“I’m late!”

Restless, Noah checked the time on her phone once more. The time that appeared on the screen was as clear as a cloudless day.

8:54 A.M.

“Please, please, please…”

It was only two days ago that her entire team was reprimanded by the manager due to her sister’s frequent tardiness. Since then, employees who arrived late even a second past nine o’clock on the dot, especially new employees, were to write their names on the office’s whiteboard without exception. It was an exemplary discipline for new recruits.

Noah glanced alternately at the elevator and clock, her foot tapping the floor impatiently. Eventually, she turned around and ran toward the exit. She had worked for the company for a year, and there wasn’t a day she didn’t arrive twenty minutes earlier, but today, she overslept.

It’s all because of you… Jeong Yu-young. If it weren’t for the book she lent to Noah, encouraging her to rest and clear the fuss in her mind, she would have woken up on time.

Noah began to climb the stairs in haste all the while blaming her innocent friend inwardly. The office was a whopping seven stories high.

“Wow… Ugh…” Perhaps because she was hungry, Noah suddenly felt dizzy. She gripped the handle and turned around a corner. She checked her phone again, suppressing creeping nausea.

8:57 A.M.“Oh, you should have got up five minutes early, Noah…” She climbed the rest of the stairs with exasperated breaths. She was in a hurry, but she was losing strength in her legs. Only two floors remained and only two minutes remained. It was not yet impossible to get to work on time. Just a little bit more, quickly…

Her damp palm lost its grip on the steel handle. Noah had just set foot on the six-story staircase and looked down with a stunned face. Papers from the pile were covering the stairs like snow. These were important data that outlined major cooperation plans with the trading company. Noah immediately descended the stairs and began to collect the scrambled papers. When she finished gathering the documents, the time on her phone had already changed. She clutched the disorganized heap of papers and stared blankly down at her cell phone.

9:02 A.M.

She felt heat below her nose. In the midst of a daze, she inadvertently rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, and blood was smeared on her skin. It had already been a while since she felt nauseous, and now, her nose started bleeding. Noah sighed as she looked down at her bloodstained hand.

After all, she couldn’t tolerate tardiness.

*

Noah awoke to a feeling of dampness under her nose. She brushed her hand against her nose and discovered blood.

“Tardy?”

Coincidentally, her nose was bleeding in the dream she just had, and thus making her confused whether it was real or still an extension of her dream.

Her drowsy scanned the dark vicinity, feeling a ceaseless vibration under her body. However, only one idea reverberated in Noah’s head. Tardiness. It’s tardiness. The word that worked like a spell to Park Noah in her past life worked again this time. She raised her body albeit dazed and stood upright, stepping on the blanket that had fallen to the floor.

At that moment, all sides rattled louder and stronger than before. Everything around her was churning and jostling as if they were agitated. So was her body. With a loud noise, the view before her fell downward, and in the next moment, she felt a tremendous pain in the buttocks.

A pained groan fell from her lips a beat late. As Noah slowly rubbed her sore bottom, she heard urgent footsteps approaching from the outside. Then, the door burst wide open. Two voices crossed in her ears.

“Miss Noah?”

“Noah!”

Still caught in a daze, Noah attempted to realize the situation before her. An old blue fabric… Oh, the bottom of the train seat. I just fell down. When she managed to come up with that, someone’s face floated in front of her eyes.“Did you fall over? I thought something was going on. Wait, what’s wrong with your face?”

Both of Noah’s cheeks were captured in large, warm palms, and a pair of violet eyes reflected her face. A bobbed hair that reached her shoulders. Round eyes. It wasn’t the face of Eleonora, but her face. Only after she shifted her gaze and saw a little child clinging to her knees did she realize that this was real.

“Why is there so much nosebleed…”

“I’m not late. Thank God.” Noah muttered under her breath, and the bitter taste of blood spread on the tip of her tongue.

Then was that a dream… When I was late for work only once, two days before I died. I thought I was ‘breathtakingly safe’, but suddenly I dropped the documents and had a nosebleed. Noah slowly retraced her memories in her groggy state and unconsciously licked her lips.

“You must be crazy. Why do you eat blood? Wake up, Miss Noah.” Kyle’s fingers pinched Noah’s nose. “Are you half asleep? Can you hear my voice?”

“I can hear you.”

“Did you fall asleep?”

Too lazy to explain the situation, Noah only nodded her head.

“Any other bumps? Where does it hurt?”