In the Name of God - vanish into fiction

I was left speechless by the counter-question that came back instead of an answer.

As I kept my mouth shut, Lee Sunho leaned in close and said something strange again.

“Am I ugly? Is it bad?”

“Who said you were ugly? You’re handsome enough.”

I glanced at Lee Sunho’s sharp, handsome face and took the mug he offered.

Aside from that strange sense of alienation, he had a handsome face that anyone would find likable, with a gentle smile always added as a bonus. Who could flat-out say they disliked a face like that?

“Strictly speaking, I like your face.”

For one thing, his eyes are pretty when he laughs.

Something about it… feels like it resembles “that child” whose face I can’t remember.

Holding the cup with both hands, I lightly blew on the steaming tea. A refreshing citrus scent rose along with the warmth. As I took a sip, the tea, heated to exactly the temperature I like, spread through my mouth.

Lee Sunho lowered his eyes slightly as he watched me take a sip, then another. For some reason, the pupils hidden behind his eyelids looked complicated.

“I didn’t… get plastic surgery.”

It was a bit strange that he specifically emphasized that he didn’t get plastic surgery “as such,” but I didn’t think much of it. In the end, it meant that face was exactly as he was born with.

‘I must be the one who’s strange.’

Before calling a perfectly fine person’s face “alien” or whatever, I needed to look at myself. In the first place, I’m the one inhabiting Seong Do-yoon’s face when my original face was completely different.

Lee Sunho, sitting on the edge of the bed, looked me over thoroughly from head to toe.

“Drink that and lie down a bit more. I made some porridge, so tell me if you’re hungry.”

“Yeah. But….”

I sipped the fragrant tea and cleared my throat for a moment. Thanks to the warm liquid, my throat felt a bit more relaxed.

“Are you okay?”

“With what?”

I looked strangely at Lee Sunho, who asked back nonchalantly as if he didn’t know. He wasn’t someone lacking intuition, so he must have fully guessed what I was trying to say, yet his expression remained calm and kind.

Since he reacted that way, I ended up picking my words more carefully.

“Yesterday…, well…. I was a bit… strange.”

Lee Sunho seemed to think it was the influence of a hallucination, but regardless, it was a situation where two sane men had done all sorts of lewd things together. And for over twelve hours, staying up all night.

How could that be viewed as a normal act?

“You even did… that kind of stuff because of me, so isn’t it hard to look me in the face?”

It wasn’t that I couldn’t stand to look at Lee Sunho’s face. Although it was a bit embarrassing, I had the confidence to act somewhat shamelessly. I don’t know about the me of the past, but now I have the incredible Adaptation skill.

An unavoidable situation. A necessary response. An efficient act to cut the penalty duration in half.

Thanks to the Adaptation skill already filing these thoughts away neatly in my head, I didn’t feel like kicking my blankets or punching my pillow now.

But Lee Sunho is different, isn’t he?

Unlike me, he was sober yesterday, and he was sober after it was all over.

Even if I, who was under a status abnormality, couldn’t be helped, from the perspective of Lee Sunho, who was perfectly normal, it couldn’t possibly be nothing.

No matter how much it was to help me, wouldn’t he have had all sorts of thoughts while I was exhausted and asleep?

“It can’t possibly be nothing.”

As expected.

Just as I was nodding internally, Lee Sunho crossed his arms and put on a very serious expression.

“After seeing you stripped down, I realized it’s more serious than I thought. I’ll pay more attention to your diet from now on.”

“What? My diet is already monstrous as it is….”

He’s already feeding me five full meals a day, so what more is he going to pay attention to?

My naked body, which was nothing but skin and bones, must have really displeased him.

“No, more importantly, is that all you have to say right now?”

This isn’t the time to be thinking about fattening me up, is it?

I, who had even considered apologizing several times, was quite shocked by Lee Sunho’s remark.

Lee Sunho, who was stroking his chin with an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression, nodded to himself.

“I should feed you snacks periodically, too. From now on, I’ll try making your exclusive beef jerky myself.”

“Not that.”

I let out an incredulous voice while resting my forehead on one hand.

“I mean, don’t you feel embarrassed, or regretful? Or… has it become awkward to deal with me, or something like that?”

Even though I provided examples, Lee Sunho’s expression was very different from my expectation. With his eyes slightly widened, his expression seemed to ask why I would think he’d feel that way.

“…Never mind. I can tell without you saying it.”

I waved my hand with a deflated face.

I became deeply curious about what was going on inside this guy’s head.

To be able to stay composed after getting caught up in something inexplicable and doing such crazy things with a man—it’s a truly incredible mental state.

‘It’s good for me if he doesn’t dwell on it, though.’

It worked out well for me.

Thanks to the Adaptation skill, I can just organize it in my head as “so that happened” and move on, but if Lee Sunho started dwelling on last night, there would be no solution.

What if he, a partner I like and a reliable vanguard, started acting jittery, nervous, and wary just by locking eyes with me?

Even I couldn’t help but be bothered by that.

As I organized my thoughts while sipping the warm tea, Lee Sunho suddenly spoke.

“I’m your painkiller, after all.”