“I think I’ve come too far around. Stupid… I was stupid.”
“…….”
“Hayoung. I have to go see Hayoung.”
Hayoung’s still in the art room, right? It didn’t seem like a question directed at Cha Jeoh, nor at Cha Woodan standing beside him. He just muttered emptily into the air, and there was something bizarrely eerie about it.
Cha Jeoh, who had been smacking his lips sourly, finally clicked his tongue in irritation. At the rough hand that yanked his collar, Lee Gojun staggered to his feet.
If it had been Kim Hayoung in this place, he might have chewed over a compliment that wasn’t quite a compliment, saying, ‘Well, at least he lasted quite a while before going crazy.’ But the twins present here now had no such generosity.
“Can’t we just kill this bastard? If we leave him like this, he’s going to cause serious trouble soon.”
Cha Jeoh, who had voiced his complaint with a sigh, threw Lee Gojun’s collar away dismissively. Because of that, Lee Gojun, who was already unable to steady himself, swayed and touched the nearby wall. Sticky blood was smeared over the tightly closed fire door.
“If we just kill him and pretend we couldn’t save him…….”
Cha Jeoh, who had been laying out his own perfect crime plan, trailed off in confusion. Cha Woodan also followed his gaze, and lastly, Lee Gojun turned his head toward the fire door he was leaning against.
The firmly closed fire door rattled. Soon, a bright blue light burst out from around the door, and as it spun round and round in the air, it formed a shape.
“…A lock?”
Cha Woodan’s dazed murmur was buried and disappeared in the commotion of light.
A bright blue lock was continuously emitting a soft glow. Even though the light and sight weren’t blinding, Cha Jeoh reflexively frowned.
Soon, with the sound effect of a mechanism unlocking—click—the lock made of light was released. The light and lock disappeared, and the fire door with its simple design opened on its own with a clack, without anyone’s touch.
The passage connecting the second and third floors finally opened its path after a week and three more days.
***
With my eyes tightly shut, I keenly monitored the movements of the monsters on the third floor. Then I noticed a large number of monsters at the far right end of the corridor quickly falling. Something had either happened or been resolved.
Groping along the wall, I carefully got to my feet. There wasn’t really anything I could help with, so I’d been planning to just quietly remain in the art room, but I wanted to check the corridor’s situation for a moment.
I reached out into the air, touching a chair, stroking a desk as I carefully moved forward step by step.
Having safely reached the tightly closed art room door, I listened for a moment, detecting the noise outside. Soon, I gripped the door handle and pushed the door open.
I stopped there and took a small breath. In the cool air, the fishy stench of bloodstains drifted over.
How many people had Lee Gojun managed to save and keep alive?
‘Surely he didn’t die before the twins even had a chance to step in.’
As I loosely continued my thoughts, I suddenly stiffened.
‘…What?’
For some reason, I could feel the monsters that had been crowding the third floor moving en masse toward the second floor.
‘Has the passage opened?’
When? How?
From what I could tell, both passages at each end of the corridor seemed to have opened. I could deduce this information from the fact that the monsters weren’t concentrated on one side but were evenly using both staircases.
The twins had said that someone who had awakened a locking ability had locked those passages, those fire doors, and that they would never open unless special conditions were met. So probably someone had figured out those conditions and succeeded in opening the passages…
I could just ask the twins what happened when they came back.
I turned around again and walked back into the art room.
***
When the passage to the second floor opened, it wasn’t only those on the third floor who were surprised. Rather, the survivors on the lower floor, who knew well that the third floor was swarming with monsters, were even more shocked. Unlike those who had become accustomed to that environment due to being isolated on the upper floor, the lower floor had maintained a relatively peaceful school by periodically exterminating small numbers of monsters.
In the chaos of the panicked second floor making all kinds of commotion, the majority of the monsters on the upper floor, having detected the presence of humans, rushed down to the lower floor. No matter how strong the twins were, there was no way to completely defend against such a large number of monsters rushing at them all at once.
Even if they were small, disgusting bugs, when their numbers were large, they became difficult to deal with. So the twins and Lee Gojun hid themselves for a while, and only when the third floor corridor had become somewhat quiet did they gather at the stairs again.
Cha Woodan, who had been listening apathetically to the noisy screams and shouts from the lower floor, turned around.
“I’ll go get Hayoung and bring him down. Cha Jeoh, you go down and clean up that mess or whatever…….”
Cha Woodan’s slowly moving gaze landed on Lee Gojun, who was still fiddling with the sticky blood on his palm. Cha Woodan, swallowing a sigh, gave Cha Jeoh a look.
“Take him.”
“What, why? Me?”
“Then should I take him? You’re going to let him be seen by Hayoung in that state?”
Lee Gojun, who they’d thought had his ears closed, suddenly lifted his head.
“Why me? I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”
“…Bullshit.”
Cha Jeoh, who had muttered roughly, grabbed the back of Lee Gojun’s neck. Then, just nodding his head to Cha Woodan as a greeting, he went down the stairs, dragging Lee Gojun along.
Cha Woodan stood there blankly until the presence of the two people disappeared, buried in the bustling battle on the lower floor, then slowly took a step. Still paying not an ounce of attention to the female student whose ego he had stolen using his mental ability, leaving her abandoned as she was, he lightly crossed the corridor.
Moving his long legs gracefully, Cha Woodan quickly reached the art room.
He was sure he’d locked the door firmly when he left, but for some reason, that door was open. Cha Woodan, who had narrowed his brow slightly, looked into the art room.
“Hayoung… Hayoung-ah?”
Cha Woodan’s face, which he’d been trying to compose, contorted further. The art room was just empty, without any sign of a person.
No matter where he looked inside the art room, not even a single strand of Kim Hayoung’s hair could be seen. He checked not only the pile of blankets where Kim Hayoung often burrowed himself, but even the storage room inside, yet he couldn’t find a single note left by him.
Wondering if he’d just stepped away for a moment, he checked other nearby classrooms one by one. But Kim Hayoung wasn’t visible anywhere.
‘Where did he go without saying anything?’
Had he gotten caught up with fleeing students by mistake? He wasn’t seriously hurt somewhere, was he?
Cha Woodan, who had ultimately failed to find even a trace of Kim Hayoung himself, returned to the art room. He swallowed his anxiety and looked down at the pile of blankets that had lost their warmth, then leaned weakly against the nearby window frame.
Cha Woodan swallowed once and steadied his breathing. Then he keenly raised his senses, which had been loosely relaxed, and began to scan the presence of people in all directions, centered on the third floor.
Since Kim Hayoung couldn’t see ahead, if he was moving, he was probably moving very slowly and carefully. That was a completely different gait from ordinary people who ran and rushed to avoid being spotted by monsters. So he’d be able to find him quickly, and when Cha Woodan—who wasn’t even aware that his pounding heart was due to anxiety—was trying to feign calmness, it happened.
“…Kim Hayoung?”
Cha Woodan froze, unable to immediately believe what he’d discovered beyond his faintly furrowed brows. But that confusion didn’t last long. Hastily throwing open the window, he leaned his body outward.
In the small athletic field that showed no monsters thanks to regular management, Kim Hayoung was standing in its center.
***
In fact, until the spring of their second year of high school, the twins hadn’t been the type to share each other’s daily lives and time. Compared to most siblings, they didn’t fight often, and if necessary, they would act quite friendly, but they maintained boundaries all the same. The twins’ world was all about each other, but that meant ‘we’ were the world itself—it definitely didn’t mean ‘you’ were my everything.
Then, during a lunch break one summer, the twins discovered a boy stuck to the library like a stone statue waiting for her husband. That day, the twins were amusingly standing at the same time, in the same place, but in different positions, capturing one person in their sight.
And the twins thought the same thing at the same time. They wanted to tell their brother about that boy. That way, they could be permitted to let this mysterious boy into their world that had only been the two of them.
That night, when the two people gathered in the older twin’s room, they were quite surprised to realize they’d been trying to talk about the same person.
As if enchanted at first sight, something fateful that had drawn out both twins. A milestone and a kind of stepping stone that might broaden the scope of ‘we’ that the twins, who had only had each other, possessed.
After that, the twins circled around the boy all day long, watched him, and tried hard to engrave many things about him in their minds. For the twins, who until now hadn’t felt any emotions toward others beyond annoyance, anger, and bothersome feelings, this could be called a groundbreaking change.
So the twins dared to name their feelings toward the boy ‘love.’
Don’t they say people often do such things during high school? One-sided love or unrequited love, confessions and rejections, or flirting and dating. The twins didn’t know what form this emotion took or how they should exchange it with others, but they knew in detail that such words existed and their dictionary definitions.
So this emotion must be love.
The twins began an empty shell of a one-sided love.
