“What strange talk! I just said what I saw as it was. The young man from Jangchun Health Clinic, holding hands tightly with a pale-faced handsome man and sleeping without even locking the door in broad daylight!”
“What are you talking about! That’s the strange story! Why would I be with a man in broad daylight! I’m a man too, Grandma!! Just… uh, a work colleague! Right, a colleague!”
“Boss Moon, dating is your freedom, but lock the door. I’m scared the neighborhood kids might see.”
“No, what’s wrong with sleeping while holding hands! Men can do that too! That was treatment! It was for treatment purposes! I’m a bit low on energy…!”
“Huh, young people these days are so open-minded. Saying that sleeping while holding hands is treatment. Fine, I get it. You know my lips are heavy, right? I’ll keep it a secret, so go make me a cup of honey water.”
Grandma Chunja completely dismissed Igyeol’s words.
“Ah! Grandmaaa!!!”
Igyeol screamed while tearing at his hair. He felt like he was going crazy. Thinking that the rumor had already spread throughout the neighborhood, goosebumps rose from his spine.
“Oh my, how embarrassing~”
Grandma Chunja waved her hand while laughing cheerfully. The other grandmas sitting beside her watching this scene also laughed cheerfully with faces that found it all terribly amusing. Only Igyeol was in despair. In the end, Igyeol had to leave that place as if fleeing, hiding his tears.
‘This damn neighborhood! This damn Miyang-dong!’
Igyeol ground his teeth and stomped his feet hard. The whole way back to the health clinic, he felt like he was going to cry. In a different sense.
He couldn’t just ignore it either, because the ripple effect of this light rumor could be bigger than expected.
‘A handsome man comes and goes from the health clinic.’
If this rumor spread beyond Miyang-dong and reached the information network of the Baekya bastards watching Yeongwon and himself? It would mean exposing to the enemy the fact that Sung Yohan was closely monitoring him. Igyeol sighed and shook his shopping basket roughly.
***
The time when Hyungil and Yeongwon went up to the second floor to sleep. Only a dim stand light was on at the dining table.
Sung Yohan was sitting in a dining chair, handling guild work on his tablet. For several days, without proper rest, he had been simultaneously processing the flood of document approvals and tracking Baekya’s movements.
Igyeol, who came out from the single room, went up to the second floor and silently watched that figure before pouring warm water from the water purifier and mixing honey water. It would help with fatigue recovery. Then he set it down on the dining table with a thud, making a sound.
“……”
Sung Yohan lifted his gaze from the tablet and alternately looked at the water cup and the back of Igyeol walking away with his back turned. On Sung Yohan’s lips, which had been cool from accumulated fatigue, a subtle, very gentle smile spread. He took a sip of the honey water and turned his gaze back to the screen.
Igyeol, who had been heading to the single room, suddenly stopped walking and turned his head to glance at Sung Yohan’s direction.
Sung Yohan’s tablet screen reflected in the dim lighting. What was displayed there wasn’t guild approval documents or operation maps.
[Miyang-dong 14-2, Commercial Building Sale]
It was real estate property information for the empty old building right next to the health clinic.
‘…Crazy bastard. Is he really planning to settle down here?’
Igyeol narrowed his eyes. A man who was a Guild Leader was leaving behind a penthouse in Gangnam to purchase this entire musty alley’s old building. He couldn’t tell if it was to monitor him, protect him, or if he really intended to settle in as a ‘next-door neighbor.’
But Igyeol didn’t bother to approach and ask.
Whether it was himself pretending not to care while offering a cup of honey water, or Sung Yohan openly trying to buy the building next door. They were both now fully conscious that they were necessary existences to each other.
Returning to the single room, Igyeol lay on the worn blanket and stared at the ceiling. He slowly raised his right hand and repeatedly clenched and opened his fist.
Last night, Sung Yohan’s grip strength as he crushed him in an embrace and clasped his hand as if it would burst. That hot body temperature still seemed to faintly remain on his palm.
Tomorrow, he’d have to fight another muddy battle at the Association. The ominous intuition that Viper’s gaze was narrowing toward him still remained.
But strangely.
The fact that he wasn’t alone, the fact that that disgusting #1 ranked was giving off warmth beside him, made his heart a little more comfortable.
Tomorrow would be another round. But strangely, he wasn’t scared. Igyeol clenched his fist tightly once more. He didn’t dislike that warmth remaining on his palm.
“…This is trouble.”
Igyeol’s low murmur scattered into the dark room.
***
8 AM. Inside Sanctum Guild’s luxury sedan gliding across downtown Seoul, the atmosphere was filled with suffocating silence.
Today, Igyeol’s expression as he headed to the Hunter Association Management Bureau was hardened to the point where his usual languidness couldn’t be found. The 48-hour grace period. The time for the mana wavelength retest that had been forcibly postponed by Sung Yohan’s authority had finally arrived.
Igyeol repeatedly clenched and opened his two hands resting on his knees. Cold sweat seeped from his palms. The moment he placed his hand on the measuring device, the ominous Demonic Energy emitted by the Fragment of Beelzebub soaked into his bones would be quantified and displayed on the monitor. Not only would cracks form in the flimsy mask of a C-rank gathering Hunter, but it would be like broadcasting his identity to the Baekya bastards.
“Don’t be too nervous.”
Sung Yohan, sitting neatly in the seat next to him, broke the silence with a calm voice. He quietly looked down at Igyeol’s anxiously trembling hands before slowly raising his gaze to meet Igyeol’s eyes.
“The moment you place your hand on the measuring device, grab my wrist. Not awkwardly, just as if you’re nervous and trying to rely on me.”
Sung Yohan’s voice was low and flawless.
“At that moment, I’ll cover your Demonic Energy with my Holy Power. The machine’s sensor reads the most exposed and most powerful wavelength as the top priority. I’ll wrap your wavelength with my energy to create a shell. Three minutes. We have to finish within three minutes.”
“What if we fail?”
Igyeol asked in a cracked voice. In theory it sounded plausible, but perfectly controlling two opposing energies within the machine was an insane gamble they’d never attempted before.
“…We won’t fail.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Igyeol shot back sharply. Sung Yohan silently gazed at Igyeol’s wavering eyes. Light streaming past the car window coldly gathered in Sung Yohan’s jet-black eyes.
“If we fail, I’ll destroy the measuring device.”
“……”
That was what he’d said yesterday too. This bastard is serious.
“Measurement impossible due to equipment malfunction. That’s my Plan B.”
“…Really crazy bastard.”
Igyeol was so dumbfounded he inhaled empty air. The Hunter Association’s top-grade precision measuring equipment, and in the middle of the Management Bureau at that? Was that seriously what he was saying right now? From his expression, he really seemed ready to do it.
“If it’s to protect you.”
There wasn’t a shred of hesitation in Sung Yohan’s answer. Igyeol closed his mouth for a moment and turned his gaze out the window. He wanted to grumble about maintaining his dignity as a top-level domestic Guild Leader, but strangely, the strength gradually left his tightly clenched fist.
The two of them were now perfect accomplices beyond the point of no return.
***
The Association Management Bureau’s measurement room was cold and bleak. In front of the massive capsule-shaped measuring device placed in the center of the room, the investigator who had handled the previous investigation looked at the two people alternately with sharp eyes.
“Now, Mr. Moon Igyeol. Please place your hand on the right pad and release your mana. We postponed it last time due to poor condition, but this time we need accurate figures.”
Clear suspicion was embedded in the investigator’s voice. Whether due to Baekya’s influence, his attitude was to find fault somehow. Igyeol swallowed dry saliva and approached the measuring device. The moment he placed his right hand on the cold metal pad, Sung Yohan, who had been standing behind, naturally took one step closer to Igyeol’s side.
“Beginning now.”
With the investigator’s words, the machine started operating with mechanical sounds.
Whiiiiirr—!
That split second. Igyeol’s left hand shot out and firmly gripped the right wrist of Sung Yohan standing beside him. On the surface, it looked like an anxious civilian Hunter relying on his companion due to fear of the measurement. The investigator only twitched his eyebrows but didn’t restrain him.
However, beneath the touching skin, a fierce underwater war risking their lives began to unfold.
Whoooosh—!
High-concentration Holy Power poured into Igyeol’s body through Sung Yohan’s wrist. That fierce golden energy flowed through Igyeol’s blood vessels, suppressing the black Demonic Energy struggling to extend outward and surrounding it in thick layers like a shell.
‘Ugh…!’
Cold sweat beaded on Igyeol’s forehead from the extreme pain as if fire was igniting inside. Sung Yohan was crushing the opposing energies that were tangled together about to explode with only his control power, letting only the obedient Holy Power wavelength flow toward the machine’s sensor.
