Cha Woodan, who quickly noticed my intention, began to move systematically.
“Cha Jeoh, I’ll go out to the schoolyard. You circle around near the school and check if there are any more bastards hiding.”
“Your ability? You’re not switching?”
“Yeah. I think my ability will be sufficient.”
Ponytail let out a sigh of relief in a trembling voice as tension released. Turning my head that had been facing her, I looked to my left this time and lightly tapped Cha Jeoh’s wrist.
“…You’re going too, Hayoung?”
I nodded. The sight of Cha Jeoh making a displeased crying face was vivid beyond my closed eyelids.
“Why? If you wait here with Lee Gojun, I’ll be back soon.”
I turned my head that had been shaking up and down to shake it left and right.
No matter how much they were twins, they couldn’t read the presence of monsters more skillfully than me. It would be better for Cha Jeoh to survey around the school as quickly as possible and join Cha Woodan in the schoolyard, so for that, it was better for me to act together. Also, if I moved while held in Cha Jeoh’s embrace, there would be no particular threat to me.
Cha Jeoh, who read my firm will, bent his waist with no other choice. Along with a low notice, he lifted me up with unwavering movements.
“…Hayoung-ah, we’ll be in the auditorium. If even one finger gets cut wrong, call me right away. Got it?”
Letting Lee Gojun’s words flow through one ear, I waved my hand roughly. Though I didn’t know what Lee Gojun and Lee Geonwoo, who visited the auditorium almost daily for the past few days, were doing, since it wasn’t particularly my concern, I didn’t care what they did as long as they kept safe with all limbs intact.
Soon following Ponytail and Cha Woodan who went ahead, Cha Jeoh also moved his steps outside the art room. Meanwhile, taking out a piece of cloth from my pants pocket, I covered and tied my eyes with it.
***
Cha Jeoh headed to the shaded area behind the main building and jumped over the wall higher than his height in one breath. The process of holding me firmly, somehow stepping up the flat wall, then landing lightly on the floor on the other side was peaceful without difficulty.
“…I don’t feel any immediate presence.”
It was unknowable. If a skilled person deliberately hid their presence and was hiding, it was difficult to notice their existence just by scanning all directions.
Cha Jeoh, who readjusted his hold on me, began to move again.
“But Hayoung-ah, do we really need to help the school bastards? Even if that Seong Taehyeon bastard is quite cra… insane, it’s unrelated to us.”
Between ‘crazy’ and ‘insane,’ what difference was there? Thinking that, I rolled my eyes beneath my eyelids.
“He’s the one who reigned like a king then ran away alone, so he deserves to be cursed as a psycho, but what do we have to hold back?”
“……”
“I think it wouldn’t be bad even now to go back to Cha Woodan and move to another place, even taking Lee Gojun and that younger brother bastard.”
Though we hadn’t decided which of the three remaining candidates to choose as our residence, couldn’t we move around staying at intervals of three or four days and settle in the place most to Hayoung’s taste?
Cha Jeoh’s grumbling in a sulky tone seemed like he was trying to persuade me, or just seemed like an irritated lamentation. Of course, since I had no intention of reversing the decision to help Ponytail now, I half-listened to Cha Jeoh’s words while raising my senses.
The number of monsters wandering around at quite a distance wasn’t small. But strangely, the paths near the school were just quiet without the presence of monsters.
As if noticing such doubt of mine, Cha Jeoh, who had been examining the surroundings, said low.
“They’re all dead. Looking at how the bloodstains haven’t dried, they don’t seem to have died long ago.”
Thinking the thick bloody smell spread on the street was particularly strong and fishy, it seemed the monsters that had been on this path had all been killed.
I carefully turned my head.
The athletic club students would have passed this path going between the school and the mart, so they would have succeeded in killing at least one or two monsters with difficulty. And on their way back to school, rival faction survivors had even secretly followed along, so there was a high possibility they had dealt with some monsters too.
Considering all those situations, it wasn’t particularly strange that only the monsters on this path had dried up. But then, contrary to Cha Jeoh’s words, shouldn’t the monster blood have dried and the fishy blood scent floating in the air also have faded further?
Besides the athletic club students and rival faction survivors, another possibility remained. Namely, those who had just passed this path and, thanks to skills slightly above average, could dispose of weak monsters without much commotion…
“Sunbae?”
Cha Jeoh, who had turned his body following the voice, momentarily put strength into the arm holding me.
“…Seong Taehyeon.”
“Why are you out here? Were you perhaps following us?”
Cha Jeoh burst into a nervous hollow laugh. Perhaps because he’d heard that the student council president had tried to use his mental-type ability on me last time, just facing him seemed to make anger rise.
Soon Cha Jeoh, who changed his posture, wrapped my back and the crook of my knees at once with one arm. No matter how much my weight fell short of average, the fact that I was a male close to adult didn’t change, yet the arm firmly supporting me was unbelievably stable. Soon I felt him stretch his arm and hand that had become free into the air and draw out a pitch-black sword.
From a distance, the sound of other survivors standing behind the student council president swallowing nervously could be heard. No matter how much they were counted as skilled within Hanul High, before the twins it was no different from comparing acorns.
Cha Jeoh, who had swung his sword once in the air, locked eyes with the student council president again.
“How about we each go our separate ways, pretending we saw nothing?”
“For that, you’re the one who drew your sword first, sunbae. Don’t you see my friends trembling in fear?”
“I didn’t threaten you indiscriminately, so being that scared means they’re guilty themselves.”
“If drawing and swinging a sword suddenly isn’t a threat, what is it?”
“Well. Advice for you guys, or perhaps sincere teaching?”
I tried to pour all my concentration toward the student council president, leaving behind the war of nerves the two were exchanging. Since we’d inevitably encountered each other, I had to closely monitor whether he was operating his mental-type ability or not.
But unfortunately, there was no way I could witness the student council president using his ability while unavoidably having my eyes closed. If I tried, perhaps the flow of that power might be conveyed through my skin, but the problem was the distance from the student council president was too far to expect that.
Moreover, mental-type abilities that appeared to me in the form of thread tended to move too meticulously. Unless it was widespread power like Lee Gojun’s healing ability where brilliant aura bloomed conveying warm heat, there was difficulty in noticing an ability that secretly infiltrated and gnawed at the target’s mind with even vision blocked.
Prying through the dizzyingly tangled thoughts, the student council president suddenly uttered a sentence filled with admiration.
“…Oh, I had no idea.”
I furrowed my brow subtly.
“Jeoh sunbae has a lot of accumulated anxiety inside.”
…Anxiety?
“No… is it closer to fear? I think it could also be seen as madness.”
Chewing over the student council president’s incomprehensible words, I sharply raised my head. Then I hurriedly grabbed Cha Jeoh’s collar.
The student council president had mentioned something about Cha Jeoh’s ’emotions.’ That meant.
‘Cha Jeoh.’
Feeling that Cha Jeoh’s gaze wasn’t moving to me, I roughly tapped his shoulder. But even so, Cha Jeoh was only staring blankly at the student council president. Whether that gaze was blank as if enchanted by something, or still shining red from desperately enduring and resisting. As someone unable to use vision, I couldn’t know.
Would it be right to raise my voice even by one word? As I moved my mouth while pondering, I flinched. Beyond the touching clothes, the heart embedded below Cha Jeoh’s chest began to pound as if it would burst through his skin at any moment.
That something had gone terribly wrong.
Useless strength was added to the hand gripping Cha Jeoh’s hem.
***
They said Cha Woodan had barely caught and restrained Kim Hayoung who had tried to fall out the window from the art room while alone. Even knowing it was an already concluded situation, even while holding Kim Hayoung’s hand right beside me, the creepy sensation of my heart plummeting to the pitch-black bottom then barely returning was unavoidable.
‘Because there was a wound on his leg, he couldn’t jump over the window, and by buying time like that, Cha Woodan could catch Kim Hayoung…’
Then what should we do from now on? Should I embrace Kim Hayoung in my arms all day long?
Compared to Cha Woodan, Cha Jeoh’s thoughts and rough plans belonged to endlessly wholesome and normal categories. But even if the twins’ respective ways of thinking were different, the persistent anxiety each of them possessed was so fierce it was hard to determine superiority.
‘If I say I want to follow, to take me with him.’
Will Hayoung take us with him?
That day, Cha Jeoh couldn’t achieve sleep until deep dawn.
