[A Card of Truth Veiled in Friendship]
[mory of Bonds: A Feast of Sumr Flowers]
[Registering a new recipe to the Archive.]
[Yes/No]
[Yes]
"......"
"I like flowers too."
"...I'll prepare a bouquet."
"Fill it with poppies."
"Okay."
She was worth that much.
"Let's do that."
This, too, was a story told near the break of dawn.
***
Seated on the desk with his fingers laced, Lee Yeon-woo spoke.
"All I have left to trust now is reason."
"Yes."
Coco, likewise stuck to the desk like a lted sli, answered.
"Yes."
"I heard you."
"Yes."
"Enough."
"Yes."
"I said enough."
"Mm...."
"......"
I'm dying of exhaustion and it dares to act up.
'No.'
Stop. At the voice of that reason, Yeon-woo miraculously held back a sigh. He ignored the head that felt like it was running a fever. He muttered inwardly, as though brainwashing himself.
'Sighing in soone's face diminishes both them and . Having an unstable emotional state doesn't give
the right to treat others unfairly.'
Of course the other party wasn't a person, but calm down. You're human. The core of humanity is shining reason. No matter how much of a monster that thing is—no.
'No. Stop that too.'
Deaning others to excuse yourself is an ugly thing to do. Sure enough, Coco drooped even further. Its tail, which had at least been swishing back and forth with displeasure, went still. It must have read his thoughts.
"......"
"......"
"...As you're aware, I didn't normally think this way."
When no answer ca, Yeon-woo swept his hair back. He felt like he was going insane.
'What a fine thing to be doing at this age.'
A sudden rush of self-loathing and revulsion nearly made him lose his mind.
Among the positive emotions had been those tied to relationships. The feelings built up through all their ti together had evaporated too. What remained was only irritation toward a suspect and stress over lost control—even the way he referred to Coco had turned churlish.
'When I first saw Coco—no.'
If he had encountered Coco for the first ti with no prior knowledge, this was the kind of emotion he would have felt. If he'd been dragged here by a complete stranger of a monster, rather than the in-ga character he'd spent twenty-six years with.
'But I shouldn't call a friend I've finally built a good relationship with "that thing" or "monster."'
You know you shouldn't.
He didn't even know for certain whether Coco was the one who had kidnapped him. Right now, he was trying to pour negative emotions onto a being he'd spent five years with based on circumstantial evidence alone. How childish could he be?
'Even if it's true that Coco dragged
here, the sa applies. Letting my emotions run wild and searching for soone to bla is far too immature. Rather than getting angry, I should be looking for solutions....'
Yeon-woo looked at Coco. It was keeping its distance, not even making eye contact. According to the way the old Yeon-woo's mind worked, this was around the point where the thought 'its curled-up form is cute' should have surfaced.
"Yes!"
With all due respect, he didn't really feel that way right now.
"Mm...."
"I'm sorry to say."
Coco, which had briefly perked up, flopped back down in a sulk.
Yeon-woo felt stifled in turn. He could manage not saying things, sohow, but reining in his thoughts when the situation was this tangled was another matter entirely.
"I feel wronged. This is all because of The Guest Without Taste—no. No, ah...."
In that mont, the sensation of The Guest Without Taste's cool, large hand against the nape of his neck resurfaced.
It had been as vivid as insects crawling over him—that horrific feeling of contamination, of being devoured at another's hands with all control stripped away. Unpleasant and filthy. Defiling.
And because he simply couldn't bring that feeling under control....
"......"
"Hello...?"
"Haah...."
Yeon-woo roughly took off his glasses and set them down, then scrubbed his face with both hands. A neurotic headache—phantom pain, most likely—and the fingertips pressing his temples between thumb and ring finger trembled faintly.
"Hello, hell—"
"One mont."
He covered Coco's eyes, then lowered the hands from his face toward his neck.
"Yes?"
He scrubbed furiously with his sleeve,
"No?"
then dug in with his nails,
"No."
"...You're right."
In the end, he saw the blood staining his white gloves.
"This is really a wretched thing to do."
"Hello."
"It's not easy."
His body had already gone terribly soft from the tutorial. Even through cotton gloves, the skin flushed easily, and unable to withstand the force, droplets of blood seeped through. It wasn't a small amount.
"It's really just—the feeling is so revolting."
The compulsion to wash, to scrub, to peel it off was difficult to shake. It wasn't simply a feeling of being 'dirty.' It felt like sothing was stuck to his body. Seeping in, lingering.
"If I could just tear it off a bit...."
Wouldn't it get better?
"N-no?!"
"......"
"No! No! No!"
"Quiet—"
"No!!"
"Ugh."
The action about to follow was cut short when Coco leapt onto his shoulder and wedged itself between him and his own hands.
'Squishy.'
The damp touch of the monster that had tried to restrain his actions. Yeon-woo found it revoltingly unpleasant, goosebumps threatening to rise across his entire body, yet that very sense of sothing foreign severed the spiraling compulsion in an instant.
A tail swept across his face. Yeon-woo blinked.
"......"
"......"
"...Right, I shouldn't be doing this. How undignified...."
Where the tail had passed, Yeon-woo covered his face with his hands, slowly steadied his breathing, and restored his neck. All the while, he repeated inwardly, ceaselessly.
'Don't dodge the bla.'
You're not a child.
'You must not push what you've done onto soone else. Even if the other party may have started it, the shaful one here is you. Admit it and fix it.'
But that one started it first—
'Shut up.'
He needed to shut up.
"......"
Yeon-woo lowered his hands from his face and roughly wiped the remaining blood from his neck.
"All this age and what is this, so infantile mood swing?"
"Infantile?"
"Not once since I was issued my resident registration card have I been in this miserable a state."
"Resident registration card?"
"The Republic of Korea's governnt assigns each individual an identification code."
"Coco. Understand."
"To think I've beco this pathetic."
Fatigue crashed in all at once.
'No positive emotions remain. Vulnerable to negative ones.'
And amid it all, his reason was straining desperately to return to the old Lee Yeon-woo. This—well.
"Should I call it a split self?"
"Yes...."
"Yes?"
"Ah, no...."
"No, that's not—no."
Please.
'The other one is worried right now.'
Having jumped to conclusions on his own, getting worked up over a re statent of fact—what was he thinking?
The feeling was too unfamiliar. The current Yeon-woo was receiving everything around him with painful hypersensitivity. Not rely sensitive, but twisting things into the worst possible interpretation.
'Rember—you're not in your right mind.'
Before pressing on with the 14th Floor, he had to get himself under control first. Yeon-woo composed and organized himself, and moreover, commanded himself. Acknowledge everything you're doing as worthless.
"...Hah...."
Everything in the entire world felt negative, and it was driving him mad. He understood a hundred tis over why the people who'd faced The Guest Without Taste inside Hoone had so helplessly lost their minds.
"Brain surgery doesn't sound half bad."
"Yes?"
"The hassle is unbearable."
"Yes?"
"It'd be far easier to function with no emotions at all."
"No?"
"What would you know about—no."
Before he could even finish, Yeon-woo's brow crumpled. Once again, the urge to scrub and scrape off his own skin surged. His gloved hand shot neurotically toward his neck, but—
CLANG—!!
"......"
"......"
Instead of leaping onto Yeon-woo's body, Coco shoved the silver candlestick off the desk, sending it crashing to the floor. The clamorous screech of tal tore through the silent room.
"......"
Yeon-woo's gaze, frozen in midair, turned to the candlestick rolling on the floor, then to Coco perched precariously at the edge of the desk, watching him.
Yeon-woo slowly lowered the hand that had been heading for his neck.
"...I feel like I keep saying the sa thing, but I'm sorry."
"No."
"That's a surprisingly effective thod."
Smoothing down his rumpled jacket with precise movents, he rolled his eyes briefly in thought. After a mont's deliberation, he ford a smile without a single crease out of place.
"I know you deliberately avoided making contact. Thank you."
"No...."
"Going forward, please just pick out the pleasant things from what I say and ignore the rest. Do you understand, Coco? Since I've lost control, you need to filter on your own."
"Yes? Yes."
"I'm sorry again. And sorry in advance. I'll do my best as well, so...."
"Yes."
"All right."
He took a deep breath.
It's fine. I already know the knack. First, separate the professional from the personal.
'So that my mood doesn't beco my attitude.'
So that I can step outside my emotions and see reality.
That wasn't such a difficult thing. He knew that much.
It was his emotions that had been stolen, not his reason, and his mories remained intact. Lee Yeon-woo had done well up to now. He'd been, and took pride in being, a decent person. Those mories would sustain the person he was now.
'It's not difficult.'
Accept it. Right now, you simply don't want to accept that your state is deteriorating.
'All I'm doing is following the way I rember.'
Responding to new situations by drawing on past experience was sothing he'd done countless tis.
The scale had grown a bit, that was all. It wasn't hard. It hadn't grown more complex. The problem before him was one he'd weathered innurable tis; only the circumstances and context had shifted slightly.
'I used to be confident about this kind of thing. Now that the confidence is gone, all I know is the fact that I'm the kind of person who can do it—and precisely because of that, conviction remains.'
Moreover.
"......"
Rember that every emotion is two-sided.
"...There's no emotion anywhere that ends cleanly."
Just as anger holds relief within it, and sadness holds catharsis.
"It's just that... the things I'd taken for granted suddenly disappeared, and I was thrown off for a mont. Because it's unfamiliar, because it's frightening, I want to prop myself up with whatever's left. That's natural. There's nothing strange about it."
Therefore, I can get better. Having co this far down, all that's left is to climb back up.
"We break apart what's half-ford."
"......"
"And reassemble it from scratch."
As perfectly as possible.
Yeon-woo set his glasses down on the desk. Even the smile he'd been forcing stiffened and crumbled. Each ti, he was reminded of his own graceless nature.
As expected, I'm not the kind of person smiling suits.
"Then that's enough."
"Really?"
"......"
Instead of answering, he hesitated, then stroked Coco's head with a stiff hand. Nausea rose from the pit of his stomach at the squishy texture under his fingertips, but he hadn't spent all those years just to be swayed by that.
"...It won't take long."
Yeon-woo checked the hunting dagger floating beyond his Inventory.
"......"
[Noble rcy]
[To chase a fleeing beast for long is beneath one's dignity. When breath grows ragged, the nobleman approaches and severs it. Whose blood is it? The one who holds the blade, or the one who is cut?]
"......"
"......"
[Critical hit when attacking a target below 20% HP (damage reduction when HP condition is unt)]
[Inflicts temporary Status Ailnt 'Excessive Bleeding' on attack]
[Triggers an 'Agitation' judgnt on adjacent targets upon use]
Ah....
'Ah.'
The life drained from Yeon-woo's eyes.
'I really don't want to do this.'
"Understood."
"In that case, 'I understand' is more appropriate."
"I understand. Hello?"
"No, that lacks plausibility."
As if he didn't want to do this badly enough, there was the ss the old Yeon-woo had left behind.
"You ca out of there after quite the display of talking back."
"Okay."
"Compared to what I'll need to show going forward, I was far too defiant in front of that one."
"Okay!"
"This is a situation where I have to cover the lack of plausibility with acting skill."
"Hehe!"
"Does that even make sense for soone who's been a researcher his entire life?"
Doesn't it.
"If I'd known it would co to this, I'd have gone to theater school."
The bar was far too high for a life sciences graduate.
Catering to a superior's moods or building bomb-shot dominoes at a company dinner—sure, he could manage that. But this was an entirely different domain.
"This isn't everyday acting. It's survival acting."
"Yes? Yes."
"Then again, imrsion shouldn't be that difficult."
With his life on the line in the truest sense, desperation was a given—failure ant becoming a Mass of Liquid Blood.
"The material is good, so I'll have to make it work sohow."
"Coco! Guarantee!"
"What exactly about
are you guaranteeing?"
Yeon-woo gave a dry nod.
"But I know that at tis like these, I should be grateful."
"Hehe."
"Thank you for cheering
on."
"Hehe!"
It would work out.
It had to.
***
Because otherwise, he couldn't endure.
"......"
Yeah.
Honestly, it was hard.
"......"
"Hello?"
"No."
Inside the elevator rising back to the 14th Floor.
"Not particularly."
Yeon-woo stood upright, staring at the elevator doors. But the physiological responses—the faint trembling of his hands, the cold sweat—persisted.
"It feels... a little different from fear."
"Yes."
"I don't think it can be lumped together as just 'stress,' either."
"Yes."
"That's unfortunate."
Extre stress, pouring in raw without any buffer, struck the detonator directly. He controlled his breathing chanically.
"It's not that I was originally incapable of feeling those kinds of emotions."
Ding—
They arrived at the 14th Floor.
"So...."
The sll of blood at the tip of his nose, and the cruel traces left here and there.
"......"
"......"
This is maddening.
"Hello?"
"I wonder."
Near his ankle. Coco, who would normally have clung to Yeon-woo's trouser hem under the pretense of anxiety, was lying docilely at a distance of precisely one hand-span from the toe of his shoe.
It must have started after the incident at the Quarters. It seed to know that Yeon-woo's aversion and sensitivity to physical contact had reached their peak. In that regard, Coco was perceptive.
"Thank you for the consideration."
"Coco. Help."
"It's been a great help."
It was praise as dry as dust, but Coco curled the tip of its tail up slightly.
"I feel pathetic."
"No."
"I also have the thought that I just want to rest, recklessly, with no plan."
"Quarters. Bed."
"I doubt lying there would solve anything."
"Correct."
"I wish this were a situation I could run from."
The elevator doors remained open.
"It really isn't easy...."
Beyond them, the corner of Yeon-woo's mouth curved with fluid grace.
'What if I die?'
'There are too many Watchers here.'
'I don't want to be in pain.'
Only the worst outcos surfaced.
'I'm tired.'
Yeon-woo, who had been smiling with his eyes lowered, eventually shrugged his shoulders.
"In this state, how am I supposed to clear the 14th Floor?"
"Hello?"
"Yes, I'll try my best regardless."
Yeon-woo stared at his own reflection in the elevator wall. A suit without a single crease, a perfectly knotted tie. The General Manager in the mirror looked impeccably composed.
But because the hands clasped behind his back were wringing his wrist hard enough to crush bone, the surging blood flow made his temples throb. He didn't want to die. What did I ever do to deserve this....
"......"
The sensation of that hand gripping his neck surfaced unbidden.
He scrubbed the nape of his neck roughly with a gloved hand. It was bare skin without a single drop of blood on it, yet the cool touch of the other's hand felt as though it were crawling beneath his skin, and his stomach turned.
"No."
"I see."
Just before blood was drawn, he dropped his hand with a chanical motion.
"A valid point."
With a calm voice, he pulled his rumpled sleeve taut.
"So, just for a mont...."
"Yes."
"Let's take a short rest."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"No."
"What a terrible person I am."
Having done nothing at all, and yet asking to take a rest.
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