- Quadruple Chain Collision
Breaking and entering is a serious crime specified in Articles 319 through 321 of the Korean Criminal Code. In other words, Yoon Minoh was essentially committing a crime for which he would have no excuse if caught in the act.
“Get out, you crazy bastard.”
Yeo Dowoon discovered the large figure sprawled out on his floor after barging into his home and immediately hurled abuse at him.
He had been curious about why Cha Haseong had come to the hospital first thing in the morning, and had even entertained the happy suspicion that perhaps he’d come to see him, but damn it. He’d been completely wrong.
It was all because of that dog-like bastard.
“Why is there so little furniture in your place? You even got a piano.”
With that crazy bastard acting like he owned the place and squatting there, Cha Haseong must have had no choice but to leave the house. His mental fatigue probably increased the more he had to deal with him.
“It’s nice that it’s spacious, but it’s so desolate it’s kind of scary?”
“Desolate my ass, just get lost.”
“How about getting a sofa and a beam projector? The walls are white so it’d be perfect.”
Kwon Jeonghoo had fled starting from the first floor.
He’d dumped all his belongings on Yeo Dowoon and escaped saying he was going to smoke. The cunning bastard. He must have made up any excuse because he didn’t want to deal with Yoon Minoh outside of the base.
Cha Haseong, of course, had headed straight to the room as soon as he arrived.
“How do you live with someone like that? He looks fucking sensitive too.”
Yoon Minoh clicked his tongue while staring at the door Cha Haseong had entered. Yeo Dowoon felt the urge to rip out that insolent bastard’s tongue and cut it in two.
“Don’t you have a home?”
He asked with a scowl, having noticed that Yoon Minoh was wearing his stolen tracksuit. It was clothes he’d quite liked the feel of, but it seemed like it was time to throw them away.
When Yoon Minoh noticed him glaring disapprovingly at his attire, he grinned and lifted his top.
“I’m not wearing anything underneath, you know.”
“…Hey, I’ll give you that, so hurry up and go to your own house. Okay?”
Yeo Dowoon suggested while pretending not to see Yoon Minoh’s abs, which were prominently divided into eight large segments.
Whether he burned it at an incinerator or treasured it dearly, that was his decision to make—he just wished he would get out of his space. He didn’t want to waste his precious stamina on the likes of Yoon Minoh anymore.
“I’ll give you my car too. Please just get lost.”
As he got older, dealing with kids who acted up at all hours was really exhausting.
For example, whenever he went out without a mask or hat, he would get completely drained by underage fans. Separate from finding them cute, his body reacted with such fatigue.
“…Ah!”
The car key Yeo Dowoon threw struck Yoon Minoh’s bridge of the nose and fell. Yoon Minoh rubbed his reddened nose and forced himself to whimper. When he sniffled with a whine, Yeo Dowoon asked indifferently.
“Want me to give you a card too?”
“That’s too much… It hurts.”
“I’m giving you clothes, a car, and offering a card—what’s too much about that?”
“Because there’s something else I want to receive, but you’re just showing off.”
Yoon Minoh grumbled and kicked away the car key. Even though it was an unparalleled model that anyone might have dreamed of as their dream car, he seemed completely unmoved.
With his abdomen still fully exposed, Yoon Minoh let out a suggestive voice.
“I want hyung to touch me and wet me. That’s all I want.”
Since he never deviated from expectations, Yeo Dowoon had no choice but to reach a state of enlightenment.
Maybe he should have brought those erotic manga that Baek Seonwoo had picked out as gifts instead of throwing them away. He could have scolded him to take comfort in those and settle his damned sexual desires.
Yeo Dowoon wanted to hear a sensible answer as to how a twenty-year-old brat could have such excessive sexual desire and cling to a guy like him.
“Are you doing this because you want to torment me?”
Actually, he himself was also in a position to be treated like a fool for being infatuated with a man, but Yoon Minoh courted him in a far more vulgar and crude manner.
“Because I’m the one who nailed you to the base when you were living freely as an unregistered?”
Yeo Dowoon felt a flash of fear whenever he looked at his manic face. It was no different from the appearance of a monster. At this utterly serious question, Yoon Minoh glanced sideways.
Yeo Dowoon hoped he would receive an answer he could understand.
“Nailed down? I’ve never been nailed anywhere.”
But he’d misjudged. Yoon Minoh was vulgar, crude, and even extreme.
“I’m fine with the opposite position though—wanna show me?”
So it was impossible to even assume they could have a sensible conversation from the start.
If you wanted to compete using concepts like courtesy or dignity that were typically rooted in society, you’d be better off finding someone other than him.
The corners of his mouth curving up even more delivered a sense of defeat.
“Someone said that clothes that are easy to strip off are the sexiest clothes in the world.”
Perhaps because the tracksuit pants were gray, Yoon Minoh’s bulging crotch looked even more prominent.
“Am I wearing underwear or not?”
He teased Yeo Dowoon while armed with a harmless smile that suited his age.
“How about hyung checks for himself?”
Seeing that he wasn’t scared even though he’d been knocked unconscious by ice several times, his heart must have been an iron fortress. Yeo Dowoon ignored him while selecting a location to drop a glacier.
Then Yoon Minoh flicked the elastic band of his pants once and murmured.
“You said you pitied me once.”
The glacier mass that had been forming right above Yoon Minoh’s crown stopped, scattering ice fragments with a soft sound. Yoon Minoh flinched at the ice-cold pieces touching his cheek and continued.
“So I came to someone who looks at me with pity.”
As he rubbed his cheek, he looked embarrassed. He seemed to be hesitating, but Yeo Dowoon thought Yoon Minoh might be playing another trick and shaped the glacier again.
“I just didn’t want to be left alone in the dormitory. I went to the training center too, but it was empty.”
But he stopped again. Since it was a long-awaited extended vacation after so long, not just the training center but the entire base must have been as desolate as an empty shell.
How parched they must have been from being exploited indefinitely all this time.
The Esper Operations Base, which belonged to a special management bureau under the government, didn’t follow nationally designated holidays, so the occasional vacations felt more precious than life itself.
“Can’t I stay here just during the vacation?”
Of course, this was an emotion that didn’t apply to Yeo Dowoon. He had nowhere to go and nowhere to stay. Rather, what Yeo Dowoon could empathize with was the situation Yoon Minoh had sincerely explained.
“…Your family home.”
When Yeo Dowoon asked in three syllables, Yoon Minoh also finished with three syllables while smiling broadly.
“Don’t have one.”
“…”
“That sort of thing.”
***
It wasn’t that he’d shown meaningless goodwill because Yoon Minoh’s circumstances were pitiful or pathetic. His heart didn’t ache, nor did he feel sympathy.
‘Do you have one, hyung? That sort of thing.’
He’d simply been at a loss for words and said whatever came to mind.
‘The room at the end of the hallway is empty, so move your stuff there.’
‘…Oh?’
‘Don’t make a mess.’
Illegal miners could generally be classified into two types.
First, the guild ‘Demeter,’ where Espers of unknown identity gathered to create a settlement that wasn’t really a settlement.
He’d heard that the head figure who first created the guild was a matter-type who manipulated earth, so there was a high probability they’d adopted the guild name as a word symbolizing him.
Yeo Dowoon was also an unregistered Esper belonging to Demeter.
Additionally, when it came to a guild of comparable influence to Demeter, one couldn’t leave out ‘Tartaros.’
This guild, which gave the impression of having struggled to choose an impressive-sounding name despite being miners who survived through illegal activities, had a mystical image as there was almost nothing publicly known about it.
“He must belong to some guild for sure…”
While unregistered Espers without guilds did exist rarely, looking at Yoon Minoh’s ability utilization, he couldn’t shake the premonition that he was an illegal miner who had completed advanced training.
Lying on the bed in his room and staring at the ceiling, Yeo Dowoon leisurely ruminated on the rumors about Tartaros he’d picked up during his miner days.
“Illusion.”
It wouldn’t be easy to explain Tartaros without setting aside this simple word. Among Demeter’s miners, many held skeptical views about the very existence of Tartaros.
‘It’s like a legend. How many guilds form quickly then disappear? Those disbanded ones are just pulling tricks because they’re jealous of us. They don’t want to admit that we’re the only real guild.’
This was the claim left behind by an Esper whose upper body was torn off and eaten by a monster while conquering a mountain dungeon. Yeo Dowoon felt nauseated at the fact that even that person’s face was gradually becoming hazy in his memory.
