Chapter 53: At This Level…

“This brings back memories.”

I took a drag of my cigarette, exhaled through my nose, and spoke softly, with a light chuckle.

It was the appropriate gesture for small talk.

Though I wasn’t sure why I was doing it here.

“When was it? When I took the train to see you… we went to a cafe with tables like this.”

My severed foot was regenerating.

Watching my foot wriggling back into existence, I thought again that I wasn’t human.

The people surrounding me, watching me, probably thought the same.

They wouldn’t disappear, no matter how many drugs I took.

I didn’t want to see them.

“I still remember the price of the coffee.It was about the same as my monthly food expenses.It wasn’t bad, with the cream and all, and it was the first time I’d had milk in a while.But while I was drinking it, I thought I could have bought meat with that money, and it made me a little sad.”

I felt a slight tingling sensation.

“Say something. There must be something you want to say.I even messed with your… toy… out of jealousy.”

“Shut up.”

“You could… shut me up with that amazing ability of yours, couldn’t you?”

I was trying to provoke her, but Seo-jun literally stabbed me in the mouth with her sword.

The blade sliced through my lower lip, precisely severing my tongue.

I spat out my severed tongue, crossed my legs, and stared at Seo-jun. Her eyes were filled with a mixture of complex emotions and hatred.

“Why… why are you doing this?”

I shrugged.

I didn’t want to answer, and I couldn’t.

“Even when you attacked the hospital, I wanted to sit down and talk with you calmly. Because I hoped you wouldn’t die. Because I hoped the girl beside me would stop doing those horrible things.”

Seo-jun let out a hollow laugh and continued.

It wasn’t a laugh of amusement, but rather one of disbelief.

“There’s no… there’s no line for you, nothing you need to protect.It’s probably ridiculous for me to even say this.”

Living life so rigidly only created more problems, more unknowns.

My tongue had regenerated, but it was still a bit short, and I didn’t want to sound strange, so I just finished my coffee. I poured more hot water into the paper filter with the remaining coffee grounds, making a weaker brew.

“Ha-rin. Yoo Ha-rin. Leaving you alone in the village was definitely my mistake. A huge mistake. But… I don’t think I made a mistake big enough for you to go through all this.”

“Really?”

“At least Hye-yeon… she always tried to get close to you, saying she wanted to be your friend.So why… why did you do that to her? If you had just… killed her in a fight… I would have been angry, but…”

The man Seo-jun just killed was against using lab rats like me.

He interfered.

So, after some conflict, his daughter was killed by a former comrade, almost died, and then barely survived, or something like that.

It must be frustrating to die so pointlessly.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t show up in my dreams.

Anyway, since he was an important person, he told me a lot of things.

Awakening abilities was completely random.

My childhood friend in front of me was a prime example.

But talented ability users wanted their children to be talented too.

And this man didn’t want that.

That’s why he started his activities.

“Even if Im Hye-yeon, that…, awakened her ability using a new drug made from squeezing lab rats like me?”

“She probably didn’t do it for that reason.”

“So you knew.”

“I didn’t. I just found out from you.Did you think I would be shocked and start stammering like before?”

I guess after all the shocking things I’d done, it wasn’t surprising that my school friend’s father was the one squeezing the lab rats.

It had nothing to do with me anyway.

And the drugs Hye-yeon took… they weren’t related to me either.

“There are too many shocking things, too many heartbreaking things. Thanks to you, I’ve become numb. I’ve gotten used to things I shouldn’t.”

I rested my chin on my hand and listened.

I was tired of hearing this.

“It’s always been like this.You were always the cause of trouble in the village, the one who made people fight. Even if you didn’t intend to.”

When was the last time we had a calm conversation, just exchanging words without raising our voices?

“And now, you’re actively creating it yourself.You could have just burned down the research facility, stopped the experiments, and rescued those kids suffering from horrible treatment. And if there was something wrong, you could have slowly found it and fixed it. What do you want!?”

“You.”

Could this even be called a conversation?

“I told you, I wanted to see you.”

“You saw me! You saw me!If you had just told me your name back then, if you had just asked for help, I would have helped you! Do you know how many people died!?”

I didn’t.

Except that it was a lot.

And I didn’t need to know.

I had nothing to do with those people.

“But you… you were doing that behind my back, smiling, pretending like you didn’t do anything, acting all weak, doing those unspeakable things in the matches…!”

“Unspeakable things? You killing Si-hyun “unni” and me doing that to Hye-yeon… they’re the same.”

“Who is that!?”

“That’s why I deliberately wore the rabbit mask and carried the shotgun when I visited the hospital.”

I was about to show her the half-broken rabbit mask but stopped.

She wouldn’t remember even if I showed her.

“You don’t even remember, do you? The person you killed. So why… why are you asking me why I did that, how many people died? It doesn’t matter. No one cared when I was stuck there.”

I crushed the cigarette in my hand, the smell of burning filter filling the air.

“She was the one who saved me from the research facility. She saved me when I wanted to die after getting out, and she helped me find a reason to live.”

“I don’t care.”

“Then I don’t care about what you’re saying either.”

“That’s why we’re in this situation.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Sit down. If you get up, I’ll…”

She seemed to stop herself from saying she would kill me.

Did she not intend to kill me, or did she want to continue this pointless conversation?

I stood up, and Seo-jun severed my knees.

I didn’t even see it coming.

Not a single drop of blood flowed from the cauterized wounds.

I clutched the severed ends, writhing in pain. Then I grinned and glared at her.

“Do you know what happens to C-rank students when they die?”

“…….”

“They’re put in black plastic bags, taken somewhere, and then turned into boiled meat for the lab rats in the basement. Sterilized, disgusting, chemical-tasting meat.”

I tried to stand up but immediately fell.

My face slammed into the table, knocking a cup to the floor.

Despite the short distance, the cup shattered with a loud crash.

It broke into only three pieces, probably because it was so big.

“You’ve never eaten human meat because you were hungry. Sometimes, they don’t even give you that. I was just helping a hungry child.”

“Yoo Ha-rin. Everything would have been resolved if you had just talked. If you had just told me who you were, what you went through, what happened, and asked for help.”

“You didn’t come when I needed you.”

“You said it yourself! How would I know!? How would I know if you were stuck there being dissected!?”

“Right, you wouldn’t. School life must have been fun!”

“I was enjoying school life! While I left you behind! When villains attacked, even when I thought I might die, I was always intoxicated by the thrill of victory!!”

“That must have been fun.”

“Yes, it was fun. So fun that I didn’t care when you came to find me, so fun that I just sent you away and went back to school.”

Seo-jun rubbed her face as she spoke.

She seemed to be crying.

The dim light in the room reflected off the liquid in her eyes.

“I regret it.”

“Then just let me go.”

“No. You did those things because you could.First, because you could take revenge, then because you could kill, and then, because you just wanted to kill.”

Her voice trembled.

“You stopped thinking, stopped trying to understand what the problem was. You pushed everything to the back of your mind, what was right, what was wrong, what happened to you. You just did those things because you could, because you wanted to.”

We could argue with each other endlessly, but we didn’t.

This wasn’t a conversation anymore.

Or maybe I was the only one who thought that.