By Zephyria 
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“I brought the menu I wanted.”
CEO Gil opened a rustling plastic bag and pulled out enough stir-fried noodles for about three people. He seemed to have a rough idea of how much Joo-oh ate, but he would soon realize that this amount was nowhere near enough.
Mu-hae grabbed Joo-oh, who was about to lift a hem of clothing to rub his face against it again, and gave him a subtle warning look.
‘Stop rubbing. Stop smelling me.’
‘Why?’
‘Do it later.’
The silent conversation seemed to work better than expected, as the fellow let go of the clothes with a disappointed face.
The loose t-shirt, with shoulder lines extending down to the arms, caught Mu-hae’s eye with an odd intensity.
“I’ve been a bit busy lately, so I couldn’t prepare a proper feast.”
“Are you hosting your boss? I’m just saying let’s eat like we usually do.”
“Still, I hurried to clear the piled-up laundry. I’ve been a bit scatterbrained recently, so I put it off until it became this mess.”
He babbled a fake excuse that hadn’t been asked for, explaining Joo-oh’s attire once more.
A fleeting thought crossed his mind that this might look even more suspicious, but his mouth continued to chatter on its own with strange autonomy.
“Who cares. As long as the size fits, you can throw on any clothes.”
Teacher Jung waved his hand dismissively and zipped open a large bag. He must have spent some money, as out came fried rice evenly mixed with real vegetables and cube-shaped meat.
The problem was that the quantity was even more absurdly massive than CEO Gil’s.
“There are four of us.”
Eyes behind glasses glanced at Joo-oh. Teacher Jung had never once let Joo-oh run wild in his own home, yet he seemed strangely conscious of the boy’s appetite.
Perhaps it was because he had almost no memory of gatherings like this. Despite being such close acquaintances, dinner felt damn awkward.
Only Joo-oh’s face grew brighter and brighter as he watched the food multiply. As if he could no longer endure it, he was the first to snatch up a spoon.
“I want fried rice.”
“Don’t scoop from my portion. I left a serving spoon for you.”
One moment he couldn’t take his eyes off the food Mu-hae made, and the next, he switched allegiances the moment something that looked tastier appeared.
Mu-hae held up a serving spoon he had bought for 12 deals in the Jaegang District and naturally piled all the food onto Joo-oh’s plate.
Joo-oh’s mouth fell open in sheer delight. Happiness surged in his red eyes, as if he had just been patted on the head.
“Please eat.”
After watching that face for a long while, Mu-hae belatedly snapped back to his senses. Realizing that the other two were staring at him, it became damn awkward again.
“Does it feel like the furniture is exactly the same as it was a few years ago?”
“It probably is. Unless something broke or malfunctioned, I’ve just kept using them.”
“And you decorated the Jaegang District place a bit?”
“It’s similar there. I barely manage to sleep upstairs, and the things in the basement are used exactly as they were placed.”
“That’s kind of funny. Everything in the hideout, we installed it all ourselves.”
“What do you mean ‘we’? I’m the one who shoved everything in and connected it. I was the only one sweating buckets in that heat…”
CEO Gil suddenly flared up in the middle of their peaceful conversation. Since these weren’t people who spoke of the past unless asked, Mu-hae quickly held his breath and watched their bickering.
“It’s not that you didn’t, it’s that you couldn’t. Didn’t you tell us all to get lost so you wouldn’t tangle the wires?”
“Do you think I didn’t know that damn Jin Seong-jo was trying to just throw it together and call it a day? You’d have called me in a panic the moment a problem occurred, so I figured it was better to just handle it myself than watch that disaster.”
“I said I’d help.”
“You were the biggest problem. The power going into the panel is completely different from the lighting, but you just plugged it in anywhere and asked why it wasn’t working…”
“Still, I did my best.”
Whether he was still aggrieved by something that happened over twenty years ago, the tongs holding the stir-fried noodles trembled. It wasn’t rare for CEO Gil to grumble, but seeing Teacher Jung consistently provoke him was a quite interesting spectacle.
Even Joo-oh, who looked like he was about to drool, was looking back and forth between the two with an excited face. His eyes were like someone who had discovered a new food at a festival.
Ahem. With a fake cough from CEO Gil, the short play came to an end. The dining table, which had been noisy for a moment, fell silent again.
Now, only the clinking of utensils and the smell of food stimulating their hunger remained in the house.
‘Maybe this is better.’
The unfamiliar atmosphere had become somewhat familiar. Perhaps Teacher Jung had provoked his friend on purpose for this reason.
Eating the food he had prepared, Mu-hae felt a strange sensation. Why had topics that could come up so naturally been treated as a non-existent past throughout all these years?
They had never breathed a word, even about things unrelated to the Return flight. And gathering like this to eat or spend time together was even more…
“Eat a variety of things.”
“I am eating a variety.”
“Then eat a bit slower.”
“…I wasn’t eating that fast.”
Meanwhile, CEO Gil kept staring intently at Joo-oh while eating. He seemed fascinated by how the food vanished so cleanly and silently.
Teacher Jung looked composed, as if he had already guessed this despite never having eaten with him. He silently helped himself to a portion, occasionally glancing around the house, lost in thought.
“Right. There’s something I need to tell you, Mu-hae.”
Once the mountain of food had been half-depleted solely by Joo-oh’s appetite, the quiet Teacher Jung spoke up.
Simultaneously, CEO Gil, who had been openly picking at the host’s cooking, put down his chopsticks as if he had lost his appetite.
The tone was casual, as if mentioning it in passing, but that was clearly the purpose of today’s meeting. And whenever Teacher Jung paused like that, regardless of the content, it was never a light conversation.
“I heard that the reason you followed those cultists last time was because of West Wind.”
“….”
“You probably obtained some information then. If it’s you.”
“I guess you’re curious about how much I know.”
Teacher Jung didn’t answer, but Mu-hae had experienced this attitude several times since starting the work for the Return flight.
The two always checked how far Mu-hae had progressed and only revealed information appropriate for that point.
Even if he hadn’t spoken of that day, they seemed to have already guessed. That he had found something out, and that it had caused a change in his state of mind.
Strictly speaking, it was Joo-oh rather than West Wind who was making Mu-hae’s head complicated, but he had no intention of sharing the shock regarding a three-meter-tall Aberrant.
“I heard West Wind has a weakness. That she has a son born a long time ago.”
And the father of that child was a researcher of the Jin Clan. It was a fact that made him let out a hollow laugh just thinking about it, yet strangely, it didn’t feel like a huge deal.
The story of a father who didn’t care for him and a mother whose existence he had never even felt…
Of course, it would be a lie to say he wasn’t curious at all. The problem was simply that a more important matter had arisen.
“West Wind… was someone who joined at your father’s suggestion. Yes. Even then, the two were lovers.”
Just as Mu-hae had been blunt, Teacher Jung spat out the main point without any roundabout euphemisms. It was exactly like his personality, but for a secret of birth to be leaked like this at a dinner table.
Unlike the calm Mu-hae, Joo-oh swallowed the meat in his mouth without even chewing, wearing a shocked expression.
The fact that no one signaled for him to be removed meant he was now treated as a comrade who could hear anything.
“Then a difference in opinion arose, and as you know, everything collapsed. In truth, none of us thought there would be a child between them until then.”
“I guess she gave birth in hiding.”
“No, I never even saw her stomach bulge. Considering the timing, I only assume you were conceived before the catastrophe.”
It wasn’t just the activities of the Return flight that met a catastrophe. Likely, the relationship between the two had also split so perfectly that it could never be restored.
West Wind had given birth to a fatherless child and had never shared that fact with anyone. However, Mu-hae grew up here on Starlight Road, and the core members of the Return flight already knew Mu-hae’s biological mother.
A faint memory drifted calmly through his mind. His younger self eating cookies, and the urgent moment of being dragged away.
The conversation of the malignant ones who seemed to have been betrayed by the vegan society, and the scenery of the sky he looked up at while sitting alone outside the city.
The life here that followed as if it were natural…
“Was it my father who commissioned the kidnapping?”
At the single sentence thrown out while emptying his water glass, the faces of the two men changed drastically. Teacher Jung looked as if to say, ‘Do you really think that’s how it happened?’, and CEO Gil rubbed his ear hard with his palm, thinking he had misheard.
Since he hadn’t particularly attached any affection to his father, that alone made his heart feel a bit more at ease.
Mu-hae poured milk into the glass of Joo-oh, who was engrossed as if it were his own business, and then continued, looking across at them again.
“Well, while digging into the past unintentionally, something came to mind.”
“He might have his eccentricities, but he’s not the kind of man to spend money he doesn’t have to have his own child kidnapped.”
“That’s a relief. Actually, it’s a bit unexpected. I never imagined I’d hear this kind of story from you two.”
He spoke as if it were no big deal, but he felt a chill inside. Indeed, this was a shocking story for him as well.
Since he had hacked the bio chip that day, he had vaguely guessed his mother’s existence… and yet, it felt as if other people’s voices were echoing and humming in his ears.
“All we knew at the time was that your father left the city one day without permission and returned the next day with a single child. When we asked who it was, he said it was his son. That he brought back a child abandoned outside.”
Once the conversation reached that point, even with their unrestrained relationship, it felt uncomfortable to have Joo-oh beside him.
It wasn’t that he was worried the fellow would go around blabbing this damn story. It was just that revealing such personal history felt like his dignity was being eroded.
Reading Mu-hae’s gaze, Teacher Jung was the first to slide his chair back and stand up.
“Let’s go to the study.”
“Jin Mu-hae?”
“You keep eating. I won’t say anything even if you eat it all.”
Fortunately, Joo-oh nodded and pulled the remaining food entirely in front of him without even using the serving spoon.
Chomp. Watching the marvelous sight of him using the serving spoon as a scoop to swallow the fried rice, the three of them left the table in turn.
It must have been a very long time since Teacher Jung and CEO Gil had entered his father’s study. Just as he was wondering what expressions they would make, a fact he had overlooked because it was too familiar pierced Mu-hae’s heart chillingly.
‘I made you your own room, so why do you keep crawling into someone else’s bed?’
‘I want to be with Jin Mu-hae.’
“…!”
That place was no longer an abandoned space. It was a warehouse where a starving idiot had settled in and spread out all sorts of junk.
Feeling the hair on his neck stand up, he hurriedly reached out, but CEO Gil had already flung open the firmly closed study door.
“….”
“….”
Between the people who had suddenly lost their words and stood still, Mu-hae walked in, clenching his teeth.
He had prepared himself for a noisy sight. But a situation more terrible than expected unfolded before his eyes, making him dizzy.
A photo of the two people placed prominently on the desk.
Joo-oh’s belongings scattered here and there, and lubricant—which he had told him to throw away, so why was it enshrined here again?
Even Mu-hae’s clothes, which should have been washed, were piled in a circle in the middle of the bed, as if they had been stolen one by one.
In the center, there was even a clear indentation, as if someone had curled up and lain there.
‘…Fuck.’
So that’s where those pants and underwear disappeared to. Seeing unwashed clothes spread out like a bedding cushion, he couldn’t even bring himself to turn his head.
“That…”
“Let’s just go in for now.”
Teacher Jung’s voice, strained to be composed, sliced through his nerves sharply; regardless of his father or the kidnapping, Mu-hae felt as if his mind was being bleached stark white.
191 – Became a Monstrous Body in a Dead Game