“There’s a cursor blinking in the blank space.”
“What’s a cursor?”
“Ah, fuck, are you testing my goddamn patience, you idiot. Here, this thin black vertical line, the blinking thing.”
“Ah… even something like this has a name.”
“Of course it does.”
You could touch any margin in the blank space, but Cheche tried hard to touch the blinking cursor. Evil just watched Cheche do something pointless.
The small nails of his slender fingers were all crushed. With burn marks remaining and many scratched scars at each joint, they were by no means pretty hands.
The keypad screen came up, and the finger typing the application name was very careful. Ashen hair swayed under Evil’s eyes. There was no cigarette smell or anything, and rather it seemed like a good scent came from him.
Cheche’s heartbeat was beating slightly faster than usual.
Over something like this.
He’d never seen someone who had to be taught four times just to download one app. No matter how new this was to him, when Evil first used a phone, he figured it out on his own, not because someone taught him. No matter how he thought about it, this refugee was ignorant.
But when it came to being ignorant, James was more serious than the refugee. He must have patted himself on the back for showing generosity by just tossing him a new product. To someone who had never encountered something like this and had no one around to teach him how to use it, it would never have been a gift.
The refugee struggled to write ‘C’ after writing ‘Catch Heart’. However, he seemed to have no intention of asking for help, and Evil had no intention of helping either. He just rested his chin on the armrest of his chair and watched Cheche clumsily manipulate the phone device.
Cheche wiggled, wiggled his finger and touched the ‘ㅅ’ key on the screen twice.
ㅅㅅ
He blinked for a moment looking at the written characters, then soon erased them and this time pressed ‘ㅅ’ firmly.
8
After erasing it again, his wandering finger headed toward the character conversion icon at the bottom.
‘You need to press ‘ㅎ’ twice.’
Evil didn’t tell him. He deliberately wanted to see him fumble around. To make him feel even a little embarrassed. But later, he became angry instead.
Why doesn’t he ask me? The person who knows best is right in front of him, and he himself wants to know how to download apps, so why?
If it was about pride, that base emotion should have been felt by Evil, who was a Soul Aura User. However, right now Cheche’s heart was just like a dry, parched field where no sprouts grew. Cheche had neither pride nor any desire to rely on others. He didn’t even think of asking for help from the person next to him.
That point was very displeasing, and while glaring at him, anticlimactically Cheche figured out the method on his own. ‘Catch Heart C’ was successfully searched, and he just needed to download it, but Cheche’s finger brushed past a completely different place. A video advertisement filled the screen.
When an unexpected screen appeared, Cheche, who had been fumbling around in that state for a while, raised his head and looked at Evil. Evil’s lips curved up in a sneer.
He’s finally asking.
“Why are you looking at me?”
“The screen became strange.”
“That’s because you pressed an ad or something. Press the close button.”
Cheche couldn’t find the clearly visible X and fumbled around. Instead of telling him the location, Evil only cursed asking if he had no eyeballs. While waiting for him to ask, he cursed to his heart’s content as much as he was annoyed, and when he was making up his mind to generously help him, it was already after Cheche had found it himself.
Looking at the phone with the proper screen displayed, Evil felt a sense of futility for the first time in a very long while. This kind of futility was from when he was very young… it was the first time since before manifesting as an Aura User.
Damn it, next time I should tell him right away. Despite being stupid, he’s smart enough to figure out the method immediately.
After Cheche downloaded Catch Heart C, Evil threw him a new task.
“Next, download ‘Solar Trios’ and ‘How to Train Your Dragon’.”
“Yes.”
The answer still came immediately.
Cheche seemed to have gotten used to it in one go, and after that, although the speed was slow, he didn’t fumble. Finally, when Cheche became familiar with downloading apps, there were a total of five unused apps accumulated on the phone.
“Delete everything you downloaded today except the messaging app. You won’t use them.”
“App?”
“Application, you idiot.”
“I don’t know how to delete them.”
“Really… unbelievable.”
Evil, who had used up all his patience for the day, felt like if he explained any more, he would smash the refugee’s small head with the phone.
“Forget it, I’ll do it for you later, so just get lost for today.”
“Yes, thank you for teaching me. I’ll see you on Monday.”
Cheche greeted him politely. Evil asked, looking at the back of Cheche’s head as he turned around holding the phone in both hands like a precious treasure.
“Hey, refugee.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you save the number for the place you urgently needed to contact?”
Cheche slowly turned around. His eyes were calm.
“Because it’s more convenient to contact them looking at the notebook.”
“I get that you look at the number written in the notebook and call, but why do you specifically use a payphone instead of this phone?”
“I’m used to that.”
Cheche answered right away as he had until now. Unlike his expressionless and calm face, his heartbeat was faster than usual. Evil chuckled.
He thought about throwing more questions to fluster him, but decided to just let him go today.
After Cheche left, Evil waited quietly. The sound of his footsteps was as quiet as snow falling at midnight. The sound of the elevator Cheche boarded going down was heard. After the sound of arriving at the lobby and the door opening, his footsteps became somewhat faster. Cheche entered a payphone booth in the lobby.
No one knew that Evil on the 201st floor could also hear sounds from the first floor. He didn’t reveal it because it was clear people would make it tiresome if they knew.
It was the first time in Evil’s life that he had opened his physical abilities this much in a crowded place. He always lived with his abilities closed as much as possible. Even when closed as much as possible, he heard all sounds on the same floor, so it was almost a habit. But this time, he was curious about what exactly the place he urgently needed to contact was, so he had no choice.
What kind of place was it that he would lie?
Amid all kinds of noise, Evil focused only on Cheche’s voice.
“Yes, this is Cheche.”
He couldn’t hear the sound beyond the phone.
“…I’m fine. Don’t worry. You’re doing well, right?”
……
“…That’s thanks to the Endem family moving me to a different house this time… I heard too. You got four people out, right? You worked hard….”
……
“…Don’t overdo it too much, reporter-nim. …Ah, yes. John.”
He called him reporter-nim, then corrected it to the other person’s name.
Evil listened intently. The voice that had been indifferent without highs or lows trembled slightly only when calling the other person. The urge to go down immediately and see Cheche’s expression surged.
“Karon? …Don’t worry. This place is safe.”
……
“John, you should leave that place too. I think it would be better to stay out for a while….”
……
“…Then I’ll hang up now. …I’ll contact you later. …Yes.”
Cheche said goodbye in an indifferent tone again as if he had never wavered, and there was no voice that followed. It seemed like ‘John’ was the only place to call, and he seemed to be leaving the building. If he concentrated, he could also hear footsteps on the first floor, but he gave up on listening to Cheche’s footsteps. Cheche was always cautious even when walking in the hallway right next door. He was so quiet, present yet absent, that you had to listen carefully to hear him.
“That was a Tartarian just now, right? Cheche….”
“Shh, be careful. The devil bastard hates Tartarians. If you talk to him, he might think you’re close and suffer.”
“Wow, but he’s pretty.”
“Right. That’s why even though he’s a refugee, he’s risen and even became a secretary. Appearance is power, power.”
After Cheche’s voice disappeared, the noise came flooding back. How nice it would be if everyone was as quiet as Cheche.
‘My ears are rotting.’
Evil spewed curses while reducing the ability he had opened and tapped, tapped the table with his finger.
Got four people out… reporter-nim, he said.
There was one person that came to mind. The opportunity that made Cheche known to the world. The war correspondent who was saved by Cheche and posted Cheche’s photo on his SNS.
Evil opened the laptop that was lying face down. When he searched ‘Cheche war correspondent’ on a portal site, it came up right away. Evil’s eyes looking at the screen darkened deeply.
