The Family Photograph
“I’ll go. Better if Agni stays behind, right?”
“Yeah. I don’t particularly want to show my hideout to a guy like him.”
When Maria said that, Agni snorted. Even if Maria had dug a trap, Argon wasn’t the type to fall for it. Agni pulled back with another derisive snort.
“Fine. But Argon, give my offer some real thought. I’m fire, you’re ice! We could be the ultimate combo.”
At that, Argon, halfway into the sedan’s passenger seat, suddenly ducked his head.
“Pfft. That one was actually funny.”
“No—it was extremely funny.”
Maria corrected him. Fire and ice as the ultimate combo, out of nowhere like that. Was something wrong with Agni too? But Agni doubled down.
“At least wherever we go on this planet, we’d never have to worry about heating or air-conditioning bills!”
“Magnificent, Agni. I have no choice but to give you a thumbs-up.”
Argon raised his thumb.
“But first I’m going to pick up my weapon. And if I end up dying to cute little Maria, well, my life wouldn’t have been all that bad. My blood would be flowing through her body, after all.”
When Argon said that, Maria shook her head hard from side to side. The look on her face said she absolutely refused. Agni saw it and sighed.
“You used to say you’d have no regrets if you died to Hecate.”
“That’s exactly why I’m turning down your offer.”
“Just wait. I’ll head down to Thailand, get a little surgery, and come back a stunning beauty. Don’t regret it then, Argon!”
Yeah, right. Even if you became a beauty, I still wouldn’t want to look at that kind of beauty. Argon smiled with a pale face.
Ignoring Agni, the sedan slid slowly out onto the road. Argon grinned and leaned back into the seat. The bodyguards tasked with protecting Maria had all gone stiff from sharing a car with the Jinma Argon, but Maria herself approached him with complete nonchalance.
“By the way, Argon, what do you think of Giovanni, the Successor under Tetra Anax?”
“Sounds like a headache, I guess? Honestly I still can’t figure out what Successors are thinking. If you’re a vampire, shouldn’t you enjoy living however you damn well please? How do they just do whatever Tetra Anax tells them?”
He muttered it while watching the night scenery slip past. Maria tilted her head.
“Hmm, that’s all the reaction you get? I figured someone like you, who doesn’t get along with Tetra Anax, would want a fight to the death the second you laid eyes on him.”
The fact that Argon was plotting to overthrow Tetra Anax was already common knowledge throughout vampire society. The reason Tetra Anax still didn’t attack him directly was generally understood as the magnanimity of a true sovereign—tolerating diversity. In truth, vampires who fully supported Tetra Anax’s iron-fisted rule were few. Some merely grumbled; others openly raised the banner of rebellion. Even so, without Tetra Anax’s protection they could never stay free of human eyes, so they tacitly acknowledged the hegemony.
In that sense, the popular perception wasn’t entirely wrong. And that was precisely why Argon found Tetra Anax even more unforgivable. As a result, Argon’s activities stuck out even among the anti-Tetra Anax faction, so Maria’s assumption wasn’t unreasonable.
But Rat, Karen, Maria—everyone seemed to think of Argon as a thoughtless, bull-headed idiot… Argon suddenly felt like crying.
“I heard that guy fought Han Se-gun and lived. He didn’t even run… That means he’s seriously strong. Agni pretends to be my friend, but the second I get hurt fighting someone like that, he’d jump me thinking, ‘Time to eat!’ He’s always been a glutton.”
Argon looked up at the moon. Maria nodded. If that was the reason, she could accept it completely.
“That Giovanni Vantero looks like he’s about to settle things with Han Se-gun soon.”
“How did you know that?”
Argon was startled. That was extremely valuable intelligence. His own subordinates were still busy gluing eyes onto dolls; they were useless for gathering this kind of information. So Maria sharing it was deeply appreciated. Even so, he couldn’t fully trust her, no matter how close they had once been.
“I’ve been watching them, so I naturally found out. Well… I’m not telling you for free.”
“So you have a favor to ask.”
Argon read her immediately. Maria hesitated, then spoke.
“Yeah. Actually… could you protect Seo Rin? The target this time seems to be him, after all.”
“Seo Rin—the child of Lilith? Why? Is someone trying to eat him?”
Hadn’t Argon already met the kid and helped him once? Of course Argon had a capricious streak and would kill someone if they got on his nerves… Still, he didn’t understand why she was asking him this. Even for someone as whimsical as Argon, a promise once made was always kept. That was exactly why he rarely made promises lightly.
“No, just… knowing your personality, I was worried you might suddenly target Seo Rin or kill him on a whim. I’d rather that not happen. At least while Seo Rin is still holding onto his own heart, don’t kill him.”
Hearing Maria’s request, Argon was stunned. Even if she was a kind of artificial monster created as Messiah’s little sister, this was too much. A Jinma making a request like this? Argon asked in open surprise.
“Whoa. You’re really looking out for him. Don’t tell me you like him?”
“Yeah.”
Maria blushed and nodded. Argon clapped.
“Wow. Our Maria’s all grown up. This big brother is moved.”
“Argon!”
When Maria glared, Argon stuck out his tongue.
“Okay, okay. But can I ask why? Why did you suddenly fall for a Lycanthrope boy?”
People had said since ancient times that you didn’t need a reason to like someone. Even so, this was far too sudden. If vampires who lived hundreds or even over a thousand years simply went after everyone they liked, they’d spend their entire existence sowing romantic scandals. Feelings would form… and in the end, to overcome the lifespan gap, they’d turn the other into a vampire, or else watch them grow old and die and sink into self-loathing.
Even turning them into a vampire rarely produced a happy ending—because bloodlust took priority over sexual desire, so proper love rarely lasted. Or the newly turned would come to hate the one who made them, or simply stare at the sun until they died. In short, if vampires tried to match a human life cycle, they could never live long. And now she wanted to love a Lycanthrope, who wasn’t even human? That was pure madness.
But what right did Argon have to stand in the way of her heart?
Maria’s face was slightly flushed, as if she were replaying the memory right in front of her eyes. She struggled earnestly to put something inexpressible into words.
“He… threw his own body in the way to save me. Other than my sister, that was the first time anything like that had ever happened to me. In this dried-up world, he threw himself away just to save me. Someone with a warm heart like that is… how do I put it… human, I guess?”
A human throwing his body away to save a Jinma. Situations like that almost never happened in the first place. In old fairy tales a mouse might free a lion caught in a net, but in reality it was impossible. And yet this vampire girl overflowing with girlish sentimentality had been deeply moved by the Seo Rin who had performed that miracle for her.
“Ooh, so he was a prince on a white horse. But saved you from whom? Don’t tell me—Han Se-gun?”
“Yeah.”
Then what did that make it? The current Seo Rin had practically become Han Se-gun’s subordinate, so it was more like the white-horse prince had become the black knight’s underling.
“Complicated, isn’t it.”
Argon sighed and reached a hand toward Maria. Instantly every vampire bodyguard moved in alarm. A few even drew guns, but Argon paid them no mind and simply stroked Maria’s hair.
“……You’ve got a hard road ahead.”
He sincerely pitied her. Maria’s body would never grow any further; she would never be able to bear the love of a human who kept growing older. These days there were so many humans with Lolita complexes that it might not be impossible… but of all people, the object of her affection was a Lycanthrope. He would live longer than a human, yet she could never turn him into a vampire—so parting was inevitable.
“Argon……”
Maria looked up at the Argon who was gently stroking her hair. Looking into those blue eyes, Argon smiled for her.
Choi Hyuk-jin stared silently at the water boiling in the electric kettle. Han Se-gun had ordered him to make tea, so he was boiling water. For someone who had ruled as the boss of his little gang of kids, it was hard to accept—but right now he had no choice.
Knowing Han Se-gun’s personality, this wasn’t something he needed done. He hadn’t been living with Seo Rin for long either. Which meant that before, he had handled every single one of these tasks alone. He was almost certainly someone strong in solitude, independent, and diligent enough not to lose to laziness.
Thinking like this… I feel like I’ve turned into some kind of detective.
You didn’t need to be a great detective to figure it out easily. The reason Se-gun was making him do these menial chores was because he understood Hyuk-jin’s true nature perfectly. And yet to deliberately crush his spirit like this…
“Damn it!”
Wasn’t this just bullying the class outcast? Hyuk-jin ground his teeth. As someone who had always crushed others with violence, he had regarded the kids who got bullied as worthless trash who didn’t deserve to live. And now he was the one in that position—it was almost unbearable.
Endure it! Until Giovanni moves!
Hyuk-jin clenched his jaw and endured, then endured some more.
Ever since Han Se-gun had brought him in, the work had been nothing but endless chores: maintaining the surveillance cameras installed all over, installing new ones, setting up all kinds of devices. Se-gun would teach him once, then order him to do it himself. And if Hyuk-jin failed to carry out those orders properly, the answer was always violence.
Hyuk-jin had always loved violence more than anything. If Se-gun came at him that way, he had zero intention of just taking a one-sided beating.
But Han Se-gun… was on a completely different level.
On the first day, when Hyuk-jin charged him, he was thrown into a stun baton crackling with high-voltage current and left to cook for three full minutes. There was not the slightest sign Se-gun would save him whether he lived or died, so Hyuk-jin had to crawl out of the baton on his own power.
Dalki had once goaded Ju-wang into making someone walk across a red-hot iron plate; now Hyuk-jin understood that misery all too well. Or in this case, was it more like an electric toaster?
It took a full week for those burns to regenerate completely. Yet Se-gun only snorted; there was never an “I was wrong” or “I’m sorry.” And it wasn’t only Hyuk-jin—Seo Rin also got beaten from time to time when he messed up.
The difference was that Seo Rin never actively resisted, so the intensity was far lower, while the constantly defiant Hyuk-jin experienced cardiac arrest multiple times. That was the difference.
And all the while, Se-gun made a show of having him inspect the security devices installed around the house. It was as if he were saying, If you’re Giovanni’s underling, go ahead and gather intel. Of course all of it was useful information that ought to be used—but doing so would be the same as confessing he was Giovanni’s spy. If he did something that stupid, certain death waited on the other side.
“……Crazy bastard.”
If you were going to go crazy, at least go crazy gracefully. This was no path any human should walk. At night he slaughtered vampires with brutal cruelty; by day he walked his soles raw gathering intelligence. While doing all that he slept only three to four hours a day—sometimes even less.
It was only possible because of the astonishing abilities Han Se-gun possessed. While his body moved, he could rest his mind; while his mind worked, he could rest his body.
He could put individual parts of his body into a resting state, possessed audiovisual processing that fully analyzed high-speed information at eight times—maybe even sixteen times—normal speed, and a wiretapping ability that could isolate any desired sound no matter how much noise was mixed in. Even if a massive flood of information poured past him, he could instantly catch only what he wanted.
And that wasn’t all. His craftsmanship was excellent enough that he built most of his own listening devices, and he even coded the program that auto-scanned the intercepted audio after converting it into digital code rather than tape.
That a single person could do all of this was almost impossible to believe.
And yet he still maintained a high level of combat ability. Handling that much work every day should have left him buried and living irregularly, yet Se-gun’s daily pattern remained extremely regular.
His training was the same: he loaded his muscles through exercise, then properly repeated rest and nutrition until they fully recovered from that load. It was the ideal method for muscle growth. The reason his weight still didn’t increase was, of course… because the enormous amount of food he ate still couldn’t keep up with his massive basal and active metabolic rates.
Aside from that one point, the man called Han Se-gun was practically a machine.
“Oh, it’s boiling.”
Seeing steam rise from the kettle, Hyuk-jin pulled the plug and poured the water into a thermos. Just then he spotted Seo Rin coming out behind him carrying a laundry basket.
Yeah~ Don’t fall for me~
Don’t fall for me~
I am a dangerous boy!
I am a charming boy~
Nice shot.
Carrying the laundry while belting out that incomprehensible nonsense song, he looked thoroughly cheerful. How the hell did that guy…
Suddenly Han Se-gun came flying up the stairs and tackled Seo Rin.
“I told you to stop!”
“Wah! Why? I’m just singing!”
Seo Rin asked back as if he truly didn’t understand. Se-gun grabbed him by the collar, hoisted him up, and slammed him to the floor.
“You wanna die? What kind of song is that!”
“Hyung might not know it, but it definitely exists—”
“Bullshit! Who the hell would write lyrics that childish! And even if it does exist, I know exactly what kind of mood you’re in singing it right now!”
Seo Rin and Se-gun were bickering. Watching them fight like that somehow didn’t look like they got along badly; if anything, they looked like a pair of extremely close brothers. Hyuk-jin watched for a moment, then suddenly felt he was being discriminated against. Like Kongjwi and Patjwi, or Cinderella being worked half to death while her stepsisters did nothing?
“……I’m seriously messed up.”
Hyuk-jin shook his head hard at the thought of how far he was falling apart. He held the thermos out to Han Se-gun.
“Here.”
“Right.”
Se-gun took the thermos without the slightest concern. Hyuk-jin had considered drugging the water, but he had no drugs to put in, he doubted any drug would even work on the guy, and the moment he got caught doing it he would really die. So in the end he did nothing and just obeyed orders.
The entire situation was entirely Giovanni’s pathetic fault. He went to the trouble of creating someone willing to risk his life as a spy and planting him deep in enemy territory, yet never gave a single order. All that left Hyuk-jin with was a growing sense of self-loathing for being a spy, and increasingly weird fantasies.
Should I set the house on fire? Poison the food? Or just grab something expensive and run? Those petty thoughts piled up and tormented him. If this kept going he really would want to confess.
“Um, Se-gun hyung.”
“Now even you are calling me hyung?”
Se-gun frowned, feeling the reality of his own advancing age. At that moment something fell from inside his clothes.
“……Shit.”
Startled, Se-gun crouched and snatched it up—but in that instant both Hyuk-jin and Seo Rin saw it. What had fallen to the floor was a single laminated family photograph.
An awkward family photo taken at an ordinary seaside resort by a family exhausted from a long trip… The boy in the picture had black hair and wore a faintly discontented expression, yet he clearly resembled Han Se-gun. There was no need to ask; anyone could tell it was Han Se-gun’s family photo.
“What’s this?”
“A family photo. As you can see.”
Once it had been seen, hiding it was pointless.
Se-gun answered honestly. Seo Rin’s face darkened. Considering the story of how Han Se-gun’s family had been murdered by vampires, the meaning of carrying a family photo with him was almost certainly a vow of revenge. Realizing that, all the playfulness with which he had been teasing Se-gun moments earlier vanished. But Hyuk-jin, who knew nothing of that history, simply looked shocked.
“Heeh?”
Hyuk-jin was astonished. The Se-gun who acted as if he had nothing left to lose, who acted nothing like a human, carried a family photo? That was almost impossible to believe.
“Damn it, it’s torn.”
Se-gun checked the ripped inner pocket and clicked his tongue. For the photo to have popped out because the pocket tore… that was proof of how violently Se-gun had been moving his body. The corner of the laminated photo must have caught on a loose thread, and the violent motion had driven the plastic edge straight through the stitching.
“……So you’re a human’s child after all.”
Hyuk-jin said it without thinking. Se-gun let out a short laugh and stood up.
“And you’re a rat, Mickey Mouse? What the hell is that even supposed to mean?”
“No, I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”