# Chapter 157
*
Meanwhile, outside the building. Hyegang and Sano were standing blankly, waiting for Iyeon and Jaekyung who had gone inside.
“Not bad for an impromptu late-night outing, right?”
Hyegang was the one who broke the silence. Sano glanced at him. His indifferent face didn’t look particularly displeased.
“Stop beating around the bush and say what you want to say.”
But he didn’t look particularly pleased either. At the cool voice, Hyegang shrugged his shoulders.
“What do you mean?”
“You must have had a reason for specifically choosing me.”
Hyegang, who had volunteered to be paired with Sano, looked suspicious from any angle. The reason Sano hadn’t deliberately refused was because he knew that Hyegang tended to be more proactive than usual when it came to Iyeon.
Naturally, what they were doing now would also be related to Jung Iyeon.
“Well, just…”
Hyegang, seemingly having no intention to deny it, candidly revealed his thoughts.
“If you don’t say it properly, he won’t know.”
At the unexpected statement, Sano just stared down at Hyegang without answering.
“Iyeon hyung probably wouldn’t figure it out even after a lifetime.”
Iyeon was someone who would grasp your hand whenever you reached out. He was someone who would extend his arm without hesitation despite all the complaining and scolding. He was someone who thought that was natural.
So he knew nothing about the person on the opposite side.
He wouldn’t know anything about how it feels when one’s hand is held, what thoughts run through one’s mind when being pulled closer. The balance of the scale was so tremendously uneven that it wasn’t apparent.
Until now, that hadn’t mattered, but.
“But I think it would be good if he knew.”
To be honest, Hyegang thought Sano was hardly worthy of Iyeon, but what could he do if that’s who Iyeon liked? Once infatuation takes root, not even the Jade Emperor could remove it…
Anyway, because he cared for Iyeon, he wanted this awkward man to be happy. He wanted him not to be intimidated or discouraged prematurely.
It was a small help, so to speak, from someone who had been pulled up from the other side.
“You’re being excessively concerned.”
A fierce voice descended upon Hyegang. Meeting the hostility in those eyes, Hyegang looked back indifferently.
“If I were that concerned, would I be telling you this?”
“…”
“The reason I’m saying this is because of Iyeon hyung. Not because of you, Sano hyung.”
With those final words, Hyegang turned his head. Silence followed.
“…They’re late.”
After the stillness, a curt comment emerged. Instead of pointing out that Sano shouldn’t change the subject, Hyegang simply nodded lightly. There’s a limit to meddling.
“Yeah. Is it taking long because the building is dark?”
“That ghost story that was cut off earlier.”
When an unexpected response followed, Hyegang looked at Sano with round eyes. Sano’s face was as impassive as always.
“What?”
“What happened to that employee?”
“Ah, that.”
Hyegang deliberately lowered his voice, creating an eerie atmosphere.
“He said the door was wide open. Strange black liquid was leaking out from there, so he screamed and ran away. After that, he just submitted his resignation and never set foot there again.”
Just like at the office, Sano didn’t even pretend to be scared. Feeling deflated as if talking to a stone, Hyegang returned to his usual indifferent expression and concluded.
“Many people make up such lies.”
Glancing at the still dark and old building, Hyegang said nonchalantly.
“This is probably the same.”
*
“…What’s that?”
Jaekyung muttered blankly. His gaze was fixed upward, where the sound was coming from. Iyeon, with a tense face, stood in front of Jaekyung to shield him. The oddly long staircase and strange sounds—from any perspective, these weren’t good signs. Is it really a ghost? But there’s no way such a thing could exist…
Splash.
The sensation of something touching his toe was momentary. Startled, Iyeon pulled back with Jaekyung and checked the floor. The phone light, after jerking around in confusion, illuminated below.
A thick black liquid was flowing down the stairs.
It was too viscous to be water. The viscous liquid crept out stealthily, dyeing the floor shadow-colored. In an instant, their standing space diminished.
“Aaahhh!”
Belatedly, Jaekyung screamed. Iyeon quickly pushed Jaekyung’s back.
“Go down, hurry!”
Though he didn’t know the nature of the liquid, it was obvious that touching it would be disastrous. Bang! Loud footsteps echoed through the narrow space. Iyeon also moved his feet quickly, following Jaekyung.
But no matter how far they went, the end of the staircase wasn’t visible.
“Iyeon-ssi, how much longer do we have to go? What do we do?”
Jaekyung was on the verge of tears. It seemed like they’d been running for at least a minute, but the single flight of stairs, which shouldn’t have more than 50 steps, hadn’t ended. Throughout their descent, checking behind them intermittently, they saw the liquid continuously following them. The upper stairs, already covered in liquid, had their angular edges barely visible.
To make matters worse, Jaekyung’s breath began to quicken from the sudden exertion. Though Iyeon was also starting to feel strained due to his lack of stamina, it was incomparable to the researcher who barely walked a thousand steps a day.
Iyeon anxiously watched Jaekyung’s back as he gasped pitifully. There was no guarantee that the stairs would end or an exit would appear if they ran a bit more. In that case…
“Jaekyung-ssi, climb onto the handrail!”
At Iyeon’s loud shout, Jaekyung stammered and struggled to climb onto the narrow stair handrail. Iyeon pushed his back to help him get a stable grip. Fortunately, the top of the stair handrail was flat enough that one could maintain balance if careful.
After confirming that Jaekyung had properly climbed up, Iyeon also got onto the railing. Firmly gripping the sloped handrail, Iyeon sat astride it and raised his phone to illuminate the floor again. The liquid was covering the spot where they had just been standing. An unpleasant gurgling sound came from below.
If they had been a little late, they would have been swept away by that unidentified substance. Cold sweat ran down his back.
“What could that be?”
“I don’t knooow…”
Jaekyung seemed already out of his mind. Hearing his whimpering voice, Iyeon opened his phone screen while waiting for Jaekyung to calm down. When he tried to call Hyegang, only a message saying the connection could not be established played. Looking at the standby screen with a frown, he saw a message welcoming him, stating it was not a service area. It was maddening.
“The phone’s not working either. Is the communication blocked?”
Coming for a courage test only to have a real terror experience. He couldn’t help but laugh bitterly at the unexpected situation.
It was unreasonable to expect rational judgment from Jaekyung, who was trembling while clutching the railing like a lifeline. Iyeon calmly surveyed the surroundings. When he shone the phone’s flashlight around, it looked like an ordinary building staircase at first glance, but neither the top nor the bottom was visible. Moreover, the floor was filled with an unidentified liquid…
Yet they couldn’t hang onto the railing forever. Iyeon looked up toward the ceiling. It was so dark that it was hard to see clearly, but it seemed the situation was similar to below.
In that case, there was only one place left.
“Jaekyung-ssi. Hold onto the handrail tightly. I’m going to break the wall.”
“What? Is that okay?”
“We can’t stay here forever. Cover your ears.”
Iyeon precariously stood up and balanced on the railing with both feet. There would be some recoil, but fortunately, the zigzag stairs provided support from above. White sand gathered in a long shape before his eyes. Soon, a round cylindrical device was grasped in his hand. Click. The sound of pulling the trigger was crisp.
BOOM!
Immediately after, an explosion like thunder filled the space. Iyeon simultaneously eliminated the weapon that had served its purpose and created a shield large enough to cover both of them. The side wall of the staircase shattered, with fragments flying everywhere. The sound of collapse was as loud as thunder.
“What, what’s going on? How did you do that?”
Jaekyung belatedly removed his hands from his ears and asked in confusion. Since it was so dark and there was an iron shield right in front of him, nothing would have been visible from his perspective, but the loud sound of something breaking was certainly puzzling.
“I broke it, as I said. Are you okay?”
“I was so startled by you that all my fear from before has flown away…”
Fortunately, he seemed to have regained his senses a bit. Though it wasn’t intended, it worked out well. Iyeon shrugged and removed the iron shield. The solid protective barrier turned back into white sand and disappeared as if breaking apart.
Before them was the scene of destruction, with dust billowing.
Debris was still falling from the large hole that had been made. Some of the black liquid from the stairs had flowed into the hole, but it wasn’t flowing as if to fill the entire floor like on the stairs.
There was a corridor beyond the hole.
It was an ordinary building corridor. From what could be seen by the moonlight filtering through the window at the end of the corridor, that’s how it appeared. The small office signs attached to the wall, the bathroom sign, and the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling while turned off were all things you would typically find in Korea.
