The scientists approached and supported .
They sat down in a chair and pressed a canned coffee into my hand, sothing I had no idea where they had gotten.
I only ca back to myself after spending a long ti feeling the cold surface of the can.
“Why is it shutting down?”
I grabbed Hiroshi’s arm and asked earnestly.
“Why on earth...?”
“The owner says he’s retiring.”
“Retiring?”
Retiring after even making a franchise?
It was not like it had no custors?
I stared blankly into the air. I did not want to believe the situation.
One of the only real pleasures in my life was disappearing; I could not believe it.
This could not be reality.
Baek Byungyeong muttered in an absurd tone, “You’re acting like this because the store closed today?”
I ignored his reaction. I also ignored Sophia, who let out a scoff as if she could not believe .
Ami and the scientists patted my shoulder.
Yun, sitting opposite , crossed his legs and scoffed.
“At last the world is turning the right way.”
My ntor looked down at his phone disinterestedly.
“It should have gone under ages ago.”
“Oh~ that shitty franchise~?”
Ricardo, who was sitting next to Yun, lifted his head from his phone.
“It wasn’t bankrupt until now~?”
Too much.
Life was too much, and the seniors’ reactions were too much.
I slumped back against the sofa, dazed.
Shawn picked up my phone from the floor and placed it gently into my hand. Hiroshi kindly opened the can for . I blankly drank the canned coffee, unable to tell what it tasted like as I held my phone.
I stayed slumped in the chair for a long ti.
Until a ssage ca from Aide-de-Camp Ska.
***
“I guess you’ll be the one who has to contact Falcon.”
It seed the leadership had been tearing their hair out trying to figure out what to do with the bomb I had brought them.
Of course. Baek Byungyeong was a bomb that could explode in any direction. And he really did roll his eyes all the way to Personnel Director Ju’s office, searching for an escape route.
Fortunately, the Personnel Director welcod him with a smile.
While sending away a woman who was obviously in a lover-like relationship with him.
“You’ve worked hard!”
Baek Byungyeong stared blankly at the Personnel Director, who smiled so brightly it looked like flowers would bloom behind him.
“Co in. What would you like to drink? Coffee? Tea? Or just water?”
I had to leave the rest to him.
Interrogation was the Personnel Director’s domain. After bowing and entrusting him with the matter, I went upstairs to the leadership’s office. There I t the aides wearing troubled expressions.
Yehyeon supposedly had an official event he absolutely could not skip.
Which was why, the mont I closed the door, Ska—who had been pressing his forehead with his fist—said that.
“Falcon would guarantee his identity best. And you have that previous contract.”
“I’ll contact him.”
“If it’s uncomfortable, we can call him instead.”
Ska narrowed his eyes and scrutinized .
I let out a small laugh.
“I’ll do it.”
I had things I wanted to ask.
“I’ll send in the report soon too.”
“First ti writing one, right? Get Yun to help.”
So I did.
Yun showed he was annoyed, but he still readily looked through my report. I had to listen to him nagging nonstop the entire ti I was writing it.
There was a separate standardized Badger mission report format, separate terms I had to morize, and I also had to cut and upload the footage recorded in the caras embedded in earrings or weapons, so it took quite a while.
The collected specins were already submitted to the scientific building by Kai.
As for what we obtained from the dragon, everything except for one claw was submitted. The scientists had been so delighted they nearly fainted.
I gloomily finished writing the report.
Once everything was finally done, I returned ho with my ntor.
I stopped Yun, who was about to go back to the residence across from mine, and handed him two gas.
“Can you tell who I and R are?”
“Yeah.”
Yun took the gas.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
After coming inside the house, I prepared to call Colton.
More accurately, I prepared to receive his call. I had already sent him a ssage asking him to call if he had ti today.
He would call when it suited him.
It was already evening. The days had grown short, and outside was dark.
I looked through the cabin’s window at the bluish dusk that had descended.
The fact that I could no longer order Lexic noodles hit painfully.
That this was reality.
I did not want to believe it.
Sunk in loss, I searched articles on my phone.
As I combed through articles that contained no real information and community reactions, a call ca in.
I exhaled and answered Colton’s call.
[So you’ve returned.]
“Yeah.”
Lowering my gaze, I replied gloomily.
“I have a favor to ask.”
Colton conveyed his permission to speak through silence.
I delivered my request in a businesslike tone. That outside the Core I had restrained one of my kind, and he was currently being interrogated at Badger HQ. I did not know how the interrogation would end, but once the situation was sorted out, I wanted him to be quietly integrated into society without trouble.
Because that was the content of our contract.
Colton stayed silent until I finished explaining, then said:
[I shall do that.]
There was no unnecessary comntary.
[Is that all?]
...No.
In truth, there was much more I wanted to ask. Much more I wanted to learn.
But I still had not made the decision. I did not know how far I was allowed to ask.
So, pressing my clasped hands against my forehead, I whispered.
Thinking of Sophia and Baek Byungyeong.
“Why can I not feel the presence of my kin?”
The presence of those who should be living inside the Core.
“Did they cut off their intuition?”
[You would not be able to feel their presence.]
I heard the sound of papers turning beyond the receiver.
[But if they wished, they could detect your presence. They only erased their own, but they can still feel the presence of others.]
My eyes widened.
It was an instinctive reaction. I lifted my head, eyes enlarged.
I stared at the phone lying on the table.
The screen displayed the word “adversary.”
“...Is that possible?”
[Did you not ask for them to be perfectly hidden?]
Colton spoke in the tone of soone wondering why I was asking sothing with such an obvious answer.
[You asked for complete concealnt. So I found the best thod to grant your request.]
That had been the promise.
I could not speak for a long ti.
He was a busy man, so I thought he might end the call midway, but Colton did not. Even as he continued turning docunts, he did not hang up.
Thanks to that, after quite a while, I finally gathered myself enough to ask:
“Are they all doing well?”
My voice trembled faintly.
“They’re all... safely inside, right?”
[You want a report on their current state?]
The old friend asked in a voice without emotion.
I reflexively tried to answer yes.
But I swallowed the words back down my throat in a hurry.
Because the fact he had told a few minutes ago pressed heavily on .
Colton’s statent that they would have been able to sense my presence.
People like Kairos could not possibly have failed to detect . I rembered the nas of those whose intuition was razor-sharp, and I had been here for over a year—yet none of them had co to find .
So....
“No.”
I swallowed bitterness.
“Knowing they’re all inside is enough.”
[I can guarantee that much.]
“Yeah.”
I lowered my head and rubbed my face with both hands.
“That’s enough....”
For a mont, I beca unbearably sorrowful.
But I quickly gathered myself again. A long ti had passed since the war. Hesh and Tom did not even know what Earth had been like before the war.
That much ti had passed; surely many things had happened, and they must have changed greatly too.
I pressed my knuckles against my eyelids.
“That matter is finished.”
I needed to end the call quickly and get my head straight.
“One last thing. I want to ask one more question.”
I hesitated whether I should ask it, but in the end I should.
“For the record, this is just a personal question.”
[What’s gotten into you.]
“I’m too desperate.”
I spoke seriously, fingers interlocked.
That is what friendship is for, is it not.
I lowered the hand that had been pressing my eyelid. I placed both hands neatly on my knees, lifted my head, and looked at the lit screen showing we were still connected.
Even his voice was hateful, but he was soone I desperately needed right now.
Reading the word “adversary” displayed on the screen, I asked:
“Do you know Lexic noodles?”
Colton did not answer for a long ti.
After a long while, the man let out a heavy sigh.
[Let’s end the call here.]
“No, hey! Listen to to the end!”
Click.
The call disconnected.
Beep-, beep-, beep-. The continuous call-end tone.
I stared down at the screen blankly.
Heartless bastard. An old acquaintance asks like this, and he cannot at least listen to the end.
After glaring at the phone, I went to the beanbag.
And I lay there for a long ti, until sleep began pouring over . Trying to accept all the new things I had learned.
***
The next day.
My day off.
I felt sothing wrong with my body the mont I woke up.
“Huh?”
After getting up from the bed, I grabbed my throat and blinked.
“Why does my throat hurt?”
Not just hurt.
It hurt in a bad way. It was a sore throat of a severity I had never experienced before.
What.
The unexpected situation stunned , and I could not move right away.
I was flustered.
Really flustered? Back when the Blue Disease was spreading, I had shared food with confird patients and talked with them in a cramped room. I had taken over their duties and stayed up several nights in a row.
I had done every possible thing that should have gotten infected, but I never ended up catching the Blue Disease.
So I thought maybe I had gotten it asymptomatically and recovered, gaining immunity.
And I ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) do not catch colds.
Even the healers and knights had acknowledged that I had iron immunity....
“Now, of all tis?”
I murmured to myself blankly as I stared ahead.
It was at least fortunate that humans were not contagious with this disease.
“It has been decades?”
Ah.
Even mumbling these thoughts made my throat hurt.
Stiff in shock at the unexpected situation, I only ca back to myself when I felt stabbing hunger.
I raised my heavy, water-soaked-cotton-like body and staggered down to the first floor. Walking sluggishly, I yanked open the refrigerator and grabbed anything.
Now what am I supposed to do?
Maybe if I stay ho all day and sleep, I will get better.
Have I ever even caught a cold....
After wandering like that, forcing down breakfast, I decided that I should stay inside all day and sleep.
If I sleep, I will get better.
It has always been like that.
***
I did not get better.
“Hey.”
Dragging my feet through headquarters, I lifted my head at the voice in front of .
And t faces I had not expected.
“Senior Trevain. Senior Chen.”
“Oh? The kid rembers my na?”
The man Ami had called “the Jini guy” at the year-end party spoke back as if amused.
I smiled faintly.
“Yes, senior. It has been a while.”
“What’s with your face?”
Trevain raised an eyebrow with his usual sloppy posture.
“Your face is a wreck?”
Because my throat pain had not gone down at all.
I had even developed a headache. That was why I had driven to headquarters. To buy dicine for a throat cold at the pharmacy attached to the hospital wing.
I had reported to Yun yesterday.
When he ca to the cabin as promised with the nas of I and R,
Yun had calmly told the nas.
“Igor and Rose.”
“My god.”
Why did completely unexpected people leave sothing behind for ?
...Are both of them safely inside?
Anyway, Yun had detected my condition the mont he saw my face, and after hearing my confession, he scoffed.
As if he had known it would happen.
“Go to Samuel Han.”
I had muttered that maybe if I slept all day I would get better, but it did not work.
“Did your kin ever get better by sleeping all day?”
“...No, but. I really do have strong immunity. I do not even have a fever.”
“Make an appointnt. You are not an ergency case, so you cannot get examined imdiately tomorrow, but at least take dicine.”
So I had co today to buy dicine.
I had asked for sore throat dicine and was heading toward the cafeteria to swallow it with water.
I faintly smiled at Trevain’s blue eyes.
“I think I have a bit of a cold. I was heading to the cafeteria to take dicine.”
“Lunch?”
Chen tilted his body to one side and spoke.
“What, you going for lunch too?”
Ah.
This context is... surely....
“Alone?”
No.
No....
***
I was dragged along.
There was no refusing. Or more accurately, these were people who would never accept a refusal. They could not even imagine a junior rejecting a senior’s invitation.
Even the group Ami must never run into, the so-called “Three Jinis,” had shown up, worsening the situation.
I had wanted to go ho and rest.
I stared gloomily at the chicken curry.
I glared at the food that refused to shrink and then turned my head.
It was late, so the cafeteria was nearly empty.
A faint sound ca from the TV attached to the side of the cafeteria. The clatter of dishes and the TV sounds filled the emptying space.
With my headache worsening, I frowned between my brows and stared blankly at the TV.
The seniors who had tornted the entire ti I was getting my food were now chatting among themselves about clubs.
Please finish your conversation quickly and let go.
I could barely taste anything.
Thinking that, I blankly watched the sports channel.
An award ceremony was airing.
Formula 1.
A professional car racing competition....
Clang!
I dropped my spoon.
“What the hell?”
Trevain, who had been giggling and drinking cola, lifted his head.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I had no strength to answer.
I was too busy staring at the screen. Half out of my mind with a terrible headache.
I scrutinized the face of the person walking up to the podium as if possessed.
I had planned to look for Asil as soon as I returned, but after Colton’s words, I had given up the search.
Before the call, I had jokingly asked Ricardo, wondering if he had any lingering mory of him, but I had not gotten any positive answer.
So I had thought I might never see him again in my life.
Those sun-like, dazzling eyes.
Sparkling with the joy of victory.
“Kairos?”
As he lifted the F1 championship cup high, he smiled brightly amid the fireworks.
Reviews
All reviews (0)