# Chapter 125
“What is it?”
This time, the answer came quickly. Lee Hwan stirred his stew, found a piece of meat, chewed it slowly until it dissolved, swallowed, and then continued speaking.
“Do you know about your fan site?”
“……”
He probably does. Looking at the gruff face that seemed to say as much, Lee Hwan corrected his question.
“No, um. Do you know that all your fan sites have collapsed, and only one remains in the shadows?”
A look returned that suggested he couldn’t possibly know such a thing. At the same time, his eyebrow twitched as if to ask how Lee Hwan knew that.
This time, Lee Hwan ignored his expression and continued speaking while stabbing and massacring a softened carrot with his spoon.
“The people there, they know more about you than you might expect. Which neighborhood you live in, what clothes you often wear, which gates you patrol as a vanguard and in which seasons…”
“…What?”
Taesung had breezed past the mentions of his neighborhood and clothes, but when Lee Hwan mentioned the gates, he narrowed his brows. Seeing the unpleasant light frost over his black eyes, Lee Hwan realized Taesung was recalling the stalker incident he’d experienced at the beginning of the year.
“It’s not a site full of crazy people, but those stalkers probably did come from there. They know you very well, those people.”
After finishing his sentence and swallowing the mushy carrot, he saw Taesung staring at him intently with his arm paused, as if asking him to say more.
“I saw posts about you escaping from the Ulsan area too…”
Lee Hwan stirred his spoon around as he mentally selected what to say next.
“They seem to use strange nicknames that don’t come up easily in searches. Though it doesn’t appear to be a security-processed secret site.”
“…So?”
“I suddenly had this thought.”
“What thought?”
“What if we write a few posts to blur our trail and expose them?”
Taesung had set down his utensils at some point and was lost in thought. Nevertheless, Lee Hwan judged that he was still listening to everything and continued speaking.
“If we write too many posts from one account, we’ll definitely get caught. Those users track you with incredible detail. Like they’re being paid to do it.”
“Are you suggesting we create multiple accounts?”
“Wouldn’t that be obvious? If people you’ve never seen before suddenly all start talking about related topics. Besides, our location would be tracked, so we can’t write posts carelessly.”
“Then?”
“I think we need the site administrator’s help. If it’s to assist Kang Taesung, they would probably agree.”
Taesung sighed lowly and picked up his spoon again. He didn’t like the idea. An administrator of a site overrun with crazy fans.
Plus, he was probably worried about how to trust someone enough to reveal their situation to them.
“How do you plan to make the request? Sign up and contact them? Say, ‘Actually, I’m Kang Taesung, do as I say’?”
“You don’t need to worry about that. I’m already registered, and I’ve already established some communication with the administrator.”
At that moment, there was a small clank from Taesung’s utensil. He looked at Lee Hwan with a slightly furrowed brow.
“……”
Somehow, Lee Hwan felt like he knew what Taesung was thinking. He shook his head with a disbelieving expression.
“No. That’s not it. I didn’t join because I’m your fan, so I’d appreciate if you didn’t misunderstand.”
“I never said such a thing.”
“Weren’t you making that face?”
Even with that remark, the creased forehead showed no signs of smoothing out. Lee Hwan tried to dispel the silence by stabbing and mashing another carrot, then abruptly blurted out the truth.
“I joined to track your whereabouts. Not because I like you.”
Then, realizing that he had just admitted to being Taesung’s current stalker, he tightly closed his eyes for a moment.
How should he smooth this over?
“I hadn’t heard from you for a while, so I just… ha… I think it’s better if I keep my mouth shut.”
Lee Hwan couldn’t even lift his gaze and continued mashing all of the carrots, then heard the clattering sound of Taesung resuming his meal in the suffocating silence.
Glancing at him, surprisingly, there was no sign of displeasure. Even the eyebrow that had briefly moved had returned to normal.
Is it just his imagination that Taesung’s face suddenly looked gentler than before? Lee Hwan slightly raised his head again and stirred the stew, which had become carrot porridge.
“So, what are you suggesting we do?”
Taesung’s voice came through like a lifeline, changing the subject. Lee Hwan grabbed onto it and hurriedly spoke.
“Um, ahem… It seems that the reason the site doesn’t come up easily in searches is because they slightly change all words related to you.”
“You mean they use something like a code?”
“It’s not quite a code, they just change a letter or two in the names. For specific words like ‘Naru,’ they sometimes just use the first letters.”
Lee Hwan debated whether to eat the carrot-covered stew, then scooped it up and swallowed it. Fortunately, a rich tomato flavor filled his mouth. If there was an advantage to canned food, it was that all ingredients inside tasted the same.
“Anyway, the point is to create fake trails and commotion by writing posts with words that would come up in web searches. Well, if Naru is already monitoring that site, it would be useless labor… but somehow we should be able to successfully spread false rumors on that side.”
And finally, after swallowing the last bite, suddenly another ladleful full of chunks was poured over his bowl.
Lee Hwan looked up at Taesung with a blank expression. He wasn’t sure whether to be dissatisfied that Taesung had arbitrarily filled his bowl, or to feel awkward gratitude that Taesung had taken care of his food.
“It would just be a light smokescreen… but better than nothing, I suppose.”
“We need to meet with Praxis safely.”
Lee Hwan nodded and glanced at the refrigerator. The drug frozen solid in there would stop the monster wave and protect Taesung’s and his future.
Well, he was worried about what would happen afterward, but if Taesung’s memory returned, he was confident he could endure any situation.
“I understand, but let’s finish eating first. We can talk about Praxis after that.”
Even without any warm conversation, the atmosphere felt a bit lighter than before.
* * *
The safe house might have been flashy in name, but as he first observed, it was just a regular house with good security and easy escape routes.
It had two floors but wasn’t very spacious, so the only place to gather and talk inside was the living room.
There was only one TV there too. So if they wanted to watch the news and talk, they had to sit apart on a three-seater sofa and glance at each other.
It wasn’t bad. When was the last time Lee Hwan had sat in a chair with him watching TV? Compared to the times when he only met him in dreams, this was tremendous progress.
Lee Hwan sat on the left armrest side, Taesung on the far right, as they talked with the Hunter-related channel turned on.
It seemed like this was almost the first proper conversation they’d had since the regression. Within a few dozen minutes, Lee Hwan briefly heard about what had happened until Taesung escaped to this place.
Kang Dongha’s threats when he went looking for him. The story of the executive who carried out the attack. The Awakened ones who endlessly pursued him, and Taesung’s explanation that he had faced their attacks three or four times.
Despite the voice lacking any particular emotion, Lee Hwan could fully understand his feelings. He could now understand why Taesung had avoided the political games of the Kang family before the regression.
Previously, he had foolishly thought Taesung just wasn’t interested in such things. He had assumed Taesung stayed away because he naturally disliked troublesome matters and had no desire for power.
In fact, only now did he vaguely see what kind of feelings Taesung must have had and what situation he must have been in during those years after losing Jade.
“A public phone would be good for contact. Praxis’s number shouldn’t have been exposed yet.”
“I was thinking the same. For email or video calls… my accounts have obviously been thoroughly investigated by now.”
He had just pressed ‘yes’ to everything whenever he bought a mobile device, never imagining it would become such a vivid tracking device.
Suddenly, he remembered Jade asking if he had ever been chased by people. It was as if Jade’s phantom was constantly clicking his tongue and hovering around.
“I’ll go make the phone call alone. You’d stand out too much.”
The moment that huge frame was caught on CCTV, Naru’s watchdogs would come running. It would be better to leave him at home.
Taesung seemed to agree with that to some extent, but he didn’t look comfortable, as if he had more to say.
“You don’t seem to realize that you stand out too.”
“Fortunately, I’m not excessively tall.”
“I’m not talking about your height…”
He started to object but then closed his mouth as if giving up, which slightly hurt Lee Hwan’s feelings. Lee Hwan tugged at his hair a little and muttered.
“If it’s about my hair color, I cover it well with a hat. Also, it’s a common color from dyeing, so it doesn’t really stand out…”
As for his eye color, what did it matter? It wouldn’t be visible if he pulled his hat down anyway.
As he slightly protruded his lips and grumbled internally, Taesung’s gaze lingered for a moment before falling away. It seemed he knew Lee Hwan was cursing him inside.
Feeling awkward, Lee Hwan fidgeted with his loose clothes and changed the subject.
“For meeting Praxis, would it be better to meet on a crowded street?”
The thought was that surely they wouldn’t do something to attract government attention where many eyes were watching. If several unregistered Awakened ones used their abilities on the street, downtown Busan would be turned upside down.
“That still wouldn’t be safe.”
Taesung answered slowly. Lee Hwan somehow felt that he was carefully examining his face.
“It’s a matter of life and death for Naru. They might try to stop it even if it means committing murder in front of civilians.”
Indeed, if Naru knew about the meeting with Praxis, they would try to stop it even if it meant being summoned to court a few times.
Or they might arrange an assassination by using a disposable person as the instigator.
Was it too sad to imagine Kang Dongha as that target?
“We’ll need escape routes without CCTV.”
“Like mountains.”
He had heard that Taesung had moved by traversing mountains. Well, unless mountain paths were a completely different world, Naru had probably already figured it out, but still, they hadn’t found a better direction yet.
“If things go wrong, I’ll lure them to the harbor.”
He meant he would pretend to escape abroad by boat. Despite it not being a bad method, Lee Hwan’s face suddenly crumpled. Somehow, it didn’t feel right.
‘This…’
Suddenly, an ominous sensation enveloped the back of his head. It was an instinctual warning he hadn’t felt in a long time.
– To be continued –
