What Happens When The Second Male Lead Powers Up [EN]: Chapter 546

#546

Mystical (玄) and Auspicious (瑞) (4)

At the same time…

Seo Hyun’s room.

-♩♪♬······

-Buzz, buzz, buzz······!

The man flinched awake to the familiar ringtone and vibration.

For a moment, only the sound of rustling blankets filled the dark space above the bed.

It was still pitch dark. There was hardly any blue tinge to suggest it was dawn, and he was the type to fall into a deep sleep once he closed his eyes.

But he had to get up for this sound.

He had deliberately assigned a specific ringtone and vibration to a particular number.

And when that music and vibration called him, he answered the phone no matter what.

Whether a natural disaster had occurred or there was an important meeting, whether he was on the subway or anywhere else, he answered unconditionally.

The man, now sitting upright, busily fumbled on the bedside table. Thump, thump, thump······. Snatch.

His eyes narrowed at the sudden light as the bright phone screen lit up.

March 23rd, 3:23 AM.

‘Geumgyeong Nursing Hospital’.

‘Caregiver Lee Jong-hee (Resident)’.

“Yes, this is Jung Hyun-seo.”

He quickly found and put on his rimless glasses.

-Hello, guardian! This is the nursing hospital. It’s about your mother.

“Yes, Nurse. What’s wrong? Should I come right away?”

-No, it’s not a dire situation yet. Since just past midnight, your mother has been constantly crying while looking for her younger brother. We’ve shown her pictures and videos and tried to soothe her, but she won’t stop. It’s a private room, so the noise isn’t an issue, but we’re worried she might get dehydrated. She won’t drink water or any beverages. Is it possible for you to talk to Ye-seo right now?

“Ye-seo? Why is Mom suddenly looking for Ye-seo······.”

Hyun-seo, who was putting on the jacket he had draped over the one-person sofa and busily grabbing his car keys and wallet, paused.

On days like today when she cried, Mom usually looked for their deceased father. It was very rare for her to call out for her children.

Her mental illness had become severe since their father passed away, so it was understandable.

When she was of sound mind, she always expressed her apologies to him and his siblings, so Hyun-seo figured her deep guilt was subconsciously suppressing her from seeking out her children.

Even though he wasn’t a doctor.

“Just a moment. I’ll wake Ye-seo up quickly and call you back.”

-Okay. She’s gotten a lot better than before, though. Oh dear, she must be getting sleepy······.

The woman’s simple voice faded away over the phone.

Next to her, Mom’s unintelligible murmuring could be heard.

‘Yes, thank you.’ Hyun-seo quickly hung up and turned on the room light.

His dark eyes, accustomed to the darkness, narrowed again.

Seon-ah, the mother of the three siblings, had been showing considerable improvement in her symptoms until recently.

The attending physicians, as well as the nurses who saw her every day, had said the same thing.

‘Patient Choi Seon-ah seems to be showing increasingly positive prognoses.’

‘Perhaps it’s because she continues to engage in hobbies that stimulate her brain. She’s also becoming more emotionally stable, which seems to be consistently and positively affecting her medication and rehabilitation programs.’

‘It’s rare to see a case that continues to improve like this for nearly a year.’

‘Let’s keep monitoring.’

The neurologists and psychiatrists in consultation all whispered hope.

He had given up hope that Mom’s illness would miraculously be cured in his teens, but the flood of information was enough to excite Hyun-seo and the family elders.

Of course, he didn’t tell Eun-seo separately.

He had only whispered it to Ye-seo, and she had been so happy that she even shed tears.

It was last month that he barely stopped her from buying a cake to celebrate.

“Hoo······.”

And the hope began to wane very recently. Specifically, since last week.

Mom’s condition worsened again, and she started shouting at the drop of a hat, unable to control her fluctuating emotions.

She even caused a disturbance or two because she didn’t recognize the caregiver who had been with her for a long time.

Hyun-seo briefly recalled something that could be a clue, then dismissed it.

Because thinking about it gave him a headache, and he felt a little tired himself.

That wouldn’t do. He was someone who couldn’t afford to be tired.

“······Busy from Monday, Jung Ye.”

A murmur mixed with a bitter smile. Hyun-seo, who had taken off his jacket again, was about to open the door and go out to the living room when a strange noise came from behind him.

-Wee-ing······

“Huh?”

His work desktop was suddenly turning on by itself.

The man frowned as he checked the purple light on the power button of the main unit.

What’s this all of a sudden?

“Was that originally purple?”

······No, it was usually just yellow. His deep eyes momentarily sharpened.

No matter how worn out he was from manuscript deadlines, he couldn’t possibly mistake the power color of a computer he had used for years.

At the same time, a warning-like sensation pricked the man’s spine.

For some reason, his mouth felt dry and cold. *Did I not properly shut down the computer in the evening?*

“······Windows update?”

That was clearly something he squeezed out to convince himself, but strangely, the moment the sound echoed, he had a feeling that it was ‘not’ that.

That was just the beginning.

As if he were alone in an aquarium, a feeling of being cut off from the world suddenly struck him without warning.

Then, ‘that incident’ that had happened a few days ago flashed through his mind.

It was a sensation closer to foresight than recollection.

‘Ah, another Hangul [Korean alphabet] error. Why are there two of the same window······. Heo-aak!’

Completely out of his control, ignoring the silent keyboard, a black cursor raced madly across the pure white Hangul file.

In front of the man’s eyes, dozens, hundreds, thousands of letters appeared on the screen, constantly gaining life as they spaced themselves and changed lines.

It was a terrifying speed that even Hyun-seo, who was skilled at speed reading, couldn’t keep up with.

He couldn’t even fathom how to cope with the shocking phenomenon.

His heart raced violently, and he poured out his breath backward.

Above the transparent lenses of his glasses, the thunderbolt in the monitor continued to rage.

「······Actually, after seeing Eun-seo off to school, eating breakfast with my brother, and brushing my teeth, I checked my phone.

But I didn’t have the courage, so I just covered it up and did the dishes.

My hands moved naturally, finding the storage space and wiping the induction stove.

Even though I had been away from home for a year, the habits and behaviors I had carried with me all my life were still in my memory.

Maybe it’s because the body is the same. So······.

“Thinking about other things again.”

I blurted out suddenly. I had been like this since earlier.

When I thought about ‘Toegye-gong’ [pen name of a prominent Korean Confucian scholar], when I thought about the friends I had left there, my chest felt heavy and stuffy.

Too many worries rushed in at once, making it hard to breathe easily.

Because I couldn’t even share a proper farewell, let alone talk about the ‘real’ me.

Because I never imagined I could return home like that······」

He felt a chill. The back of Hyun-seo’s neck became damp with sweat.

All the sentences were too specific to be a mere virus or a bad hack.

He was a full-time writer who made a living by making up stories.

He could tell the difference between a doodle scribbled as a joke and a piece of writing he had immersed himself in.

So what is all this?

「······Until now, I was so shocked by the fact that I had been stabbed, died once, and returned home that I couldn’t imagine ‘what next.’

I was too busy pulling myself together to fathom the situation over there.

But now I see that the situation is too serious······」

Why is the Toegye-gong story coming up?

Are you writing from Jung Ye-seo’s point of view right now?

‘No, what the heck······.’

Surely it’s not a story she experienced?

‘Hyung [older brother], why! Where did you crash?!’

At that moment, Ye-seo, startled by his scream, burst into the room.

Hyun-seo quickly ended the situation by closing the Hangul window.

But his horrified heart did not calm down easily. It was only natural.

It was impossible for a file that he had never created or saved, let alone made, to suddenly appear and write on its own, like something out of a turn-of-the-century horror movie.

In fact, he was so dazed that he couldn’t even tell if this was a nightmare or reality.

The scratchy throat kept convulsing uncontrollably.

‘Did some kind of ghost screen pop up?’

It was similar to that.

‘······Why are you talking about something from so long ago. Hoo.’

However, he glossed over it and washed his face with his dry hands.

It wasn’t an easy story to believe even if he told it······.

‘Should I make you some citron tea? Are you having a hard time?’

‘It’s not that, but something surprising happened.’

‘Why. Did the file get deleted? You always sync in real time.’

‘I’d rather the file get deleted.’

He didn’t usually make such jokes, but anyone who saw the situation at the time would have said the same thing.

Then Ye-seo looked closely at his brother’s face with a serious expression.

‘What a terrible thing to say.’

His expression and attitude were the same as usual, so Hyun-seo ended up chuckling.

With the sudden sense of returning to reality, the strength in his whole body drained away, making him feel languid.

It was nonsense, but he wondered if he had dozed off for a moment.

Could it be that fatigue had accumulated without him knowing?

After sending his younger brother out on the pretext of citron tea, he calmly did what he had to do.

He thoroughly checked to see if his novel files had been damaged or deleted, and he paid for a program to run a virus scan.

He also cleanly deleted unnecessary apps and old caches.

Thanks to that, he even felt like his old desktop had become lighter.

It was definitely like that······.

-Wee-ing!

“······.”

Now, his computer’s main unit was humming, emitting an unfamiliar purple light.

Hyun-seo, who was standing at the doorway, quietly took off his glasses and buried his eyes in his palm.

His short black hair was pressed against the pillow, sticking out messily.

He didn’t have time for this, and he was in a hurry, but he couldn’t understand why that day’s incident kept coming to mind. Really.

“Ha, seriously······.”

······Actually, he knew very well that it wasn’t a short nightmare or his imagination.

Because such vivid sensations couldn’t deceive the brain in the name of unconsciousness.

No matter how he thought about it, that wasn’t it.

More than anything, the fact that Jung Ye was spacing out while talking, fiddling with his chopsticks during meals, and occasionally looking depressed······.

That was the cold reality in front of him.

But ‘knowing’ reality and ‘accepting’ it were completely different matters.

“······Should I start going to counseling instead of Jung Eun-seo now.”

The man turned away with a deep sigh.

In the living room, the cold night air rushed in and brushed against his forehead.

Hyun-seo’s youngest sibling, Eun-seo, had received psychiatric counseling until she was eighteen.

She was a lively child who had a good school life, but she had a deep sense of depression inside.

She was fine outside, but when she came home, specifically when she entered her room—she would cry silently or collapse and fall asleep.

The specialist diagnosed that the stress the child was receiving was much more severe than it appeared.

They also explained that she was feeling an excessive burden from ‘pretending to be okay’ in front of her friends or older brothers.

That was a big wound for everyone, including Eun-seo.

But it was also an undeniable fact.

Hyun-seo and Ye-seo did everything they could for their only younger sister.

They sincerely loved her, and she sincerely loved her older brothers.

It was a miracle that could be easily found around them.

The help of nearby adults became a support that allowed the three to endure even more firmly.

Thanks to that, Eun-seo quickly got better.

So much so that she was the first to say this to her older brothers on the day she returned from finishing her winter vacation ceremony in her second year of high school.

‘I don’t think I need to get counseling from this winter.’

‘I’m not that tired anymore, and I’m not that stressed anymore. I’m honestly looking forward to becoming a senior in high school.’

‘Ah, really! Not just pretending!’

-Woo-oong······!

Hyun-seo turned his head again at the ominous sound. He was startled.

Even his monitor, which had been off since last night, was now brightly lit. His surprised heart thumped.

He hadn’t even been near the computer since last night—

“Is it completely broken, or what.”

The man rushed to the desk and moved the mouse.

Then, a Hangul window that was all too familiar and, conversely, a warning window that he had never seen before appeared.

For a moment, he was breathless.

‘······Do you want to merge this folder with the folder below?’

What? Suddenly?

“······.”

What nonsense.

Are you asking me to merge a folder whose name I can’t even see properly with our story?

Is someone controlling this remotely right now? Did I earn someone’s grudge?

‘No (N).’

-Click

Hyun-seo urgently expressed his opposition. There was nothing more to think about.

He was about to turn off the computer power immediately and unplug it completely.

But—

-Woo-woo-oong······

“······What?”

The warning window didn’t budge.

To make matters worse, an unidentified golden aura began to flow out of his monitor.

The man was horrified and unplugged all the power cords connected to the outlet.

His forehead was already damp with greasy sweat. He was now in a complete panic.

So much so that he had completely forgotten about the nursing hospital and his mother’s situation.

-Paaaa······

“Heo-eok.”

However, the machine was fine, without losing even a bit of its radiance.

An indescribable fear rushed in.

Hyun-seo hurriedly covered his mouth with his hand and ran out into the living room.

Immediately, the cold outside air wrapped around his entire body.

Everything that touched his skin was chillingly cold.

-Whoo-ee-ee······

“······.”

He realized that the outer door of the living room veranda was wide open.