain and simple like always, then hit send. While I was handling the daily quests for the game I usually played before bed, a message notification I hadn’t heard in a while chimed. I paused and checked my phone to find a text from Do Ga-bin.
What? Why do I call her that? Her sudden reaction made me wonder if I’d typed something wrong, so I scrolled up to check the message I’d sent. There was nothing that could possibly be offensive.
The reply that arrived a moment later completely blew past my expectations.
The first time I learned about Do Ga-bin’s texting style… it really did look like an old person’s.
The next morning, the alarm dragged my heavy eyelids open.
I’d been worried I would have nightmares about wandering inside the anomaly all night, but thankfully I slept deeper than usual without dreaming at all. Maybe that was why I actually felt more refreshed than normal. But the moment I washed up and stepped outside, the eerie advice Do Ga-bin had left me yesterday began circling through my head.
‘You should start getting into the habit of carefully observing your surroundings from now on, just like me.’
Whether it was because of her words or the trauma from yesterday, I found myself walking to school while nervously scrutinizing every detail of the scenery I would normally have passed without a second thought.
The morning commute I was truly noticing for the first time turned out to be surprisingly beautiful. The uphill path from my one-room to campus, the narrow road cutting through it, and the tightly packed studio buildings created a strangely charming atmosphere. The grand symbolic sculpture at the school gate and the long rows of trees lining the path looked impressively magnificent in a new light.
Of course, the way I kept glancing around must have looked pretty suspicious to other people. A strange compulsion followed me like a shadow with every step.
Fortunately, nothing that broke the laws of reality occurred until I passed through the school gate and entered the building.
When I opened the back door of the classroom, the familiar white noise and the chatter of my classmates washed over me.
“Oh, you’re here?”
The first thing I noticed was Do Ga-bin sitting in the back row by the window, chin resting on her hand. As if yesterday’s horrific struggle had never happened, her face was fresh and flawless, without the slightest trace of injury. She was even wearing a bright pale-yellow cardigan, unlike her somewhat dull appearance yesterday.
As I headed toward the seat I usually claimed and started to set my bag down, Do Ga-bin—who was sitting right behind it—called out to me.
“Where are you going? Come here.”
She patted the empty seat right next to her. I hesitated for a moment before placing my bag there. The bizarre text emoticons we’d exchanged yesterday floated through my mind, leaving me with an oddly awkward feeling.
“Uh… hey.”
“Your greeting sounds strangely stiff. Anyway, the assignment was really well written. Thanks to you I was able to stretch out and sleep comfortably.”
Do Ga-bin looked up at me and grinned. Her playful eyes made me clear my throat and avert my gaze.
“Yeah. Well… glad it helped.”
“But why have you been avoiding eye contact since earlier? You didn’t forget what I asked you in the text yesterday, did you?”
She tapped my desk with her index finger. It was about the way she’d asked me to address her.
“No, I didn’t forget…”
“Then say it.”
Do Ga-bin’s eyes sparkled with pure amusement as she stared straight at me.
Since there were a lot of female students in our department, I was terrified of drawing attention. In the end I glanced around, took a deep breath, and—
You can’t be embarrassed about something like this. To win, you have to respond so casually and shamelessly that even the person who told you to do it gets flustered. Embarrassment is temporary; the glory of victory is forever.
“Yeah, nice to see you. Oppa’s here, Ga-bin-ah.”
“Huh? Uhh, hey Ga-in-ah. But we’re the same age, aren’t we? If you’re going to call me that, you should call me Ga-bin noona. I did save your life, after all. Come on, say Ga-bin noona.”
I lost. My department’s characteristic delicate sensibility simply didn’t have the courage to call a classmate “noona” in the middle of a daytime lecture. Of course, considering her old-person texting style, “Auntie” might suit her better than “noona,” but there was no way I could call my life-saving benefactor “auntie.”
When I admitted defeat, the embarrassment I had tried to push down with the glory of victory came rushing back. Feeling the heat rise in my face, I answered her.
“No, I was wrong. Hey… Ga, Ga-bin-ah.”
“Puhaha! What’s with that stupid accent?”
She burst into quiet laughter, covering her mouth. My ears burned bright red; I wanted to slam my forehead into the desk right then and there.
“Don’t laugh. I’m not used to this kind of thing, okay? And are you really okay? Yesterday, right before that door closed…”
“Shh.”
Do Ga-bin pressed her index finger to her lips and smiled lightly.
“We only talk about that when we’re alone somewhere quiet. Got it?”
Her lips still carried a mischievous smile, but for a moment her eyes turned strangely cold. It was an alien sensation that didn’t match the noisy classroom scenery at all. I had returned to peaceful daily life, but after experiencing one moment of the abnormal, I could no longer enjoy this ordinary routine with the same pure innocence as before.