# Chapter 63
From that point on, there was a period where he couldn’t tell whether he properly heard anything about the task force or if it all went in one ear and out the other. In the midst of it all, Lee Hwan was vaguely impressed by his own mental fortitude for remaining standing.
‘Humans really don’t die easily…’
Through the annoying ringing in his ears, the presentation he managed to pick up kept shaking his mind. While the mechanism of Gates’ appearance and filling had not been properly explained yet, recent research suggested a perspective viewing it as a type of immune response.
Gates that had been opened by humans and “cleaned” for a long time occasionally showed mutations, which could be interpreted from an immunological perspective, was the conclusion.
However, Lee Hwan couldn’t grasp the flow of the conversation beyond that. He was having trouble focusing on the detailed explanations, and above all, regardless of what he was curious about, it wasn’t really that important.
What truly mattered was what these people were plotting to do under that pretext.
‘But they’re not… talking about that…’
As time passed, his senses grew increasingly blurry. His fingertips and lips felt numb, with occasional tingling sensations. Would he be able to hold out until the end of the meeting?
Lee Hwan pressed his fingernail hard against the back of his hand to check. It definitely hurt, but the pain approached dully, as if being felt from another dimension.
He had been seriously injured once during his advance team days before the regression, and this feeling was remarkably similar to what he’d experienced then. The explanation he’d heard at the time was that it was due to a temporary excess secretion of endorphins…
‘…’
How far had his thoughts gone? Suddenly, his vision seemed to plummet to the floor, and he felt a jolt of awareness. Lee Hwan realized his legs had gone weak and corrected his posture with shaky lower limbs.
His heart pounded. He had nearly collapsed with a loud noise. Only then did a genuine sense of crisis wash over him, and he began to worry about losing consciousness like before.
He hadn’t realized his physical condition had deteriorated this much. This was a mistake, if it could be called that. In battle, one should always objectively assess their physical condition and allocate energy well to avoid exhaustion…
No. What was the use of thinking like this now?
‘…This won’t work.’
At this rate, he was going to collapse badly right here. With even worse luck, he might actually faint. Becoming the weird guard who not only missed the conversation but left the meeting room in the middle, abandoning his employer, and then fainting in front of Kang Dongha and Taesung—it was obvious which scenario would be more serious without even having to think about it.
“Haah…”
Eventually, Lee Hwan moved his feet while suppressing a groan. As the strange mask standing at the back suddenly moved, everyone’s eyes turned toward him.
Lee Hwan steadfastly headed for the door, hoping they would think he was leaving due to an urgent need for the bathroom. Or that he was simply going to wait for Kang Dongha outside.
Clack. As the sound of the door closing echoed behind him, Lee Hwan felt like the pain he had been holding back came pouring out. His vision was already swimming, even though he hadn’t even left the building yet.
‘Quickly… I should go back to that bathroom from earlier.’
There weren’t many people, and it was a good distance from here.
But Lee Hwan no longer had the energy to go to another building. Even now, his body hurt so much he just wanted to crawl. Yet hiding somewhere here wasn’t ideal either, as this was the basement level 1 where the elevator to the secret research institute was hidden. There was no need to wander around and attract attention.
The place with the fewest people here would probably be the stairs leading to the ground level. It was always empty except during commuting hours or lunchtime. If he was just staying there briefly until the meeting ended, that wouldn’t be too bad.
With significantly lowered expectations, Lee Hwan hurriedly crossed the corridor with staggering steps. His vision gradually became distant, and at some point, it felt as if he were walking through a 1920s black and white cartoon movie.
Static buzzed in his ears, and his surroundings gradually darkened. Lee Hwan gasped, opened the door, barely climbed the stairs, and slumped down against the wall.
‘I’m dying…’
Truly dying. He didn’t even dare to roll up his clothes to check. Since he’d left his bag in the cleaning cubicle of the bathroom, there was nothing more he could do even if he was bleeding.
Still, just a little. If he just sat and rested a little while, his condition might improve somewhat. Lee Hwan blinked his heavy eyelids and slowly pulled his phone from his pocket.
’10 minutes… Would that be enough time?’
Lee Hwan set an alarm and then slowly slid down to the floor. If he lost consciousness again, the alarm would wake him this time.
With some relief, his body relaxed, and Lee Hwan’s consciousness sank into darkness.
Click, thud!
Through muffled ears, he heard a familiar door sound. Neat footsteps were climbing the stairs one by one. Until those sounds approached right beside him, Lee Hwan could hardly open his eyes. He just drifted in a hazy consciousness, unsure whether he was asleep or awake.
Then a cool sensation ran up his spine, and he suddenly became alert. It was like the instinct of a wild animal facing imminent danger.
“Ugh, haah…”
As he struggled to hold up his drooping head and raise his gaze, he saw a straight, long pair of legs standing before him where there should have been emptiness. A length that seemed endless no matter how far he looked up. And…
‘…Kang Taesung.’
Above those legs, Taesung’s shadowed face was looking down at Lee Hwan.
Was this a dream? It felt too cold and painful to be a dream. If he was actually awake, he should run away immediately.
“Ugh!”
Startled even in his confused state, Lee Hwan tried to get up but instead let out a short cry and slumped back down. His head rang and swayed. How much time had passed? He’d thought he would feel better after resting briefly, but his body was even less cooperative now.
Tears welled in his eyes at the resurfacing pain. Lee Hwan blankly raised his head to look up again, then made a strained sound as his eyelids fluttered.
At that sound, Taesung suddenly bent his legs, lowered his body, and faced Lee Hwan. Perhaps it was the dizziness, but his deep eyes seemed to swirl somehow.
‘Is the meeting… already over?’
No. Lee Hwan quietly denied it. If the meeting had ended, others would have rushed out and found him first. But there was still no presence other than Taesung’s, neither outside nor inside the room.
That meant Taesung had, for whatever reason, left in the middle of the meeting and found him in the stairwell.
Beep-beep, beep-beep.
Just then, the tactless alarm went off on his wrist, sounding like a warning. Taesung picked up Lee Hwan’s limp arm, rolled up his sleeve, discovered the watch, and made an unreadable expression.
Lee Hwan gasped, shook off his hand, and fumbled to pull his sleeve back down to cover his wrist. His settled heart began to race anxiously again. To be alone with this guy again. Honestly, he’d expected it would be Kang Dongha who found him like this.
So he couldn’t understand. Why had he left the meeting room in the middle and come here? He might have been planning to return partway, but Lee Hwan’s instinct whispered that he had followed him out.
This person, the Taesung of the past—what could he be thinking?
His vision blurred again. As Lee Hwan slumped and slid down the wall he was leaning against, Taesung quickly reached out to hold his body.
“Kugh…!”
When Lee Hwan opened his eyes wide in pain, Taesung’s eyebrows twitched. As if noticing something, the hand that had been holding his arm a moment ago now moved down to grab the hem of his clothes. With a rustling sound, Lee Hwan’s top was pulled up.
“…”
Seen through his increasingly blurred vision, his upper body was truly a miserable sight. Fortunately, as he’d checked earlier, there didn’t seem to be any fractures, but there was a large bruise around his ribs, and the patch he’d firmly applied to the wound was somehow soaked with blood again.
And Taesung had seen it.
“Haah… haah…”
The pain that had subsided while he slept came flooding back. Tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes. Lee Hwan shook his head from side to side as if to say ‘get away,’ but when he felt Taesung’s hand touch the patch, he let out the groan he’d been holding back.
“Is this the wound from that Gate that time?”
Though he was clearly asking, his tone suggested he already knew the answer. Lee Hwan didn’t respond at all and tried to remove Taesung’s hand that had lifted his clothes.
“Let… go.”
But instead his own hand was firmly grabbed, leaving him unable to move at all. A mouse trapped in a cage with no escape. Lee Hwan, feeling his vision gradually blur, sensed with despair that he would soon lose consciousness.
Fainting in enemy territory, and in front of Taesung who was eagerly eyeing his mask? What would happen then?
“Don’t… touch.”
It was a futile request. Would he wake up in handcuffs being transported somewhere?
Finally, after those words, Lee Hwan’s spine lost all strength, and he slumped against Taesung.
Reality gradually mixing with dreams.
In the midst of his rapidly fading senses, Lee Hwan heard the clatter of his mask falling off. Cool air brushed against his face wet with sweat and tears, and as he heard the heartbeat of the body he was leaning against, his vision went dark.
* * *
Intermittently, he felt the sting of bright lights hitting his eyes and dull hands touching his body. The sounds around him would come close for a moment, then fade away again, and he seemed to hear murmuring voices.
“Stem fragments… growth inside… inflammatory response…”
“How long… time…”
“Unusual case… just bad luck… fortunate to be an Awakened…”
“…just proceed here. I’ll prepare all the… needed.”
“…seems it was a shallow wound and didn’t show because no organs were damaged. If only we’d taken an X-ray once…”
After rolling these momentarily clear sounds through his mind, his consciousness sank again. Lee Hwan slowly, very slowly, descended into deep, black water.
