Four Steps Back for One Step Forward
Ing-ing’s cloud body felt as cool and refreshing as a chilled pillow. It might have been a little cold in winter, but in this weather that was beginning to grow hotter by the day, it was perfect to hold.
Seo Gaeul pressed that very Ing-ing against the back of the male student’s head like a pillow.
Steaming—.
The male student’s forehead burned so hot you could have fried an egg on it.
“What on earth did this guy do to end up this badly hurt?”
Seo Gaeul used the Recovery concept she had obtained while breaking the iron chains to treat the puncture wounds on the male student’s stomach and thighs. Because it was a newly manifested concept, its rank was still low and complete healing was impossible, but it was better than leaving the injuries unattended.
“…….”
In truth, the male student’s expression had softened considerably and now looked tolerable. Only then did a flicker of irritation rise in Seo Gaeul.
“Why exactly should I have to nurse you?”
She vented her frustration by tugging his nose this way and that, but the male student showed no sign of waking. Seeing that, she decided it was actually for the best.
“At this rate, he’ll stay knocked out for at least a full day.”
Crack—.
Seo Gaeul shattered the chains around her wrists once more and climbed up to the surface. The dimly lit night sky felt strangely awkward. The lukewarm breeze beginning to carry the scent of summer, the chorus of insects chirping from every direction—everything was unfamiliar, leaving her with an odd, dreamlike feeling. Even the sensation of her bare feet pressing against the shabby yard felt unusually vivid, which she found comical.
All of these were things that normally would never have entered her field of vision. She had never cared about how insects sounded or what season existed between spring and summer.
Seo Gaeul felt as if she had just been born. Perhaps the person she used to be had died inside that basement, and this was her rebirth.
Entertaining such trivial, almost jokelike thoughts—thoughts she would never have entertained even a few months ago—she stepped into the house she had only ever imagined.
It was the male student’s house.
Creak. Creak.
She was surprised first by the wooden living-room floor, then again by the shockingly messy clutter scattered everywhere. So people really could live in a place like this—.
While she was having that thought, a framed family photograph caught her eye.
“His mother is a beauty, yet he doesn’t resemble her at all.”
Even by Seo Gaeul’s harsh standards of beauty, the woman was stunning. Wondering whether they had once filled this house with noisy laughter, she entered the male student’s room.
It was so ordinary that it was hard to believe it belonged to an infamous kidnapper. If someone took the average Korean male high-school student’s room and placed it exactly in the middle of the spectrum, it would look precisely like this. Worn-out bed. Computer. Bookshelf—.
“What is this?”
Seo Gaeul immediately retracted her earlier assessment that the room was ordinary. The books lined up on Ha Namjin’s shelf were bizarre.
The Little Prince
The Little Prince
The Little Prince
The Little Prince
“Why would anyone buy so many copies of the same book? What a perverted lunatic.”
Even though the covers and publishers differed, it was still completely beyond Seo Gaeul’s comprehension.
“Just how deeply did he read The Little Prince?”
Suddenly she realized she herself had never read it. She had always been good at studying, but she hated reading books.
“That guy once called me the rose from The Little Prince or something.”
Since she finally had time, Seo Gaeul decided to read it. Simply reading would be boring, though, so she went into the bathroom, filled the tub with water, and decided to enjoy both at once.
Swoosh—.
As she slowly lowered herself into the warm water from her toes upward, it felt as if every ounce of fatigue and irritation was being washed cleanly from her body.
So taking a bath could feel this good.
If she escaped this kidnapping and confinement right now and returned to her normal life, she would be able to enjoy baths like this every single day.
Yet Seo Gaeul quickly denied her own thought. This happiness ironically sprang from deprivation, absurdity, and unreasonable restraint. In vast freedom and indulgence, such joys would be impossible to savor. Because she understood that fact perfectly, it made her angry.
To quell that anger, she focused on the printed letters before her. The book was still not interesting.
“Is he going to be okay?”
Baek Yeoul felt a faint anxiety as she stared at the seat beside her that had been empty for two days. It had been two full days since the bloody brawl with the class president. Her deskmate and partner, the male student Ha Namjin, had not come to school. It seemed his wounds still hurt badly.
I should go check on him today.
With that thought, Baek Yeoul glanced around the classroom. Ever since the truth—that the class president was a terrifying serial killer—had somehow spread, the atmosphere had changed completely.
“…….”
“…….”
The students had realized how dangerous each of them could be to one another and had grown wary. Fear and distrust now lingered in every glance. It was fair to say that the popular friend’s dark underside had left a deep wound in the hearts of students who were already at a sensitive age.
Suddenly Baek Yeoul wondered what it would have been like if Ha Namjin were here. That guy would have ignored everyone’s stares and made the whole class laugh and chatter noisily.
Taeseong, Changsik, and Deoksoon all seem suddenly busy too.
Baek Yeoul had originally hated coming to school. Because of Seo Gaeul’s bullying, she used to pray every day for the building to collapse. Yet these past few days, school had been so fun that her eyes opened on their own every Monday morning. The transfer student who arrived on a spring day had become her source of joy.
Baek Yeoul decided she had no choice. She would go to Ha Namjin’s house, nurse him, and persuade him to return to school quickly.
He’ll be happy if I visit, right?
Imagining the male student lying bored in bed, then lighting up with delight the moment she appeared at his door, a silly smile unconsciously spread across Baek Yeoul’s face.
“Mureung huhu—.”
Gasp—.
Baek Yeoul immediately clapped a hand over her mouth. To think she had made such a bizarre sound. It was the backlash from Bad Luck, which she had grown somewhat better at controlling these past few days.
Anyway—, she decided to visit the male student after school today.
After classes ended—.
Baek Yeoul walked through alleys and walls she was beginning to grow familiar with and arrived at the male student’s house. The moment she opened the door and stepped inside—.
“Jin-ah, if you eat this you’ll get better right away. I’ll feed you.”
She was shocked to see a female student arguing with the male student who lay in bed. The male student was one thing, but the female student was terrifying.
“Yu-Yu Yeoleum!”
Baek Yeoul could not understand why the girl who fired lasers from her eyes was inside Ha Namjin’s house. She understood even less why she was scooping porridge with a spoon and trying to feed it to him.
“Bbang-daeng-ah! Perfect timing! Save me! This girl is trying to kill me! Guaaaak!”
The male student flailed and screamed. In the next instant Baek Yeoul dashed over and hid Ha Namjin behind her back.
“Wh-what are you doing!”
“I’m simply making food and giving it to him.”
“Food?”
Baek Yeoul peered into Yu Yeoleum’s pot. The grotesque contents made her head spin.
“Wh-what exactly did you put in this?”
“Multivitamins, protein powder, eel, dried centipedes, and—”
Baek Yeoul felt genuine fear toward the pot’s contents. It was more horrifying than the time her mother had lectured her on how to create Gu Poison.
Two days had passed since he focused solely on recovery because of the pain. For some reason Yu Yeoleum had begun coming to his house after school, claiming she was nursing him, yet it was killing him instead. First of all, Yu Yeoleum could not cook at all.
Not in the slightest!
“Jin-ah, the problem is that you’re weak. That’s why you need to eat this and become stronger. I only put in things that are good for the body.”
“Yeoreum-ah, have you ever actually eaten something like this?”
“No. After acquiring Photosynthesis, I haven’t eaten a single meal. Or rather, I can’t eat anymore…”
“Hey! If even you can’t eat it, how is Ha-Nam-jjin supposed to eat it! Ha-Nam-jjin! I’ll make dinner tonight! Just trust me! Throw this garbage away! Throw out the whole pot!”
For some reason Baek Yeoul had also come to his house and was shouting like an angry raccoon. Of course, to the black-panther-like, reliable, and agile Yu Yeoleum, Baek Yeoul posed no threat whatsoever.
No helping it. If things continued like this, it would never end. He lifted Yu Yeoleum’s pot and gulped down every last drop. Leaving food behind went against his principles.
“Guaaht! All finished!”
“Ha-Nam-jjin, you must be really sick! To eat all of that! You’ve lost your mind, haven’t you?”
“I’ll make it again tomorrow.”
Baek Yeoul stared at him in horror while Yu Yeoleum nodded in satisfaction. She even gave his back a few solid pats—exactly the kind of pain you would feel if a volleyball player slammed a spike into your spine.
Anyway, he was feeling rather troubled by the girls who had shown up at his house uninvited. If they found out Seo Gaeul was in the basement next door—. Or conversely, if Seo Gaeul learned of their existence?
Fortunately Seo Gaeul seemed unaware of the commotion upstairs and remained quiet. In fact, she had been unusually well-behaved these past few days. She simply wasn’t being honest.
A few days earlier, before he had lost consciousness and collapsed, his bag had definitely contained important evidence. Yet after he woke up, it was nowhere to be found. That evidence had been acquired from Class President Jeong Uiseon’s secret base. If his memory was correct, the documents proved a connection between the N-Mart incident and the Seonam Group.
━Documents? I don’t know anything about that. Maybe Ing-ing ate them?
Why would the gourmet Ing-ing eat documents? It was clearly Seo Gaeul’s doing, but she kept denying it, so there was no way to press the matter further.
The real problem was that Jeong Uiseon’s secret base—where he had obtained the photograph—had been completely burned down. It had contained every kind of information imaginable, yet when he returned, nothing remained but ashes.
━Keng keng keng—!
At that moment a strange sound came from somewhere. To someone who had read The Little Prince as often as he had, it was unmistakably the cry of a red fox.
What was a red fox doing in a neighborhood full of abandoned houses?
It’s Seo Gaeul! Seo Gaeul is pulling some dog trick right now!
The problem was that Baek Yeoul, who had been confronting Yu Yeoleum, heard the sound and reacted sensitively.
“Did you just hear a vixen? It wasn’t a cat—why would a vixen cry around here? Does one live nearby?”
Wait, how did she even know it was a fox? Bbang-daeng-i Baek Yeoul had a talent for surprising him every single time. Was she an onion? The more layers he peeled, the more new surprises appeared.
“We have to catch that fox!”
Patter-patter—!
Baek Yeoul dashed off somewhere holding chopsticks. Watching her, Yu Yeoleum let out a soft “Puh—” of laughter. It was rare to see her laugh.
With lingering amusement in her voice, Yu Yeoleum said, “I’ve decided to join the Villains search-and-subjugation unit starting tomorrow. I was going to think about it longer, but after watching you fight the Judge, I realized a lot of things.”
“Realized?”
“That power should be used in the right place. I want to use the strength I possess for what’s right. I can’t just hide because it’s dangerous.”
If the conflict between Yu Yeoleum and the Villains began again, her safety could become an issue. With the kidnapping plan currently delayed, this was the worst possible timing.
No helping it. He would simply have to move the kidnapping forward—.
“Yeoreum-ah, are you free tonight? I’ve been lying down too long and want to patrol the neighborhood for some rehabilitation exercise, but going alone feels a bit much.”
“Tonight? Are you asking me on a date or something?”
Yu Yeoleum laughed as if she had heard something amusing. Still, she didn’t refuse, so it seemed his handsome face had been useful after all.
After time passed and both Yu Yeoleum and Baek Yeoul had left, he prepared for his long-awaited outing and went down to the basement to find Seo Gaeul.
“You look positively glowing. Is it nice having girls come over to nurse you? You said you loved me like the rose, yet in the end any girl will do, won’t she?”
Today’s Seo Gaeul was the prickliest she had been in days. He told her,
“The kidnapping of Yu Yeoleum is happening tonight. Your new roommate is arriving, so keep that in mind.”
“…Suddenly?”
Suddenly—. Just as Seo Gaeul said, it might feel abrupt, but wasn’t life originally a continuous series of improvisations? And an unexpected timing no one could predict was precisely the kidnapper’s greatest opportunity.