“What does the scheme have to do with the Guimun?”
“……”
“……”
Even slow-thinking Joo Seonghan had figured it out, but only Yeon Dogyeong didn’t know. At his offbeat question, Kang Hyeonjoo pounded his own chest. Because of that, Joo Seonghan’s body, which had been held by him, also shook.
“Joo Seonghan-ssi, you spent several days in a cave with this kind of person and nothing happened?”
“…Nothing happened.”
Hahaha. Kang Hyeonjoo laughed loudly.
“Right, right. Joo Seonghan-ssi has that kind of personality too. You two must’ve gotten along really well.”
“We did get along well.”
Yeon Dogyeong smiled pleasantly and nodded obliviously in agreement. Joo Seonghan lowered his head, and Kang Hyeonjoo gave up on explaining.
“Fine, just answer me. Did the research institute kids tell you how to open the Guimun?”
“No.”
At Yeon Dogyeong’s immediate answer, Kang Hyeonjoo’s eyes widened in surprise. Then he narrowed his brows and touched his lips as if lost in thought. His mouth opened again before long.
“You said you saw how to open the Guimun in a book. Where did that book come from?”
“I picked it up in the hallway.”
“……”
“I was walking and it was lying on the floor.”
“…Right, let’s stop talking.”
“It’s true though.”
At Yeon Dogyeong’s nonchalant answer, Kang Hyeonjoo shook his head and pulled out a hip flask from his bosom, gulping down water. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and closed the lid. Just like when he opened the lid, Joo Seonghan’s neck tilted slightly. Joo Seonghan glanced up at Kang Hyeonjoo. Why isn’t he letting go of his arm? Sweat began to form on his neck where Kang Hyeonjoo’s thick arm was wrapped.
“What did the plants that Park Gyujin-ssi put in his bag look like?”
Yeon Dogyeong naturally took the hip flask from Kang Hyeonjoo’s hand while asking, drank water, and put it back in his bosom. Kang Hyeonjoo folded his widely spread fingers one by one and answered without particular suspicion.
“Pointed grass that looked like mugwort, thin plant roots, round red leaves…. Oh, and brown grass that looked like reeds. It was smaller in size than reeds. Kind of like foxtail grass? There was the most of that one.”
Joo Seonghan, who had been picturing the plants he mentioned in his head, blinked. The description of the last plant was familiar. Where had he seen it?
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. What do you think? Could those plants be related to semi-humans?”
“How would I know?”
Kang Hyeonjoo quickly nodded as if resigned with a lukewarm face. There was no one on Kang Hyeonjoo’s side here. Not a single person who could help. Just strong idiots. Kang Hyeonjoo let out what must have been his umpteenth sigh internally and earnestly badmouthed the Team 3 people.
“Hyeonjoo-ya, take your arm off.”
“Huh?”
Kang Hyeonjoo, who had been silently calling Yeon Dogyeong an idiot, looked back at him with a guilty face. Yeon Dogyeong pointed at Joo Seonghan.
“Joo Seonghan-ssi gets hot easily, so take your arm off. He’s sweating.”
Kang Hyeonjoo looked down at Joo Seonghan wrapped in his arm. Joo Seonghan quietly lowered his eyes and wiped away the beads of sweat on his forehead.
“No, if you’re hot you should say you’re hot!”
“I’m hot.”
Ugh, foolish people. Kang Hyeonjoo muttered and released his arm. Joo Seonghan wiped the back of his neck once with his hand. Then he spoke quietly.
“I don’t get hot easily.”
“…You seem to get quite hot.”
Kang Hyeonjoo said, wiping Joo Seonghan’s cheek with his sleeve.
“No. I’m about the same as Team Leader Yeon.”
“Team Leader Yeon barely sweats. Have you seen him sweat?”
“……”
“Ah, did you two have some kind of intense fight in the cave or something?”
At Kang Hyeonjoo’s reasonable guess, Joo Seonghan closed his mouth, and Yeon Dogyeong burst out laughing. Kang Hyeonjoo looked at Yeon Dogyeong, who was chuckling, with a puzzled face.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because we did something like an intense fight, just as you said. You’re smart.”
Yeon Dogyeong playfully patted Kang Hyeonjoo’s shoulder and smiled, widening his stride. He stood next to Han Jaejun and talked to him. Joo Seonghan lowered his eyes.
It was sex. The thing like an intense fight he mentioned meant sex. In the hot and humid place, Joo Seonghan, who had put Yeon Dogyeong’s penis in his rear and masturbated, had sweated. And Yeon Dogyeong, who touched Joo Seonghan’s body here and there while occasionally shaking his hips, also sweated. The same when giving fellatio, and when they first showed and touched each other’s penises. The sweat they shed during those times was far more than the sweat shed while walking in the cave. Why did he mention Yeon Dogyeong of all people and say he doesn’t get hot easily? Joo Seonghan bit his lip tightly and quietly blamed himself.
“It’s strange.”
Kang Hyeonjoo muttered lowly while looking at Yeon Dogyeong’s back. Joo Seonghan carefully raised his eyes, tensing in case an awkward question came up.
“…Yes?”
“Even getting praised by Team Leader Yeon for being smart doesn’t make me happy at all.”
“…That can happen.”
At Joo Seonghan’s sincere consolation, Kang Hyeonjoo let out a long sigh. Then he changed the subject and rambled on about things that had happened. They almost went the wrong way because they ran into a group of semi-humans, reorganized their daily meal portions, and replenished water at the river. Joo Seonghan also briefly explained what happened in the cave as he walked. As they were talking about each other’s experiences like that, Joo Seonghan, who had turned his head without thinking, caught an unnatural movement in his eyes.
“…So we were going to go that way, but we saw a fruit tree. So we made a detour. Just seeing red fruit trees makes me shudder now. …Joo Seonghan-ssi?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Is there something over there?”
Kang Hyeonjoo craned his neck toward where Joo Seonghan’s gaze had been. Joo Seonghan shook his head.
“No… I must have seen something wrong.”
I see. Kang Hyeonjoo answered and continued talking. Joo Seonghan nodded at his words and clenched his fist. Then he recalled the scene he had just witnessed. Under a large tree stood a semi-human with short hair. It seemed their eyes met. However, the semi-human didn’t rush over to attack Joo Seonghan. It looked at Joo Seonghan and his party without moving, then soon turned around and disappeared in an instant into the dark forest. Joo Seonghan repeatedly recalled what he had seen. He couldn’t quite be sure if he had really seen it.
As Park Gyujin had said, when they reached near the river, three houses gathered together came into view. Joo Seonghan and his party unpacked in the house closest to the river, washed up briefly, ate, and then took a rest. They had almost reached the place where the Guimun was. They could arrive in about four more hours, but the three people excluding Joo Seonghan and Yeon Dogyeong were very tired, so they decided to rest for a few hours before going. Joo Seonghan volunteered to keep watch. It wasn’t that someone told him to, but he volunteered because even if he lay down, he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep.
In front of the old house where people were sleeping and snoring, Joo Seonghan sat near the river and gazed alone at the campfire Yeon Dogyeong had made for him. The flames dancing here and there looked soft. Joo Seonghan, who had almost reached out his hand mindlessly but stopped nearby, changed the direction of his hand and stroked his smooth chin. Although he was the type who didn’t grow facial hair well, it had grown enough to feel slightly when touched, but he had borrowed Yeon Dogyeong’s razor in the cave to shave. It had only been a few days ago, but it felt like the distant past. He tried to go back further in time. It really hit him that he’d been here for a long time. No, more than that, the feeling that his ordinary past was distant was stronger.
The past was far away. Barely getting up in the morning and going to work drowsy, struggling with the onslaught of work and then getting off work, going to his parents’ house at least once a month to ask after them, occasionally cooking food…
He rode the subway. He only drove the car he inherited from his father when going to his parents’ house. He enjoyed drinking coffee. He especially liked the Americano from the private café in front of his house. On days when he didn’t work overtime, he’d go to the mart and buy discounted ingredients. He would relieve the day’s stress by cooking food with clumsy skills. On days when he felt inexplicably melancholy, he’d drink beer late into the night, and for a change of mood, he’d sometimes go on solo outings on weekends.
None of this was difficult. These were things he’d become familiar with to the fullest extent, and they were also things that could be easily solved with just money. Though it was hard because of work, it was a daily life that wasn’t so difficult that even clumsy Joo Seonghan could live well. But now, nothing was easy.
Washing, filling his stomach, laying his body down in a safe place—everything was difficult. If he’d been alone, he would’ve died long ago. If it weren’t for Semi-Human Department Team 3, whose existence he hadn’t even known about, Joo Seonghan would have already become a delicacy of the forest and disappeared without a trace. So if there’s even the slightest possibility of being helpful to them, it would be right to tell them. Joo Seonghan, who rubbed his cheek and let out a sigh, picked up a branch rolling around nearby and wrote on the ground.
A semi-human spoke.
There was a semi-human that saw people but didn’t attack.
Joo Seonghan looked down at the two sentences he’d written quite large for a long time.
When explaining the characteristics of semi-humans, Kang Hyeonjoo had clearly said it. Semi-humans can’t speak. But Joo Seonghan had heard it three times. The “like” spoken by the semi-human sprawled by the riverside in a child’s voice, the “human” faintly uttered by the rabbit semi-human Joo Seonghan had killed himself, and the “baby” spoken several times by the semi-human he encountered in the cave in an old person’s voice.
This alone was perplexing and confusing enough, and there was one more thing—there was a semi-human that didn’t attack even though it made eye contact with Joo Seonghan. The rabbit semi-human didn’t attack Joo Seonghan. It just looked at him. The semi-human he encountered in the cave was the same. He even narrowed his eyes while pulling his head back like someone with presbyopia to see Joo Seonghan more clearly.
The short-haired semi-human he saw in the forest before arriving here was like that too. He also silently looked at Joo Seonghan before turning away. Not attacking even after seeing humans must be an exception. Even Yeon Dogyeong, who seemed to know many things but pretended not to, had warned Joo Seonghan not to be spotted by semi-humans. That meant he had never seen such a case either.
He didn’t know if telling these two things was right or wrong. At first, he had no intention of saying anything at all. Because he didn’t want to be involved with this world. However, Semi-Human Department Team 3 was Joo Seonghan’s benefactor. Joo Seonghan changed his mind, thinking he should inform them of this fact since it could be even slightly helpful, or at least tell Yeon Dogyeong. But once he came to that conclusion, suddenly the thought occurred to him that all of this might be a mistake.
His head, stressed from the unfamiliar situation, might have created the semi-humans’ voices on its own, and it might not be that they didn’t attack after seeing humans, but just that they had slower reactions compared to other semi-humans. In the case of the short-haired semi-human, if he had a visual impairment, his action of turning around made sense. Could he prove that they spoke? That they didn’t attack even after seeing humans? He couldn’t. If he brought it up for no reason, it might just cause confusion and end there. Joo Seonghan pressed his lips tightly together and erased the two sentences with his foot.
Let’s talk about it when I’m more certain. Or, since we’re almost there, let’s escape from here and think about it again with a clear mind. Joo Seonghan threw the branch far away and buried his face in his knees. In fact, just coming to this place, just the things he experienced here—Joo Seonghan’s head was already at its limit. The bizarrely shaped semi-human beasts, the large amount of blood they shed, the rabbit semi-human that died from Joo Seonghan’s knife. And sex with the same gender. It was crazy. It was something he couldn’t even imagine in reality. Just looking back made his head hurt. And he was scared.
He had always tried to be ordinary. But he had stepped beyond a line he’d never even imagined before. It wasn’t because he admired him or because he was his benefactor. Joo Seonghan had unknowingly held Yeon Dogyeong in his heart. He thought he wanted to touch him, and naturally didn’t reject his hand touching intimate places. His own emotions and actions felt unfamiliar. As if it wasn’t enough to sleep with someone who wasn’t his lover, that partner was of the same gender. As he got closer to home, guilt came along with fear.
“Are you sleeping?”
But the moment he faced him, the guilt, fear, and anxiety instantly evaporated and disappeared. And then he rationalized himself. Because this is still a dream. The line has already been crossed and the past cannot be undone. So, just a little more…
“…Team Leader Yeon.”
“Yes.”
Yeon Dogyeong lowered his body next to Joo Seonghan. Even though he didn’t sit right next to him, he could feel faint warmth from beside him. Joo Seonghan raised his buried head and looked at him. He wanted to capture the moonlight that had descended on his high nose bridge. Even though capturing it didn’t mean he could have it, he wanted to greedily gather it beyond his station and bury it somewhere no one knew.
“May I kiss you?”
Yeon Dogyeong, who had been gazing at the flowing river, turned his head. He smiled naturally and looked at Joo Seonghan.
“Just a kiss?”
“Yes… Just a kiss.”
“Alright. Just a kiss.”
He supported his upper body with one arm planted on the ground, tilted his head, and closed his eyes. Joo Seonghan, who had been looking at his face for a moment, drew closer and licked his lips. It was hotter than the flames he’d almost touched earlier.
<To be continued in Volume 2>
-End-
