While Uhyon was answering questions on Magical Biology in the living room, he felt both regret and hatred toward himself for not being able to verify whether his theory was right or wrong. Yet deep inside, there was also a strange sense of satisfaction and relief. He thought it was related to the term "Sudden changes of emotions" in his "List of Strange Things." Because no one could possibly feel pleased when their work or idea turned out to be nonsense. That was impossible. But in this case, his emotion hadn't changed suddenly — it was happening at the same time.
Realizing this, Uhyon suddenly stopped his homework, took out his notebook — the one he had closed earlier — and crossed out the word "Sudden" in the phrase "Sudden change of emotions." After doing that, a wave of relief passed through him, as if something inside him had known this all along.
After finishing that small act, Uhyon went back to doing homework, but his mind kept drifting back to his theory. Distracted and irritated, he couldn't concentrate well. Then, gently placing his pen on the table, he closed his eyes.
"It's just bad luck. I mean, would I even think of such a stupid theory if I were lucky?"
Just five or ten minutes ago, the theory had seemed perfectly logical and reasonable — but now it felt ridiculous. And, strangely, those very thoughts began to affect him, making it even harder to focus. Then Uhyon smiled, remembering another foolish thing he had done.
"Ahh, what an idiot I am. Did I really trust my imagination?"
He burst out laughing at himself.
"As if seeing a goblin's body in my imagination could be baseless, huh?"
His laughter grew louder.
Although laughing at oneself can be seen as a form of self-deprecation — and in some cases, can even lead to depression — Uhyon actually enjoyed it, and right now, he was laughing heartily at himself.
If he had been in his normal state, he would've called himself a psychopath. But that thought didn't even cross his mind now. Even if it had, he would've simply accepted it with a shrug — "Yeah, I guess I'm a psychopath too."
As his laughter went on, it reached the point where Uhyon began to lose his breath. He was forced to stop, coughing several times as his lungs cried for air. After four or five fits of coughing, both his body and mind seemed to restart.
"Everything in moderation," he concluded.
As his lungs slowly filled with air again, Uhyon began to think that laughing at himself was both disrespectful and a waste of time — after all, he had already wasted two minutes just laughing. Normally, two minutes might seem trivial, but for Uhyon, in his current situation, every second mattered.
On one hand, he regretted wasting time. But on the other, another thought came to him.
"Hey, no matter how much you regret it, you can't take those two minutes back anyway."
"Wait, why did I say 'you regret' and 'you can't' instead of 'I regret' or 'I can't'?"
Seeing himself from another perspective — wasn't that a kind of DID?
Was it really an illness to view yourself as another person? Or just an inner voice? But Uhyon didn't believe in inner voices. In his opinion, what we call an "inner voice" was merely something the brain made up — questions it presented to the consciousness.
The consciousness, unable to interpret or judge these as valid commands or coherent statements, simply tagged them as "unresolved problems" and spread them throughout the mind. That was why Uhyon (mind) perceived it as an inner voice.
He knew this because he had read many books about the brain and had some understanding of how it worked. Although most of what he'd read had faded from memory, a small part of it still remained.
It all resembled a second personality. It really did. If emotional changes were connected to this "inner voice," then it would mean that Uhyon possessed a completely opposite personality. If not for one thing, he might've truly believed he had DID.
Uhyon chuckled lightly.
"But I've always been the one in control. There's never been a time when hours or days just disappeared from my memory."
But his laughter didn't last long — dissatisfaction began to rise again, and his expression quickly turned serious.
"Huh?… am I really sure about that?"
Uhyon quickly scanned through his entire past in his mind. Yet, he couldn't recall any such incident.
"Nah, that never happened."
But the dissatisfaction didn't fade — it grew stronger. So Uhyon tried again, reviewing his past year by year. It took quite some time, but the result remained the same — nothing unusual. Finally...
"Finally, that's the one!?"
True, he didn't have any signs of DID, but there was one similar case — the "Two weeks of continuous sleep." That was the closest thing. But there was no proof, and Uhyon still believed he had simply been asleep.
"But still…"
Uhyon's thoughts began to deepen. If he had only been asleep, then who stopped the car? Who caused the mass murder? How did he end up in the hospital? Who helped him escape and brought him home to wake up in bed?
He knew he didn't have any sleepwalking disorder. But even if he had, how could he have stopped a moving car like that?
These unanswered questions made his head ache. His mind was filled with theories — from "a powerful secret relative" to "aliens." But there were so many contradictions that whenever one theory seemed to fit, another would immediately fall apart.
Feeling his brain strain, Uhyon realized he needed to stop. Besides, he had already spent quite some time thinking about it. The clock read 5:58. Normally, he would leave around 6:20 or 6:30, so he had to finish quickly. Uhyon hurriedly completed the last few questions, gathered his books and notebooks, and placed them on the left side of his shelf.
The shelf consisted of two parts: the bottom part had four closed drawers, and the top had three open levels where everything could be seen. Though it looked a bit old for modern standards, it was convenient and spacious enough for all of Uhyon's belongings.
On the top and middle levels were his books — fiction on the first shelf, and science on the second. Naturally, the science shelf held more books than the fiction one, though neither was completely full. The ratio between fiction and science books was 2:5, and there were eight fiction books in total.
The third shelf contained his school textbooks and school-related materials. It was more crowded than the others, though a small empty corner remained, where Uhyon had pinned his class schedule on a piece of paper.
"See, idiot? That's the bad side of being like me when you doing homework,"