Dependence and Independence
Newness is always thrilling. "Ah, dopamine tastes so good."
"Crazy bitch."
The only part used in the assembly was the dragon's bone. After gathering the remaining materials into the pocket dimension, excluding the bones left on the floor, only one thing remained in my hand from the massive pile.
"What are you gonna do with that?"
"It's called a dragon heart, an unidentified energy power source. Need it?"
Unlike the black dragon's, this energy cluster had a reddish tint and emitted a subtle yet ominous glow. Probably because the dragon that nested in the United States had a crimson color.
"What would I even use it for?"
"I was gonna give it to you if you needed it. If not, I'll eat it."
Crunch!
Gluttony assists absorption
The dragon heart that had been resting on my palm vanished in an instant with a wet crunch. Gulp! The dragon heart sucked into my body merged with the existing black dragon heart and settled in naturally. So natural that it made me wonder if combining two dragon hearts would raise its grade.
"Tasty."
Sun Wukong, who had been watching from the side, had a deeply furrowed face.
"What."
"Do you have two lives? Why do you do such stupid things so casually?"
I wondered why he was acting like that, but it seemed he was simply worried about me.
"It's just a tonic. You know, something good for the body."
"Any other human would have exploded hundreds of times over."
"Hmm, really? What about you, Master?"
"Even I wouldn't do something that reckless. I'd rather chug poison straight from the bottle."
From his light tone and actions that didn't match his usual self. If I only looked at his personality, Sun Wukong was someone who resembled me quite a bit. Yet even he seemed to have different thoughts on this matter.
"Is it really that bad?"
"You have to accumulate energy slowly and purely."
"How slow are we talking?"
"At least a few hundred years for the amount you just swallowed."
"Are you insane?"
Usually he was as friendly as a neighborhood friend. But whenever he occasionally said things so detached from human life like this, it hit me heavily that he had lived a completely different life from mine.
"That's normal."
"I'm already aging and getting sick in real time. I get out of breath every time I play hide-and-seek with these kids."
"Pi?"
"Play!"
When I picked up the two little ones who had been spinning around on my body like toys, they finally calmed down. Baek Seol's steel-like stamina was already hard to handle, and now another one with similar stamina had been added.
"You little rascal."
"Tickles!"
When I vigorously rubbed Baek Seol's belly as she dangled in my arms kicking her feet, she squirmed around.
"You little rascal."
"Pi!"
Dan-pung also showed his belly and squirmed.
"You're really gonna die in one hit if you keep that up. Be careful."
"Yeah, thanks for worrying."
"Hmph."
Letting out a short snort, Sun Wukong turned his head and walked forward. It seemed he was embarrassed about showing concern.
Thinking about it, his opinion was quite different from Haet-nim's, who had suggested using it as nourishment.
"Master, you still have that key I gave you last time, right? If you use it here, the coordinates will be fixed, so remember it."
Without answering, Sun Wukong raised his hand and waved it, then slowly walked forward.
"Play with Baek Seol and Dan-pung too. They still want to play more."
This time as well, he raised his hand and waved it at me.
"You two, go play hide-and-seek with Sun Wukong. Show him what you've got."
"Pip!"
"Play!"
Tap tap tap tap! Even though Baek Seol had always been close with Sun Wukong, Dan-pung was seeing him for the first time today, yet approached without any hesitation.
After sending them off, I opened the pocket dimension. A pitch-black entrance appeared. When I went inside, no one was in the living room. Thinking they might be upstairs, I went to the second-floor room and found the angel lying on the bed in a weird position, fiddling with her phone. She wasn't a cat, so I couldn't understand why she was in such an uncomfortable-looking pose.
"Haet-nim, I'm out."
The angel glanced at me, then immediately turned her head away.
"What, are you sulking?"
"I'm not sulking."
When I approached Haet-nim and plopped down on the bed, she turned her head even more to avoid me. The phone screen in her hand wasn't moving, yet she was pretending to look at it diligently. This was definitely sulking.
"Why are you sulking."
"I'm not sulking."
"You are sulking."
"I'm not sulking."
When I lightly scratched Haet-nim's sole with my finger as it rested on the bed, she hurriedly shook her foot away. Maybe because she was an angel, her toes were long and pretty.
"You have to tell me why you're sulking for me to know."
"I'm not sulking."
Like a parrot, she kept repeating the same words. She was definitely sulking hard. Left with no choice, I grabbed Haet-nim's ankle, and she started putting strength into escaping.
"Tickle tickle."
"Eek!"
When I tickled the angel's sole, she curled her toes and made strange sounds.
"If you don't tell me and keep sulking, I'll keep tickling."
"····I'm not sulking."
She had an iron will. Peck.
"Hih!"
When I kissed Haet-nim's toe, she widened her eyes and stared at me. Surprise filled her sparkling golden eyes.
"W-what, what are you doing! That's dirty!"
The angel stuttered uncharacteristically.
"It's because you keep sulking."
"That's because Gaeul····."
The Ariel I first met only spoke mechanically when necessary, and her expression was no different from ice. Living beings are absolutely influenced by their surrounding environment as they live. We collectively express that with the word adaptation. Love makes one beautiful. In other words, being loved makes one beautiful. When receiving affection, even the most rigid person sprouts a ton of aegyo they never had before. Even if only in front of their lover. As proof, our house rabbit has also been getting fluffier as time passes.
Peck.
"Hih?!"
Ariel wriggled her toes. Even in this situation, she was worried I might get hurt, so she didn't forcefully pull away.
"Haet-nim is cute."
Peck. Peck.
"Hngh····."
Living beings must grow while receiving affection.
"I know Sun Wukong went outside the tower. He was wandering around lost in thought alone."
"Sun Wukong has always been in the tower····."
Peck.
"Hih!"
"I'm listening. Keep talking."
Peck.
"Hngh!"
When I kissed the top of her foot, Haet-nim's body trembled slightly. Ankle. Peck. Calf. Peck.
"Hah. Gaeul."
Only after reaching the angel's soft thigh did the brakes come on. Ariel had placed her hand on my head, making it hard to go further up.
Smack.
"Hik?!"
The inner thigh was a bit softer.
"Still sulking?"
"····No."
"See?"
When I let go of Haet-nim's foot and patted my own thigh, she glanced over.
"Your braids came undone. How much did you roll around on the bed?"
"That's because Gaeul came late, isn't it?"
"Was that why? Sorry for being late."
I had thought nothing of it since time was frozen, but Haet-nim said something strange.
Pat pat.
"Come on, angel who needs her hair braided."
When I patted my thigh again, she finally slowly laid down resting her head on my leg.
"····Yes."
Until we left here, Haet-nim's hair had been fine. That meant her perfectly braided hair had come undone while I briefly spent time at the academy after coming to this world, which didn't make sense in its own way. Even so, Haet-nim had cherished the hair I braided.
"When Gaeul leaves this place, the flow of time gets severely tangled."
"Yeah."
When I stroked Haet-nim's hair as she lay resting on my knee, it flowed softly between my fingers.
"Since I handle light and space, I can feel the flow of time that others don't notice a bit more delicately."
"I see."
After arranging Haet-nim's hair, I started braiding it as she began speaking in a gentle tone.
"The tower and outside the tower. And if the tower is considered inside, then even further outside than what Gaeul mentioned."
"Yeah."
"Originally, the space inside and outside the tower were separate, but the tower's power makes the flow of time almost identical."
As Haet-nim said, when I returned to the academy after being in the tower, I hadn't felt any discrepancy in the flow of time.
"Sun Wukong, Heracles, and I are beings subordinate to the tower. But this pocket dimension Gaeul created distorts even the tower's great power."
Ariel was someone even Sun Wukong occasionally watched out for. The kind of person even such an angel called great enough to distort power—only one person came to mind in my head.
"So what happens?"
"As long as we exist here, from now on we will share time with Gaeul instead of the tower."
"Huh?"
"It means we become separate beings with our own personalities, separated from the tower."
They're not inanimate objects; they all have personalities. Sun Wukong particularly likes the choco-song-song cookies a human he once met gave him. He also likes games and enjoys reading comics. Heracles and Ariel are the same. They have different thoughts even when seeing the same thing, and their attitudes toward it are also different.
"As this space subordinate to Gaeul accepts us, time synchronization is progressing."
"Doesn't that mean we finally escaped the tower only to become subordinate again?"
Haet-nim, who had been lying sideways on my knee, turned her head to look at me. Her pretty golden eyes sparkled beautifully.
"We call that freedom."
"Not subordination?"
"Yes."
"That's a good thing, right?"
"Of course."
"Then that's fine."
When I nodded simply, Haet-nim smiled faintly and turned her head to the side again.
"Most living beings live their entire lives without even knowing they're subordinate to one dimension."
"Isn't that actually normal? Wanting to escape Earth and go to another dimension would be the weird thing."
Haet-nim nodded.
"That's right. In other words, it's the difference between knowing and not knowing."
"The problem is that you guys know all that, right?"
"That's also correct."
Living happily all your life only to realize at dusk that you had an electronic brain. Living enjoyably all your life only to realize when your life was fading that you were a doll inside an alien's toy marble. What I believe isn't everything in the world. It's the kind of absurd joke that everyone thinks of at least once, close to delusion.
"Where I lived, we expressed subordination as having a strong correlation."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. Subordination is a very linear variable, and when the strong correlation coefficient of such a rigid straight line weakens, we call that independence."
"What do you mean?"
"Those who can only be straight lines think they're living rigidly, but in the end they're the ones who don't realize they're subordinate. Those who know they're part of the intersection of the group can become independent."
"I don't understand what Gaeul is saying."
Subordinate vectors always take the form of straight lines in linear combinations. As if they're always upright, as if the only path they can take is here. The opposite of that is Haet-nim right in front of me. Someone who realizes they're part of the set and wants independence rather than subordination.
"Congratulations on your independence."
"····Thank you. I'm happy."
"Yeah."
When I stroked Haet-nim's forehead as she lay there, she smiled faintly. Probably no one else would recognize that smile except me. Still, her expressions would gradually become richer.
"Where did Gaeul study math?"
"I just picked it up here and there. Right now I'm learning from Grandpa Arthur."
"Arthur?"
"The grandpa who looks at stars."
"Stars?"
Haet-nim seemed to have a lot of questions today. She was asking particularly many questions.
"Normal humans need to understand space to see stars, and furthermore, understand dimensions."
"Why learn to look at stars?"
"No grand reason. Our house rabbit likes looking at stars."
Only then did Haet-nim nod slightly.
"There, all done. It braided pretty."
Haet-nim, who had been resting on my knee the whole time, lifted her head and carefully touched her own hair.
"The back is tied."
"I did it as a joke, but the ponytail suits you really well. Super cute."
"Cute····."
After touching her ponytail once, Haet-nim lowered her hand.
"Thank you. I like it."
"I'm the one who's thankful because Haet-nim is cute."
Haet-nim rolled her golden eyes and averted her gaze. The nape of her neck visible under her swaying bangs was slightly flushed red.
Pat pat.
"If you're thankful, you should give a reward."
When I lightly tapped my lips and playfully stuck them out, Haet-nim, who had been embarrassed, slowly approached.
Peck.
After lightly pressing her lips against mine, Haet-nim pulled her lips away slightly while still facing me. Thanks to that, I could feel Haet-nim's hot breath directly.
"Do you like this too?"
"·····Yes. I like it."
"It's yours now."
"Is it really mine?"
"Hmm, maybe?"
When I answered playfully, she approached again. Haet-nim's nose touched mine, and our lips overlapped once more. The angel's lips were soft and warm. Smack. As our lips met, Haet-nim naturally slipped her tongue in. Kissing an angel required mental preparation because it was more intense than expected.
Smack, smack.
In an instant our tongues tangled and even saliva mixed, making it sticky.
"Hwoong."
Haet-nim let out a cute nasal sound.
Smack, smooch.
When I rolled Haet-nim's soft lips inside my mouth, the sticky mixed saliva flowed down from the corner of my lips. As time passed, her breath grew hotter, making it hard to breathe even through my nose. Even so, the angel had her arms around my neck and didn't seem to want to let go.
"Hee····. Hee····."
After pulling back briefly to catch my breath, she pressed her lips against mine again without giving me a chance.
"Um."
Smack, smack.
In the end, Haet-nim pushed her tongue deep into my mouth and poured the mixed saliva down my throat. She probably wouldn't stop until I swallowed.
Every time I felt it, the angel's territorial marking was too intense.
Gulp.
After swallowing helplessly, Haet-nim pressed my lips firmly and opened my mouth.
"Hng."
After checking inside my mouth, she made a pleased nasal sound.
"Is it mine now?"
"Huh?"
Since I didn't expect this question, I was dazed, and she kissed me again.
Smack.
"Haum."
Smooch, smooch.
Again she pushed saliva in.
Gulp.
"Is it mine now?"
"·····."
Maybe because she gained freedom, a big change of heart came over her—there was a hint of madness flickering in Haet-nim's eyes. Not like an angel who always maintained composure.
"Wait, Haet-nim····."
Smooch.
"Puhah—!"
When I slightly pushed Haet-nim's shoulder, her burning golden eyes came into view.
"Haet-nim, calm down····Ump!"
Smack.
Haet-nim frantically tangled her tongue with mine. Thinking I needed to calm her down first, when I tried to push her shoulder again, Haet-nim's hand suddenly slipped into my pants.
"Ump! Ump! Uuump!"
Squish.
"Hwoong····!"
The saliva Haet-nim poured in went down my throat once more.
"Is it mine now?"
"Hah♡"