SRSBO: Chapter 22

“And Hyunwoo?”

“And Hyunwoo…….”

Han Siyoung spoke with a crying voice. To summarize, a new rookie Guide had arrived, and Yang Hyunwoo was kind to them. And the Guide seemed to have fallen for Yang Hyunwoo because of his kindness, and that’s what she was worried about.

“He’s just that kind of person. Hyunwoo probably isn’t interested in that way, so don’t worry too much.”

Yang Hyunwoo was kind and gentle by nature. Han Siyoung loved that side of him, but sometimes, she would feel anxious.

Being kind to everyone also meant that no one was special in his eyes.

“…Still, you never know. They’re a Guide too, after all.”

Han Siyoung furrowed her brows and nervously fiddled with her glass.

I glanced at Han Siyoung with a subtle gaze.

Han Siyoung accepted it as natural that Espers would instinctively feel affection for their Guides. She also believed that it was inevitable for their hearts to drift away because of it.

It was exhausting. If I date in the future, I’ll make sure to be with a non-awakened person. [T/N: Heh….]

“Just because the matching rate is high doesn’t mean everyone will fall in love with each other. And you know that, too. The matching rate increases the more the other person feels affection toward the Guide. You even told me recently that it was higher than before. Why are you so anxious?”

“Still…….”

Yang Hyunwoo and Han Siyoung had matching rates above average, but it wasn’t particularly high.

It was just slightly above average, and Han Siyoung would occasionally feel uneasy about it.

“If guiding automatically made someone fall in love, then Hyunwoo would have liked me, not you.”

“…… Are you adding fuel to the fire?”

“I’m just giving realistic comfort to a depressed friend.”

I lightly patted her shoulder in response to Han Siyoung’s sharp gaze.

Truth to be told, there’s nothing good about getting involved in a couple’s fight.

If it was something I could solve, that would be different, but this was an issue that I couldn’t interfere with unless I was directly involved. And if I were to defend Han Siyoung and criticize Yang Hyunwoo now-

“Hyunwoo was in the wrong. No matter what, he has a girlfriend, he should have handled things more appropriately.”

“No, that’s not it. In fact, Hyunwoo isn’t at fault at all. I’m just being overly sensitive. I can’t separate work from personal matters…..”

It would just lead to more of this kind of defense.

While I was comforting Han Siyoung like that, the number of bottles of liquor on the table exceeded 4. She had drunk all of them alone.

“Even if that Guide likes Hyunwoo, I won’t give him up! Alright? When else am I going to meet someone as kind and good as him in my life? Don’t you agree?!”

At this point, even the heavy drinker was drunk.

She held the spoon like it was a gavel and knocked on the table. I nodded with a resigned expression. Maybe I should just get drunk too. It might make things a little easier.

However, I was holding onto my wits tightly, thinking that I had to take the drunk Han Siyoung home.

Han Siyoung spoke up again.

“Look, Eujung, you need to understand too. Hyunwoo is such a good person… When I was worried because you were acting strange, Hyunwoo kept reassuring me, saying it was okay, and even made time to contact me regularly.”

“…I was acting strange?”

“Yeah…… You’ve been acting strange for the past year. Your personality has changed, like you’ve become a completely different person, and you don’t even contact your family! Do you know how worried your mother is about you? She said that you’ve often had problems with your memory since high school…….”

This time, Han Siyoung started lining up the glasses with different amounts of alcohol in front of her, as if she was thinking of making some kind of musical instrument out of them. Propping my chin on my hand, I watched her and then asked.

“So, you don’t like me anymore because I’ve changed?”

My throat felt perched. As I drank from the glasses Han Siyoung had lined up, it didn’t take long for her to respond.

“No… it’s not that. But you kind of remind me of Dr. Jekyll.”

[T/N: Dr. Henry Jekyll is a character from the novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The phrase “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is often used to describe someone with two contrasting personalities or behaviors.]

“What?”

“No, wait. It’s Mr. Hyde….. Anyway, contact home more often. At first, you said you were going to live leisurely at your family’s house, leaving all your friends behind and going down to the countryside. Then suddenly, you come back and don’t contact home?! Huh? Unlike our chaotic household, your family is so harmonious, including your parents and younger sister…..”

Han Siyoung seemed to be planning to say everything she wanted to say while she was drunk. As her words grew longer, my glass kept getting filled and emptied repeatedly.

It was almost 7 p.m. when we left the bar.

I ended up drinking more than usual.

When I was Amelia, no matter how much I drank, I never got drunk. But after returning as Kim Eujung, I had been holding back for fear that I might say things I shouldn’t if I got drunk.

‘Maybe I didn’t know, but I have a high tolerance.’

Unlike Han Siyoung, whose speech was slurring, my speech was clear and I had no problem walking.

I roughly lifted Han Siyoung and started to leave when I got a call from Yang Hyunwoo. I answered the phone and immediately gave him the address of the bar.

“Ms. Eujung!”

Not long after, Yang Hyunwoo got out of a taxi and hurried over. With a deeply worried expression, he checked on his girlfriend’s condition.

“Siyoung is drunk… How much did she drink?”

I waved my hand through the air, trying to disperse the lingering smell of alcohol, and replied,

“I don’t know. I stopped counting after she hit 7 bottles.”

“7 bottles?!”

I put Han Siyoung in the arms of Yang Hyunwoo, who looked beyond horrified. He suddenly raised his head and asked.

“Ms. Eujung, are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m not drunk.”

Yang Hyunwoo seemed worried that I might be drunk too, but when I assured him that I was fine, he lightly bowed his head and said he would leave first.

After sending the two of them off, I quickly called a taxi. I gave the address and sat in the back seat when suddenly, my phone started ringing.

“Hello.”

[Where are you, Sister? I think it’s getting late.]

Sister? Has Yuha grown this much already?

“I’m in a taxi.”

[…… Are you on your way? Do you know the address?]

“I’ve ordered takeaway to Kim Suhee’s house several times, why wouldn’t I know…….”

I closed my mouth, feeling something was strange.

I took a moment to collect my thoughts.

Come to think of it, it has been quite some time since the owner of the house I stayed at, Kim Suhee, has left the country.

No matter how much I thought about it, it was hard to believe that the person calling was a child of about 8 years old.

Wait, now that I think about it, the owner of the house I’m staying in right now…….

I pulled the phone away from my ear and checked the screen. The caller ID showed the name Joo Yunwoo.

“…… Huh?”

What? Where am I going now?

I held the phone to my ear and told the taxi driver that the address seemed to be wrong. A small sigh could be heard through the speaker.

I corrected the address to Joo Yunwoo’s place, and when I arrived at the officetel that I had become familiar with in the past few days, he was waiting outside to greet me.

“Sister, are you okay?”

“Yes, my friend is very drunk, but I’m fine.”

Though I felt a bit uneasy in my stomach from drinking too much, I still had no trouble walking.

I walked ahead of him to show that I was fine.

My throat was parched because I drank after a long time. As soon as I entered, I drank some water first, and Joo Yunoo only stared blankly at me.

His attitude was as if he had handed something dangerous to a child, so I shifted my gaze to my hand. It was just an ordinary glass cup.

“What happened?”

At Joo Yunwoo’s question, I quietly thought about what had happened today. I had gone to comfort a friend and get a free drink, but instead, I ended up getting scolded.

“Are you close with your family, Yunwoo?”

Joo Yunwoo’s eyes widened at my question.

I felt like my thoughts were shorter than usual. Without even realizing that he hadn’t answered yet, I immediately asked the next question.

“What would happen if your family didn’t recognize you?”

My mind was clear. It was too clear, which was the problem. The words that I would have normally kept inside poured out like a flood.

I couldn’t even register who the person in front of me was. What mattered was that he was neither Han Siyoung, nor someone I was acquainted with, and that was enough for me to start spilling out everything I had been holding in.

I started talking incoherently, as if I was confessing.

“I’m not on bad terms with my family…… but it’s a bit awkward. Even if they’re my parents, there’s no way they’d notice that their child has changed.”

The idea that parents can instantly recognize their child, no matter how much they change, is just an idealistic thought. It’s actually abnormal to assume that someone is completely different just because their personality has changed a little.

I was fully aware of that fact.

“Even though I knew, I still felt a little disappointed.”

Not long after I came back, I couldn’t afford to think like that. I was too busy trying to adjust to the changed circumstances and the world around me.

I just simply immersed myself in the warm embrace of my family, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, and did my best to be a good older sister to my younger sister.

There’s no smell of blood or rotting flesh here, and no one who had been laughing with me until the day before suddenly died.

I have no duty to save someone, no need to suffer under the weight of that responsibility. I didn’t have to tremble with the emptiness of having nowhere to return to, or the sense of reality gradually fading away.

While living as Amelia, I could never shake the feeling of being detached from the world.

Usually, protagonists who possessed another soul don’t care about where the original owner of the body went. I vaguely understood the reason.

Every action I took, every little thing I enjoyed, made me feel like they might not truly belong to me.

But that was the same even after I came here.

“Every time I thought that the daughter my mom loved might not actually be me, I felt a sense of alienation. That’s why I ran away.”

The warm embrace crumbled due to the sense of alienation that I had not considered. Because I realized that the Kim Eujung reflected in my mother’s eyes was not me, but Amelia.