I stood frozen, unable to do anything except blink my eyes.
‘I definitely didn’t hear any sound earlier.’
I knew that determining whether someone was there or not by sound alone wasn’t entirely accurate. But still, I didn’t think there would be absolutely no sound while a person was in the same space.
Wasn’t it natural? Generally, if a stranger intruded where anyone was, it was normal to react and respond. Whether interrogating them to reveal their identity, threatening and shouting, or pointing a weapon—they should reveal their presence by making sounds and signs.
So I never imagined there would be a case like this.
‘Was he just… watching me?’
While I opened the art room door and checked if there were others inside, came in and closed the door, then went around this place twice checking something. He just held his breath, suppressed his presence, and was observing me like that.
Why?
I swallowed the question along with dry saliva. Even while struggling to suppress my confusion, he just made eye contact with me, still not moving and sitting on the desk.
Fortunately, I didn’t feel threatening bloodlust or hostility from him. Seeing how he’d remained still without moving at all, he didn’t seem to have thoughts of attacking me right away.
Recognizing that, my body loosened up a bit. Only then did I move my gaze that had been fixed on him as if nailed due to being flustered, and scanned his appearance.
He had an extremely ordinary Korean student appearance—black hair and black eyes. No, I’ll correct that. Extremely ordinary my ass—he had an incomparably sacred and noble appearance as if he were an angel dropped from heaven.
Every time he blinked, his long eyelashes fluttered, and the pupils that hid and revealed themselves beneath sparkled brilliantly enough to enchant everything in the world. His sharp nose bridge and plump lips seemed to form a sweet harmony and perform a symphony on that face.
It was a face that was both pretty and handsome. But paradoxically, rather than androgynous, it was an appearance where masculinity was strongly felt, so the mysterious atmosphere that seemed to cross the boundary between yin and yang seemed to be further emphasized.
Soon, lowering my gaze, I saw a well-balanced upper body below his straight jaw and neckline. Without needing to confirm with my own eyes, I could tell that his firm body not fully covered by Hanul High’s uniform would be no different from any work of art.
And on his lower body visible further down, the winter uniform pants covering his thighs were—
‘…Blood?’
They were stained with blood.
I quickly raised my head to examine his face. But just as I had been examining him all along, he was just staring at me with an emotionless expression without any emotional disturbance whatsoever. He didn’t emit even a moment of pain-filled groans or cracks.
I lowered my eyes toward those thighs again. Whether it hadn’t been long since he was injured or the wound was quite deep, blood that had long ago soaked the pants thoroughly was overflowing and flowing onto the desk.
“Does it look painful?”
A sudden voice reached me. I flinched around my eyes and moved my mouth.
What kind of question is that?
“…Then does it not hurt?”
I asked back belatedly and stared at him. Somehow his face that had only been empty seemed to have softened more gently than before.
Gauging that subtle change, I threw out a question after hesitation.
“Medicine?”
“Don’t have any.”
“The bleeding. Aren’t you stopping it?”
“……”
No answer came back. There was no way to find out whether that meant he couldn’t stop the bleeding or didn’t want to stop the bleeding.
I fidgeted with my fingertips for no reason, then curled my hands into fists.
I was somewhat, very, flustered. Of course, it wasn’t for worthless reasons like ‘the wound on his thigh in front of me looks painful’ or ‘I’m worried because the blood won’t stop flowing.’
‘It bothers me…’
It literally bothered me. If it were another time, I wouldn’t have cared whether another person got hurt or not, whether that wound festered and rotted until he ultimately died or not.
There was the plausible justification that I didn’t have the leisure to worry about someone else when surviving alone was already overwhelming, but it wasn’t just that. Simply, I was innately a person who was extremely born with ‘indifference.’
Nevertheless, the reason he facing me now particularly caught my eye was—
‘His face is too blessed.’
No matter how ruined the world was, losing the owner of such an appearance would undoubtedly be a global—no, a universal loss.
Probably even if the person before me grabbed any actor or idol and slapped their cheek, everyone would be convinced saying ‘that’s understandable.’ His beauty was not just tremendous but even great to that extent. Before that, it would only be a possible situation if actors or idols were still alive in this world.
‘All celebrities wouldn’t have died completely.’
…Then no matter how tremendous a beauty one is, shouldn’t you not slap the other person’s cheek? Beauties are already few in number, and they’ve decreased even more since the disaster came, so we should preserve them even more carefully.
Right, we must preserve them. Can’t lose them.
I lightly took off the gym uniform jacket I was wearing. Then I strode toward him and waved the jacket.
“I’ll stop the bleeding for you.”
I couldn’t just let him die on his own with a face like that. Of course, he might not die right away from a wound like that, but I didn’t really feel like leaving the beautiful him as blood continued flowing.
He just stared at me silently. Watching his tightly closed mouth, I stopped in place with a few steps remaining between us.
“Don’t want it?”
I had no intention of grabbing someone who didn’t want it and forcibly stopping their bleeding.
This was a separate sentiment from being captivated by his face. I didn’t have enough sympathy, consideration, or altruistic will to grab a person who refused and deliberately force treatment on them.
“…No.”
Fortunately or unfortunately, he chose to obediently consent instead of refusing me.
Only then did I take steps again and approached right in front of him, bending my waist. I scanned his thigh this way and that with a steady gaze, then reached out my hand. When I pressed down firmly on his thigh avoiding the area where blood was seeping out, he flinched. I thought he might be a person who couldn’t feel pain since he maintained an expressionless face pretending not to know anything and even asked strange questions, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
Withdrawing strength from my hand, I slightly lifted his leg. I was concentrating on wrapping the gym jacket around that thigh and fixing it so it wouldn’t hurt.
“…You’re kind?”
A dubious mutter was heard from near my head. When I looked up at him at that, eyes full of puzzlement as if not understanding met me.
Being just as puzzled myself, I withdrew my hands from his leg where my treatment of sorts had ended and firmly closed my mouth.
‘You’re kind?’ What’s that. Does he want to pick a fight?
But it didn’t exactly seem like that. On his face blinking slowly, only pure curiosity and shallow bewilderment were tangled together and lingering. There were no signs of low-quality sarcasm or sneering at all.
Then, was he perhaps a person who knew about me as a person? Well, the image of ‘high school student Kim Hayoung’ wasn’t particularly kind or friendly.
I thought it didn’t matter either way. What was important was that I’d done my best to treat his wound, bestowed the maximum generosity I could to preserve the beauty of a national treasure, and there was nothing more I could do for him.
I scanned the gym uniform wrapped around his thigh one last time, then turned my back. As I moved my steps without hesitation, a quite urgent tone followed from behind.
“Where are you going?”
“……”
“Wait, wait a minute.”
I turned my head while about to grab the art room’s doorknob. I saw him standing awkwardly, struggling to support himself on the desk with trembling arms. His face, unlike before, had turned pale white, and it seemed he felt considerable pain trying to move by putting strength on his injured thigh.
But why wasn’t he sitting down again and standing there enduring? Was he trying to kill me now?
“You know outside is dangerous. This is the 3rd floor.”
I didn’t reply and just blinked quietly.
“Ah, did you come to the 3rd floor without knowing anything? This place is……”
“I know. I came knowing.”
There are many monsters and no people on the 3rd floor. I came to this floor knowing that full well.
And he too, who seemed to be trying to hold me back, was staying in this place while fully knowing about the 3rd floor, and was alive with all his limbs intact, just with his thigh somewhat injured—with a bit of exaggeration.
‘He probably awakened a strong ability.’
Regardless of what ability one awakened, if that ability was just strong, muscle strength increased and stamina increased. Also, above all, recovery power became much better than before.
Still, just as I’d gone out of my way to stop his bleeding, proper medicine would be helpful if available. The problem was that this was the 3rd floor where monsters crawled around in the hallway, and because of that, the passage going down from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor was thoroughly blocked.
‘Whatever it is, I don’t want to get more involved than this.’
Being captivated by brilliant beauty and feeling interested was only momentary. As long as that beauty belonged to a human and not a lifeless doll, there would never come a time when I’d think I wanted to keep him by my side for long.
I didn’t want to drag out time any longer. Lowering my eyelids to block my vision, I immediately opened the art room door.
Behind me, I heard the sound of several hurried footsteps, then the small sound of him finally being unable to endure and hitting the desk with a thud.
“Will you be on the 3rd floor?”
I didn’t answer. It might be right to express it as I ‘couldn’t’ answer because I’d left the ‘territory,’ but even if I could have made a sound, I wouldn’t have answered, so there was no error in saying I ‘didn’t.’
Ignoring the presence that seemed to try to come to me again, I slipped out into the hallway. Firmly closing the art room door, I moved my steps while touching the wall.
