By Zephyria 
“He was the shelter leader, so I saw him from a distance a few times, but I’ve never actually met him up close to greet him or talk.”
The cool response only deepened the curiosity. However, one had to consider the long span of twenty-one years. Very few people would perfectly remember a single conversation from twenty-one years ago.
Kim Si-baek set his questions aside for a moment and focused on the fleeting connection he had just shared with Detective Park.
On the way back after parting with Detective Park, a text arrived from Tae-un.
♥Un-i♥
Hyung ㅠㅠ
Where did you go, leaving me behind.. You’re mean.. I’m going to wait for you without eating dinner until you come back ㅠㅠ
The text, which included a sulking, teary-eyed capybara emoticon, was dripping with cuteness. Since explaining the situation via text would likely take at least an hour, he called him. It was also around the time Tae-un would have finished work.
Now that there was no need to hide it, Si-baek confessed everything, and Tae-un’s slow response came back.
……Ah, you met Detective Park too?
“He said he’d never met you, maybe because it was so long ago.”
“That might be the case. I asked him when he was busy with the post-processing of the magical beasts. That was the only time I had a spare moment.”
If he had been busy, it was only natural that he wouldn’t remember. Kim Si-baek brushed off the conversation and sank into a new worry. What if Un-i really waits? I’ve already eaten dinner.
✽ ✽ ✽
He was a fine young man to have met after all this time. No, he said he was in his forties, so perhaps not a young man. Detective Park chuckled as he walked toward his parked car. Occasionally, short connections made in the past return like this. Some met by chance, and some tracked him down to the police substation.
They bowed their heads, thanking him for guiding them through their past wanderings, but he was the one who was actually grateful. Grateful that they had grown up well, without dying or becoming twisted in such a harsh world.
“Oh, goodness. I forgot to get his phone number.”
It would be nice to exchange greetings every now and then. With a lingering sense of regret, Detective Park got into the car.
‘Still, I feel bad that I don’t remember him at all. Even if I didn’t recognize them at first sight, usually after talking about the old days for a bit, I could roughly figure out who they were……’
Perhaps because of that regret and guilt, the question Kim Si-baek had left behind didn’t disappear, but instead continued to tickle the back of his mind. The question of whether he had ever met Tae-un.
Detective Park forgot to start the engine and retraced his past. Twenty-one years ago in Seoul, Detective Park belonged to Justina’s shelter, not Tae-un’s Jae-woo University shelter.
Originally, Justina was a mercenary from Poland who had come to Korea on vacation and became stranded due to the Great Cataclysm. When monsters that killed people appeared, she was quicker than anyone to seize the police station and secure firearms. Detective Park, who had been evacuating people around the police station, eventually came under her command after various twists and turns.
Justina’s shelter was the second safest area in Seoul after Tae-un’s, and it was the last to merge with Tae-un. Although they were refugees from the same city, it was safe to say there had been no opportunity for him to have private conversations or meet Tae-un closely.
It would be different if Tae-un had approached him first, but no matter how much he thought about it, he had never met him directly. Since there were so many refugees in the shelter, Tae-un likely didn’t know of his existence either.
‘Hmm, as I thought, it’s a no.’
Kim Si-baek probably hadn’t asked the question with much significance. Whenever he mentioned being a refugee from Seoul, he usually heard questions about how Tae-un was. Kim Si-baek was likely asking in a similar context.
With a lingering hope that they might meet again, Detective Park drove away.
〈I know. Hyung will always protect me and help me.〉
……There was a past where such words were whispered.
Perhaps because he had heard the name Detective Park from Kim Si-baek for the first time in a long while, Tae-un woke up while recalling a fragment of a past that had long been buried in the distance. Yes, those were the days. An innocent time when he believed a clumsy, budding love would last forever. Tae-un lay in bed, silently staring at the ceiling.
Except for memories of Kim Si-baek, his old memories were not intact. Only the emotions of that time remained, shattered into fragments and pouring out infinitely. Only now did Tae-un vaguely recall what conversation he had shared with Detective Park after the brawl with Pi Min-hyeong.
Pale, bloodless lips slowly murmured the final phrase.
“……Will help me.”
That was the only thing that remained unchanged. That Kim Si-baek would help him. Kim Si-baek’s divine power might be insufficient, but should he just do it now? A gloomy impulse, bordering on madness, tickled along his veins as if it were about to burst through his skin.
Tae-un gripped the skin of his left arm tightly with his right hand, as if tearing it. The impulse, which had been stirring dangerously as if it would explode at any moment, barely subsided. It wasn’t time yet. He didn’t know how long he could hold out, having already crossed the line once long ago, but not yet.
Since there was only one chance to try, he would wait until the other recovered enough divine power.
Taking a deep breath, he got out of bed. Checking the time on his phone, it was 4 AM. It was far too early to wake up, but he didn’t feel like he could fall back asleep even if he stayed in bed. Feeling a bit thirsty, Tae-un put on the slippers he had left by the bed and left the room.
It was a dark and quiet dawn.
As Tae-un walked through the interior of the house, familiar with the darkness, his knee slammed hard into something.
“…….”
Tae-un silently looked down. Feeling around with his hand, it was a dining chair. It seemed Kim Si-baek hadn’t pushed it all the way back into the table yesterday. A smile escaped him.
The interior of the penthouse was always kept identical. Consciously focusing to clearly discern one’s vision is quite exhausting. Therefore, he had placed the same furniture in the same positions so that he could roam the house even with his eyes closed. If identical furniture wasn’t available, he provided items of as similar a size as possible.
That uniformity was broken after Kim Si-baek arrived.
He bought a microwave to enjoy meal times with him. The dining chair, which used to stay in place and only collect dust, became slightly crooked every day. The TV remote would be on the sofa one day and rolling on the floor the next, and the drying rack would be out on the veranda some days and brought inside on others.
Every time he closed and opened his eyes, unintended changes occurred to the furniture in the house. Because of that, when Kim Si-baek was absent and he paid less attention, he would inevitably bump into things and get hurt, but Tae-un actually found it pleasant. It was firm proof that Kim Si-baek existed.
Without pushing the chair back, he turned and headed for the refrigerator. As the refrigerator door opened, artificial light poured out from inside, but Tae-un took out a bottle of water without any sign of being dazzled.
The water gulping down his throat coolly erased the thirst. Suddenly, a sneer escaped him. It felt absurdly ridiculous that he continued the act of consuming food and drink despite having lost his sense of taste long ago.
His body required calories to maintain physical activity, regular sleep, and an appropriate amount of water absorption. Tae-un mocked the fact that his physical shell still functioned like a normal human.
“Oh, Un-ah? You’re awake too?”
A voice heavy with sleep was mixed with a yawn. Naturally sliding his left hand—which was bare as he had taken off his glove for sleep—into his pants pocket, he turned around. Kim Si-baek was walking toward him slowly, his face clearly showing he had just woken up.
Tae-un frowned slightly. As he focused his consciousness to see Kim Si-baek with his naked eye, he was suddenly dazzled by the light of the refrigerator.
“I woke up because I was thirsty. You too, Hyung?”
“Yeah. Is the room a bit dry……”
Rubbing the back of his neck and yawning, Kim Si-baek began to nag upon seeing Tae-un holding only the water bottle.
“I told you not to drink directly from the bottle.”
“I didn’t put my mouth on it.”
“Anyway, don’t do that from now on and pour it into a cup.”
Finding even the nagging pleasant, Tae-un smiled brightly and called out to Kim Si-baek, who was heading to the sink to find a water cup.
“Okay. But there’s not much left in here, so you just drink it too, Hyung.”
When he shook the water bottle, which had only a couple of sips left, Kim Si-baek readily agreed and took it. Tae-un stared at the prominent Adam’s apple in Kim Si-baek’s throat as he lifted his face to drink. His lips felt dry. He licked his lower lip with his tongue and whispered lowly.
“Indirect kiss.”
“Pfft.”
Kim Si-baek choked, coughing, and water trickled thinly down his chin. After finally calming down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Kim Si-baek belatedly realized that Tae-un had been standing there in silence the whole time.
“…….”
With his hand resting on top of the refrigerator, Tae-un’s pupils were not on Kim Si-baek’s face, but tilted downward. Kim Si-baek instinctively followed his gaze.
Water, it was water. A transparent stream of water had passed over the lips, chin, and Adam’s apple, wetting the collar. Just a tiny bit. So little that it would dry in a few minutes. Yet, Tae-un’s quiet gaze clung to the skin, which was moist and shimmering faintly in the light of the refrigerator.
He felt his sleep vanish in an instant. He recognized a natural truth once again. What burned beneath those deep, three-hundred eyes was an unchanging desire.
One step.
Tae-un had taken only a single step, but the distance between them closed rapidly. Desire had been directed toward him from only that small of a distance.
“Si-baek Hyung.”
As he tilted his head, a quiet breath brushed against the skin along with a whisper. Tae-un’s lips parted slightly. A faint breath flowed into those lips.