Park Taehan came back out to the living room and stopped in his tracks, glaring at Yu Segwon. Yu Segwon noticed, but didn’t even turn his head.
He only let his gaze slide sideways for a moment, then gave a light shrug with no particular reaction and turned his body toward the kitchen. His attitude made it clear that Park Taehan’s stare wasn’t worth paying attention to.
A moment later, the coffee machine hummed quietly to life. Soon, a rich coffee aroma drifted through the air and into the living room. A bitter, heavy scent.
With no target left to glare at, Park Taehan’s gaze naturally dropped to the floor. As if the strength had gone out of him. Something stirred oddly inside his chest. Not simply his heart beating — it felt like his emotions couldn’t find their place and were all tangled up together.
He had used violence against Cha Inhu. That was an undeniable truth. No reason he could offer would amount to anything but an excuse. Park Taehan himself wasn’t so numb that he didn’t know that.
And yet something felt strange. There was a different scene that disturbed his mind far more vividly, far more persistently.
The moment Cha Inhu and Yu Segwon had kissed.
The way his head had been locked in place, their breath mingling, lips pressing together — that moment wouldn’t erase itself. It had been such a brief scene, and yet it replayed in his head over and over, rewinding on a loop. Even when he consciously tried not to think about it, it clung to the corner of his vision like an afterimage that wouldn’t fade.
He understood that it had been done to get the medicine in. Judging by the outcome alone, Yu Segwon’s action had been a “success.” Which was exactly why he had nothing left to say.
But… why does it irritate me so much?
The more he tried to attach a reason to it, the more tangled the feeling became. It was too directionless to call anger, and too sharp-edged to call guilt.
In the end, Park Taehan stepped outside the pension.
“I’m going to get some air.”
A short, tossed-out remark. No answer came back. He hadn’t said it expecting one.
When he closed the door and stepped out, the outside air hit his face directly. The sunlight settled down softly, and the air was clear.
Just breathing it in was enough to let a coolness spread deep into his lungs. But the suffocating weight pressing down on his chest didn’t ease at all.
Park Taehan walked with no destination in mind.
Each step on the gravel path produced a crunching sound at a steady rhythm. This whole area was Yu Segwon’s land anyway. It didn’t matter where he went. Right now he simply wanted to put distance between himself and Cha Inhu.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and lowered his head. His mind was still crowded with thoughts that wouldn’t sort themselves out. Guilt and anger, and an unease he couldn’t name — all of it tangled together and wouldn’t settle.
The wind blew. A breeze that had come through the trees rustled the leaves, and the leaves whispered against each other with a low sound. The sunlit green shook as if shattering into pieces.
Park Taehan unconsciously slowed his steps and listened to that sound. The day he had first met Cha Inhu had been this clear too.
Eight years ago.
“Th-the rank is… S-rank!”
The assessor’s voice trembled a beat late. In that instant, the air inside the small assessment room went subtly rigid. On the machine’s screen, the letter S floated in sharp clarity. It was a result no one could dispute.
The grade assessment that every student had to go through before graduating high school. On a day he had regarded as little more than a formality, Park Taehan’s life changed direction.
But the person himself didn’t feel the reality of it at all.
Up until then, the profession of “hunter” had been someone else’s story to Park Taehan. A presence you only saw on TV, a word that only came through on the news. Whatever grade he got, he believed that tomorrow morning he would wake up the same as always, go to school, and come back to throw himself onto the worn-out bed in the orphanage. That his everyday life would stay exactly as it was. That nothing would change.
That was a complete miscalculation. South Korea’s third S-rank. That single sentence was packaged into sensational phrasing and passed from mouth to mouth.
People flooded into the orphanage where he lived. People in suits, people holding out business cards, people wearing smiles that were a little too friendly.
Each of them said the name of their guild and promised a better environment. Support, protection, a future, honor. A flood of words that sounded good poured out.
Among them were people who were openly brazen. People who pushed contract papers at him and pressured him to sign, people whose faces shifted the moment they sensed refusal. When journalists joined in and shoved cameras at him and fired questions, the front of the orphanage turned into chaos in an instant.
Park Taehan stood at the center of it.
He hadn’t done anything, yet just by breathing he had become something that stirred someone else’s desire. He wanted to run, but he had no idea where to go.
And then, in the middle of all that chaos, the most incomprehensible thing happened.
“Taehan.”
It was a voice he’d never heard before. And yet strangely, their faces were ones he somehow knew.
They were the parents he had never once laid eyes on in his life. They wept as they spoke. They were sorry, they said — they had been looking for him, and only now had they found him. As naturally as people who had been together for a long time, they called Park Taehan by his name.
In that moment, something inside Park Taehan went cold.
Because it was all too obvious. People who had never once shown up before had only appeared now, at the single word of S-rank.
Park Taehan’s everyday life collapsed completely.
The quiet nights of the orphanage were gone, and outside the door there was never a break in footsteps and ringing phones. People did not see him as a child. They saw him as potential, as a resource, as something to be owned.
It was just when Park Taehan, who could endure no more, was on the verge of exploding that Cha Inhu came to find him.
At that time, Cha Inhu was affiliated with the Hunter Association. In truth, the Association had sent people before — that day wasn’t the first time. An ordinary C-rank hunter you could find anywhere. One of the many who had come seeking him out. Except for a pretty face, an unremarkable person in every way.
What would have otherwise passed as just another presence became something Park Taehan noticed — because of Cha Inhu’s first words.
“Adults are a real pain in the ass, aren’t they.”
“……?”
For a moment, Park Taehan’s gaze stopped.
Cha Inhu was dressed in a neat suit, no different from the others. He had a stack of documents in one hand. Going by appearances alone, he looked no different at all from everyone who had been hovering around him until now.
But what he did next was clearly not ordinary.
“Well, you’ve probably seen more than enough of stuff like this already.”
The moment Cha Inhu finished speaking, he tossed the stack of documents he’d been holding onto one side of the sofa without a care. The papers scattered with a rustle, but he didn’t seem to mind in the least.
He loosened a few buttons on his collar, then settled himself naturally against the sofa. With one elbow propped up and his chin resting on his hand, he looked at Park Taehan with eyes that held no calculation whatsoever.
“Have you decided which guild you’re joining?”
At the unexpected question, Park Taehan was briefly at a loss for words. Only after blinking once did he shake his head, a beat late.
Cha Inhu saw that reaction and gave a light nod. His manner was as if he’d already expected it.
“If it’s hard to choose, just go wherever pays the most.”
“What…?”
Park Taehan’s voice went slightly higher. His expression was one of someone doubting their own ears. But Cha Inhu continued without batting an eye.
“For an S-rank, the conditions any of them offer will be top-tier anyway.”
“…….”
“Then you might as well go where the pay is better too.”
It was a remarkably matter-of-fact tone. Not persuasion, and not a test. Like someone just telling you the obvious choice.
“Do you know what you’re even saying right now?”
“I’m the one talking — why wouldn’t I.”
Cha Inhu shrugged. That attitude only confused Park Taehan further.
Wherever pays the most. This was by no means a pitch to come to the Hunter Association.
The Hunter Association, as a government body, was ironically the place that paid the least generously. It had plenty of fine words to attach — honor, responsibility, public safety — but in terms of financial conditions alone, it wasn’t even in the same league as the private guilds.
And yet an Association-affiliated hunter had said it without blinking.
Park Taehan looked squarely at Cha Inhu for a moment, then finally opened his mouth.
“What did you even come here for?”
Instead of answering, Cha Inhu gave a short yawn. He covered his mouth with his hand, exhaled slowly, and then said as if it were nothing at all.
“I came to scout you.”
“You don’t look like it at all.”
“I just generally don’t play games I’m going to lose.”
Park Taehan’s brow furrowed faintly.
“So… you just came because the Association sent you?”
Cha Inhu neither nodded nor shook his head. Instead he simply looked at Park Taehan. A steady gaze that neither avoided nor pressed. After a brief silence passed, the corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly.
“More precisely — I’m not planning to persuade you.”
“What does that mean.”
“The fact that you haven’t signed a contract yet means either every condition they offered wasn’t to your liking… or you didn’t need any of them.”
“…….”
This time Park Taehan gave neither confirmation nor denial. Seeing the transparent reaction, Cha Inhu’s voice lightened.
“Young. So young.”
“Don’t treat me like a kid.”
Park Taehan’s voice sharpened in return. The words came out reflexively. Cha Inhu raised his brows just slightly. Even that reaction was unhurried.
“If you haven’t even graduated high school yet, aren’t you still a kid?”
“I’m… S-rank.”
Those words came out almost like a declaration. Words he had repeated countless times until now. The phrase he had believed was the surest way to make people stop in their tracks.
But Cha Inhu didn’t stop. He laughed briefly again. Not a sneer, not a mockery. If anything, it was a laugh that looked somewhat tired.
Watching that, Park Taehan felt a sudden wave of confusion. He simply couldn’t make sense of Cha Inhu’s reaction.
Every person he had met up until now had been the same.
Purely because he was S-rank, they had treated him like an adult and pushed him to make decisions. They thrust contracts at him and demanded choices. They wanted him to debut as a hunter as quickly as possible. Because that would benefit them.
But the man in front of him was completely different.
“Does being S-rank change how old you are?”
“That’s….”
Watching Park Taehan trail off, Cha Inhu gave a light shrug as if to say — exactly.
“Well, if you don’t need money either… listen to the conditions I’m about to lay out, and then think it over. Just so you know, these aren’t the conditions the Association put forward.”
“…Then?”
“Conditions I’m putting on the table personally.”
The more the conversation went on, the more Park Taehan found himself curious about Cha Inhu as a person. What on earth was this man seeing when he looked at him? What could he possibly offer to be this confident?
“…Go ahead.”
Cha Inhu paused briefly. The silence was very short. So natural it barely felt like he was choosing what to say next.
And then, in the next moment, he opened his mouth with complete calm.
“Your parents. I’ll make sure they can never find you again.”
Park Taehan’s breath stopped for an instant. Cha Inhu continued without changing his expression.
“That’s the thing pissing you off most right now, isn’t it? People whose faces and names you don’t even know suddenly showing up and playing the role of parents.”
He was right. What was tormenting Park Taehan the most right now wasn’t the scouting offers or the journalists’ interview requests. His parents. More precisely — the appearance of a man and a woman who had introduced themselves as his parents. That was what hurt the most.
From the moment Park Taehan had understood that he had been abandoned, he had never once let the word “parents” cross his lips. It couldn’t be helped. He didn’t have enough imagination to yearn for something he had never once had.
And now, the appearance of something he had never yearned for was unpleasant beyond anything he could have imagined.
“What… are you going to kill them for me?”
Park Taehan deliberately pulled up the corner of his mouth. Words thrown out like a provocation, as if none of it affected him. Before those words had fully settled in the air, Cha Inhu nodded without a moment’s hesitation.
“Yeah.”
Too simple an answer.
