#119
Confined to the hospital room, Ki Baek-woo began participating in raids indiscriminately starting from some point.
Self-harm had its limitations. When he felt anxious, scared, and on the verge of going crazy from missing Han-sol—which was always—he harmed himself habitually. This continued even after Jung Yi-dam healed all his external wounds and disappeared. But it wasn’t long before Baek-woo realized that repeating such actions while trapped in a hospital room only increased his fatigue.
The Recovery Team staff never took their eyes off Baek-woo. If he didn’t eat, they forced nutrients into his body one way or another, and they injected sleeping aids when he struggled to stay awake. When he locked himself in the bathroom to empty his already empty stomach, they administered appropriate medications, and when he harmed himself, they rushed over instantly to treat him quickly.
As these incidents accumulated, people’s attitudes became increasingly explicit. They gradually treated Baek-woo like a mentally ill person who needed to be monitored without even pretending otherwise. To be fair, they weren’t wrong.
Anyway, at some point, Baek-woo became dazed from the forcibly injected sedatives, and days passed meaninglessly with increasing frequency. Inversely proportional to his physical recovery, Baek-woo’s mental state deteriorated further.
What am I doing here?
It was agonizing. He had to suffer as much pain as Han-sol had endured. He thought that through such atonement, Han-sol would come looking for him, that he could be forgiven. No, it wasn’t just a thought. He believed it. He had to believe it somehow, or else he couldn’t bear the feeling of being abandoned alone in the middle of a vast ocean.
By then, Baek-woo was constantly being chased by anxiety 24 hours a day. It was a different kind of thirst from when he didn’t know why Han-sol had changed. When he thought Han-sol was angry and abandoned him because he had momentarily betrayed hyung, because he had done dirty things with someone other than hyung without realizing it, because hyung knew about it… The pressure, the vagueness that overwhelmed him was on a different level. Baek-woo’s anxiety and guilt, built up over a long time, had finally gained life. They hung on his shoulders and wouldn’t let go. They whispered directly and continuously into Baek-woo’s mind.
Go to the gate. Crawl into the mouth of destruction. Pierce your flesh with the monster’s teeth and wait with your eyes open until your flesh and bones dissolve completely in its unknown bodily fluids. Feel the pain. Repeat it until you can perfectly understand the pain and fear that Han-sol felt as he was crushed to pieces. Repeat it. Repeat it. Die repeatedly. Die right now. Die somehow.
Listening to the incantation urging him without wasting a minute or a second, Baek-woo thought:
Hyung already knew everything.
When I was cowardly forgetting everything, hyung was surely already remembering it all. Baek-woo recalled what Han-sol had said just a few months ago, which he only now understood.
“Hyung knows everything, Baek-woo.”
Han-sol had repeatedly said this with a dry expression devoid of any emotion.
What doesn’t hyung know? That gate is probably a double dungeon. I know everything. You know what else I know? I know you kissed Jung Yi-dam too. I know everything. What you’ve been doing behind my back. What you think of me inside. So stop it. Don’t do things you’ve never done before. Because I know, everything.
Ki Baek-woo, you disgusting bastard.
Baek-woo now realized that Han-sol’s words came from truly knowing everything, from having experienced it all to the point of being sick of it. Looking back, everything was strange. Han-sol was too confident and asserted many things as if he had installed surveillance cameras on Baek-woo. He didn’t listen to any of Baek-woo’s excuses or confessions.
Baek-woo felt hurt by this. He thought it was empty and miserable how he could be pushed outside the line so easily, that everything was helpless. Even though it was his fault, everything was his fault, he still wished his words would be heard just once. He hoped to be forgiven just once, just once. Because I love hyung so much. I can’t live without hyung. Hyung, please save me…
“Hyung… already several times…”
Not just once, but several times hyung had waited for me. Despite remembering all those things, he held onto me until the end… But Baek-woo didn’t know any of that, so he clung on. He did his best to appear pitiful, saying he couldn’t do anything without hyung. He begged for sympathy from someone he had left to die more than dozens of times. As Yi-dam had said bluntly, because he alone had been comfortable not knowing anything…
Could there be anyone more cowardly than me in this world? I’m a vile and disgusting person. Can something like me even be called human? Baek-woo felt like his mind would break if he didn’t do something, crushed under unbearable self-hatred. He had to atone somehow. When someday Han-sol might think of seeing Baek-woo again, when he might wonder once if Baek-woo was alive or dead, when Baek-woo finally showed his face after hiding somewhere Han-sol didn’t know, he needed to have something to say.
“I’ll become someone hyung needs.”
There’s no way Baek-woo, who had caused Han-sol’s countless deaths, could become necessary to him. So not those words, but different ones.
“Without hyung, I’m as good as dead. I’m someone who can’t even sleep or eat without hyung. Please take pity on me.”
All that misfortune is what Han-sol has already felt because of Baek-woo. Things he experienced more often, longer, and more persistently than Baek-woo. The efforts Baek-woo made to hold onto Han-sol even by a thread. Those too are things Han-sol had already tried and failed at. So no matter how hard Baek-woo tried, he wouldn’t be able to move Han-sol. So different words were needed.
Since it seemed like hyung didn’t want to see me, like he thought of me as horrible, I stayed quiet. I just waited patiently, not trying to find hyung on my own, not clinging to him or bothering him. During that time, I punished myself. I tried to suffer as much pain as hyung suffered.
“I’m taking revenge on behalf of hyung. I’m punishing myself…”
I’ll reflect forever. Please give me a chance to be forgiven…
To be able to say these things if he ever met Han-sol again, Baek-woo had to continuously ruin himself. Han-sol’s desolate face from the past, worn out in spirit, not even suffering when dying. Those empty eyes. How much suffering does it take for a person to have such a desert-like face? Baek-woo didn’t want to stop until he knew the answer.
However, the longer he stayed in the hospital room, the less he could act as he wanted. Team Leader Hwang Ji-young would visit at all hours, threatening to call Yi-dam, and Baek-woo felt like going crazy with nausea just hearing that name. That name that ruined him and his world completely. That hateful name.
Baek-woo was disgusted. He wanted to die. He had to punish himself.
So he began raiding gates continuously.
When raids began, Baek-woo moved alone like a runaway train. Standing before destruction, Baek-woo’s eyes rolled back as if possessed by the instinct that “these monsters must be slaughtered in the most cruel way possible.” He tore, crushed, and burst destruction as if taking revenge on something. In reality, before destruction, Baek-woo saw visions of Han-sol disappearing, chewed by its teeth.
“Baek-woo…”
He heard the voice calling him pitifully. Baek-woo could never be rational. Why did you make me like this? Why did you make us like this? Why did you hurt Han-sol? Why, my hyung, what kind of bastard, with what right…! He released all his boiling anger, like an eternal flame, inside the gate. And he felt reassured as he felt himself dying.
The sensation of his body wearing down. His internal organs raw from excessive ability use, blood bursting from his nose and mouth, heralding death. The more painful it was, the more challenging it was, the more bearable Baek-woo found it. He didn’t care how his reputation deteriorated or how people started to avoid his strange behavior. The only person Baek-woo cared about in this world was Han-sol. As always.
“If I atone…”
Baek-woo thought obsessively. Perhaps someone noticed his desperation.
“What are we going to do with our great Hunter Ki Baek-woo looking like this? Do you know where that piece of trash you kept around is and what he’s doing while you’re being so pathetic?”
Choi Tae-hyuk knew Han-sol’s whereabouts. With his characteristic arrogant attitude, he acted smug as if he knew exactly where Han-sol was living and how. That didn’t matter. If he would just tell him Han-sol’s whereabouts, if he would let him see Han-sol even from a distance, Baek-woo could lick Tae-hyuk’s shoes.
“…You saw our hyung?”
“Just saw him? He looks like a tiny rabbit, but when he charges, he’s no different from a wild boar. For a C-class trash, he seems quite skilled at putting on airs?”
“Where. Where did you see him?”
“Want to know?”
Tae-hyuk looked Baek-woo up and down with a smirk.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
