Transmigrated as the Side Top used as an Emotional Trash Can - Chapter 40.2
“It looks like this place isn’t structured so we can escape by walking.”
“You only figured that out now?”
As though he had noticed long ago, Kim Jihwan unbuttoned his neatly fastened summer uniform shirt and exposed the short-sleeved T-shirt beneath it. Seeing that made me feel even hotter, so I pulled off my summer uniform shirt and lay sprawled on the floor in only a sleeveless shirt. The air was so hot that it didn’t become much cooler, but removing even one layer made me feel lighter.
“You should’ve told me if you knew. We walked for nothing.”
“What would telling you have changed? You would’ve just sprawled out like this from the beginning.”
I see, so you had been investigating in your own way too.
I suddenly raised my eyes and examined the long row of guest-room doors without room numbers.
“Should we try going inside one of those?”
I wondered whether Cha Gwonhyeok might be inside. Had he become curious at some point while following behind us, opened one, and gotten trapped?
“It looked like you needed a key card to open them.”
“I see.”
I stood and examined the door’s structure. Just as Kim Jihwan had said, it was firmly locked with an electronic lock.
“We need to find a key ca—”
Smash! Crack!
“W-What…!”
Before Kim Jihwan could finish speaking, I wrapped my summer uniform shirt around my hand and brought the hallway’s emergency flashlight down on the lock.
“You stupid punk! What the hell is wrong with you today?!”
Startled, Kim Jihwan tried to stop me. Kicking the elevator doors and breaking the lock certainly must have seemed far removed from the Baek Hanrim he knew. But right now, survival and escape came first. Since the genre had changed, I needed to change too.
“Actions, speak louder, than words. You can think, deeply, when your body, is comfortable.”
Even as I spoke to Kim Jihwan, I continued striking the lock. Plastic fragments from the flashlight flew, and scratches appeared on the lock. Once I realized that physical force was working, I continued with even more strength.
Clang-.
When the flashlight broke, I used the decorative fixture attached to the wall. When that broke, I smashed a framed picture and repeatedly struck the lock with its sharp fragments. Eventually, the door opened as though surrendering.
Creeeak-.
“Shall we go?”
“Fuck… You crazy bastard….”
Kim Jihwan cursed briefly, then obediently followed me into the room. The room beyond the door was quite spacious and luxurious. It didn’t look like an ordinary guest room. It was filled with chandeliers, antique furniture, and artistic decorations that seemed better suited to medieval nobles.
“Wow, there’s even a piano?”
I turned around in admiration to look at Kim Jihwan, but he wasn’t there.
“…Jihwan-ah?”
Anxiety rose inside me. Was I going to be separated from Kim Jihwan like this too? I just hoped he hadn’t been hurt….
“What.”
Kim Jihwan’s voice came from deeper inside the room.
Apparently, the utterly exhausted Kim Jihwan had thrown himself down the moment he saw the king-sized bed. He lay sprawled like wilted cabbage across the white, luxurious sheets.
“Jihwan-ah- You scared me.”
Sighing inwardly, I sat on the edge of the bed and removed Kim Jihwan’s shoes while he lay there.
“You’re worried about shoes even in a situation like this?”
“Haha, because I’m Korean.”
I took off my shoes too, climbed onto the bed, and wriggled into a spot beside Kim Jihwan. As I lay there staring quietly at the ceiling, drowsiness began creeping over me.
“It’s hot. And I’m thirsty.”
“Swallow your spit.”
Unable to contain my admiration for Kim Jihwan’s brilliant solution, I snickered. At some point, he had gotten hold of another hotel napkin and was fiddling with it, examining the folds as though he intended to make another paper crane.
“Jihwan-ah, this is my first time in a hotel like this.”
“That came out of nowhere. Doesn’t your family travel?”
“You know how busy my parents are.”
I had never visited a hotel like this in my original world either. In fact, I had lived a life that was the complete opposite of this kind of luxury.
“When I was little, I used to play while imagining that I lived in a palace like this.”
“Did you? I’ve never heard that before.”
“Because I never told anyone.”
“Then why are you telling me now?”
I looked at Kim Jihwan once.
The protagonist of this novel and my childhood friend. The person I had to love.
“Hello, Kim Jihwan.”
I didn’t really know why I greeted Kim Jihwan. Was it because it was too hot, or because I was so drowsy and languid?
“Could you take me home?”
Kim Jihwan stared silently at me. Then he moved his lips and answered.
“Where is home?”
“Somewhere far away.”
“Where far away?”
“In the woods… by a river. An abandoned shipping container.”
When I was very young, I really had lived beside a river. Whenever I walked there holding Mom’s hand, she would tell me that we were descended from fish.
She told me that when we became terribly sad, gills would grow from our throats so we wouldn’t drown to death in our own tears.
I remembered that for the first time in a very long while.
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