“What?”
“I’m asking if I ever said I love you.”
Raon, who had been listening intently to Jaehwi’s words in surprise, ended up chuckling at his out-of-the-blue remark. You’re saying that in this situation? He was thinking about one of the things he wanted to do with him and things he couldn’t do.
“No.”
Answering without needing to think deeply, Raon put his hand into the snack bag.
“That’s not true. I said I love you a lot though?”
When he answered honestly since he had no memory of hearing it, what came back was a sulky voice. Even tracing through his memories again, he had been the one to say “I love you,” or “I like you,” but Jaehwi had never said such things. Each time, Jaehwi would make an embarrassed or awkward expression and express it with his body instead of words.
“When? I have no memory of hearing it. Come to think of it, I’m a bit wronged. Don’t you like me?”
Raon, who put a newly taken-out snack in his mouth and patted his hands to dust off the crumbs, took his drink bottle that Jaehwi was holding.
“…I said it so much just last night too, how can you say I never did right away?”
Raon’s hand, which had been drinking his beverage while looking at Jaehwi with eyes full of hurt feelings, stopped. His Adam’s apple that had been moving as he gulped down the drink also stopped, and Raon’s face, which had been glancing at Jaehwi with triangular eyes in a peaceful complexion, flushed red in an instant.
“You did.”
I wasn’t in my right mind then… Ahem. Raon, who couldn’t look Jaehwi in the eye until the end and lowered his gaze, answered while pouting his lips.
“I love you.”
At Jaehwi’s following words, Raon’s protruding lips smoothly returned to their place. Why are you suddenly saying this. Making a person feel strange.
“Why all of a sudden?”
“It feels like I’ve never properly said it seriously even once.”
“Hey! Are we dying? Die! Why are you saying this now. I’m going to live with you, you know. There’s so much we haven’t done yet, why are you creating this atmosphere. There’s more we haven’t done than what we have. If we regress again, let’s get in the car and go to the ocean as soon as we open our eyes. Let’s go and eat sashimi and grilled clams, and build sandcastles. Play in the water and watch the sunset at the ocean and the sunrise too.”
“I don’t want to though?”
Jaehwi’s voice, which had been setting the mood with a low tone until just now, had changed in an instant.
“Why? Didn’t we travel…”
“I’ll kiss you first.”
Raon’s words were cut off at Jaehwi’s direct pitch. And Raon, who was facing Jaehwi looking straight at him, placed his lips on Jaehwi’s lips without any hesitation.
“We can do this anytime.”
Raon, who pulled his lips away with a smacking sound, stroked Jaehwi’s face. What kind of damn fate is this, not even a farewell right after meeting.
Of course, it might be possible to exit this dungeon more smoothly than thinking and worrying about it.
“That’s what I’m saying. I told you we shouldn’t come in right away!”
Though they had clearly been sitting side by side, Raon, who had somehow ended up sitting on Jaehwi’s thighs facing him, burst out laughing. It was a voice loud enough to make their efforts to lower their voices and not draw monsters’ attention until just moments ago seem pointless.
Even in this moment right now, time was steadily flowing. Everything else had changed, so why was the expected dungeon disappearance time still the same?
“Still, we did a lot of what we wanted to do this time. If we keep repeating, won’t we be able to do everything?”
Foreheads touched, nose tips touched, and their breaths mingled.
“Should I just put a barrier on hyung and Bbobbo and release my power like this?”
He was sick and tired of being dragged around by dungeons. Killing and being killed, destroying—that had been his life. From the moment he entered a dungeon, he’d sharpen his edge and search for monsters. Going to the end of the dungeon was endless slaughter. Whatever it was, he broke it, took it, and eliminated it. And when he met the dungeon master at the end, he would break it and put it beneath him.
Then the dungeon was completely cleared. When one appeared, he’d destroy it; when one appeared, he’d destroy it—humans and dungeons had been living through the same time like that.
For Jaehwi, who had lived without having even a bit of doubt about this series of procedures, this very moment itself felt unfamiliar. Not the situation of being blocked at the dungeon entrance and unable to leave, but the moment of lounging around with Raon eating snacks.
The scenery wasn’t nice, and it wasn’t a comfortable environment for a picnic either.
What was visible were dampened cave walls, and the air was dank. It was a stone they were sitting on because it was relatively flat, but it wasn’t comfortable. Sitting in such a place, eating snacks and drinks, they were talking about death and travel.
What came to mind at that moment was this.
Why exactly do we need to break through all those monsters and go to the end of the dungeon to meet the dungeon master? Whether here or there, wouldn’t it be over if we just destroy it? Raon said not to reveal more than 70 percent of his abilities. He had kept those words until now, and honestly, there hadn’t been a dungeon difficult enough to draw out that much power.
If he had to pick one, it would be the illusion dungeon at the end?
But even that was difficult because of the restriction of not being able to draw out all his abilities. When he drew out everything, because he feared the dungeon and himself would go berserk. Because of that effect, Raon might become endangered, so he couldn’t do it. But right now, Raon was in his arms.
“What?”
“What’s the need to go all the way to the end of the dungeon the hard way? If I release my power here, collapsing the dungeon isn’t difficult.”
With those words, Jaehwi began to gradually release the power he’d been suppressing. And as he did, a transparent membrane covered Raon and Bbobbo sitting on Raon’s shoulder.
“Min Jaehwi.”
Raon, who belatedly understood Jaehwi’s thoughts, urgently called him and grabbed Jaehwi’s shoulders.
“It’s because if it transforms into an illusion dungeon, it’ll really be hard to handle.”
With Jaehwi’s calm expression, the space where the two were began to shake with bizarre sounds. Small fragments fell onto the barrier surrounding Raon.
“Still…”
There’s no dungeon clearing method like this.
Watching wrinkles form as strength entered Jaehwi’s forehead, Raon put strength into his hands. It felt like pouring thread-thin water into a vast ocean. A space of nothingness that wouldn’t fill no matter how much he filled it.
The particles of the falling fragments grew larger, and the dungeon’s trembling gradually intensified. And from a very distant place, bizarre sounds he’d never heard before flowed out. Raon stared at the inside of the dungeon with eyes full of anxiety.
“Ppyak! Ppyang. Ppaappi.”
Bbobbo buried its face in his nape and cried delicately. If even insensitive him was this anxious, sensitive monsters would be even more so. Besides, wasn’t Bbobbo a monster of this dungeon? Though he couldn’t hear it, it was certain that Bbobbo was hearing the dungeon master’s orders, having noticed this situation.
Staring into the darkness, Raon embraced Jaehwi’s neck with the hand that had been grasping his shoulder. The space between them gradually decreased until they were attached like one body. The energy that had been flowing out through his hands now spread through their entire bodies that were in contact. Seeing the cracks rising redly on Jaehwi’s nape, Raon urgently covered his neck with his palm.
The cracks disappeared as soon as they formed. Between a fleeting moment, wounds formed and healed repeatedly. However, the size and depth of the forming cracks were gradually growing.
Strength entered Jaehwi’s jawline, and stones the size of Raon’s fist intermittently fell onto the barrier.
—Stop it.
In the gap of time that seemed endless, pushing and being pushed, Raon quickly raised his head at the thick voice that filled his head. It wasn’t heard through his ears, but he tried to find the identity that made the sound filling his head, but nothing was visible.
—Tell him to stop.
Raon, who had been looking around, looked at Jaehwi at the sound he heard again. Could Jaehwi with his eyes closed not hear it? If he had heard, he wouldn’t be doing this. Bbobbo, who was making small sounds, also seemed not to have heard it.
“Hwi.”
The continuously forming wound on his neck rose to his chin, and now red blood vessels were faintly visible on his face too.
“Jaehwi.”
The voice calling him was louder than the first time.
—Hurry!
At the same time, the words in his head were urging him on.
“Min Jaehwi.”
Leaving the neck wound aside, Raon, who cupped Jaehwi’s cheeks with both hands, pulled his head down to face him. And facing him with his eyes tightly closed, he called him again.
“Please, Jaehwi. Look at me.”
The energy that had been steadily transferring to Jaehwi began to rampage irregularly. The fact that his breathing, which had been taking only steady energy, became disordered itself indicated his condition. 50%? 60%? Just how much power had he released?
To Raon inside the barrier Jaehwi had created, the countless changes happening outside weren’t being transmitted.
—It’s something that child brought upon himself.
The moment Jaehwi’s tightly closed eyes slowly opened, Raon stopped breathing. They were always black. In the deep black pupils that were unfathomably deep, though a red light sometimes settled, eyes like this were a first.
Was there even black color to begin with? In the dark red blood-colored pupils that contrasted with the white sclera, not even his own face was reflected. And in the next moment, what Raon saw was darkness.
