At the unfamiliar ceiling that suddenly met his eyes, a mystified Doyoung could only blink his round eyes repeatedly.
'Where am I?'
He was sure he had been in the faculty office just a moment ago… Did he end up fainting?
As he started to regain his senses, the hospital's characteristic medicinal smell was so familiar it made him sigh. A hospital, then. It seemed the commotion in the faculty office wasn't enough, seeing as he'd fainted and been carried here again.
Worried that Dohee might have been contacted, he started to sit up. Hearing the rustling sound, a teacher in a white gown hurried over, pulled back the hospital curtain, and spoke. "You're awake? How are you? Are you not hurting anywhere else?"
"Do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened?"
"Uh… no. I don't really remember…."
"You collapsed in the faculty office, so Hyun brought you to the nurse's office."
'The nurse's office?'
He was sure it was a hospital, but he was still inside the school.
'I guess the Kangsung Group really is different,' he thought, his eyes widening as he looked around the nurse's office, which reeked of money. However, the nurse seemed to interpret his expression differently, as he spoke with a rather troubled look.
"Hyun had to leave for a bit."
Did he think Doyoung was looking for Kang Hyun?
The memory of himself in the faculty office, desperately clinging to him as if he were a lifeline, suddenly surfaced, and his cheeks flushed. Logically, there was no reason for Kang Hyun to be loyal enough to stay until he woke up, so there was no reason to feel disappointed. Doyoung simply nodded lightly in response.
However, the nurse, who had clearly been dying to talk until Doyoung woke up, showed no signs of letting the topic of Kang Hyun go. He glanced at Doyoung's name tag and began, "Um, Doyoung…," his eyes shining excessively.
"Are you and Hyun friends?"
"…I met him for the first time today."
"What? No way!"
He had only stated the truth, but the nurse jumped as if it were absurd.
"No, but…"
Unable to finish his outburst, he chewed on the thought with a suspicious expression. To be fair, Doyoung could fully understand his sentiment. The Kang Hyun he had met today had made him wonder if he was even the 'Kang Hyun' he knew.
He was originally a person completely uninterested in other people's affairs.
'That Kang Hyun held me in his arms and calmed me down in the faculty office, and as if that wasn't enough, he personally carried me to the nurse's office after I fainted?'
It was so ridiculous that if it had been a dream, he would have scoffed at how bizarre it was. But it wasn't a dream; it was reality. He had experienced it himself.
Doyoung was confused.
In the original story, Kang Hyun had approached Cha Dohee—who had come disguised as Cha Doyoung to avenge her brother—whispering the desperate words, "Want me to help?" This wasn't born from any sympathy or pity. Simply put, it was 'interest'—and nothing more—that stemmed from him being the first to notice that Cha Dohee had 'gutsily infiltrated an all-boys school while cross-dressing.'
Of course, in the later parts of the story that Doyoung hadn't seen, he was expected to have eventually melted at Cha Dohee's charms and degenerated into a so-called "doormat," just like the many other male leads. But, at least in the beginning, Kang Hyun was by no means the type to fall into the "good person" or "nice guy" category.
He was especially not the type to bestow such excessive kindness on someone he'd just met.
'So why now? Is it because of the error?'
Can an error also redeem a person and make them good?
Doyoung felt the need to properly review the errors he had caused so far. Especially that 'rampage' the system had gone on just before—he truly never wanted to experience that again if he could help it.
Doyoung lay on the nurse's office bed, glaring at the ceiling with all his might.
Here is what he had figured out so far.
First, he must not reveal that this place was inside a comic. If he recklessly said "webtoon" or "comic," the system would knock him out with a "forced shutdown." Therefore, especially in front of Cha Dohee, this was something he must absolutely never, ever do again.
Hmm. This was a question. Should he not act in a way that doesn't fit the 'original Cha Doyoung'?
But when he took a picture of his trashed desk that morning, the system was quiet. He was surprised to see comments at that time, but apart from that, he had realized his own actions were being "serialized" without any problem, and he'd been happy that he "could change the story." It was an action the original Cha Doyoung would never have dreamed of, so why was there no reaction?
'Don't tell me it was because even if I had thrown a fit and danced right there, it would only add "crazy" to the bullying he was already receiving and wouldn't affect the main storyline?'
Spoilers were also forbidden.
'Did you confess to Dohee and get rejected?'
The price for blabbing about content that should have appeared later in the original story was devastating. That scene was mercilessly cut. Because of that, he had suffered the major loss of being hit twice but only being able to claim it once. He learned his lesson to never drop spoilers again.
But the important point here was that the conversation where he and Ha Sangwoo bickered about money, saying, "Why should I give you that?" had survived just fine. This was a problem that connected to the previous question.
'Cha Doyoung talking back? No way.'
Even though the system could have erased that scene when it was editing, the fact that it survived meant that it, too, was not a problem.
At this point, he was confused.
'No, but why did it do that this time?'
Was the system displeased because he snapped at the homeroom teacher, saying things Cha Doyoung would never say? Why now, all of a sudden, when it had left him alone until now?
No, even if he conceded a hundred times that the system was as fickle as boiling porridge and had suddenly found his actions offensive, Doyoung's biggest question was this: Why?
'Why didn't it use the editing function then?'
If it was a scene that shouldn't be serialized, it could have just been cut, like the incident with Ha Sangwoo. And just like that time when his vision suddenly changed with a 'restoration,' it could have just edited the whole thing to 'before Doyoung snapped' or even further back to 'before Doyoung entered the faculty office.'
But Doyoung had definitely seen it then.
[ERROR] [Cannot be restored.]
After that, the system overloaded and began to rampage.
'Why? Why did it do that? Why couldn't it? What was different?'
This led Doyoung's thoughts to Kang Hyun.
Right, that was the difference. Unlike before, the names 'Cha Doyoung' and 'Kang Hyun' had appeared together as the 'Error Location.'
In Doyoung's opinion, the problematic scene was surely that moment when he snapped at the teacher. It wasn't even a big deal. It was just him saying not to casually dismiss it as a prank like a perpetrator when he didn't even know the circumstances. In other words, it was an issue between Doyoung and the teacher.
So why on earth did Kang Hyun suddenly pop up and cause an error with him?
And it was the most fatal error that had occurred so far. It had come with a physical shock to Doyoung's body; he had joked about 'seeing the Jordan River,' but it was truly a terrifying event he never wanted to experience again. It was the first time he had ever trembled like that.
As he was reliving that situation, Doyoung anxiously brought his fingertips to his lips and suddenly let out a small "Ah."
When Doyoung's body had collapsed in the faculty office, the one who caught him was none other than Kang Hyun.
That meant Kang Hyun was also in that spot. He was near the entrance, so Doyoung hadn't thought much of it, but what if Kang Hyun hadn't just arrived at the faculty office at that moment… but had seen it? That situation. Doyoung.
'Breathe, Cha Doyoung.'
Recalling his voice, which had whispered lowly in his ear, Doyoung shot up from his lying position like a spring and slapped his knee. 'He called my name.' Thinking that far, he felt like he was starting to get a grasp of it.
The original work. Right, the original work was the problem.
In the original, Cha Doyoung dies in the prologue or the very beginning of episode 1.
After that, the real story begins when 'Cha Dohee becomes Cha Doyoung and comes to Kangsun High School.' There, Cha Dohee struggles to drag the main perpetrators who bullied Doyoung down to rock bottom. In the process, she gets entangled with other guys like Kang Hyun and Lee Jinha, which was the main content of the original webtoon.
Originally, this current time period was not a section that was serialized in such detail. The scenes of Cha Doyoung being bullied were only shown briefly when necessary as the story progressed. But, perhaps because Yoonjae had become Doyoung, the point in time being serialized had changed.
Could it be because the Author-nim wanted to 'chew, tear, taste, and enjoy' the sight of Doyoung being bullied? …The fact that this reasoning now felt terribly plausible was devastating to Doyoung.
Anyway, getting back to the point, as mentioned earlier, Kang Hyun had no interest in other people's affairs. Especially things that happened at school, which he felt hadn't progressed at all from the level of playing in the dirt or playing house that little kids did in the kindergarten sandbox. So, what would he care if Cha Doyoung was being bullied or not?
That meant that in the original work, when Cha Doyoung was alive, he and Kang Hyun had no contact points whatsoever.
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