Chapter 27
It was time to bring up again the story that had been cut off by Kim Heejin’s overwhelming aura earlier.
“Kim Heejin Superhuman Unnie…”
“Hey, watch your step.”
Kim Heejin gritted her teeth and furrowed her brows.
I didn’t need to ask what that ‘step’ meant; I could sense it intuitively.
The atmosphere was frozen, yet precisely because of that, it felt even more solid.
I wasn’t actually crossing a line out of hatred. Just a little further and I could get the information I needed.
That was the moment I opened my mouth again to shatter the tension.
—Boom…
“…At a time like this.”
Kim Heejin’s pocket vibrated. She must have brought her phone ready for an incoming call.
By the way, I submitted mine. After all, that’s how it’s supposed to be. There’s no one monitoring us.
Kim Heejin glared at me, then reached for the door to step outside… and spotted the Situation Room lights still on. She clicked her tongue.
After that, she answered the call.
“…Why are you calling at this hour?”
No voice came from the other end. If I could just hear the voice, I could extract more information.
Still, it was fine. Kim Heejin was speaking, so I could at least figure it out.
“What? Stop with the bull. Why is it getting longer? I’m…”
Kim Heejin’s gaze shifted toward me. It seemed like a conversation she wouldn’t want overheard.
“…Hey, Seo Harang.”
“Superhuman Seo Harang.”
“Cover your ears.”
Kim Heejin probably knew this too. Pretending to cover her ears wouldn’t hide the voice.
Still, since there was no other choice, I stuck my index finger into my ear and she exhaled a light sigh before continuing the call.
“Even if I’m an Awakener or I’ve been in this unit for a long time, I can’t pull out that kind of money all at once. On top of that, you keep wiring it to me and I have none left… No…”
Click. Click.
Kim Heejin ground her teeth several times, then hurled her phone onto the desk. The phone tumbled across the surface, looking pathetic.
“Fuck… Haa…”
It looked like she was forcing a heavy breath out, as if she was venting the boiling rage into it.
She then dragged both hands down her face. It was clearly her routine when she finished a solo call. She didn’t even glance at me sitting right there.
“Ah… Seo Harang.”
“Superhuman Seo Harang.”
You can tell the vibe, right? Don’t make unnecessary trouble. I drew the line already… so don’t even think of crossing it.
Again, that line.
A word that sharply illustrated the distance between us inside the small room.
We stood on opposite sides of the center, separated by that line.
“The line?”
I asked while picturing the line drawn in both space and mind.
Kim Heejin didn’t answer.
“This?”
Step.
I took one step forward and planted my foot in the middle of the room.
Then another. I was right in front of Kim Heejin.
“Seriously, what are you doing? You?”
It was absurd to see me, who usually only got teased and wore a gloomy face, react this way.
“I don’t let anyone who crosses the line off the hook. All the other girls know, so why are we stopping here? Just end it, huh?”
“Kim Heejin Superhuman Unnie, that doesn’t sound very sincere at all.”
“Bullshit. What wind is blowing up your ass? If I was just saying things without intending to, then that’s it? Or did you make some training promise and suddenly got close with me?”
Kim Heejin grabbed my collar and shoved me away. The strength difference was clear. I couldn’t resist at all and was pushed back to my original spot.
“You know we have five more hours of training together, right? Don’t do anything weird. I just fixed the mood, and now you’re ruining everything.”
“Kim Heejin Superhuman Unnie.”
“What!”
“Why are you drawing that line?”
“What?”
“A year? Two years? Three years? If no one drops out first, we’ll keep training together, right? But if you hide it like this, doesn’t it feel unfair?”
“Unfair my ass. Even if I say that, you can’t help me. I don’t even want to ask for help.”
“Maybe you don’t know. We can actually help you, but you’re overthinking it.”
“Overthinking? Bullshit.”
Kim Heejin stared straight at me. Her eyes pierced me like she was about to stab me to death.
“You’re the one who’s weird. You’re all cutesy and shy in daily life, but the moment it gets serious you come at me like a mad dog? You should have known back when I never closed my eyes in front of monsters.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment. There’s nothing I hate more in this situation.”
Kim Heejin rubbed her head roughly.
“I know your type well. Whether you curse me out or get scolded, you never give up until you get what you want.”
—Is that wrong?
Kim Heejin waited for my agreement, as if she was seeking it.
It might look brazen to evaluate myself like that, but I believed it was accurate.
Even when I lost everything, I kept doing odd jobs. When I pushed myself too hard on those jobs and my head and body were wrecked, even when I got scolded for having no work ethic, I endured it all somehow.
This time was no different.
“Correct. And this time is no different either. Like this.”
Once again, I closed the invisible line that separated us from Kim Heejin.
“I crossed the line. You said you wouldn’t let it slide, right? So why not just say it once and ask for help? It might actually get resolved.”
“Don’t talk bullshit. I’ve already thrown out every clingy bitch like you. I thought I’d never meet a girl like you until now?”
“People like us are different.”
“Everyone says that with words, but that’s not how it is. They’re all just desperate to pick up scraps of money that fall from the sky.”
Kim Heejin’s aura shifted after that.
“So what do you want? What are you after?”
“What am I after?”
“The guys outside want my body and the girls in this unit want to use me as a tool to farm achievements. So what do you want?”
“My body… what?”
“My body. How good is it as food for horny dogs? Especially among Awakeners, the ones with good abilities have top-tier looks.”
It sounded like she was complimenting herself, but it didn’t come across that way.
Anger and irritation were mixed into her self-deprecating tone.
“I don’t even need to listen to the requests of useless, powerless dogs in the first place. Sleep with me? Roll around like slaves? Fuck that! I’ll never be able to do anything anyway! That’s why I’ve already turned away every guy who’s been coming my way! So what do you want? Money? Yeah, that’s easy to understand at least.”
Kim Heejin took out her phone. She roughly tapped the screen and held it up in front of me.
Balance: 1.3 million won.
“That’s the end. I’ve spent everything I had. See? Everything’s gone and now this is all that’s left.”
The gap ranged from a month to two weeks. Over that time, millions, or even billions, were being withdrawn to the same destination.
“This…”
“The call just now was a demand for money! Ten million, twenty million. Not enough? Now they want hundreds of millions? Fuck, I don’t know what they’re calling it. Even an Awakener can’t collect that fast…”
After dumping out the last of her anger, Kim Heejin was left with nothing but emptiness.
“If I don’t send it, Unnie dies. She’s being held hostage. No, she volunteered for the experiment herself, so she’s not a hostage, right? Anyway, she’s lost consciousness now, and they’re using that as an excuse to threaten me.”
A touch of sincerity slipped in between the emptiness.
Maybe she had wanted to say it all along? Or had it just slipped out without her realizing? I didn’t know what it was, but I decided not to let it bother me.
“Even if I resist, it’s the same. If I send the money, they’ll just keep demanding more.”
“Can’t we just hand it over? With Kim Heejin Superhuman Unnie’s ability… No, I don’t even know what it is, but if you’re doing something illegal, wouldn’t it be better to just expose it?”
“I can’t. I can’t do it. My Unnie’s life is on the line no matter what. If I do something and the bastard kills my Unnie faster than me… I don’t want to lose any more family. I need an Unnie like this to keep going…!”
I roughly understood.
She was so desperate that she was voluntarily sending money to keep the last remaining thread alive. If she wanted revenge, there would be nothing left to avenge anyway.
“What do you even do if you hand over everything? In the end, I’ll have to hear one of those two things.”
One group that wants to get closer and dump their worries but only cares about their own profit, and the other that avoids the burden of the situation.
“When I get closer and tell them my worries, they seem to pull away. So I deliberately act stricter to push them further away. Is that bad? It felt like the guys all just saw me as something to fuck, and the girls just pity me and say things without actually feeling burdened…”
Even though she didn’t say it, Kim Heejin continued first.
“Han Jihye? Yeah, I tried something with Han Jihye. She’s rich. But one time is fine, right? I can’t keep reaching out indefinitely when the situation is unknown! On top of that, she looks at me like I’m a pathetic guy chained by family…”
From the moment the floodgate opened, Kim Heejin’s sincerity started pouring out.
“…Still, she’s been asking for money less lately. No choice though. I feel sorry for not having gotten enough out of her before, so she contacts me often.”
Kim Heejin exhaled a heavy sigh, full of many emotions, and looked away from me.
“If you know, get out. Don’t try to squeeze me for anything. I have nothing left to give anyone now.”
“Why would I have nothing to give?”
“What? I showed you my balance. There’s nothing left. My personality is such that I can’t even make a slave out of a girl who knows my secret.”
Or maybe…
“Are you lesbian? Are you after my body? I don’t sell my body to guys who want it, but I never planned to sell my own body anyway?”
“I’m not lesbian.”
Romantic. The partner who suits my beast heart is a woman.
…Huh? Then I’m the lesbian?
Anyway! I’m not a horny beast. I’m definitely not the type to say ‘I want you’ in this situation. In the first place, I didn’t feel that way toward Kim Heejin.
This had nothing to do with my gender being infiltrated by female affection.
I confronted Kim Heejin with my inner excuses.
“But there is one thing I want.”
“Fuck, I knew it. What, are you sending the remaining money?”
“What I want. I’ve been saying it since the beginning, haven’t I?”
“What? Spit it out without dragging it out. It’ll probably be the same thing anyway.”
“Training together with Kim Heejin Superhuman Unnie. That’s what I want.”
“In this situation, you say something like that? What can you do? You?”
“You know my Awakener ability, don’t you?”
I unfastened my ankle.
We were focused on the same physical abilities, but there were differences. At least in speed, I was far ahead of Kim Heejin.
“Hand it over. Go there and unlock Unnie faster than anyone else. Finish it happily. How about it?”
Kim Heejin looked at me. She shifted her eyes and legs.
She looked into my eyes to read my intentions and looked at my legs to consider my abilities.
Kim Heejin took a long time pondering before finally speaking.
“…You’re all clingy and the strategy is crappy too. I can’t stand that kind of girl.”
I laughed. It made sense because Kim Heejin’s attitude earlier, when she had drawn the line and wanted to back away, was completely different.
“…Still, I’ll have to trust you this much since you’re so clingy.”
“Ah, I’m back to Seoul slang.”
“Huh? I always used Seoul slang though.”
“When Kim Heejin Superhuman Unnie speaks, she uses a bit of the local dialect.”
“What? Really?”
I didn’t know that?
“Well, whatever. It’s not the time to nitpick that. Haa… Honestly, I’ve never had someone offer to help me like this before.”
“Ah, is that so? Does that mean I’m Kim Heejin Superhuman Unnie’s first experience?”
“Don’t say weird things. You’re acting just like a lesbian. Anyway, if you really want to help me…”
Kim Heejin extended her hand. She lowered her head slightly.
“I accept. I don’t know exactly what we’ll do, but let’s at least align our schedules for vacation…”
“Ah, I’ve already set the vacation.”
“What? Crazy. You always planned to do this?”
“Yes. I got angry because you didn’t keep your training promise with me.”
“Fuh…”
Kim Heejin smiled as lightly as usual.
Although the real work hadn’t even started, the mood felt pretty good.
Perhaps Kim Heejin had finally been able to let go of the burden she had been carrying alone, and her heart felt a little lighter.