IPSTDS Chapter 4
by BrieChapter 4
Nahyuk was completely dazed as he flagged down a taxi.
He had been fine while he was with Lee Kangil, but now that he was alone, his heart was pounding uncontrollably.
Their lips had barely touched for two seconds, yet he could still feel the lingering sensation.
He reached up and traced his lips with his fingertips.
‘…Kissing someone you love must feel incredible.’
If a simple kiss with a near-stranger who happened to be his ideal type could make his heart race like this, then how euphoric would it be to kiss someone he genuinely loved?
There were so many things he had never dared to experience as Lee Nahyuk, but now, as Yoon Noah, he felt like he might be able to.
That didn’t mean he was desperate to fall for just anyone. Even now, the thought of confessing to someone made him hesitate.
He never wanted to go through what had happened when he was Lee Nahyuk ever again.
Even if there was no longer a father who would beat him mercilessly just for liking men.
This time, he would choose his love carefully. He wanted to be completely sure the other person felt the same before confessing.
Of course, if they confessed to him first, that would be ideal.
But before he could even dream of love, he needed to fix Yoon Noah’s sick body first.
Feeling a little more composed, Nahyuk turned to look out the taxi window.
The vehicle moved through familiar streets—ones he had often visited when he was still Lee Nahyuk.
Everything about his life had changed overnight, yet the world outside remained exactly the same.
It was a strange realization. It almost made him wonder if he was in the middle of an incredibly vivid dream.
But the warmth of Lee Kangil’s lips still lingered on his own. That alone was proof that this was real.
Undeniably real.
When Nahyuk finally stepped out of the taxi, he found himself standing in front of Dr. Kim’s hospital.
And just as if he had been expecting him, Dr. Kim greeted him with a welcoming smile.
Yet, throughout the conversation, Dr. Kim kept stealing glances at his face, as if something about it didn’t sit right with him.
Was it obvious that a different soul was inhabiting Yoon Noah’s body?
“Doctor?”
At Nahyuk’s call, Dr. Kim coughed awkwardly a couple of times.
“Ahem, excuse me. It just looked like your face was a bit flushed, so I was checking.”
“Ah… That’s probably not because I’m sick.”
Most likely, it was because of the kiss with Lee Kangil.
Nahyuk let out a long breath, hoping the redness in his cheeks would fade.
“Anyway, could you explain my illness in more detail?”
“Of course. I’ll go over everything.”
Nahyuk listened silently as Dr. Kim began his explanation.
He wanted to understand Yoon Noah’s condition better—especially since, despite supposedly having a terminal illness, he didn’t seem to struggle too much with daily life.
Summarizing Dr. Kim’s words, the situation was as follows:
His disease was so rare that there were fewer than ten known cases in the country.
The fortunate part was that it didn’t visibly affect his outward appearance.
The symptoms were relatively manageable—fatigue, dizziness, occasional chest pain. Nothing that seemed immediately life-threatening.
But the unfortunate part was…
“…You could die suddenly. The core issue is your heart. It could stop functioning at any moment. That’s what we call cardiac arrest. I’ll prescribe medication that will help prevent that as much as possible, but…”
Dr. Kim trailed off at the end of his sentence.
He was probably trying to say that while he would prescribe the medication, Nahyuk shouldn’t get his hopes up too much.
Nahyuk, who had been listening attentively, nodded in understanding.
“Thank you for the explanation. I’ll take the medication, but I won’t be admitting myself to the hospital.”
“Are you sure that’s alright?”
“Yes.”
There was no point in hospitalization if the disease couldn’t be cured.
Rather than wasting time lying in a hospital bed, it seemed far more productive to focus on persuading Lee Kangil.
The real question was—how?
Judging by Kangil’s reaction earlier, even after crawling between his legs and receiving that (forced, but utterly amazing) kiss, he still didn’t seem willing to hand over the new drug.
As he mulled over his options, a yawn escaped before he could stop it.
It seemed Dr. Kim hadn’t been lying when he said the illness could cause sudden fatigue.
After picking up his prescribed medication, Nahyuk returned to Yoon Noah’s house.
A house that was now his.
It seemed he had dozed off for a while after returning home.
When he woke up around dinnertime, the first thing Nahyuk did was check his face.
He was still Yoon Noah.
It felt like he would never wake up from this dream-like reality.
Lying back down on the bed, he turned on Yoon Noah’s phone.
There were no new messages, and the device was completely filled with texts about Seo Dowoong.
Nahyuk scrolled through the messages that Yoon Noah had sent him.
- Dowoong! Dowoong♥ Are you really not going to hang out with me?
- Are you busy? Why aren’t you replying?
- If you ignore me again, I’m coming to your office.
- Hey… You know I don’t bluff when I say I’ll do something, right?
- Fuck. I’ll wait exactly one hour.
“Wow. His personality is all over the place.”
Sending a message full of hearts and playful affection, only to turn hostile within minutes—Yoon Noah was kind of terrifying.
For Nahyuk, who had rarely ever gotten angry at anyone, this was completely unimaginable behavior.
What was even scarier was that, despite all of Yoon Noah’s threats, Seo Dowoong still hadn’t replied.
If Yoon Noah was a wildcat, then Seo Dowoong was often compared to a tiger rather than a bear.
It made sense—why would a tiger ever be afraid of a wildcat?
And considering that Seo Dowoong was the main Gong of the novel, there was no way he would care about the villainous Shou Yoon Noah.
After all, the main Gong was destined to fall in love with the main Shou, Kim Daon.
Checking the call logs, Nahyuk found that Yoon Noah had only been calling one person—Seo Dowoong.
The call history, filled with “Dowoong♥” over and over again, made it painfully clear just how narrow Yoon Noah’s social circle was.
Continuing to scroll through the sparse contact list, Nahyuk came across a saved number—Lee Kangil.
Unlike Seo Dowoong, his name was saved plainly, without any emojis.
At that moment, Nahyuk decided to send him a text.
He typed out:
“Mr. Lee Kangil. This is Yoon Noah. I might actually die, so… what’s happening with the new drug?”
Just as he was about to press send, his unfamiliarity with Yoon Noah’s phone keyboard led him to accidentally tap the heart emoji right below the send button.
“Ah, no!”
But no amount of shouting could unsend a message that had already been delivered.
Nahyuk stared at the message in pure despair.
- Mr. Lee Kangil. This is Yoon Noah. I might actually die, so… what’s happening with the new drug? ♥
“He’s going to think I’m insane…”
Why on earth had Yoon Noah pinned the heart emoji right below the send button?
Why had he gone through the trouble of downloading a separate keyboard just to make things more complicated?
It was probably so he could use hearts more conveniently when texting Seo Dowoong… but that wasn’t the issue here.
The real question was—would Lee Kangil even reply to such a weird message?
Nahyuk felt a headache creeping in.
Once Lee Kangil got absorbed in his research, it was nearly impossible for him to pull himself out.
The thrill of discovering something no one else had seen, the rush of identifying a new organic reaction—he lived for those moments of pure exhilaration.
Some people called him a “dopamine addict.”
They weren’t entirely wrong.
Kangil wasn’t just drawn to pleasure when it came to his research—he sought it in every part of his life.
So, lost in his work, he hadn’t even realized the sun had set. Just a little more… just a little more, and he might make a breakthrough.
Then—
A faint vibration from his phone, resting on his desk, shattered his focus.
“Haah…”
Letting out a long sigh, Kangil’s forehead creased with a frown.
Why hadn’t he put his phone on silent?
Annoyed, he glanced at the screen to see the culprit who had interrupted his work.
- Mr. Lee Kangil. This is Yoon Noah. I might actually die, so… what’s happening with the new drug? ♥
It was a message from that audacious wildcat, Yoon Noah.
The content itself was unexpectedly polite. But at the end…
“A heart?”
Kangil’s lips curled into an amused smirk, his previous irritation vanishing.
“Well, well, wildcat.”
So now, he was trying to shake him up with a heart?
First, the fake tears. Now, affectionate little symbols?
It made Kangil wonder just how far Yoon Noah was willing to go for the new drug—to save his own life.
His unexpected behavior sparked an unfamiliar reaction, like an unpredictable chemical reaction, stirring something in Kangil’s chest.
He spun the pen in his fingers absentmindedly.
Yoon Noah had been dull to watch when he was pathetically obsessed with Seo Dowoong.
But now? Now that he had become a little different… he was starting to seem interesting.
Maybe I should get a little closer.
Kangil’s smirk deepened, dark and full of amusement.
A smile that belonged to the devil himself.
Even by the next day, there was still no reply from Lee Kangil.
If Kangil had at least cursed at him or shown irritation, Nahyuk would have felt better.
But his complete silence made it impossible to guess what he was thinking.
It seemed like the best course of action was to act shamelessly.
He decided—he would pretend the heart emoji never happened and just call Kangil, telling him he was coming to the lab.
After all, Yoon Noah’s heart could stop at any moment. There was no reason to hesitate.
Just as he was mustering the courage to make the call, his phone vibrated.
A call was coming in.
The screen displayed an embarrassingly childish nickname: “Old Witch.”
If Yoon Noah referred to someone as Old Witch…
“…His mother?”
Nahyuk hesitated before finally pressing the answer button.
Since he had decided to live as Yoon Noah, this was someone he would have to face sooner or later.
“H-hello…?”
A sharp voice immediately came through the speaker.
- Noah? Why are you answering so obediently today? That’s unusual.
Well, that made sense.
In the novel, Yoon Noah usually refused to pick up his parents’ calls, and even when he did, he never started with a polite “hello.”
It was more like—
“What do you want?”
“What?”
That was how he usually responded.
It wasn’t just because he was rude—Yoon Noah had always resented his parents for abandoning him so easily.
He wanted the freedom to live however he pleased, but at the same time, he also wanted everyone to accept him just as he was, no matter how unreasonable he acted.
It was an incredibly selfish desire.
And yet, in some ways, Nahyuk could understand him.