# Chapter 111
Looking back, Taesung was also kind. Capable and gentle. He approached first, started conversations, and stayed by Lee Hwan’s side. Up to this point, he didn’t seem much different from the café owner.
If there was one difference to point out, it would be that on the day they first met, the light coming through the window looked just like a halo behind him. How perfectly it matched his flowing black hair.
When Taesung held and grasped his hand for a handshake while smiling, Lee Hwan felt as if some of all the hardships he had endured until then were washed away.
‘We’re the same age, and our abilities match well. We should be friends.’
And like a lie, he really became a friend. The kind of person who had never existed before and never would again.
Yes, the café owner was certainly a kind and friendly person too. But his gaze was slightly different from Taesung’s. It was a very subtle difference, but Lee Hwan could clearly feel it. After all, before the regression, he was the only one who knew Taesung best.
When they spent weekends entangled on the sofa, Lee Hwan would sometimes just roll his eyes to examine Taesung’s face. He would often be looking at Lee Hwan instead of the TV. His smiling, slightly narrowed eyes seemed to approach like a scent, a touch, a sound.
And those warm fingers that playfully touched his forehead or cheeks whenever he lay with his head on Taesung’s lap. Each time, even while pretending to be awkward and turning away to push his hand aside, Lee Hwan always felt his insides sweetening as if he had swallowed a handful of sugar.
If he could lick and taste him, it would surely be deep and rich like chocolate, yet also tangy like fruit.
Taesung was the single strawberry placed on top of a cake. Lee Hwan savored his memories with him. Like someone who always postpones and saves their favorite food for last, he quietly held his breath and waited. Human relationships were truly mysterious—sometimes the deeper they got, the more they could become strained.
Lee Hwan was satisfied enough just smelling the aroma while nibbling away at the sweet, moist cake around it. So he knew better. That this man before him was different from Taesung. That he could not replace Taesung.
“Um… and from next week, I might not be able to come often because I’ll be busy.”
“That’s a shame. You seem to be always busy these days.”
“Work life is just like that. It was quite difficult to get this job, but now I’m thinking about quitting.”
“It’s natural to want to rest when things get tough. Even if it’s a big company, people should come first.”
Lee Hwan, who had been rambling carelessly, paused. He flinched so momentarily and then slouched again as if nothing had happened that the owner didn’t seem to notice his strange reaction.
“…Haha.”
Lee Hwan didn’t attach any additional words. He just laughed briefly. At the same time, an ominous feeling scratched across his brain and surged into his mind.
Somehow his eyes were different from Kang Taesung’s.
All this time, he had pretended to be trapped in a hellish small company being worked to death, but he had never given any indication that he worked at Naru. Although he had rambled on unnecessarily, he hadn’t leaked any information. How did he know?
Lee Hwan slightly clenched his fist. This could just be hypersensitivity. Lately, he had experienced so many things that he had developed a habit of suspecting everything first. But even such thoughts couldn’t calm the suspicion that had once arisen.
‘If I’m wrong, I’ll be sorry… but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.’
One should always assume the worst so that when moderate misfortune strikes, one doesn’t become too discouraged. Like someone who always prepares an escape route, Lee Hwan began to consider various scenarios in his mind without changing his expression.
…If the worst he imagined was true, it meant the café owner had been compromised by someone.
No one would have created such an elaborate café just to catch him alone. Then they must have somehow pressured this civilian.
‘Everyone at work does dislike me… but they don’t seem to have the slightest idea that I’m an Awakened.’
So perhaps strange rumors were circulating about him being an illegitimate child or a mistress.
It was probably the doing of someone who knew his identity behind the mask. But it wasn’t Kang Dongha. If it were him, he would have directly pressed about the Health Promotion Association or gates and annoyingly asked what he wanted to know.
If only it had been him.
‘…I really need to run away.’
Such thoughts crossed his mind without any change in expression. Thinking about what kind of madman would know his identity and plant an informant like this made him feel strangely calm, beyond worry, shock, and fear.
‘Even though it’s just a hypothesis after all…’
He tried to soothe his sinking feelings and deliberately calmed his churning insides, but once his heart had sunk, it couldn’t rise again. Only gentle piano music reached his dazed ears. As if such terrifying imaginations were all false.
The world that couldn’t imagine what was about to happen just looked peaceful. While the owner left with the plate, Lee Hwan blankly looked out the window and counted the days inside.
Two weeks and a few more days. To be safe, about 15 days. After this weekend, one-third of that not-so-long period would be gone.
Was it too late now to wonder how he suddenly ended up trying to save the world? Sometimes even such thoughts were a luxury, so Lee Hwan tried to avoid self-pity as much as possible.
Somehow it would work out. The skill, the world, Taesung, himself. While reciting this internally, Lee Hwan wiped his mouth with a napkin.
* * *
D-10. On his way home from work, Lee Hwan bought a small ice box. Choosing one that could be carried around for as long as possible, the small one had a somewhat evil price.
Putting dry ice and the drug in here would be much better than leaving it at room temperature. According to Praxis’s explanation, it was quite a stable drug, and if kept below 2°C, it wouldn’t deteriorate much.
Besides, even if it went slightly off, it wouldn’t be used on people anymore, so it should be fine.
‘Do your jokes have to be that brutal, really…’
Grumbling, he opened the freezer to find several frozen drugs placed side by side with ice cream.
Lee Hwan took out a chocolate ice cream and nibbled it, letting it melt while quietly pondering what to do next.
First, he had to let Jade know about this. No matter how randomly he had taken it, the fact that Jade’s drug was among them remained unchanged.
Moreover, since pictures were taken of him bleeding while with Jade, they might get implicated if unlucky. He intended to at least tip him off about his own disappearance before the investigation began.
There was no need to meet in person to explain; a simple phone call anytime would do. However, Lee Hwan had been putting off this task for several days now.
‘I’ll probably get an earful…’
Actually, I took the drug without a plan, so now I’m being hunted. I’m going to run now, so be careful too!
No matter how much he sugar-coated it, he felt like he’d get a severe scolding at his age. Besides, what if by some mistake, he ended up getting the drug back?
Though he would still leave, he didn’t want to burden Jade with having to agonize over a life.
It was something he had done willingly. He should be the one to face the consequences.
‘And then there’s Kang Dongha…’
Honestly, even if Lee Hwan fled and Dongha suffered damage, it would still be better than before the regression. If things went properly, there would be no monster wave or destruction, so he wouldn’t lose his life, and even if he was more severely ignored by Kang Dongying and his group, it would be better than being completely abandoned and used as cannon fodder.
He would probably be trembling with betrayal in his own way. Lee Hwan decided to find him separately and try to calm him down after successfully evading this situation. If possible.
‘Then what remains… is Kang Taesung?’
The person who should have been the first to come to mind emerged last. It was quite an intentional avoidance. Lee Hwan’s lips twitched unconsciously.
Having carried him in his heart for half a year. During that time, Lee Hwan had been angry at him, felt hurt, afraid, annoyed, missed him… and now felt awkward. Not just because of the days they had been apart, but because whenever he thought of him, something kept catching in his chest, making him feel uneasy.
Every time he thought of Taesung, his insides kept stinging as if he had inhaled toxic mist from a gate. When he heard stories related to him, his speech would stop and his mouth would clamp shut as if there was an issue with his language center.
Sometimes his face would grow hot. At times, he had to press his heart area slightly and control his breath. It had become even more so after hearing Jade’s story. As if asking whether he was deliberately pretending not to know, Jade’s words kept poking at the inside of his ribcage, forcing Lee Hwan to confront the emotions he had been avoiding.
Click. Whirr-.
As he raised the blinds that he had lowered in the morning, he could see people walking busily outside the window. Lee Hwan sat blankly by the window as if watching an aquarium and bit into his ice cream.
Vrooom, the sound of a motorcycle passing by came from afar. The scenery of this daytime was so leisurely that he felt like crying.
Lee Hwan had been disconnected from this happy world all along. The past he had longed for remained the same, but he himself had changed too much.
After realizing he had no time, he had always been running here and there. Even while lying down to rest, his head was spinning painfully. Now, with this time given to him just before the final resolution, he was about to sort out even the emotions he had forcibly set aside.
The sweetness of the ice cream melting stickily gradually lifted his sinking mood. The deep taste, sweet and bitter, penetrating to the root of his tongue.
Lee Hwan stroked the nape of his neck with his chilled hand. The sensation of skin touching skin was unexpectedly comfortable and stable.
Well… there are all kinds of affection in the world. So diverse and varied that they can’t be precisely defined, but some affection goes beyond ordinary bonds to be engraved in the soul.
By now, Lee Hwan also knew that the emotion he felt didn’t exactly match conventional friendship. But what hit him more clearly was the obvious fact that deeper emotions leave bigger scars.
‘…The days are getting shorter now.’
Lee Hwan had experienced the terror of losing loved ones when he lost his family. Though he could now recall the past without major stress, the sense of loss he had experienced then was not at all light.
So he knew that if such a relationship formed in his life again, he would fret about protecting it and feel anxious every day.
Especially if that person was someone who could shake him to his core just by existing.
Ting!
The ice cream stick, left after eating, hit the stainless steel trash can, making a clear sound. It was as if it whispered that things in life wouldn’t go his way.
Lee Hwan slowly exhaled and thought of Taesung. He recalled Taesung’s sudden behavior after the day he got the gravity skill stone, when Lee Hwan was choked by him and ran away.
Judging from Jade’s words, Taesung had probably been sticking his head into strange gatherings to try to save him. Now that he had obtained the drug, Taesung no longer needed to frequent suspicious places.
If Lee Hwan finished this matter properly, the causality work that had reached its final stages would be easily completed, and Taesung would find his memories.
Then he could live the life he had wanted in a peaceful world with the Taesung he had retrieved.
A safe and happy life given as a reward. Perhaps then he could truly be honest about the feelings he had. Lee Hwan felt a tingling sensation running down his spine as he repeatedly recalled Taesung’s face.
When that time comes, yes. When that time comes.
Lee Hwan somehow felt like a train rushing toward the final station. Even though his life afterward would be longer, for some reason, he felt that way.
