By Zephyria 
I woke up because my arm was numb.
“…Young-won, …Young-won!”
A strange yet familiar voice was shaking me awake, fluttering like seaweed. It must be Nicole. It’s strange, Nicole’s voice feels younger than mine, but was it this high-pitched…? I don’t know. My consciousness had returned, but I wasn’t fully awake yet. I liked this feeling of being drowsily immersed in a languid sleep. I wish I could fall asleep again and sleep for just two more hours. I rubbed my face against the blanket I was hugging and whined, meaning I wanted to sleep more.
At that moment. The feeling of the blanket, which should have been soft and snugly against my cheek, flashed through my mind that something was hopelessly thin and rough, but my consciousness, which had already half-entered sleep mode again, didn’t sharply capture that fact.
Instead, what began to sharpen was the voice of the person who was waking me up.
“Why are you taking such a deep nap? Lunch break is over, so get up now?”
“Ugh, Nicole, just one more hour…”
“One hour my foot. Aren’t you getting up right now? Lee Young-won!”
With the sharp shout of Lee Young-won! my consciousness was pulled out at once. I screamed almost as if I was screaming, making an unsightly sound, and jumped up.
Was I lying face down? I definitely thought I had leaned forward and jumped up, but I moved in the opposite direction. There wasn’t a place that didn’t hurt, whether it was my neck or my waist, as if I had been lying face down on a hard table and taking a nap. The pain caused by the inconvenience of life was also unfamiliar, but even more surprising was the face of the person who was glaring at me in front of me, as if shooting me.
Just like the voice that woke me up was strange yet familiar. This person’s face was also like that. It was once very well known, but now it belonged to someone who had passed into the distant past.
A neat pinstripe shirt without any frills or lace decorations that didn’t suit this world at all. Loose and neat gray slacks that I heard I had stocked up on for work one day. A round pair of glasses with his hair tied up roughly to one side because it was annoying. What was most alien was… the bright red employee ID that ran across the middle of his white shirt. Employee…, employee ID?
I definitely know this person. So I knew very well how absurd it was for this person to be in this world, in front of me.
“T, T, Team Leader?”
That’s right. This person was my direct superior. That is, before I was reincarnated as ‘Noah Hamilton’, at the time when I was working overtime every day and eventually died of overwork.
“Team Leader, why are you here…”
I couldn’t come to my senses at all and rambled on because of the half-awake mind and the appearance of someone I thought I would never see again.
“Why am I here? I came to pick up a big-hearted team member who didn’t return to the office even though the lunch break was long over and was sleeping soundly.”
“Yes…, eh? Yes?”
The team leader’s expression, which had been looking at me pitifully as if I didn’t understand at all and was putting question marks over my head, rather took on a look of pity.
“What should I do, you must be very tired. I wish you could have taken a little more sick leave… I’m sorry. I asked the HR team, but they said that Young-won’s length of service didn’t allow for more paid sick leave.”
That’s the rule, do you understand? Then the team leader patted my shoulder and even handed me a vitamin drink that he seemed to have brought in advance. I couldn’t even think of receiving it, so he pulled my hand, which was burning, and even handed it to me directly.
“If you’re okay with unpaid leave, you can rest a little longer, so think about it and let me know. If you’re awake, go out and buy some coffee.”
The team leader’s credit card was already on the table where I had been sleeping with my face buried. The team leader gave a small fighting, clenched both fists, and quickly turned around and disappeared.
“W, what is this…”
Only after the team leader disappeared did I have the mind to look around the place I was in. Thud, I heard something falling and looked down to see a summer jacket falling on the chair. Of course, it wasn’t the flashy thing with jewel buttons that I usually wore, but the one I bought online for 59,900 won for three, and if you sign up for membership right now, you’ll get a 15% discount coupon! I saw the same phrase. No wonder it was too rough and thin for a blanket… As I stared blankly at it, the steel chair on which the jacket was falling came into view. It was an old chair that looked like it would automatically make a creaking sound just by looking at it. The table attached to it as a set in front of it looked better than the chair. I remembered that when the tables in the pantry were being replaced, I had taken this one all the way here because they were discarding the old ones that still looked sturdy and intact.
Once the memory was revived, the floodgates of memory burst open, one after another. The already cramped room looked even narrower because of the cabinet that took up half of the space. I didn’t know what I had stuffed in there, but two of the four cabinet doors weren’t even closed. It was also one of my tasks to pack the supplies that were left over after a wrong order or an in-house event and stuff them into that cabinet at random.
That’s right. This was the supply room used by our team. It’s good to say it’s a supply room, but it’s just a warehouse, a warehouse. And I, who was still hesitant to use the employee lounge with dignity, used to eat alone in the warehouse like this or solve the naps that were delayed due to overtime…
Ziiiiing.
It was at that moment. A long rectangular object on the table trembled and cried, as if waking me from my reverie.
Team Leader, three Americanos and four vanilla lattes. All iced.
Young-won is buying it, so Young-won can order whatever he wants!
The screen lit up and a message appeared. I couldn’t help but gape at the modern civilization I had met after so long.
Even so, I familiarly grabbed my card and cell phone and quickly left the supply room. I familiarly grabbed the elevator and pressed the lobby floor, waited for the traffic light to turn green and crossed the crosswalk, and went into a franchise cafe to place an order and receive a receipt, and I was almost in a panic the whole time.
“Customer number 29, your order of eight drinks is ready!”
Carrying the drink corps, four drinks per carrier, in both hands, I walked out and sat down on the bench right in front of me. The sunlight touching my knees was hot. I felt like I was possessed by a ghost. What is this, what is this…? If this is a dream, is it a nightmare or a good dream?
Sluuuuurp.
My head, which was still in a panic, seemed to move a little only after pouring caffeine into it repeatedly. The intense taste of espresso, different from black tea. This strong caffeine taste, which I ate more often and more than rice, eventually caused significant damage to my stomach, was definitely… not a taste that could be dreamed up.
“…Ah.”
Was ‘this body’ still empty until the company’s lunch break? When I poured cold caffeine into it, my stomach hurt as if it was being squeezed. It was a familiar pain. Needless to say, it helped me to come to my senses. It seemed that the sense of reality that had left home was finally coming back.
Sluurp, sluurp, sluuuuuurp. As I drank coffee in succession as if I had a grudge against the straw, only a third of the large-sized drink was left. I took out the cell phone that I had roughly stuffed into my back pocket. The feeling of the hard liquid crystal in my hand was foreign, but not unfamiliar. The face that appeared on the screen through the front camera was neither blindingly beautiful nor looked fragile enough to crumble if touched. It’s not Noah Hamilton’s face. Oh my god. It’s really, ‘Lee Young-won’s’ face.
Since when was it? It was a face and name that I had been in so much pain to even think about that I had completely forgotten and tried so hard to forget. I didn’t want to recall anything about my past life, except for the game’s scenario…
“Ha, haha, ha…”
Suddenly, a dry laugh burst out. A little kid who was walking by said, Mom, that uncle is weird, and pointed at me, who was taking a selfie and bursting out laughing, but I didn’t care. I was unbelievably glad to see this ordinary face, which was covered in fatigue, with dark circles that seemed to reach my chin, to exaggerate a little.
Am I back?
Or was the life of ‘Noah Hamilton’ just a dream in the first place?
I guess I watched too many webtoons and web novels, so…
Jot Raecher, we would like to propose a new promotion related to ‘The Nobleman of the Rose Mansion’.
The easy-going escape from reality ended there. As soon as a pop-up window flashed on my cell phone and a consultation email related to the game appeared, it was as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water on my crown.
That’s right. It can’t be something like a dream. In the first place, my imagination can’t be that rich. If it’s a dream, this side will be a dream.
In ‘reality’, I had safely returned from the kidnapping case and was busy preparing for the wedding, which was only a week away.
Andrew was even busier than me because he had decided to formally inherit the title of Count as soon as the wedding was over, and Carlisle, who had been waiting near the capital, had heard about the incident and wrote me letters every day, expressing his unchanging concern and affection. And what about Adrian’s fuss, who thought I had suffered hardships because of him?
Even Allen, who thought he would be properly rewarded for turning back time and saving Nicole, had been asleep ever since that day, so I was having an unusually peaceful and comfortable time.
Only a week was left until my eternal victory and his eternal defeat.
Suddenly, a Nine Cloud Dream ending ahead of such a time? It’s absurd. Rather, it would be reasonable to think that Allen, who only seems to be asleep, has committed some other trick.
“What, Lee Young-won. You don’t have time to reply to me during work hours, but you’re doing something else here like this?”
But, this dream.
“…CEO Kim?”
“Ah. Is it not doing something else, but running errands.”
It’s too welcome to be a trick.
“Then why don’t you do me a favor too. Forget about working overtime, and with me, huh?”
Enough to make me want to just fall for it.