Chapter 63: A Clumsy Confession

It was unexpected. The hesitant tone and slightly subdued voice made it even more so. Yeowon couldn’t help but ask again.

“Thoughts?”

Sagyeol nodded.

“What you think of me.”

Yeowon’s heart plummeted. From his frozen expression of surprise, Sagyeol gleaned a flicker of hope.

“I’ve always told you what I think of you.”

It was true. Whether in Baekdam or on the airship, he had continuously conveyed his feelings, both directly and indirectly.

“But I have no idea what you’re thinking, or what you think of me.”

Sagyeol slowly approached and took Yeowon’s hand. His fingers, still warm, intertwined with Yeowon’s cooler ones. Each time a finger pressed into the back of his hand, Yeowon flinched.

“If I take your current attitude as a form of answer, am I just indulging in wishful thinking?”

“…”

“If not, then tell me. Why did you accept my proposal?”

Sagyeol, having completely forgotten about the wager and the wish, pressed his body closer. His tilted head bit firmly into Yeowon’s sweat-dampened nape.

“The fact that you don’t push me away even when I do this… does that mean I can interpret it as you having some feelings for me, too?”

Their eyes met, mere inches apart. A nervousness Yeowon had never seen before was visible in Sagyeol’s gaze. Yeowon was merely slow to notice; Sagyeol had already reached his limit.

“Do I have no part in your goal of heading into the depths of the Flood?

Did you truly take my hand solely to see Lee Myeong-hwan’s corpse?”

He spoke like a man being pursued. Yeowon silently gazed back at Sagyeol.

Though no words were exchanged, the two conversed. The tranquil, subdued atmosphere brought to mind a hospital room, and both recalled the same moment.

Back then, Sagyeol had wanted to expose Yeowon.

He relentlessly provoked Yeowon, who clung to a passive demeanor. Yet, in the end, the one doing the shaking was shaken far more profoundly.

At that time, Yeowon had been gripped by a premonition.

The premonition soon became reality. Even when he believed Sagyeol to be Lee Myeong-hwan’s son, he couldn’t bring himself to kill him. Simply leaving had seemed the best option, and so he had.

And now, here they were.

The mental barrier, constantly tense with anxiety over Kratus, had crumbled. His adaptation to the Middle World was nearing completion. With nothing untoward happening thus far, he had begun to believe that nothing would happen in the future either.

‘You shouldn’t speak to anyone but me.’

‘Why? Do my words sound like a joke?’

Recalling the chilling words of the Dragon Demon still made his body tremble faintly, yet it no longer felt suffocatingly terrifying.

Using this change as a stepping stone, Yeowon decided to be a little more honest.

“You’re right.”

At this frank admission, Sagyeol’s expression fell. He bit his lip, barely managing to maintain a neutral facade. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sagyeol thought. ‘If he has no feelings now, I’ll make sure he develops them.’ Before Sagyeol could utter a word, Yeowon spoke first.

“I don’t do things I dislike.”

He grabbed Sagyeol by the collar. Pulling him in forcefully, he pressed their lips together, and Sagyeol’s eyes widened. It was a clumsy kiss, teeth clashing, and a faint tear appeared on a lip.

Startled by the sight of blood, Yeowon flinched and pulled back. Sagyeol, however, wouldn’t let him go. His large hand cupped the back of Yeowon’s head, pressing him closer.

Blood? That was utterly irrelevant. Even a simple kiss felt like his prefrontal cortex was melting, but this was Yeowon’s first initiated kiss. Ending it lightly was simply not an option for Sagyeol.

Sagyeol clung on tenaciously. Yeowon, trying to keep up, eventually turned his head, gasping for breath. A cough erupted involuntarily.

He propped an elbow and pushed against Sagyeol’s firm chest with his arm. When he put his mind to it, the large body easily yielded.

Yeowon spoke, feigning nonchalance.

“Everything you’ve done to me until now was only possible because I allowed it.”

“Then allow it again.”

Sagyeol said it without batting an eye. Yeowon knew he was brazen, but *now*? At *this* point? As a bewildered Yeowon merely blinked, Sagyeol seized the opportunity and kissed him again.

“Wait. Stop.”

“Just a little. I’ll only do a little, okay?”

Sagyeol nuzzled his lips against Yeowon’s nape, like a spoiled child. He bit and sucked at a different spot than before. Yeowon couldn’t immediately push him away, having found his massive antics surprisingly endearing.

Moreover, perhaps because he’d been thinking about it all along, his first encounter with Sagyeol and his current demeanor were starkly contrasted.

“I want to do it now.”

“…”

“No?”

“No.”

His cold refusal made Sagyeol deflate.

The man who had exuded a languid, weighty aura, with his legs long-crossed, was gone, replaced by nothing more than a childish, overgrown dog.

“Are you really saying no?”

At this point, he was a completely different person, merely sharing the same face. Without even answering this time, Yeowon pushed Sagyeol away completely and broke free from his embrace. Only then did he realize that Sagyeol’s hand had somehow wrapped around his waist. ‘When did that happen?’

“I’m leaving now. I want to shower.”

“Shall we shower together, then?”

Yeowon, stopping Sagyeol with just a glance, entered the shower alone. As the water rained down, Yeowon traced the scar on his chest with his fingertips.

He hadn’t forgotten. Yet, unlike before, an overwhelming fear no longer spontaneously arose. Instead, he found himself wondering if it might be time to slowly forget, if he could simply take Sagyeol’s hand like this.

Swaaah.

Stopping his contemplation of the scar, Yeowon began to wash himself vigorously, starting from his head.

The days he had spent silent after returning from the Demon Realm, his voice stolen—even those days were now relegated to the past.

Kratus remained trapped in the Demon Realm. Yeowon, meanwhile, continued to move forward. Therefore, unless something extraordinary occurred, the distance between them would only grow. Even if it wouldn’t naturally, he was determined to make it so.

When he emerged from the shower, Sagyeol was waiting like a well-behaved dog.

In the changing room.

“…”

Being of the same gender, there was nothing inherently strange about his presence. However, knowing the gaze with which he was being watched, it was a different story entirely. Yeowon simply looked at Sagyeol, a silent pressure for him to leave.

‘That’s too much,’ Sagyeol thought. ‘What kind of look is that? I have a right to be in the changing room too.’ Sagyeol rambled on, spouting any excuse to hold his ground, making it seem as though he were an illegal squatter to an outsider.

Yeowon sighed, not bothering to engage. Instead, he removed the towel wrapped around his waist.

It was Sagyeol who, surprisingly, became flustered. The man, who had stretched out his legs before even checking for a place to lie down, remained rigidly frozen until Yeowon had dried himself and put on his clothes.

He emerged still hunched. Yeowon, casting him a look of disdain, walked ahead.

A few days later, Sagyeol acquired an axe, claiming it was ‘decent enough.’ Though he spoke as if he’d merely ‘picked it up on the way,’ the axe’s aura was far from ordinary. Yeowon, after a few practice swings, examined it with a peculiar expression.

As the saying goes, ‘you see what you know.’ Upon closer inspection, familiar traces of demonic beasts were visible. From its head to its haft, the axe was a superior product, crafted entirely from the byproducts of high-grade demonic beasts.

“…Thank you.”

At the calm acknowledgment, a wide grin stretched across Sagyeol’s face. However, when Yeowon couldn’t tear his eyes or hands away from his newly acquired weapon, that joy quickly turned into ambivalence.

‘It’s good that he cherishes what I gave him so much, but I don’t like that he’s paying more attention to it than to me.’

“It’s time for drone training. Let’s go.”

At Sagyeol’s words, Yeowon rose from the sofa, still clutching the axe in his hand.

“Leave that here. Hunters don’t typically carry weapons within the city. It can be intimidating to citizens.”

It was a lie.

Even if someone walked by with a massive sword strapped to their back, no one would bat an eye. Yet, the naive Yeowon simply thought, ‘Oh, I see,’ and obediently set the axe down.

Training mostly took place in Sagyeol’s private training ground within the guild building. However, for one specific type of equipment—drones for Flood recovery—they absolutely had to use the designated training facility within the Association.

As equipment usable even outside the city’s energy dome protection, the potential for misuse was high. Indeed, theft and forceful seizure by Outers were frequent occurrences.

“That’s why not just training, but also their removal and use, are strictly controlled.”

Yeowon suddenly asked, as if something had just occurred to him.

“Then what about the drone you used in Baekdam?”

“Illegal.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that Yeowon almost instinctively accepted it.

Wearing hats and masks, they stepped out together. After Yeowon was revealed to be an F-rank, public interest rapidly waned. The opinion that Credit must have chosen him for *something* was overshadowed by the consensus that it must have been due to him being a Returnee, and that even Credit wouldn’t have known before verification.

“You are Seo Yeowon of the Credit Guild, aren’t you? I’m Reporter Kim Jong-ui from Monthly Hunter.”

It seemed there were still some people who hadn’t given up. Yeowon merely stared with wide eyes, while Sagyeol immediately stepped forward to block the path and spoke.

“What is it?”

An S-rank Hunter was glaring, so there was no way a normal civilian would be unharmed… yet there was one.

‘He’s not a civilian.’

He seemed to be a low-rank hunter. The reporter, though trembling, refused to back down.

“H-has there been any change in your stance regarding the Black Mist? You once mentioned that Credit would resolve it again—”

“Get lost.”

CRASH!

“Agh!”

The camera held by the cameraman beside him exploded from within. To ordinary citizens, it would appear as if the perfectly fine camera had simply shattered on its own, but Yeowon understood. Sagyeol had frozen microscopic water particles, releasing magic power.

“Let’s go.”

Sagyeol clicked his tongue and led Yeowon away. The hand he held was both cold and hot.

A dry swallow passed, and Yeowon’s legs trembled. His heart beneath the scar stirred, yet outwardly, he showed no sign of it.

For the first time, Yeowon was grateful for his own expressionless face.

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