Chapter 45: This and That

I saw patients in hospital gowns strolling in the garden and chatting with their families.

I parked my motorcycle haphazardly in the parking lot and took off my helmet.

I put in colored contacts, braided my hair, wrapped it up, and put on a wig.

A brown wig, the color of my original hair.

Looking in the mirror, I felt like I was back to my old self. What did that feel like? I wasn’t sure.

Anyway, the hospital didn’t have security guards.

They didn’t expect to be attacked, no matter how important the ability user admitted there was.

Who would try to escape from here, except for maybe a psychopath, or someone with an injured arm or face?

Was this even something a sane person would do?

I’d crossed the line a long time ago, but this felt wrong.

I walked to the main desk and approached the nurse working there. She looked at me and asked,

“How can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Lee So-hyun.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jung Seo-ha.”

“What’s in that large bag?”

“The teacher wanted a lot of things. Would you like one?”

There are ways to consume things without putting them in your mouth.

She’d taken it in through her body last time, so why not this time?

The nurse declined, wrote my name down on a notepad, and told me to go to the third floor, take the elevator, and then walk to the last room on the right side of the hallway.

I thanked her and headed there.

I think I did a lot of thinking before committing to this.

If it was really okay to do this.

If it was okay to do this not because of a sudden surge of emotions, but because I wanted to, because I planned it.

I’d been collecting blood.

I had to prepare something instead of doing nothing.

I’d find a use for it somewhere, even if I didn’t end up going to the hospital.

I couldn’t think of any other place.

Contrary to what I told Seo-jun to provoke her, Lee So-hyun seemed like a strong person.

Ranking people like they were some kind of product felt wrong, but I understood why they did it.

I smashed the CCTV cameras in the hallway and put down my bag.

I took out the bottles inside and lined them up along the hallway.

I took off the wig and removed the contacts.

I wanted to meet her as I was when we first met.

Carrying the large gun, the mask half-covering my face, I knocked on the door of the single room at the end of the hallway.

“Who is it?”

A voice came from inside.

“Teacher, can I come in?”

“Come in, whoever you are.”

I opened the door and entered. Lee So-hyun was still wrapped in bandages, wearing an eyepatch.

“It’s been a while. Oh, you should probably put down the spear. I’m perfectly fine now.”

“……I saw the news. You caused quite a scene.”

She didn’t put down the spear.

“Then you know what I’ll do.If you don’t put it down in three seconds, I’ll grind everyone on this floor to bits.”

Her hands trembled, and she dispersed the spear into thin air.

It melted away and disappeared.

“Shall we talk?”

“……About what?”

“You look scary when you glare like that. Why don’t you relax your face?”

I pulled the rabbit mask down fully.

“Just about this and that.About how you almost died by my hand while guarding a research facility that conducts human experiments, and how your beloved student will soon find you dead. That should be enough, don’t you think?”

“How gruesome. There’s aloe vera juice in the fridge. Bring me one.”

There was a bottle of aloe vera juice, tomato juice, and carrot juice in the small, single-person refrigerator.

Everything except the aloe vera looked disgusting, so I just brought her the aloe vera juice and leaned against the wall.

“Aren’t you a pretty important person?There’s no one guarding you.”

“Injured people aren’t important.They’re busy suppressing and eliminating trash like you, not irreplaceable personnel.”

“Meanwhile, in the basement, they’re feeding people to kids with no connections, doing all sorts of things.Thinking about that, raiding a school and taking a few students’ hearts doesn’t seem so bad.”

“But you walked into that research facility on your own.Those disgusting bastards took those children by force.”

“Then they should have at least told them what would happen to them.”

She bit her lip and then slowly answered.

“……I know that whatever I say, it’ll be my fault.I know it’s wrong, taking kids and using them like that.But I’m not going to stop it, or try to fix it.”

“And you’re the one who always talks about justice on TV?”

“Because that’s how people want me to act.”

She finished the aloe vera juice and threw the bottle against the wall.

The green bottle shattered, sending fragments flying.

“What will change if I rescue you from the research facility, if I save those abused children from their experiments?
They’ll just be shoved into a deeper basement, and I’ll be targeted by those in power and sacrificed to some powerful villain one day.”

“Seo-jun, the student you were teaching, would have saved them.”

“She would have. That’s why I taught her. That’s why I fell for her. No matter how I think about it, I don’t think I would do anything, even if I had the power.”

She even fell for her.

I didn’t really understand what falling for someone meant.

We just thought it was natural to be by each other’s side.

So when she disappeared, it felt like half of me was missing.

“Sigh, if I hadn’t been guarding the research facility, we wouldn’t have had to fight.I’m similar to you. I don’t like doing anything, I don’t like fighting, and just…”

I paused, unsure of what to say.

“I just… I was just a naive girl who crossed the river to meet her childhood friend.I guess I still am.”

“The naive girl I have in mind isn’t a villain who killed over a hundred students and bombed a research facility.”

“The who call themselves heroes tore apart the person I admired most.”

“Good for her. You deserve it too, even if it seems like you’ve been through a lot.”

“Do you pity me?”

“Yes, incredibly. So much so that I wonder if you shouldn’t just kill yourself.”

“I heard that from Seo-jun too.”

“Why didn’t you? It would have been an easy way out.”

“Because it annoys me that people like you exist in this world.I want you to die with me. It would be a little lonely going alone.”

“Unlike you, I’ve lived a happy life.So I don’t want to. Who would want to die with a lowlife scum like you?”

“No one. That’s why I’m doing this, isn’t it?”

Silence fell between us.

We didn’t have much to talk about, and we were just driven by emotions.

We tried to kill each other as soon as we met.

I just wanted to know what kind of person Seo-jun liked and cherished.

“We’re talking at cross-purposes.No matter what we say, we just disagree. Then the conclusion is quite simple.”

Is smoking prohibited in hospitals?

Actually, murder is prohibited too.

Or maybe not. It could just be a surgical error, accidentally injecting too many drugs.

I should think of it as surgery, not killing.

Surgery is a procedure involving the incision or suturing of tissue to repair damage or deformity.

Then it’s not really wrong.

I’m always fixing people who have warped thoughts, people whose minds are a little messed up.

I took out a cigarette, put it in my mouth, and pulled out my lighter.

Perhaps because of nerves, or the thought that I should stop this, the sweat on my hands made it hard to flick the lighter.

But I managed to light it and took a drag.

Then, after taking a puff, I finally spoke, steeling my resolve.

“If you blow your own brains out, I’ll spare half of them.A necessary sacrifice. For me to save the rest of the innocent people.”

“You won’t be able to kill almost any of them this time.”

She was quite confident.

Judging by the way she summoned a spear out of thin air.

“I asked if there was anyone guarding you.”

“Is there?”

“Yes. She’ll be here soon.The girl who will stop you from running rampant ever again.”

I didn’t like her smug expression, so I pulled the trigger.

Contrary to her confident words, a large hole appeared in her stomach, and she crashed into the wall.

I loaded another round and aimed at her face.

Once, twice, three times.

She was still breathing, but her face was so mangled that I doubted anyone would recognize her.

Unlike me, many people seemed to die when their heads were separated from their bodies.

This person was quite resilient. I wondered if she would survive.

I took out the ornate dagger the Chairman gave me as a gift and plunged it into her neck.

It slid in easily, like cutting through tofu. I was surprised by how easy it was.

She struggled, grabbing my wrist, trying to push me away, but she seemed too weak to exert any force, perhaps because of the shotgun blast or her mangled body.

When her struggles weakened, I twisted the blade and pulled it out. Blood gushed out like a faucet turned on full blast.

Thinking she might not die like this, I stomped on her head, about to slowly cut it off, when I sensed someone behind me and turned around.

“Oh, no, you…”

Hye-yeon. Or was her name Seo-ha? The name I gave the nurse.

A rather handsome boy in an unfamiliar A-rank uniform.

And Seo-jun, her face falling apart.

I wished she would smile instead of making that expression.

It was a shame I couldn’t show her my smile because of the mask.

“Long time no see? It’s been a few months, hasn’t it?”

The girl with beautiful blue hair, my only friend besides Seo-jun, who brought me snacks and talked with me, drew her sword.

She took a deep breath and charged at me.

How did things turn out like this?

I couldn’t remember.

I just… went with the flow.