Trauma
You might find it strange that I fear Hunters.
After all, I get along with them just fine on a day-to-day basis — and last time, Sohee's confession even made my heart race.
Honestly, though, getting along with them in ordinary life was half forced. Sometimes I still have nightmares. I remember everything that devil of a woman did to me. Fortunately, beyond that, nothing is seriously wrong — but the small aftershocks linger. Without this app, there's a good chance I would have spent half my life living like a broken wreck.
And as for Sohee's confession…
We were already connected before any of that happened.
Maybe that was why the trauma ran shallower with her. That was how Taejin saw it, at least. Sohee felt more like a fellow human being than a Hunter — and so the fear of Hunters still lived inside him.
For someone that scared, though, wasn't he doing a fine job of sleeping his way through Hunter women?
…That was fair.
How to put it. The more Hunter women he took, the more some base, unnameable hunger and satisfaction welled up inside him until he couldn't stop. That was part of it. He had said it more than once: he was not a great man. No — he was a low one. That was why he went around using this power, whether it was brainwashing or mental rewriting, to sleep with people.
Thinking that, Taejin looked at Garam and for a long moment could not speak. Then, at last:
"I appreciate how you feel. But I'm sorry."
"Ah."
The instant she understood the words as a rejection — the fact that she had been turned down — Garam's face crumpled as if she might cry. Startled by the look of her, Taejin hurried to explain that it was not what she was thinking.
"I'm not rejecting you because I dislike you, Garam. I'm just not ready for a relationship yet, and also…"
Someone had already confessed to him.
And so Taejin turned Garam down. For all he knew, her feelings might not even be real — they could be nothing more than a temporary side effect of the sex. That was why he refused her confession so firmly.
At his words, Garam only hung her head and said nothing. Looking at her fragile posture, Taejin worried for a moment that he had been too harsh — until she lifted her face again. The moment he met her eyes, he knew that worry had been a complete misreading.
The gaze fixed on the man who had just rejected her was not that of a pure little sister, nor of someone crushed by being turned down.
"I don't give up just because I've been rejected once, Taejin oppa."
She looked at him with eyes that burned, and said it like that. Taejin could not find a reply. Her stare was simply too intense — and then:
—Ding-dong.
The sound of the food arriving cut through the room. Just like that, the confession conversation was brushed aside once more. Of course, brushing it aside did nothing to settle the turmoil in his chest.
After finishing the meal at Garam's place and parting ways with her, Taejin stepped outside, pulled out a cigarette, and set it between his lips.
"Hss— huu…"
With the nicotine scent that sharpened the brain came a slight sense of lightness in his body. He had felt something real in the conversation with Garam, and that was why.
"I was more afraid of Hunters than I thought."
It was the feeling of recognizing his own weakness far more nakedly than before. Shame and a headache rose together — an unpleasant sensation, as if he were standing bare in front of someone. Scowling hard, cigarette clenched in his teeth, he smoked and smoked. Around him people began to drift away; Taejin alone remained in place, burning through five cigarettes in a display of pure chain-smoking virtuosity.
Only when his head was not merely filled with nicotine but saturated with it did he decide it was time to head for his shift. He was about to leave when—
"…."
"Hm?"
A girl appeared in front of him. Black hair, black eyes, about the height of an elementary schooler, staring at him with absolute, unblinking intensity. Just in case, Taejin glanced around for anyone else.
There's no one here.
He was the only person smoking. Realizing that, he quietly took out his portable ashtray and stubbed out the cigarette still in his mouth. There was only one reason a little girl would be looking at him like that.
She wouldn't actually tell her parents, would she?
She was offended by him smoking and meant to snitch to her parents — the residents. More precisely: Take the hint and put that out already.
How did he know? After getting caught about three times, you learn to read it instantly.
Damn it. This kind of thing stopped happening after I raised my security guard rank.
He had gotten complacent because the rank-up had made these incidents disappear…
Just my luck.
So he put the cigarette out fast, then turned back to the girl with a soft, friendly smile.
Huh. What? Was that not it?
She was still watching him with the same blank expression. Faced with that look, Taejin began to wonder if he had guessed wrong. He stood there studying her for a moment.
"It isn't time yet."
The girl looked at him and said those words. Taejin could make no sense of them and thought for a second she might simply have been muttering to herself — and then:
Blink—
In the span of a single blink. In the roughly one second it took to close and open his eyes.
"Huh? Where'd she go?"
The girl vanished from in front of him. Not that she had moved far away — she was simply gone in the blink of an eye. For a moment Taejin could not process it. He looked around.
There's no one…?
No one around him at all. For an instant he wondered if what he had just seen had been a hallucination — but then:
The cigarette is out, though… wait.
Looking at the extinguished cigarette, he could not dismiss it as a trick of the mind. And so Taejin thought:
I've finally lost it.
Convinced he had gone mad, he burned through three more cigarettes right there on the spot. Cigarettes were the only thing that could soothe this stifling feeling.
Huu.
Meanwhile, as Taejin chain-smoked and tried to calm himself—
I came as Father instructed, but what a worthless man.
The girl who had made Taejin seriously wonder if he was losing his mind — more precisely, His daughter — could only feel disappointment after seeing the man her father had told her to meet. Of course she did. Introduced by her great Father, she had expected a human who shone brilliantly. Even if not brilliantly, she had expected something exceptional that set him apart from other humans.
But the man before her eyes held no light at all. He was dark, thoroughly ordinary — closer to a common city dweller than anything special. So the girl could not help but be disappointed. Why would a being her father had chosen look like that?
Even so.
Father's word is absolute.
She would follow her father's command. That was how one served the great Father. And for that to happen…
Somehow, that man has to finish becoming the [Vessel].
Only then would things go as Father intended. Unfortunately, she could not know what her father was thinking — but that barely mattered to the girl. Obeying Father's will was the only thing she needed.
Thinking that, she watched Taejin where he stood smoking. It seemed she would have to observe that man for quite some time.
And so Taejin spent another day full of questions and confusion. Back in the dormitory, curled up on the bed like a pill bug, he thought:
Have I been working too hard lately? I'm seeing things now.
He had been running a packed schedule — working hard for a while, then sex on top of that — so maybe that was why he had hallucinated. Otherwise, a perfectly ordinary-looking girl vanishing right in front of him made no sense. And since he did not consider himself insane, that left only one conclusion.
So he decided to take some rest this time. More precisely:
It's been a while. I should go see Mom.
It had been a long time since he last visited his mother, too.
The last time I saw her was already months ago.
After moving into the apartment dormitory, he had not managed to visit. First he had been adjusting to the job; after that, one thing after another had gotten in the way. He carried a fair amount of guilt over it. When he first got the job he had promised he would come see her often — and then he never had.
At least we still talk on the phone now and then.
So he decided to go see her while he was at it. Thinking that, Taejin started weighing which day off would work best.
It was a day off he found himself looking forward to, just a little.