Doctor's Pov :
I've been a school doctor for years. I've seen kids with their teeth knocked out, sobbing for their parents. But when Sechan Kang burst through those doors, hauling a limp body over his shoulder like a sack of laundry, the air in the room died.
"Doctor! Move! Now!" Sechan was screaming, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated panic.
I didn't even have my coat on. I scrambled to the table as he dropped the boy. It was Choyun. This kid is the president of Class 3, good at almost everything.
I'd heard rumors that he barely talks, I never expected him, of all people, to come to me with a condition like this.. I grabbed his wrist—nothing. I pressed my ear to his chest—silence. No thud. No vibration. Just a cold, terrifying stillness.
"Everyone out! GET OUT!" I yelled at the crowd of students gathering at the door. I couldn't let them see a corpse.
For the next hour, I became a madman. I pumped his chest until my own muscles burned and screamed. I pushed the CPR so hard I felt a rib snap under my palms—a sickening crunch that echoed in the silent room. "Come on, kid... don't do this to me. Not today. Not on my watch!" I was sweating through my shirt, my vision blurring. I used the defibrillator until the smell of singed skin filled the air.
Nothing. The monitor stayed flat. A mocking, horizontal line of green light that told me I had failed.
I collapsed into my chair, my head in my hands. The school bell rang in the distance. To the rest of the world, the day was over. For me, my life was over. If a kid dies like this, they'll strip my license. They'll blame the school. I looked at Choyun. He looked so small on that table. Wasted.
I had to go out there. His mother was waiting.
When I opened the door, she was standing there, clutching her purse so hard her knuckles were white. She saw my face—the sweat, the shame, the way I couldn't look her in the eye—and she knew.Maybe she figured it out from my expression alone.
Guilt has a way of showing itself, no matter how hard you try to hide it.
And for a doctor, there's only one reason that kind of guilt exists—
because he failed to protect his patient. She didn't even wait for me to speak.
"No..." she whispered. The sound was so thin, so fragile. "No, no, no..."
"I'm sorry," I choked out. "He's been... he's been dead for hours. There was nothing I could do."
She didn't scream. Not at first. She just fell. It wasn't a dramatic faint; her legs simply stopped working. She hit the floor with a heavy, bone-jarring thud. Then, the sound started. A low, guttural wail that didn't sound like it came from a human throat. It was the sound of a soul being torn in half. She clawed at the floor tiles, her face contorting into something unrecognizable. She tried to speak, her mouth hanging open, gasping for air that wouldn't come, her eyes wide and bloodshot, fixed on the closed infirmary door.
With a trembling, frantic hand, she reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. She dialed a number,
She hesitated.
Her mind told her not to press it—but her heart gave in.
In the end, she dialed the number.
her sobbing so violent she could barely hold the device to her ear.
"Please ..Hel..Help..." she shrieked into the phone, a sound of pure agony. " Ple...please! Choyun... they're saying he's dead! Please come to the school! Help me! HELP HIM!"
The hallway wasn't silent for long. Within twenty minutes, the sound of multiple sirens cut through the evening air. It wasn't just the police. A fleet of black sedans, easily ten of them, screeched into the school parking lot. Men in dark, tailored suits poured out, moving with a military precision that made my heart stop for a second time.
Then, an older man stepped out. He looked to be in his late fifties, his hair silver, his face carved out of granite. The moment he stepped into the hallway, the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
Choyun's mother—didn't hesitate. She crawled toward him on her knees, grabbing the hem of his coat. "Dad! Save him! The doctor... this idiot says he's gone! Tell him he's wrong! Please, Choyun is all I have!"
The grandfather didn't say a word. His face was a mask of suppressed rage, but I could see his hands—they were shaking. A tremor he couldn't hide. He looked at his secretary, his voice a low, terrifying growl. "Get the best medical team in the country. Now. If my grandson isn't breathing in an hour, this school will be a graveyard by tonight."
He didn't wait. He pushed past me, his boots clicking heavily on the floor, and entered the operating room. Behind him, the mother followed, dragging herself to the bedside.
She grabbed Choyun's hand. It was grey. Cold. The hand of a ghost. She pressed it to her face, her tears wetting his lifeless skin. "My baby... my poor boy... please come back to Mommy... I'll do anything... just open your eyes..."
Just then, Dr. Santiago Ian—a man known as a miracle worker—was practically thrown into the room by the bodyguards. He didn't even have his glasses on straight. He rushed to the body, checking the vitals with a frantic energy.
After a minute, he stopped. He looked at the grandfather, his face pale. "Sir... I'm a doctor, not a god. He's been dead for at least two hours. The brain—"
The grandfather didn't let him finish. He lunged forward, grabbing the doctor by the throat and pinning him against the heart monitor. "I don't give a damn about your science! Look at my daughter! Look at her!" He pointed a trembling finger at the mother, who was currently curled into a ball next to the bed, clutching Choyun's feet and howling.
He said "Fix him, or I will personally make sure you never see the sun again!"
The room was thick with the scent of ozone, antiseptic, and the raw, suffocating stench of grief. It was over. We all knew it.
And then... a sound.
Chirp.
The monitor, which had been a flat, silent line of death, gave a tiny, electronic spark.
Everyone froze. Even the grandfather let go of the doctor Ian's throat.
Chirp... Chirp...
The line wasn't flat anymore. A small, jagged mountain of green light appeared. Then another. The mother's head snapped up. She was still clutching Choyun's hand, and her eyes went wide.
"He... he's warm," she whispered.
Beneath her touch, the cold, grey skin of Choyun's arm was beginning to flush. The blue vanished from his fingernails. His chest, which had been as still as a stone, suddenly hitched. A sharp, ragged gasp for air tore through his throat.
Haaaa—!
The MC's soul slammed into the body like a freight train.
Slowly, his eyes opened. But they weren't the eyes of a dead boy. They were deep, focused, and carrying a weight that didn't belong to a high schooler. He looked at the ceiling, then turned his head to see the woman who had been ready to die with him.
He didn't know who she was .
But Then the memories flooded back.
He remembered being born, raised by his mother and father—though his father's face was already fading from memory. One day, his father left. His mother said he had run away with another woman.
He loved his father… yet he never understood why he left. Why he abandoned them. Why he chose to disappear.
After that day, he started speaking less.
Life no longer felt enjoyable.
He continued through middle school in silence. His mother, too, changed. She stopped talking to her own father after he failed to attend her mother's funeral—choosing instead to spend time with an actress. From then on, she believed all men were the same. That when responsibility arrived, they ran.
She didn't want her son to become like that.
But he had already drifted far away.
He barely spoke. To him, family felt like a toy—something you cherish when you have it, and cry over once it breaks. After that, you grow numb.
From that day on, he became cold to everyone.
He was good at studies. Good at everything he tried.
Except connecting with people.
It was as if he lived in his own world—
a quiet, empty, boring world.
His head throbbed as the memories poured in—too many, too fast.
It felt as if his brain itself was screaming in pain.
But he knew better.
The brain doesn't feel pain.
It's the nerves, the blood vessels, the surrounding tissue—the protective layers around it—that send those signals.
And right now, every one of them was burning as the memories forced their way in.
Outside, the sky over Gangbuk began to pulse with a dark, heavy purple hue, unnoticed by the world. The vessel was filled. The game was finally about to begin.