Chapter 137

It felt like I was hit by a dump truck rather than being hugged by a person.

“Kang Yi-sin, is it really you?”

Jeong Ho-san looked at my face with an unbelieving expression.

“Yeah, it’s me. So can you let go of me?”

My breath caught as this big guy did this.

“I, I thought you were dead. Even though that couldn’t be possible, because you weren’t contactable at all. I even had those kinds of thoughts…”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s fortunate, since nothing bad happened.”

“Yes, it’s fortunate. It’s really fortunate that you’re alive…”

Jeong Ho-san’s voice started to get chillier.

“You were alive all this time and didn’t contact me even once, how could you do this to me?”

The arms hugging me started to tighten gradually.

“Hey, wait! Just a moment!”

I patted his back hard. When I struggled, Jeong Ho-san quietly let me go. Really, I thought I was going to die with my ribs crushed.

Jeong Ho-san grabbed my shoulders again. Jeong Ho-san was still looking at me with a very angry face. But the anger was momentary. Jeong Ho-san’s face soon crumbled.

“What, what is this all about?”

It’s the first time I’ve been at a loss for words because I had too much to say. Until I saw this guy’s face, I seemed to have hundreds of sentences to say to him, but seeing his crumpled face like this, they all disappeared.

Scratching the back of my neck, what I said to him was…

“I’m sorry about all this time.”

Just this one pathetic line.

“You’re sorry about all this time?”

Jeong Ho-san, who firmly gripped my shoulders with both hands, shouted in a fierce voice:

“Is that all you have to say? Is that all you have to say to me?”

I know that what I said was pathetic.

I don’t know why only such messed up words come out to Jeong Ho-san, when I could move my mouth so well for others.

“What on earth have you been doing all this time, where have you been and what have you been doing? Why didn’t you contact me even once all this time! You should say things like that. How on earth did you think of me to disappear without even a single word?”

I couldn’t give any answer to that question.

“Am I really your friend? Hey, Yi-sin. Tell me, are we really friends?”

He and I can no longer be friends. Though I thought that, hearing these words made me angry anew.

“What about you? Did you leave that great guild saying you’d find someone who’s not even a friend?”

At my words, Jeong Ho-san’s pupils widened.

“You, how did you know that?”

Ah, I made another mistake. At my words, Jeong Ho-san’s eyes became fierce.

“So that’s it? So you showed up because of that? You’re finally showing your precious face just because I left the guild.”

“Hey, you jerk.”

Standing in front of this guy always feels like going back to when we were young. Maybe because my last time with him was around this time. Though we’ve aged ten years more than then, we still act like children.

“What do you really think of people?”

It was the first time I saw Jeong Ho-san this angry. Well, Jeong Ho-san was always the one to soothe me with a smiling face no matter what happened.

I was always the one to start fights and cause trouble, and that guy was the one to clean up my mistakes.

I don’t know how to soothe him when he’s this fiercely angry. Jeong Ho-san sighed looking at me standing there awkwardly.

“Don’t just stand there blankly, say something. You called me out saying we should talk. Didn’t you come out here because you had something to say?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

I said with a sigh:

“First, I’m sorry.”

“For what? What exactly are you sorry for?”

Han Seo-hyeon, and this guy too. I don’t know why everyone catches on my words like this when I apologize.

—That’s because your way of apologizing has something that makes people angry.

‘Really?’

—Yeah, doesn’t it sound like you’re just saying ‘Here, eat this and get lost’?

I didn’t intend that at all. It’s strange, I’ve never thought my way with words was bad, but I wonder why it doesn’t work at all with either Jeong Ho-san or Han Seo-hyeon.

“Just, I’m sorry for everything. I did everything wrong…”

At my pathetic apology, Jeong Ho-san sighed deeply.

“Forget the apology. Just tell me what you’ve been doing all this time and where.”

At Jeong Ho-san’s words, I rolled my eyes and said:

“I was just, doing well.”

There’s a lot I want to say, but not much I can say. Before Jeong Ho-san could get angry at my answer, I quickly asked:

“What about you?”

“I was doing well too.”

I nodded my head saying that. Yeah, yeah. It’s fortunate he was doing well…

“Are you joking? A guy who was doing well quits his guild and runs away?”

“What about you, are you joking? What? You were doing well? Is that all you have to say? If you’re going to apologize like that, you should at least tell me properly how you’ve been! So I can understand you, or scold you!”

Again, the two of us started fighting like children. You did wrong, no, you did more wrong! After hissing like that for a while, we ran out of energy.

“Now tell me properly. Where exactly have you been and what have you been doing all this time? Why did you suddenly disappear? And what exactly are you doing now? Tell me everything without leaving anything out.”

At those words, I moved my lips. There’s no way I could tell the truth.

The reason I came here isn’t to tell ‘the truth’ about what’s been happening.

“Actually, you see…”

I drew magic power into my eyes. I didn’t want to use my ability on my friend, but this would be more certain than persuasion with just words. If I could protect him safely even like this, I didn’t care.

If I could just make him take his hands off my business…

“You, don’t do that.”

My body flinched at those words.

“What?”

“You were about to ‘lie’ to me just now.”

My pupils turn black when I’m about to lie. Unlike Han Seo-hyeon’s pupils that burn like flames, my pupils are still black. That’s why even Seol Rok-jin couldn’t notice when I used my ability.

But this guy always saw through my ability.

“If it’s something you can’t say, then just don’t say it. I’ll accept it even if you say you can’t explain. But I don’t like lies.”

How can I ‘lie’ to someone who says things like this? I dispersed my mana.

“Damn it.”

Jeong Ho-san smiled bitterly at my curse.

“Did you think I would do as you want if you just glossed over things with some lies?”

“Why on earth did you quit even your guild for someone like me?”

“Because it’s you.”

Jeong Ho-san said.

“We promised, didn’t we? That even if everyone else in this world abandons us, we at least wouldn’t do that to each other.”

Because unlike others who have the fence of family, we only have each other. That we’d willingly become each other’s fence.

That’s what we promised.

“So I searched. No matter what others said, I couldn’t give up on my friend Kang Yi-sin. If you had died, I was going to find even your corpse. But what do you know. You’re alive and well.”

“Uh, well.”

Another reproachful look. Yeah, I’m a bastard. For ignoring and worrying a friend who cares about me this much for months. And then coming all this way just to say this crap.

Should I give a somewhat proper explanation?

“I can’t explain the details. I can only say that I’m chasing bad guys in my own way…”

“Bad guys?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that all? Just ‘bad guys’ without any specific names or explanations? Even fairy tale books wouldn’t describe villains like that.”

The explanation was like this because I didn’t want to give Jeong Ho-san any hints. This guy has a persistent side, so if I drop even a hint, I don’t know what kind of accident he might cause with it.

“It started from the illegal Gate incident, right?”

“What?”

“Inspector Do Chae-hee said so. That you seemed to have been chasing an organization involved with that incident since then.”

I narrowed my eyes. He’s quite sharp, more than I thought. But that’s as far as it goes. He won’t be able to reach Seol Rok-jin with just the illegal Gate alone.

I was rather relieved. That this was the only hint Jeong Ho-san had found.

“Anyway, this is my business. You stay out of it.”

I pushed Jeong Ho-san away.

“You see now from today. I’m fine. I’ve been doing very well all this time.”

Please go back and live your life. I scratched the back of my neck and said:

“I’ll contact you occasionally from now on.”

What I want is to completely cut ties here, but I know I can’t persuade Jeong Ho-san with words like that.

Maybe I’ll give a survival report occasionally. So he won’t worry about me, or rather, worry less.

“So you go back to the guild.”

“Quitting the guild…”

Jeong Ho-san sighed and continued:

“You were the trigger, but it’s not just because of you. It’s because I learned that there’s a way to help people not just by saving people in the guild, but in other ways too.”

“What?”

“At first, it was to find the answer to why you did such a thing.”

Jeong Ho-san said he couldn’t understand me. Why I made such a choice. He says he could understand me only after hearing Do Chae-hee’s words. And he made his own decision too. That he wants to walk the same path as me.

“The you I know is definitely not a bad person. So there must be an unavoidable reason why you chose that kind of method, right?”

This is why I didn’t want to meet Jeong Ho-san. Because the me he knows is Kang Yi-sin without a speck of dirt, but the current me isn’t like that. What unavoidable reason? I just wanted to wring those bastards’ necks.

If I looked for a more moderate method, I could have used other methods sufficiently.

“Whatever your thoughts are about catching real bad guys or whatever, do it with me from now on. Whatever your plan is, include me in that plan too.”

Jeong Ho-san’s face saying that was serious. I couldn’t bear to meet those eyes that trusted me without even a small doubt.

—Why don’t you just include him on your side?

That’s the one thing I can’t do. I flatly refused Jeong Ho-san’s proposal.

“No.”

“Or just give it all up and come. Then I’ll go back to how I was like you say.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at Jeong Ho-san’s words.

“Do you know I’m being chased as a murder suspect?”

“We can clear that false accusation gradually in the future…”

“Stop it. It’s not completely a false accusation. Even if it’s not Han Jo-hee, I’ve killed people, a lot of them.”

I tapped my neck.

“See, I even took this off. I’m already a criminal. You know? Just by taking this off, I’m already a serious criminal. I’ve already crossed the line.”

At my words, Jeong Ho-san’s face crumpled. No matter how well that guy sees me, it doesn’t matter. I was already a criminal in this world.

“The moment you get involved with me, you become a criminal too.”

“I don’t care.”

“I care. Go back to the Crimson Hound Guild. Don’t do things like getting involved with a criminal like me.”

“What have you been listening to all this time? I told you! I left the guild with my own thoughts too.”

“Yeah, I’m touched that you even left the guild to try to understand me. So what are you going to do from now on? Is there any need to ruin your life by getting involved with a criminal? No, if you’re entering the Awakener Crimes Department in the first place, you’ll become my enemy. Right?”

“What?”

“If we meet next time, you’ll have to arrest me. It means we can’t face each other like this ever again.”

“What are you saying?”

“It’s exactly what it sounds like. If you enter the Awakener Crimes Department, I won’t see you again, no, I can’t see you. But if you go back to the guild, we can see each other’s faces occasionally like this.”

At those words, Jeong Ho-san glared at me.

“You won’t properly tell me what you’re doing, and you’re telling me to go back to the Crimson Hound Guild?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you threatening me now? With the issue of seeing you? Do you think I can trust you? What if you disappear as you please again? Then I keep waiting for you again? Just keep worrying whether you’re alive or dead, what you’re doing…”

It was frustrating. I thought he would understand if I explained this much.

“I really can’t let you go like this.”

Jeong Ho-san grabbed my wrist.

“What?”

“Do you know how much I regretted letting you go like that last time? I won’t let you go like this again.”

A nearby shadow wriggled. It might just look like a small ripple to someone else, but I could see it.

That’s Kim Jae-ho. I could tell because he’s been enjoying hiding in shadows and surprising me lately. How much have I suffered from that. But now is really not the time.

‘Stop! Stop it.’

I desperately signaled towards the shadow. At my gestures, Jeong Ho-san’s eyes narrowed.

“Wait, who are you signaling to right now?”

“No, not at ↗ all?”

My voice went up as I answered hurriedly. Jeong Ho-san’s eyes filled with even more suspicion.

“Is someone nearby?”

“No, it’s just some flies flying around.”

“Flies in February?”

“What, global warming has gotten severe, you know. There could be flies.”

Though I added that belatedly, it’s a pathetic excuse even to me. My mind was focused on trying to stop Kim Jae-ho who looked like he might jump out at any moment.

By the way, I told them absolutely not to interfere, but when did they all come! They’re not helping, just interfering!

“Tell me honestly. Are you perhaps being threatened by someone?”

While I was silent for a moment, Jeong Ho-san’s thought process accelerated.

“I thought something was strange. No matter how smart you are, there’s no way you could operate without leaving any traces all by yourself.”

Jeong Ho-san’s pupils burned as he held my hand.

“Who is it? Who exactly are you with?”

No, if you say it like that, it sounds like I’ve been captured by some terrible villain and am being forced to work.

Actually, if you think about it, isn’t that bad guy me? The bastard who seduced innocent kids and turned them into villains is me?

“What are you thinking? I move alone.”

I tried to pull out for now. Because it seemed like I couldn’t just leave if my identity as Weltschmerz was discovered here.

“Lies. What exactly is it that makes you tremble and unable to speak like this? Tell me everything. I’ll listen to whatever it is.”

At that moment, someone jumped out of the shadow. It was Kim Jae-ho.

“Kim… you!”

I almost called out his name. I quickly shut my mouth. Kim Jae-ho removed Jeong Ho-san’s hand and grabbed my waist.

“Ugh!”

It happened so suddenly that Jeong Ho-san let go of my hand without even being able to react.

Seeing Jeong Ho-san’s expression crumple, I quickly shouted:

“Ho-san, it’s not what you think!”

Without even giving time to properly explain the situation, Kim Jae-ho kicked the ground. As if that wasn’t enough, black sand wedged between Kim Jae-ho and Jeong Ho-san and me.

“I’m telling you it’s not what you think!”

I desperately shouted like that, but I’m not sure if it got through to Jeong Ho-san.

The last thing I saw of his pupils was them burning blue.