Delusive Fate

#064

Coming out of my daze, I raised my head to see a strange guy sitting across from me. This guy, who looked like a squashed pizza bun, was pouring water into a new cup.

I realized my mistake. I had forgotten I was outside. Tsk, I clicked my tongue involuntarily. The habit of ordering my slave around at home had slipped out in public. As they say, bad habits are quick to form – it seems bossing Ki Baek-woo around has already become second nature. I really am an idiot.

“Here’s your water, hyung.”

The squashed pizza bun that Seo Hee-ju had brought along, introducing him as his new boyfriend, offered me the cup with an awkward smile that made me want to vomit. I snatched the cup without replying and gulped it down.

As I drank, I glanced around. I remembered Ham Yun-ah’s excited chatter as she dragged me here: “This is the hottest spot in A District right now. The community reviews say the pork cutlet is insanely good.” True to her words, the place was packed with people everywhere. The interior was stylishly decorated with steel and white paint, unlike a typical pork cutlet restaurant.

Pizza Bun sat there against the backdrop of the bustling restaurant. His annoying eyes slowly scanned me.

“The way you drink… Unlike your first impression, you’ve got charisma, hyung. But then again, giving orders seems to suit you well. Hahaha.”

Seeing this bastard’s gaze that put me in a foul mood reminded me that now wasn’t the time to be lost in thoughts about Ki Baek-woo.

Right, this bastard. The one who looks like he’s been trampled by a herd of buffalo. This guy who suddenly appeared clinging to Seo Hee-ju’s side had bothered me from the moment I first saw him. It was a different kind of unpleasantness from my general dislike of all living humans. This unsettling feeling that something was off.

There’s definitely something, but why can’t I pinpoint it? I narrowed my eyes and stared intently at him.

“If you keep staring at me like that… I don’t know where to put myself, hyung. I’m weak to beautiful people. Hahahahaha!”

This ugly bastard is talking nonsense. Not realizing his own hideous appearance, he keeps calling me beautiful as a backhanded insult. I want to kill him. I rubbed my cheek with my middle finger, even though it wasn’t itchy, trying to jog my memory.

I’m someone who has lived the same time period twenty-five times. The time given from the point of regression to my death is just over a year. I could confidently say I knew everything that would happen during that time. This is a world inside a game where everything is already designed. Although tiny details might change depending on my actions, the major events and flow set for the ending never change.

Even though this Ki Baek-woo is acting strangely, he has already kissed Jung Yi-dam and been swept into a double dungeon during a raid.

And the group message room that Kim Jin-oh created recently is the same. While Kim Jin-oh and two others giggled about us being grouped together as a team, I anticipated that I wouldn’t go to that gate. My guess was correct, and on the morning of the raid, Yun-ah and I received a message from the Center as usual. It said our team members had been changed and we didn’t need to come in. Just as I knew it would be.

Events that are meant to happen will happen without fail. Whether I starve to death, get hit by a car, or get murdered. Just like Lee Han-sol will die one way or another in the end. That’s the truth of this damn world.

Me, knowing everything. If someone like me feels this uncomfortable upon seeing a stranger, it’s a warning from twenty-five experiences. An instinctive signal to be wary because this bastard and I are likely to get entangled in something unpleasant. While it might not be deeply etched in my memory as it’s just a side story to the main event of Ki Baek-woo and Jung Yi-dam screwing me over, it means he’s a bastard best avoided.

So this guy called Moon Kyung-chan sitting across from me, giggling with Seo Hee-ju, was clearly an asshole. But I just can’t remember why…

“Honey, I told you. Han-sol hyung is our pride and light. A District has a few flashy S-class hunters, right? But for us, Han-sol hyung is everything. Without hyung, it’s hell.”

“Beautiful people flock together, they say. Yun-ah noona is like that, and so is hyung. Seems like everyone around our Hee-ju is pretty. Hahahaha!”

I quietly observed as Seo Hee-ju, Moon Kyung-chan, and Ham Yun-ah cackled, openly mocking me. I felt like crap, but not enough to flip the table. Comments about being pretty or having a radiant face… I was so used to such mockery that it was almost boring.

“Why are you so pretty?”, “He looks so delicate, it’s hard to give him tough jobs”, “Thanks to Han-sol, our eyes have been opened”, “Thanks to Han-sol, we’re not inferior to A District”, and so on and so forth.

Only the naive first Lee Han-sol would have been fooled by such teasing and thought, “Everyone says I’m cool, I must really be handsome. Yay.” It didn’t take long for me to realize it was all mockery. After all, if I were that much of a king-ka, I wouldn’t be treated as a disposable item like this. Handsome men aren’t common enough to be wasted like that. Through such rational reasoning, I achieved perfect self-objectification.

Since then, even if all sorts of people shouted “Lee Han-sol’s face is the best!” with the hidden meaning of “Rotten dog food Lee Han-sol! How dare you think of sticking around the world’s strongest handsome hunter Ki Baek-woo when you look like an orc chief. Lee Han-sol, whose very existence is a nuisance and vomit-inducer, should be executed immediately!”, I remained indifferent. Let them say what they want. As I’ve said many times, I’m not a loser who denies the truth. Moreover, I’m also someone who judges the appearance of anyone I see and thinks everyone looks like shit, so I have nothing to feel wronged about.

Yeah, I don’t get angry at such mockery. What makes me angry is something else.

“You really shouldn’t judge people by rumors. Everyone says they don’t understand Ki Hunter’s past, but if they saw hyung in person, they’d understand right away- Ow!”

“Honey, are you crazy? What nonsense are you spouting at our first meeting? If I knew you’d be like this, I would never have brought you. Can’t you watch your mouth?”

“Hee-ju, no matter what, suddenly jabbing my side…!”

I feel utterly disgusted because of this bastard in front of me. This bastard who’s being scolded in whispers by Seo Hee-ju about watching his words and how even close friends pretend not to know certain things.

‘Hello, hyung. Nice to meet you. I’m Moon Kyung-chan, Hee-ju’s boyfriend. I’m an A-class hunter. I’m Hee-ju’s colleague, and I heard you live in A District, so I came to meet you!’

From the moment he greeted me like that, looking like he had reluctantly tagged along after pestering Seo Hee-ju, this bastard rubbed me the wrong way and bothered me.

The reason why A-class Moon Kyung-chan hurried to join a gathering of C-class hunters he didn’t even know was obvious. He must have realized immediately when he heard that Seo Hee-ju’s C-class colleague lives in A District. That I was the “creepy C-class who followed Ki Baek-woo hunter to A District out of obsession” from the rumors spread in the Center community.

He clearly came to see what the leech who interferes with the beautiful love of S-class hunters and doesn’t know his place looks like. You could tell just by his greasy eyes that kept scrutinizing me. But what upset me wasn’t just Moon Kyung-chan’s ugliness or his stalker-like gaze that wouldn’t leave my face.

Damn it, this ugly bastard definitely has something, but why can’t I remember? It’s so frustrating I could go crazy.

The data I’ve accumulated by repeating the same events was reacting to this bastard. He’s clearly not an ordinary guy. Why do I feel so uneasy and like something’s wrong?

Why am I feeling this way about Seo Hee-ju’s boyfriend… No, wait, did Seo Hee-ju even have an A-class boyfriend? Come to think of it, I don’t think Ham Yun-ah or Seo Hee-ju ever visited A District during this period. Of course, even if they had, I wouldn’t have met them. But still, this situation feels too unfamiliar and off. Sigh, what is it…

I tilted my head, watching Seo Hee-ju and Moon Kyung-chan bicker. I really want to resolve this uneasiness. Lee Han-sol brain, full power.

“Here are your two real sirloin handmade pork cutlets and two handmade cheese bomb pork cutlets. Where would you like me to put them?”

While I was digging through my past, a part-timer came with the food and set it on the table. I grabbed the pork cutlet knife and glared again at the super sketchy ugly bastard, I mean, Moon Kyung-chan. At that moment, Moon Kyung-chan grinned, showing his yellow corn teeth.

“I heard the pork cutlets here are delicious, hyung. Enjoy your meal. The world is so cruel, for such a beautiful person to have gone through that, tsk! Ow! Hee-ju, why do you keep jabbing my side!”

I was so displeased that I wanted to stab Moon Kyung-chan’s vital point with the pork cutlet knife, but instead I jerked my chin at him and asked:

“By the way, Seo Hee-ju, where did you meet this guy?”

“This guy? Oh, my honey? I met him on the community site. He sent me a message. As we talked, we found we got along well, so we met in person, and well, that’s how it happened.”

“Haha! I fell for the daily look photo Hee-ju posted… No, I mean, I really liked the posts Hee-ju wrote on the community, so I contacted him first. I’m a bit of a sensitive guy, you know. I’m glad Hee-ju didn’t treat me like a weirdo.”

“Yeah… Why didn’t he treat you like a weirdo? You already look weird.”

Seo Hee-ju suddenly burst into laughter like a general. “Ahahahaha!” He kept hitting Moon Kyung-chan’s shoulder, making a fuss about what was so funny.

“Oh, Han-sol hyung is so funny! Yun-ah noona said your personality got really weird, and it’s true!”

“See, I told you Han-sol got strange…”

“What should we do about our honey, he suddenly got his looks criticized. But honey, you know how it’s infuriating when ambiguous people do it, but when it’s someone you can’t argue with, you can’t even get mad. Hahahaha! Look at our honey’s dumbfounded face, I told you you’re not handsome! Hahahahaha!”

After laughing at Moon Kyung-chan’s sour expression for a while, Seo Hee-ju finally calmed down. “Oh, my stomach hurts. Oh, it’s too funny. Oh, no, honey. Don’t be too disheartened. Our honey is cute, at least. Oh, it’s really so funny. Haaa…” Then, as if giving medicine after causing an illness, he spoke to Moon Kyung-chan in a very affectionate tone.

“But honey, didn’t you say there was something you really wanted to ask when you saw Han-sol hyung? Ask him quickly.”

“Something you’re curious about?”

I frowned as I asked, and Moon Kyung-chan straightened up with an “oh right” expression.

“That’s right, hyung. Please don’t take this the wrong way. Is that rumor true?”

“Rumor?”

“Well, you see. This is a pretty serious issue, which is why I’m asking… I’m definitely not asking this for fun. Is it true that you’re… currently holding Ki Baek-woo hunter captive?”