Very carefully, as if he were handling something that would break at the slightest pressure.

She had never been this close to him before. This physical contact was also new.

He examined her as if he’s communicating through Bluetooth, as if he didn’t want to have the slightest contact with his patient. He was Pandora’s doctor, yet he didn’t even listen to her when she told him she was sick, and he just went about his business in a blunt manner.

He was reluctant to approach her as if she was full of germs, and would leave the room within a minute of entering.

Then he took Pandora’s hand.

“I’m sorry.”

“!”

“It was my fault.”

“…….”

“So take the medicine, or you’ll be in pain all day.”

His overlapping hot hands squeezed the vial into her hand. Then he ran out of the room.

For the first time today, Pandora looked the doctor in the eye properly.

It’s purple like violets.

An ethereal color that could only be created by the most delicate mixing of paints on the border of red and blue.

It was a beautiful shade of purple.

???????? ?? ???

They say people change when it’s time for them to die, and it seems the doctor who neglected his patient might have neglected his own health too, and it looks like it’s his time to die.

Pandora idly fiddled with the vial in her hand and pushed the eye drops into her eyes.

Her vision is blurry and her eyes are watering, but Pandora’s glaucoma is progressive, not acute, so she’s never been in pain. The doctor is a quack.

The eye drops protect her optic nerve by lowering intraocular pressure, but they don’t provide any pain relief.

On the contrary, the drops caused some pain. The doctor is a quack.

Pandora set down the empty bottle and slid out of bed, attempting to walk without her cane.

Then she fell. Knocking over everything on the table-calendar and clock, water pitcher and tray-with a loud crash.

“Pandora!”

She stumbled. The door burst open and the quack burst in.

‘As expected. I didn’t hear any footsteps.’

The doctor would finish his appointment, walk out the door, and she’d hear the sound of footsteps immediately afterward. Always. Every time.

But this time, after he ran out the door, it was silent, as if not moving a step.

The quack hobbled to Pandora’s side, examining her injuries. His hand on her shoulder was gentle.

‘He’s not a doctor.’

This scent. This temperature.

This is the madman who kissed and breathed into the dying Pandora.

‘Something’s changed.’

The poison hadn’t been for naught; she was still the Pandora of June 9, but something had changed.

Where the hell this guy came from and what he’s up to remains to be seen.

The fake, pretending to be a doctor, carefully placed Pandora on the bed.

A fall on the fluffy carpet wouldn’t have hurt her, but the man was alarmed and anxious, as if he’d seen Pandora fall out of a window.

Why such an overreaction?

“Miss Pandora. Are you hurt…… or sick…….”

“My ankle. It’s a little sore.”

Pandora grabbed the man by the collar and held him down. The man graciously knelt down and touched Pandora’s foot, carefully examining her ankle.

Whereas the doctor had recognized her trick with a cursory glance, this man’s fidgeting, full of worry but without a cure, reinforced her conviction that he was not a doctor.

While he fidgeted, Pandora leisurely examined him.

The fingers touching his ankle were long. Thick.

His shoulders were as big as his body, and his lower lashes were long and thick.

Pandora tilted her head to get a closer, more explicit look at the man. The man’s face was quite handsome. It was masculine, with strong brow bones and a prominent nose, and to say he was handsome would be an understatement. He was more sculptural than pretty, and ‘artistic’ was the perfect word to describe it.

‘Hmmm…….’

Where did this guy come from?

His hair color and form, his voice, his clothes and glasses that she couldn’t tell if he’d stolen or taken, and the fact that he’d vaguely mimicked the doctor’s appearance, but clumsily.

Pandora’s eyes glaze over, but that’s what she does.

Her day job is to observe, characterize, and paint.

With the scruffy doctor, she didn’t have the opportunity to get up close and personal and explore, so she didn’t even know what his face looked like, but she was able to identify him from a simple silhouette: “Two eyes, one nose, one lip.”

“I need to put the medicine on…… well, I need to put the medicine on…….”

This one. Is he trying to pretend to be a doctor or what?

Pandora fiddled through the man’s dark hair.

Suddenly, the pomade stuck to his scalp came to life and turned white.

In the blink of an eye, it went back to black, but there was no hiding the bewilderment on the man’s face as he looked up.

Oh ho?

???????? ?? ???

Pandora decided to keep this strange man by her side until she could figure out his identity.

She couldn’t be sure if this man would show up tomorrow, pretending to be a doctor, or if it was just today, so she needed to find out as much information as she could.

Capturing the man was quite easy.

All Pandora had to do was ignore him and run away, whether he was playing with her or talking nonsense, because he was paying attention and listening to her every word and reaction.

“Doctor. Do you mind if I ask you to escort me to my workroom?”

Pandora flicked her foot at the cane lying beside her and rolled it under the bed.

“I can’t stop losing my cane.”

It was shameless, but the man didn’t argue and offered Pandora his hand.

As he walked out the door, Anna came up the stairs carrying a tray with breakfast.

“Oh my, miss. Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I’ll eat in my workroom.”

“Fine, but why is the doctor…….”

“I asked him to help me.”

“Aha.”

Anna casually walked out and followed the man. Anna Gunnman, with her hawk’s eyes that can spot a crawling bug on a tree a hundred meters away. She didn’t notice that the doctor had changed.

No matter how you look at it, he’s a completely different person.

In Anna’s eyes, this man is a “real doctor.”……?

???????? ?? ???

“Anna, do you know where my painting of a cat is?”

When they arrive at the studio, Pandora sits down at the easel, supported by the man, while Anna prepares a meal.

But one of her favorite paintings was missing, leaving a blank canvas in its place.

It was the first painting Pandora had ever done in the studio, a white cat.

She had leaned it against the wall near the chair so that she, even with her poor eyesight, could see it well.

“A cat painting? I don’t know, and it’s not like it will move on its own, so it must be in the studio somewhere – I’ll find it for you later.”

“No, no. Find it now.”

Pandora looked around nervously. In her haste to move around the room, she forgot that her ankle should have been wobbling the entire time since she’s been trying to trick the man.

All the other changes were nice, but this was not nice at all.

“That painting to me is…….”

The helplessness she felt when she realized she was stuck in a time loop, living the same day over and over again.

The desolation and loneliness that seeped into her bones when she realized that all her words and actions had been erased, and the traces and memories she had left behind had scattered into thin air like an overnight dream.

In the midst of her despair, Pandora found her painting of a cat that hadn’t disappeared, and she hugged it and cried.

It was the first painting she’d ever done, the moment when an eight-by-eight oil on canvas that meant only that much turned into “Hope”.

“Anna, come on.”

At Pandora’s urging, Anna opened the window and began rummaging through her studio.

As she moved and rummaged through the piles of bookshelves and paintings on the floor, she kicked up a fine layer of dust.

Achoo!

The sound of a sneeze from above made Pandora jump and drop the stack of canvases she was carrying.

“Oh, right. The doctor.”

Distracted by the painting, she’d forgotten she’d dragged the man into the studio.

The man’s nose and mouth were covered as he struggled to breathe through the dust. Tears glistened in the corners of his open eyes.

It’s okay, he’s not going to die.

Pandora was glad for a moment and pulled him into the painting hunt.

“You can help me, too. A picture of a white cat.”

The three of them searched for quite a while. Anna left the room to ask if anyone had taken the painting outside.

Pandora opened both doors to the bottom drawer of the shelf, even though she knew there was no way the painting would fit on the low shelf.

“?”

Inside, a small jar sat in a heap.

It looked like a honey jar, with the words “Never open” written prominently on it.

Never open?

Then she must open it.

Without a second’s hesitation, Pandora took the jar.

In the original story, the main characters are like frogs who go where they are not supposed to go, see what they are not supposed to see, and do what they are not supposed to do.

Even if it’s frustrating for the protagonists who don’t listen, it’s the frog’s instinct that keeps the story moving forward.

‘If you do nothing, nothing happens.’

Besides, everything in this workshop is hers, so this jar is hers.

Pandora immediately lifted the lid of the jar.