I couldn’t remember well. It was only a matter of a few days ago, yet it felt hazy as if it had been over a year.
The incident that happened just yesterday—I realized something within it. I had known the twins from before the monsters appeared and the world became like this.
But where, how, why?
It’s commonly called déjà vu, isn’t it? The confusion when facing a situation you’re certain you’re experiencing for the first time, yet it feels like you’ve experienced it somewhere before, or witnessed a scene just like it. This was a feeling about people rather than a situation, so it would be different from déjà vu, but if I were to express the emotion churning within me right now, it was similar to exactly that kind of feeling.
‘…No, it’s right that I don’t know them.’
I just felt like I knew them, but I definitely hadn’t even recognized the twins’ faces at first. Then rather than me directly remembering them, it would be closer to them remaining in my unconscious.
So.
“Hayoung-ah.”
A low breath tickled my ear. Reacting unusually strongly to it, my shoulders jerked up sharply, and Cha Woodan’s eyes widened briefly before he soon let out a mischievous laugh.
“Sorry. I didn’t know you’d be startled this much.”
“……”
“You seemed too lost in your own thoughts with someone right in front of you. What are you thinking about so deeply?”
I opened and closed my mouth soundlessly, then shut it again.
“Nothing much.”
‘Let’s stop thinking about it.’
I didn’t want to know deeply about the twins or whatever, and even if I did find out, I doubted it would have any particular meaning. It was the same vein as not bothering to pry into the source of the cold water Cha Woodan had brought earlier. In the midst of being busy worrying about my survival, I had no leisure to turn my eyes to anything else.
Of course, even if I had the leisure, my conclusion not to think about it anymore wouldn’t have changed.
“I should go see Lee Gojun’s younger brother. Where did he say they were staying?”
“Yeah, those guys died nicely together this morning. Seems they fought as brothers too much and caught the monsters’ attention, unlucky for them.”
“I think he said they were staying on the third floor here.”
“Hayoung, you have good memory. Let’s go, I’ll carry you.”
With a clean face showing not a hint of agitation, Cha Woodan changed his words and spread his arms. Instead of pointing out that shamelessness, I obediently entrusted my body to him.
It was now a position so familiar it was even comfortable. I settled into and leaned against Cha Woodan’s arms as he lifted me up without wavering. He too seemed to be getting better at it as his experience holding me accumulated.
“Blindfold? Don’t you need to cover your eyes?”
“It’s fine. We’ll just be moving around inside this building.”
I tapped Cha Woodan’s shoulder to express my intention to depart. Then he looked at his shoulder where my touch had landed for a moment before moving his steps lightly. It seemed Cha Woodan had the peculiar hobby of enjoying being treated and used as a means of transportation.
***
“Hayoung, Hayoung-ah?”
As soon as the door opened, the first thing that greeted me was a voice trembling helplessly, colored half with confusion and half with emotion. Cha Woodan, lightly ignoring that Lee Gojun, stepped inside the classroom.
“Hayoung-ah, what brings you all the way here? Did you get hurt somewhere?”
There was no pestering like this pestering. As I swallowed a sigh, Cha Woodan carefully set me down on a chair. Perhaps following me, Lee Gojun’s voice came from right in front.
“Ah, did you come all the way here to receive worship? If that’s the case, call me. I’ll go up and…”
“Worship, what worship.”
There was someone voicing exactly the same complaint I wanted to make. I tilted my head obliquely in that direction.
“Geonwoo-ya.”
“What. What is it.”
“…Sorry, Hayoung-ah. I think Geonwoo hit puberty at just this time.”
So it really was puberty after all.
As I was inwardly agreeing, thud—the noise of the classroom door closing firmly rang in my ears. Soon meticulous rustling followed, then Cha Woodan, who had returned to my side, sent a signal that he’d finished checking.
Only then did I lift my eyelids that had been closed the whole time. Since I hadn’t kept them closed very long this time, there was no shock from the light being dazzling or my vision flickering.
“I came because there’s something I want to ask.”
“Something you want to ask?”
When I spoke with my gaze fixed on Lee Gojun’s younger brother, a question came back from Lee Gojun. I nodded slowly.
“About your younger brother’s ability.”
Only then did Lee Gojun let out a quiet “Ah” and begin laying out his explanation.
“It was Geonwoo who locked that door, and he said he set the condition for unlocking it as me.”
Lee Gojun said. His younger brother had come all the way to Hanul High looking for him, but that happened to be when monsters were flocking to the third floor, and in the chaos-filled situation, he was pushed by the survivors to lock that door.
“Geonwoo’s awakened ability can’t set himself as the unlock condition.”
I chewed over the content Lee Gojun had summarized and conveyed.
If he arrived at this school at the time he mentioned, he probably didn’t have time to ask around and search carefully for his older brother. The survivors here would have been too busy confronting the situation to help the younger brother, and the younger brother too would have found it difficult to search for his older brother while preserving his own life.
And Lee Gojun used the relatively softened expression “pushed by the survivors,” but I didn’t think that was a straightforward explanation as it really was. The ones I’d seen in the student council room yesterday looked sufficient to grab one clueless middle schooler and threaten him to force him to use his ability.
So the door was locked. Even though he supposedly couldn’t make himself the unlock condition, the younger brother at least used his head and set that condition as Lee Gojun. So that if by any chance Lee Gojun was beyond it, he could open the door and come down. But Lee Gojun himself had been hiding on the fourth floor for days and hadn’t even attempted to open the fire door.
That said, there was no way that younger brother could know whether Lee Gojun, isolated on the upper floor, was alive or not. He just wandered the lower floors and didn’t hear any talk about Lee Gojun from anyone.
“So, that’s why he went into the broadcasting studio to die?”
At that, Lee Gojun, who had been answering readily until just now, firmly shut his mouth. Those deeply sunken eyes floundered in sadness.
I, who had been staring at Lee Gojun, turned my head to look at the younger brother. As if assimilating to his older brother, he too had been drooping similarly but scowled fiercely as soon as he felt my gaze.
“I can’t trust you. Even if hyung persuades me a hundred, a thousand times, I won’t listen.”
I blinked slowly.
“I never asked you to trust me.”
“Huh? Are you playing word games with me right now? How exactly did you sweet-talk hyung that he would even tell me…”
“Lee Geonwoo.”
Lee Gojun, who called his younger brother’s name firmly, continued with a resolute expression.
“I told you. It’s not that Hayoung did something to me, but that I owe my life to Hayoung.”
“Hyung!”
“Hayoung is my benefactor. And to you too, he’s a saint who allowed your brother’s life to be prolonged.”
“…Then at least explain it properly. What method did that bastard use to save hyung’s life all this time?”
Finally a question was thrown that could reveal at least a proper truth. If it was a story about saving a life, it was content I could answer confidently regardless of cults or false favors.
Because I was the one who asked the twins to protect Lee Gojun, who had rushed out of the art room alone saying he’d save his friends.
I didn’t care whether that younger brother hated or loathed me, but I’d rather pass on the tiring emotional drain from getting entangled like this each time. So I watched that mouth, waiting for the confident and certain answer that would come from Lee Gojun. However, at the words I soon heard, I couldn’t help but narrow my brow.
“When I was kicked out from where I originally was and came down to the third floor, he recognized my ability and took me in. He graciously decided to use me.”
“……”
“Before the violent twins could execute me, he gave me a grace period, led me to light and the world, and also gave me enlightenment. What truly are noble existence and noble life.”
“……”
“He made me realize that nothing in the world matters, that ultimately everything revolves around a single existence.”
The beginning seemed okay, but somehow as it went on, increasingly severe cult fanatic content poured out. Seeing how the gaze that had been poking at me became vicious enough to tear me to death right now, it seemed to have no real effect after all.
“Geonwoo-ya, noble actions are ultimately for noble existence. So if Hayoung tells me to, I’ll even lick his fee—”
Before I could jump up and block that tactless mouth, Cha Woodan stepped in. Thanks to that, Lee Gojun couldn’t continue his words, but since there was no Cha Jeoh here to grab his scruff and drag him away, all sorts of things that should and shouldn’t be said had already burst out of that mouth long ago.
Raising my hand, I pressed hard on my temples before getting up.
‘What wealth and glory am I trying to enjoy here.’
People should live as they’ve lived. If there was someone who disliked me, it seemed better for both of us to ignore and turn away from each other.
‘From next time when I come to meet Lee Gojun, it would be better to bring Cha Jeoh along.’
Reciting my new resolution, I requested Cha Woodan to become my means of transportation once again.
