Yoon ca and took Ye-hyeon away.
Ye-hyeon, with swollen eyes, greeted Yoon silently and handed him a photo without a word.
Yoon peered into the photo.
Then he smiled faintly.
"You look alike."
That's what I ant.
While I smiled quietly, Ye-hyeon looked at the photo again.
Even as he walked toward the house directly across from us, he glanced down at the photo several tis. A delivery truck—who knew how many tis it had co before—dropped off a gift and drove away.
Ye-hyeon reached the front gate, piled with boxes, and stopped in his tracks.
I greeted him without erasing my faint smile.
"Co in. Happy birthday."
"Hilde."
Ye-hyeon turned to look at .
I blinked once.
"Yes?"
"Don't get caught for as long as possible."
It was clearly an order, but it sounded strangely like a desperate plea.
"I won't be able to shield you from the resentnt and hatred that will pour out once you're discovered."
I smiled quietly.
It seed that was what had been bothering him.
But it was sothing I deserved to face. If we hadn't co to Earth, this war wouldn't have happened. The lives of those around us would have been different too. Ricardo's family, for instance, wouldn't have been buried under their ho from an air raid.
They had reason to hate .
My comrades had more than enough reason to hate as well.
"Is the administrative issue okay?"
"We can co up with so justification one way or another."
Ye-hyeon replied in a hoarse voice.
"We might avoid turning it into a big issue by applying pressure. But if it does beco an issue, it will be announced that you bear the greatest responsibility."
"Isn't that the reality?"
If I hadn't suddenly appeared, none of this troubleso situation would have arisen.
Of course, there was the option of placing under Colton. But that would have given Colton too much influence. Eventually, it would have grown into a power that could upset the balance.
That's why Ye-hyeon took the risk and registered as a Black Badger.
I would have made the sa decision in his position.
I was grateful for that judgnt. I could kneel before Ye-hyeon and press my lips to the back of his hand, but before Colton, I couldn't lower my body even if my knees shattered.
"I can't cloud the organization's atmosphere just to protect myself. I trust you'll handle it in the proper manner."
Ye-hyeon stared at for a long ti with bloodshot eyes.
To ease the anguish in his gaze, I added,
"In the past, I betrayed my kin of my own will."
It was a fact I couldn't deny even if I wanted to.
"So, shouldn't I bear the consequences accordingly?"
I had no right to complain about the pain.
After finishing my words with a smile, Ye-hyeon gazed at quietly.
The cold winter air.
The faint warmth of sunlight filtering through the chill ward my body. Yoon stood in silence, waiting for our conversation to end.
Ye-hyeon broke the quiet with small, slow words.
"Thank you for the photo."
He looked like a child again.
Thinking that, I bowed my head.
*
A few days later, a ssage ca from Ricardo.
[Are you planning to co to your senses only after your head gets smashed open?]
I'd heard he'd gone up to the rooftop after drinking.
It seed to support voice input. Feeling a chill run through , I quickly replied. It wasn't intentional, and I had no plans to do anything dangerous. If I'd worried him, I was sorry.
No reply ca.
Ricardo read my ssage and left on read.
Such a senior-like response.
'Well, whatever the reply, it must have scared him.'
And so the year-end party passed. My short vacation ended too. It was a better end to the year than I'd tensed up for. As the new year approached, Yoon started pushing hard again. To make up for the muscle loss from drinking and resting, the intensity ramped up.
I didn't complain. I wanted to regain my full strength quickly too.
It was nice to fall asleep without dreams after intense workouts.
The stability from a regular, simple routine felt good. So for a while, I forgot all about gas. Both the one Yoon had taken before and the new one Jae-yeon gave —I completely forgot them as I repeated the cycle of training and sleeping.
Until Yoon showed up on the first weekend of the new year holding From E.
[My main function.
/copyright Copyright Eve. All rights reserved.]
There were a lot of lines above and below, but I only understood that part.
Eve's na was there.
Yoon explained flatly as I froze beside him.
"A developer nad Eve made it, right after the First War ended, one year later."
The ntor crossed his arms and fixed his gaze on the screen.
"That's all we've figured out. It's strangely hard to find any information. It's old, sure, but not being able to find even photos or a bio is odd."
"They probably erased it all."
I murmured, staring at the line with Eve written on it.
I couldn't tear my eyes away.
"She said she erased everything to co face us."
I rembered her na when I was high on drugs.
Seeing it written on the screen now brought back another mory. It was amazing. Eve was a scientist who loved her field of research madly. She was also upright by nature. Even when conducting experints on , she always checked carefully to ensure it didn't harm my health. That ca to mind.
Very different from Choi Yoon or John Mullen.
"She was good."
"Are you picking a fight?"
"It's just stating facts."
After replying, I quickly handed Yoon the unopened bottle of liquor.
It was a late birthday gift and a bribe.
"Ah, this is a birthday present. January 4th, right?"
"Yeah."
The ntor took the liquor.
Yoon now responded naturally to my reactions.
He set the bottle on the desk and turned back to the screen. I stared at the screen glumly too.
One year after the First War.
When no one knew the Second War would break out. She made this ga in the ruins of a collapsed city.
"Eve definitely survived the First War."
"Assuming this info is accurate."
"Where was I back then?"
I tried to recall a ti when, no matter how hard I tried, even the shadow of the mory wouldn't co.
The life before the war broke out. The world before coming to Earth—fragnts of those mories I rembered.
But I couldn't figure out how I, who vanished to stop Kyle, ended up falling out of the headquarters portal decades later. I had no mory of seeing the war end. I rembered preparing for the war's start, though.
Because of this blank in my mory, my body had deteriorated terribly.
"I don't even know if I was on Earth."
Yoon muttered in a low voice.
"Back then, Ye-hyeon and I were in our early thirties.... If you were alive inside a core, Lee Seung-hyun must have retrieved your sword from Ye-hyeon."
"Yes, I think so too."
"At least Lee Seung-hyun and his gang didn't know your whereabouts."
The ntor's low voice resonated in the cabin.
"And there's not much they can't find."
Did I live outside the core like Jin?
Or was I in a coma? Hiding in soone's ho without going out? The problem was, no matter how plausible the hypothesis, it didn't connect to the fact that I fell out of the headquarters portal.
Without realizing it, I let out a huge sigh.
Yoon stood from his chair.
"Have you played K?"
"Not yet. In case you wanted to watch like last ti."
"Ah, good. Then I'll watch like before, so start right now."
I didn't answer.
Instead, I ignored Yoon's gaze as best I could and focused on the screen.
Before he could speak, I said,
"Was this ga made to commorate ?"
"It seems that way for now."
This ti, the ntor cut in before I could add more.
I thought he wasn't interested in people, but after spending so much ti together, Choi Yoon knew too well now.
"If you don't want to start K, do it next week."
He'd caught trying to change the subject on purpose.
"Instead, find the Easter eggs in E during that ti."
I turned my head.
The man looked at with cold, black eyes.
eting that icy gaze, I nodded.
This order was much more comfortable ntally.
K definitely wasn't Kyle—(Kyle despised "computer gas" themselves.)—but even so. I wasn't ready to play a ga that might contain so unknown ssage.
I reached out to turn off the computer and mumbled,
"Thanks for looking into it."
The man headed to the entrance without a particular reply. I pretended to follow him and vaguely saw him off.
I couldn't lift my gaze straight until Yoon's footsteps faded away.
*
When had I started thinking there were no Easter eggs?
It was around the ti the sun had passed and the moon had cycled once more.
Two days before the first weekend of February.
I still hadn't found any significant Easter eggs in From E.
"I'm unlucky, but I'm really good at finding these things."
"Yeah, you're a ga addict after all."
Addict, huh.
I reflexively made a sullen face but couldn't properly retort and continued.
"Since I haven't found any yet, it seems likely there are no Easter egg elents at all. It could be that I'm just not finding the clues."
"Then drop it and play K first."
Yoon replied as we walked down the headquarters corridor.
The day was ending. The ti when office workers headed ho in droves.
We'd closed the shooting range door and were on our way to the ss hall.
"There might be an Easter egg that only unlocks after playing all the series."
"Huh, you know a bit about gas."
I was a little surprised.
"Did you know about Easter eggs like that?"
The ntor raised an eyebrow and looked at .
He was still a man who conveyed his intentions efficiently without words.
I matched his stride.
"No, I just thought you wouldn't do sothing unproductive like gas...."
He even asked last ti if this was fun, right?
"I never imagined you'd look for Easter eggs...."
Weeeeng! Weeeeng! Weeeeng!
A loud noise shook the headquarters.
The conversation cut off.
People stopped in their tracks.
Gazes dropped to phones simultaneously.
About half a year into being a Black Badger, I knew well that this alarm was a mobilization order.
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