DNLYHS Chapter 10
by Brie?. Thir?##@?th @!!%^ Day
After the end-of-day broadcast, the annex hallway was still drowned in pitch-black darkness, just like the past few days.
‘The way back… is blocked.’
Yeonseo rattled the door behind him just in case. The handle turned since it wasn’t locked, but the door wouldn’t open, as if something on the other side was pushing back hard.
Maybe it was for the best. It could mean the monsters in the main building wouldn’t be able to cross over. Yeonseo steadied his breathing, calmed himself, and spoke.
“…Hey, where are you? Come out right now! I came all the way to the annex just like you told the broadcasting adviser!”
Yeonseo’s voice echoed down the middle of the hallway. The strange sensation of answering himself made his skin crawl, but he forced himself not to shrink back and moved forward. Even the time wasted hesitating felt too precious.
‘I need to know what the broadcasting adviser meant earlier.’
If he had walked right into a trap, he might as well get something out of it.
Why did the janitor say such a thing to the broadcasting adviser? That they were tied to Yeongwon’s death? How did he know that, and how much did he know exactly? And if it was a lie, what was his motive?
“Hey, where are you!”
When there was no answer, no matter how much he yelled, Yeonseo checked each classroom one by one.
The club rooms and computer room were as empty as before, and the counseling room made him uneasy because of what was written in the Code of Conduct. And the home-ec practice room…
‘What is this weird smoke?’
The moment he opened the door, a disgusting smell and thick smoke poured out, like dozens of pots burning all at once. It definitely hadn’t been like this during the day. Something had happened, that much was clear.
Could the notebook be inside that smoke? Maybe something related to the cook… Yeonseo leaned forward, trying to peek deeper into the room, when suddenly someone yanked him back hard by the back of his neck.
“Where do you think you’re going after calling me here?”
“……!”
“Were you planning to hide in there and ambush me? You’d suffocate before you even tried anything.”
The janitor looked down at Yeonseo with a slight curl of his lips. The smile was only with his mouth; his eyes were still full of contempt and irritation. Naturally, Yeonseo’s voice sharpened.
“I already told you, didn’t I? I’m not interested in fighting you. You seem to think about nothing except killing me and the other four whenever you feel like it.”
He said that, but honestly, Yeonseo didn’t think the janitor intended to kill him. If he really wanted him dead, he wouldn’t have stopped him from entering the room. He would have shoved him inside and shut the door instead…
Even so, he didn’t believe it was kindness. There had to be a reason the janitor wasn’t killing him. Or maybe it was closer to being unable to kill him.
“You say that knowing everything? That you’re not interested in fighting the man who wants you dead?”
“The janitor is quick-witted.”
“…But he’s not here, is he? You think that guy’s going to save your life?”
“Even if he’s not here, he can still read the Code of Conduct. I believe he can figure out the implications well enough.”
“You think there’s anything impressive written in those pages?”
“He’s a man of his word in his own way. When the annex passage opens, he’ll come check right away to see if I’m alive or dead.”
“Why are you imitating the janitor’s way of speaking? What are you trying to say?”
“So he really does talk like this often? Anyway, what I mean is, if I die, he’ll close his eyes and start counting. He’ll probably tell the others something similar.”
The janitor’s face twisted sharply. He didn’t even bother pretending to smile anymore.
Both Yeonseo and the janitor knew they had been repeating the same time over and over. If someone died or suffered irreversible damage, they could rewind time and start from scratch. Yeonseo truly believed the janitor would eventually find an ideal moment where everyone survived.
“…I can count those pathetic numbers too, you know. Didn’t your Code say it? That if things start leaning in your favor, of course, I’ll get in the way.”
“Of course, it said that. That’s why I’m not thinking of ambushing you. I’m not good at fighting anyway, so I don’t have the strength to knock you out or kill you in one hit.”
“…Hah.”
“When I fought those students earlier, it took me almost a full minute for each one. If they could count, I would’ve had to go back to the library and start over ages ago. I’m basically the weakest person in the school. Who am I supposed to fight…?”
“……”
“I just want the information you have.”
As he spoke, Yeonseo glanced at the notebook in the janitor’s hand. Come to think of it, how was he fine holding it? The moment Yeonseo touched a notebook, he had fainted and needed Yeongwon to carry or support him…
“…You’ve got a screw loose. All you’re good for is stacking loops, yet you trust people way too easily.”
With that, the janitor put the notebook on the floor and stepped back. Yeonseo thought about grabbing it right away, then decided against it.
This was definitely a trap. Even if time could be reset, if he fainted here, he had no idea what the janitor would do to him.
Instead, he spoke. He needed the important information, the kind that might not be in the notebook.
“Why did you say that to the broadcasting teacher?”
“What?”
“You said something like the five of us were involved in Yeongwon’s death.”
“I wasn’t that specific.”
“Are you denying that you meant it that way?”
“No.”
The janitor grinned and kept stepping back. Yeonseo noted that he was moving toward the second-floor staircase. Maybe he planned to lure him below again, but more important right now was…
“…Why did Yeongwon die?”
“Does the cause matter? If I have to say it, it’s close to suicide.”
The moment he heard that, Yeonseo’s mind went completely blank.
Half of him thought there was no way that person would have done such a thing, and the other half thought that maybe he would. He was upright, kind, and strong, yet also sensitive, delicate, and easily shaken by fear.
“Of course, like any suicide, it wasn’t entirely his own choice. If he’d had another option, he wouldn’t have done it. If there had been someone to hold him back, for example.”
“I… I wasn’t able to hold him back?”
“If you had, do you think Yeongwon would have ended up here?”
There was nothing he could say. Yeonseo simply bowed his head and tried to steady his breathing. All he could do was stare at the notebook, unable to make out what was written, and avoid looking at the janitor.
An indescribable fear and anguish surged up his throat. He had no idea whether the man was telling the truth, whether he should believe a story backed only by its teller. All those rational thoughts were swallowed by the wave of emotion crashing over him. And then…
“The record you left, the past you dug up, that’s what killed him. That’s why you’re the Librarian.”
That whisper, closer to a sneer, was the finishing blow. When Yeonseo finally couldn’t hold it in and lifted his head, the janitor burst into a clear, childlike grin and immediately bolted down toward the second-floor stairs.
Yeonseo didn’t even think to grab the notebook at his feet. He dashed after him, stumbling down the stairs. He could pick up the notebook later; if he didn’t follow now, the man would vanish.
“Explain properly! What did I do wrong? Is it really something that can’t be undone? Even with a wish?”
The janitor only laughed louder as he ran, offering no response. Yeonseo chased him in a frantic hurry all the way down to the second floor.
“Is that why you want to rewind time? Because you think that’s the only way to undo everything I, or the others, did wrong? Because there’s something that can’t be fixed just by bringing back the dead?”
Still no answer. The janitor sprinted down a strangely long-looking hallway and opened the door labeled [Records Room], slipping inside.
Yeonseo rushed in after him.
He had vaguely imagined something the size of the library with a few shelves, but the Records Room was so overwhelmingly vast it felt physically impossible. A fear struck him that if he went the wrong way, he might never escape, but there was no time to hesitate.
“Answer me! Answer me!”
He just ran and ran. Somewhere in this place, the janitor was still here. If he could catch him again, maybe he’d finally get a proper explanation.
He didn’t notice that the bookshelves were arranged like a maze. He didn’t notice how far the exit had grown behind him. All he could feel was pain.
A guilt whose cause he couldn’t remember. A formless fear toward a problem that wouldn’t resolve. His mind was full of it.
Was this how the broadcasting adviser had gone mad? Seeing fragments of his own wrongdoing, getting swept up in a violent tide of emotion strong enough to make forgetting seem better?
‘I’m no different.’
What did he even want? Once he had the answer, would he give up on his life? Or would he give up on knowing before it came to that?
“…Someone like you doesn’t need to know.”
“What?”
Yeonseo stopped in his tracks. A cold shiver ran down his back like a splash of freezing water.
“You can just stay trapped here forever. Once everyone forgets you, there won’t be anyone left who’d rewind time for your sake.”
He realized the voice sounded much too far away. And then, somewhere out of sight, a door slammed shut with a heavy bang.
Yeonseo understood then that he had been trapped inside an ancient labyrinth of records.
* * *
“Yeonseo! Are you here?”
Yeongwon staggered forward, trying to shake off the dizziness. The darkness around him lasted only a brief moment; after blinking hard a few times, the inside of the annex came into focus.
The annex was filled with some unknown smoke. It was harsh and choking, almost impossible to breathe in, and looking around, it seemed the source was the home-ec practice room.
What if Yeonseo was in there? What if he had inhaled too much and collapsed, unable to answer, no matter how loudly Yeongwon called? His heart sank, and he quickly poked his head into the room.
“Are you in there, Yeonseo? If you can hear me, please answer…!”
But the moment he stepped inside, what he saw was completely different.
— I’m sorry, but could we talk a little later, XX?
It was strange. He was sure he had entered a smoke-filled home-ec room, yet in front of him was the living room of a dim, cramped house. A stout middle-aged man staggered toward the master bedroom.
— I know you want to talk about something important. But today, I’m… just too tired. I really can’t handle it right now.
— …Okay, Dad.
— Tomorrow morning. Let me sleep just a bit first… please? Dinner’s set out in the kitchen, so eat and rest.
Yeongwon didn’t understand where he was or why he was seeing this. It was so abrupt and strange, he wondered for a moment if he had inhaled toxic gas and fallen into some bizarre hallucination.
Yet a difficult, indescribably heavy feeling welled up inside him. He understood nothing, but a crushing loneliness and hollowness washed over him, filling him completely.
‘No. This isn’t the time!’
He shut his eyes tightly and shook his head. Whatever this was, he needed to find Yeonseo. Thankfully, when he opened his eyes again, the hallucination had vanished.
At the same time, the ventilation fan above him whirred to life, and the thick smoke dispersed unnaturally quickly, almost as if it were saying its job was done now that the hallucination had been shown.
But there was no time to stand there stunned.
The practice room wasn’t very large. After checking every corner and finding no trace of Yeonseo, Yeongwon hurried back out, feeling he’d wasted precious time.
‘…Huh? A notebook?’
The hallway smoke had thinned, too. Maybe that was why he finally noticed a notebook lying on the floor near the home-ec room, something he hadn’t even seen when he first entered.
Was it a trace left by Yeonseo? Yeongwon picked it up without thinking and then checked the rooms one by one. Not in the club rooms, not in the computer room, not in the counseling room…
“Oh my, what brings you here at this hour?”
At least, for now, no one was here.
Just as Yeongwon pushed open the counseling room door, the same voice he had heard once before, the one he assumed belonged to the “counselor”, greeted him as if welcoming a familiar guest.
“There’s someone looking for you. The Librarian teacher is missing.”
“The Librarian teacher? I think I heard him talking to someone outside earlier. I didn’t see them, but I definitely heard voices.”
Talking to someone. The moment he heard that, Yeongwon felt anxiety clamp around his chest. It was a relief he seemed unharmed, but the person he had been talking to was definitely…
“Was he speaking with the janitor?”
“Janitor?”
“You don’t know who I mean?”
“Well, I don’t know every single person in this school… but did we ever have a young male janitor working here?”
The fact that he said “young man” meant he was probably referring to the same janitor Yeongwon knew. So did the counselor not know about him? Of course, just as he said, he didn’t necessarily have to know everyone in the school…
“I’m not sure, but whoever it was, they went downstairs. Why don’t you try checking that way?”
“…Thank you.”
Yeongwon bowed deeply and left the counseling room. The counselor’s voice followed him from behind.
“And that record, don’t leave it lying around again. Read it properly and remember it if you can.”
He didn’t think now was the time to be reading, but the writer must have had a reason. As he headed down the stairs, he absentmindedly opened the notebook and glanced at the page. Neat handwriting recorded a conversation.
[Ending Y, Regret.]
###: I can’t do it.
#####: Why not? Once you finish this, you can go home. Hurry. If he wakes up and starts counting, it’ll be too late.
###: I can’t leave by myself. According to you, this person, these people, would be trapped in this school forever…
#####: What do you mean “by yourself”? You and I are leaving together.
###: That’s not what I meant. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?
#####: Don’t talk like that. You know how much I’ve helped you until now.
###: And by that logic, this person helped me a lot, too.
#####: ……
###: When I woke up, there was a sentence carved into the desk I was lying on. The students told me he was the one who wrote it. Same for the others. If it weren’t for the messages he left, everyone would’ve accidentally broken the Code of Conduct somewhere, and none of us would’ve gotten this far.
#####: Get a grip. The students are liars! You know that!
###: That rule only applies to you. It doesn’t apply to me. Just like the teachers in this school have never once dismissed me.
#####: ……
###: I can’t do it. I’m going to start from the very beginning.
#####: Are you insane? Do you know how hard it was to get this chance…?!
###: I just hope that next time, I don’t meet you on the first day. I want to see what changes.
[Ending Y, Regret.]
###: I can’t do it.
#####: Why not? Once you finish this, you can go home. Hurry. If he wakes up and starts counting, it’ll be too late.
###: I can’t leave by myself. According to you, this person, these people, would be trapped in this school…
#####: What do you mean “by yourself”? You and I are leaving together.
###: That’s not what I meant. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?
#####: Don’t talk like that. You know how much I’ve helped you until now.
###: And by that logic, this person helped me a lot, too.
#####: ……
###: When I woke up, there was a sentence carved into the desk I was lying on. The students told me he was the one who wrote it. Same for the others. If it weren’t for the messages he left, everyone would’ve accidentally broken the Code of Conduct somewhere, and none of us would’ve gotten this far.
#####: Get a grip. The students are liars! You know that!
###: That rule only applies to you. It doesn’t apply to me. Just like the teachers in this school have never once dismissed me.
#####: ……
###: I can’t do it. I’m going to start from the very beginning.
#####: Are you insane? Do you know how hard it was to get this chance…?!
###: I just hope that next time, I don’t meet you on the first day. I want to see what changes.
It was a conversation log that was hard to make sense of. The names were smudged out as if someone had intentionally erased them, and there was no context before or after.
But even so, some faint image began to take shape in Yeongwon’s mind.
He thought back to when he first woke up in the school. A classroom on the third floor of the main building, where he was anxiously looking around as the morning broadcast echoed faintly.
You’ve done nothing wrong.
I believe in you. If anyone deserves to leave this school, it’s you and only you.
Words carved into the desk, as if someone had forced a fountain pen tip into the wood. Yeongwon had always wondered who wrote them.
But he had never once thought it might have been Yeonseo. That man hadn’t even made it to the third floor; he had been struggling on the first. And from what he’d heard, he woke up after the morning broadcast, and didn’t even have a writing tool until he barely managed to find a permanent marker in the teachers’ office…
‘But what if Yeonseo was the one who wrote it? If he somehow managed to leave that message?’
As the pieces slowly clicked together in his mind, Yeongwon stepped onto the second-floor annex hallway.
“What are you doing here, Yeongwon?”
The janitor froze mid-step, having just come out of the Records Room, and stared at him in clear surprise.
“Huh? Oh, right. You have that wristwatch? You rewound time with that…”
“……”
“But aren’t you not supposed to bring that here? Actually, how did you even bring it? That doesn’t make any sense. The broadcast room clock wasn’t broken, so why would there be a wristwatch there? Didn’t I tell the other students not to take it?”
“The digital clock in the broadcasting room seems broken. The end-of-day announcement was way too early today. Maybe the students were so startled they couldn’t react in time. Am I wrong?”
“…Ah, even so, you can’t just take someone else’s things like that. Hey, Yeongwon! Let’s hurry and return it, okay? Before anyone notices!”
The janitor exaggerated his voice and spit out words like a rapid-fire burst. As if trying to shake Yeongwon’s mind loose. But Yeongwon had already noticed: the janitor, who claimed he had gone downstairs with someone else, was now alone, and his hand was still gripping the Records Room doorknob.
“…You.”
Without hesitation, he lunged at the janitor, but this time the janitor was faster. The moment he slammed the door shut, Yeongwon felt something vital erase itself from his mind, like sand slipping through his fingers.
“What did you just do…?!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sorry, but the end-of-day broadcast already passed. You know you can’t be here now. Come on, let’s go back.”
“Don’t make me laugh. What’s behind that door? Why did you come out alone?”
Beyond that door… someone was…
A fog settled in his thoughts. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t recall the face or the name of the person who should have appeared in his mind. The janitor had definitely done something.
“There’s no one in there. Just forgotten records.”
“Forgotten… records?”
“Yeah. This school has existed for a long, long time, and the number of records piled up is enormous. The ones that should be discarded get sent there. There’s no room left in the library, after all.”
The library. The library.
He couldn’t remember the soft, pale face of the person who claimed they’d woken up there. Instinctively, Yeongwon realized that place didn’t contain forgotten records. That place made anything inside it become forgotten.
If he kept this up, he would eventually forget who was in there. The only reason he hadn’t forgotten yet was… because…
“…By the way, Yeongwon, why are you holding that notebook?”
“……!”
“The upstairs was full of smoke, wasn’t it? You’ve got good eyes. How did you even spot it and pick it up?”
The moment he heard that voice, Yeongwon flinched back. The janitor’s tone, gentle just moments ago, twisted into something sharp and dangerous. The way he stared at the notebook had completely changed.
And at the same time, Yeongwon understood: this notebook was important. The counselor had said something earlier, if there’s something you truly want to remember, write it down.
And this notebook contained traces of “that person.” Even if the main dialogue had been with someone else, the topic was always the same: how kind he was, how desperately he tried for everyone’s sake…
“Give it to me.”
“…….”
“I said, give it here!”
The janitor screamed and charged at him, his voice tearing at the air. It was clear, this was where things had to end between them. Bracing himself, Yeongwon kicked him in the stomach with all his strength.
* * *
“Where… where’s the exit?”
Yeonseo hurried across the maze of bookshelves.
He couldn’t bring himself to run. Partly because he had already exhausted himself from sprinting earlier, but also because he realized the maze was far more complicated than he first thought. If he kept rushing without knowing where he was going, he’d collapse long before finding any exit.
‘So this place was the final destination all along. That sly bastard janitor…!’
He wanted to take back everything he’d said about not wanting to fight. No, he wanted to fight. He wanted, somehow, to overcome the difference in strength and smash a baseball bat across the man’s jaw. Not that he actually could.
No, maybe the janitor wasn’t the sly one. Maybe Yeonseo was just the fool. He knew the janitor had set a trap, yet he walked straight into all of them without question. He accepted every bait the man laid out, ruining everything in the worst possible way.
At this point, even getting angry at the broadcasting adviser felt pointless. For the first time, Yeonseo realized just how easily swept away by emotion he was.
But he couldn’t help it, could he? What the janitor had touched wasn’t memory; it was emotion reaching out from the place beyond his lost memories. He couldn’t recall anything clearly, so logic and reason couldn’t reach him. The memories were gone, yet the scraps of emotion left in his unconscious surged wildly…
‘…Get it together. Once I escape here, I’m going to find Yeongwon. There’s something I have to tell him.’
But how was he supposed to escape?
He knew the basic advice for escaping mazes, left-hand rule or right-hand rule. Pick one side and follow it no matter what. At each fork, use his permanent marker to mark the shelf edge so he could tell whether he’d been there before.
But that only applied to ordinary mazes. Depending on how a maze was built, sticking to one side might just trap him in loops without ever leading to an exit. Worse, if the maze didn’t have an exit at all, he’d just waste time until he collapsed.
‘Maybe there’s at least some kind of hint somewhere.’
The books on the shelves were identical, same cover color, same thickness. Just in case, he pulled out a few and flipped through them. All blank. At this point, it felt better to assume the shelves were just walls.
As he stood there, feeling lost, he finally remembered his most important source of information.
“Right, the Code of Conduct.”
If the end-of-day broadcast had come early, then the Code of Conduct must have been updated early too. Maybe there was new information for Day 11. With a sliver of hope, he opened the notebook.
But…
[1?????????1st?]
[We t?ld y?u t? ??rget the ?epe??.]
Seriously? Now even the Code of Conduct was broken…! Yeonseo’s eyes widened as the first line scolded him like a nagging adult.
Had the flow of time broken because he entered the annex? Like how a phone outside reception couldn’t show the proper time? He skimmed through the rest of the pages quickly in case anything useful still remained, but it was just as bad.
[Forget the repetition. Forget the repetition. Forget the repetition. Forget the repetition. Forget the repetition. Forget the repetition. If you cannot forget, then let everyone forget you.]
[But what has been recorded is beyond our control. We deceive one another, but we agreed that no matter what, we will not deceive the records. Therefore, the Code of Conduct is absolute. It may be contaminated, but it will not lie.]
[Records are absolute. Forget the repetition. If you recorded it, then it cannot be helped. If you are forgotten, that also cannot be helped. Records will not be forgotten.]
[That place is where all are forgotten. If you had forgotten the repetition, the janitor would not have thrown you there. Still, your record will not be forgotten. Pray that your record has influence.]
[A new disposal record has been added. Disposal Record Name: ＆＆＆, Librarian (Contract), 25 years old. This person’s self and every memory from life have been handed over to the Records Room. Please bleach the contents and shelve them within XX days.]
I’m twenty-five? But everyone always treated me like some clueless kid?
The only line he fully understood was this irrelevant, random detail that had nothing to do with escaping. He would have preferred something useful.
‘I’m going crazy. The most helpful information I get is that I’ve been disposed of…?’
What did “disposed” even mean? Did it mean people outside would forget him? That was… frightening.
But he had no time to be scared. He didn’t know how many days “XX days” meant, but if he wasted too much time, he’d probably end up as one of the countless blank books on these shelves.
Yeonseo began to walk again, desperately looking for anything that could help him escape, mind racing as he reviewed the Code’s lines for clues.
Unexpectedly, he found something that resembled a hint not long after. Or more accurately, a record. As he marked a fork to track where he’d gone, he noticed unfamiliar text written on one of the shelves.
— Please pay attention, everyone. We have a transfer student. As with all transfer students, this one is also named Yeongwon. Let us remember this name, we will lose in fourteen days.
Yeonseo blinked at the strange sentence. …Had he been here in a previous loop? Or was this someone else’s record?
Probably the latter. If he had written it, he would’ve made it clearer. This felt less like recording information and more like preserving a conversation from long ago.
He took out his thick pad of Post-it notes and carefully copied the sentence in thin strokes. He didn’t understand the meaning, but it didn’t feel pointless.
‘Let’s keep looking. Maybe every fork has something like this.’
He quickened his pace toward the next intersection.
Unfortunately, not every fork had such a record. Still, rather than give up, he decided to leave his own marking where nothing was written and move on.
Thankfully, after some walking, he encountered another record.
— Strange, isn’t it? The Librarian is always the first one sent to the Records Room. You’d think the school nurse would be sent there sometimes. Actually, wait, does it really matter? Who else but the Librarian would ever enter a place like the Records Room?
— They said the broadcasting room’s digital clock broke. Well, it stayed fine for over a week, so it’s not surprising it broke eventually. I don’t know where they even got that thing from, but they should replace it soon.
— Teacher, I lost the clock. Or… did the broadcasting kid borrow it? I don’t remember. I keep forgetting things older than an hour. Can I go to the infirmary?
— Teacher, the janitor ate the cook! What are we supposed to do about lunch?
— About the infirmary’s Code of Conduct… there’s a part that needs updating. Who wants to handle it? The original teacher in charge called in sick today and isn’t at school.
Most of it looked like someone scribbling nonsense in a stream of consciousness. But when he examined each one carefully, he could understand something faintly. They, too, were records, snapshots of the school’s hidden workings, invisible to the Librarian and others.
Maybe not helpful immediately, but information was information. Enough of it would eventually matter.
— The transfer student who came for counseling today seems completely hopeless. No hope, no desire to graduate.
— Aren’t all Yeongwons like that?
— No, usually they have some direction. Even that kid wandering around in the blue-dyed uniform, he’s desperate because he still has hope. Even if he’s never succeeded.
— If this Yeongwon seems too hopeless, perhaps suggest graduation.
— But he seems to regret something. He seems to have attachments. Maybe he had someone he liked.
— Shall we watch the situation? Maybe five people will gather.
— Doesn’t that rarely happen?
— Surprisingly, the odds are worth hoping for. Easier than gathering ten righteous men, anyway.
— Oh, that was a Bible verse, right? I don’t really know anything about religion. Even though I’ve worked at this school a very long time…
At some point, the records turned into a conversation between two staff members. Was this about the “Yeongwon” he knew? Or someone else with the same name?
He couldn’t tell. But the more he read, the more a quiet sorrow rose to his throat. That “Yeongwon” seemed to regret dying, seemed to long for the life he could have lived had he not died. And someone he liked… well, maybe there was.
‘He looked good enough. He probably liked someone better than someone like me.’
He thought it absently, then shook his head. No… this wasn’t important. Who Yeongwon might have loved when he was alive didn’t matter. What mattered was finding a way out. And so far, no such hint had appeared.
What would the next record say? As he hurried along, he suddenly came face-to-face with one of his own marks.
“Hmm…”
Still, this wasn’t too bad. Of the two paths, one had his mark, and the other didn’t.
So he should take the unmarked one? Hopefully the exit would be that way. He thought nothing of it and stepped past the mark…
“…Huh?”
He was certain he had drawn a simple arrow. But the arrow stretched and twisted like a rubber band, reshaping itself into a sentence he never expected.
— The truth is, I like someone. Things are complicated now, but I’m planning to confess at graduation. Could you cheer me on?
…What on earth? Could all the writings in this maze have formed that way?
He thought so at first, but on closer inspection, the new writing and the old writing had different handwriting.
The original messages were thinner, neater, and the same style as the Code of Conduct. But the new message had thick strokes, just like his permanent marker, and the handwriting looked almost identical to his.
In that instant, a flash of realization struck him. He opened the notebook again and reread what he’d seen earlier.
[Disposal Record Name: ＆＆＆, Librarian (Contract), 25 years old. This person’s self and all memories from life have been transferred to the Records Room.]
Maybe this was his own memory. Memories he had deliberately separated from himself in order to fulfill the role of “Librarian,” and which had now been disposed of along with him.