Guest Ch 24

Mixed Perspectives, Misdirected Emotions (1)

When I opened my eyes, a man was staring at me with his face very close.

The first thing that caught my eye was his dark skin, like someone of mixed race. He was clearly an adult, but smaller than the average man. However, his frame was solid, and thin layers of muscle stacked on his bones. His facial features were delicate, giving him a cute appearance, but he didn’t seem like someone easy to deal with. Above all, his light brown eyes had black only around the edges, and the irises inside were as light as cream coffee, which made them feel strange.

Ah, this face…

“Black Foot.”

He turned his head toward the one calling him. Lee Yiseon, leaning against the refrigerator, spoke sharply to him.

“I told you not to stare at sleeping people like that.”

Only then did the man move his head away from looking down at me and plop down on the sofa. I blinked blankly before turning my body. Black Foot, sitting on the sofa, was opening the bag I had brought with me when I came to this world and rummaging through it. He pulled out my phone, battery, and underwear, laying them all on the table.

Uh, hey. That’s my bag. Shouldn’t you ask for my permission before going through it like that?

I missed the timing to complain and instead got up.

I naturally glanced at the stopped vent. In my dream, that vent was spinning. Oh, this must be a dream. I have a strange feeling of déjà vu…

“Get up. You’ve been asleep for too long, and there’s a lot we haven’t been able to do.”

Hmm. It’s a dream. In the dream, he was kind, but the person in front of me is rude.

I lowered my feet to the floor. It was only then that I realized my right arm wasn’t moving very well, and I twitched my fingertips. It wasn’t a nerve problem. My fingers moved normally. It was just very difficult to lift my arm or use my shoulder.

“Why is this…?”

I was about to ask Lee Yiseon why my arm was like this, but before I could finish speaking, I burst into coughing.

“Cough, cough!”

The pain felt like swallowing a handful of sand. I was startled and felt around my neck. A bandage was tightly wrapped around it. There was a foul smell of medicine coming from inside the thick bandage.

Oh, right. The wild dogs tied a rope around my neck and dragged me around. I clearly remember the close battle I had with the Garrison and Stand-ins who were chasing after me. And the fact that the one who saved me from falling into the sinkhole and almost dying was Lee Yiseon.

I turned my head towards Lee Yiseon. He was silently pouring dried cubes of food into a bowl like cereal. I watched the process of him adding bottled water and turning it into porridge from afar, and then I pursed my lips.

What should I do? I guess I should say thank you for saving my life. I should also make up an excuse that I had no choice but to betray him and side with Wolf Fang at that moment…

…Now that I think about it, you let me, who tried to betray you, rest in your bed. What are you thinking? Are you planning to monitor me more closely because I might stab you in the back and disappear? Aren’t you angry?

As I looked at Lee Yiseon with complicated eyes, he noticed my gaze and turned around. He raised an eyebrow slightly. It was the kind of expression asking if I had something to say.

After hesitating, I eventually said something different from what I meant.

“I don’t like porridge.”

Complaining about food with a voice that’s already broken.

I realized how pathetic that was, and my face flushed with embarrassment. Lee Yiseon looked at me as if he couldn’t believe it and opened his mouth.

“So what?”

He mashed the dried potatoes soaked in water with a spoon and spat out the words.

“I’m going to eat, so stop worrying about it.”

The atmosphere became awkward.

The patient, who should have thanked him for saving his life, was complaining about food, and Lee Yiseon, who was probably preparing potato porridge for the patient, seemed to be eating it out of obligation even though he wasn’t hungry.

Black Foot noticed the strange tension between us, where there were no winners, only losers.

“What’s going on between you two?”

How pathetic must we seem to others? Even if Lee Yiseon doesn’t care, wouldn’t he be shocked at how I’m stubbornly refusing to back down, even for a single word?

I pressed my heated face with my palm and turned my gaze to the other side. Black Foot looked at me in embarrassment and tilted his head.

“Why does the Prophet speak respectfully to the captain?”

…Huh? What’s he talking about?

“You don’t have to. Why are you doing that?”

Black Foot turned on the game console, which had been turned off, and started playing a rhythm game to the beat of the pounding music. His eyes were fixed on me while his hands pressed the buttons on the console. Unsure how to respond to the sudden use of polite language, I glanced at Lee Yiseon. He frowned, seemingly uncomfortable with the topic.

Lee Yiseon isn’t really that much of an adult. At most, he’s in his mid-twenties. I hadn’t given it much thought before, but it was surprising how he held the title of ‘Captain” and ruthlessly killed both beasts and people without discrimination. Could it be that he’s only a year or two older than me?

“Prophet, how old are you?”

Still staring at Lee Yiseon, I answered Black Foot’s question.

“Twenty-three.”

Lee Yiseon flinched.

Look at that. Why are you flinching? Is there something bothering you?

As I narrowed my eyes and watched, Black Foot responded nonchalantly.

“You’re the same age as the captain.”

A bolt of lightning struck through my brain.

What? The same age? He’s twenty-three?

Isn’t being in charge of an entire camp too big a responsibility for a twenty-three-year-old? His physical presence is imposing, and his personality is far too mature. It’s a stark difference from the people my age around me, who are still immature and run off to PC rooms the moment they get some pocket money.

Come on, don’t lie.

I was about to jokingly argue back, but then I remembered Toya fighting the wild dogs and clammed up. In this world, even Toya, who looks like a middle schooler, kills people with arrows. It’s not that they’re precocious. It’s that I’ve been too naive and inexperienced. I realized too late that I had made a wrong assumption based on the environment I grew up in.

“Even if you’re not the same age, just drop the formal speech. Around here, no one cares about age, and you can speak casually. It really makes me cringe.”

Cringe at polite speech? What does that even mean?

I made a nervous face as the truth slowly came to light.

“What do you mean by polite speech making you cringe?”

Black Foot stayed silent for a moment. It looked as if he was silently chastising me for my slow learning, like, ‘Shouldn’t you have picked up on the language habits after living here for a few days?’

“You don’t even know that?”

His sharp comment stung, and I felt a sense of injustice. I hadn’t had a chance to interact with anyone other than Lee Yiseon while staying here. There was no one in my limited daily environment to point out the difference in language use. Lee Yiseon never criticized me for anything I did, so I had no idea there was an issue with my use of polite speech.

“No one told me.”

At my words, Black Foot blinked in surprise.

“Toya too?”

“Yes.”

“That’s strange. If it were her, she would have said something like, ‘You’re so stiff^[1]. Stop it.’”

…Wait a minute. Was ‘stiff’ supposed to be an insult? I had taken it to mean something like ‘refined.’

Even though it wasn’t a foreign language, I felt a serious communication gap, and I ended up making a dumbfounded expression. More than the life-or-death situations around me, it was my speech patterns and the use of honorifics that threw me off.

“Don’t use polite speech. It’s only used here between people who are in love, so it feels out of place.”

For a moment, silence filled the machine room. I stopped trying to figure out whether the problem was my comprehension or their delivery. I felt the most pitiful for being caught up in this situation. And the most pitiful thing was that no one seemed to feel sorry for me.

Lee Yiseon didn’t offer any excuses or explanations. He just kept eating his potato porridge, ignoring the conversation. No, it wasn’t that he was ignoring it; it was more like he was pretending not to notice.

I glared at the back of Lee Yiseon’s head in frustration. The bastard, who clearly knew I was staring at him, stubbornly refused to turn his head this time.

This is driving me crazy. Polite speech is only used between lovers… Is ‘love’ here supposed to only mean respect and consideration, like agape^[2] love? What must Lee Yiseon have thought of me, yammering on without even knowing how sacred it was? They really toy with people.

Sigh.

Black Foot, oblivious to my deep sigh and complicated thoughts, asked.

“I’ll load this save file and start over. The beginning is too easy, and I want to skip it.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Don’t speak politely to me.”

So this is the proper reaction. I should have been serious and disgusted from the start.

I looked at Lee Yiseon again. He was still half-heartedly eating, showing no signs of admitting any fault. I’m the fool for getting caught up in this.

“…Fine, do what you want.”

“Save mine in slot 10. Don’t overwrite it with other data. I’ll play again later.”

With those last words, Black Foot immersed himself in the game.

Beep beep.

With the electronic sounds as background music, I glared at Lee Yiseon. It was a good thing for him that my sore throat kept me from speaking for long. Otherwise, I would’ve spewed all sorts of things.

“Yiseon-ah.”