Chapter 38: A Conversation That Might Not Be So Light

“Let go. I haven’t sunk to the level of those women who spread their legs for drugs.”

I relaxed and lay down on the bed, since it was already dirty.

They say heaven didn’t create one person above another, but Seo-jun showed no sign of getting off me.

I wriggled around, and she finally seemed to come to her senses.

She let go of my wrist, as if realizing her mistake.

“……Sorry.”

“Make me some coffee if you’re sorry. Make some for yourself too, if you want.”

Seo-jun rummaged through the kitchen drawers for a while, found the instant coffee, and made two cups in paper cups.

Meanwhile, I had already grabbed a cigarette from the desk drawer, put it in my mouth, and lit it.

I used to smoke strong cigarettes, but now I smoke light ones that don’t smell as much.

My childhood friend saw me and started to scold me, but her lips only twitched.

She didn’t say anything.

“Seo-jun, what do you think of me?”

“……Suddenly?”

“No, I’m not trying to seduce you or anything.I’m literally asking what you think of me.”

“A childhood friend I thought I’d never see again.”

“Precious?”

“Yes.”

“You’re precious to me too.”

“This isn’t the time to exchange compliments like we used to.”

“It reminds me of the old days, and it’s nice. And, it is that kind of situation.I still cherish those days. Even that village.The village you lived in seems like a good place.”

“……I probably wouldn’t have survived in that village without you either.”

“I wouldn’t have survived without you either.”

I inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in until I felt a slight burning sensation in my throat before exhaling.

“And then you left. To a place I couldn’t easily visit.Eventually, it became impossible for me to visit.And I couldn’t endure it in that village.”

If you don’t know, if you don’t remember… the best way to avoid errors in thought or emotion is ignorance.

If I hadn’t known anything, if I hadn’t known that the days I spent with Seo-jun were incredibly happy, I could have lived in that village.

If I hadn’t known that life in the village was a life lived at the bottom, I would have thought that life in the lab was bearable.

The village was beautiful.

It would have been paradise without the people.

People overturn, distort, and warp everything. They don’t like natural scenery as it is.

They even try to overturn, distort, and warp other people, not wanting to leave them as they are.

The fact that I, a normal person, became this monster must be due to that.

“So I went to the research facility.I wasn’t happy in the village. I was happy being with you in the village.So I thought, if I could just be with you… no matter what I went through……”

I would be okay. I would be happy.

That’s what I thought, until they opened my skull and electrocuted me.

That’s all there is to me?Just one line?

My past, where we spent over ten years together, always happy, is summarized in one line?

And my death is just the extermination of something that turned into a monster in a research facility?

What’s the point of mourning?

What value is there in such a death?

I… I didn’t go to that research facility for that.

I didn’t go there resigned. I went with hope, hoping to see Seo-jun.

Hoping to be happy together again, like we were in the village.

That’s the belief I went with.

“I thought I’d be okay.”

But I wasn’t okay at all.

All I saw was that wave-patterned plaster ceiling everywhere I went.

Researchers in white coats, the lab always clean despite all the blood splattered around.

And the memories that surfaced, claiming I was Yoo Ha-rin.

I clutched my head and screamed in pain, and the researchers dragged me away, opened my skull, and electrocuted me.

I don’t know what kind of expression she was making, but Seo-jun’s face seemed to change slightly.

“Seo-jun. Do you remember Lee So-hyun?The person who ran away half-dead, bleeding everywhere?”

“Don’t talk like that, even if it’s you……”

“Even if it’s me, what? Are you going to dislocate my jaw again like last time?Telling me to just die. Saying I’ll be famous enough, like Lee So-hyun.”

I got up, made two cups of cheap instant coffee with cold water, and drank them both in one gulp.

“Famous as the girl who got into the academy with a useless ability and then killed herself like an idiot.Telling me to think before I speak. I think and worry every single day, but no one acknowledges it.”

“Don’t talk like that.She’s like my benefactor.You weren’t the type to talk like that.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I didn’t come here to argue……”

I interrupted her and continued.

It’s just like the old days.

Whenever I tried to say something, Seo-jun would cut me off and get annoyed.

“Hey, if someone who wasn’t like this changed, there must be a reason.”

Since we’re friends, when we play heroes and villains, we should switch roles sometimes.

It’s boring to always do the same thing.

“Think before you speak. Seo-jun. Think before you speak.I think every single day.I worry, I don’t know why I’m alive, I don’t know why I feel awful whenever I see you, but then, I feel like this, my emotions overflowing.”

“……I’ll help you quit the drugs, so calm down and sit down.”

“You think I’m acting like this because of the drugs?”

“Then what is it? Look at you. You look exactly like a drug addict.Dark circles under your eyes, completely emaciated, you used to be shy even if your shoulders showed, but now you just undress in front of me.”

“I spent a few months naked. I didn’t need to wear clothes. They just got ripped up anyway.”

Seo-jun gritted her teeth at my words.

It seemed like there was a misunderstanding.

“I didn’t sell my body. I was assaulted, but not in the way you’re thinking.”

“……Please stop talking nonsense and tell me what happened. So I can help you.”

“Help me with what? How are you going to help me?There’s no way you can help me.”

“Do you remember the research facility Lee So-hyun was guarding?”

“……Why?”

“Was there something underneath that research facility?”

Seo-jun was treating me like she was reasoning with a crazy person.

It meant she was playing along for now.

“There must have been some classified research or something going on.”

“Something like that.”

She didn’t react when I chuckled.

“There are test subjects under the research facility.They’re called Number 1, Number 2, Number 3… I don’t know how many there are, but there are a lot.”

I didn’t want to talk about it, but I continued.

“And you know about the legal clinical trials they conduct on children who haven’t awakened their abilities, to make them awaken, right?It was in the news. They said it was the first successful case.”

It felt like I was begging for pity.

“That’s a lie. I think I was probably the first.”

What kind of things can people forgive?

I’m a pathetic, useless person, so I need some pity.

“……Huh?”

Seo-jun, who had been half-listening, seemed to focus on the conversation again.

“So, in that research facility.The research facility you went to, the one that burned down, that’s where I first awakened my ability, I think.Pay attention when I’m talking.”

I got up and lay down on the bed again.

“All I ever saw was the white ceiling, the same wave-patterned plaster ceiling.The walls were always blocking my way, and food fell from above.And my name wasn’t Yoo Ha-rin there. It was Number 11. Right, Number 11.”

“What are you talking about……?”

Her voice trembled slightly.

“While you were gallivanting around this school with pretty girls, I was stuck in that lab, wanting to see you, wanting to be with you even after hearing that You’re not deaf, are you? Just shut up and listen.”

As I recalled the memories, perhaps because the drug was wearing off, I flinched involuntarily and closed my eyes as Team Leader Joo, who was standing next to me, hit my head with a hammer.

It didn’t hurt, but I couldn’t help it.

I lit another cigarette and inhaled, slightly disappointed.

Nothing changed except for the slight sting in my throat.

It would be funny if anything changed just because we had this light conversation.