The Way of Life for a Terminal S-Class Hunter - C69
$69
***
After completing the entry procedures as simply as possible, Seo-heon arrived at the hospital via teleport. Woo-hyun was still lying in the hospital room like a corpse. For Seo-heon, this was both a comfort and a torment.
“Please close all the curtains and leave. I’m going to use the resurrection stone right away.”
Those who had been keeping watch quietly left the room. Only Seo-heon and Woo-hyun remained in the hospital room.
Seo-heon placed his finger near Woo-hyun’s nose. The weak, regular breath that tickled his hand slightly soothed his anxiety.
[The usage of the resurrection stone is simple. Place it on the body of the person you want to revive, and after more than a minute, it will automatically exert its ability while emitting a yellow light. However, you must not touch or move it during this time. As it’s an item with very little known information, the exact conditions are unknown. So please use it carefully.]
The appraiser, seemingly worried even after giving sufficient warning, emphasized that “You absolutely must not move.”
‘In other words, there’s no other certain information besides that.’
In the darkened hospital room, only the resurrection stone shimmered with a purple light.
“I never thought I’d have to rely on such a trivial object.”
[What will you do if you get a resurrection stone?]
He was now floating somewhere in a conversation he had had with Woo-hyun. What was on Woo-hyun’s mind when he asked about the resurrection stone? Did he ask such a question because he didn’t have much life left?
‘And I, not knowing that, got excited like trash and gave a terrible answer.’
When it came to matters related to Woo-hyun’s life, Seo-heon became unusually sensitive and cynical. At that time, it was actually a struggle just to push back responses like “Why? Do you want to die right now?” or “If I said I’d use something like a resurrection stone on you, you’d refuse, right? Because you don’t care about your own life at all.”
‘Then, Baek Woo-hyun. You wouldn’t be able to say no with a troubled face, right? If I saw that look…’
Knowing that such thoughts would lead to selfish and ugly questions like “What’s that guilt worth? No matter what happens, I only need you, so why don’t you feel the same?”, Seo-heon stopped thinking. It wasn’t efficient to be dwelling on such wasteful and unanswerable questions when every minute and second was urgent.
“I don’t care if you don’t want to open your eyes.”
Seo-heon knew his own flaws better than anyone. He realized how disgusting they were after meeting Woo-hyun.
***
The boy he met on the day when pear blossoms were fluttering couldn’t be seen for several days after that. Seo-heon lingered around the neighboring house for no reason, but soon gave up. It was because he couldn’t understand why he was behaving that way.
“He might have moved away too.”
Although he knew the name Woo-hyun, he deliberately didn’t say it out loud. That round name rolled around in his mouth, tickling like sweet candy.
However, the name that had been rolling around in his mouth without a chance to be called out had melted away before he knew it. When only a faint sweet scent remained, the boy appeared again.
“Hello. My name is Baek Woo-hyun.”
They were in the same elementary school, in the same class. Woo-hyun seemed to remember their meeting on moving day, as he waved his hand slightly when their eyes met. However, Seo-heon didn’t react. He just observed.
Perhaps because the first button was fastened wrong in this way, the two didn’t become close at the beginning of the semester. Seo-heon quietly observed Woo-hyun with his eyes, but didn’t know what he wanted to do. So he just kept him in his sight.
The change in this subtle relationship happened in an instant.
‘My whole body hurts. I want to freeze all these humans. Then they’d all shut up.’
That day, Seo-heon found all stimuli unusually irritating. He wanted to freeze everyone and make them feel the cold he was feeling – the adults who honked their horns at the crosswalk without waiting long, the peers who bumped into him as they passed by.
‘Damn awakening.’
He knew it was all because of the awakening. He could lessen the pain if he went to a hospital or center, but he didn’t want to. Being monitored and receiving attention just because he had power would make the ticking time bomb in his head explode and burn away his patience. So he declined becoming a spectacle as the youngest awakened or a high ranker.
[If you don’t want to live as a hunter, then don’t.]
His mother, who discovered his frozen bed, was surprised for a moment but accepted Seo-heon’s opinion. Instead, she earnestly advised that he shouldn’t use his power if he wanted to do that. Seo-heon declined that as well.
That was the only reason he wasn’t freezing the pig who had been tapping his head pretending to be friendly.
“There’s cafeteria construction until next week, so we need to eat packed lunches. Today, let’s start from the back numbers.”
The classroom meals that had continued since last week were an event that poured oil on his irritation. Seo-heon sat in his seat, thinking that if he could gag the mouths of the children chattering as if they had been waiting for this time, it would be fine if his turn never came.
“Ah, oops!”
The clumsy, big kid who was called a bear usually tried to greedily bring all the side dish containers at once and lost his footing. He managed to keep his balance and didn’t fall, but unfortunately, one of the side dish containers fell on Seo-heon’s arm.
Thud.
The side dish container that fell with a small sound opened slightly as it hit Seo-heon’s arm, leaving a small stain on his clothes before falling to the floor. Although it only leaked slightly and didn’t spill on the floor, it was enough to send Seo-heon’s mood plummeting.
“Ah, s-sorry. But the side dish didn’t fall, so maybe we can still eat it.”
The bear spoke slowly too. The noisy classroom, the unpleasant food stain on his clothes, the chill circling his body. The small things finally coalesced into one and exploded.
“Hey.”
At Seo-heon’s call, the bear raised his body. He stretched his arm towards the bear’s neck. He had no thought other than freezing that plump neck solid.
‘What are you looking at? I wish all your eyeballs would roll away.’
All the gazes in the classroom were directed at Seo-heon. His heightened senses found even that irritating.
“You eat this.”
Just before Seo-heon’s hand reached the neck, Woo-hyun’s voice, who had been following the bear, flowed out. Seo-heon, who had half thrown away his reason, gradually regained his sense of reality. The voices of others, which had sounded like tinnitus, began to be distinguished as actual voices, and he became capable of rational judgment that if he used his outstretched hand, even this daily life would crumble.
‘But I don’t want that.’
The hand that had already stretched out had no intention of returning and emitted a chill. The power that was not yet under control didn’t move as he thought.
Bang!
Seo-heon forcibly struck down his arm with his other hand. Then, to divert people’s attention from his hand, he hit his arm hard once more.
“Gasp!”
“Wow.”
Indescribable exclamations burst out here and there from the children who had watched the series of events. Seo-heon’s arm was bleeding as if scratched by nails. Perhaps because self-harm was still violence, Seo-heon felt the torrent of emotions that had been about to burst gradually subsiding. Moreover, he was even satisfied that his surroundings had become quiet due to his abnormal behavior.
Reactions mixed with shock, fear, and bewilderment poured out, but it was far better than being discovered to have hunter qualities by using his power.
“Are you okay?”
Woo-hyun, who had been talking to the bear, ran up to Seo-heon’s face and asked. As it was the first time seeing him this close, Seo-heon stared intently at Woo-hyun.
‘Of course, you’ll be scared of me too, right? Or will you find me creepy?’
Something that might have been expectation or something else bubbled up inside Seo-heon. However, in Woo-hyun’s eyes that he met, there was no emotion other than worry.
Thump.
Something like a big drum sound rang in his ears. Seo-heon momentarily got goosebumps seeing himself reflected in Woo-hyun’s clear eyes.
“Seo-heon, what’s going on? Let’s go to the infirmary first to look at the wound.”
The teacher, who had just come to her senses, put down all the lunchboxes she had been distributing and approached.
“It’s nothing. I’ll just go wash it.”
The teacher was trying to respond rationally to the student’s sudden behavior, but thanks to her long experience, she intuitively sensed that Seo-heon had shown aggression towards another student and had suppressed it with self-harm. Therefore, the subtle worry in her voice was not directed at Seo-heon.
“How about going to the infirmary and then to the hospital?”
“No.”
“Seo-heon!”
Seo-heon came out without even listening to the end of the sentence. He was already confused enough and didn’t want to deal with people who were afraid of him.
“Seo-heon!”
Although he had deliberately come out to the water tap instead of the nearby bathroom and turned on the water, Woo-hyun’s voice followed him again.
“Why are your feet so fast?”
“Why?”
“I told the teacher I’d follow you out.”
Woo-hyun took out a handkerchief as fine as himself from his pocket, wet it with water, and wiped Seo-heon’s wound. Seo-heon preferred Woo-hyun’s warm hand that occasionally touched him more than the lukewarm handkerchief.
“That must hurt.”
“You carry around things like this?”
Although Woo-hyun was gentler than other kids his age, he was an ordinary boy who liked playing soccer and whose clothes would get dirty by the time school ended. So he definitely wasn’t the type to carry around such a handkerchief.
“Mom always puts it in my bag. I grumbled because I didn’t want to carry it around.”
Woo-hyun smiled, making eye contact with Seo-heon.
“If I had known I’d use it to treat your wound like this, I wouldn’t have complained.”