Delusive Fate

#015

Ki Baek-woo’s hands desperately clutched my shirt. He pressed his calves and thighs together, completely kneeling down. Baek-woo was looking up at me in an extremely submissive posture. His expression was very desperate. I had nothing particular to say, so I just stared blankly at his face.

Baek-woo’s face was slightly wet, and his complexion was pale. Seeing such a handsome guy like this made him seem like the most pitiful person in the world. Even someone who didn’t know Baek-woo would probably want to hug and comfort him if they saw that face. Thinking about this, I suddenly felt sorry for Baek-woo.

Why does he make such a face in front of me, where he gains neither sympathy nor benefit? If he went to a jewelry store or a bank with that face, he could become the king of gold bars or the world’s richest cash millionaire.

“Hyung, say something. You know this is all nothing, right? Huh?”

With a thud, it was my phone that fell to the floor. The screen, lit up by the impact, clearly showed the photo I had been looking at on the center community. It was an intimate picture of Baek-woo and Jung Yi-dam with their faces close together.

Just like lovers about to kiss.

“No. This isn’t it, it’s definitely not, hyung. It’s not me.”

“What’s not?”

“I can’t even remember when this was. All the things those people are saying in the comments are nonsense. It’s all their delusions and lies. They’re always like that. You know how they always say weird things whenever I do anything. It’s the same this time. How could I possibly… to you… It’s absolutely not true.”

“Is that so?”

“Of course. Hyung, is it because of this? Are you angry because you think I did something strange with Jung Yi-dam behind your back? Is that why that day, the day I was going on a raid, you kept telling me to go to Yi-dam?”

Hyung, it’s not true. It’s not like that. Those people are just talking for fun. You know, you know everything…

I quietly looked over Baek-woo, who was desperately making excuses with a pale face.

From his jet-black, neat hair to his straight, white forehead, from his neatly groomed eyebrows to his sharp, elongated eyes, to his distinctly protruding nose bridge and lips that drew attention due to their clear lines.

I never imagined in my life that this face would make such an expression. No, that’s not it.

I had spent my whole life trying my best to ensure that Baek-woo would never make such a face.

A face full of fear, anxiety, and humiliation. An expression of desperate and submissive agitation.

Baek-woo, what is he thinking right now?

Does he really think my attitude changed overnight because of just one photo like this? Or is he hoping that it’s at least for that reason?

I wondered for a moment what I should do. Then, realizing that it was all meaningless either way, I scratched above my eyebrow. I felt Baek-woo’s hands gripping my clothes tighten even more.

“Yeah… it’s all those people’s delusions and lies.”

“I didn’t do it. Hyung, I really, yeah.”

“But Baek-woo, let’s put those people aside…”

I stroked Baek-woo’s head with an unusually calm attitude. Then I asked.

“Why are you lying?”

“What do you mean…”

“The one freely spreading lies isn’t those people, it’s you, Baek-woo.”

I said indifferently.

“You’ve already kissed Yi-dam. Pretending you didn’t…”

#2. The First Han-sol

I thought about my first life.

I was really ugly then. I knew I was acting disgustingly and pathetically, but I kept behaving that way until the end. I thought I could convince Baek-woo by doing so. Because we had a solid and long time that this person named Jung Yi-dam, who suddenly appeared, couldn’t invade. I believed in the persistent bond and desperate affection that flowed abundantly within it.

I believed that Baek-woo wouldn’t ignore our precious time. It was an absolute belief so solid that no one could break it. That’s why I became miserable myself.

In my first life, I noticed something was off with Baek-woo when Jung Yi-dam awakened as a healing hunter and appeared in A district.

Although I wasn’t affiliated with the central center in A district due to my low rank, I had heard in advance that someone living in C district had awakened as an S-class healing hunter, that is, a healer.

An S-class healer. From the moment Yi-dam appeared, the center community was buzzing with talk about him every minute, every second. It was natural. That’s the kind of existence a healer was.

“Baek-woo, you’ve heard about it too, right?”

“About what?”

“What else, of course about the S-class healer. People have been talking about him all the time lately. He’s constantly on the news too.”

“Ah… that person who awakened and is coming up this time?”

“Yeah. You’ll be able to see him in person in a few days. Since he’s S-class, he’ll have to move here soon due to the residency law. Later, when he starts going on raids, he’ll probably be on your team most of the time, right?”

Since you’re both S-class. You’re lucky, Baek-woo. I want to see the S-class healer in person soon too. Looking at his photo in the news, he seems quite good-looking. Both you and him, is S-class a standard for looks? Wait, that means I’m saying I look ugly. I’ll take back what I just said.

When we had this conversation, it was a quiet afternoon, and it was a very peaceful day with bright spring sunlight shining through the window.

When the sun was strong, Baek-woo and I would lie under it and photosynthesize like cats. We moved following the sunlight. From the small room to the bedroom, from the bedroom to the living room, and back to the bedroom. It was a silly behavior for grown adults, but for us, it was like the most important ritual.

When we were young, wandering the streets to survive in the midst of destruction. At that time, we always hid our bodies in abandoned warehouses, in tiny spaces under collapsed building debris, or in the most secluded corners of shelters.

For powerless and unknowing children to survive safely, it was important to find secluded crevices where adults couldn’t enter. Fortunately, I had a talent for finding hiding places like a field mouse or cockroach. We spent several years in darkness like that.

When the first group of awakened individuals appeared, and as they cleaned up the gates that had spread, the government rose again. The first thing the government did was to restore electronic data. They processed the deaths of those who had died and registered the births of children born during the chaos who didn’t even have resident registration numbers.

And they built educational institutions and orphanages. Uneducated, parentless children were scattered everywhere like beasts. Baek-woo and I were the same.

The orphanage, which was the living space for the left-behind children, was terrible. Eight children had to share a space similar to the room I used to have all to myself in the peaceful past before the destruction came. It was good that we didn’t have to worry about meals, but everything else was more suffocating than the streets. The cramped room, forcibly created by putting up a partition wall, didn’t even have a window. We continued to be in darkness even in the orphanage.

Early summer when I was fourteen. I was miraculously able to awaken. Baek-woo and I were giggling while hiding in the backyard of the educational institution. The air suddenly rippled black and a gate opened unexpectedly. The power of destruction that crawled out through that gap overwhelmed us.

‘Baek-woo, no, grab hyung’s hand, Baek-woo, quickly…!’

‘Hyung, run away, don’t come!’

Secretly but faster than anything, destruction snatched Baek-woo’s ankle. I grabbed Baek-woo’s hand, which was being dragged away as lightly as a cotton doll, and pulled with all my might. Of course, it was a futile struggle.

Destruction made an eerie sound, as if mocking me, going “Heu, heu, heu.” And then it tried to put Baek-woo, who had done nothing wrong, Baek-woo who was young and kind and needed to be cared for wholeheartedly, into its sizzling mouth.

‘No, don’t, don’t do that, don’t do that to Baek-woo, no, please, no no no no…!’

My body was filled with nothing but the thought of ‘no’. The vowels and consonants that made up ‘no’ separated like a swarm of bees, filling me completely from the tips of my toes to the crown of my head.

I couldn’t remember how to breathe. I was so helpless that I even wanted to die right now, before Baek-woo. Tears poured out without me realizing I was crying. My eyelids were so hot that I thought my eyes were bleeding.

Eleven-year-old Baek-woo, half-enveloped by destruction, was desperate to shake off my hand.

Hyung, go, go quickly…! I love you, hyung… I’m sorry for making things hard for you… Hyung, please go…!

Repeating words that sounded like final goodbyes, Baek-woo groaned as he tried to peel off my fingers that were persistently tangled with his hand. I really didn’t want to see Baek-woo doing this. It was a sight that felt like my heart was being butchered and torn into a thousand pieces. So I uselessly wished that since my eyes were already bleeding, I hope my eyeballs would just burst, so I wouldn’t have to see the pitiful Baek-woo anymore. And that’s when it happened.

‘Huk…!’

I suddenly realized there was a strange power in my belly. It was a bizarre energy that appeared in an instant, something I had never felt before. I instinctively knew. I could defeat destruction with this. This power alone was not powerless against destruction.

Without hesitation, I burst the unfamiliar power out of my body. Flames rose up and burned the darkness of destruction that was rippling black.

My power was weaker than the destruction that appeared then, but I didn’t stop and kept burning and burning and burning the darkness, and eventually, destruction spat out Baek-woo and disappeared.

‘Bae, Baek-woo…’

Pain as if my internal organs were finely ground swept through my entire body belatedly. Blood gushed up into my mouth. Much later, I learned that this was a sign of self-destruction in an awakened person who had overused their ability. Well, anyway, seeing Baek-woo moving and alive made the pain that felt like it was tearing my skin seem like nothing.

‘Sob… Hyung, Han-so, Han-sol hyung… Hiccup…’

‘Hic… Baek-woo, hic… I was so, sob, scared that you might disappear…’