My eyes groggily spilled open and a yawn slipped out of my mouth, but as the sound came out so did an intense feeling of constriction from my throat.
I couldn't help the frown that landed on my face as my hand instinctively whipped over to the point of the pain. My eyes opened wider but the scene that greeted me made my heart drop instantly.
A face. Not just any face, the face of a young male.
The kind that didn't belong in real life. Too symmetrical. Too sharp. The kind of face that looked like it'd been carved by someone angry with the world and tired of softness.
His lashes were long—long enough to cast shadows under his eyes—but it was the eyes themselves that caught me. Murky gray, like stormwater after a flood. The kind of gray that didn't reflect light, just swallowed it.
He looked tired. But not the kind of tired you could sleep off. He had eyebags—prominent ones, ink-dark against his warm-toned skin. And his lips were chapped, but pink, as if he chewed them when he thought too much.
Black hair fell messily to his jawline, some strands stuck to the side of his face like he'd just walked out of something burning. There was a faded scar cutting across one of his brows. Subtle. Crooked. Humanizing in the worst way.
I didn't even have time to truly process the scene before me before one big hand had grabbed my suspiciously frail neck and squeezed onto it.
I didn't need a doctor to tell me that just a bit more squeeze from this strong person would kill me! I latched onto hand with my own, my eyes seeing that my hand looked clearly smaller than usual!
The person currently choking me looked at me with bored eyes, his pale cloudy eyes had nothing but boredom inside, it was unnerving, considering he was choking me to death.
"Be good, and die silently, it will be a pain if the guards walk in on this, okay?" He spoke in such a lighthearted tone, you would think he was just discussing the weather.
I shook my head! Yoon JeiMi you bastard!
"No?" He spoke softly. "Hm, this'll be quick,"
My eyes bulged out. "Yoo- Yoon!" I managed out.
His bored eyes finally had a tinge of curiosity in them as he brought his face, "Hm? Speak more clearly, I can't hear you."
I didn't hesitate to use my nails to scratch his hand, which made him reciprocate with a, "Oh, right,"
Then his hand eased up on my neck, I couldn't control the next words that spewed out, "Yoon JeiMi, you ungrateful bastard!"
His eyebrows pulled together and his hand completely let go of my neck, I noticed that the calmness in his eyes changed, now filled with curiosity and vigilance.
[DING—!]
[System Has Been Activated!]
Welcome, Host-nim, to the [Dangerous Male Lead Rehabilitation System]!
Initiating Primary Sync…
Analyzing: Current Male Lead Personality Type…
Result: Type C – "Emotionally Volatile / Bloodthirsty / Unhinged Sad Boy."
☠️ High Threat Level Detected ☠️
Please proceed with caution.
My brain stalled.
What?
[Please remain calm, Host-nim! QQ will guide you!]
[QQ is your emotional support interface! QQ is scared too!]
I choked on spit, coughs rattling my lungs while I mentally screamed—What the hell is QQ?!
[Danger Level: 99.8%]
[Location: Unknown Holding Facility]
[Host Body: Unranked Civilian (Malnourished Condition)]
[Assigned Role: Rehabilitation Guide / Disposable Plot Filler]
[Mission Objective: Calm Down the Male Lead Before He Murders You or the World (Again)]
Penalty for Failure: Death. And also maybe the apocalypse. QQ is checking the fine print.
My mouth hung open. My body still hadn't caught up with my brain. I was still wheezing. I was still dying. And I was still staring into the face of the literal psychopath I created.
[Additional Note from QQ: Screaming is allowed. Crying is optional. Wetting pants is common.]
[System Sync: 88%… 89%… 90%…]
I blinked.
"Who are you?" JeiMi asked, titling his head as he looked at me.
I huffed out. How— how is this possible? Yoon JeiMi? This was Yoon JeiMi in the flesh. The protagonist I had rewritten 20 times! The worst kind of person to exist.
I placed my hand on my neck, this evil bastard, I created him so I knew damn well what he was capable of! I wanted to believe that this whole thing was a dream but that choking felt too damn real! I was really on the brink of death!
"I asked you a question," he added.
I coughed, realizing my back was onto something soft, a bed? Yes a bed, I stretched up, my hand holding onto my throat just in case he decided to suddenly choke me again. As the author, I really couldn't put it past JeiMi.
I knew that face. I knew it too well. Oh God. No no no no no—
I sniffled. "JeiMi-na," I choked out. Even I was surprised by the way I addressed him.
I watched the change in his expression, his lips tilting up a bit to form a small smile, "JeiMi-na? Are we that close?"
Cautiously looking at him I said, "Please don't kill me,"
"Why would I agree to that?"
"…."
Insane bastard.
I really wanted to cry at the absurdity of the situation I found myself in but I couldn't right now, knowing JeiMi, that would only provoke him to try to strangle me again.
"JeiMi-na, I don't want to die–" I started but he didn't let me finish.
"Somebody who wants to die in the hands of another, is there such a thing in this world…. Number 19?" He told me softly.
Number 19? It was at that moment that I peered at what he was wearing. A white plain shirt and white pants, but the shirt had lettering on the left chest…. Number 21.
Ah, I knew where we were. Haegun Research Group… The sketchy evil company I created, obsessed with forced evolution. I really couldn't believe I was in the belly of the beast I created.
This evil ass company was one of the main things that mostly stuck in each rewrite, although I edited it out in some version, it was clear that it was obviously hard for me to remember these details that were considered useless when I was stuck meeting the excessive ever changing demands of my editor.
It's not like I thought I would some day … die… and end up in the story I'd been writing since I was 17. No fucking way.
And what was that thing that appeared just now… System?
"Playing foolish now?" At the sound of his voice was I pulled back into reality.
I stroked my throat with my palm before swallowing. "JeiMi-ssi," once again I had no idea why the words had come out like that.
The small smile on his stupidly handsome face absolutely frightened me down to my core. I deeply wondered what I was doing making a handsome violent character like this….
"What's this, number 19, are we going back to formalities… are we no longer close?" It was impossible to not register the mocking tone in his voice.
Under non possibly being choked out circumstances I really could have slapped the back of his head so he could pay respects to his elders. After all, I was older than him… the current JeiMi that was in the Haegun Research Group should be about 20, I think, or was he younger? Ah, fuck, it was really hard to remember, especially since I had no idea which draft this was!
Damn you Yoon JeiMi!
I inched back and started, "JeiMi-ssi, if you try anything, I'll scream for the guards,"
It really wasn't the best excuse I could come up with. While the company kind of valued the lives of their product, the guards here were insane lazy fucks who would take their sweet time to get here…. It really wouldn't take this MC of mine that long to kill me.
His eyes had a condescending look in them. "I never realized you could casually spit out nonsense so calmly, where is the thing?"
Thing? I had no idea what he was talking about.
I flinched as he stretched out his hand, two fingers touched my forehead, softly pressing on it as he smoothed out the crinkles on my forehead from frowning.
"Don't look confused now, I really couldn't have done that much damage to your brain could I?" The way he spoke made it seem like he was actually posing a question.
"Huh?" Was the only question I could respond with.
"Aren't you supposed to be a genius at biology, number 19?" The glint in his eyes almost made me believe he found that fact interesting.
Putting aside that I, Emile White, was terrible at anything useful to humanity, I knew the man before me did not give a damn about this new skill of mine.
I created JeiMi to be a genius beyond his peers, inhumanely intelligent, self serving, he was well skilled in many many things, biology being one of them, many times would he, or rather did he come across characters highly skilled too, and it was safe to say he was thoroughly not impressed.
This was done to make him "cool", like my editor has emphasized.
I created a monster in every sense thinking it would be hot, on a psychopathic level, but now this was just terrifying.
"Aren't you supposed to be a genius at everything? You tell me," I fired back as quietly as possible, unashamedly sinking into the bed like a coward.
His smile widened a bit, a very unhidden unnerving bit in his eyes. "Where's the thing number 19?"
What thing? Fuck, what thing?
"If I give it to you, who says you won't just kill me?"
I countered, my throat dry as hell.
Please don't kill me oh beloved creation of mine.
I watched his forehead crinkle just a bit.
"This again? Didn't you learn from last time? Oh well, your corpse will be a little bit of an inconvenience."
He said it so gently it could be discarded as a bluff or a scare tactic but I knew better, he really was going to do it.
I inched back into nothing and placed my hands before me, "Wait, wait, wait, JeiMi-na,"
"Oh, we're close again,"
"I really don't want to die like this,"
"Hm, like what?" His face tilts, like a dog hearing music it didn't expect.
I interlocked my fingers close to my chest as I said as softly as possible. "In the hands of the person I love."
"Hm??"