“Uh, here? Isn’t the door broken, though?”
“So what?”
“The door is broken, and some wind will blow in……”
“So what?”
“I live alone, so I don’t have a place to sleep……”
“So what?”
“It’s nothing……”
Hyeon Gyu-ha shrugged his shoulders.
“That’s why I have to stand guard—so that Master can have a good night’s sleep. I’ll call someone I know to fix the front door tomorrow morning.”
“Yes……”
On top of that, In Yoo-shin couldn’t bear to say that he had planned to sleep in a motel.
“Before that.”
Hyeon Gyu-ha turned on the light in the room.
“Let’s eat some late-night snacks first. I’m hungry, maybe because I’m relieved to know that you haven't abandoned me.”
The late night snacks were, of course, chicken and beer. I thought I had no appetite, but I skipped dinner, and the delicious smell of the chicken made my mouth water.
While In Yoo-shin was pouring beer at his table, which he used for both deskwork and eating, Hyeon Gyu-ha moved all the chicken legs and wings to the front of In Yoo-shin.
“Gyu-ha-ssi, don’t you like chicken legs?”
“I like them the most.”
“But why……”
“You ought to eat the delicious parts, Master. I’ll eat the dry meat.”
“……”
In fact, In Yoo-shin preferred breast meat, but he couldn’t say anything because that was besides the point, so he just tore off the chicken legs. Even so, munching on the chewy flesh was delicious. At the orphanage, he didn’t care about chicken breasts or legs, but after two years, his taste buds became picky.
“Is the hamster in that cage Henry Raymond Charles Francois VI?”
“…… I just call it 6-se.”
Hyeon Gyu-ha spoke coolly, but hearing the childishly brilliant name Henry Raymond Charles Francois through his voice, for some reason I felt ashamed of myself.
“So, he’s my hyung.”
“6-se is a female.”
“Then she would be my noona. But why did you give a female a male name?”
“It’s because I keep reusing the name of the first hamster I raised. When I was 5 years old, that name sounded cool.”
He put all the names that he thought were cool together, and the result looked like this.
“Ah, by the way, I can change her name, and I’ll also change your name from 7-se to your real one, Gyu-ha-ssi.”
“You can let it be. There’s nothing inconvenient except that when I type or sign my name, my hand automatically writes Henry Raymond Charles Francois VII.”
“But it’s kind of an embarrassing name.”
“What? It’s cool though.”
“……”
Well, sure. I think Henry Raymond Charles Francois is better than Gap-sik…….
“By the way, did you raise hamsters at the orphanage?”
“Ah, that’s……”
I suddenly felt like the chicken leg that I had been enjoying tasted like sand. Should I cover my past up with a lie? It’s not that I didn’t think of such a thing.
However, In Yoo-shin thought that it would be too shameless of him to lie to Hyeon Gyu-ha, who was in trouble because he was tamed by him.
“It was when I was adopted, you see.”
And I was abandoned.
In Yoo-shin bowed his head and gnawed on his chicken, avoiding eye contact. If Hyeon Gyu-ha asked me why I continued to grow up in an orphanage even though I was adopted, I would have no answer, but he didn’t press the matter.
“Would you like me to mix some beer with Coke?”
“Uh, is it still delicious if you drink beer like that?”
“It’s mixed with sweet, carbonated water, so of course it is.”
Using his psychokinesis ability, Hyeon Gyu-ha demonstrated his phenomenal technique of mixing cola and beer without spilling a single drop, and the beer, which was mixed with cola into a sweet cocktail, was unbelievably delicious.
“I can sleep on the bare floor……”
“While I was clearing dungeons, I got used to staying up all night out.”
“But Gyu-ha-ssi is my guest.”
“The master should sleep comfortably rather than the familiar. This rat will just crouch in the corner.”
Hyeon Gyu-ha insisted to In Yoo-shin, who had tried to yield the only mattress he owned, and forced him to lie down. The word ‘Master’ worked quite well on him.
He seemed to be trying to stay awake, but soon came the sound of even breathing. Before, as soon as Hyeon Gyu-ha realized that In Yoo-shin wasn’t answering the phone, his heart rattled like crazy, and he was overcome with extreme despair and depression. And now, feeling his Master’s breathing and presence by his side, Hyeon Gyu-ha felt an infinite sense of security.
This feeling, of having one’s emotions controlled by others, was very unpleasant.
In the old residential area, even the hamsters that used to spin the treadmill were calm in the middle of the night. Hyeon Gyu-ha heard a car passing by occasionally, and he called out.
“Yoo-shin-ssi.”
“……6-seya ……Don’t run away.”
Although he may laugh at the murmuring sleep talk, Hyeon Gyu-ha’s indifferent expression, sunken in the darkness, remained the same.
Hyeon Gyu-ha first cleared a gate at the age of 9. If killing a demon was considered murder, then Hyeon Gyu-ha had blood on his hands for the first time back then. It was scary. But he had nowhere to run, for he had a child younger than him on his back, a boy who was only three years old.
My first murder, and…
〈Oh, your hidden attribute is vampirism? That’s kinda cool.〉
My most trusted person.
I squeezed and opened my half-gloved hands several times. Nothing’s wrong. Stretched my arms out. Close. My muscular hands could easily grasp his slender neck. One second was enough. Grabbing his neck and twisting it, breaking it, would be easy.
However, Hyeon Gyu-ha then saw his hand, which had been fine, suddenly begin to twitch. At a distance where he could feel the warmth of In Yoo-shin’s neck as he inhaled and exhaled evenly, Hyeon Gyu-ha’s reason lost terribly to the instinct of a tamed beast.
He realized once again that he would never be able to kill In Yoo-shin or his ¦°ø¾Îð.
“¦°ø¾Îð.”
I tried pronouncing the words. There was a crackling noise in the language that this world didn’t recognize.
Hyeon Gyu-ha found it unpleasant.
“……Seriously, ¦°ø¾Îð suddenly came out of my mouth somehow.”
It’s like how the system gave an absurd excuse that bats are also rats, and I was annoyed that I couldn’t even guess why I was tamed. I didn’t think that it was my father’s or aunt’s fault.
“I don’t know who was playing tricks on me, but I’ll take care of my own business, so get out of my life. I don’t need ¦°ø¾Îð.”
Hyeon Gyu-ha spat out some illegible swear words and sat with his back against the wall, near the entrance where the broken door was roughly hung.
The dark room was as silent as death. Hyeon Gyu-ha’s past life and future life were a fall to a single point where he touched death. Colliding and cutting off and wearing out and getting used to the carnage, the apex of the way forward was the death of a perishing world.
No one would interfere with my journey on this path. Even if they were my only mate, ¦°ø¾Îð.
I would single-handedly tear down the city that the king had completed.
***
When In Yoo-shin spotted the person Hyeon Gyu-ha had called in to fix the front door, he decided to take a sneak peek. He’d thought the help was a repairman because Gyu-ha had called them ‘someone I know’—but it was Kwon Seong-gil, the world-renowned blacksmith.
“Is this the master whom you were making a loud fuss about yesterday?”
In Yoo-shin, who was gaping at the friendly greeting of a tall, middle-aged man, hurriedly came to his senses.
“N-nice to meet you! My name’s In Yoo-shin! It is an honor to meet Kwon Seong-gil-nim!”
“When I first met you, you just lied about never calling upon me. Isn’t that too much discrimination?”
“Come on, isn’t this the difference in popularity?”
Kwon Seong-gil laughed and patted Hyeon Gyu-ha on the back.
In Yoo-shin suddenly began to regret the fact that the Blacksmith, who was no different from a living legend, came to fix his front door. Wouldn’t it be better to buy a new door and put it on, and keep the front door that Kwon Seong-gil was working on somewhere else?
Next to In Yoo-shin, who knelt down and reverently admired Kwon Seong-gil’s work, Hyeon Gyu-ha let out an absurd laugh.
“I’m sorry that you can’t even take a break, even though it’s the weekend.”
“Uh-huh, it’s alright. It’s alright. I don’t mind. I’m sure that Hyeon Gyu-ha must have broken it. I’m going to rip him off on the invoice, even on the travel expenses.”
“No one respects Hyung’s perverted taste as much as I do, so his treatment of me is poor.”
“… Hey man, In Yoo-shin will misunderstand! Tell him now that we procure the rare minerals from dungeons! Ah, can I call you Yoo-shin casually?”
“I’d be grateful!”
Hyeon Gyu-ha slightly rolled his eyes at In Yoo-sin’s reply, who felt cornered by Kwon Seung-gil.
“I should have used my Awakening abilities for production.”
“It’s not like that, Gyu-ha-ssi. A few years ago, when I was a kid, there was a time when I went to an amusement park with a monk and a gate suddenly opened. She almost died, but thanks to the disposable shield core the monk had, she was able to hold out until hunters arrived.”
“Oh, was that shield core made by me?”
“I heard that you made it for experimentation and shared it with others, and the monk received one of them.”
Kwon Seong-gil rubbed the bottom of his nose at In Yoo-shin’s sparkling eyes, smiling shyly but happily. It was exceedingly rare for Kwon Seong-gil, who did not go to the field to deal with the monsters himself, to hear an honest thank you from the general public.
Repairing the hinge was soon over. Kwon Seong-gil, who used Hyeon Gyu-ha’s psychokinesis as a labor force and fixed the door to the door frame, hammered the door a little more with several reagents and materials.
Perhaps thanks to that, Yoo-shin became a bit emotional due to such an item.
[The Aluminum Front Door repaired by Awakener Kwon Seong-gil]
“I looked at the handle a little more because it’s boring to just attach the door. It has basic alarms, so if someone tries to force the door open, they’ll get an electric shock. Even if it wasn’t just a house where you live on a monthly rent, this would have refined the aesthetics. Your house sucks.”
“Thank you, Kwon Seong-gil-nim!”
“You can call me Hyung.”
In Yoo-shin, who grew up as an orphan and was bad at calling people ‘Hyung,’ laughed shyly. And the expression of the man who was 6 years older than him became subdued, after seeing that.
“Are you an Awakener?”
“I am, but it’s not a big deal, so I don’t have a hunter license.”
“All you need is mana.”
Kwon Seong-gil made him put his hand on the doorknob.
“If it recognizes your mana signature here, you should be able to open the door without pressing the lock. Isn’t that more convenient than a fingerprint scanner?”
“I— But I’ve never infused mana before……”
“I’ll help you.”
Before Kwon Seong-gil could give further advice, Hyeon Gyu-ha jumped in and stretched out his arm from behind In Yoo-shin. Having placed his hand on the back of Yoo-shin’s, his back touched Gyu-ha’s chest, and a dark shadow fell over Yoo-shin’s head. An unfamiliar presence enveloped him.
[Current Status: Murderous. Interested. Slightly Strange.]
The back of In Yoo-shin’s hesitant hand was covered by Hyeon Gyu-ha’s. It was a big, warm hand. Yoo-shin felt that he was being embraced by his well-trained, broad chest.
“I’ll lead the mana, so remember. You never know if you’ll need to infuse your mana signature next time.”
My chest felt ticklish. In Yoo-shin shook off his thoughts and carefully moved his mana as Hyeon Gyu-ha led him. Because he was so focused on that, he didn’t realize that his mana was being infused into a general crow-shaped artifact, floating in the air behind the door.
Kwon Seong-gil, realizing the ulterior motive behind Gyu-ha’s action a beat late, stuck out his tongue.
“Well, I’m not in a position to meddle in other people’s relationships, but look at what this sneaky guy is doing. Hey, you punk. That ability is…… Ugh.”
“What? Did Gyu-ha do something?”
HM: owo I wonder what he did.;;
------
Credits:
Translator: Hoshi Miya
Editor/Proofreader: Editor M
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They really remind me of yoojin and sung hyunjae