Editor’s Survival Guide

“……Mother?”

The moment I called her.

The form that had been blinking like a broken panel revealed its substance.

A thin woman lying weakly in bed.

A still-young woman with a pallid complexion and sunken eyes and cheeks.

That woman was my mother, who had passed away when I was young.

I stared at my mother blankly, then looked around and murmured again.

“An inpatient room in the cancer ward.”

At that moment, the black and indistinct space flipped over piece by piece.

Soon, the space took the shape of a white hospital room. So memory reconstruction proceeds like this.

“……My mother died of illness when I was 9. This seems to be when I was visiting her for the last time before she passed away.”

Was it because I had spoken the correct answer?

A child appeared in the hospital room.

It was me at 9 years old.

It was a strange thing.

This 「Life Chronicle」 should have been composed of my memories.

Yet I could observe my own appearance from the outside.

The child I had been in the past was dressed in clean clothes, like an adult.

And like an adult, his expression was stiffly hardened.

Every child has a time when their mother is their entire world.

I was the same.

So the me of that time was living in a world so precarious it seemed ready to collapse at any moment.

“Do-un.”

My mother lying in the hospital bed called me.

At the sound of my mother’s voice for the first time in more than 10 years, chills ran down my spine.

“You have to listen to your father. All right?”

Those words were the last words my mother left me.

The moment I realized that, the space collapsed again.

---

Beyond the collapsed space, a door was visible.

When I opened that door and stepped out, a chaotic world appeared again.

However, this time, the surroundings were bright.

And something like a large cloth was swaying.

The scene before my eyes was still difficult to understand, but here too, I felt familiarity.

I remembered this flow of air and this wavering of light.

“This is my room.”

When I said that, the space revealed its identity.

“I am reading a book alone in my room.”

I looked toward the bed.

There, I, around 12 years old, was lying on my stomach.

The younger me was reading a book in that position.

It was a novel packed densely with lines of text.

Wind slipped in through the window, which had been left slightly open.

The curtain stirred in the wind.

The sunlight also shook with the curtain’s movement.

The shadow of that light left stains on the paper, but I was absorbed in the world inside the book and did not care.

“Is it not difficult to associate the memories?”

Cha Si-eon asked me while holding the notebook.

So I shook my head.

“Thankfully, it happens on its own.”

“That is good. If it proceeds like this, we should be able to escape smoothly.”

“But why are we not moving on?”

I had just identified where this was and what memory it was.

But unlike before, this space was maintaining itself as it was.

“That is because the stored memory has not ended yet.”

“Ended?”

“The memories reconstructed by a 「Life Chronicle」 may be a short scene like earlier, or depending on the case, a situation that continues for several hours. We presume the duration differs depending on how the memories are bundled.”

“Surely I do not have to finish reading that book to move on, right?”

“We do not know. How large this memory is.”

Cha Si-eon answered lightly and perched on my desk.

That action seemed to mean we might have to wait here with nothing to do.

It was then.

Clack—

From outside, the sound of the front door opening came.

“Gasp!”

The younger me jolted and raised his upper body.

Then he distorted again like broken graphics.

The younger me stopped in place.

Watching that sight, I opened my mouth just in case.

“……My father did not like me reading novels. So I only secretly read the books I wanted to read when my father was not home.”

At my explanation, the younger me began moving normally again.

Twelve-year-old Seo Do-un hid the book he had been reading under the bed mattress.

Then he grabbed the heavy bag on the desk and hurriedly left the room.

Craaaack—!

Perhaps the memory’s portion had ended, because the space collapsed again.

---

Maybe it really will be smooth like this.

Thinking that, I opened the door that had appeared again.

Then the next memory, veiled by a curtain, appeared.

Where is this now?

There were many things in this place.

Something arranged in square rows inside a wide indoor space.

And a strangely noisy atmosphere.

Not a single piece of information could be identified with my eyes or ears, but this time too, I could feel it.

I hesitated for a moment, then went to the very corner of the space.

Then I carefully placed my hand on the form there.

“This is me.”

Along with my recognition, the me inside the memory revealed himself again.

For an instant, I stopped breathing.

I was sitting at a desk in a school uniform.

It was the uniform from when I was in high school.

Ah, this time. This memory is…….

High schooler Seo Do-un was hunching his body as if that cramped desk were the entire world.

With a face devoid of any vitality, curled in on himself.

Thinking back, ever since I was young, I had liked staying within my own space.

So I dreamed inside books that were like windows to other worlds, and inside a single-compartment desk, I immersed myself to avoid outside interference.

It was the same when I was in high school.

I looked for a moment at myself, still a boy, then opened my mouth with difficulty.

“This is the classroom of the high school I attended.”

At that moment, the noise cleared away, and the classroom appeared.

The other lumps also became students sitting at desks.

I attended an all-boys high school.

So my classmates, wearing the same uniform as me, were all boys.

“Hey, hey, catch!”

“Argh!”

The back of the classroom was noisy.

When I looked back, 4 or 5 people were gathered there, kicking a soccer ball around.

Playing with a ball in the classroom was an obvious nuisance to anyone, but no one stopped them.

Because that group kicking the ball were the so-called strong guys who had a loud voice in class.

I recalled the situation from back then and swallowed dryly.

Perhaps sensing my tension, Cha Si-eon glanced at me once.

But he did not say anything in particular.

Nor did he urge me, as he had earlier.

As if telling me to prepare myself if I needed to.

He knew too.

That a classroom was not merely a place of learning, but a small society.

And that what happened there was sometimes nothing if not barbaric.

But this feeling of being given consideration made me uncomfortable instead.

So I deliberately opened my mouth as if it were nothing.

“It was self-study period. But while the teacher was away, a few kids began playing with a ball…….”

BAM—! THUD—!

At that moment, the soccer ball bounced off the wall and flew toward my desk.

CLATTER—!

Because of that, my possessions on the desk bounced and fell everywhere.

For me, who had been quietly self-studying, it was like a bolt from the blue.

High schooler Seo Do-un, who had nearly been hit by the ball, rose to his feet in surprise.

And his eyes met the kid who had kicked the ball.

What was that brat’s name again?

I did not remember.

What I remembered was only that brat’s rough personality and violent behavior.

Even when he did something wrong, far from apologizing, he acted as if shifting the blame was only natural.

He was also a brat who showed off his power by tormenting other people.

Because of that, everyone tried not to clash with him.

I was the same, but by coincidence, this situation had unfolded in front of everyone.

So the me back then…….

“If you’re not going to study, don’t come to school, you son of a bitch.”

Threw out a curse outright and froze the classroom.

“……?”

Cha Si-eon turned to look at me.

What are you looking at…….

You said you would not react…….

I avoided Cha Si-eon’s gaze and quietly swallowed my shame.

Meanwhile, high schooler Seo Do-un muttered again with a frown.

“Stop acting like children and go sit down, you crazy bastards.”

“……?”

Cha Si-eon looked at me again.

I simply pressed my hand to my forehead, ashamed of my dark past.

Meanwhile, the brats at the back of the classroom slowly went back to their seats and sat down.

However, the brat who had kicked the ball stood there blankly and kept staring at high schooler Seo Do-un.

High schooler Seo Do-un stared back at that brat the same way, then sat first.

The situation seemed to have come to an end like that, but…….

BANG—!

Irritated again, Seo Do-un kicked back his desk and got up.

The atmosphere in the classroom turned cold again.

But Seo Do-un did not care about the surrounding gazes.

Unable to bear his anger at all, he only flung the classroom door open roughly and left.

---

When high schooler Seo Do-un moved, the space collapsed.

So I recited soullessly for memory reconstruction.

“School hallway, hallway, hallway, bathroom…….”

Backgrounds were newly generated according to my words.

With that, high schooler Seo Do-un safely arrived at the bathroom.

Seo Do-un washed his face roughly at the sink.

I thought he was cooling off like that.

BANG—!

But adolescent Seo Do-un, unable to overcome his own temper, struck the innocent sink again…….

Cha Si-eon, who could not bear watching that, murmured.

“And you have been pretending to be good…….”

“I have never pretended to be good…….”

I groaned, pressing my forehead again.

“My academic stress was severe back then, so I was a little sensitive…….”

When I tried hard to explain, Cha Si-eon asked back seriously.

“Were you safe after doing that?”

He means, did I not get beaten up by the kids?

“Yes, well. Back then, my family was fairly well-off. I am actually a child from a wealthy household.”

I spoke emptily, letting everything go.

Yes, I understood Team Leader Cha’s question too.

Even now, I was not particularly robust.

But back then, I was openly underweight.

The thickness of my body was similar to the girls at the academy, and sometimes I was even thinner.

In short, it was a body that made it difficult to have one’s human rights guaranteed in an all-boys high school.

Nor was it as if I had any remarkable fighting skills.

Instead, I had conditions that allowed me to win without fighting.

My father’s social status.

My father’s wealth.

My father’s connections…….

Yes, what was the point of hiding it?

I was a young master.

“…….”

Cha Si-eon nodded as if he understood something.

You bastard, that is what you were really curious about.

You said you had no interest in other people’s past.

You said you would not react to illusions.

I waited for this uncomfortable scene to quickly come to an end.

But far from ending.

Ding-ding— ding-ding—

The school bell rang.

At that sound, high schooler Seo Do-un wiped the water from his face.

Apparently, this memory seemed likely to continue a little longer.

---

After that, Seo Do-un finished school without any particular trouble.

And then, the time to go home.

“What is in front of the school gate is a car.”

At my explanation, the lump standing in front of the school gate changed into a black sedan.

The moment I saw that car, I sighed again.

So this scene is appearing after all.

“It came to pick me up.”

At the same time as my words, the past me opened the back door of that car and climbed in.

The moment high schooler Seo Do-un closed the car door, he opened the console box beside the driver’s seat.

Then he took a cigarette from inside it and naturally put it in his mouth.

“……?”

And Cha Si-eon turned to look at me with eyes even more shocked than before.

What, why?