Episode 2
Though his tone was still somewhat sharp, I-jae asked as if he were truly curious.
“I wrote it in the documents I submitted as well, but my grade when measured at the Municipal Guide Center three years ago was F.”
“Three years is quite a long time ago. Your grade could have gone up since then….”
“No. I was serving in the military at the time, so there was obviously no way my grade would rise in such a short period. In Seongun, where S-grade guides overflow, to go out of your way for an F-grade……. Not to mention, I can’t understand why you would ask this of a male guide.”
Go-eun, who had been listening quietly to I-jae’s words, fell into thought, wondering where and how she should begin explaining.
*He gives off such good energy right now…* No, saying that sounds like I’m some kind of Taoist believer. No, but it’s true!
Do Espers normally turn into perverts the moment they have a guide in front of them?
Go-eun felt like she would go crazy with how badly she wanted to touch Seo I-jae, who was still clutching her sleeve. If only she could grab those large hands just once, this churning feeling in her stomach would surely settle. Her head was filled with nothing but thoughts of wanting to touch Seo I-jae.
How could someone with this clear, pristine energy be F-grade? It was unbelievable. Right now, she wanted to drag Seo I-jae off to take a matching test immediately.
It had already been two weeks since she learned of Seo I-jae’s existence and began searching for him. Though she had only just now discovered his whereabouts, Go-eun had spent the past month learning everything there was to know about I-jae.
However, explaining her circumstances in detail was impossible, as this was practically a first meeting from I-jae’s perspective.
On top of that, how could she possibly say: “Actually, I’m someone who possessed the web novel I was reading, and this character is the younger sister of the original female lead who dies in three months because she lacks a pair guide, and simultaneously a supporting character necessary for the female lead’s ability awakening, so I need you!” … Not only was it long-winded, but she would obviously be seen as a crazy woman.
“Th-that… I, I’ll die without you, I-jae!”
“What?”
Had she gone too far? For some reason, I-jae’s gaze turned icy.
“All the applicants had the worst matching rates. At this rate, I’m really going to die, I’m telling you!”
“…So why exactly are you saying you’ll die?”
Surprised by Go-eun’s sudden change in attitude, I-jae’s eyes widened. If Go-eun were a car, she would have crashed into any storefront with that attitude. A woman who told someone she had just met that she would die without him—this was a type he had never seen or heard of before.
“It’s because that special recruitment notice was posted to recruit my pair guide!”
“Ah……. Then you’re that S-grade Esper ‘E.go’?”
“Yes, that’s me! I’m that S-grade Esper written in the notice, the one desperately searching for a pair guide!”
Now she felt like she was about to cry. Feeling her vision blur, Go-eun gripped I-jae’s sleeve tighter and pulled at it wildly. Though she was much smaller than I-jae, his large body, caught by her, shook mercilessly. Thanks to that, the bag he was holding fell to the floor.
“Seo I-jae, please be my pair guide, okay? If you need money, I’ll give you everything, please, please!”
Go-eun’s tear-soaked wail filled the café.
* * *
‘…I’m screwed.’
The first thought upon opening her eyes was: *Life is truly unpredictable, just like pumpkin taffy.*
Seeing a white ceiling and smelling a sharp alcohol scent, she guessed this was a hospital. And Go-eun naturally recalled the sandwich she had eaten at dawn. It seemed that sandwich was what had created this situation.
The sandwich’s expiration date had been until 20:00 yesterday. But she had kept watch over it without sleeping, so she thought it would be fine—a strange notion that eventually led to disaster.
That’s right. Go-eun had watched the expired sandwich for a whopping six hours before wolfing it down.
And exactly one hour later, suffering from tremendous abdominal pain, she had broken into a bucketful of cold sweat in a room with the air conditioner blasting. She was the possessor of an iron stomach, having never gotten sick from food even once in her entire life. How could that reputation crumble in an instant because of a single sandwich, after twenty-seven years?
At first, she thought she could endure it. So she foolishly clutched her stomach and tried to bear it, but as time passed, her back bent like a shrimp, and her blanket became drenched with sweat.
*Oh no, I’m dying. Someone save Go-eun!*
Eventually, Go-eun struggled to call 119. It was the first time in her twenty-seven years of life that she had called an ambulance. She had been taken to one before after getting injured during a match, but this was the first time she had called for one because of a stomach illness fromsomething she ate.
After rolling around wailing from the stomach pain for a while, Go-eun lost consciousness right before the paramedics arrived. She worried that perhaps, before even reaching the hospital, the heaven-and-earth-shaking event inside her stomach would cause an “Open sesame, anus!” incident.
And now. Opening her eyes, she was in a hospital. So Go-eun had no choice but to think she had come to the ER because of an upset stomach. But this guess was completely wrong.
Just as Go-eun, lying stock-still in bed and rolling her eyes every which way, was slowly trying to raise her body—
“Goeun-ah, are you awake?”
A woman she was seeing for the first time held Go-eun’s bony hand tightly, her own eyes brimming with tears.
*The hand is so pale and small…….*
Go-eun looked at her own hand and was so startled that she jerked upright.
“…What, why is my hand so small?”
Surprised by the voice that came out of her mouth, she covered her own mouth with that small hand.
*What’s with my voice?*
It was a series of confusions. Come to think of it, her body somehow felt lighter, too. One thing was certain: this body was definitely not the one she had used for twenty-seven years.
“Goeun-ah, you’ve been lying down for a long time. You’ll get dizzy if you get up like this.”
“M-mirror. Do you have a mirror?”
Go-eun asked for a mirror in a trembling voice. The unfamiliar woman who knew Go-eun’s name looked at her curiously and took out a hand mirror from her bag, handing it to her.
It wasn’t strange that she was in a hospital, since she had called 119. But the room Go-eun was lying in was not the ER; it was an incredibly luxurious private room no matter where she looked.
Moreover, to a degree that seemed excessive for a food poisoning patient, the bedside was filled with unfamiliar machines, and IV bags hung in clusters from an IV stand. She couldn’t help but gasp at the sight. Even when she had knee surgery, it hadn’t been to this extent.
And this woman sitting right next to her—she seemed to know her name, yet Go-eun had no memory of her at all.
Go-eun took the mirror from the woman with trembling hands.
“…Crazy.”
“Goeun-ah, why are you suddenly cursing……. Are you hurting somewhere again?”
*…Who are you?*
Go-eun looked at her reflection in the mirror and opened her mouth wide in shock. Inside the mirror, a young woman with a face she had never seen in her life was staring back with surprised eyes.
Can a person’s face change in an instant, just like that? It wasn’t as if magic had been cast.
But looking at the hospital machines lined up everywhere, this didn’t seem to be a world rampant with magic. Which meant, regardless of how, this place was reality.
*I came to the hospital for food poisoning, so it’s not like I got my face completely changed in some unexpected accident.*
Go-eun recalled a female protagonist from some movie who enjoyed a 180-degree changed life after full-body plastic surgery. But that hypothesis was invalid because recovery wouldn’t be possible in such a short time.
Moreover, it wasn’t just her face that was strange. Her entire body was too small and skinny—to the point of wondering if a person could even be this small. Go-eun looked down at her wrist and gasped. A large IV needle was stuck in an arm that looked like nothing but skin and bones.
*Could it be……. No way…….*
It was truly absurd, but it might be that trendy thing these days.
“U-um….”
“Goeun-ah, you’re acting so strange today. Are you hurting right now?”
“No, I’m totally fine right now. I mean, that’s not it……. Um, what is your name, by any chance?”
When Go-eun cautiously asked her name, the woman made a shocked expression. Go-eun felt strangely sorry.
“You?”
“No, I mean, it’s just that, I know this sounds like something you’d misunderstand, but please don’t misunderstand.”
“…Did you forget your sister’s name too?”
*…Sister?*
No way. For real. Really?
Go-eun looked at the woman with wide eyes, as if she couldn’t believe it.
“Don’t tell me……. Your name isn’t I Na-eun, is it?”
“Goeun-ah, what’s really wrong with you. You’re making your sister sad.”
“Is your name really I Na-eun?”
“Yes, that’s right. I Na-eun. Goeun-ah, why are you suddenly acting like this? Is it amnesia or something?”
*Oh, my God.*
Having heard the woman’s answer, Go-eun screamed internally. Only now did she realize the oddity that her own name was I Go-eun.
“Then uh……. Are you an S-grade guide?”
Go-eun barely held back from cringing as the words left her mouth. To actually utter the term “S-grade guide” in real life. It was a cringeworthy moment.
“What are you talking about. Your sister definitely told you she reached B-grade last time……. No, this won’t do. Goeun-ah, I’ll bring the doctor. Wait a moment, okay?”
Na-eun, who had been watching Go-eun with a worried gaze, looked like she was about to cry at any moment. With tears dangling in her large eyes, Na-eun gently brushed Go-eun’s hair aside and hurriedly left the room.
“Wow, hold on. Your name is ‘I Na-eun’ and you’re an ‘S-grade guide’? Then did I just… do that thing?”
Go-eun, as if she couldn’t believe it, looked into the hand mirror Na-eun had given her again. No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t understand this situation.
“…Possession, or something?”
Into that guide-genre web novel she had been reading while eating that problematic sandwich yesterday? And of all things…….
“A character who dies early in the serial?”
Go-eun, who had been muttering to herself, soon began to laugh like a madwoman.
“I must be crazy!”