The Room That Waited for Me

When I snapped back to my senses at his call, I saw that the ground beneath where we were standing was being cleaned away, as if it were tracing its way back into the past.

It was within a radius of about one meter.

“Let’s try moving.”

When I suggested it after seeing that, Hyeon Jaeyul nodded and took a step with me.

“It follows us when we move, and the parts we pass return to how they were.”

“What happens if we split up? Jaeyul, let go of my hand for a second.”

“It’s dangerous.”

After walking a little, we confirmed that the phenomenon moved exactly as we did.

I wanted to check whether it was following Hyeon Jaeyul, following me, or only occurring when the two of us were together.

I tried to slip out of his arm around my shoulders and move away, but Hyeon Jaeyul didn’t let go of my hand.

“It’s just a little distance. It’ll be fine.”

“No.”

Hyeon Jaeyul refused stubbornly.

If it had been a simple refusal, I might have gotten annoyed enough to pull away anyway, but his face looked anxious about something.

In the end, I couldn’t put even a single step between us and stayed pressed close to him.

He looked so uneasy that it was hard to force his hand away.

So, for various reasons, all I could do was look around while staying tightly at Hyeon Jaeyul’s side, our hands clasped.

We walked, watching as the world reverted to its past form only as far as we moved.

After walking for a while, one house stood out among the rows of identical buildings.

Compared to the others, it was far more deteriorated on the outside.

Weeds were thick, and the low fence had almost completely collapsed, making it hard to imagine what it once looked like.

But unlike the other houses, there was a bench in front of the door, large enough for three people to sit on.

That bench, too, was buried under weeds and vines, its shape barely recognizable.

Still, it was a clear anomaly that didn’t exist elsewhere, so I tugged firmly on the hand I was holding with Hyeon Jaeyul.

“Look over there. That house. Let’s go inside.”

Hyeon Jaeyul turned his head toward the house I pointed at.

Letting go of my hand seemed unacceptable to him, but entering together posed no problem.

He nodded quietly.

As we drew closer to the house, the space around us once again shifted into its past state.

The overgrown weeds vanished, and a neatly tended garden appeared beneath our feet.

I crossed the garden, watching the transformation in fascination.

When we reached the door, Hyeon Jaeyul moved me slightly behind him and placed his hand on the door.

And just as he tried to turn the doorknob with force, a high, piercing alarm blared across the entire village.

The instant the sound rang out, Hyeon Jaeyul released the knob and scooped me up with one arm.

“It’s reacting because we’re trying to open the door, right?”

Cradled in his arms, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and asked.

He nodded, his brow faintly furrowed.

The shrill siren continued to rise in pitch.

At first it was barely tolerable, but as time passed, my head began to throb violently with dizziness.

The sound was far too loud for me.

Hyeon Jaeyul seemed to sense how unbearable it was becoming and looked at me with concern.

I let out a strained sound, curled in on myself, and pressed my hands hard over my ears.

Even so, the noise continued to vibrate painfully inside my head.

I wanted to find the source of the sound and smash it to pieces right then and there.

When I started breaking out in a cold sweat from the noise, Hyeon Jaeyul grew visibly agitated.

Because the alarm had sounded the moment he tried to open the door, he moved us outside the garden and set me down.

The moment he released me from his arms, I collapsed to the ground.

Hyeon Jaeyul crouched down with me and lightly tapped the back of the hand I was using to cover my ears.

‘I’ll go deal with the sound. Wait here for a bit.’

Without pulling my hands away from my ears, he mouthed the words silently.

‘Do you know where it’s coming from?’

‘Roughly. I’ll be back soon.’

He looked deeply uneasy about leaving me here, but he also knew that if he went closer to the source, my ears might rupture.

When I nodded, Hyeon Jaeyul quickly disappeared toward what looked like the center of the village.

Perhaps because he could enhance his body, he moved at a speed no normal human could ever match.

‘It’s so loud….’

I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again, belatedly realizing that I was alone.

I hadn’t gotten a good look when Hyeon Jaeyul ran off, but it didn’t seem like the space around him had changed.

In contrast, everything around me remained firmly reverted to the past.

It felt like I was the focal point for the restoration.

‘Ah… if I’m the trigger, should I have opened the door instead?’

Clutching my ears as if they were bleeding, I thought it over.

Unsteadily, I forced myself upright and crossed the garden alone.

Maybe the alarm was a response to Hyeon Jaeyul trying to open the door.

If I assumed we were still inside the apocalypse simulation…

Hyeon Jaeyul would be back soon, but with the siren screaming endlessly, it was hard to think straight.

I wanted to stop the noise immediately.

The short distance to the front door felt unbearably long.

By the time I reached it, I could barely keep myself standing.

To open the door, I had to take my hands off my ears, but my body wouldn’t respond easily.

I took a deep breath, quickly dropped my hands, and opened the door.

The door opened smoothly.

In that moment, I didn’t even consider the possibility of danger inside.

Unlike the deafening outside, the interior of the house seemed eerily quiet.

As if entranced, I stepped inside.

The instant I took one step into the house, the blaring alarm cut off abruptly.

‘Did Jaeyul handle it?’

When I cautiously leaned my head back out, the siren blared again, so I hurriedly pulled myself back inside.

It was only quiet inside the house.

With no better option, I leaned against the wall near the door.

I planned to wait here until Hyeon Jaeyul returned.

But this house….

I peeled myself away from the wall I’d been leaning on without thinking.

The sentences written all over the wall, barely visible beneath peeling wallpaper, felt familiar.

[No individual required for the main scenario is nearby. Switching to sub-scenario.]

[Sub Scenario ‘@2. Go Doya – A Certain Beauty’]

“Go Doya said she was waiting to discover beauty.”

“Beauty…

Is that something like love?”

(They fall into thought.)

“It could be love, but there must be something even more beautiful than that.”

“What would that be?”

“Something beyond what we can imagine.”

“When Go Doya comes…will we be able to understand it too?”

This was the house I used to live in.

The familiar sentences seized my attention.

Tracing the wall with my hand, I moved forward.

There was something I needed to remember.

Something like the reason I was born.

I had a premonition that I might be able to recall it here.

The interior of the house felt familiar, but not remembered.

Maybe it only felt that way because the walls were covered in writing.

I spotted the staircase leading to the second floor and headed toward it.

The wooden steps were cracked in places, but as I reached them, they reverted to their past state within about a one-meter radius.

When I reached the second floor, I realized something strange about this house.

Unlike a normal home, there was no hallway upstairs.

There was just a single door standing alone.

Rather than a room in a house, it looked like a tomb built for someone.

It felt like if I opened the door, there would be a coffin inside.

I had climbed all the way up here in a daze, as if possessed by something, and only then did I come back to my senses.

‘…When did I even come up here?’

Wanting to escape the eerie space, I turned around.

And the moment I did, something grotesque filled my entire field of vision, as if it had been pressed right up against my back.

I was so shocked that I couldn’t even scream.

Frozen stiff, unable to make a sound, I stared at it.

It was a pitch-black shape of indeterminate form.

It resembled a human, but its entire body was black like a shadow.

The reason I knew it was facing me, despite having no facial features, was because it raised a hand toward me and pointed at the door.

Blocking my path downward, it seemed to want me to enter the room.

…Either push through this unknown thing and go down, or go into the room.

I had to choose.

I cautiously extended my hand first, to see if I could touch the black shape.

My hand passed straight through it.

It was nothing more than an apparition.

At least I confirmed it couldn’t physically harm me.

‘Then the choice is obvious. I go down.’

I ignored the shape and tried to head downstairs, but—

“What? Why isn’t it changing?”

The objects that had been reverting to the past around me remained old and broken.

I was so clumsy that my athletic ability was basically zero.

If I skipped even a few steps, I could clearly envision myself tumbling forward and smashing my face into the floor.

Suspecting the black shape was the cause, I looked back.

It was still pointing at the door.

I thought I had options, but I didn’t.

“Fine. I’ll go in.”

I muttered, pushing my lips out in a sulk.

Standing at the top of the stairs, I let out a sigh and opened the door.

A familiar room came into view.

It was a simple room with only a bed inside.

Aside from the words written on the ceiling, everything in the room was stark white.

It must have been the room I lived in as a child, but it didn’t feel like a room meant for living.

There was no window, no desk, no chair.

“How did anyone even live in a room like this?”

It felt like anyone, not just me, would lose their sanity after spending only a few days here.

I took a few steps toward the bed placed in the center of the room like a coffin.