“Yes.”
Cheche turned his eyes back to the phone screen. There was naturally no question about why he had to read it.
Evil carefully observed Cheche’s expression. He was reading graphic personal attacks and criticisms, but as expected, there was no change.
No… There was even less change than expected. To the point where he wondered if he was even reading. Evil asked just in case.
“You can’t read Alcity common language?”
“I can read, but it’s hard to read this many characters quickly. I’ve only gotten to ‘I wish Evil Devil would just die. Can’t we all work together and hit him in the head at least once? Why do we have to treat that kind of trash like a User?'”
…Is that really without malice?
Since he couldn’t feel any emotion at all, Evil had no choice but to endure even though it was absurd. He had to draw out the patience that only existed when he was a fetus.
While Cheche looked at the phone screen, Evil flopped down on his back. The hospital with only one patient room per floor was quiet. Because the ceiling was high and the walls thick, blocking most sounds, Evil sometimes stayed here.
Of course, even this place didn’t block all sounds. If he stayed still, noise was always audible. All the noise above ground.
Amid the noise and stench, Evil always thought he wanted to rest. People would say he just plays games and lazes around every day, but even while suffering from boredom, Evil always wanted to rest. In a place where no sound could be heard…
To him who was always followed by noise wherever he went and whatever he did, silence was necessary.
For Evil’s stress relief, the family kept the top-floor hospital room empty, but today Cheche was here.
There was clearly a person here, yet it was quiet as if there were no one. The sound of Cheche’s heartbeat that reached Evil’s ears had only beaten fast briefly when he first opened the door and saw his face, and since then it had remained calm the whole time. Even while reading malicious criticism directed at a person, nothing changed except for his narrowed brow to concentrate.
Well, he showed no interest even in curses spat in his face, remained dry even when someone tried to kill him, so of course there was no reaction to this level of criticism. Evil stared blankly at Cheche.
Would he keep standing like that until he was told to sit somewhere?
Cheche’s ashen hair, standing with his back to the window, swayed in the wind. His slightly downcast eyes held no light. What dwelt in those indifferent eyes was different from the damn tedious boredom that ate away at Evil’s mind.
Quiet.
For the first time in a very long while.
The nauseating cigarette smell still remained. He was about to tell him to open the window wide, but let it be. Mixed faintly with the cigarette smell seemed to be another scent. A very faint, fishy smell like blood.
Must be because it’s a hospital.
Evil thought so and closed his eyes.
***
As Evil predicted, after a few days, people’s interest rapidly cooled. It was because Evil responded with no reaction, and the public had also become accustomed to such non-responses.
The number of reporters stationed at the main gate of the hospital where Cheche was admitted also decreased significantly. On the day of discharge, there were a few reporters, but they were easy enough to shake off. Cheche got into the luxury limousine prepared by the Endem family and headed straight to the User Center.
Many people recognized Cheche from the lobby of the User Center, but with guards attached, they didn’t approach or speak to him. The guards left after confirming that Cheche had boarded the elevator going directly to the 201st floor. Upon arriving at the 201st floor, Cheche headed straight to the secretary’s office.
“Ah, Cheche. You were discharged.”
“Sorry I couldn’t visit you at the hospital. We’re prohibited from entering.”
The senior secretaries greeted him with kind smiles, but their faces looked haggard. They seemed exhausted from handling the flood of criticism calls about Evil’s misdeeds. Even while greeting him, the phone rang, and one person kept talking on the phone, only repeating the apology, “Yes, we are aware of it. We’re sorry, sir.”
“I heard you’re returning to work starting next Monday, why are you here already?”
“I have something to get.”
The notebook with the phone numbers of his few acquaintances was in the desk drawer. To be precise, in the bag.
“You left your bag…”
“Yes.”
Cheche had been suddenly assaulted by Evil at the company and was taken straight to the hospital. Because Cheche hadn’t asked for it, no one had delivered personal belongings like his bag. If he’d asked James for the bag he’d left at the company instead of asking to be let out, they would have delivered it readily…
Then the phone rang again. It was the ringtone exclusively for Evil’s calls. When Cheche tried to answer it, Julia panicked.
“I’ll get it. Yes, Advisory Director.”
The reason she quickly picked up the receiver before Cheche could answer was because she was worried he might offend Evil Devil again this time. To the senior secretaries in the secretary’s office, Cheche was already in the category of people who shouldn’t be carelessly touched. Now Cheche wasn’t even allowed to do the task of answering phones.
Cheche pulled out the chair he rarely remembered sitting in and retrieved his bag from under the desk. Since all the secretaries were on the phone, he bowed silently in greeting and tried to leave.
“Ah, yes. Understood. Wait, Cheche!”
Just as he was about to quietly close the door, Julia urgently called out to Cheche. She still held the receiver. When Cheche turned around, Julia said with a troubled expression.
“The Director wants you to come to his office. Hurry and go.”
“Yes.”
Cheche, who had been planning to greet his boss anyway, nodded.
***
Evil was sitting on the sofa with his long legs crossed. With his characteristic crooked sneer on his face.
“If you fucking come to the workplace, you should greet your boss first.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What era is this and you use a notebook? It’s fucking grimy.”
Evil sneered looking at the notebook peeking halfway out of Cheche’s bag. The palm-sized notebook with a spring at the top looked grimy and worn, just as Evil described.
“Give me your phone.”
Evil held out his hand, and Cheche, as always without any question, took out his phone from his pocket. It was the latest model that unfolded a thin smart panel.
Evil turned on the phone screen. As expected, there was naturally no lock, and the wallpaper was the default blue. The applications and widgets installed at the time of purchase remained as they were, and there wasn’t even a messaging app installed. There wasn’t even James’s contact in the phone book. Evil called his own number and asked.
“How do you contact your secretary without even saving the number?”
“I go into the call history.”
He hung up after listening to the dial tone three times. Looking at the call history, there was only one unsaved number marked multiple times below his own number.
“Don’t you have friends? They say one hundred thirty-one Tartarians live here.”
“…I don’t.”
Evil recited a fairly accurate number. It was four more than the number Cheche remembered.
“Install a messaging app. I don’t use texts much.”
“I don’t know how to install it.”
“Ah, you stupid bastard. You just go into the store, type ○○○ and download it.”
“Store?”
“Come here.”
Evil beckoned with his finger. As Cheche approached, Evil pressed something on the screen to open a window that Cheche was seeing for the first time, searched for ○○○ there, and downloaded it in an instant.
“Easy, right?”
“No.”
The answer popped out immediately.
“Ugh, idiot.”
Evil turned off all the windows, then held out the phone while looking at Cheche’s small crown of his head.
“Download something else.”
“I don’t know what you pressed first.”
“Ah, you’re fucking annoying.”
Evil pressed the store app from the home screen again. Cheche moved a little closer.
Evil held back a smile.
Interesting.
Evil felt that emotion for the first time in a very long while.
He found it quite interesting that this refugee wanted to learn how to download apps on a phone. Why would this guy, who had always been indifferent as if only waiting for the day to die even in life-threatening situations, show interest in something like this?
“Do you get it now?”
Evil downloaded three game apps as examples. At the end, he gave it to Cheche to try, and Cheche actively accepted. He had the will, but fumbling around was the same.
“Press that.”
“……”
“Type ‘Catch Heart C’.”
“Where?”
