By Zephyria 
The Encounter
Jin Mu-hae rarely feels fatigue.
Part of it is because he is in the prime of his youth, and another part is that his overall health and physical stamina are exceptionally good.
However, after leaving the western part of the slums, he slept soundly for over twelve hours straight.
He remembered returning after acquiring the records and taking off his outer coat, but then…
Crunch. Crunch.
When he woke up, it was broad daylight. The time had passed morning and was racing toward 2 PM.
Because he had fallen so deeply asleep, he blinked, unable to grasp the situation, when someone drifted into his field of vision, smelling of something sweet.
“You’re awake.”
“…What is this?”
“Eat. There’s some for Jin Mu-hae, too.”
Joo-oh was eating a large bowl filled with Fruit Tornado, having tucked away the dishes he usually used.
The milk, which had already lost its original color and turned a dark purplish hue, sloshed back and forth following the movement of the spoon.
Ah… 2 PM. A time that had already passed the boy’s mealtime twice.
It was clear he couldn’t withstand the hunger and had prepared a meal for himself. Likely fearing a lecture if he touched the food in the refrigerator indiscriminately, he had simply poured a huge amount of the cereal specifically allotted to him.
Crunch. Crunch.
Joo-oh scooped up another large mouthful of cereal and swallowed. Then, he gestured toward the dining table as if telling him to come over.
On the table were two empty milk cartons and one half-full. In the spot where Mu-hae always sat, a clean bowl and spoon were neatly placed.
Still feeling groggy, Mu-hae followed him. Looking at the bowl once he sat down, he saw the grain cereal he usually ate mixed with colorful pieces of Fruit Tornado.
It looked as if fruit-flavored bits and chocolate had been embedded into bread or rice cakes. It was Joo-oh’s own version of cereal blending.
Mu-hae didn’t know whether to scold him for mixing the cereal without permission or to be touched that he had prepared a meal for himself and set one out for Mu-hae as well.
So, he simply took the milk offered to him. Red and blue colors spread like a haze through the bland grain porridge.
“Jin Mu-hae slept for a long time.”
“I did. Since when?”
“You came home, just washed your face, and told me to wash first. When I came out, you were sleeping.”
It seemed he had fallen asleep without even washing. Come to think of it, he didn’t even remember changing his clothes.
Crunch. As he crushed the faintly sweet meal with his molars, the cluttered state of the house caught his eye.
A bag thrown haphazardly. A pile of clothes that looked more like a clump than something folded.
“…”
No matter how he thought about it, that wasn’t his doing. Feeling a distinct sense of incongruity, he looked down at the clothes he was wearing.
They were the same comfortable indoor clothes he usually wore, but the knot of the string tightening his waist was a complete mess.
“What is this? A Gordian knot?”
“Huh?”
“Did you tie this?”
“Yeah.”
Only then did he piece together the situation, letting out a low “Ah” of realization. Jin Mu-hae had indeed collapsed into a deep sleep the moment he returned.
Surprisingly, the boy had looked after him while he lay sprawled on the bed. He had changed his clothes and wiped his sweat-streaked neck with wet wipes, tossing them aside by the bed.
He was incredibly grateful, but it was also damn embarrassing. He wondered for a moment how on earth the boy had managed to change the clothes of a sleeping adult male, then immediately realized that if it were Joo-oh, he could probably flip him over with one hand.
It was obvious what had happened. Mu-hae tried his best to erase the image forming in his mind… a scene of Joo-oh lifting his sleeping body and spinning him around to shove his limbs into the clothes, and swallowed the cereal.
“Good job.”
“Yep!”
Joo-oh, who was gulping down the cereal-stained milk, beamed with a bright, sparkling gaze.
Facing him in a clear state of mind, Mu-hae felt a fresh wave of emotion. From the time he had to give the absurd warning that one shouldn’t swallow meat bones until now, so many things had happened.
Mu-hae fiddled with the waist string—which looked easier to cut than to untie—a few times before giving up and putting the rest of the food in his mouth.
It was a rare moment of peace. The shock and headache he had faced the previous day felt distant, like a story from the far past or a dream.
“Did you eat only cereal this whole time?”
“Yeah. The stuff in the fridge is raw meat. Jin Mu-hae told me not to touch the oven or the range.”
“How much did you eat?”
“One in the morning. Two for lunch.”
“Bowls?”
“Boxes.”
To think his body remained perfectly fine despite eating that much sugar. Perhaps from the very first moment he was fed, he had been asserting with his entire being that he was not an ordinary human.
Whenever Mu-hae tasted a bit of the boy’s snacks or junk food, he would inwardly criticize them for being too sweet, too greasy, or too stimulating, but he knew that was exactly why they tasted good.
In the past, he probably liked sweet cookies just as much as Joo-oh did. It was only an obsession with staying healthy to survive that had changed his palate.
Crunch. The moment he thought that, he chewed through a clump of Fruit Tornado pieces all at once.
Hmm. No. This is still too sweet. Quickly changing his mind, Mu-hae picked out the colorful candies and pushed them to one side.
“Should I clean up?”
“Why?”
“Jin Mu-hae is busy.”
Once he had barely emptied the bowl, Joo-oh asked kindly. Now that he looked, the boy’s eyes were truly beautiful.
He had kept asking if he was okay yesterday; it felt like he was being nursed back to health even though he wasn’t sick.
Curious about the aftermath of the boy’s cleanup, Mu-hae nodded. Then, the jacket he had taken off caught his eye.
Listening to the clatter of the dishes, Mu-hae searched the inner pocket. A small Sound Module fit perfectly into his hand.
♪♬♩- ♬♪♩♪-.
It was strange. The moment he heard the simple melody, the events that had felt distant regained their sense of reality.
The unfamiliar and awkward memories settled into his mind as his own after the long sleep.
Flash. As he operated the Link Watch, the records he obtained yesterday unfolded. It was absurd that they were listed like a story told by a bard rather than being written as a thesis.
As he silently read through the fables, Mu-hae soon discovered that a few characters here and there had been highlighted.
“Yeon. Yeol. Gil. Neul. Oh. Il.”
…He didn’t know what it meant. Was this damn Return flight actually more interested in riddles than the future of humanity?
Yeon-il. Oh-il. Oh-yeol. Oh-neul. No matter how many times he combined the characters into words that made sense, no plausible answer emerged.
Meanwhile, the loud sound of splashing reached him. He turned his head to see Joo-oh playing with water under the guise of doing the dishes.
The back of his head, focused on the task, looked unnecessarily round and touchable, and Mu-hae barely managed to resist the urge to keep looking.
“By the way, what is a ‘defect’?”
The boy, who had somehow gotten soap bubbles on his cheek, spoke to him.
“Suddenly?”
“’There is a defect in the Starpath’.”
He understood the question belatedly. It seemed he was asking about the phrase he had seen in the attic yesterday.
“A flaw.”
“Flaw?”
“It’s not perfect; it’s incomplete because there’s a problem somewhere.”
His vocabulary had improved quite a bit, so it wasn’t a word he should have been unfamiliar with. While explaining the word, Mu-hae naturally recalled the information about the Starpath.
Based on the materials obtained so far, let alone a defect in the Starpath, he didn’t even know the performance of a prototype, should one even exist.
But that was only by Mu-hae’s standards—someone who had never stepped foot in an academy, let alone been a researcher. If those who had professionally honed their studies had looked into it, wouldn’t they have discovered something more?
“Are you done cleaning?”
“Yeah. Are you going to the Jaegang District?”
Joo-oh, who was scrubbing water off his clothes with a towel, asked perceptively.
No matter how expensive the Link Watch he wore was, it was difficult to stare at documents for a long time through such a device.
Mu-hae gathered his rolled-up clothes and tried to untie the string of his pants, but he stared silently at the knot, having no clue how it had been tied.
“Should I cut it?”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
He was a man who skillfully handled and untangled knotted wires. A problem of this level was not even a nuisance compared to the contemplations the Return flight constantly shoved in his face.
“I’ll help too.”
“Where do you think you’re putting your hands?”
“I’m good at this stuff.”
“Don’t put your head right there.”
Pushing away the warm head, Mu-hae shielded his front. Go pack your bag. Fortunately, the reprimand worked, and Joo-oh took his hands away from where a certain area was about to rise and entered the study.
‘Defect…’
Having repeated this process so often, he now had a rough idea of where to start searching.
This search for clues would begin at the hideout in the Jaegang District. Mu-hae took a deep breath, tugging at the tightly tied string.
Was it an illusion? He felt like Joo-oh’s scent was clinging heavily to him below his neck. He didn’t think the boy had done anything to someone who fell asleep without washing, but the characteristic body scent vibrated as if he were practically hugging him.
“Minus four. Minus four.”
All the way down the stairs from the 3rd floor of the Jaegang District to the basement, Joo-oh hummed the previous conundrum.
Of all things, the melody was the one obtained from the attic. To attach such lyrics to that melody… it was a song that could give one nightmares.
Since Joo-oh, who was leading the way, didn’t have eyes in the back of his head, the humming continued relentlessly, regardless of whether Mu-hae’s mood soured.
“The west where the sun sets. Minus four.”
The song was even evolving in real-time! Perhaps he was particularly excited because preparing his own meals and cleaning the house had been encouraging.
Then again, even if his mind wavered, he was a boy who stubbornly insisted he was twenty-two. Even if they counted the day they first met as his birthday, wouldn’t he be twenty-three soon?
Through a series of journeys, he had grown. It was almost laughable to remember the past when he would slam the door and go inside if he didn’t get attention.
“Should I look too?”
“…Sure. If you see any problems or even slightly negative expressions in this document, mark them all. I’ll check other things.”
“Okay! I’m good at this too.”
The clues gathered so far. He organized all the records related to the Starpath in one place. He filtered out the parts that seemed particularly meaningful and racked his brain over the remaining content for a long time.
Yeon. Yeol. Gil. Neul. Oh. Il. These six characters weren’t as common as conjunctions, but they weren’t rare forms when constructing a sentence.
Having found the necessary characters within the sentences, Mu-hae tried various ways to arrange their order.
“Hmm. I left it behind.”
“What?”
“The Taser. I took it out of the bag for a moment and just came back without it.”
“You don’t use it anyway.”
And here he was, saying he’d look at the documents together. Joo-oh, who had been sitting blankly, suddenly brought up a different topic.
It was something Mu-hae didn’t care much about. Whether it was left at Starlight Road or here, he had never once seen Joo-oh pull out a Taser instead of a club.
He probably wouldn’t even notice it was gone even if it sat at Starlight Road for three months, unless he specifically looked for it.
As he thought that and turned his head back to the records, one character leaped out and struck his vision with particular intensity.
‘Gil (Road/Path)…?’
Perhaps because he had been thinking about the location of the house, it suddenly felt like that was part of an address.
Mu-hae stared at the listed characters, recalling the address format of Goryeo City.
For some reason, it felt as if he had just seen numbers. Numbers indicating a detailed address.
241 – I Became an Anomaly in a Dead Game