I Became My Ex-Boyfriend’s Concubine - Chapter 102

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 102

Dan-bi sat cradled in Hyun’s arms, her gaze fixed blankly on empty space. The sensation of those two arms holding her so tightly she might shatter was certainly familiar.
The scent she had missed, the sound of his breathing—all of it was undeniably hers, yet for some reason her shoulders kept tensing.
Rather than simply sink into that warmth, Dan-bi hurriedly pushed him away.
“Wait, just a moment.”
At the same instant, her eyes met Hyun’s.
The moment Dan-bi pushed him back, Hyun reached out and gently wiped her cheeks.
His gaze traced over her face deliberately, taking in every feature. His touch was careful, as if she might break at any second.
“You’re really… Dan-bi, aren’t you?”
“Hyun.”
“Dan-bi. It’s really you.”
Hyun let his head fall forward onto her shoulder, his firm forehead pressing gently against the hollow of her collarbone. The pressure caught her breath short.
The tips of his fingers, gripping her arms tightly, trembled ever so slightly.
“I almost gave up everything. If you had just never opened your eyes… if you had stayed like that forever, I….”
Then he lifted his head, meeting her eyes again. His hand continued to trace her face, and strangely, it felt utterly unfamiliar.
Perhaps it was because Hyun had never been this tender to her, even in the original world.
Or perhaps it was the sight of Hyun clinging to her so desperately while wearing that face that unsettled her.
Dan-bi couldn’t quite make sense of it.
“But thank goodness. You’re alive and moving like this. That means you’ll open your eyes in the real world soon too, won’t you?”
“Hyun, wait a moment.”
Dan-bi carefully removed his hands from her face. Then, steadying her racing heart, she asked quietly.
“What do you mean by that? That I haven’t opened my eyes? Actually, more than that…”
Dan-bi straightened her head and fixed her gaze on his eyes. The corners of his eyes, so close now, were slightly reddened.
“How did you get in here?”
“Som brought a Beta Test Device.”
“A Beta Test Device…?”
“Yeah. It looks exactly like the Game Device you were using.”
“Exactly like it? What are you talking about?”
“Huh…?”
When Dan-bi furrowed her brow and pressed him, Hyun tilted his head in confusion, unable to understand.
An odd silence settled between them. The room grew so quiet that even the distant sound of wind seemed to have stopped.
Dan-bi desperately retraced the day she first received that Game Device.
It had been shortly after Som left her place that the doorbell rang.
When she opened the door, there was only a single box sitting there, with no sender’s address written on it.
She’d naturally assumed it was a gift Som had forgotten and left behind. There was no one else who would have left such a device in front of her house.
“That Game Device I was using… it wasn’t sent by Som?”
“It couldn’t have been.”
Hyun shook his head immediately. After a brief pause, he spoke in a low voice.
“I’ve wanted to ask you all this time. How did you get that Game Device?”
“What?”
“That Game Device was developed by Som’s Company, yes. But at the point when you accessed this game, it hadn’t been released to the world yet. Only a single Beta Test Device came out later.”
“You mean to say…”
Before the Game Device was even released, I already had it in my hands?
Her heart raced as she considered whether such a thing was even logically possible. Dan-bi drew a trembling breath before she could speak.
“Is there any possibility that another Beta Device was leaked beforehand?”
“No. Even Som said she was baffled by that—even the gods would weep over it.”
“Are you absolutely certain that the Test Device from Som’s Company and the Game Device I was using are exactly the same?”
“Yes. I’ve meticulously cross-checked the internal designs. Down to the smallest component, they’re identical.”
It was absurd.
What he was saying amounted to her having received in the past a device that wouldn’t be completed until the future. The room began to spin, and a dizzying vertigo washed over her.
‘Wait.’
A sudden thought flashed through her mind, and Dan-bi quickly bent forward to feel around her chest near her jeogori.
Seeing her suddenly urgent movements, Hyun asked in confusion.
“What’s wrong? What are you looking for?”
“My Norigae.”
“Huh?”
Dan-bi furrowed her brow.
There was nothing. No knot caught between her fingertips.
Only the smooth silk jacket slipped away between her fingers, leaving nothing behind.
“The Norigae is gone.”
The Yellow Ornament that had been dangling from her waist just moments before had vanished without a trace. Had she dropped it somewhere while moving around?
“Why the Norigae all of a sudden?”
“…Do you remember the main outfit I designed for the final model in the fashion show?”
At those words, Hyun’s face hardened at once. He seemed to be recalling Dan-bi’s final show—the one she’d been robbed of without even being credited.
His lips pressed into a thin line. Then, slowly, his expression grave, Hyun nodded.
“You mean that model that combined traditional Korean hanbok and a wedding dress?”
“Right. The pattern that was etched into the skirt back then.”
It wasn’t just the skirt that bore the pattern she’d designed. That original design was woven throughout the outfit—from the small Norigae to the edges of the jacket sleeves.
“That pattern… it exists in this world exactly as it is.”
“This world? What do you mean…”
Hyun’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you saying your design is inside this game?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Are you telling me Som stole your pattern and put it into the game graphics?”
“No. That doesn’t make sense either, from the start.”
That final model had never been revealed to anyone. It was a design only she knew.
And she’d fallen into this game on the very day the fashion show had been sabotaged.
Even if someone had somehow gotten hold of the pattern, there was no way it could have been implemented into game data just hours after the outfit was completed and unveiled.
Besides, there was no chance Som would use someone else’s design without permission.
But now, with the fact added that she’d received this same Game Device before the Beta Test was even officially released, a thread began to pull taut in her mind.
That strange prompt window she’d seen when she first started the game: “Restart the game from the beginning?”
The system that recognized the previous user and herself as the exact same person.
And that other Dan-bi—the one she’d faced like a mirror in the cave days ago—spitting out those words.

“I am you.”

All the traces pointed in one direction: the other Dan-bi hidden within her and her present self were ultimately the same existence.
It had always seemed strange. What were all those countless memories and terrible afterimages with Hyun that had rushed in with the rain?
She’d never played this game for so long, yet why did the time that felt like dozens or hundreds of playthroughs live and breathe in her memory with such clarity?
Now she thought she understood. There could be only one answer.
“If this Game Device came from the future…”
“What?”
“Hypothetically.”
Dan-bi lifted her head to meet Hyun’s gaze. Then, cutting through the tangle of threads, she spoke calmly.
“If this Game Device arrived from the distant future, then everything makes sense.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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