# Chapter 31
Geonwoo ran straight ahead, on and on.
Then,
“Aargh!”
His foot caught on a tree root and he fell hard. His soft skin scraped against the ground, breaking open and bleeding. His hands were covered in scratches, and his knees were badly skinned, showing blood.
On top of that, he might have twisted his ankle, because when he tried to get up, pain surged through him. Geonwoo couldn’t do anything but alternately look at his ankle and behind him.
The monster’s cries from behind were getting closer and closer.
Hearing the approaching monster’s cries and holding his leg that wouldn’t move well, Geonwoo finally fell into panic. Even though he knew he shouldn’t make a sound,
“Huh, hic… waaah!”
Finally, tears burst forth. The monster’s sounds from behind grew louder and louder.
At that moment,
“Shh! Be quiet!”
Someone covered Geonwoo’s mouth from behind and pulled him behind a tree. Geonwoo’s small body touched someone else’s. Startled, Geonwoo kicked and struggled. The other person turned Geonwoo’s body and embraced him fully. The face of the 10-year-old Geonwoo was buried in the other’s chest.
Crunch-!
At the same time, a loud sound of a tree being crushed underfoot came from nearby. The monster had come very close. A stench that seemed to pierce the nose wafted through the air, and the sound of something being crushed continued endlessly.
Geonwoo was scared. Tears streamed down. The other’s shirt became soaked. In response, the person raised a hand and gently stroked Geonwoo’s head.
It’s okay. It’s okay.
It was a gentle touch that seemed to say those words. Geonwoo, whimpering even more at the comfort, clung to the other person. He raised his arms and hugged them back.
Then from the body pressed against his, thump, thump, thump, the other’s stable heartbeat could be heard. Listening to it, Geonwoo felt his anxiety gradually melt away.
The sound of merciless destruction around them gradually receded, and the stench also disappeared.
When the surroundings became quiet and the monster’s sound could no longer be heard, Geonwoo raised his head. Geonwoo’s face was swollen up. His eyes were red and hot, still hanging with tears that hadn’t fully fallen, and the tip of his nose was full of traces of crying.
In that state, Geonwoo looked up at the person who had held him, with his mouth slightly open. There stood a pretty hyung.
“Hic!”
Whether it was because the tension had eased, or because the person who had held him seemed not much older than himself, Geonwoo began to hiccup.
The pretty hyung covered Geonwoo’s mouth and pinched his nose, completely blocking his breath.
Huh? The surprised Geonwoo struggled. He even hit the other’s body with his fist. He couldn’t breathe.
“Haah… haah…”
Finally freed from the other’s hands, Geonwoo looked up at him with furrowed eyes. But the other was grinning.
“Better now?”
Geonwoo only then realized his hiccups had stopped.
‘You could have told me first…’
Geonwoo felt awkward for no reason and avoided his gaze. He also glanced at the spot where he had hit. Then he showed an uneasy appearance as he looked at his own fist. It was because his small fist looked solid and quite large to Geonwoo’s eyes.
Suddenly, the pretty hyung turned around and started walking. Surprised, Geonwoo unclenched his fist and tried to follow immediately. Just as he was about to move his foot, a sharp pain shot up from his ankle.
“Aaah!”
Tears leaked from Geonwoo’s eyes. It hurt. It hurt so much.
Hearing Geonwoo’s cry of pain, the pretty hyung looked back. He approached Geonwoo, examined his body, then bent down. Lifting Geonwoo’s pants to touch his ankle, he asked,
“Does it hurt?”
Geonwoo nodded vigorously. It hurt so much that he nodded so hard it made a buzzing sound.
Then the other person, still bent over, turned around.
“Here, get on my back.”
At the hyung’s words, Geonwoo opened his eyes wide. If an adult had said that, he would have hopped on immediately, but the person in front of him was a hyung who was only about a hand span taller than himself. Since Geonwoo was tall for his age, he hesitated to get on, worried he might be too heavy.
Then the hyung said,
“Not going to get on? Hmm~ Then should I leave you behind?”
At those words, Geonwoo quickly got on. With his ankle hurting and unable to walk properly, he collapsed onto the hyung’s back. The hyung immediately supported Geonwoo’s bottom and lifted him up. Contrary to Geonwoo’s worry, the hyung didn’t seem to find him heavy at all, easily carrying him on his back as he walked along the path.
“……”
It was quiet all around. Perhaps because they had gone deep into the forest to avoid the monster, there was nothing around but trees and grass.
In that stillness, Geonwoo carefully raised his voice. He couldn’t hold back any longer as it kept bothering him. So he awkwardly offered an apology.
“Hyung…”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry~”
There was a cute tone mixed with his apology. At Geonwoo’s words, the hyung adjusted him with a bounce and asked,
“For what?”
“I hit you earlier… Does it hurt? Should I go ‘hoo~’?”
It was a statement Geonwoo delivered with his own version of seriousness. There was no phrase adults used more often to console a 10-year-old child. Geonwoo was simply using what he had learned on his hyung.
“What? Hoo~?”
The hyung carrying Geonwoo laughed, his body shaking.
“Hyung?”
Feeling the sudden laughter and the hyung’s body shaking with laughter, Geonwoo called out with confusion. Soon, composing his laughter, the hyung said,
“No, I just suddenly thought of my younger brother.”
At those words, Geonwoo opened his eyes wide and was about to ask about the younger brother. It had been so long since he had had a long, chatty conversation with someone, so he was both enjoying it and curious.
But,
“He used to do that to me often.”
The hyung’s tone that followed had laughter mixed in, but the end sounded a little lonely. Even to young Geonwoo, the hyung’s voice finished with a lack of energy.
“Hyung!”
Geonwoo suddenly hugged the hyung’s neck from behind. The hyung seemed down, and Geonwoo wanted to do something for him. Just as the hyung had stroked his head earlier, he wanted to give that warm comfort to the hyung too. But since this was all he could do, Geonwoo just hugged the hyung tightly and shared his body heat.
Whether that clumsy comfort was conveyed,
“Thank you.”
The hyung said softly, smiling.
At those words, Geonwoo’s face turned peach-colored. He felt somewhat proud, and also a little embarrassed by the hyung thanking him for his awkward comfort.
To hide his warm cheeks, Geonwoo buried his face in the hyung’s neck and mumbled unintelligible sounds in embarrassment.
At that moment, people began to appear in the distance. There were Espers looking for someone and people under their protection gathered there.
The hyung looked toward the people and asked Geonwoo for his name. He seemed to think that Geonwoo’s parents were likely to be there and planned to find them after hearing his name.
“By the way, what’s your name?”
“Me? Choi Geonwoo!”
After saying that, Geonwoo was about to ask, “And you?” He was curious about the hyung’s name too.
But,
“Choi, Geonwoo?”
As if surprised by something, the hyung repeated Geonwoo’s name, then suddenly stopped in his tracks. He even bent down to let Geonwoo off his back. Not understanding why the hyung was suddenly putting him down, Geonwoo looked up at him with a face full of question marks.
“Hyung? Why?”
Was I too heavy? Geonwoo fidgeted with a little worry.
But then, the hyung stood up, turned around, and stared at Geonwoo for a while before suddenly reaching out. He cupped Geonwoo’s fair cheeks with both hands and pulled him toward his own face. His focused eyes examined Geonwoo’s face in detail. Then,
“Wow, I thought you were pretty when I glimpsed you earlier, but seeing you up close, you really are pretty.”
The hyung was saying exactly what Geonwoo had wanted to say.
After staring intensely for a long time, his gaze dropped, and the hyung asked again.
“You said your name is Choi Geonwoo?”
“Yes! Choi Geonwoo!”
“I see, Geonwoo. Are you by chance 10 years old?”
The hyung asked with a gentle expression.
“Huh? Hyung, how did you know my age?”
Geonwoo opened his eyes wide and asked in surprise. Then, as if suddenly remembering, he asked the hyung as well.
“Hyung! What about you? How old are you? 11?”
At that, the pretty hyung frowned and denied Geonwoo’s words.
“11? No way! Obviously, I’m 10 years older than… No, that’s not right. I guess I’m 3 years older than you now.”
He suddenly changed his words.
At the slightly strange statement, Geonwoo tilted his head but just processed the “3 years” part in his mind.
“So hyung is 13!”
As Geonwoo finished his calculation with satisfaction, the hyung called to him.
“But Geonwoo.”
“Yes?”
“Why are you here?”
“Huh? Oh! I came here on a school field trip today! Then suddenly a monster appeared! Uh… um… so as I was running away, before I knew it, I was in the forest. But…”
Geonwoo started listing all the things that had happened today, as if writing a diary. The hyung waved his palm and stopped Geonwoo.
“No, not that.”
“Not that?”
At the hyung’s question, Geonwoo tried hard to find an answer, racking his small brain. Looking at Geonwoo like that, the hyung muttered softly, almost to himself.
“…why… are you… don’t exist… I knew…”
But strangely, the sound came through broken up.
And simultaneously,
“…sper!”
Two different sounds crossed in Geonwoo’s ears.
