What was playing dead?
A game where one pretended to be a corpse.
He had pretended to be dead more than dozens of times in the other world just to survive.
To stay alive on a battlefield, one had to master all sorts of tricks.
One of them was playing dead.
‘First, slow down your heartbeat and stop even the sound of your breathing.’
The body gradually went cold and stiff, and the pupils lost their light, becoming empty.
This technique minimized physical movement and made one look as if they’d truly become a corpse.
In martial arts terms, it was known as the Ghost Breath Technique — and in modern terms, it could be called a state of cold sleep.
As a game skill, it was the ultimate version of playing dead.
It was the technique that had saved his life on the battlefield many times — and now, today, he would use it.
‘She’ll be shocked for sure if I do it this well.’
There could be no more perfect way to play dead.
If one wanted to make a game truly fun, it had to have this level of quality.
As he stared blankly at the ceiling with empty pupils, Yewon approached.
“Uncle?”
She waved a hand before his face, her eyes full of confusion.
When she seemed to sense something was wrong, she shook his shoulders.
“Uncle, wake up.”
Shake, shake.
As time went by, Yewon’s eyes filled with tears.
Her face began to tremble.
“Why is your body so cold? What is this? Hiiing.”
Startled, Yewon let go of him and pressed herself back against the wall.
Her trembling grew until she finally burst into tears.
“Uwaaah! Uncle’s weird! Moooom!”
Sangwoo’s body flinched.
He quickly circulated his aura to wake his body, but his reaction was inevitably a beat too late.
It took time for his body to regain warmth and return to normal.
He hadn’t expected Yewon to be that shocked—she must have really thought she was seeing a corpse.
He had clearly said it was just a game, but was his way of playing dead really that terrifying?
‘Crap.’
That was the only thing Sangwoo could think.
Yewon had already burst out of the room in tears, and her crying had woken his sister.
‘Maybe I overdid it?’
Sangwoo got up and scratched his head.
Back in the other world, it was a game kids actually liked.
But for a child in this modern world, it had probably been way too much of a shock.
“Hic, hic… Uncle’s weird. He was dead. Uwaaah. His body was cold. Scary… hic.”
Yewon’s cries echoed through the house.
When Sangwoo stepped out, his sister was holding Yewon in her arms, gently stroking her hair.
Still half-asleep, she didn’t seem to have a full grasp of the situation yet.
Their eyes met.
Her look clearly demanded an explanation.
Sangwoo hurried to defend himself.
“We were playing dead, but I guess it felt a little too real. Ahem.”
“Seriously? Even if you’re playing with her, what kind of game is that? Have you ever even played with a kid before?”
“I mean, I played with friends, not kids. I’ll do better next time.”
“Good grief. All you managed to do was make her cry.”
“How was I supposed to know she’d cry?”
Sangwoo felt wronged in his own way.
Still, since he did make her cry, he felt a little guilty and apologized to Yewon.
“Sorry if I scared you, niece.”
“Hmph!”
Yewon whipped her head away.
Her attitude made Sangwoo’s temper flare a bit, but he let it go—she was just a kid, after all.
Besides, it was his fault for scaring her too much.
He felt more sorry toward his sister than to Yewon.
She could’ve slept longer, but he ended up waking her up for nothing.
“You’re really tired, right, Sis? If you’re okay with it, get some more rest. I’ll take care of my niece.”
“It’s fine. Even a short nap helped. I feel lighter now.”
At that, Sangwoo smiled faintly.
So the energy he’d infused into her really had made a difference.
“As long as you feel better, that’s what matters.”
His sister brushed herself off and stood up.
“Then how about we all go grocery shopping together? What do you two want to eat?”
Yewon answered first.
“Mom! Mom! I want spaghetti. I want to eat spaghetti!”
“Sis, I kind of want doenjang-jjigae. It’s been a while since I had it.”
“Uncle, spaghetti and doenjang-jjigae don’t go together, you know?”
“Who said we’re eating them together? I just said I want soybean paste stew.”
His sister looked at the two of them and shook her head.
“Then we’ll just make both. It’s not that hard. Let’s go.”
Sangwoo locked eyes with Yewon for a while before turning his head away.
Of course, Yewon couldn’t possibly win a staring contest against a Sword Master.
‘Brat.’
His sister sighed, looking at them like they were both hopeless.
But Sangwoo couldn’t help it—he just couldn’t resist teasing her a little.
***
The place they went to was E-Mart.
Honestly, he didn’t even know what E-Mart was.
He’d only heard it was a newly built supermarket.
It hadn’t sounded like much when he heard about it, but once he stepped inside, everything was astonishing.
“Why are all the food items so huge?”
“That’s just how these places are.”
Everything was oversized, everything sold in massive quantities.
“Wasn’t Aram Mart supposed to be the best?”
“Aram Mart? That’s ancient. There are tons of supermarkets these days.”
“Really?”
Twenty years ago, he’d been amazed just seeing an Aram Mart.
But apparently, that was nothing now.
E-Mart was truly an impressive place.
Every single day, Sangwoo was reminded of just how much twenty years had changed everything.
Everything around him felt endlessly new.
It felt like traveling to another country.
What was familiar scenery to others was entirely foreign to Sangwoo.
He stood there blankly, looking around like a stranger in a foreign land.
His sister came over and handed him the cart.
“What are you spacing out for? Start pushing.”
“Oh? Yeah.”
He grabbed one of the carts provided by the mart.
There was already a passenger sitting inside.
It was Yewon.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you getting down?”
“Nope. This is my seat.”
“What kind of elementary schooler sits in a shopping cart?”
Sangwoo looked at her, dumbfounded.
Yewon just turned her head away like she couldn’t care less.
“Come on, move already.”
What was he supposed to do with this brat?
Maybe if he used his Sword Master strength and ran at super speed, she’d get scared?
Should he make her cry—just a little?
He was entertaining that wicked thought when his sister lightly tapped his back.
“You said you wanted soybean paste stew, right? Let’s go get the ingredients for that first.”
“Yeah.”
At her words, his irritation melted a little.
He hadn’t been like this twenty years ago, but now he couldn’t help feeling guilty toward her.
She had been the one taking care of their parents when he couldn’t.
He had once vaguely thought that he would be the one to take care of them someday—but the useless version of himself back then hadn’t done anything.
So now, twenty years later, all he could do was feel weak in front of his sister.
Even a Sword Master from another world was just an ordinary person here.
“This place really is cheaper.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Just looking at the price per gram, it’s obvious.”
At some point, his sister had become a mom.
Their mother used to go to the market, carefully comparing prices by weight, always searching for the freshest and cheapest things.
Now his sister was the one doing exactly that.
Maybe that’s just what happens when someone becomes a mother.
“Do you always shop alone like this, Sis?”
“What are you talking about? I shop with Yewon, of course.”
“Right!”
Yewon, sitting proudly in the cart, beamed with confidence.
Sangwoo almost said that wasn’t what it meant to shop together, but decided to hold his tongue.
And so the three of them walked around the supermarket together.
They bought all the ingredients, picked up some thinly sliced pork belly for the spaghetti, and finished checking out.
“Give it here.”
Sangwoo took the bags from his sister.
She clasped and released his hand.
“Feels nice being empty-handed, huh?”
“Feels nice, huh?”
Yewon mimicked her mother’s words.
Sang-woo just smiled and replied,
“I’ll make things even easier for you from now on.”
“Even just hearing that makes me feel grateful.”
But it wasn’t just words.
He really meant to make her life easier.
He planned to treat his sister and mother well—to make up for everything he hadn’t been able to do for their father.
His niece should count herself lucky to have an uncle like him.
She’d benefit from it soon enough.
“Alright, let’s go have dinner!”
“Yay!”
And just like that, they returned home.
***
The scene at dinner time was somewhat strange.
Watching Yewon put on an apron and start preparing to cook made him wonder what exactly she thought she was doing.
“What are you doing?”
“Uncle, can’t you tell? I’m gonna cook.”
“You?”
What kind of elementary schooler cooked—especially a first-grader?
He looked at her in disbelief.
“Of course I have to learn from Mom.”
“Yeah, I figured as much.”
“But when Mom’s here, I can help too. I’ve done it a bit before.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He thought to himself that a kid was still a kid.
Just as he found the modern world twenty years in the future fascinating, he realized that this little child must be at an age where everything felt fascinating.
Everything must seem new and exciting.
Adults see the world as too familiar, so they think most things are no big deal.
But for a child, everything in the world is a big deal.
Maybe there really wasn’t much difference between himself looking at the world twenty years later, and this child seeing it for the first time.
“But, Uncle.”
“Yeah?”
“Come here for a second.”
Yewon called him into her room, as if she wanted to tell him a secret.
She glanced once toward her mom chopping ingredients in the kitchen, then motioned urgently with her hand.
“Hurry.”
“Why are you calling me?”
Sangwoo stepped into the room.
“Put your ear closer. Your ear.”
“Why? What is it?”
Curious about what she wanted to say, Sangwoo leaned down and turned his ear toward her.
“Hey, you know…”
“Pffft.”
“Hey! Why are you laughing? I was about to say something serious!”
“Your breath tickled. How could I not laugh?”
“Ugh, fine. Come closer again.”
Sangwoo leaned in again, determined to hold back the ticklish feeling this time.
Yewon spoke.
“I’m going to learn hard so I can cook when Mom’s not home, so later, Uncle, you have to taste my food.”
For a moment, Sangwoo blinked in surprise, wondering what she meant.
“Why? You just want to do it by yourself?”
“Yeah. If I can cook well by myself, then when Mom comes home, she won’t have to cook again. She can rest.”
At those words, Sangwoo’s eyes widened.
He never imagined his niece would be thinking like that.
He had only ever seen her as a child, but maybe that wasn’t quite true.
For a moment, Yewon looked different to him.
‘Come to think of it…’
When she’d come home earlier today, she had opened a book to read by herself after he’d covered her mouth to keep her quiet.
Was that because she wanted her mom to rest a little longer since she was tired?
Of course, it was the kind of book she’d probably finish in five minutes, but time felt longer to a child.
‘And spaghetti is actually a pretty simple dish.’
It was something that could be made roughly with whatever ingredients were in the house.
‘So she’s learning to cook because she wants to help her mom, who’s tired when she comes home…’
Everything fit together now.
His own feelings toward his sister and Yewon’s feelings toward her mother were no different at all.
Only the ways they expressed them were different.
Within her limits, Yewon had been doing her best too.
“You…”
“And Uncle.”
“Uh…”
“Next time, if you don’t make the menu match, you’ll be in trouble.”
Yewon raised her fist in warning, then trotted out of the room toward her mom.
Sangwoo was momentarily speechless.
Because that line could only mean one thing—
Don’t make separate dishes next time and make more work for Mom.
‘She’s not such a little kid after all.’
Sangwoo felt both touched and proud.
Her care for her mother was beautiful.
‘I should help too.’
Sangwoo headed toward the kitchen.
He could see the two of them cooking together from behind.
“Mom, I’ll put the noodles in! Let me!”
“Alright. Grab a handful about this big—that’s three servings.”
“Okay!”
“Even if you add too much, it’s fine. Your uncle will end up eating all of it anyway.”
“Yeah!”
Sangwoo jumped right into the scene with the mother and daughter.
Because now, this was where he belonged.
“Sis, I’ll help too. What should I do first? Chop the tofu? Or should I make the soup? No, wait, should I set the table?”
His sister turned around—then immediately frowned.
With a quick hand gesture, she shooed him away.
“Ugh, there are too many people in here already. Go sit on the sofa and watch TV.”
“…Oh.”
Sangwoo trudged over and sat down on the sofa.
So apparently, his place in that family scene was the sofa.
‘I get it now… This must be why Dad always sat watching TV while waiting for dinner.’
He hadn’t really been needed; he’d just been gently pushed aside.
‘Still, at least I set the table.’
It was an ordinary evening scene—simple, domestic, and warm.
