“We’re making artificial blood. To be precise, we’re replicating a certain special blood exactly.”
“Special… blood.”
Song Hanyeong looked at Surim and was silent for a moment. It was a gaze as if seeing through him. When the nervous Surim swallowed his dry saliva, only then did the gaze move elsewhere.
“Would you like to see it for a moment?”
“Huh? Y-yes….”
Without even knowing what he was going to show him, Surim followed Song Hanyeong. Song Hanyeong led Surim toward the machine placed on the opposite side. The machine made of metal was covered on the outside with pitch-black film so the inside couldn’t be seen, but when Song Hanyeong touched the buttons on the machine’s side panel a few times, it became transparent like magic.
Surim’s eyes widened at the amazing technology he’d only seen on TV. When he looked inside the machine like that, he could see test tubes containing red liquid shaking at a constant speed.
That liquid was surely the artificial blood being replicated that Song Hanyeong had just mentioned. To the eye, it looked no different from real blood to the point where he couldn’t think of it as artificial.
“It’s a failure.”
“That is?”
“Yes. A failure that can’t even touch the toes of the real thing.”
Song Hanyeong’s eyes brushed past the area around Surim’s neck and touched his face.
“Why is a failure here…?”
“To more precisely confirm what points and how it differs from the real thing.”
“I see….”
Surim unconsciously placed his hand on the machine and stared intently at the liquid in the test tube.
“We’ve researched this blood for quite a long time but kept failing. We almost caught up to it all, but it wasn’t perfect. It’s just a little short, but that’s too big a difference.”
He thought he’d said it was a failure that couldn’t even touch the toes of the real thing just before. Surim thought this while obediently nodding his head.
“I hope you’ll be able to replicate it perfectly soon.”
“Do you really think that?”
“…Huh? Of course….”
Thinking it was a strange question, Surim looked up at Song Hanyeong and only then realized he had been staring at him intently. It was a face as if gauging something.
“Manager Song?”
“As I said earlier, there’s something I’d like Jin Surim-ssi to help with.”
“Tell me anything.”
So that’s why he’d been explaining the research content to him in such detail—this must have been the main point. Surim waited for Song Hanyeong’s words with a reliable face. He truly had the intention to grant anything he wished for.
“Please change your mind.”
At the A4 paper Song Hanyeong held out, Surim lost even the spirit from before and became dazed.
“No, why do you have this, Manager Song….”
As Surim mumbled on, his gaze suddenly caught the petri dishes stacked inside the transparent refrigerator. Not only that. The blood contained in blood packs, and the blood swaying and shaking in test tubes, and the blood going up and down long tubes back and forth between flasks—all of it swayed redly, redly in Surim’s vision.
The surroundings were completely full of blood. The moment he became conscious of that fact, a chilling sensation swept through his entire body. His body stiffened with tension. Some cool sensation similar to fear seeped into his lower back. The coldness seemed to grip his heart and slowly freeze his entire body.
When Surim finally turned his gaze to Song Hanyeong, he could tell that the other person was looking at him with an expression different from usual. It was a cold and chilly face as if facing an inanimate object.
“…The blood you were replicating… was my blood?”
“That’s right.”
The A4 paper was the contract termination request form Surim had handed to Nasol the day before. Only then did everything make sense. This was why Song Hanyeong’s reaction was strange on the day they first met.
‘What’s going on here?’
That had been a question asking how the sample provider was here.
All sorts of questions filled his mind. How could something like this happen? What were the odds that the company he joined through a professor’s recommendation was the place he’d had a blood donation contract with for years? Was it planned?
And above all, what he was most curious about.
‘Song Hanyeong knew about this contract too?’
Surim looked up at Song Hanyeong. As if he’d just been waiting for Surim’s confusion to fade, he opened his mouth as soon as their eyes met.
“Can you help?”
“That… but….”
“I’ll finish the research within six months. If we terminate the contract normally, there’s no need to pay a penalty fee.”
Surim, who had clenched his fists, opened and closed his mouth several times before barely speaking.
“I’ve never heard that you were replicating my blood.”
An inexplicable sense of rejection tightly gripped his heart. Thinking that all the red things packed around him were the results of failed attempts to replicate his blood gave him a chilling feeling.
He had made a contract. A contract to provide 200ml of blood twice each month, and in return receive medical services for his hyung and cash to use as living expenses. He’d thought he was receiving great compensation for what he was doing. He thought the most that could be done with blood was transfusion at best. He’d only thought that wanting a vegetarian’s blood specifically was because the person receiving the transfusion needed such things for their body.
To think they were trying to replicate blood like this….
It was the moment when Surim, whose legs gave out as he tried to hesitantly step back, grabbed the table to avoid falling.
The beaker placed on the table was pushed by Surim’s hand and fell to the floor. Glass shards scattered in all directions with a clanging sound. Surim was startled and crouched down to pick up the glass pieces.
“Ah!”
In the midst of the chaos, it was perhaps a natural progression that his outstretched hand got a long cut. Surim, who had cut his palm lengthwise on a glass shard, groaned and dropped the glass piece he’d just picked up to the floor. It was Song Hanyeong who stopped Surim’s hand from reflexively reaching out again.
“Stop. You’re hurt.”
“Ah….”
Song Hanyeong grabbed Surim’s wrist and pulled it up. The blood that had pooled in his palm flowed down along his wrist. Song Hanyeong’s expression hardened stiffly at the sight.
Surim reflexively made excuses.
“I just cut the skin a little.”
“I see.”
The corners of his mouth were twisted on his smiling face. Surim felt like he was being scolded for doing something terribly wrong and quickly lowered his eyes.
Song Hanyeong looked at Surim, who was shrinking and trembling, and sighed soundlessly. Song Hanyeong, who took out a handkerchief and pressed it firmly on Surim’s palm, lifted up Surim who was still crouching.
“Let’s treat it first.”
Without even listening to an answer, Song Hanyeong dragged Surim out of the laboratory. Song Hanyeong, who sat him in an empty seat in the lab, was about to turn around but stopped and firmly warned.
“Wait quietly.”
“Yes….”
“Don’t move.”
“Y-yes….”
He’s treating him like some kind of troublemaker. Surim answered with mumbles as a form of rebellion.
Song Hanyeong, who didn’t notice that rebellion at all, moved to the cabinet without hesitation. Song Hanyeong, who opened the door and placed his hand on the first aid kit, exhaled slowly.
Only then did Song Hanyeong realize he hadn’t been breathing properly. The smell of blood. It was because of that sweet smell of blood. Jin Surim’s blood was drawing out the teeth of the beast hiding inside Song Hanyeong.
Song Hanyeong slowly turned his head to look back at Jin Surim. Jin Surim, who had been grumbling about something, widened his eyes and smiled as soon as their eyes met. It was an attitude appealing innocence as if he hadn’t done anything.
Not knowing that smile stimulated Song Hanyeong even more.
Song Hanyeong licked the back of his teeth with his tongue. A fishy and sweet taste seemed to linger on the tip of his tongue.
‘Should I drink it?’
Like a carnivore pressing down on a small beast’s back and contemplating where to eat from first, Song Hanyeong scanned Jin Surim’s chin and neck and below that, hidden by clothes.
Song Hanyeong’s eyes flashed with a red light. It was when desire was casting a deep shadow over his face marred by conflict. Jin Surim tried to scratch his cheek with his injured hand and groaned, “Ah.” At the same time, the cabinet Song Hanyeong was gripping crumpled with a crack.
‘There will absolutely never be a time when I desire Jin Surim.’
At the same time, the words he himself had uttered flashed through his mind. Right, such a thing shouldn’t happen. Because that would be an extremely inefficient and illogical action.
Song Hanyeong clicked his tongue and took out the first aid kit from the cabinet and turned around. When he returned to Jin Surim, he was making a tearful face while looking at his painful palm.
He must have stupidly forgotten that he’d injured his right hand.
“Your hand.”
“Huh?”
“Give me your hand.”
“Ah, yes.”
Song Hanyeong, who took the blood-soaked hand, wiped away the blood with gauze and disinfected it with an alcohol swab. Fortunately, the blood had stopped to some degree, so it didn’t seem necessary to spray hemostatic agent.
“It looks like you won’t need stitches.”
“Yes. It’s nothing serious since I just cut the surface….”
“I suppose so.”
Why does it feel like he’s being sarcastic? He’s not that kind of person. Surim shrank for no reason and watched Song Hanyeong’s mood. Only after he properly attached a wide foam dressing band over the wound did he sigh lowly.
“…Are you okay now?”
“That’s what I should be saying.”
Song Hanyeong replied coldly. Surim couldn’t say anything and watched Song Hanyeong’s mood. It was still cold, but his expression had softened a bit compared to before. Surim somehow felt a little proud. It felt like his opinion that Song Hanyeong was a really good person had been proven. A man who worried this much just because a person got a little hurt couldn’t not be a good person.
