# Chapter 80
## You with the Apple Scent
In the end, I did eat all the yogurt. Only after devouring several energy bars I’d mindlessly bought from a home shopping channel did I feel like moving.
Perhaps I felt at ease after satisfying both my desire to sleep and my appetite. While cleaning up and washing myself again, memories of what happened in the gate kept floating back.
Kang Taesung falling with me as he tried to catch me. Kang Taesung unconscious and bleeding. The warm jacket that seemed as if he had deliberately heated it before covering me with it.
A tickling sensation rose from deep inside. When I recalled bringing my face right up to his to save him, I couldn’t help but turn the shower to the coldest temperature.
“Ngh… ngh…”
Suppressing a scream, groans leaked out. Whether from embarrassment or guilt, Lee Hwan felt like he was half-meditating under the cold water.
Leaving the bathroom, it was Sunday evening. The weekend had quickly disappeared while we were stranded in the gate. Lee Hwan looked at the time with a blank expression and bit his lip firmly. More than the fact that tomorrow was a workday, his head was still filled with memories of being stranded.
After the embarrassment that left him not knowing where to put himself subsided, disappointment and resentment flooded in. It was directed at no one but himself.
Losing in fights, shivering from the cold, stealing his jacket to wear. He must have looked quite pathetic in Kang Taesung’s eyes. Of course, he knew that the environment at that time had been unfavorable to him. Nevertheless, Lee Hwan was quite displeased at the thought of showing such an unsightly appearance in front of him.
Moreover, how much help had I been down there? I had been living with too much arrogance. Lee Hwan quietly clenched his fist.
Neither the apocalypse nor Taesung would wait for his circumstances. If he wasn’t always prepared, a situation even more terrible than before his regression might unfold. Especially in this life, where he had disturbed so many things.
So regardless of the circumstances of being stranded, the only conclusion was that he hadn’t been good enough. Right now, the most important things for him were survival and preventing the apocalypse. He couldn’t continue with the sensibilities of an ordinary office worker forever. Especially if he wanted to settle down and live in this world.
Without further thought, Lee Hwan put on his clothes. Water dripped from his wet hair, soaking his nape, but it didn’t feel particularly unpleasant or uncomfortable.
‘This won’t do. I need to improve.’
Lee Hwan grabbed his water bottle and phone one after another, and like someone possessed, he walked out the door and ran up the hill behind his house.
The hill, deserted as the sun set, was utterly silent. As usual, Lee Hwan headed far off the hiking trail to an empty space without people and slowly stretched his aching limbs.
Under the night sky where barely one or two satellites could be seen, Lee Hwan reflected on his mistakes in the gate. He carefully considered why he kept getting pushed back whenever he confronted Taesung. Then he realized. Perhaps it was all too obvious.
During his three years as a hunter, he had only thought about how to fight alongside Taesung. How to maximize his attacks. How much energy to use to match his stamina while going through gates.
So now, suddenly being told to fight against him, there was no way he could hit him satisfactorily enough. It was something he had never once considered before.
‘But now he’s not a comrade, but an enemy…’
It was a bitter but realistic conclusion. Lee Hwan now needed to master combat methods suitable for an “enemy.” After brief deliberation, the training that began while ruminating on unstable emotions proceeded more harshly and desperately than ever since his regression.
Lee Hwan ran like he was flying, pushing off from trees multiple times and landing on the ground without wavering. To be able to fight adequately even in narrow passages, he practiced dodging attacks while running through narrow mountain paths.
If he rolled during the process, his body hurt as if it would break, but thinking that a little pain now was better than a miserable death, it was bearable enough.
When simulating battles imagining Taesung, he felt a sense of venom rising through his clenched teeth.
‘After his right fist comes in horizontally, he always ignites fire around his head and then presses down on the neck with his arm to subdue… first block the attack with the left arm, then immediately hit the solar plexus, bend slightly and move to the side while twisting the space to trip his foot, then…’
Now, the imaginary Taesung no longer offered his leg or smiled at him. Imagining attacks coming at him with killing intent made the sound of the wind against his fist sound especially savage.
Lee Hwan truly began researching ways to confront him for the first time in his life. Apart from the discomfort in his heart, it wasn’t that difficult, surprisingly enough, given how well they had worked together.
The reason he had always been pushed back in battles was indeed due to the difference in abilities. Lee Hwan’s Spatial Control was versatile, but not high-ranked, ultimately being overshadowed by Taesung’s S-rank ability focused on extreme attacks.
The method to overcome this basic difference and repel him depended on the utilization of his ability and physical techniques. The priority was to prepare various tactics against Taesung and develop habits to confront or escape in any environment.
‘If only I could expand the space a little more here.’
He knew that most Awakened were C-rank or below. Having a unique ability like Spatial Control was fortunate enough that he dared not complain. Nevertheless, he had been feeling a constant thirst recently.
He wanted to become a little stronger. More capable. To properly face Taesung and be strong enough that Kang Dongha wouldn’t test him. So that he could ultimately grasp the peace he desired.
* * *
Several days passed after neatly packaging and reporting the incident in the gate. When meeting Kang Dongha again, for some reason, he had thick powder applied to his left cheek. Underneath, a dark blue bruise that wasn’t completely hidden could be seen.
With a face that made everyone want to hit him, it wouldn’t be strange for this guy to get hit anytime, anywhere… but still, he was a third-generation chaebol. Not just any random person could punch him in the head.
Seeing how quiet everything was despite his face looking like this, there were likely a few plausible candidates.
“…Did Kang Dongying hit you?”
“That bastard’s an Awakened. I wouldn’t get crushed.”
“Seeing you grind your teeth like that, it must have been Kang Dongying’s doing.”
“He didn’t hit me… it was just an ‘accident’.”
An ‘accident’, huh. Just from that word, he could roughly guess what happened and didn’t want to hear more. What’s with them resembling each other even in unpleasant aspects as brothers?
Kang Dongha didn’t seem particularly inclined to explain either and brought up his business while brewing coffee. Lee Hwan nodded shallowly to indicate he was listening.
“As instructed, I reported the attribute minerals to the executive side first and also mentioned my dissatisfaction about Kang Taesung’s interference, but…”
“Even while taking issue with not meeting the two-person standard, I bet he said he understood.”
“That snake-like old man… do I seriously think it’s right to hand this over to the executive side? I managed to get past my brother Dongying with an excuse.”
“Not the executive side, but your father’s side, right?”
A father who has no interest in family would be better for him than a brother who creates accidents whenever his younger brother doesn’t move according to his wishes. If only he had been completely stupid, he might have lived more comfortably, but with half-baked ambition, seeing him walking a tightrope even within his family was pitiful, though self-inflicted.
Still, feeling somewhat responsible for him getting hit like this, Lee Hwan, as a gesture of comfort, personally opened a small packet of sugar and poured it into Kang Dongha’s cup.
“What is this… what’s not to your liking now that you’re having a fit?”
However, the response to his gesture of goodwill wasn’t particularly good.
“What? I thoughtfully made it for you…”
“Who drinks coffee with sugar?”
Lee Hwan momentarily suppressed rising irritation at the way he put down his cup on the tea table as if his appetite had been ruined. This bastard who doesn’t know the true taste of refined sugar. No wonder that despite having the same genes as Kang Taesung, he lacks his solid flavor and gets bruised when hit just once.
Lee Hwan grabbed the abandoned coffee and gulped it down, trying to suppress the heat as he spoke.
“Anyway, since that’s been done, they’ll give us the next gate without saying anything. It’ll also be more convenient for you to participate in those strange meetings while worrying less about Kang Dongying’s surveillance because of the research building issue.”
Kang Dongha was nodding formally while filling a new cup with coffee. Lee Hwan barely restrained the mischievous urge to pour sugar into that one too and took a few more sips of the coffee that had become his.
“That’s right about the gate issue. It seems like I can set aside the second gate for the date you want.”
“They probably won’t remove the two-person entry condition.”
“But no one will monitor it, and there won’t be any intrusions. However, Kang Taesung has raised an issue about gate damage, so we should be careful about that.”
He’s not staying quiet after all. Lee Hwan felt both an inexplicable gladness and a sense of disappointment at the warning. He was regretful that Taesung, who had returned with him, stood on a different path, yet he also felt a small expectation that somehow, they would still be entangled.
Come on. With such a long journey ahead, how could he be so lax?
Lee Hwan shook his head a few times, then put down the empty cup on the table and got up. Having heard about the fate of the attribute mineral gate and roughly figuring out the answer regarding the next schedule, there was no need to stay any longer.
“By the way, you haven’t been using the card lately?”
Just as he grabbed the doorknob to leave, Kang Dongha suddenly asked.
“I have my own money now, so why would I? It’s a debt anyway, and all the expense details go to your phone.”
His statement about wanting to repay it wasn’t just empty words. He didn’t want to leave a debt to someone like him.
“Then did you use your own money for that oxtail stew that you failed to order last time?”
“Who’s calling who a stalker, seriously.”
Lee Hwan closed the door with a bang and left the office.
