A Beret for Maria
“Whoa.”
The price tags defied imagination. Seriously—was it even allowed to slap prices like that on clothes in Dongdaemun? He might be earning money now, but he was supposed to be saving for his family. Suddenly dropping this kind of fortune? He glanced around at the other pieces, but every maniacal dress in the place sat in roughly the same insane bracket.
Seo Rin reeled, yet Maria trailed after him with an expectant look, apparently oblivious to his panic. Time for a course correction. He turned with a bright smile.
“Maria? You’ve already got plenty of dresses, right?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Then this time we’re going boyish casual! You don’t have anything like that, do you?”
“Oh—now that you mention it, you’re right. You’re amazing, Seo Rin. How do you even know? Have you been sneaking into my house and rifling through my closet?”
“As if. That would make me a total pervert, wouldn’t it?”
He looked at the Maria he liked so much and shook his head a little too vigorously, conscience twinging. Still, if she liked that sort of thing, all the better. He picked out a pair of overalls, low-heeled shoes, a stretchy cotton-blend tee that would show her figure, and a beret. The tee, shoes, and pants were cheap enough, but the beret cost as much as the other three combined. Ordinary Seo Rin would never have touched something with a scam price like that, yet after the sudden pivot—and still needled by guilt—he made her try it on.
“Ta-da!”
Maria stepped out of the fitting room with her arms spread wide and a grin on her face. Even with the beret pulled down, her abundant blonde hair spilled free, and the lightly form-fitting tee left the gentle swell of her chest plain to see. Her small height and petite build had hidden it before, but she really was a girl after all. Seo Rin’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Heehee. Well?”
She brought her left hand up to the beret, adjusting her pose with a little flourish while she looked at him. This look was cool in its own way! Maybe it was just that she had a great frame—once you settled on a consistent style, she could pull off anything. So this was the fun of dressing up a doll? Thinking that, he praised her.
“Wow. It really suits you. Seriously.”
“Really? Really-really?”
“Of course.”
At that, Maria lit up and latched onto his arm. If he’d known she would be this happy, he would have bought her presents ages ago. He thought as much while he paid. A little expensive, maybe, but it was a gift for Maria—this much didn’t sting at all.
“Sorry, Yeongeun. Forgive your useless big brother.”
He muttered it under his breath as he opened his wallet. He fobbed his real little sister off with cheap claw-machine prizes, yet he was handing Maria clothes far more expensive than anything he’d ever given Yeongeun—without a second thought. And it wasn’t even her birthday.
Maria seemed to like the clothes he’d bought her; she struck mischievous poses in front of the mirror.
“Heehee. Hmph. Ahem. Ahem.”
What an expressive kid. Watching her, Seo Rin held out his hand.
“Well then, young lady—where shall I escort you next?”
“A movie.”
“Oh, a movie? Which one?”
“Anything.”
“There’s a theater in here. Let’s check the showtimes first.”
He hurried to the box office and bought two tickets. They still had time, so he ducked into a nearby shop and asked them to braid Maria’s hair.
“Wow… she’s really pretty.”
The clerk kept exclaiming in surprise as she worked. Hearing Maria praised made Seo Rin swell with a weird secondhand pride.
Choi Hyuk-jin’s death still sat heavy in his chest, yet after all the comfort he’d received from every direction today, his heart felt a little lighter.
Which only made Han Se-gun seem all the more cold. He could at least have left a body. Being a lycanthrope, something unusual might have turned up in an autopsy—that was probably why Se-gun had handled it the way he had—but wiping every last bone fragment off the face of the earth?
They hadn’t been strangers. Seo Rin had called him hyung, shared a roof and a pot of rice. And yet the man had thought nothing of wrapping the corpse in detonating cord, blasting it to pieces, and putting an acetylene torch to the scraps… It was pure evil.
“Ugh…”
Just thinking about it sent a chill through him.
That was the kind of man Han Se-gun was.
Even now he was looking out for Seo Rin, giving him the day off—yet the moment it became necessary, Seo Rin might end up the same way.
Is Maria’s offer still on the table?
The invitation to follow her—he really needed to consider it seriously. The thought had barely formed when Maria stood up from the chair.
“How do I look?”
The beret perched over her braids was so cute it could knock a man out cold.
No. Stay focused.
Seo Rin got a grip on himself and turned to the clerk.
“How much?”
“Two thousand won. You two are so close. What’s your relationship?”
The clerks smiled at him. Well, Seo Rin didn’t look purely Korean either. Better to claim they were half-siblings here. Thinking that, he pulled out two thousand-won bills—only for Maria to suddenly cling to his arm.
“We’re dating!”
She declared it out of nowhere and dragged the freshly paid-up Seo Rin away. His face went scarlet as he fled the shop, leaving the clerks’ startled cries behind them.
After a perfectly ordinary action movie, they sat on a bench licking ice cream while stares from every direction pricked at their skin. He’d avoided the eye-catching dresses, yet Maria’s current outfit and face still drew more than enough attention.
“It’s about time we headed back. And I didn’t even bring the bike.”
Seo Rin muttered it while checking his watch. Maria asked at once:
“Want me to drive you?”
“No. Absolutely not. That would be a disaster. I’ll just take a taxi.”
“Really? Hmm. Because of Han Se-gun, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Do you like Han Se-gun, Seo Rin?”
The question came out of nowhere. Depending on how you heard it, it could spark all kinds of weird misunderstandings. Seo Rin recoiled and shot back the obvious counter.
“What about you, Maria?”
“I hate him. He’s a slaughter machine with no human heart. And he killed my sister!”
A slaughter machine without a heart. At first the description had fit perfectly, yet Han Se-gun had his own kind of kindness. Today, for instance—he’d practically kicked a grieving Seo Rin out the door just to cheer him up after Hyuk-jin’s death, hadn’t he? Of course, once Seo Rin got home he planned to ask why Arjuna had been closed… No. If he asked and it turned out to be true, Se-gun might kill him just to shut him up. He was done risking his life for a joke.
“Well… yeah, but Se-gun hyung isn’t heartless. He looked out for me today, too.”
“Haa. But he openly said he’d kill you anytime, didn’t he? That’s just weird. Only a lunatic would say something like that.”
Maria’s face soured the moment Han Se-gun’s name came up. Fair enough—mortal enemies tended to produce that reaction. Still, Seo Rin found himself wanting to defend the man. Right now Han Se-gun was as good as family. He felt like an actual older brother; even hearing bad things about him was hard to laugh off.
“That’s true, but once you get to know him, Se-gun hyung has a lot of cute sides.”
“…Oh. Really?”
“Getting along is impossible either way, but at least I don’t want the two of you fighting in front of me.”
“That’s a pretty unreasonable request.”
Maria frowned. Seo Rin knew exactly how unreasonable it was. But some things you said even when you knew better.
“You could end up in danger, Maria.”
“I’m prepared for that. That’s what revenge is.”
She stood up from the bench. Was she angry with him? She was still a vampire, after all. Outwardly nothing more than a little girl, yet if she felt like it she could shred a human without effort—a monster. Even so, Seo Rin couldn’t keep quiet.
“I know. But Se-gun hyung is doing all this to get revenge on vampires too. Revenge really does just breed more revenge.”
“It can’t be helped. Everyone has something they can’t give up while they’re alive. If I don’t follow that current, I don’t feel like myself anymore.”
Maria’s stance was firm. Watching her, Seo Rin murmured under his breath:
“Argon, you liar.”
“Hm?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Okay. I can’t force you to listen anyway. Your sister must have been more precious to you than anything. Forgiving Se-gun hyung was never going to happen.”
There was no other way. Trying to talk someone out of revenge against a true enemy was doomed from the start. Maria looked at him and said:
“I’m sorry, Seo Rin. And thank you—for caring about that. I know charging at Han Se-gun head-on would be suicide. Honestly my combat strength is rock-bottom among the Jinma. I won’t do anything reckless, so don’t worry too much.”
“I’m the one who should be thanking you. Thanks to you, today felt really good. Yeah… I guess I do have to keep living, don’t I? If I keep living… there’ll be another day I can go on a date with you, Maria.”
“Mm.”
“Then I’ll head back.”
Seo Rin waved and stood up from the bench.
In the underground of Han Se-gun’s hideout—a converted rural church—Se-gun lay quietly on the bed. Beside him sat a young woman in a lab coat; she had powdered medicine on a glass plate and was dripping blood onto it with a dropper.
“I’d need a full work-up to be sure, but it was steadily getting worse—and now it’s stabilized this much? Strange.”
She looked at Han Se-gun with mild surprise. He was pulling his clothes back on as he met her gaze. His usual expression was blank, yet this particular topic clearly bothered him.
“Is that so?”
“Mm. It’s improved a lot. Good for you.”
Kim Seong-hui—his teacher, still wearing the coat—smiled. Stabilization meant less strain on his body, so of course it was welcome news… but for it to happen so suddenly. Se-gun tilted his head, puzzled.
“It’s not like I took some miracle drug. There’s no reason my body would suddenly get better…”
He’d even traded blows with Argon; there was zero reason for improvement. And he still didn’t know whether this was temporary or a long-term stabilization.
“I don’t know the details, but if we keep watching we’ll figure it out, won’t we?”
“I don’t have time to watch. That Argon bastard looks ready to skip town, so this time I’m finishing it.”
He said it while straightening his clothes. Kim Seong-hui laughed and reached over to fix his collar for him.
“Do you really have to go that far? You could rest a little, make sure the body actually stabilizes, then deal with it.”
Just then came the sound of a door opening. Seo Rin must have returned.
“Back already?”
Han Se-gun closed his eyes at the footsteps. The light, almost bouncing tread suggested the boy’s mood had improved quite a bit. Good. The door opened and Seo Rin walked in. Arms full of shopping bags, he took one look at the scene inside, startled, and dropped everything.
“Ah… sorry. Don’t mind me—please continue.”
Leaving those words behind, he fled the room. A startled Se-gun glanced down at himself: clothes half-disheveled, Kim Seong-hui clinging close with a meaningful expression.
“…What the hell is that supposed to mean? Hey!”
Han Se-gun yanked the door open and glared down at Seo Rin, who had clearly been eavesdropping right outside. Seo Rin offered a clumsy smile and raised a hand. Pretending to leave just so he could listen in—what was wrong with this kid?
“Hi~”
“Hi? What the hell are you thinking?”
“Ah! Lipstick on your lips.”
“Huh?”
Reacting on pure reflex to Seo Rin’s gesture, Han Se-gun wiped his mouth with his thumb. Seo Rin grinned like a little devil. He’d fallen for it! Completely fallen for it! Speechless, Se-gun checked his thumb again.
“Ah… you…! There was never any lipstick, you little bastard!”
Han Se-gun kicked Seo Rin without a shred of mercy.