Once they successfully cleared the gate, his motivation surged wildly—he’d have to stop by a bookstore and sweep up all the books Cha Haseong was reading. It was at that same moment that Cha Haseong cut through the silence and whispered.
“Dowoon-ssi sometimes seems like someone who goes around looking for reasons to be hated by me. Or like someone who hopes there’s a reason.”
“…….”
“I suppose you’re trying in your own way, so you can feel less pathetic?”
His assessment was close to a scathing insult, but it was mostly accurate.
So Yeo Dowoon encountered the oppressive weight of treating the voice that followed as sharp as a blade.
His face grew hot, like someone sitting alone on a playground swing heated by the scorching summer sun, gazing up at the sky on a sweltering day when even the images in his vision wavered.
“Don’t worry and just focus on the operation. I don’t hate you, Dowoon-ssi.”
It was all thanks to Cha Haseong’s merciless tongue.
Yeo Dowoon thought that each and every word he recited felt like it was sharply cutting into his flesh. Cha Haseong brushed through Yeo Dowoon’s hair and added.
“What I dislike isn’t you, Dowoon-ssi, but incompetence.”
Even though he’d never once in his life been branded with the stigma of being an incompetent Esper, Yeo Dowoon nodded his head, acknowledging that even that was nothing more than his own misguided arrogance.
Cha Haseong was explaining the reason concretely.
“If things go wrong, I might end up handing over the rest of my life entirely, so I can’t just act all nice and pretty about it. You understand, right?”
With his gaze fixed on the pile of text, he withdrew his hand and finished his sentence.
“Still, if your berserk possibility just returns to normal….”
“…….”
“I’ll try to act pretty again, like before.”
Cha Haseong didn’t expect an answer or promise from Yeo Dowoon and went back to reading his book. Listening to the sound of those elegant fingers brushing against the paper grain, Yeo Dowoon unconsciously murmured.
“You don’t need to act pretty.”
He couldn’t muster the confidence to face how Cha Haseong’s expression changed. Thud—resting his temple against the window, he gazed at the scattered clouds drifting aimlessly and confessed.
“Because you’re already pretty just as you are….”
When Cha Haseong’s face reflected in the glass, Yeo Dowoon completely covered the partition, erasing his image.
Then, Cha Haseong suddenly leaned down and kissed the nape of Yeo Dowoon’s neck. “Ah…,” he trailed off, resting his forehead against those straight shoulders and whispered.
“Sorry.”
“…….”
“You said I was pretty….”
“…….”
“I wanted to try doing something pretty for once in a while.”
The gentle voice saying, “Come back without getting hurt,” melted Yeo Dowoon’s stiffened heart.
***
When viewed from the outside, it was just a peaceful seaside landscape with no particular problems, but seeing pale purple hair floating about on seawater that should have been blue and pristine made him sigh already.
He’d wondered why even Kwon Jeonghoo had packed his training uniform and joined the operation, but it seemed several monsters called Sirens—who were said to enchant seafarers with heavenly beauty and voices—were guarding the gate with blazing eyes.
The subtly colored hair undulating near the water’s surface naturally drew attention.
“Are those all monsters too?”
Yoon Minoh, who had been clinging to Yeo Dowoon’s back like a leech, asked while watching the pale fingers beginning to beckon to him.
The gently swaying hair also had a beautiful and graceful color. “Ooh,” Yoon Minoh expressed his appreciation and was about to unconsciously take a step forward.
Thwack! Yeo Dowoon boldly struck the back of his head, grabbed his collapsing neck, and hid him behind himself, saying,
“If you want to get your throat ripped out by those bastards, keep spacing out. If you don’t, stay hidden here quietly.”
Yeo Dowoon recalled the positions each person had been assigned three minutes before the operation started and loosened his hands and feet.
As usual, he was in charge of breaking through the front and clearing the path, Ko Ijae and Baek Seonwoo were ordered to cover the right and left sides, and Cha Uihyeon was in charge of rear protection.
“Right. My role was to hug hyung and cheer him on, wasn’t it?”
“No. Shut your mouth and follow along.”
“Wow… These people are totally ignoring me, seriously?”
Yoon Minoh, who had made a fuss, buried his face in Yeo Dowoon’s back with a poof.
Whether it was fabric softener or something else, his heart fluttered for no reason at the ticklish fragrance rising from Yeo Dowoon. Sniff, sniff—panting like a dog, Yoon Minoh asked slyly while smelling him.
“Hyung, do you happen to wear cologne?”
“Because of the clothes smell?”
“Yeah. I’m so fucking excited and aroused, haa…, I want to just bury my nose in hyung’s back and breathe until I die.”
At those words, Yeo Dowoon laughed heartily, his eyes crinkling.
Along with Kwon Jeonghoo’s low voice beginning to count down, he answered teasingly about the baggage right behind his back.
“Go tell the Captain the same thing. These are his clothes.”
“What?”
“Make sure to tell me his reaction too.”
KWAANG!
Then, Yoon Minoh watched in a daze as the tips of Yeo Dowoon’s hair turned white. To explain it properly, it wasn’t discoloration but a chemical reaction.
When abilities were wielded beyond usable capacity, such changes inevitably showed up in their appearance.
In Yeo Dowoon’s case, it was mainly his hair.
When handling glaciers, ice formed in places making it look like white hair, and when handling flames, small fires blazed from the tips, making it look like he had a red tail.
“Ah, I’m going crazy…….”
Yeo Dowoon gritted his teeth so hard they might be ground down as he endured the weight crushing his entire body.
His wrists and ankles convulsed ceaselessly, but the series of processes cooling the sea surface proceeded swiftly without a single buffer.
“Yoon Minoh!”
When he called out his name loudly, Yoon Minoh immediately rolled up his sleeves and locked coordinates. No matter how skilled Yeo Dowoon was, he absolutely couldn’t freeze the ocean surface alone.
The deep sea had no destination that could be called an end, and its scale was also at a level that couldn’t be grasped by mere human eyes.
So the first step of this operation wasn’t to freeze the entire ocean, but to trap all the Sirens—who were accustomed to luring people—below the surface. Yoon Minoh helped Yeo Dowoon gather the essential power so his abilities could be more concentrated.
<Keeeeessssss………!>
Ko Ijae handled the Sirens’ cries that dizzily colored their ears.
There were certainly sounds that couldn’t be blocked here and there, but since Kwon Jeonghoo’s mental resonance was protecting all team members, they could avoid losing their sanity.
The Sirens seemed disturbed by the sea surface freezing solid and jumped above the water.
Blood trickled from Yeo Dowoon’s eyes as he continuously created a glacier barrier to the visible range.
It was fortunate he’d received guiding before the operation started; otherwise, he would have definitely already gone berserk and been rampaging around. Yeo Dowoon smiled bitterly and said.
“Three came up, twelve are trapped. I couldn’t confirm the remaining one.”
-Your condition?
“They look lively, but if we aim for their gills, we should be able to handle them quickly without wasting energy.”
-Not them, your body’s condition.
Only then did Yeo Dowoon answer dryly.
“One step away from vomiting.”
The Sirens violently swung their blade-like tails as if determined to shatter the glacier no matter what.
Bang, kwang!
Each time they scraped against the ice surface, a roar loud enough to make their hearing go hazy echoed, so Ko Ijae had already become so preoccupied with stopping them that he showed a small opening.
“Fuck! Hey, Ko Ijae!”
Baek Seonwoo, who had been approaching the Sirens and watching for an opportunity, shouted loudly.
In that instant, Ko Ijae’s concentration wavered, causing him to face the Sirens’ voices directly. His exposed mind couldn’t even attempt the slightest resistance and was conquered in a single blow.
“Aaaaah!”
Sirens don’t sing like the beautiful monsters that appear in legends. They corroded and destroyed humans with terrible screams resembling the smell of blood.
Baek Seonwoo, who had been wailing, rushed into the Sirens’ embrace as if seeking a savior, so Yeo Dowoon had no choice but to stop the work of firmly covering the cracking glacier barrier and hurriedly extend his foot.
“Seonwoo hyung!”
This won’t do. Sirens were cannibalistic monsters whose staple food was human vitality and bodily fluids.
So if he was dragged into the sea while they were in such an excited state, he would undoubtedly meet such a miserable death that not even his corpse could be shown to his family.
Kugugugung—a long crack formed in the middle of the ice sheet, but Yeo Dowoon only desperately tried to catch him.
At least Yoon Minoh was suppressing the cracks with his own strength, so the ice they’d managed to create didn’t shatter in all directions.
“Just let me catch you!”
But Baek Seonwoo’s speed wasn’t at a level Yeo Dowoon could catch up to. Perhaps the Sirens’ cries were stimulating every part of his nerves, inducing him to produce maximum speed.
“Seonwoo hyung, please……!”
It was truly a crossroads of dilemma.
If he extended ice tendrils to snatch him, the glacier barrier they’d painstakingly created would be finished, and if he gave up on him and concentrated on the glacier, it would be no different from pushing a colleague he’d lived with for 10 years into mortal danger.
“No, no…, no!”
Ko Ijae seemed consumed by guilt for endangering his colleague with his own mistake, and thud—dropped his hands. His eyelids convulsed seamlessly, and the blood vessels in his forehead bulged in ugly shapes.
Covering his face with his palms, he trembled and fell to his knees. Drip, drip. Tears mixed with blood pierced through his fingers and wet the ground.
Signs of going berserk.
Kwon Jeonghoo sent a message to calm down, but there was no way he could hear it.
When Ko Ijae, who had been protecting all of Delta from the Sirens’ temptation, turned off his ability, even Yoon Minoh began groaning while covering his ears.
The Sirens cried and enticed them as if elated.
Despair. Give up. Come to me. Come into my embrace and forget your pain!
-……You absolutely disobedient bastards.
At that moment, snap—Kwon Jeonghoo’s mental resonance cut off. And what followed was a tearful silence.
