"……'Please don't wake up.'"
Even in his hazy consciousness, Kwon Chae-woo had repeated those words several times.
The doctor walked down the empty corridor, repeatedly rubbing his chin. His deeply furrowed brows refused to smooth out.
"Director Kwon must be distressed seeing his brother in this state."
He stretched, cracking his lower back.
Ideally, receiving treatment at a large hospital would be much better, yet Director Kwon's order to send him back to that shabby house had a somewhat suspicious aspect to it.
Even so, he didn't pry. Though he was living a life no different from a caregiver in this distant region, the salary he received exceeded imagination.
"……Ah!"
At that moment, he stopped and snapped his fingers.
"I didn't mention that."
The aftereffects weren't limited to hypersomnia.
Sleeping Beauty syndrome.
In other words, Klein-Levin syndrome typically presented with behavioral abnormalities, excessive consumption, aggression, and symptoms of hypersexuality as well.
"Well... It should be fine today."
It's only one day, after all. What could possibly happen?
He yawned widely, utterly unconcerned.
* * *
That night.
"Hmm-hm-hm..."
Lee Yeon hummed a tune as she climbed the stairs once more.
A narrow escape. She had spent the day feeling like she had miraculously been rescued after trying to avoid the cruel man for a moment, only to fall into her own trap.
Right now, Lee Yeon had received contact from the medical staff that Kwon Chae-woo had been returned to the second floor, and she had come to see him to shake off her last bit of anxiety.
And when she entered the password and opened the door.
"……!"
She felt a sense of déjà vu.
"That bastard..."
Ding, ding, ding. The sound announcing midnight rang out.
To arborist So Lee Yeon, such an unpredictable plant was definitely a first.
The back door was shattered as if a car had rammed into it.
"Where on earth did this troublemaker go..."
Lee Yeon had been circling the dark unpaved road where old utility poles stood sparsely for over thirty minutes.
Should she just contact that person?
Kwon Chae-woo's older brother.
The 'Gap' in the written contract who had designated Lee Yeon as the 'Eul'.
She rubbed and rubbed the screen until her phone became glossy. But she didn't want to provide even a fingernail's worth of weakness to those people. She tied her long hair tightly and picked up her pace.
"Mr. Kwon Chae-woo!"
At her firm shout, the sleeping dogs bolted up and barked. Looking around as she searched the narrow neighborhood, Lee Yeon suddenly discovered strange traces.
A trajectory as if a large snake had crawled through.
"……Persistent."
A hollow laugh escaped her. Filled with certainty, she turned toward where the soil was disturbed.
As she walked, the sound of flapping wings grew closer. Thud, thud, flapping. Her heart pounded wildly with an ominous feeling.
And what she witnessed was—
"Mr. Kwon Chae-woo! P-put that down!"
Lee Yeon was horrified as she pointed to the chicken the man was holding.
However, Kwon Chae-woo was already chewing something with murky eyes. The jaw muscles bulging and relaxing from the force of his chewing were clearly visible.
When he spat out the raw flesh in his mouth with a "ptoo," Lee Yeon had to force down the sour bile rising in her throat. The rooster was already dead, its neck snapped.
She felt nauseous, but more than that, her hands trembled. Because the man standing languidly with blood on his lips was terrifying.
"You can barely move, so why did you come out..."
Lee Yeon tried to pretend to be worried.
The aggression of the powerless typically comes only from the tongue. Therefore, information manipulation or deception was the best and optimal method.
From then on, Lee Yeon desperately started watching for his reaction. To time the perfect moment to gather her lies.
"Go back. You shouldn't be here."
"……"
Then Kwon Chae-woo tossed the chicken and looked at Lee Yeon. The moment he shifted his interest was uncomfortably fast.
A man standing like a ghost in a place where even moonlight didn't reach.
Over 185cm, perhaps. He looked about two heads taller than Lee Yeon. His sleeves, legs, and stomach were stained with dirt from crawling and walking on the ground.
As his clothes fluttered in the sudden breeze, his gaunt silhouette was helplessly revealed.
With a dazed mind, Lee Yeon thought of the dragon blood tree on Socotra Island, Yemen.
The blood tree.
It was a bizarre tree that secreted sap like blood from its body.
Two years ago when she first saw Kwon Chae-woo, or a month ago when she was trapped beneath him. And even at this very moment, the man always came with blood.
"……Mr. Kwon Chae-woo."
"Name."
"Pardon?"
"What is your name."
An emotionless gaze rested on her. Quiet eyes with only sparks flying showed no sign of revealing their depths.
'I mustn't get dragged in.'
Lee Yeon spun her thoughts furiously.
However, she wasn't the only one with an impatient nature.
"Where on earth have you been."
"Pardon?"
Lee Yeon, having her lead stolen, answered in surprise.
"The only face I can somewhat remember is yours."
"……"
"The door won't open."
He murmured in a low voice. Ignorance resembling innocence swirled in his hazy pupils.
The second-floor door that Lee Yeon used was originally designed not to open from the inside.
In other words, it meant that to find Lee Yeon, he had mangled the back door like a rice ball and crawled on the floor. Recalling that series of events, her throat constricted with a flinch.
As you can see, Kwon Chae-woo is not normal. However, the man who woke up after ten days and two days was a mess of sweat, blood, and dirt. There clearly seemed to be gaps to exploit.
A signal that this might be the last chance. Instinctively, a green light turned on. This was the timing to cross.
"I... I don't understand what you mean."
At Lee Yeon's feigned ignorance, the man slowly tilted his head. A deep shadow formed on his forehead, split sharply by the character '天'.
"Perhaps you had a long, long dream."
"……"
"I'm the doctor taking care of Mr. Kwon-"
Her voice grew smaller with the intentional omission.
"This is the village headman's farm, so it's best to leave quickly. That... chicken, I'll compensate for it properly."
The man watched Lee Yeon's lips moving busily with a slightly distorted expression.
"Mr. Kwon Chae-woo, you know you've only been sleeping, right? Before that, you couldn't even wake up for a long time because you were sick. Your head must be in complete disarray."
"……"
"But don't worry. Everything will be a dream."
She emphasized with strength.
"Seeing illusions and hearing strange sounds is all your brain playing tricks. Sleep a bit more and wake up. Then you'll feel at ease."
But Lee Yeon had overlooked something. That innocent plan to dismiss everything as a dream was itself a foolish dream.
"A dream."
The man was slowly licking his lips stained with chicken blood.
"Certainly."
He gestured with his chin toward Lee Yeon's lower body.
"If that was real, you wouldn't even be able to stand like this."
She found it strange but lowered her head to examine her legs. Then a quiet voice pulled at the crown of Lee Yeon's head.
"Because all throughout my sleep, I only dreamed of having sex."
"……!"
"With a woman called my wife."
"……"
"I kept going in and out between your legs."
She almost screamed instead of the dead chicken. She had certainly steeled herself, but his simple words froze her mind solid.
"So I'm not confused."
"……"
"Rather, I remember correctly."
At those words, Lee Yeon reflexively stepped backward.
Did that mean he remembered everything, including what happened in the back mountain? She didn't let her guard down.
"I have a wife."
"……"
"Yet she has the audacity to try to run away."
"……!"
"Right now, before my eyes."
Kwon Chae-woo approached with large strides, yet at a speed that was never fast. As he pointed out, Lee Yeon wanted to run away madly. Her legs twitched as if she would kick off the ground right this moment.
She had certainly intended to set a trap, so why did it feel like she was the one caught in the snare, unable to escape.
When he came close enough to touch if she reached out, Lee Yeon finally realized.
"Did you want to abandon me completely because your husband turned out to be more of a cripple than you thought?"
He is no fool.
"Name. I don't like asking three times."
"……It's So Lee Yeon."
Her lips were forced open by an invisible grip.
"So Lee Yeon. Lee Yeon."
Perhaps because of the blood glossing his mouth area, Kwon Chae-woo swallowed her name deep in his throat as if savoring it.
"Why are you trying to back out. Did I become useless because I couldn't function as a person?"
Something had gone terribly wrong. Something sticky was wrapping around her ankles. Whether it was the chill of shackles, the gravity of a swamp, or a beast's tail, Lee Yeon was clearly sensing a danger signal right now.
"Mr. Kwon Chae-woo, that's not—"
"Not?"
Now the situation had completely reversed.
Lee Yeon wiggled only her toes with the feeling of a wife truly being interrogated. Still, she had to put out the immediate fire, so she barely managed to squeeze out an excuse.