27. The Season of Yu-wol
27. The Season of Yu-wol
27. The Season of Yu-wol
"...It's not time yet, you know."
I'd been dragged into the room by Han Yu-wol.
Getting caught by her left me genuinely flustered.
After dinner and a short conversation with Shin Hae-il, sleep was still two hours off. It wasn't exactly time to turn in yet.
Han Yu-wol nodded, as if she understood the disbelief on my face.
"It might be a little early, I admit."
"Right? Still a bit soon for bed, isn't it?"
There. Even Han Yu-wol acknowledged it.
Recognizing that she'd made a mistake, I shifted my weight toward the door.
'...I'm leaving right now.'
Being alone with her made me deeply uneasy.
Han Yu-wol gave off a different impression from other villains.
How to put it.
A villain is a villain, and Han Yu-wol is Han Yu-wol, I suppose.
She operated on a fundamentally different level from ordinary criminals.
'...I don't like this.'
Her every action hinged on her mood, and if she found no amusement in something, she lost interest.
A villain far more unhinged than your average one.
Even I, who had faced her more times than anyone in V. AGE, had absolutely no idea what she was thinking right now.
Case in point.
Click.
"...Excuse me?"
"What's the matter, Si-jun? Is the door locked, perhaps?"
Yes, it won't open, Han Yu-wol.
Han Yu-wol must have locked the door before putting me in here.
No matter how hard I turned the handle, it showed no sign of budging.
'How did she lock it...?'
I scanned around the door but couldn't find any button or mechanism to release the lock.
Which meant there was no way for me to leave this room.
Han Yu-wol padded softly toward me as I stood before the locked door.
She smiled at me, as if telling me to give up.
"That's quite enough. Please, come sit over here."
In her hands were the nutritional supplements and stamina recovery pills I'd asked for.
Fine. I'll take those and then leave.
With that thought, I sank into the wine-colored sofa.
'...This is nice.'
Softer than the one in the study, with a different kind of plushness.
This sofa was probably an even more high-end item than the study's.
'No. I can't let myself get lulled.'
I nearly got taken out by a sofa's comfort.
Was this Han Yu-wol's plan?
Regaining my senses, I asked her.
"So, what's the reason you called me here?"
"Reason..."
Han Yu-wol sat across from me and placed the items on the table.
If she'd issued that kind of invitation, there had to be a valid reason.
But her deliberation dragged on for quite a while.
'...Don't tell me she called me here for nothing?'
Was she just doing me a favor for no reason?
No, that couldn't be it.
Han Yu-wol had attached a condition—'come to my room tonight'—to my request, which meant she definitely wanted something from me.
At last, her cherry-like lips parted.
"Will you sleep with me?"
"...Excuse me?"
A shocking statement.
For the first time in my life, I doubted my own ears.
No matter how much older than me she was, that was not something you said to an academy cadet.
Unable to shake off the shock, I asked her.
"Have you lost your mind? What do you mean, sleep..."
"Oh my, so harsh. I didn't mean it the way you're imagining, Si-jun."
Then what.
We're alone together at night, and she even locked the door.
Was I the strange one for misunderstanding?
Or was Han Yu-wol the strange one for making me misunderstand?
The conclusion was obviously that Han Yu-wol was the strange one.
When I shot her an unamused look, she explained with a smile that suggested I'd left her no choice.
"I want to sleep. Lie in bed and sleep. Do you understand now?"
"But why do you want to do that with me...?"
"..."
She didn't answer with words, only with a smile.
If you want to sleep, just sleep alone.
What on earth is she scheming?
She pressed the medicine toward me as if dismissing me.
I took them, set them next to the locked door so I wouldn't forget when I left, and returned to the sofa.
"The nutritional supplements and stamina recovery pills you asked for. I've brought them to you. Is there a kinder kidnapper in the world? I don't think so."
"...Thank you."
True, my situation was good compared to being kidnapped.
And it was only right to express gratitude for that.
I would've been a lot more grateful if she hadn't kidnapped me in the first place, but at least she hadn't killed me.
She gave the impression that she had no intention of killing me.
Whether Han Yu-wol was a villain or not, it was right for me to thank her as one human being to another.
However.
Did that thanks absolutely require my body?
Sleeping next to Han Yu-wol.
No matter how I thought about it, that was not something I should do.
"Now then, shall we go to bed a little early tonight?"
And I had no choice in the matter.
Han Yu-wol was already in a white dress from before I'd arrived.
Her night looked as if it had already been fully arranged.
"Well then, sleep well. Don't dream of me."
"Where are you going, Si-jun? There's a wide bed right here."
My immediate dive for the plush sofa was thwarted by Han Yu-wol's interference.
A white, pristine bed stood in one corner of the room.
Han Yu-wol took my hand and pulled me, laying me down there.
"Agh."
"Threw me" might be a more accurate description.
Either way, I couldn't move a muscle, and I seemed destined to sleep in her bed.
'Of all things, I had to pick the Womanizer's Fate...'
A Fate exerts a kind of force that makes situations unfold in a certain direction.
A system designed to keep V. AGE players on the same routes without getting bored.
Fates aren't passive episodes that happen over time; they actively change your life.
The 'Villain's Fate' was why I was among villains like this.
The 'S-rank Childhood Friend's Fate' was why I became Yu Ha-yeon's childhood friend and got swept up in her destiny.
And the 'Womanizer's Fate' was why various women kept inadvertently clinging to me, preventing me from settling with just one.
A shitty situation combining the 'Villain's Fate' and the 'Womanizer's Fate.'
I predicted my death would definitely not be a peaceful one.
"...Do as you like. I'm just going to sleep."
"You should've come out with that from the start. All that wasted effort. Aren't you tired?"
Finding something amusing, Han Yu-wol smiled with a soft chuckle.
The emotions she held for me were likely appetite and amusement.
I was just grateful that her actions weren't ones of love.
Han Yu-wol's wide, soft bed.
It was still early, but having chronically lacked stamina, I felt perpetually tired and could sleep if I set my mind to it.
Just as I was about to drift off, lying neatly on one side of the bed.
"The night is still long, Si-jun."
Swoosh—
Han Yu-wol nestled right up beside me, and her distinctive wine scent tickled my nose.
Right, I saw this coming.
There was no way Han Yu-wol was going to let me fall asleep easily.
"Why don't we have a little chat, since we've got the rare chance? Opportunities to talk with someone like me aren't common, you know?"
"What kind of talk do you want."
"Hmm... your MBTI, perhaps? Things I'm curious about?"
Han Yu-wol looked like she was in her early twenties.
But her inner self was considerably older, and the fact that she knew about MBTI suggested she hadn't fallen behind the times.
"Let's make it like a truth game. We'll take turns asking each other one question we're curious about. You go first, Si-jun."
A truth game.
A game where you must answer the other person's question with nothing but the truth.
I had plenty of things I was curious about concerning Han Yu-wol, so it seemed a good way to pass the time.
First, I decided to ask what the Promised Day was.
"A week from now. The Promised Day. What happens on that day?"
"The world will fall into chaos. Far worse than during the last kidnapping incident."
"..."
Lying next to me, Han Yu-wol emanated a cold warmth.
As a villain, she was presumed to be orchestrating an incident with Black Dawn one week from now.
'And the person needed for that is me.'
It left a bad taste.
Though discomfort settled in my mind, I had to answer Han Yu-wol's question right away.
"That childhood friend I saw last time. Yu Ha-yeon? What's your relationship with her? Lovers? Promised to marry?"
"...We're just childhood friends. We grew up together from a young age. Friends."
"Hmm, is that so? It must be a thought you keep to yourself, then. That expression."
"...?"
A reaction from Han Yu-wol I couldn't understand.
More than that.
I had never imagined the name Yu Ha-yeon would come out of Han Yu-wol's mouth.
Why was she curious about Yu Ha-yeon?
That was beyond me.
Han Yu-wol pressed herself even closer and murmured something to herself.
"Childhood friends with that child... wouldn't that be truly entertaining later on? To think that past ties would connect us like this."
"...What are you talking about?"
"Nothing. Just talking to myself. To myself."
Han Yu-wol brushed it aside with a smile that curved her eyes like crescent moons.
'Come to think of it, why did Han Yu-wol become a villain?'
A sudden thought.
I'd seen Han Yu-wol countless times in V. AGE, but I knew nothing about why she became a villain.
She'd appeared like a comet and committed all sorts of crimes.
Under the pretext of the truth game, I asked her how she ended up a villain.
But Han Yu-wol simply gave a bitter smile and evaded the question.
Some time later, having resolved a fair amount of curiosity about each other, Han Si-jun, who had been on guard against Han Yu-wol, could no longer fight off his exhaustion and had fallen asleep.
Han Yu-wol gazed at his face as he slept soundly.
"That was fun. It's been a while."
The enjoyment of getting to know someone.
She'd thought she would never feel it again after joining Black Dawn, but that had apparently just been her misconception.
Han Si-jun.
The childhood friend of the sapling she'd crushed on the Association's orders.
A boy with no power to protect even himself, yet possessing a pride and hero's mindset that didn't match his weakness.
Every time she thought she understood one thing about him, two new sides appeared.
He was a charming little kid who let her catch a fleeting whiff of past nostalgia.
She stroked the hair of the soundly sleeping Han Si-jun.
"...Could it be that I'm unattractive?"
Generally speaking, when a man and woman share a bed, something is bound to happen.
But no matter how much she clung to him, Han Si-jun didn't even register her as a woman.
"I was planning to kill him if he'd laid even a fingertip on me. He's far cuter than I expected."
She liked that about his behavior.
A heart that was pure and not yet stained black.
There was someone like that even within Black Dawn, but Han Si-jun was special among them.
"He even reminds me a little of my old self."
Long ago, the girl who dreamed of being a hero had fallen into the darkness.
She had plummeted so far she could no longer see the light; the moonlight that only came out at night was her sole hope.
Through Han Si-jun, Han Yu-wol could briefly appreciate the light of her bygone days from up close.
'Unlike me, will he be able to endure?'
Where there is light, there is also shadow.
Han Si-jun.
And Yu Ha-yeon.
Whether they could handle the shadows or not.
That was the outcome Han Yu-wol, who had lost her purpose in life after past vengeance and now lived solely for amusement, was waiting to see.
"Child of Miracles, Han Si-jun. Will you obstruct us like you did back then?"
The Child of Miracles who had displayed abilities unbelievable for a child.
It wasn't long ago that she'd determined the boy from that time was indeed Han Si-jun.
His true identity was known only to herself and Shin Hae-il within the organization.
"When that moment comes, what should I do with you?"
Han Yu-wol's fingers had been running through his black hair.
Drawing from the memory of what she once did for her younger sibling, she pressed her lips to Han Si-jun's forehead.
The gesture repeated itself even as the moon traversed the sky.
It was a thing of the past.
Something long gone for her.