NOVEL NEXT chapter 386
386. Confession (2)
Knock, knock, knock—
The night the order was decided.
I heard a knock at my door.
Honestly.
The sight of a curious cat knocking at the door in the middle of the night made me chuckle.
Creak—
“I told you to see me tomorrow. You came all this way?”
Ichika, the first chosen by the lottery.
“… Benefactor.”
When I opened the door, Ichika’s eyes were filled with worry, unlike her usual expressionless face.
“No bad thoughts.”
“…Bad thoughts?”
I looked at Ichika with puzzled eyes.
“… What Benefactor said in a state of oblivion, I can forget it if you tell me to. I can erase it from my dreams.”
Honestly.
Since we were about to share personal and private stories, it seemed her thoughts had drifted back to that.
“That video you guys prepared for me this time. I was truly grateful.”
“… Yeah.”
“How should I explain this? Hmm, it’s probably different from what you expect, Ichika.”
“Different?”
Ichika stared at me, our eyes meeting.
I pondered for a moment.
Whether it was right to confide in Ichika here.
Shin Sehee had said that this confession should be remembered as a special moment for everyone.
It had to be a time to reaffirm trust and affection, not simply untangle a misunderstanding.
But, was my room really the place to rush through this explanation?
“Benefactor?”
Ichika tilted her head slightly.
‘No, the place doesn’t matter to Ichika.’
Firming my resolve, I took her hand.
“Ichika.”
“Hmm.”
“Instead of standing here, how about we talk in my dreamscape?”
“You and me, Benefactor? You’re asking to sleep together? And it’s okay to delve into your inner self?”
“…”
She’s technically right, but Ichika always chooses words that are…awkward to answer.
I chuckled and nodded.
“Yes, let’s sleep together. In one bed.”
She’s the one who blurted it out, why is her face flushing?
I took her hesitating hand and led her to my bed.
* * *
The next morning.
When Ichika opened her eyes to the sunlight seeping through the window, Jin Yuha was already gone.
‘Morning training…’
Still drifting in a dreamlike daze, Ichika recalled the dream she had the night before.
*
In the space Jin Yuha had invited her into, within his subconscious, Ichika could see everything about him.
The secrets he’d hidden, the truth, his past.
No, in this case, should it be called his past life?
It didn’t really matter.
“…Easter Egg.”
Her Benefactor in his previous life was engrossed in some mobile phone game within a cramped, single room, barely three pyeong in size.
And the world within that game was astonishingly similar to this one.
Over his shoulder, on that palm-sized screen, Ichika saw Lee Yuri, Shin Sehee, Kang Dohee…
Besides, he could see the other party members and the people of the Academy.
Except, not himself.
‘…I’m not there?’
Indeed.
He was nowhere to be found within the game world that Jin Yuha from his past life played.
A wave of melancholy washed over him.
“Was I such an unimportant character, then?”
A pang of disappointment struck him at that very moment.
A familiar location appeared on the screen.
[Jukai Forest]
And there, lying in the forest, was a character that looked exactly like him.
When Jin Yuha from his past life lightly tapped the girl with his finger,
[‘Suspicious Girl’ – Doesn’t seem to have been dead for long.]
a message popped up on the screen.
From then on, the benefactor continued to face the same scene.
– Is this not it? Hmm…
– Then this time, let’s go with the C route.
– No, if I do it like this here?
The benefactor was trying every possibility to save the suspicious girl.
Forcing artifacts that increased vitality on her, or casting healing magic.
Combining the initial character with other characters to try out strategies,
Or starting all over from the beginning and changing the choices.
Searching through the game’s community forums all night to gather information.
Each time he tried something and failed, a line was scribbled next to it on the memo pad,
and a new note appeared below.
That series of efforts.
The moon rose and the morning sun dawned from the window outside the screen, but he didn’t stop.
It felt like a descent into madness.
Those countless attempts only ceased on the dawn of the fifth day.
– Tch, she really must be an Easter egg, but is it impossible to save her? I’ve inquired on the website, but no answer returns, so what is this now…
Eunin pressed hard on her tired eyes, tilting her head in frustration.
– Ha, my vacation’s ending today. I really wanted to save her before then… The only thing left is to whale harder on the gacha and collect every single item…
Eunin then checked her bank balance on her phone, her lips forming a pout.
– Haa, being broke is a crime. I guess I’ll try again later, when I’ve made more money…
And so, the attempt to save the mysterious girl ultimately failed.
Watching this, Ichika felt a churning sensation in her gut.
“Ichika.”
Just then, a warm body embraced her from behind.
Even without turning around, she immediately knew who it was.
This was within Eunin’s memories.
Only one other person besides herself could exist here.
“No matter how hard I try to save you, it doesn’t work… It really is a trash game, isn’t it?”
Jinyuha’s voice was trying to sound casual, but the tremble within couldn’t be concealed.
She seemed afraid of how Ichika would take it.
Ichika smiled softly, gently stroking the arms that embraced her from behind.
“Eunin, thank you.”
“…Huh? For what?”
“You saved me, Eunin.”
“But I failed?”
“Eunin, thanks to you, I’m alive here. If it wasn’t for you, I would have died in the Jukai Forest, just like in that game.”
That’s right.
Even if Eunin had failed in her previous life, the current Eunin had succeeded.
As a result, she was alive here, together with Jinyuha.
That this world was, in fact, a game?
That Eunin’s true identity was someone who had transmigrated?
None of it mattered to her.
It was only important that Eunin in her previous life had wanted to save her this much,
That she had put in so much effort,
And that she had succeeded in saving her by entering the actual game.
With that, Ichika’s heart melted.
Then, Jin Yu-ha asked, his voice tinged with awkwardness.
“But, my face in the past was different from now… Perhaps, you weren’t disappointed?”
“No, not at all.”
Ichika shook her head.
Frankly speaking, the appearance of her past benefactor was, comparatively, lacking compared to his current self.
Now, he was… how should she put it?
Like a meticulously sculpted work of art, one almost hesitant to touch.
Whereas her benefactor in the past had possessed a warm, endearing face.
‘Still…he was handsome. Or, would ‘cute’ be more accurate?’
Was this what it meant to see with rose-tinted glasses?
She could confidently say that even if Jin Yu-ha had always possessed this face, she would still have fallen for him.
And, oddly enough, there wasn’t a sense of dissonance.
As if she had been seeing it all along.
Ah.
“Your eyes.”
“…Eyes?”
“Yes, your eyes are the same. And your expressions, your way of speaking too.”
That’s right.
Even if his appearance had changed, Jin Yu-ha at this moment was still Jin Yu-ha, a person who always gave his best to everything he did.
He was exactly as she remembered him.
Weren’t those the very aspects she had fallen for?
Suddenly.
Ichika felt a tightening in a corner of her heart.
“Benefactor, I’m so happy.”
A radiant smile bloomed on her lips.
Jin Yu-ha, gazing silently down at her…
Pulled her into an even tighter embrace.
And so, Ichika spent the entire day exploring her memories, learning everything about Jin Yu-ha.
And then, she woke up.
“…Benefactor.”
Ichika stared blankly at the empty bed beside her.
It was then.
*Ting-a-ling—♬*
“…?”
A message had arrived.
Upon checking, it was Ga-eul.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
【WarmAutumnWeather】 – Chika, hey, would you happen to know what Yuha said…? Or, if you could let me experience it in a dream…? I’ll pay anything!!!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Starting with that message, personal messages began flooding in from others, one after another.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
【NotGukbap】 – Um, Ichika…? Perhaps still sleeping?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
【FistsOfFire】 – Let me hear what Nureongi told you, too.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
【MyDiscipleJinYuha】 – Has there been anything unusual with my disciple?
────────────────
【DieByTheSwordLiveByTheSword】 – Ichika Senior, a senior is one who is ahead of you in the same field in terms of status, age, learning, experience, etc.… [See More]
────────────────
*Ting-a-ling—♬ Ting-a-ling—♬ Ting-a-ling—♬ Ting-a-ling—♬ Ting-a-ling—♬ Ting-a-ling—♬*
Message notifications ringing out in quick succession.
After a moment of hesitation, Ichika resolutely sent a reply.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
【Ichika】 – The benefactor will tell you themselves. Don’t ask me.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
She shook her head.
Loving the same person and sharing memories with her party members.
She knew well how special a thing that was, how special a relationship.
And until now, Ichika had never had any complaints about sharing memories together within such a relationship.
But, this… she did not want to share.
This time, desire bloomed within her.
A greedy yearning to gaze upon this precious memory for a long, long time, and to keep it locked away for herself alone.
‘Only me, and my benefactor. Just a story for the two of us.’
Ichika burrowed deeper into the blankets where Jin Yuha had lain.
She inhaled his lingering scent, closing her eyes in the hopes of reliving the dream from the night before.