Vol. 1 - Ch. 16

I didn’t know what question to ask first, so I picked and chose my words wisely.So, the question I asked first was:

“I am talking about the light that came from your heart earlier. What was that?”

“…”

“…”

Umm.

“Excuse me?”

After a moment of silence, Ja-hyun seemed to have the heart to answer and began to open his lips.

That was when I was getting lucky.

“Unnie!”

I heard a desperate voice searching for me not far.

“Eun-ri unnie!”

It was so loud that the silence got taken out and the voice resounded throughout the yard, so Ja-hyun and I turned heads to the wooden shed at the same time.

“Unnie! When will you come?”

The call came again. It felt like I wouldn’t be able to speak in the same tone to the other side, so I had to force myself to raise the voice from the depths of my lungs.

“Wait a minute! Unnie will be coming there soon!”

Then I heard this squealing sound telling me to come quickly.

‘Thank god, she doesn’t seem to notice it.’

Eun-young’s voice seemed clear to my ears, and my heart sank.

That child was unaware of the commotion that happened in the moonlit yard just a moment ago.

She must have been busy splashing around the bathtub. Otherwise, she might have heard the commotion outside.

I gave strength to my feeble limbs and admired my thoughts for leaving the bathtub just half full.

And like a newborn animal, I moved my trembling legs and took one or two steps from Ja-hyun.

Instead of just going straight to the shed, I turned my head and slightly looked at Ja-hyun.

“There is something I need to say…”

“…”

“The situation is a bit different now, so let us talk later. You understand?”

Ja-hyun stayed silent, but I decided to take that as an agreement.

The next thing to do was to check if Wang Dae-geon was alive or dead, as it was still unknown whether he was alive or dead. But, I didn’t have the courage to go that far, so I spoke to Ja-hyun behind me.

“Umm, is that person dead?”

“No.”

Before I could end my sentence, Ja-hyun answered.

“He is alive. For now.”

“Ah… then I can leave him like that?”

“You can. I guess he will get up in the morning and clean himself up.”

“…”

That damned corpse. I am fucking pissed.

In any case, I held my pounding head and thought for a while when he answered about Wang Dae-geon, I might have to take my bath and come out feeling refreshed and destroy this evidence.

I was wondering whether I should run to the physician's home right away or not.

At that time, I heard the faint sigh behind me, and then came the slow voice of Ja-hyun.

“Go. I will handle this man.”

“You? Why?”

Due to the unexpected kindness, a question popped out without my knowing.

Ja-hyun looked at me silently, and I quickly averted my gaze to the side. As the uncomfortable silence continued, I, with my frozen face, found it tough to speak.

“You aren’t killing him, right?”

I asked just in case, but the response I got was unusual.

“Do you want that to happen?”

I narrowed my eyes and hurriedly shook my head.

“No, no. I don’t want that. So please don’t kill me.”

“Hmm.”

Then, Ja-hyun snorted once and turned around to walk towards Wang Dae-geon.

“Let’s just hurt him to the extent of not dying and then abandon him. So we can just go our own way. It is so loud that the entire place is echoing.”

There was no need to ask what was loud; he was speaking of Eun-young searching for me.

My younger sister, but she was a child full of energy. Maybe it is because I was young. I blushed at that.

“Uh, hmm… right. Thank you.”

I was so exhausted that I couldn’t think deeply. I was so engrossed in the moment and expressed my gratitude to Ja-hyun, the cause of this entire situation.

Ja-hyun didn’t turn around, so I turned my head in fluster. Now it was the time to go our separate ways.

‘Woah, I am dying out here.’

I didn’t even have the energy left to walk straight.

I shuffled back to the wooden shed and told Eun-young, who was scolding me for being late, that I had met Wang Dae-geon, who had come outside to chop wood, and then began to remove my clothes.

‘Uh, clothes…’

When I looked down, the knot on my jacket was loose.

Now that I think about it, I noticed that instead of taking off my clothes earlier, I ran out in a hurry. I roughly tied the cloth on the way out, but I guess the knot came undone with the rough movements on the body.

‘What do you think?’

I don’t care a thing about the clothes and took them off.

Anyway, the only person I went out with was Ja-hyun, and I knew he wasn’t someone I would make a big fuss about, even if the inside of the shirt was visible, so I didn’t care.

I roughly lathered my body and poured water on it. And the next thing I did was kick out Eun-young, who had fun in the bathtub when I was away and took the bathtub to myself.

“Ah, nice…”

I rested the back of my head on the wooden bathtub and let out this sigh of satisfaction.

But there was no one to enjoy the long afterglow. This was because Eun-young, who was sitting right next to the tub, kept talking to me.

“Unnie, look at this. My fingertips are wrinkled.”

“Huh. I am watching it now.”

“Lie. You are closing your eyes now.”

“No. Even if I close my eyes, I can see everything.”

“Really? Then how many fingers have I opened? Guess it.”

“Two.”

“Ah! How did you know?”

“I told you I can see everything with my eyes closed.”

Actually, I took a break.

Despite being eager to respond to what she said, I couldn’t help but be silent. It wasn’t intentional; I was just feeling too exhausted.

It was too much for me to even lift my eyelids or speak to her now.

‘I don’t know why my body is this exhausted.’

I asked myself as I poured water on my face.

Was it because we have passed the critical stage of life and death? Until I wandered around looking for Ja-hyun, I ended up tired, but not this…

Perhaps because I was relaxed, I kept yawning.

Looking back, a lot had happened in less than an honor.

‘I need to think about what to ask Ja-hyun first.’

But will he even answer just because I ask him?

No, before that, is it alright to have such a dangerous guy by my side?

In the novel, I liked the guy was an MC, but this is a reality and not a novel. Ja-hyun tried to kill me a couple moments ago.

He said he had no intention to kill me, but I couldn’t just believe and sit back by not making any preparations.

‘The power Ja-hyun spoke of.’

Right, that power.

If I could control that power freely, I would be able to provide a minimum line of defense to protect my life.

‘But how did I use that power?’

An unknown force made Ja-hyun’s left chest shine and caused him to collapse back.

As for how I used that, I should think.

Think, think….

I need to think about it.

My thoughts become progressively duller. The words heard by the ears became muffled. I tried to splash water on my face but ended up shaking my arms.

That was the last scene in my memory.

I had this dream.

A dream in which Ja-hyun, covered in blood, rushed at me and tied my body tightly with rope.

As I struggled to survive being roasted alive and eaten, I woke up from the dream with a sharp pain in the forehead. When I opened my eyes, I was on the floor. It looked like I had fallen off the bed while talking in my sleep, as the pain began from the forehead to the cheekbones and shoulders.

The next thing I knew, I was now naked and tightly wrapped in this not-a-season blanket.

Even in my daze, I struggled to get out of the blanket.

Since it was impossible to wake up Eun-young, who was sleeping soundly on the bed, it took quite a long time just to push her arm out of me.

Still, once an arm of mine came out of the blanket, it was easy to get out.

After escaping the blanket, I couldn’t hide my embarrassment at the naked body and hurriedly ran to the closet and put on whatever clothes I could find.

‘What time is it?’

I looked out the window blankly.

It was dark outside. It felt like there was still a lot of time left before the sun rose.

Feeling that my throat was burning, I crawled on my knees to the nightstand next to the bed in search of the water jug that I always bring before going to bed.

The problem was that there was no water in there.

Uh? Why isn’t there water? What did I do today to forget filling the water in it before leaving?

As I was reminiscing about last night with a half-asleep mind, the memory of falling asleep in the bathtub came to mind. If one thought about it, it would be closer to fainting than falling asleep.

‘I couldn’t believe I was taking my clothes off.’

Even without looking, I could guess that my face must have turned pale.

‘Could it be Ja-hyun who moved me?’

Actually, it was a question not worth thinking about. This is because there was no one else other than Ja-hyun who could have moved me.

Think. With the exception of Ju Cheol-rim, who was probably addicted to alcohol at the bar; Wang Dae-geon, who was dying; Ju Eun-young, who turned seven this year; and Ja-hyun.

With this lineup, the answer was predetermined, and I suffered even more because of it.

‘This is driving me crazy. How can I face him now?’

For a moment, I covered my face and made this groaning sound.

‘Ah, but I have seen everything about him too. Then, isn’t this the same?’

Due to the lack of sleep, my mind turned simpler than usual, and instead of robbing me of the ability to think complexly, it made me a relatively more optimistic person than when the sun was up.

‘Right, this is equal now. There is no need for me to be flustered. I guess I will just say thank you when I meet him.’

The conclusion was reached fast, and I immediately moved on to thinking about something else.

‘No, but being thankful is being thankful. Now that I think about it, wasn’t he being too much? If he was going to bring me to the room, he might as well dress me up. How can he just cover me with a blanket and leave?’

While I was yawning and scratching my neck with my half-open eyes, I changed my mind again. Sᴇaʀᴄh the ɴøvᴇl_Firᴇ.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

‘No, no. It would be even weirder to put clothes on. The blanket was the best.’

I woke up in the middle of the night, shaking like a tree, and was about to climb back onto the bed but then changed my mind.

I had this feeling that if things continued like this, I would be so thirsty that I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Without any choice, I moved to the kitchen.

The house wasn’t that big, so it didn’t take long to reach the kitchen.

It was dark in the kitchen, but there was a window in front of the counter so I could see what was ahead.

I picked up the kettle with the water left in it in the morning and poured it into my favorite glass.

I took a sip, cleared my throat, and slowly raised my head.

The purpose was to enjoy the starry night sky beyond the window while the cool night breeze blew.

‘Earlier, I thought I could see the stars clearly because there were no clouds.’

That was the moment when I raised my head and looked out the window.

‘Uh…?’

My eyes met something.

As expected, with their backs turned to the starry night sky, a black form was standing behind the window looking in.

I screamed in shock as the long black hair blew in the wind. Then I fell down on the kitchen floor with my already weak legs.