# Chapter 66
Dr. Jeong’s stern face approached right in front of Dohyuk.
“Esper Choi Dohyuk?”
“…Yes.”
“Good work. Try to regain your senses.”
After Dohyuk briefly responded with the momentary cognitive ability granted by shock, he staggered again, and a research assistant opened his mouth to place a pill inside.
His vision blurred again. Dr. Jeong’s face swirled violently and then swelled to twice its size. Feeling like colorful fireworks were exploding in his head, Dohyuk frowned. Someone was hammering on the awl that was halfway embedded in his temple. Consecutive, skull-achingly loud booms tortured Dohyuk.
The depression wouldn’t fade. If he let his guard down just a little more, all the nightmares he’d been suppressing would stagger back to bite his nape and cackle. Dohyuk moved like a puppet, following the guiding hand of the research assistant. His ears were still ringing. The nerve-grating sound was relentless. Anxiety filled him up to his thighs.
He needed support. He wanted to hide among the vast undergrowth and wait for these arduous emotions to pass. He also wanted to fall into a deep sleep and never wake up. Whenever such weak thoughts arose, cruel, vague memories mercilessly kneaded his shoulders.
‘Dohyuk.’
‘You are our pride.’
It was cruel encouragement.
‘You can do more, you can save many people.’
A sense of indebtedness that flowed like water.
‘So.’
‘Wouldn’t you agree that’s how it should be.’
His depression deepened with the sense of duty that could crush his body at any moment.
‘Because we believe in you.’
But Dohyuk couldn’t let go of the things eating away at him.
‘We.’
‘Have given birth to you again.’
Because they had “re-birthed” Dohyuk.
‘Look.’
‘We’re the only ones who love you as you are, Dohyuk.’
They were the sweet accomplices who would accept Dohyuk as he was.
*
He struggled to focus while staggering. His headache worsened. Something was trying to strangle him, so Dohyuk willingly lowered his eyes. The ringing in his ears tore everything apart. It was familiar. It was just a matter of gritting his teeth and waiting for time to pass, like enduring a long night.
Let’s imagine good things. It was the best weapon to drive away anxiety. There were quite a few these days. Dohyuk first recalled his sanctuary with its docile face. The comfort provided each time those dry lips touched him. The way the iris changed color when sunlight danced upon it.
If he buried his face among these abundant thoughts and held his breath, the medication would eventually take effect, and he would regain at least some of his senses. It would be the same this time too, so he just had to endure until then.
As he curled up and held his breath, a familiar face appeared. Lee Seoyeon. She clawed at Dohyuk with her nails, begging to be killed. No, she didn’t know how to make such expressions. This was just an unpleasant illusion he’d constructed. Though he knew this, his fatigue grew worse. A question suddenly occurred to him.
How long do I have to endure?
At that moment, someone else’s voice rose to his ear, spreading thinly.
“Oh?”
A gentle voice that made all the tangled mess instantly forgettable.
Hearing that not-unfamiliar timbre, Dohyuk thought his mind was squeezing out imagination on its own to drive away depression. He knew that moments with just a speck of hope shining futilely were more dismal than moments filled only with despair. His blurry eyes looked at the other person with a still hazy gaze.
“It’s been a while.”
The whispering voice was distant. It sounded like poorly crushed fragments of words. When long fingers tightly grasped his hand, Dohyuk reflexively trembled. The face filling his blurry vision was strangely familiar. Even with his poor eyesight, those docile eyes that hadn’t lost their light curved halfway. There’s no way he could be here.
“Jun…seo…?”
He felt miserably trained to be unable to stand alone. Like a tamed wild animal, he buried his head in the other’s shoulder. As if begging, please cover my eyes.
After a moment of stillness following the sudden contact, the person eventually extended their arm and began gently patting Dohyuk’s back. Starting with that action, the warmth of the person who had been firmly binding Dohyuk’s body under the pretext of support disappeared. Only then did it feel like his airway was slightly opening. Dohyuk exhaled short breaths repeatedly, like a mammal that had leaped onto land after long endurance.
A faint voice disturbed Dohyuk’s ear, but his messed-up mind couldn’t piece together the meaning of those words. The scent of rain-soaked wood rising from his nape. A fragrance that would suit a damp temple rather than a person’s body odor, quietly sinking, and his floating mind cooled and settled down. An unfamiliar smell. Dohyuk pushed away the body he had been staggering to fully embrace. It was a reflexive action.
A clicking sound awakened his dull senses.
When the sound of fingers hitting against each other suddenly rose, his mind felt numb, like a cheek that had just been slapped. Only then did he recall the sensation of the pill he had swallowed. That unpleasant feeling of it scraping his throat as it went down without water.
The medication seemed to be taking effect. His foggy mind was being patched together haphazardly. The pace was slow, like a child trying to solve a puzzle too difficult for their age.
The clicking sound occurred again by his ear. Dohyuk found this friction sound strangely familiar. Even though he couldn’t recall it no matter how much he rummaged through his past.
Soon, as if trying to separate Dohyuk from that sharp friction sound, a kind voice caressed him, whispering right beside him. Despite it being a familiar auditory hallucination, Dohyuk trembled as always.
‘Dohyuk, do you remember? Even when you were young, you almost killed someone.’
Suddenly, the smell of blood rising to his nostrils made him shake his head frantically and look around. Is it real, or is it a hallucination? His triangular muscles, which had tensed up and protruded, twitched.
‘You are dangerous. Your nature is crude and violent.’
The hand that had pushed away the other person grasped at empty air. As always when forcibly turning over a vague past, anxiety surged.
‘Endure it. You must suppress your nature. This is the only way you can learn patience.’
Just as Dohyuk was unconsciously about to strangle his own nape—
Click.
“Shh. First, take a deep breath.”
With the third sound, his vision cleared as if it had opened up.
A pair of black eyes awakened him right in front of his face. The other person’s face, so close their breath touched and filled his vision, was pale white. The man’s gently downturned eyes and eyelashes that fluttered like butterfly wings were incomparably delicate. His hair, as black as his pupils, elegantly adorned his forehead, which was as graceful as a statue carved from plaster.
It wasn’t Yu Junseo.
It was a face as unfamiliar as the unfamiliar scent. But it was also a face that resembled the person he had been longing for to a surprising degree. Would Junseo have such a face if he aged a bit more and passed thirty?
The time he had been staring blankly must have been longer than he thought. When the man slightly narrowed his eyes and smiled, Dohyuk hurriedly stepped back from him and lowered his gaze. A green headquarters access badge for external visitors dangled on a string as long as the man’s neckline.
‘Korean Ability Management Authority Temporary Access Badge, Nuclear Fusion New Weapons Development Lab, Dr. Yu Junwoo’
It felt like his mind, which had been forcibly calmed by the medication, was mixing with various printed characters.
“…Dr. Yu…Junwoo?”
A face resembling Junseo. And a similar name. For the first time, Dohyuk wondered if he had such a relative. Seeing Dohyuk’s reaction to this stranger, Junwoo finally lowered the corners of his mouth, which had been smiling. His white lab coat, as pale as his skin, fluttered languidly every time he moved. The neatly falling fabric without any wrinkles, contrasted with his light movements. He didn’t seem to have an easy-going personality.
Dohyuk couldn’t tell if they were at similar eye level or if the other was slightly shorter than him. For a researcher, his physique was exceptionally well-built. He tilted his head with a playful expression.
“Ah, was our meeting too long ago? It seems you don’t remember at all. I’m sorry. Let me formally introduce myself again. I’m Yu Junwoo, researching at the Nuclear Fusion New Weapons Development Lab in Sokcho. As written here, my specialty is dungeon nuclear fusion.”
Unlike his classical and delicate face resembling a nymph from an old painting, his speech was smooth and straightforward. A man without any gravity. However, Junwoo’s touch was delicate as he quickly turned on a medical penlight to check the size of Dohyuk’s pupils.
Was the medication starting to take effect? After diagnosing that Dohyuk’s condition had improved compared to earlier, Junwoo stood askew again and raised one corner of his mouth. It was a mischievous smile.
“I’m a bit disappointed, though.”
Confused by the pitiful tone, Dohyuk blinked.
“Excuse me?”
But there was so much playfulness in his voice that even Dohyuk could sense it, so Dohyuk eventually furrowed his brow as if he didn’t understand.
“From our first meeting, you immediately called me pretty and made my heart flutter. Seems that was just my memory alone. This is why one shouldn’t carelessly believe what children say.”
“…Excuse me?”
