“What… in the employment records it was fine…”
Evil recalled Cheche’s profile that he knew. Cheche had received a simple health checkup when joining as a secretary, and it wasn’t written in those records. Of course. It was an examination that only checked for major illnesses or disabilities.
“It heard well then. On cloudy days like today, it doesn’t hear well.”
“Why…”
Evil closed his mouth. Then for a moment, uncharacteristically, he just moved his lips before asking.
“Were you disabled from birth?”
That was the vocabulary he chose. Cheche stared at Evil without answering.
“What, fuck, what! Just answer.”
Evil’s face turned red.
“Not from the beginning. It’s been a few years.”
“Did you have an accident or something?”
“No. Because I got hit too much.”
“……”
“I got hit too much.”
Evil’s gaze instantly sank, and a red energy swirled in his pupils. The surrounding air became heavy in an instant.
“By who?”
“By many people.”
“…Yeah, I guess so.”
Evil muttered with a chillingly sunken face. He looked at the small Cheche, who seemed like he could grab and crush with one hand. This wagtail-like tiny thing before his eyes was Tar’s young hero.
Called Tar’s small hope since childhood.
Kidnapped countless times by rebels and pro-government forces.
Where is there even a place to hit on this tiny thing? Those bug-like bastards, how dare they.
A flame rose in his chest. Evil’s breathing gradually became rougher as he couldn’t contain his anger.
“Um… if that’s the case, by any chance are there other places that aren’t well besides your ear?”
“There aren’t.”
What calmed Evil’s anger was the measurement room staff’s question. At the reasonable inference, Evil suppressed the anger about to explode and found reason for the first time in a long while. Though he said there aren’t any, there are surely many other unhealthy places besides the ear. He needs to be examined more precisely.
“You need to get a health checkup again this week…”
“Oh right, I got hit by you too, Director.”
“……”
“Director Evil also swung his fist at my head.”
Cheche’s golden eyes looked straight at Evil. His delicate lips precisely pronounced Evil’s name.
‘You punched this small head that has nowhere to be hit.’
Cheche stated the facts, and Evil couldn’t deny them. Because it wasn’t that long ago, he remembered vividly. The reaction when he hit and even the sensation, everything.
“Ah, fuck…”
Bang, Evil deliberately struck the desk to make a loud sound. The measurement room staff was shocked, but Cheche didn’t move an inch.
“So fucking petty. That was when, and you still remember?”
“A month ago.”
“……”
Evil closed his mouth again and glared fiercely.
“How badly were you hit? Don’t exaggerate.”
“The doctor diagnosed me with a concussion.”
“……”
Silence again.
Evil experienced being at a loss for words for the first time since meeting Cheche. After a moment, Evil spoke in a cold tone.
“…Arrogant refugee bastard. If I’d been serious, you would’ve died then.”
What Evil chose in the end still wasn’t an apology.
The dark brown-skinned refugee turned his eyes away from Evil as if he’d expected that, and Evil frowned, showing he didn’t like that action very much. However, he didn’t break the table or throw a chair at the wall. He just gave the measurement room staff a look to start now.
The examination resumed in a subtly subdued atmosphere.
***
The Aura measurement took three hours. Cheche, who had weak stamina, couldn’t even control his body properly and swayed. Evil simply picked up Cheche, who was fluttering alone without leaning on or grabbing anyone even though someone was beside him, sat him on the sofa, and sat next to him himself.
“Get a hold of yourself. You’re so damn weak, just like the idiot you are.”
“Is it all done?”
“Yeah, drink this.”
“Thank you…”
A water cup floated leisurely through the air. Evil was about to put the water cup in the hand of the exhausted Cheche who was just gasping for breath, but thought there was no need to do that for an arrogant refugee bastard and just left it. Cheche gripped the water cup with both hands and drank gulp gulp. With his eyes lowered, not saying anything even though Evil openly stared at him, and after finishing, he licked his lips with his tongue.
Evil gathered all the patience he had and didn’t have to barely keep from spitting out curses. It was the cutest way he’d seen anyone drink water in his life.
It’s definitely not that he liked it. Everything got on his nerves. He didn’t like the bobbing Adam’s apple whenever he drank or the moistened lips, and even the wrist that was all bones because it was so thin. And yet the way he drank the water he gave without suspicion was…
“Damn it, fuck!”
In the end, he ended up spitting out a curse. Cheche raised his head and looked at Evil with indifferent eyes. The moment he met those golden eyes, Evil instinctively said.
“That wasn’t directed at you.”
“……”
“The measurement system is shitty, that’s why. It wasn’t directed at you.”
“Yes.”
Cheche turned his indifferent gaze back to the empty water cup.
But Evil couldn’t become as indifferent as Cheche.
Isn’t this bastard thinking I cursed at him? Seeing how he still remembers me hitting him, he’s so damn petty he probably thinks I cursed at him.
For sure. He’ll think it was a curse at him.
“Hey…”
“When can I know the results?”
The moment Evil opened his mouth to tell him not to misunderstand after going through a negative thought process, Cheche asked a question first.
Evil answered resentfully.
“For the first measurement it takes a week. Depending on your rank, you might have to be re-measured.”
“Then did you get re-measured too, Director?”
Evil’s eyes widened in surprise.
Isn’t this the first time he’s asked something so private and personal?
“I was a bit of a special case.”
Excited because he asked about himself for the first time, Evil eagerly boasted. He boasted not only about being so strong that measurement tests were meaningless and how important an existence he was in Aura history, but also didn’t leave out the point that an SSS Multi User like himself had never existed before and never would again.
“That’s really amazing.”
“Be grateful. You’re facing new history.”
“New history?”
“Yeah, I’m going to make a mark in history.”
“I don’t understand. How do you make a mark in history when you have strong power but do nothing and just play around here?”
“…Spit out the water. Spit it out right now!”
At the criticism casually uttered from an indifferent face, Evil immediately got angry as per his personality.
Cheche didn’t spit out the water but handed the cup that still had water in it back to Evil. Evil looked at Cheche resentfully.
“You’re damn shameless.”
Even receiving condemnation of being shameless from the most shameless person in the world, Cheche’s expression remained the same. Even in a physical condition where one punch would immediately slam him to the floor, he still had no fear.
“Now go upstairs and do your work.”
Afraid he might hit him, he sent the still-exhausted guy up to the secretariat. After Cheche left, Evil just kicked and destroyed an innocent measurement room chair.
Saying he does nothing even though he has strong power? Practically singing a song asking him to help Tar.
Evil banged his head against the wall with a thud and sighed.
He stayed like that with his eyes closed for a moment, following Cheche’s presence. When Cheche arrived at the secretariat, a perfunctory question was thrown asking if he had a good trip. There were also worried questions asking if the Director didn’t bully him. And that was the end. The secretaries each returned to their work, and Cheche sat quietly in his seat for a while, then soon started studying computer programs while clicking the mouse.
