▬ Chapter 6: Reflection ▬

“Wake up.” Sungyeol nudged the snoring figure for the third time in the past hour. The man only gave a low whimper when he felt something graze his uncovered arm and went back to whatever he was dreaming about. Unsuccessful, Sungyeol heaved a sigh and finally sat on the beige-colored couch a few meters away since it was the only available space to sit on. Well, the only place to properly sit on, that is.

“Seriously. Man, this guy just loves his sleep, doesn’t he?” Glancing up towards the ticking clock hanging on the wall, he let out a groan and crossed his arms in frustration. “And where the heck is that kid? It’s been more than a week and I haven’t gotten inside the dude’s body since the day he collapsed. Plus, he barely goes out and worse of all, he doesn’t even shower!” He dramatically held his nose then scrunched his face to waft out the stench. “My gosh, it’s stinking up in here!”

“Mmm.” Sunggyu scratched his exposed belly and happily rolled to the other side of the bed. Ticked off, the angered soul went over to him and with a small huff, pushed him off the bed with his foot. This was followed by a loud thud as Sunggyu’s body fell to the floor and became slightly twisted like a pretzel. “Wah!”

“Just how long are you going to sleep?!”

Still half awake, the sleepy man sighed and scratched his head. “Damn, was I dreaming again? This has been going on for a week. Maybe it’s time to go see the doctor?”

“Geez, this old bugger is pulling my strings,” Sungyeol sneered. “Why the heck of all the people in the world do I get to be stuck with him?”

Sunggyu glanced at the clock then stood up. “Time to prepare for my first day back to work.”

“What’s up?” A voice came out of nowhere like a puff of smoke. Finally, after who knows how long, the voice that Sungyeol wanted to hear— “Idiot.” Except he never liked being called an idiot.

“Stop calling me that, you one-lettered Death Note kid.”

Silence filled the room — aside from Sunggyu busying himself in the kitchen to prepare some cereal — as L just stood there, flipping his black-covered notebook. He looked at Sungyeol from time to time which made the latter feel a bit uneasy. L kept on shaking his head whenever he flipped to another page, said ‘nope’ about a hundred times, until finally, his eyes widened and his face lit up with a smirk. “Oho, this might work.”

“What are you talking about?”

“To start off, Kim Sunggyu’s health is back so now you’re ready to be transferred.” L closed the notebook and placed his hands behind his back. “I estimate that you’ll be in the man’s body by the end of this hour.”

“Really?!”

“Oh, but I heard some words from above and my boss said that since you’ve made a huge mistake on your first day, he’s cutting your days.”

“What?!”

“Dude, I told you that we were serious with handling human’s lives. I did warn you in the beginning, right? It’s your fault you didn’t follow my rules.”

“You never said anything about cutting my days! Come on, that’s not fair!”

“Ah, but it is. Good thing he didn’t just take you away. Think of it as him taking pity on you.” L took out a small pocket watch that was tucked inside his suit pocket and counted for a few seconds. “Now, in my end, you have eighty days remaining.”

“What the...? He took more than a week’s worth?”

“Complaining?” L raised an eyebrow.

“N-no,” Sungyeol straightened out. He didn’t want to get any more days cut. Who knows what could have happened if he still had those cut days? He can’t risk losing more time to be with Minhyul. “Anyway,” he pointed towards the man casually sitting down by the table scooping milk and cereal into his mouth. “How am I going to get back into that body over there?”

L held up his notebook and eyed him. “There are a lot of ways but we, Angels of Death, need to analyze you guys and have to determine for ourselves how we should do that. For you, I think I might just have the idea.”

The Death Note guy smirked and with a nervous gulp, Sungyeol could sense that it wasn’t going to be a pleasant transfer.

A few minutes later, Sungyeol’s vision was starting to become more stable as he slowly opened my eyes. He blinked a couple of times and tried to cope with what the hell just happened. Speaking of which, what the hell did happen? The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was that L snapped his fingers and smirked in front of him.

“Finally up?” He looked around and saw L leisurely dangling his legs while sitting on top of a table, reading his from his notebook. Without bothering to look up from the page, he continued, “How do you feel? You’re finally back.”

“Ugh, my head kinda hurts.” Then a pang of pain suddenly stabbed his stomach, making him fold himself on reflex to apply pressure to it. “And I have a terrible stomachache. What did you do?”

“Um, transfer you back? What else?”

“I meant, what method, damn it?”

“Ah,” After he finished what he read, the Death Note kid looked up. “Just this one method that caught my eye. Don’t worry, it’s been approved by my boss. I used this one called ‘Reflection’. This method will be used throughout your journey here, so just a heads up.”

Thinking that what he needed to alleviate his stomach pain was food, Sungyeol immediately dived into the unfinished cereal on the table. As he munched on a spoonful of Cheerios, he replied, “What is this, Mulan?”

“Blame our boss. He loves watching Disney and all those weird anime so almost all the names from our dimension are taken from there. Anyway, ‘Reflection’ is a method where we transfer our subjects, aka you, just as how the human, Mr. Kim Sunggyu, felt when you got out.”

“Eh?”

“You’re as dense