# Chapter 75
“Jun, seo… hng. Please, stop… guiding…”
The ecstatic guiding that blurred his vision into a hazy white was similar in texture to hell. Swallowing his moans, Dohyuk managed to plead, and Junseo’s guiding stopped as if it had been a lie. The lips that pressed against his forehead, as if soothing a child, were incomparably gentle.
“See? When hyung says ‘wait,’ I’m the one who waits like a dog. And Junseo is well-behaved on top of that.”
As if he had never revealed his raw nature, that beautifully adorned voice presses against his ear. When his vision blurred, stars suddenly poured down like an abyss.
He couldn’t understand what more that completely brilliant, solitary figure could possibly want.
*
‘Hyung needs to learn how to desire and yearn first.’
Dohyuk shook his head, trying to shake off the voice that clung to him like wet mud on a rainy day.
He had already seen through the fact that Dohyuk was pretending not to know, using rescue as an excuse to talk about giving up first. That rather than trying to possess something, he found relief in empty hands from the beginning.
He knows. That death is not salvation. Death couldn’t even be an escape. He would only become another Lee Seoyeon, crying in streams by her side at the night sea while spitting out tortured wailing. It’s obscene. Dohyuk held his breath at the disgusting smell. With what right had he mentioned giving up? He felt nauseous with self-loathing for assuming the choice was naturally his.
Do normal people think like this too?
Could Junseo have already noticed?
That he’s different.
When he curled his fingers into a fist as if to hide his fingertips, Dohyuk’s leather glove melted into blackness from inside his clenched palm. The viscous fluid that dripped as if materializing the thoughts in his head was sticky.
Choi Dohyuk and Lee Seoyeon were test subjects.
This is classified information known only to a few officials who participated in the project, even within the Headquarters.
When this project, which was the twelfth in a series after countless failures, first began, the number of test subjects mobilized was five. By the time the experiment ended, only Seoyeon and Dohyuk remained, but since all the test subjects were from facilities with no relatives, no one suspected anything. From the beginning, they had selected only those humans who carried that little weight. And Dohyuk was unfortunately selected because he was just that level of weight.
He doesn’t remember his life before being a test subject. He doesn’t know if Seoyeon was the same as him. In fact, Dohyuk didn’t have much contact with Seoyeon. They were only connected by a strange sense of kinship, but the two were always isolated and received their experiments separately. Thinking about it now, Dohyuk wonders if they were just mediums that reminded each other of their caged lives. The more they were together, the more they became uncomfortable evidence that they were both outsiders in the world, eroding each other rather than finding comfort.
The first thing they were trained in was how to wait.
Training experimental animals to wait is to efficiently reduce experiment time. Perhaps because humans are ultimately animals too, the researchers treated human test subjects like experimental animals. It was the basic duty of a test subject to wait quietly without any questions or resistance, even if incomprehensible experiments continued without notice or if something was injected.
Dohyuk’s earliest memory he could recall was similar. At first, he was tied up, and when Dohyuk became docile, he was allowed to sit on the examination table.
Dohyuk, seated on the examination table, endlessly waited for the command, “You may go now.”
It wasn’t difficult. Ironically, the gray-filled laboratory was also Dohyuk’s comfortable cradle. Because the society he was suddenly thrust into demanded individual choices even for trivial matters.
The source of despair wasn’t the memory of being treated as a test subject. He realized too late that the various things that had been castrated out of necessity were actually essential components of life. Dohyuk sank whenever he felt that his life wasn’t normal.
How far in society would those without the courage to take responsibility for something or the ability to choose something be left behind?
‘Is that the salvation you wanted, hyung?’
As the innocent question rose again in his mind, Dohyuk finally chewed out a small sound.
“I know. I… want to save properly.”
But desire comes with responsibility. Could he, who wasn’t raised as a person, be responsible for a life?
Dohyuk just chewed his lips while having Dr. Yu Junwoo’s contact information displayed. Lately, the flesh inside his mouth and his lips always felt ragged. Though they would heal without a trace in a few hours.
That’s when it happened. After a long period of inactivity, Dohyuk’s black phone flashed with another person’s name. Ji Sangjun. It was the first contact since he had come to find Dohyuk in the break room.
“Yes, Esper Ji Sangjun.”
When Dohyuk answered the phone, Sangjun, who began with asking if his body was feeling better, soon got to the main point.
[Have you heard? They say the core was never found in the Hochang Jungle. I also heard it from the third search team, but now there’s even an article about it. I just sent you the article link.]
Dohyuk checked the article while on the phone. But the content of the article Sangjun sent was different from what he said.
“The article content is a bit different. It’s a stabilization article.”
[That’s right. In reality, the core wasn’t found, but the article came out saying that the core was found and they succeeded in stabilizing the dungeon. It would be easier for citizens to accept that way, so I think the Headquarters refined the statement.]
That’s correct. Due to the frequent dungeon issues lately, citizens were on edge about the mistakes of ability users. A stabilized dungeon would be better for calming their hearts than an active volcano-like dungeon where the core wasn’t found. But in the end, it was a lie.
“Is it okay to spread false information like this?”
[Haha, what can we do? The conversation with the press is probably already over? Is there anyone who doesn’t know that Joguk Newspaper has always been in collusion with the Headquarters? This is close to negotiation. As someone from a family in the same industry, I’m embarrassed on their behalf.]
“Excuse me?”
[You didn’t know? No, no. The fact that I’m the son of the Daehan Daily representative is something you’d know if you just looked at internet articles a little…]
Dohyuk firmly rubbed his protruding brow bone.
“I didn’t… know. Actually, I don’t really read newspaper articles, so I only found out yesterday that Dr. Yu Junwoo is Junseo’s hyung.”
[Ah, then it’s understandable that you wouldn’t know.]
Since expressing a lack of interest in the media wasn’t something to proudly proclaim in front of the son of a Korean major newspaper company’s representative, Dohyuk hastily changed the subject. He deliberately ignored the muttering voice saying, how would someone who didn’t even know who the Yu brothers were know about me?
“Anyway, isn’t it too risky to publish a stabilization article just because the core wasn’t found? What if the dungeon is reconstructed again?”
[They say even though this much time has passed, reconstruction hasn’t occurred. Plus, dungeon collapse is happening. Just like a truly stabilized dungeon. The Headquarters is also focusing on the fact that the Changgwi’s abilities were significantly high. Um, they’re suggesting the possibility that the nuclear energy was absorbed by the Changgwi. And also the cat…]
Dohyuk swallowed a short breath.
“…Do you think the cat is also a monster born from condensed nuclear energy?”
[It’s a hypothesis. Since it’s the first time such a situation has been observed. Now they’ll probably make a judgment through experiments. It seemed like you got attached to it, which is unfortunate. But though it looks cute, a monster is still a monster.]
Sangjun spoke in a comforting voice, seemingly recalling how Dohyuk had been getting along well with the cat. But Dohyuk was still frowning, focusing only on Sangjun’s words. Soon after, he lifted his head and looked at the tall building. The cat was in room 807-C of that building. It was absurdly funny that in a place treated as if it didn’t exist, there was a being treated as if it didn’t exist. Because it seemed to mean that all the pain and anger of giving birth there would be treated as if they didn’t exist.
“Have you seen any articles about the cat, Esper Ji Sangjun? Why did the Headquarters release an article saying the monster is an ordinary cat?”
[Well, probably to prevent confusion.]
How many people in the world exist but are crouched, wrapped in a patched-up outer layer to disappear?
Esper Ji Sangjun focused on the fact that the test subject was a monster, and Dr. Yu Junwoo focused on experimental ethics. And yesterday, my guide…
‘You know, hyung, do what you want to do.’
After finishing his call with Sangjun, Dohyuk didn’t put his phone away but searched for another person’s number as if entranced. Just before pressing the call button, he felt as if something tumbled down his throat with a thud, but it was only for an instant. His thumb moved to press the button.
He had the illusion of a fence collapsing. He belatedly realized that what had seemed as majestic as a mountain was actually just a crude pile of wood.
As soon as the short connection tone appeared, Junwoo answered the phone.
Dohyuk quickly opened his mouth. His tense lips were dry, but his deep eyes shone brilliantly under the sunlight.
“If I say I’ve thought of a way to save it, could you help me?”
His heart pounded so hard beneath his lips, forming the pronunciation of “I want to save it,” that it seemed as if it would leap up. It sounded like a sprout breaking through rough ground. Dohyuk shook off the pieces of leather clinging to his hand.
