Chapter 8

　　In that time, my relationship with Hamin changed a lot into something… kind of annoying.

　　"Unnnncle…"

　　Hamin was sprawled on the supermarket floor, looking up at me with big, watery eyes. His green irises were full of desperate longing, but I ignored him and pushed the cart in silence. Or tried to.

　　Unfortunately, the cart didn’t budge an inch. Hamin had wrapped a mass of vines around the wheels. If not for that, we’d have finished shopping and gone home ages ago.

　　"What. Now what?"

　　"I want Bbani Bonnie…"

　　"You have one at home."

　　"No! That one’s Bbani Riri! This one is Bbani Bonnie!"

　　"No. We agreed you’d pick either Bonnie or Riri, just one."

　　I scooped up his flailing arms and legs and plopped him into the cart.

　　That whole bunny series was a shameless money grab. They all looked exactly the same, but they slapped a blue ribbon on the left ear or a pink ribbon on the right, then sold them as separate characters named Bonnie and Riri.

　　I’d already bought him a fork and plate. What more did he want?

　　I tossed a pack of gummy worms into his lap as he stuck his lips out as far as they’d go, broadcasting I’m sulking.

　　"Eat it after we pay."

　　"Okay."

　　Just like that, his mood flipped. Hamin broke into a bright smile, as if he’d never pouted at all. While he hugged the gummies, I crouched down and started tearing the vines off the wheels one by one.

　　"If you throw a tantrum one more time, I’m really not taking you out anymore."

　　"Okay."

　　He snuck a glance at me, then hugged the gummy worms tight and nodded.

　　Unbelievable. The first time he saw them, he’d freaked out and called them gross, and now he loved them so much he was practically drooling.

　　"Uncle, carry me."

　　I lifted him out of the cart when he reached his arms toward me, supporting him under the butt.

　　To be honest, Hamin hadn’t been this affectionate from the start. He called me "Uncle" with his mouth, but his eyes were always wide open, watching and judging everything I did. Even at meals, he wouldn’t take a bite until I’d eaten a spoonful first.

　　He kept that up for about a week, but I guess he couldn’t keep it going forever. Before I knew it, he was stretching his legs out, making himself comfortable, and acting like my place was his.

　　Case in point:

　　"Uncle, eggs are on sale."

　　He pulled a crumpled flyer from his pocket and unfolded it. It looked like he’d decided what to buy back at home. There was a list of ingredients scribbled in colored pencil in the corner.

　　This was Baek Hamin? Who would ever believe that this kid, perfectly adapted to a frugal civilian life, was the precious golden child of the White Domain Guild? I wouldn’t, that’s for sure. Maybe that’s why Eunseong hadn’t come. Because no one could even imagine Hamin being here?

　　I gave an awkward smile as the store staff cooed over how capable my "little brother" was and handed him a fruit sample.

　　"Must be nice, shopping with your big brother. What are you going to make?"

　　"He’s not my brother, he’s my uncle. Eggs are on sale, one carton per person, so Uncle and I are each gonna get one and make soy sauce egg rice for dinner."

　　"Oh my, that sounds great. Enjoy, okay?"

　　I put two cartons of eggs in the cart and called Hamin over with a grave expression.

　　"You’re going to eat again?"

　　"Yeah."

　　I rubbed my brow, at a loss for words.

　　He… really ate too well.

　　Every time we came to the supermarket, he tried to get snacks, so I’d thought maybe if he was full, he’d calm down. Right before we left the house, I’d fed him two heaping bowls of rice.

　　And now he wanted to eat again.

　　It was enough to make me wonder if White Domain had been starving the kid. After we paid, I folded the receipt neatly and tucked it into my wallet. The day I wrung that compensation out of them, I was billing every last dollar.

　　As soon as we got home, Hamin polished off two loaves of sliced bread and three jars of strawberry jam, then patted his full stomach and pulled out a Bbani coloring book.

　　I, meanwhile, stared at my silent phone.

　　Why… hasn’t he called?

　　Just having his number saved was unpleasant, but I did have Baek Eunseong’s contact, and he had mine.

　　The Eunseong I knew should have been banging on my front door by now. The thought of his beloved nephew being in the house of the man who hated him most in the world should have been enough to drive him insane.

　　So why the hell is there no word from him?

　　Arms crossed, I watched Hamin sing some weird little song as he colored. Then a thought hit me.

　　Did Eunseong really cherish Hamin?

　　In the original novel, the Baek Hamin Side Stories were, obviously, written from Hamin’s point of view. It was entirely possible he’d just assumed Eunseong loved and cherished him.

　　If that were the case, the radio silence would make sense… but still. His nephew was missing. Could he really be this completely out of touch?

　　"Uncle, you know…"

　　"Yeah, Hamin. Good timing. Where’s your uncle?"

　　"Uncle? Oh, Uncle Eunseong? He’ll be out soon."

　　Out… from where?

　　Seeing my baffled expression, Hamin pulled a phone out of his bag—wait, what?

　　"A phone?"

　　"Yeah."

　　"You have a phone?"

　　"Uh-huh!"

　　…And you didn’t think to mention that? I stared, dumbfounded, as he waved it in front of my face. On the lit screen, he and Eunseong were cheek to cheek, smiling brightly.

　　With his small fingers, Hamin tapped the screen and made a call. A moment later, Eunseong’s voice burst out.

　　—"Baek Hamin! Where the hell are y…!"

　　The line was full of static, but it was definitely his voice. Something was wrong. The call cut off before it could connect properly. While I sat there stunned, Hamin calmly held the phone out to me.

　　"Uncle is in a dungeon right now."

　　"And why are you telling me that now?"

　　"You didn’t ask."

　　I mean, I didn’t, but…!

　　Hamin tilted his head at me, like I was the weird one for being speechless.

　　"And Uncle Eunseong said you know everything."

　　I do? Ah. I got it. Seong Dohyun had done all kinds of crap to sabotage Baek Eunseong.

　　He’d even paid a fortune-teller hunter to see the future, so from Eunseong’s perspective, it probably looked like Dohyun knew his every move. But that wasn’t me—that was the Seong Dohyun from the original.

　　All I could do was wheeze out a useless "Ha… ha… ha…" and pull up the news on my phone.

　　BREAKING: White Domain Guild Clears Dungeon!

　　A dungeon? Out of nowhere? He’d said he had "family business." Did White Domain handle family business inside dungeons?

　　I couldn’t hide my disbelief as I tapped the alert. It looked like he’d just come out. Unlike usual, Eunseong’s face was tense as he glared into the camera.

　　Just seeing his face pissed me off, so I closed the livestream and went to sit next to Hamin.

　　"Hey, looks like Baek Gyeongmin went too. Were you gonna go with them and couldn’t?"

　　"Mm. Gyeongmin said he needed something, so I was gonna go into the dungeon with him."

　　They were going to take a kid this young into a dungeon?

　　The more I heard, the less sense the Baek family’s behavior made. Was Gyeongmin cursed too? Did they think they could break it in the dungeon, so they tried to take Hamin along?

　　If not, it was straight-up child abuse. Even I sometimes had nightmares after fighting monsters. And they wanted to show a place like that to a kid?

　　"Seriously, that Baek Eunseong…"

　　I clicked my tongue. Hamin, having finished his picture, climbed into my lap. I rolled up his pant leg and used my ability to press down on the curse in his leg, and all I could do was sigh.

　　Okay, if he’d been in a dungeon, then the lack of contact made sense, but…

　　"Uncle, you know what?"

　　"Yeah, yeah, I get it. That one’s Ro, and that one’s Pony."

　　"No, no, not that."

　　I’d thought he was about to spring another surprise Bbani quiz on me like usual, but apparently not. He hesitated for a long moment, then asked in a small voice.

　　"Uncle, do you and my uncle not get along? Also, it’s Riri and Bonnie."

　　The kid had sharp instincts.

　　As a reader, I held no personal grudge against Baek Eunseong. However, the original owner of this body, Seong Dohyun, apparently did; his heart pounded with unpleasant intensity at the mere mention of the man’s name.

　　"We don’t get along."

　　"Oh, I seeee."

　　Sharp as he was, Hamin didn’t pester me with questions about why. He simply went back to quietly stacking his blocks.

　　I looked around at the boy’s belongings scattered throughout the apartment. If the White Domain Guild had just cleared a dungeon, they would need time to cool down. Eunseong would probably rest for a day before rushing over here.

　　Glancing at the clock, I started picking things up at random and putting them away.

　　"Why’re you cleaning? I’m gonna play more."

　　"No, you need to get ready to go home. Your uncle is probably coming tomorrow."

　　At that, Hamin’s face went slack with shock.

　　They say humans are creatures of habit; he had gotten so used to this life that he’d forgotten all about going back to White Domain.

　　His face crumpling, Hamin clung to my leg. With him hanging off my shin, I shuffled around the kitchen, fried some eggs, and mixed rice in the big metal bowl that had basically become his personal dish.

　　"Let’s eat."

　　"Mm… Uncle… put some kimchi on top for me."

　　He chewed gloomily for a moment, then suddenly looked up at me as if something had clicked.

　　"Uncle! Uncle, Uncle, Uncle."

　　"Just say it once."

　　"Uncle, have you ever eaten kimchi made with aplasia?"

　　"No."

　　I had no idea what aplasia was, but it sounded suspiciously like Rafflesia. And they made kimchi with that? Yeah, hard pass.

　　"At our house, there’s this guy, Mr. Jaegeun. He’s really good at cooking, you know?"

　　"Is that so?"

　　Maybe he suddenly felt like bragging, or maybe he was just being picky about the side dishes, but he went on and on about how the sausages Mr. Jaegeun grilled weren’t just sausages, and even the eggs weren’t just eggs.

　　"Wanna come to our house and try it sometime?"

　　"No."

　　Ever since I learned that I could go home once I repaired M’s Strip, I had been deliberately avoiding new experiences.

　　Thinking back to how I’d unlocked the reading condition just by wanting to go home, it occurred to me that maybe I’d ended up possessing someone here because a past version of me had wished for it.

　　The idea that a mere thought could flip your whole world upside down was ridiculous, but I had nothing else to pin this on.

　　So, I had to avoid piling up special memories in this place as much as possible. If I went back to my original world and found myself craving food from here, or wanting to do something I’d done here, what if I got yanked back over on some absurd technicality? No thanks.

　　"Eat a ton when you go back. For now, just eat this."

　　I watched Hamin nod gloomily, then shifted my gaze to the sausages I’d scored with a knife. He’d been eating so well I thought he had no complaints, but was he actually a picky eater?

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