What if he’s got some serious illness? Like cancer, for instance. He’d heard that when people get cancer, their condition can suddenly deteriorate like that.
Just imagining it was horrifying.
Suddenly, anxiety and fear made his head spin completely. Had he gone to the hospital? When was his last health checkup? Health checkups for office workers are mandatory every two years, but if he’d developed it right after his checkup the year before last…
Then it might have already progressed quite far. What kinds of cancer were there that had no warning signs and then suddenly got worse? Liver cancer? Colon cancer?
‘What if Song Hanyeong dies…?’
The extreme thoughts racing endlessly shook Surim to his core. Intermittently his rationality would return, telling him this wasn’t normal, but it wouldn’t last long before losing strength. His heart ached with anxiety and he grew agitated.
‘I don’t have anything else important or precious to me now…’
Song Hanyeong was the last thread Surim had barely managed to grasp onto in a precarious moment. He was the only reason he could struggle when numb death slowly approached.
Surim knew well just how weak he was right now. Perhaps that’s why he was clinging even more to Song Hanyeong. Consciously, or perhaps unconsciously, Surim was leaning on Song Hanyeong tremendously.
‘Then, I too…’
Rumble—thunder shook all around. Only then did Surim realize he’d been sitting at the bus stop and let several buses pass by. Looking at his phone, it was already past 8 o’clock.
He couldn’t properly remember how he’d spent the day. Had he eaten lunch? Had he greeted people properly when leaving work? All he remembered was that everything had been a mess because he’d been lost in other thoughts the whole time. As for the lunchbox Lee Myeongho had brought him for dinner, he probably… set it down under his desk and forgot all about it. When Song Hanyeong asked about meals next week, should he just lie?
As he continued his dazed thoughts, rain began to pour down. The dark clouds in the sky looked ominous. It definitely wasn’t a shower that would stop soon.
“I have an umbrella at the office…”
After hesitating briefly, Surim rushed into the research institute three minutes away, both to get his umbrella and to retrieve the lunchbox. Though it was late, because of the nature of the research institute, many people hadn’t left work yet, and the inside of the building was still brightly lit.
However, Research Lab 5 was different. The moment Surim opened the iron door, he stopped short at the pitch-black sight of the research lab. Whether everyone had left work, both the fluorescent lights and monitors were silent, but from the laboratory deep inside, a faint blue light spread, eerily illuminating the interior. Inside the machine emitting the blue light, Surim’s blood, or its copies, would be running.
When other people were around it didn’t bother him much, but being alone made everything feel unnecessarily eerie.
“……”
After briefly considering just getting rained on, Surim wiped away with the back of his hand the water droplet that had run down from his wet hair to his brow, then let out a deep sigh. Surim’s house was on top of a hill, deep inside an alley at that, and it took 15 minutes to walk from the bus stop. If he got completely soaked in this rain the whole way, he might catch a cold.
After letting out a deep sigh and moving stealthily for no reason to find his spot, Surim found his umbrella under his desk. Just as Surim picked it up.
Click—the sound of a door closing was clearly heard.
“…What?”
Surim muttered under his breath.
The sound came not from the research lab door but from inside. It wasn’t that someone had entered, but that someone was already in there.
‘Is there someone who hasn’t left work yet…?’
Even knowing it couldn’t be true, Surim tried hard to convince himself. The button to turn off all the lights in the research lab was near the exit door, so it was actually strange for someone to remain in a darkened research lab.
Unless they’d rushed in to get something like Surim.
‘A thief…?’
More precisely, a spy. It might be a data thief sent from another research institute, or another research lab.
Clenching his fists and holding his breath, Surim tensely held his breath and worked his brain hard. After the sound of the door closing, he didn’t hear footsteps. That meant.
‘The intruder is inside the laboratory right now.’
He wasn’t confident in fighting, but still, for Song Hanyeong’s sake, he couldn’t just run away like this. If he let the intruder escape, it would only make Song Hanyeong, already a mess from fatigue, even more miserable.
Song Hanyeong had gotten so angry even though Ji Seongchan had only come to the front of the iron door, not even inside the research lab. That meant this research was that important.
In the end, Surim made a decision. Crawling along the floor to the front of the laboratory, Surim stood up carefully against the wall. First, let’s check what they’re doing inside. Thinking that, he peeked his head slightly through the glass door.
‘Who is it…?’
Inside the laboratory, where blue light flowing from the machine eerily illuminated the surroundings, there was one black silhouette. The light wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the face, and since the silhouette had its back to Surim, he could barely make out only the form.
However, that form was somehow familiar, Surim thought. The broad shoulders, the line from the shoulders to the waist, the length of the pelvis and legs below—it was definitely…
Crash! Lightning struck and the dim laboratory interior brightened for an instant.
“……”
Surim, who had almost screamed, hid behind the wall again and covered his mouth with both hands. His breath came out in gasps.
What did he just see?
Surim squeezed his eyes shut. Before his closed eyes, the scene he’d just witnessed floated up vividly.
‘He had his mouth on a test tube.’
And the inside of the test tube was red. It was certain. He’d definitely seen it. Surim’s eyes shook mercilessly.
It wasn’t just because of the fact that someone was drinking blood. The light that burst from the rough lightning illuminated not only the test tube but also the identity of the being holding the test tube.
“Song Hanyeong…”
Surim, who’d muttered unconsciously, trembled as he startled and checked for any signs from inside the laboratory.
Though he didn’t know why the man who’d even taken annual leave today would come to the company at a time when everyone had left work to drink blood, it was clear that he absolutely couldn’t be caught having seen it. Surely that was a secret scene. The kind that couldn’t be discovered by anyone.
But was that person really Song Hanyeong? Surim suddenly felt uncertain about everything. He couldn’t trust his own eyes, his judgment in that moment.
However, he didn’t have the courage to check again. Surim listened to the sound of his heart pounding against his eardrums while staring only into the darkness, then soon crouched down again.
‘I need to get out of here.’
That thought filled his entire head.
It was when Surim started crawling along the floor again. Behind him, the laboratory door opened with a beep. Surim couldn’t even move further and froze in his crawling position on the floor.
“Jin Surim-ssi.”
It was Song Hanyeong. Song Hanyeong, who called out in a languid voice, naturally passed by Surim’s side and turned toward him one step ahead. Surim held his breath looking at the shoes that had stopped right in front of his nose.
A question followed.
“Shouldn’t you have left work by now?”
“……”
“Why is Jin Surim-ssi here right now?”
“……”
“Are you going to keep not answering?”
Surim squeezed his eyes shut trembling, then opened them. The man’s shadow stretched long to the right. Beneath it, Surim’s shadow was very small. Surim thought his shadow would be devoured by Song Hanyeong’s shadow. No, not just his shadow but himself as well.
At that moment, that massive form leaned toward Surim.
“Hngh…!”
Reflexively raising his head, Surim felt the man’s fingertips touch beneath his chin. Surim lowered his eyes.
“Surim-ssi, it looks like you’ll need to work overtime today.”
“I-I need to go home…”
“Let’s have a meeting.”
“I-I didn’t see anything, I didn’t see anything…”
“Liar.”
“It’s true. Really… hic…”
Song Hanyeong roughly grabbed Surim’s chin to make him look higher up while calling out affectionately.
“Surim-ssi, when having a conversation, you should look people in the eye.”
“Y-yes!”
It felt like his chin would shatter. Surim raised his gaze trembling. Surprisingly, the Song Hanyeong confirmed with his eyes was Song Hanyeong himself as usual.
Surim’s refuge, Surim’s final obsession.
The moment he saw him, Surim reflexively felt relief. Color returned to his pale complexion, and his eyes that had been swollen from not sleeping due to fatigue were fine too. His condition wasn’t as bad as he’d worried about all day.
And Song Hanyeong watched with interest that scene where fear transformed into relief. When he’d seen Jin Surim running away, he’d thought he should put all plans and everything aside and grab him by the neck to drag him home. But when their eyes met and he saw Jin Surim, who had changed to a docile expression and was trembling in a different sense than before, his body wouldn’t move.
“Manager-nim…”
At Jin Surim’s voice, the irritation that had momentarily surged melted away perfectly. Song Hanyeong frowned at that strange sensation.
“What should I do?”
“Pardon?”
“Jin Surim-ssi stole a peek at my secret. The simplest method is, after all…”
Song Hanyeong trailed off. Surim could guess what words were hidden after that.
