Chapter 5 - Where Life And Death Is Not Satisfied How They Die.

The familiar reconcile door fills my sight. I stand up without any knife stuck in my chest or a hint of pain that should be there.

Behind the hallway's windows is a blue sky I've seen in the past. the same shapes of cloud and the same hue of blue.

Sohee looks at me as if confused...but soon she chuckles, "oh, Sunbae, it's just you being nervous after all." Her cheek relaxes, "It can't be helped, you have to make the most first impression on the girls, anyway. I can imagine the pressure."

I hope the problem is simple as that but the pressure is a lot heavier than you think. It was a pressure where you died twice, then slowly gained your breath. Soon you would die again only for it to repeat. So it seems to look like to me.

Sohee walks past me and opens the door. Noticing me standing idle (still mesmerized by this whole situation,) she turns around invitingly, "Let's just get on with it."

Right, sure. I follow her blankly.

And when I enter the room, before my eyes is the same scene:

Mei looks at me with wide eyes.

Shizuka is typing on her keyboard.

Carrie pushing buttons with her fingers.

And Claire sleeping on the desk or at least tries to.

I take a seat. The cushion feels like an ass this time.

"So? Who's he?" asks Shizuka again.

Sohee sighs, "first, I want you all to stop whatever you're doing and listen…"

Our introduction replays but I keep on getting distracted. Don't blame me for trying to make sense YOLO is not even real now. Sohee would check on me if I didn't pay attention, whispering I should make a mental note. I don't need to. I've seen all of this once. Time feels faster.

Finnaly, Claire bangs the door and Carrie complains and talks behind the possible crime syndicate's daughter.

The only change this time is they don't have to explain what Claire meant by toilet. Only because I don't bother to ask.

Hold up...

Will that get me killed?

What does She want from me anyway?

Sohee tugs my sleeve, "Sunbae? You're spacing out again…Sunbae? Should we go to the nurse? You look really pale."

Just then I realize I am sweating. Despite that, I give Sohee a reassuring smile, "I'm okay." It's just that I am thinking…

Can I die?

Or will I have to experience the pain of dying again and again?

A look of concern crosses Sohee's face. Then she shakes it away, keeping it 'bussiness-like' and starts as she turns to the girls, "so if everyone is all right, we should be able to start our recognition session now."

Recognition session. The last time I reached this point, I refused to be their tutor and walked out of the school, met Life and Death who claimed to be one and assassinated me.

Sending me back here.

Now I remember about it. The nurse, or she called herself Death, says I can meet her at the school's infirmary. The Death who kissed me to lessen my pain is waiting there for my questions. Great, I have a million for her.

The girls look at me, ready for my answer.

Huh,

I can answer the opposite from the last time--'I guess I'd like to be your tutor'--but then what? Wait for one of the girls to start noticing I can't teach them, calls me a fraud, and makes me squirming around the chaos? Or maybe that wouldn't happen, instead, when I have to leave school, Life stabs me again. Because I have chosen something not of their liking.

But then again She will stab me again if I follow the last route.

...

If you realized, great! Life and Death is the boss here.

I have to ask what they want from me. Because I'm dying clueless now, and if only the word 'dying' was actually death but dying by Her hand is to live again. I'm like that one part-timer who stands blankly, awaiting order. What should I do now, boss? I need a specification from Her who put me into this situation so suddenly goddamit.

I stand up, confusing the girls, and say to Sohee, "I have to use the toilet."

Shizuka asks playfully, "we have two definitions of toilet here."

"The one not Claire uses."

Shizuka tilts her head, "hm, weird, as if you get it?"

Oh yeah, we've never talked about the toilet Claire used then in this timeline. For me to reply to her like that makes me seem to know about their norms when I shouldn't. Will this get me killed? God, if only I knew the fuck I suppose to do now.

She eyes me suspiciously but seconds later brushes it off.

I give Sohee a look of everything will be fine and say, "I will be back shortly."

My mouth is ticklish then, using the word 'shortly'--a term of time when I absolutely confuse how time is supposed to work now.

Sohee nods, "I'll be waiting," then I walk out of the room.

The hallway stretches along with loneliness. When I advance, there are no footsteps.

I stop and find myself stuck--I don't know this school. I look around and a ponytail girl comes in view.

She's holding a pile of papers when I stop her, "excuse me, but where's the infirmary?"

The girl jumps a bit hearing my approach and then studies me from down and up.

Ah, I see here. This's an all-girls school, so seeing me could be a little weird. I feel younger in this body...so she must have thought I'm the same age as her. But my attire should give her enough dots to connect.

She asks, "you're a teacher?"

"Not so, but I guess I'm going to be equivalent to that."

"That's so. Wait, you came from that corridor…" her eyes widen, "ah, I'm sorry! You should be the new tutor."

She tries to bow but when the papers shake, she pulls herself slowly. "Er, what is it you ask again? Oh, the infirmary? It's down the first floor--just use those stairs down...and go right."

I bow slightly, "thank you."

"No problem, now if you excuse me."

Then she takes off, not looking back at me anymore. Also means not realizing that something falls out of her skirt's pocket.

It's a box of play cards.

I could shout to inform her--I do own her, but let's get real here, I have a life and death matter to attend to--literally. The more time wasted the more likely I will get killed again.

I shrug the guilt off, use the stairs to climb down for five minutes (what a big school), and a minute walk to finally standing in front of the infirmary room. If I'm to recap what I see around the school, it's like a mansion with only your grandparents in it. The silence is always present. You could even hear your own footsteps and heartbeat as you walk down a corridor.

I push open the door.

In the filled room is the very nurse who kissed me. When she sees me, her red lips go erect.

The smell of medicine speeds up my heartbeat rate.

Her voice comes to slow into my blood, "how's the situation?"

"Not all right--I think this is more than any human brain could handle."

She is sitting on a revolving chair. Just a meter from her is an empty red chair. It's just swirling around slowly as if waiting for me.

I walk in with heavy lips full of questions. Seeing the woman big eyes readied, I let the big one out, "so what's going on with me?"

Death pushes the chair torward me, "sit and think more about how to specify your question. If I answer that one, maybe your human brain would explode instantly."

Right.

I sit, "so am I dead?"

Death crosses her white-carrot legs and her lips chuckles, "oh, you've never have been. Dead. Dead man can't talk, neither do he could walk on time still."

My head may feel lighter or maybe it's just good I had an opportunity to talk about this with someone.

"Why put me into this situation?"

She looks at me with voiding eyes, "Hm, I could say because I could put you in that kind of situation. I have the power to do it." She licks her lips, "Of why all this is happening, that is because I want that one end I see fit in MY eyes."

No shit, you're saying I'm her and she is me, only god says that kind of confusing thing. And what the hell is this 'one end?'

She looks at her red nails. Those five could be a replacement for the knife to stab me. "One end, where the girls' death satisfy me."

The girls? Ah, the negative girls. I remember she says I shouldn't leave the girl, "I figured that much, so it's about the girls."

Where will the girls' death satisfy her? So they will die? So lucky.

"It's all about them." Death nods happily as if proud I'm beginning to understand

"What happened if that never happened?" I ask.

She almost laughed, "unlikely, it has to happen. Until then, you will be stuck in here."

Stuck in here. She meant to keep reliving one moment even a million times. What a tragedy for me. But then again, tragedy wouldn't happen only to me. Anyone could. So I wonder if someone else ever gets stuck like me and if they made it alive or not.

"Then all of this has happened?" Making someone back to live and deal only because of Your own unsatisfactory?

"You're the first."

Well, what an honour. How of all things could this happen? Why the girls? Why me?

She strokes her long black hair and rests it on her lap. "Well, i can't tell you much." she giggles, "maybe this all happens because that one time I rounded the world. I watched the girls die... and urg, I just don't like it. Now, they are not the first ever I saw dying so, unsatisfactory, but that day I kind want to change something."

A lump forms in my throat as her eyes catch mine, "so I brought you here."

...that's it?

I try to stabilize my head as my head spins after hearing her story. Let's see, "Ss one day you walk around and see a group of girls died then decide to bring me here to fix it?"

"The word 'maybe' is there. You shouldn't know the exact."

Still, how's any of this fair anyway? Have I done something so bad in my past life to be punished like this?

"Fufufu," Death sounds to be amused reading my mind, "life, and death are never yours, to begin with, human. I allow you to walk through life and take it away as I prefer. If I want you back, then you have to live and die" And her eyes are threatening, "not like you have any other choice."

Oh, all right, it's all fair then.

"Why me?"

"Hurm…what do you think?"

"Because I have a big dick?" was the only reason I could muster.

Death smiles, "are you sure you still have it though?"

Oh shit, she's right. I maybe I have to check it later.

Death shrugs, "She says you could--Life I meant. If you really want to know, Life can answer your questions--she's always the positive one anyway." She meets my gaze, "me?" Well, I never know what is happening in your life, I can only see deaths. I don't even know what Life sees in you. But then again, Life is me, trusting myself is better than trusting anything else, agree?" I don't nod, she continues otherwise. "So, for me, choosing you is like a gamble."

"Gamble?"

"I can't just make humans to be in your shoes now as much as I want. You are a risk I accept to make this world...a little bit better." She emphasizes the next line, "chaos could happen."

Overall, from what she answered (in the most godly way), Life and Death don't share the same thought despite being one. And she admits that they don't have the power of everything.

She has a limit.

"Fufufufu, I actually don't." Death says.

Shit, I forgot she could read minds.

"Let me rephrase that for you--I shouldn't make people experience life after they see their post-death, more than once, to anyone at random. They'll go crazy. They'll fail everything I have to do."

So I can't go crazy?

"You absolutely can."

I want to ask her what the difference between me and anybody else then, but a voice inside my mind answers, jolting up cold from my feet.

-1, maybe you will find the answer soon enough…Sunbae.

Teeth clatters, "gr, great, even you call me this 'Sunbae,' too."

Death chuckles, avoiding the topic. She makes a new one, "anyway, for your information, reaching the one end is almost unlikely, like," She takes out a phone from her desk And turns around the phone to show me a slot machine from a casino game. She continued, "like getting seven-seven-seven."

"Jackpot?"

She smirks, "but what if you can pull it again and again. Maybe luck goes on our side and hit the jackpot. Or it may break on too many pulls.

Oh great, whatever she meant by that. Using slot machines as an example is already bad. Imagine the real thing.

Then something pops into my mind. A gamble? It's always a gamble if you don't know what would happen. When she told me about life choosing me she did say she couldn't see what could happen…

They're also blind to the future.

"Fufufu…"

She only chuckles.

I look at her closely…

And when the godly eyes contact me, it sucks me in.

Pain comes to bite every part of my body.

Something is coming out of my mouth and nose…as if…as if a sickle curves in my nose, hooks my brain, and slowly takes the organ out…

-1, I see…it's not just you're curious…

'YOU want to ESCAPE

'YOU will try to challenge us

'What should we do before that could happen?

'Let's forgive him for now.'

Then the pain goes away, my lung fills in the air hastily.

I knew she would find my intention sooner. She can read minds, after all, I just don't expect that terrifying way to choke someone. Urg, but it's worth a shot anyway. I do get something out from all this risky questioning.

That life and death can't control time fully. They can't see the future for sure now.

"That's a wrong way to put it, Sunbae."

It seems like she wants to make me think that she knows everything.

"Huh?"

"Time always goes forward…

"Time is our GOD,

"Enough," she says.

Her eyes stare at me uninterested now.

"I don't want to hear anymore why's but I also have to be fair as any god should be…so if you want to know more, ask differently."

I grunt, "then how do I do it? To get to the one end?"

"That's for you to figure out."

"Can't I get at least some help?"

"Is me bringing you back alive and giving you a chance to redo everything, isn't enough?"

"No matter how much OP you make it sound like, I think that's more likely to be a drawback for my mental health."

"Hm'm. Ookay, then help I will give."

Death turns around to search her cabinet. She pulls out a white cylinder and gives it to me.

I pull it open and see white pills.

"There are fifteen of them."

I shake the bottle, "the question is, is this a contraceptive pill?"

"No. You eat that and you instantly die."

Is She for real?

"How's that any help?"

She inclines her head, "of course, to put you into a quick death, preventing you from experiencing post-death and getting back to your save point."

She's not joking.

Savepoint? Like in the game?

"Can I get a difference 'help'? How about a system or something?"

-1, I gave you a system already...

"Really?"

A solar one.

"That's just funny and disappointing." Imagine if a certain webnovel content maker made a new series called My Solar System. That's going to be a more interesting science textbook.

"I know right."

A knock comes from outside, "Miss, can I come in?"

Death gives me a smile, "It seems like it's time for you to go, Sunbae."

I stand up, ready to leave.

"Oh, and a warning from Life, if you failed to be their tutor and still breathing after the bell rung…I will personally kill you."

"Can she not?"

She half-shrugs, "she's always the positive one."