Cha Jeoh gripped the pitch-black sword he’d created in the blink of an eye and rushed out of the art room. He could see Cha Jeoh barely blocking the monster that had been about to smash its head through the window connecting the art room and the hallway, swinging his sword in a graceful arc.
Cha Woodan, who had been watching the scene with no particular emotion, turned his head.
Kim Hayoung still had one hand covering his mouth, lost in deep thought. He’d seemed quite urgent when he’d groped around to grab Cha Jeoh’s ankle earlier, but for some reason now he seemed filled with a hint of expectation. However, even that emotion didn’t last long, buried and extinguished by a disappointment that appeared out of nowhere.
Of course, this was only how it appeared to Cha Woodan’s eyes—if someone else had been watching, they probably would have clicked their tongue and passed by, calling it an “impenetrable poker face.” Kim Hayoung’s facial expressions were so small and subtle that even he himself couldn’t notice them, making them difficult to detect unless you were a twin who had been watching him for a long time.
Cha Woodan’s black pupils, reflecting only Kim Hayoung, rippled thickly.
He’d first met Kim Hayoung last summer, when they were in the midst of their second year of high school. Actually, if you thought about it, you couldn’t really call it “meeting.” The twins had simply “witnessed” him unilaterally.
Just as he’d explained to Kim Hayoung himself recently—the library, the same seat, most of the time spent at school except for classes. The twins had called it misfortune to have discovered that persistent and terrible waiting stone a year and a half after enrollment, and called it good fortune to have discovered it a year and a half before graduation.
That boy in the library reflected nothing in his empty eyes, allowed no one onto his dry lips, and never showed a single emotional gesture with his cool fingertips. Perhaps because of that distinctive atmosphere, whenever anyone tried to approach the boy, an alien sense of intimidation would emanate, as if warning them not to dare come close.
That was the boy. To the twins, for whom each other was everything, he was an existence that made them harbor not even permission saying “you may enter our world,” but a plea asking “may I enter your world?” Yet paradoxically, he was also an existence they didn’t actually crave that desperately.
Cha Woodan, who had been retracing fragments of memory, quietly lifted the corners of his mouth.
‘If I’d known Kim Hayoung would like our face, I should have just gone and tried talking to him earlier. I wasted over a year of time in vain.’
Well, either way, Kim Hayoung was beside the twins now.
Cha Woodan, silently swallowing a smile filled with satisfaction, bent his knees and lowered his body. He spoke in a low voice while looking at Kim Hayoung, who had already returned to a complete poker face.
“Hayoung-ah, should I move you further inside the storage room? It looks like you’ll have to stay like that until Cha Jeoh comes back anyway, so it might be uncomfortable.”
Kim Hayoung, who seemed to be pondering for a moment, shook his head. Then he moved his hands and arms, trying hard to convey his intention as if playing charades.
Cha Woodan, who had been staring intently at Kim Hayoung as if appreciating him, smiled brightly.
“The bird… male student who broke into the art room, you mean?”
When Kim Hayoung nodded, Cha Woodan finally turned away the two eyes that had been stuck to him until the very last moment. At the end of that gaze was the male student, still lying face down on the floor trembling.
“He’s alive and well. All his limbs are attached, and he doesn’t seem to have fainted either.”
“……”
“He doesn’t look particularly useful, so should I just kill him?”
The male student, who had been pretending not to listen to Cha Woodan’s words, suddenly raised his head. Cha Woodan lightly ignored him as he turned pale and sent desperate looks, gazing at Kim Hayoung once more.
Kim Hayoung was tapping his knee with his index finger as if pondering something. Then he suddenly raised his index finger and pointed to the left side of his chest.
Cha Woodan followed the gesture with his eyes and opened his mouth.
“Chest?”
“……”
“Clothes? School uniform? Shirt?”
“……”
“…Name tag?”
Kim Hayoung shook his head up and down as if he’d been waiting for this, then pointed with his finger beyond Cha Woodan. There was nothing in the empty air his fingertip pointed to, but the quick-witted Cha Woodan easily figured out what he was trying to say.
“You there, friend.”
Cha Woodan showed a deliberately fresh smile toward the male student trembling in fear. However, his tone contained absolutely no kindness or consideration, so it only emphasized a bizarre sense of dissonance.
“Y-yes…?”
“What’s your name?”
“Name… my name?”
“Yeah. Your name.”
Should he run out of the art room right now, wouldn’t it be better to be killed by an unknown monster than to die at the hands of his own kind? The male student, clearly showing such confusion as he agonized, finally answered hesitantly.
“I-I’m Lee Gojun……”
Lee Gojun, Lee Gojun. Kim Hayoung, who had been rolling the name around just by moving his lips, seemed to faintly furrow his brow, then tilted his head as if puzzled. Cha Woodan, who had been following the movement and watching his beautifully rippling black hair, gently frowned.
“Hayoung-ah, but your hair is a bit……”
Thud.
A small vibration shook the floor, making noise. Cha Woodan, who had tidied up his ambiguously disheveled expression, turned his head in that direction.
Cha Jeoh, who had returned at some point, was standing leaning on the handle of his sword that struck the floor. If the blood hadn’t pooled into a puddle below the pitch-black sword that didn’t even shine, no one would have imagined that the sword had just slaughtered two monsters and was soaked in blood.
There wasn’t the slightest dishevelment in Cha Jeoh’s breathing or appearance. Looking as carefree as always, he first checked on Kim Hayoung, then finally scanned Lee Gojun.
“What are we doing with him? Kill him?”
Twins or not, how could their way of thinking be so identical? Cha Woodan, twisting his lips imperceptibly, gestured toward Kim Hayoung with his eyes.
“He seems to be someone Hayoung knows. Though he did tilt his head when he heard the name.”
“Then save him?”
Cha Jeoh, who had rephrased the question, first shifted his gaze to Kim Hayoung, then Cha Woodan, and finally Lee Gojun, gripped by terrible fear, swallowed dryly while watching Kim Hayoung. Kim Hayoung, who had sensed the three pairs of eyes that wouldn’t leave him even within his closed vision, rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand for no reason, then soon nodded his head in affirmation.
Cha Jeoh glared at Lee Gojun for a moment as if displeased, then reluctantly withdrew his hostility. After waving his hand to make the sword disappear, he entered the art room and closed the door.
“Door’s closed, nothing’s open anywhere.”
Kim Hayoung, who had received Cha Jeoh’s report, slowly lifted his eyelids. As if his eyes were dazzled from having them closed for a few minutes, he blinked rapidly and rubbed under his eyes. Leaving Kim Hayoung like that, Cha Jeoh walked over casually. Then he grabbed the collar of Lee Gojun, who was trembling like a sunfish about to die any moment.
“Urk, hic.”
Cha Jeoh dragged Lee Gojun along, ignoring him as he frantically swallowed his breath. Whether resigned or frozen from too much fear, Lee Gojun didn’t struggle and obediently let himself be dragged by Cha Jeoh’s grip.
When Cha Jeoh, having safely arrived in front of the pile of blankets, smiled triumphantly and then laid Lee Gojun down as if offering tribute, Kim Hayoung was looking at Lee Gojun presented before him with a rather subtle expression.
***
I blankly stared at Lee Gojun, who had collapsed in front of me groaning.
‘Something… isn’t the composition a bit strange?’
Feeling an inexplicable sense of dissonance, I looked over the twins positioned on Lee Gojun’s left and right in turn.
On the left, the twin who had just dragged Lee Gojun over like transporting a criminal was smiling innocently as if asking for praise, and on the right, the other twin who had stayed by my side the whole time was sitting with his chin propped up. He’d been looking at Lee Gojun with somewhat chilly eyes, but as soon as our eyes met, he immediately drew a skilled arc.
As I thought, I hadn’t felt something was off for nothing.
‘Sitting like this makes us look like a gang of thugs or something.’
Or maybe a group of loan sharks who charge enormous interest rates and even collect through illegal methods. Of course, Lee Gojun would be the one trembling like a tiny hamster after taking out a loan and being dragged here, while the vicious loan sharks would be me and the twins.
Besides, I don’t know why I’m sitting in something like the head seat exercising power like a mob boss. The problem seemed to have started from the part where, for the single reason that I said to let him live, the twins brought Lee Gojun to me alive without a word of complaint.
When you think about it, it was the twins, not me, who had first secured a spot in the art room and who had such power and skill.
‘So why am I.’
The story the twins had told me suddenly came to mind. That they didn’t like serving under anyone or crawling around obediently like tame dogs. That’s why they lived independently on the third floor without mingling with others.
“……”
My contemplation wasn’t long. Whatever the process, if the conclusion reached was beneficial to me, I had no intention of stirring up trouble unnecessarily.
So I decided to resolve the immediate question that had come upon me first.
“Lee Gojun… that’s what you said, right?”
Lee Gojun, who had been kneeling demurely as if he’d already accepted his situation, suddenly raised his head.
“R-right. That’s right, Lee Gojun.”
Lee Gojun’s and my gazes interlocked across the empty air.
“Why are you here?”
“…Huh, huh?”
“I’m asking why you’re here.”
When I asked again as if I genuinely didn’t understand, Lee Gojun was flustered instead and couldn’t form proper sentences, just opening and closing his mouth.
