I Became the Drug-Addicted Childhood Friend

Translator: Elisia

Editor/Proofreader: SemiPickle

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“Unnie, aren’t you hungry?”

As we were walking and talking, Yula asked me.

Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t eaten.

Using the drug meant I didn’t have to eat, but eating was probably still better for my health.

“Shall I show you our hideout?”

“What’s there to eat? From what we got last time? Do we have water?”

“Yeah. We still have what we got.”

Yula grabbed my hand and pulled.

I followed where she led.

A run-down abandoned house, random piles of dirt.

We walked past roads that hadn’t been maintained at all.

The sight of the children chattering was cute.

“There, over there.”

We turned through an alley several times.

The door was made of clumsily joined plastic panels.

“It’s a secret base. It’s a secret, okay?”

I nodded.

A secret base.

There was something about it that stirred a sense of childhood innocence.

Inside, it was more spacious than I expected, and it was organized pretty well.

“This place used to be a restaurant. We found a secret passage to get in here!”

“It’s just a back door.”

“It’s a secret entrance.”

“Everyone knows, so what’s the secret?”

“It’s a secret.”

They bickered while showing me around the place.

It had a lot of charm.

“Anyway, let’s eat! I’ll give you some of what we got!”

Yula pulled something out from a cupboard.

“Oh, noona, you just add water to this, and it becomes rice. But if you only eat this, it’s not good for your health, so we also have side dishes…”

“I also have snacks! We have cookies!”

“Cookies are for after you eat your meal.”

“Eugh, fine then…”

Yula searched for something more.

She was rummaging through the cupboard.

“Seaweed? …That’s all gone. Oh, I found this.”

What she held was a can of tuna.

“Ah, and we have to eat outside. If we cook in here, it’ll smell.”

“Is there a chair outside?”

They even shared food with strangers, such good kids.

It wouldn’t be easy to stay kind in a place like this.

Still, it seemed better than where Yoo Seo-Ah had lived.

There, there was no one to deal with the monsters, and free meals were rare.

I accepted the can of tuna.

– What do you want to eat the most?

A voice came to mind.

A memory from the past.

A friend?

Was it a friend who had asked?

Now that I thought about it, I remembered eating together.

But it wasn’t the friend’s voice.

Oddly, my stomach felt tight.

I felt like I was going to throw up.

“Urgh…”

Disgusting.

I hated tuna.

Or maybe I did.

“Eugh, you don’t like it? Guess it can’t be helped.”

Sorry.

I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone’s feelings.

Did I hate it enough to refuse such kindness?

Back home, I used to stack it up and eat it.

My tastes seemed to have changed.

Still, the instant rice was edible.

It was something like fried rice with a few side dishes.

“Oh? Unnie’s a picky eater too.”

Picky?

I was only picking around the radishes or the mixed vegetables.

“It’s not tasty, right? Same with broccoli.”

“It’s for my health.”

That’s right.

It was important to eat without leaving anything for health.

I didn’t actually mind picky eaters.

To be honest, as long as food wasn’t spoiled, I could eat almost anything.

As for picking out the vegetables now… who knows why.

Sometimes, you just don’t feel like eating certain things.

Anyway, it was much better than the food I used to get in the lab.

Back there, I just forced myself to eat everything.

Picky eating now?

Anyway, I was grateful for the meal.

“Ah, are you going? To the factory?”

“I told you, she might not have come from the factory.”

“Play with us!”

I wanted to do that too.

Maybe next time, if I had the chance.

“…Unnie, are you going somewhere?”

I nodded slightly.

I had to go.

[283 hours 21 minutes]

To the factory.

Maybe for the sake of these kids.

Or maybe just to get the drugs.

In any case, I had thought of going to the factory that made the drugs for a long time now.

While eating, I noticed the logo on the container.

It was the same logo as the drug company.

The logo I still remembered so vividly, without forgetting.

Even on the food pouches, there was that logo.

This factory must be connected to the drugs somehow.

Maybe it was actually doing good work.

They dealt with the monsters, and they provided essentials and medicines.

There were no facilities in this world that did such good deeds.

At least, I had never seen one.

If there had been, it would’ve been nice.

“Oh, Doctor?”

Hyun spoke, looking past me.

“It’s the doctor!”

A doctor?

I immediately turned to check.

It really was the doctor.

It was surprising to see the doctor standing there.

Had he known I was here?

Just kill him.

Attack.

No, but the doctor was a good person, so I shouldn’t attack.

I felt anger, but I didn’t know why.

Ah, maybe that was it.

Was it because he had come only now?

“It’s been so long, Doctor!”

Yula greeted him warmly.

“…Heh.”

Doctors really did seem to appear anywhere.

Almost miraculously so.

“Hello. It’s been a while, Miss Seo-Ah.”

“Unnie, do you know him? Is your name Seo-Ah?”

“Yes, I came to pick up Miss Seo-Ah. I should have come sooner. Were you playing together?”

“We were about to.”

I couldn’t think straight.

I couldn’t think normally.

Maybe it was because it had been so long since we met.

“Here, I brought some snacks too. Please share.”

“Wow!”

“Thank you.”

Could I eat that?

I guessed so.

The doctor was a good person.

“Have you been well? Haha, it’s been a while.”

He started talking as if everything were fine.

He seemed fine enough.

No.

Wasn’t this strange?

Why was the doctor here?

Why were the kids friendly with the doctor?

Why now, of all times?

Was this fortunate?

The doctor would give me the drug, wouldn’t he?

So he had always been a good person.

It felt like my brain was fried.

I couldn’t think of him as a bad person no matter what.

“– I have something to discuss. Is it okay if I take her with me?”

He seemed to have finished speaking with the kids.

“Sure! Come again!”

“Goodbye.”

It ended in an instant.

The farewells happened in a flash.

“Shall we go?”

The doctor held out his hand.

Was he telling me to take it?

I hesitated.

There was no malice in that hand.

But instinctively, I felt something was wrong.

This kind of thing has happened so many times.

Not being able to think or move my body as I wanted felt wrong.

“[Get a grip.]”

And with that, my mind became clear.

There was only one goal.

I just had to kill the doctor.

With this one person gone, the world would be more peaceful.

Beloved drug, please turn into a sword or something and kill this person.

Even if he was a good person, it couldn’t be helped.

I didn’t want him reaching out to the kids too.

It was enough that I was the only one who had to be treated.

– Thud.

The drug was injected.

The sensation spread from the nerve endings to the center of my brain, setting everything ablaze.

My entire body tingled, sapped of strength.

[404 hours 5 minutes]

Good.

I got the drug.

It seemed the time had increased by over a hundred hours.

Thud.

The half-formed black sword fell to the ground.

And then it vanished as if it had evaporated.

Ah, I failed.

But I felt good.

Really good!

“Hehehe…”

Somehow, I felt better.

After all, the doctor was a good person.

I’d just wait a bit.

Maybe there would be a better opportunity to deal with him.

I’d think about it after I secured more of this drug.

“This isn’t really my jurisdiction, but with the military factory running nearby, I could move around easily.”

Did he travel through a portal?

It really was an impressive ability.

“In fact, I was thinking about visiting Miss Seo-Ah sooner or later. You may not remember…”

He paused.

We talked while holding hands as we walked.

It was pleasant.

“Since Miss Seo-Ah chose this path on her own.”

“……”

By choice?

No matter what, I didn’t remember choosing anything.

I didn’t know what I would’ve wanted to do voluntarily.

“Haha, maybe you don’t remember. Well, time has passed.”

What was he talking about?

“There are many people who are grateful to you, Miss Seo-Ah. Thanks to you, we were able to quickly conclude the assessment of the drug’s effectiveness.”

I had been subjected to countless experiments.

Considering the chunks of memory I had lost, it must have been a long time.

“If it weren’t for you, we would’ve had to find someone else.”

The hand I held was so kind.

But I didn’t understand.

I didn’t know why he was explaining this so kindly.

I glanced at the syringe the doctor held in his other hand.

An empty, thin syringe that had already been used.

It made me feel happy.

“Ah, this? It’s a very potent drug. It’s not manufactured here, but I had it ready because it was needed.”

I didn’t know where it was needed.

[404 hours]

It’d be nice if they’d just keep giving it to me.

“It’s made by mixing a high concentration of the original substance… Not just anyone can use it. But you, Miss Seo-Ah, deserve it.”

That’s right.

I deserved it.

For all that time in that room.

Now, I had the right to indulge in some pleasure.

“It seemed you didn’t want to see your friends.”

“Huh?”

“At the lab. You must have seen them.”

Friends.

“They just happened to be on a training mission near the academy, so I was nearby too.”

Friends?

The scene I had glimpsed inside the lab building came to mind.

There had been a flickering light.

They had been fighting monsters.

If I had intervened there, it would’ve looked odd.

Of course, I did want to see my friends.

So, I watched from a distance.

Watching from afar was enough.

My presence wouldn’t change anything about the situation.

It was unfortunate, but it was the truth.

So, I didn’t need to meet them anymore.

“Would you like to sit down for a moment?”

It was a bench without a backrest.

It was shabby, but I could sit.

“I have a rough idea of your condition, Miss Seo-Ah, but since I’m responsible again, I have an obligation to check.”

An obligation?

“There’s no one else around.”

I see.

But why?

“Now, please lift your shirt.”

“…Eh.”

Why?

“It’s just a check-up.”

I saw the stethoscope around his neck.

Oh, right.

Since he was a doctor, he’d want to do a check-up.

But here?

Why?

I didn’t want to lift my shirt.

It wasn’t because I was embarrassed.

What I felt was closer to fear.

I had experienced a similar situation in the past.

I had lifted my shirt to show the bruises on my stomach.

Now, the situation was a bit different.

If it were just a bruise, it would be fine.

No.

On second thought, I was embarrassed.

There were scars.

It was just a few scars, that’s all.

The doctor waited.

“Haha…”

Bad memories resurfaced.

It would’ve been better not to remember.

It wasn’t anything grand or dramatic.

Just a silly prank I fell for.

It was just a prank.

I had overcome it, so it was fine.

Did the doctor know when he asked me to lift my shirt?

He didn’t seem to intend to use the stethoscope at all.

Bad memories came back.

It was all because of that tuna can.

Tuna can.