KEG 114

“Alright, alright, I’m opening the door, so shhh!”

Squeak–

As soon as the door opened and I stepped inside, I was hit by a strong animal smell. The distinctive scent of a wet animal.

I felt like someone who had suddenly been hit on the head with a hammer. I realized that nobody had ever said that the family member was human.

“Happy~”

Something was lying in the middle of the living room.

A pet lying on an electric heating pad. A scrawny creature with stiff, gray fur. It had an IV in its front leg and was wearing a diaper.

…An animal.

“It’s a dog.”

Baek Yejun, who had been following behind me, whispered softly.

“It’s cute. Should we adopt one too?”

“If we keep one at home, it’d be animal abuse.”

Fortunately, it was a real dog, not some monster pup.

After the Dungeon Break, the number of people keeping pets had plummeted. Naturally, the related industries were also on the verge of collapse.

“It’d be a huge problem if it even got sick.”

Veterinary clinics had also mostly gone out of business. As a result, veterinary bills were reaching astronomical amounts day by day, so if you didn’t take proper care of a pet, you could really go bankrupt.

“Let some air in.”

The brown-haired man, who had been lying face-down on the living room floor examining the dog, spoke quietly. The way he gently held the dog’s front paw and examined its face looked even more softer than a real family member would.

“Yuksam.”

When I called out, Lee Yuksam looked up in surprise.

Upon spotting me, Lee Yuksam grinned and nodded his head repeatedly. Since he seemed to want to say something, I motioned for him to come outside.

At that gesture, Lee Yuksam ran out without even putting on his shoes.

“Ho-hyung!”

He pushed me all the way to the hallway, then lifted me up and spun me around several times. It felt like I was on a ride at an amusement park.

I covered my mouth with my hand as I felt a wave of nausea, but the excited Lee Yuksam didn’t know when to stop.

“You’re alive! You really are the protagonist! Just as I thought, just as I thought!”

Maybe because it was the first time he’d seen me since the Black Flower Incident, Lee Yuksam was overly excited.

Come to think of it, the last time he saw me, I was a corpse with a flower blooming on my head, my heart barely beating. So it was understandable.

That might be true, but….

“You’re going to get me killed.”

“Ahahaha!”

“Damn you, I’m not kidding.”

Can you tone down the excitement a little? I’m about to throw up right before dinner.

To make him let go, I pulled a handful of his hair.

Do those damn Esper bastards have hair roots that are that strong?

It didn’t come out easily, and it didn’t seem to hurt him.

“Yejun….”

Thud.

“Huh? What?”

The moment I called out to Baek Yejun for help, Lee Yuksam dropped to his knees.

Lee Yuksam looked like he didn’t even know why he’d knelt down.

“Ah… it stings…?”

The smell of burning flesh suddenly filled the air. I looked down and saw that the area around Lee Yuksam’s hamstring had turned black and was charred. Pieces of burnt fabric crumbled onto the floor.

“Huh? My leg….”

Lee Yuksam stared blankly at his leg. Thanks to that, I was able to get back down to the floor. But I couldn’t recover from the shock.

This was Baek Yejun’s skill.

Baek Yejun had attacked someone.

It was the first time I’d ever seen him do that.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

Baek Yejun apologized.

He even covered his mouth with his hand, feigning concern. Watching that phony act made me wonder just how much I could trust him.

“That must have really hurt….”

“Ah, it’s alright! Everyone makes mistakes!”

“Right?”

“Uh… yes?”

Lee Yuksam gave a bewildered response to Baek Yejun’s shameless remark.

Baek Yejun’s expression as he looked down at Lee Yuksam was the same as usual, but perhaps due to the lighting, a shadow fell across his face.

“Since you’re not weak, please understand even if I make a mistake.”

Lee Yuksam still looked completely baffled.

But I had a rough idea of what he meant. Since Yuksam was an S-class Esper, he was saying he should be able to withstand his attacks.

So that’s how he treats those who aren’t weak.

This gave me a little more insight into Baek Yejun.

The guy acted ruthlessly toward anyone who stepped outside the boundaries of those he was supposed to protect. Whether they were thugs or looters, he’d protected those bad guys just because they were weak, yet he burned Lee Yuksam’s leg just because he once picked me up.

What a twisted sense of ethics.

What has to go wrong for someone to turn into a guy like that?

How much must a person go through to go completely insane like that?

“I did well, right?”

The madman was standing beside me before I knew it and was demanding praise.

If only I hadn’t called out to Baek Yejun when Lee Yuksam had picked me up, would his leg have ended up like this? I felt a wave of guilt that had no reason to exist.

With trembling fingertips, I fumbled across the phone’s keypad to dial 119. But that action was stopped by a pale hand.

“An S-class can reattach their head even if it’s severed.”

I looked at the owner of the hand. I saw a smiling face, as though telling me not to be nervous.

Only then did I realize what kind of expression I must have been wearing and state I was in.

“We can’t even commit suicide. We don’t die that easily.”

I thought of Colonel Kim Hanseong, the S-class I had killed. The image of him begging me to kill him overlapped with the current situation.

My breath grew short and sweat pooled in my palms. For a moment, I lost touch with reality, and my field of vision narrowed.

“Ah! Ho-hyung! I’m fine! I’m all better now~”

Lee Yuksam staggered for a moment but quickly stood up as if nothing had happened. Even with the smell of burning flesh still lingering in the air, he acted as if nothing was wrong.

I struggled to lower my gaze to check Lee Yuksam’s leg. The inside of his burned pants looked perfectly healthy, as if the charred mess from earlier had never existed.

“Hyungs~ Come eat!”

“Ah, I’m hungry~ Ho-hyung! Let’s go, let’s go!”

Lee Yukchil called us from the hallway into the house. Baek Yejun also took my hand and led me out of the dark hallway. They looked like perfectly ordinary people, but that was just a facade. I reminded myself once again what kind of monsters I was with right now.

“We’ll just take care of something quickly and then come in.”

As we were about to enter, Baek Yejun stopped and said to Lee Yuksam and Lee Yukchil.

“Huh? Are you sure? We’ll have the table set~”

“Don’t ring the doorbell, okay? Knock quietly!”

Lee Yuksam and Lee Yukchil spoke at the same time, so I couldn’t tell who was saying what.

How could their voices and mannerisms be so similar? [unauthorized copy]It was hard to believe they weren’t actually blood brothers.

Click.

Baek Yejun nodded and closed the front door. I looked at him questioningly. We were just bums with nothing better to do right now. There was no way we’d have something important enough to put off even eating…

“Three minutes.”

The motion sensor light flickered in the hallway of the old apartment building.

Baek Yejun’s glowing eyes fixed on me without wavering.

“You haven’t given me my three minutes yet. Or a praise.”

Three minutes, whether it was a kiss or sex, the time I’d promised to give him whenever he wanted.

I recalled that and took a step back. I was on high alert because of what had happened just a moment ago. I wanted to avoid any physical contact with Baek Yejun right now.

“You’re avoiding me…”

Every time I took a step back, he took a step forward.

Even though it was a secluded area, this was still a hallway where [unauthorized copy]people walked. I glanced left and right to make sure no one was coming.

“Don’t you want to?”

“As if I’d want to.”

“You were the one who suggested it first.”

He was a master at leaving people speechless.

“What if someone comes….”

“Should I use my skill?”

Yeah, this jerk knew how to cast a barrier.

Using such a complicated skill just to kiss me once. No matter how long he had been around, I could never understand him, and I couldn’t grow attached to him either.

It was almost amazing that a guy like this even existed.

That weird, infuriating, and creepy white-haired jerk.

“…Let’s go to the rooftop.”

Since I was already caught up in this, I’d just have to deal with it.

If putting up with him a little meant I could keep him on a leash, I would gladly do it.

I led Baek Yejun to the rooftop.

The agreement was for just three minutes, but I was going there to put an end to that relentless behavior that had never actually lasted just three minutes.

“The wind’s warm now.”

On a March night, the wind on the rooftop wasn’t that cold.

It might have been a bit chilly, but compared to the winter’s gnawing gale that felt like it would cut through your flesh, it was relatively mild.

I turned around and looked at his white hair fluttering in the breeze.

“You did well.”

It was a response tailored to his request for praise.

“What did I do right?”

Just when I’d finally managed to praise him, he demanded a reason. Unable to think of anything worthy of praise, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“For burning Lee Yuksam’s leg.”

“Is that what you consider a good thing?”

Judging by his retort, he seemed to realize that his behavior wasn’t normal. To act that way even while knowing it was worse than not knowing at all.

Someone like him expecting praise and a kiss felt like a test directed at me.

How would I treat someone like him?

How would I look at him?

“Isn’t it a good thing you didn’t kill him?”

Baek Yejun is a hero, not a mass murderer.

He must not forget his duty.

He burned Lee Yuksam’s leg, forcing him to his ​visit our site​knees. What if that part hadn’t been his leg, but his neck or head? Even if he wouldn’t have died, what would have become of Lee Yuksam if he’d sustained that many fatal wounds?