Hands You Refuse to Dirty
"Stop it! Why do you keep coming at me when you don't stand a chance!"
Still… he couldn't bring himself to kill a vampire. If Se-gun saw him now, what would he say? That he was pathetic, no doubt.
"Why won't you finish him?"
The murmur came from above. Startled, Seo Rin finally registered Argon's presence. Right—he'd been there. So absorbed in the vampire and his own thoughts, Seo Rin had completely forgotten the one he'd glimpsed on the stairs moments earlier.
Argon rose from his seat and looked down at him.
"Your life is being hunted. No one would blame you for killing that thing in turn. And that creature has already slaughtered nearly a hundred people. If you spare him out of pity, all you'll produce is a fresh pile of corpses."
"…But still."
"But still what? Are you saying a vampire who's already murdered people and lost every scrap of reason still deserves to live? Or is it that you just don't want to dirty your hands? Because if you keep them clean right now, a whole lot of humans are going to die."
"Y-yeah. I know that. I know, but I still can't do it!"
Seo Rin's honest answer drew Argon off the stairs in a single light leap; he landed square in front of him. Snow-white hair, cold green-gray eyes, skin so pale that blue veins showed faintly here and there.
Overall, he looked like a cold-blooded vampire. Right now, though, he was grinning like a mischievous boy. The baseball cap and the band-aid stuck to his face only made the impression stronger.
"A son of Lilith shouldn't talk like that. But watching you refuse to kill even in a situation like this… I guess it wasn't just empty talk."
The moment his feet touched the ground, the vampire recoiled in alarm. Argon's hair stirred in windless air, and those cold green-gray eyes locked onto the creature.
The temperature around them plummeted. A crushing pressure rolled off Argon in waves. The same ominous dread Seo Rin had felt the first time he saw him now swallowed the entire street.
"Kyaaaaah!"
The woman driving the truck screamed. Argon lifted a hand, and she froze mid-shriek, hands locked on the wheel as if time itself had stopped. It wasn't only her. A pulse of raw force radiated outward from Argon, flooding everything nearby.
"Argon, what are you playing at? Why stick your nose in now?"
"Changed my mind. I'm a moody bastard living through his Sturm und Drang years."
Muttering that, Argon fished a piece of bubble gum from his pocket and popped it into his mouth. He chewed as he peeled the band-aid off the bridge of his nose, crumpled it, and tossed it carelessly over his shoulder. Arms folded, he nodded to himself and murmured,
"Besides, I'm wounded. I need the blood anyway…"
"Kh—!"
The vampire instinctively understood: Argon meant to devour him. He twisted his body into a monstrous shape and charged with a sound like something being ripped apart. Seo Rin clapped his hands over his ears, but Argon simply stood there as if none of it mattered.
"W-watch out!"
Argon remained motionless, as if entranced. The vampire's arm scythed toward his throat. At that rate, Argon was finished!
Or was he? The aura and pressure pouring off him were nothing any ordinary vampire could match.
Sure enough.
"Go to hell and hold my seat for me!"
Argon swept his hand through the air. The sound of the atmosphere itself exploding tore the night open. The vampire that had been lunging at him flew backward as if hit by a bomb, both arms shattering into fragments.
Its head came clean off and rolled like a pumpkin; the body folded in half and toppled. Only a strip of hide at the back still held the upper and lower halves together—every bone and muscle had already been severed. Organs surged and spilled from the torso like a basin full of thrashing loaches, the only difference being that these were soaked and glistening with bright red blood. Even that thrashing lasted only a moment. The wounds flash-froze, turning the remains into pure white frozen meat.
It was a sight fit to haunt nightmares.
"…If you're going to kill a vampire, this is the least you should do. Cough, cough."
Argon coughed and reached toward the corpse. Blood tore free of the body and drifted through the air like weightless droplets, streaming into his open palm. He absorbed every drop, then shook his head.
"I figured eating a lot of people might make the blood useful, but a psychopath's blood is still worthless. Impure."
"…H-hey."
Seo Rin stared at him in horror. What the hell was this guy? A vampire eating another vampire? He asked, almost choking on the words,
"Weren't you on the same side?"
"Who's on the same side? Me? With this thing? That's not even funny. And you—try a little harder. Cough, cough. Damn it. First time I've taken a hit like this since I became a vampire."
Even as he coughed, Argon forced a bubble from the gum.
Maybe don't blow bubbles while you're coughing? Seo Rin thought, watching him. Argon pulled another piece of gum from his pocket and held it out.
"Man, I'm so thoughtless. If you wanted some that bad, you should've just said so."
"I don't!"
Seo Rin shouted as if having a fit. Argon only gave him a pitying look that said I know better and pressed the gum into his hand anyway.
"If you'd been born human, that wish not to dirty your own hands would be admirable. But… as long as you're born a descendant of Lilith, if you refuse to soil your hands, someone else has to get the blood on theirs instead."
Seo Rin looked up at him, startled. The world in front of him blurred. The streetlamp light wavered; the space around them warped.
"No…"
Seo Rin sank to the ground.
"I hate sermons myself. But… I want to see how long that heart of yours stays unbroken."
With those words, Argon turned away. Through the swimming vision… he left a smile behind and vanished.
Sssssshhh.
The rain, which had eased for a moment, came down hard again. Only then did Seo Rin slowly push himself to his feet.
"…Hey, kid! What do you think you're doing, jumping out like that!"
The woman in the truck was blaring her horn. Seo Rin scrambled back up the stairs. She drove off as if nothing at all had happened.
"Jeez."
Seo Rin stuck out his tongue at the retreating truck. The woman who had been shaking like a leaf moments ago was gone without a care in the world—Argon had clearly worked some kind of magic in the meantime.
Same as when they'd met at the crosswalk earlier… Seo Rin couldn't even begin to guess the full reach of Argon's abilities. With power like that, he could probably take the head of the President of the United States. Whether he was friend or foe was hard to say, given how half-hearted he seemed—but for this one moment, at least, he had kept Seo Rin alive.
By the time he made it back to the hideout, dawn was already creeping in. Seo Rin shook the dripping water from his clothes and hurried toward the bath—only to find Se-gun's clothes already dumped carelessly in the basket outside.
"You're back?"
Se-gun's voice, thick with exhaustion, drifted from inside the bath.
"Se-gun hyung?"
Seo Rin stood there blankly for a second, then put a hand to the door. It wasn't locked.
"…What are you doing?"
He cracked the door and stuck his head in. Se-gun was submerged in the tub.
"I'm using the bath. If you're showering, go ahead."
Se-gun sank until even his face was under the water. He always looked worn, but today the fatigue sat heavier than usual.
Seo Rin stepped inside and turned on the shower. Hot water poured out at once.
"The target?"
"…He's dead. But I wasn't the one who killed him."
Seo Rin stood under the spray with his eyes closed and murmured it. Warm water revived a body chilled by the rain.
Se-gun asked again.
"So Argon finished him?"
"Huh?"
"Guess I'm right."
Seo Rin spun around in surprise. Come to think of it, something about Se-gun was off. No obvious external wounds—so why did he look like that? Argon had taken damage in that brief clash too.
"Hyung… did you fight that guy?"
"Obviously."
They had traded blows. The external wounds had healed almost at once, but the internal damage was severe. The reason Esprit still survived despite its fragile organization was simple: Jinma Argon was that formidable.
"Still… you managed to come back alive without me. Well done."
"…Huh?"
Seo Rin stared at him, startled. Had that been a compliment? But Se-gun only leaned back against the tub and closed his eyes.
"Hey, hyung."
"…Let me sleep a bit. I took damage—I need rest. Wrap it up and get out."
"What did you just say? I'm pretty sure you said 'well'… something, but I couldn't quite hear it."
When Seo Rin played dumb like that, Se-gun scooped a handful of bathwater and flung it at him with a sharp splash.
"Aagh! Wh-what the hell? I just finished showering and you're spraying me with your meat broth(?)."
"Meat broth?"
"You soak meat in hot water, that's broth."
"…Looks like you need to nearly die today before you start acting right."
Se-gun said it, but he didn't get out of the tub. He looked so much more exhausted than usual that a cold spike of fear hit Seo Rin. If he'd been wounded fighting Argon… the damage had to be massive. No major external injuries, sure—but who knew how wrecked he was on the inside. What if he just… died like this?
A moment later, though, Se-gun started snoring. Sprawled in the tub, snoring away—that was reassuring enough. If he could snore, he wasn't dying.
"Honestly… if you fall asleep in there, you'll catch a cold once the water cools."
Seo Rin muttered it, but Se-gun's business was Se-gun's. With that thought, he stepped out of the bath.
"Well then—good night."
Sa Jun finished gathering the intel from his private investigators and even completed the English translation. The whole job took less than half a day. He'd finished the preliminary research on Seo Rin long ago, but with Giovanni Vantero offering top dollar, a fresh compilation was unavoidable.
"So this is the part where the kidnapping drama really kicks off. Trouble, trouble, trouble."
Sa Jun collected the dossiers and walked off, grumbling. Honestly, given Seo Rin's personality, you could grab any random person, threaten to kill them, and he'd come running on his own. But then how was an information broker supposed to make a living?
"Which is why—heh heh heh—I held a few things back in advance."
Seo Rin's father, who was as good as already in Giovanni Vantero's hands, had been scrubbed from the files. Maybe Seo Rin would thank him for it later. Sa Jun snickered at the thought.
"You're a terrible man."
The young man driving beside him shrugged.
"About what?"
"I mean, once you hand over the intel, that vampire is going to kidnap people and use them as leverage anyway. So wouldn't it be better to just tell him everything, whether you've got your hands on it or not…?"
"What kind of talk is that? This is Sales 101. Say I'm selling one of those Disc Doctor gadgets on home shopping. Am I going to tell people, 'A wrap from home is fine, a back brace from the gym is fine'? No way. And I'm not going to say, 'You want to blow all that money just to live longer? Live however heaven decided and drop dead!' either."
"It's not like you're that hard up for cash."
"What are you talking about! Do you have any idea how much my puppies eat? Aww, my precious little puppies! Just thinking about them and I can't stand it. Hang in there—Daddy's out hustling again today."
"You told Se-gun you didn't like them that much…"
The driver sighed. He clearly remembered Sa Jun claiming, in front of Han Se-gun, that he wasn't especially fond of the dogs. Sa Jun turned on him with a straight face.
"What are you talking about! Se-gun is the enemy! A guy who could sink his teeth into me any second. So you hide the things that matter."
"…Is that right?"
The image of Han Se-gun taking Sa Jun's dogs hostage was so ridiculous it was pure farce no matter how you looked at it.
"Still, this kid is something else."
"Ah, you're talking about him."
The female mage reviewing the files Sa Jun had passed over nodded.
"Done right, we might just birth ourselves a real mad dog."
"No. This one was born a mad dog."
She delivered the harsh verdict without hesitation through thin lips coated in lip gloss. They closed the files. Giovanni Vantero was a madman in his own right—he wouldn't pass up bait this good.
"A madman leading a mad dog into the night of the full moon. Either way, the blood's going to fly."
Sa Jun gathered the files and slipped them back into the envelope.