SWNOVELXO Chapter 2 - What, Doctor, My Eyes?! (1)
Chapter 2 – What, Doctor, My Eyes?! (1)
What? What about my optic nerve?
Si-un asks urgently.
“So, are you saying there’s a serious problem with my optic nerve?”
“Well, this is… difficult to explain…”
“Do I need surgery?”
“No. The optic nerve is an area that cannot be operated on with modern medicine.”
‘Can’t even have surgery. What am I supposed to do?’
Is this life over too?
His legs began to tremble.
Then.
“For now, I’ll write you a referral letter, so please go get examined at a university hospital-level facility.”
“Surely… am I going to go blind?”
“It’s hard to make a definitive judgment yet.”
An ambiguous answer.
Si-un left the hospital with a hardened expression and took a taxi home.
He had hoped to live properly just once when his new life began.
But a huge obstacle had blocked his path from the very start.
***
A few days later.
In front of the university hospital.
He crossed through the wide main building to the ophthalmology department,
After about thirty minutes of waiting, he came face to face with ophthalmologist Professor Kim Sung-chul.
Creak.
Professor Kim Sung-chul glanced at Si-un as he entered the examination room and asked.
“You went to a hospital because your eyes hurt, and they told you to come to our hospital?”
“Yes. My eyes keep hurting for no reason. They told me to come to a bigger hospital, so…”
“Just a moment.”
***
After the examination,
The professor opened his mouth with apparent puzzlement.
“How can the optic nerve be like this? Hmm…. Even after examining it twice…”
The doctor scratched his head several times as if he couldn’t understand at all.
“Am I going to go blind?”
“This is very strange.”
“Please explain how it’s strange in a way I can understand!”
“Mr. Lee Si-un, the condition of your optic nerve cells is extremely peculiar.”
“….”
Si-un was struck speechless.
“Are your eyes hurting a lot?”
“I can’t even live a normal life right now, seriously.”
“Hmm… I think we’ll need to do an MRI and CT scan. We should also check if there’s any problem with the brain.”
“Brain?”
“Looking at the scan of Lee Si-un’s optic nerve… Based on this optic nerve image alone…”
“So what exactly is the problem? Please speak clearly!”
Si-un wanted a straight answer without any beating around the bush.
He felt increasingly frustrated.
They should give a clear yes or no answer!
The doctor stared intently at Si-un’s optic nerve scan.
“We should start with an MRI test…”
‘Sigh. MRI? That’s an exam that costs hundreds of thousands of won.’
Due to difficult circumstances, he couldn’t even ask his parents for help.
Si-un had no choice but to empty his entire debit card balance to complete all the tests.
Then he went to Sung-chul.
He looked at the test results chart and said.
“There’s nothing wrong with your brain. I’ll prescribe some artificial tears, try using those and give your eyes some rest for now. If it hurts again, please come back.”
“….”
The doctor gave an unsatisfactory answer.
Walking out of the hospital dejectedly after hearing the response.
“The tests alone cost 460,000 won… but the result is ‘nothing wrong.’ Damn. This is infuriating…”
He squeezed his eyes shut. An overwhelming sense of doubt crept in.
‘If only that lottery had worked out…’
Si-un recalled that day.
* * *
Previous life.
After continued failures in the Hunter exam,
One day in his second life when he was pouring soju down his throat instead of eating meals.
Still.
There was one last hope.
None other than the lottery!
Si-un had been particularly obsessed with the lottery in his first life.
Because he was a lottery addict who bought tickets every day, even after regression, he remembered the winning numbers for a specific draw.
‘That lottery draw was number 413.’
The 413th lottery drawing was scheduled to air one month from now.
Even with his vision distorted from alcohol, Si-un opened his eyes wide.
‘Even if I failed to become a Hunter, I’ll turn my life around with the lottery. Just one month to go…’
The plan was to match the lottery numbers he remembered from his first life in this second life.
‘Once I win the lottery, what should I do first? First, get a sleek foreign car… buy a house for my parents, move into a 40-pyeong apartment and live a really happy life without worries!’
He waited while torturing himself with such hopes.
The 413th draw prize money was a whopping 4 billion won!
And one month later.
The day of the much-anticipated 413th Lotto drawing broadcast.
‘This is the day!’
He watched the live broadcast while tightly gripping the printed lottery ticket in his hand.
He lowered his head to quickly check the lottery numbers he had chosen.
2.9.15.23.34.40
‘2,9,15,23,34,40. It must hit! This is my life-changing moment…’
If he won, he could even dance naked in the streets.
‘Now for the 413th Lotto drawing. Let’s draw the first ball!’
The man drawing the lottery balls held up a numbered ball.
‘The first number is 2.’
‘That’s right!!’
When the number matched, he stood up and clenched both fists.
His heart was swelling.
What’s it like to suddenly gain billions in an instant?
He would be the protagonist experiencing that ecstasy!
Soon after, the man on the TV screen drew the second ball and showed it while saying,
‘The second number is 40.’
‘Yes! Yes! Right, 40 is definitely there. Yes. First place is confirmed. First place is confirmed!!’
Now he was even talking to himself.
He felt like he might burst into tears.
No more hardship! With money, one can live happily.
But…
‘The third number is 27.’
‘What?!’
An unfamiliar number… 27.
Si-un looked down at the lottery ticket placed next to his can of beer.
’27? Wait, did I hear wrong? No. My lottery numbers don’t have 27…’
‘The fourth number is 17.’
‘W-what?’
The lottery numbers kept missing consecutively.
In that moment, he felt as if the house he was sitting in was sinking into the ground.
How long had he been staring blankly at the TV screen?
‘With this, we conclude the 413th Lotto drawing! To all our viewers…’
‘……’
The drawing broadcast ended, and he just stared blankly at the lottery ticket.
Tears rolled down to his chin along with a feeling of emptiness.
‘Damn it…’
Pulling at his hair,
He had memorized the winning numbers, written them down, and anxiously waited for such a long time.
One crucial fact discovered after such desperate waiting.
Past life and future life don’t establish parallel theory as situations and events unfold differently.
In other words, this isn’t a simple life where you can memorize a lottery number, return to the next life, and live comfortably after making a fortune.
The same goes for stocks.
This is Si-un’s life – special but not easy.
***
His face automatically wrinkled as he recalled the gloomy memories.
“Damn it!”
In anger, Si-un kicked an empty can lying on the street.
Clang!
The can made a crumpling sound as it flew several meters from Si-un’s feet and rolled away.
His eyes were still stinging.
As he was about to board the subway, his head suddenly spun.
And reflexively, his eyes opened wide.
“Huh?!”
An alien sensation.
His entire body instantly relaxed as all his blood rushed to his head.
And then.
The movements of the numerous people walking around appeared very slow.
Their expressions, movements, and clothing began to register in his mind in great detail.
“What’s this?”
Everyone experiences moments like this once in their life.
When you suddenly experience the illusion of everything in the world moving slowly.
The shoulder movements of the person walking busily toward the subway,
The eye line and lip shapes of the woman walking toward him.
Everything comes into focus with incredible detail.
“What’s happening…?”
The distance to that woman?
It was several dozen meters.
She was wearing a short miniskirt and walking while fiddling with her smartphone.
Despite the considerable distance,
He could clearly see the detailed movements of her smooth calves.
“It feels like looking at human flesh through a microscope!”
A dreamlike haziness.
Flash!
His vision became cloudy as if a flash grenade had gone off.
“Ugh!”
He reflexively squeezed his eyes shut.
And when he opened them again,
The people who had been moving slowly returned to normal speed.
‘What was that?’
Was it just my imagination?
I stood still right there.
Such a bizarre experience.
It was just a brief moment, not even ten seconds!
How could I see even the leg muscles of a woman standing at such a distant, barely visible range?
At that moment, the doctor’s voice from earlier faintly echoed in Si-un’s mind.
– Mr. Lee Si-un’s optic nerve cells appear to have developed remarkably, it’s quite extraordinary.
‘Could this be related to what just happened?’
Gradually, the annoying pain began to subside.
The focus that was hard to maintain seemed to stabilize, and the blurry vision became clear.
‘Is it getting better now? I was so worried…’
***
Inside the rattling subway.
Si-un pulled out his phone from his pants pocket.
The phone screen began to brighten, and soon the display came into view.
‘I can read the text clearly now.’
For days, he couldn’t do anything because of his eye pain, but now he felt that frustration lifting.
He started flipping through TV channels on DMB through his phone.
Then his eyes stopped on a channel broadcasting a baseball game.
Samsung versus Lotte.
The score was 3-1, with Samsung in the lead.
The pitcher in the blue cap was turning his head from side to side, getting into his pitching stance.
Opposite him,
The Lotte batter’s eyes clearly showed his determination to turn the game around with one hit.
The moment the baseball left the pitcher’s hand.
A single word automatically popped into Si-un’s mind.
‘Home run.’
Bang!!
The baseball soared madly into the clear sky.
– H-Home run! And it’s a grand slam! The ball that hit Yang Seon-hwan’s bat is flying into the sky!! Wow!
The commentators excitedly shouted.
It was a home run.
The baseball flew magnificently over the stands, and the batter who hit the home run began circling first, second, and third base with a broad smile.
Si-un was dumbfounded by the fact that he had predicted the home run.
‘What’s going on? I clearly saw the detailed movements of both the pitcher and batter before the ball even hit the bat. And I even predicted the home run.’
Then could this be?