“…Ha.”
I didn’t know if that sigh had escaped through the gaps in my teeth, or if it was a groan he let out from the effort of holding me.
Do you know what instinctive desire humans think of when faced with something noble that cannot be perfectly expressed with the human language of ‘beautiful’? It wasn’t innocent admiration, nor dirty emotions like pathetic jealousy or pride.
‘I want to have it.’
The raw desire, unfiltered by reason, to possess that thing at all costs.
“Should I give it to you?”
I snapped to attention at the question that awakened what I hadn’t even been aware of myself. My trembling lips swallowed the ‘yes’ they’d reflexively almost given and moved slowly.
“…This time, what again?”
“What do you think it is?”
He smiled gently, curving his eye corners. Along with that, my face that had been wearing an expression as if thoroughly captivated disappeared in an instant into those narrowing eyes.
“……”
The things I’d directly desired to have, to possess, could be counted on one hand. At most, they were small things like a single flower blooming in a field, a few books I’d liked enough to read two or three times repeatedly, and even those I’d forgotten or thrown away without lasting a few months.
There wasn’t any particular reason for it. It was just my innate nature. Indifferent, insensitive, uncaring.
It wasn’t that I’d grown tired but that I’d forgotten, and it wasn’t that I’d thrown them away but that I’d lost them not knowing where or how I’d stored them. To me, who couldn’t remember people’s names or faces well unless I was particularly conscious of them, inanimate objects were worse if anything, not less so.
That’s why I was all the more flustered and confused. By chance, coincidentally, like fate, these twin brothers I’d come to be with seemed like they would someday take firm root in my mind.
Realizing I was lost in thought, the twin who’d been waiting quietly carefully moved me. Thanks to that, I was able to sit on the desk I’d aimed for without exerting much effort.
Even during that, my persistent gaze didn’t know how to leave him. Moreover, seeing him alone looking like a mouse that had fallen completely in water, contrasting with me who was perfectly fine without a wet spot, I even felt a strange elation.
“What should I do, I’m soaking wet… Should I just take it off?”
Still unable to straighten my loosened vision, letting his words flow in one ear and out the other, I flinched at the last part: ‘Should I just take it off?’ Then, without realizing it, I raked over him with an even more blatant gaze.
He who’d been calmly accepting my look suddenly drooped his eye corners, then crossed both arms to cover his chest. His voice, lowered as if pitiful, rang out as if condemning me.
“Hayoung-ah. Your eyes looking at me right now—they’re too perverted.”
‘…What’s the big deal about being a pervert?’
Perverts were surprisingly common around us. Just yesterday, one of the twins had made the bizarre request to show him drinking water, hadn’t he?
But unfortunately, I couldn’t be faithful to my immediate greed and make a statement like ‘I am a pervert. So take it off.’ That was for my sake, and at the same time for his sake too.
I hurriedly reached out before he might do something innocent.
“No. Don’t.”
When I grabbed his shoulder, the damp shirt stuck beneath my hand. I could feel the outline of his collarbone showing without concealment poking one side of my palm.
“Don’t what?”
Looking at him calmly batting back my question, I replied composedly.
“I can’t hold back.”
“Hm?”
“I might jump you.”
“…Huh?”
Though he was the one who’d first thrown out the pitiful temptation, he opened his eyes wide and gaped as if he’d never imagined it.
I’d already seemed to become an irredeemable pervert, but seeing him show that appearance, now I felt like I’d evolved into an even more terrible shameless person. But ridiculously, I didn’t find it unpleasant.
‘Beautiful people are good, huh.’
When I first met one of the twins, I’d evaluated him as having ‘beauty convincing enough even if he slapped my cheek.’ But looking now, if the twins just set their minds to it, even if they kicked people, everyone would definitely fall into collective Stockholm syndrome saying ‘that can happen.’
Ah, it feels like blood is rushing to my head.
“…Wait, Hayoung-ah?”
I feel a bit dizzy too. Why am I suddenly like this?
“You, you have a nosebleed…”
…A nosebleed? Me?
I fumbled at my philtrum with the hand I’d raised halfheartedly. Then sticky, hot liquid smeared onto my gathered fingertips.
He came into view, frozen and unable to hide his confusion. Feeling my gaze, he finally started moving as if receiving the ‘freeze tag’ release signal.
“First… I’ll bring something to stop your nose. There are uniforms piled up in the storage, I’ll tear one of them and use that cloth…”
I watched him move away muttering busily, then turned my head. Because the blood wouldn’t stop flowing, drops of blood were falling dot by dot on my winter pants too. Looking down at that quietly, I swallowed a soundless sigh.
As expected, for the sake of living the rest of my life healthily too, I should wait for an appropriate time and leave the twins.
***
Another day had passed since the other twin who’d gone down to hunt Wolf returned.
I was sitting as if buried on top of a pile of fluffy blankets laid out in the corner. It was a luxurious chair and bed incomparable to the nest of piled clothes I’d slept on the previous day. It was thanks to the twin who’d been to the lower floor yesterday bringing back an armful of blankets from the infirmary.
Since I’d met wealthy companions and come to live abundantly, I’d even completed a minimal bath of wiping my skin with water-soaked cloth. I’d even changed out of the uniform I’d been wearing consistently for the past two weeks into a new one.
The uniforms and gym clothes the twins had discovered wandering outside and moved to the art room had many that were still in good condition and quality. Of course, there was the inconvenience of not being able to pick out the exact size I wanted, but that wasn’t much of a problem.
Though the loosely fitting shirt was awkward, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. The winter pants also weren’t to the point of sliding down below my waist, so they were wearable in their own way.
“You can’t even button up by yourself? You really, we’ll have to stay by your side for life and take care of you.”
Except for one of the twins who’d been creating and swinging a pitch-black sword nagging at me unable to watch anymore, it was a fairly perfect change of clothes.
To make an excuse, I had all ten fingers so of course I could button things. It was just that the speed was slow, slow, and slow again, just like when drinking water and eating food. And in that process, I just fumbled a bit more than others.
But if he was going to step forward and attend to me, I had no intention of refusing. So I chose to stand obediently and receive his help.
And coming back to now, I was staring at the identical twins sitting before me.
“Now that we’ve found Hayoung too, wouldn’t it be better to move locations?”
“Moving or whatever, first your leg has to heal before you can do anything.”
“I’m almost recovered. I can walk enough, and if I endure a bit, I think I can run too.”
Honestly, I wasn’t paying attention to their conversation. I was just concentrating only on blinking while using their murmuring voices as background music.
Then I slowly narrowed my brow.
‘…What?’
The atmosphere outside the art room seemed to have suddenly become busy. I could feel the presence of monsters evenly spread through the long corridor suddenly moving in one direction. Moreover, if it wasn’t an auditory hallucination, I seemed to hear a faint but clear human scream.
It wasn’t just me who noticed it—the twins also stopped their exchange at some point and were watching the corridor-side window.
After a moment of that, the faint scream seemed to gradually approach before something whooshed past beyond the window. The moment it was captured in view was too brief to determine its identity, but it was certain that it had a human form.
‘There’s no way they came up from the lower floors…’
They’d come down from the upper floor, the fourth floor to the third. Then that person was probably someone who’d been kicked out of Kang Jekyung’s group and wandered before coming down to the third floor with the mindset of gambling.
I was carefully working my head when it happened.
The scream that had been ringing painfully in my ears just moments ago seemed to stop, then the person who’d disappeared to the left of the corridor suddenly reappeared. That desperate gaze looking into the art room while gasping rough breaths immediately locked with mine.
Soon reddening his eyes hotly, he didn’t give us a chance to react and abruptly threw open the art room door.
“Sa-save me…!”
The male student’s cry as he rushed into the classroom couldn’t continue. Having misstepped and fallen with a thud, he groaned and let out shallow moans.
“…Ah.”
I reflexively let out a small exclamation, then startled and covered my mouth. At the same time, squeezing my eyes shut, I reached out to grab one of the twins’ ankles and fumbled.
The urgent footsteps of them understanding my intention a beat late rang on the floor. But faster than that, a couple of nearby monsters recognized the existence of the ‘bait.’
My ear muscles stood on end. Even within my tightly shut eyelids, I drew out each monster’s position, vividly felt, on a map in my head.
Fortunately, only the couple of monsters that had been right nearby were charging here—it seemed they hadn’t drawn the attention of monsters at a greater distance.
Of course, even those two wouldn’t attack me who’d already closed my eyes and mouth. But that only applied to me—it was a story that didn’t help other people at all.
‘…Can’t be helped.’
If everyone dies and I’m left alone, I’ll at least take good care of the food and water in the art room…
“Two, right?”
“Yeah. Two. Cha Woodan, you stay here and look after Hayoung and watch that bastard. I’ll be right back.”
If there was one thing I’d briefly forgotten, it was the fact that the twins were considered powerhouses incomparable to ordinary or average people.
