By Zephyria “Did you find what you wanted?”
“……”
“J.”
His delicate face showed no surprise. It was as if he knew he would meet J here. A hint of playfulness flickered in his slender, curved purple eyes. Lee Sa-young muttered as he put on his black gloves. His black fingertips disappeared into the gloves.
“I deliberately didn’t clean everything up and left a little behind.”
The neatly arranged files, the monitor room with the lights on as if to guide him, and the survivor’s voice that he heard when he was about to finish reading the files. All of it was prepared for one person.
The owner of the gift….
“Did you read it?”
Cha Eui-jae.
So, the files on the desk and the corpses were indeed displayed for all to see. Eui-jae thought cynically. He could have handled it so cleanly. Eui-jae stared at the spot where the man had fallen. Only a few bloodstains remained on the empty floor. Cha Eui-jae replied in a strangely distorted voice.
“Yeah. I read it. Is this a record from this facility?”
“Well, it’s just a small part of the record.”
“……”
“I trimmed it down a bit. I was worried you wouldn’t come to me if there was too much.”
“Did Very Small Miracle Mingi Seo tell you? That I would come here.”
Lee Sa-young only smiled in response. Very Small Miracle Mingi Seo and Romantic Opener. They were the ones helping Eui-jae, but fundamentally, they were Lee Sa-young’s people. Considering the Spaceship Delivery he had suffered at Incheon Port, it wasn’t that surprising. Instead of Sa-young’s answer, Eui-jae came to his own conclusion.
“I guess so, you’re not surprised that I came suddenly, and you even prepared the data.”
“Ah, I was surprised. I never thought J’s first activity in eight years would be….”
Sa-young looked around and shrugged.
“Raiding the Prometheus research facility.”
“……”
“Even though I didn’t ask you to….”
Sa-young took a few steps closer without a sound. A black hand reached out and carefully took off the black cap Eui-jae was wearing. Eui-jae didn’t swat the hand away. Lee Sa-young, as if tidying up his slightly disheveled hair, whispered.
“I remember that when we made the contract, I only said that there was a group that was luring people with drugs, and that I was chasing them.”
“……”
“He said you mentioned the name Prometheus first….”
Lee Sa-young flicked the brim of the cap lightly with his finger. His long eyelashes blinked slowly. The corners of his mouth were still raised.
“Where did you hear it… Why did you come all the way here?”
It was a questioning tone, but the atmosphere was a little different. The Lee Sa-young that Cha Eui-jae knew would be thoroughly twisted by now, trying to suppress his opponent until he felt better. But now, the Lee Sa-young in front of him.
“You have a talent for creating new secrets every time.”
“……”
“Liar.”
In his two eyes.
“Shall we have a Q&A session for the first time in a while? We ask each other questions, answer them, and guess what we’re hiding.”
A dark gaze, devoid of any light, disguised as indifference. Beneath the calm surface, something unknown was hidden and violently churning.
And Cha Eui-jae instinctively realized. That he would never let him go. If he made a mistake, he would be swept away by the strong current.
It would be easier to catch a rampaging Monster or deal with a twisted Lee Sa-young. At least there was a clear strategy for that, but the quiet Lee Sa-young had to be approached in a new way. His stomach tickled as he met the purple gaze.
Eui-jae clenched the hand he had put in his pocket into a fist, and pressed his fingernails hard into his palm. It was fortunate that his expression was hidden by the mask.
“I don’t have any questions.”
“Hmm, actually, Hyung doesn’t have a choice.”
A voice mixed with laughter replied. Sa-young tilted his head slightly. His curly hair swayed softly.
“I have so many questions for Hyung…. I do.”
“……”
“Well, then…. Shall I guess first?”
A large hand covered in leather wrapped around the back of Eui-jae’s neck. A soft voice said.
“You know, right? That I’m from the Experiment of Prometheus.”
It was a sudden question. Eui-jae flinched for a moment. Sa-young tilted his head and muttered.
“It’s obvious who told you… There are very few people who know that fact. Because I killed them all.”
“……”
“The only ones still alive are Ham Seok-jeong, Jung-bin, Nam Woo-jin, and Bae Won-woo… Jung-bin and Ham Seok-jeong are people Hyung avoided, so it can’t be them, and Bae Won-woo is so clueless that he still doesn’t know that Hyung is J. The only one left is….”
His thumb gently rubbed behind his ear.
“Nam Woo-jin. That crazy brat, right?”
Lee Sa-young was exceptionally perceptive and had excellent information. In fact, there was no reason to hide anything anymore. Because he had revealed the secret he had been trying to hide at all costs himself. Cha Eui-jae readily agreed.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“You heard that story… when you took Grandmother there. You heard the Prometheus story then too.”
“Accurate.”
Sa-young gritted his teeth and then let out a small sigh. And took his hand off the back of his neck. The lukewarm warmth disappeared.
“Now it’s Hyung’s turn.”
“……”
Eui-jae, who had been silent, asked.
“I heard that there were no successful cases of the Experiment of Prometheus. That they all died.”
“Ah….”
Lee Sa-young, who had drawn out the end of his words, leisurely raised his head. The corners of his mouth were slightly raised as if he were sneering.
“Did Seo Min-gi tell you that? Well… it’s not wrong. Prometheus didn’t succeed in the experiment. Not even once. Everyone either couldn’t withstand the experiment and their bodies collapsed, or they became something that wasn’t even a Monster.”
“……”
“What Hyung is curious about is that. How am I, who was an experimental subject, still alive….”
Sa-young slowly pointed to the center of his chest.
“It’s simple. I Awakened.”
A languid voice whispered.
“Not artificially Awakened by those crazy bastards’ experiments, but chosen by the System.”
He cut his palm and spat out a bunch of blood. After finishing the messy contract, he remembered the conversation they had alone at the Hanover Soup Restaurant. The small black humans that moved as Lee Sa-young moved his fingers.
“Then what does the System look at to choose the Awakened?”
The voice that spoke languidly.
“The System,”
The finger that rubbed over the messy glass.
“Reacts to desperate wishes….”
A fact that had become common sense since the Day of the Rift.
“When a human has a desperate wish, the System is drawn to that energy and seeks out the human.”
A pure white, burnt-out eye that appeared from the empty air stared at Cha Eui-jae. Before he knew it, the surroundings had turned into a forest. The conversation he had with Nam Woo-jin at the Seowon Guild gradually came to mind. Nam Woo-jin, fluttering his white gown, whispered as he walked ahead.
“Whether he was Awakened by their experiments, or whether the System listened to Lee Sa-young’s desperate prayer and Awakened him.”
Before he knew it, the surroundings changed once again. In the midst of a carnage where everything was broken and collapsed, Cha Eui-jae was huddled in the cracks of a collapsed building, hugging his parents’ corpses. The acrid smell of burning and the stench of blood mixed together and reeked terribly. The sound of the Monster’s footsteps rummaging through the alley echoed in his ears.
At that time, what was Cha Eui-jae thinking next to death?
‘I want to live.’
He wanted to live.
‘I don’t want to die.’
He didn’t want to die.
And a pure white light burst out in front of him. It was the moment he met the System.
Cha Eui-jae raised his head. A dark and narrow room, with only light leaking in from the half-open doorway. Lee Sa-young was quietly looking at Eui-jae. Suddenly, a question arose. What was Lee Sa-young’s desperate prayer? What was so desperate that he Awakened?
Strangely, Eui-jae seemed to know the answer.
As if someone was teaching him. His heart was beating fast. Emotions that he didn’t know whether were excitement, anticipation, or anxiety and confusion were swirling around. Eui-jae slowly opened his mouth.
“You are….”
It was as if something was caught in his throat, and the words didn’t come out easily. He wasn’t sure. While thinking that it couldn’t be, he was conflicted by the ambivalence of wanting it to be.
A boy dying from Poison, Lee Sa-young who used Poison. A boy whose records had been erased by Prometheus or some other hand, Lee Sa-young who was an experimental subject of Prometheus and escaped. A boy who tried to smile with his eyes narrowed, Lee Sa-young who smiled with his eyes narrowed.
‘It can’t be.’
Eui-jae looked at Sa-young with confused eyes. At that moment, Lee Sa-young smiled. With his eyes narrowed. Shining his eyes like a child, as if waiting for the moment to open the gift he had prepared.
‘This is strange.’
Cha Eui-jae swallowed countless words behind his throat.
‘It’s too good of a story….’
Such a miracle could not happen to Cha Eui-jae. He knew that too. He had already given up on the hope of a miracle a long time ago. Even so. While repeating that it wasn’t, he barely, barely uttered a word. His voice was terribly cracked.
“…Is it you?”
The black Walker took a step closer. Only a very narrow space remained between the two. Sa-young reached out his hand. Eui-jae took his hand as if possessed. Just like he always had 8 years ago.
The black hand gently pulled his hand and placed it on his cheek. The lukewarm cheek was soft. It was clearly different from the rough texture of the bandage.
Lee Sa-young slowly rubbed his cheek against his palm. A gloved hand covered the back of the hand that wrapped around his cheek. A low voice whispered.
“Yeah, Hyung.”