# Chapter 23
Whiiiiiiiiiiish…
Only a pitiful sandstorm swirled across Shinju High School’s field. The silence was so profound it was hard to believe that over 2,000 people were gathered in one space.
Our king, the Devil Apex, won’t live much longer.
The Devil Apex won’t live much longer.
The Devil Apex is dying.
……
…The Devil Apex is dying.
“Pfft…”
Bwahahahaha! Bwahahahahahaha!!
Laughter erupted from everywhere.
The Devil gang members who had been standing at attention were all preoccupied with laughing. Some snickered quietly, others tried hard to hold it in but ended up covering their mouths as uncontrollable laughter escaped. There were even those who laughed so hard they nearly collapsed. Their reactions were quite varied. The common factor was that everyone was laughing their asses off.
What are you saying?! Our second-ranked Thousand-Year Prince Gu Haejin Apex is dying~? Ahahaha! That’s absurd! Oh, my stomach hurts!!
“Hey, Number Two. What nonsense are you talking about? Our Apex is dying? Making such a joke out of nowhere. Did you mistake today for April Fool’s Day? Pfft-! This one was really funny. Kahahaha!!”
One of the gang representatives in the front row who had been laughing heartily responded playfully to Ion. Other gang members enthusiastically nodded along, and some even gave a thumbs up as if to say “that’s gold.”
“……”
“Wahaha, this is killing me with laughter. The Apex is dying…! What nonsense… hahaha!!”
“……”
“You were so serious that I almost believed you. Hahahaha!”
“……”
“Hey. Hey! No way! Kukukuk… hahahahaha!! Haha…! Ha…”
…Please say something, anything, Number Two.
It was such an unrealistic statement that it immediately provoked insane laughter. Obviously, it had to be a joke, something you’d only say on April Fool’s Day. But why was Number Two Ion not saying a single word now…? A growing sense of anxiety crept in as the Devil executives remained frozen in chilling silence, as if they had anticipated this reaction.
Normally, laughing carelessly at a grand assembly would never be permitted, and anyone who disturbed the order of the Iljinhoe would deserve whatever beating they got. That’s how rigid the Iljinhoe’s discipline was. But why were all the executives hanging their heads as if in disgrace?
Sometimes the heart reacts before the mind. The irregular beating of hearts explained everything.
Haha. You’re joking, right? Please just punish us instead….
Ion firmly gripped the microphone again with trembling hands and opened his mouth as calmly as possible.
“It’s unbelievable, I know. We felt the same way. But… we recently learned for certain that Gu Haejin Apex has been diagnosed as terminally ill. The Devil Apex, the Thousand-Year Prince, doesn’t have much time left…”
……!!
“At the previous Devil grand assembly, the Apex suddenly said he was quitting. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that our Apex, who loved and protected Devil more than anything, was already so physically broken that he would say such an irresponsible thing. How much time he must have spent agonizing over such a painful decision. From then on, the Apex was planning to leave us. He was going to go to heaven alone, without telling anyone, without anyone knowing… *sob*.”
Ion finally began to sob.
As Number Two, he had endured firmly. Just as Haejin had endured, he tried desperately to do the same, biting his lip. But emotions welled up at the unchangeable fact that Haejin was dying and the thought that he might never see that face again. Tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped onto the platform.
How long had Haejin been enduring? That piercing loneliness….
With choked sobs, tears began to well up in the eyes of the Devil executives too. Hanseo, with his left arm in a cast, turned around, squatted down, and sobbed loudly with his shoulders shaking. Amin tilted his face toward the sky as if trying to hold back the flowing tears.
“How can this be… our Apex…”
“No… this can’t be… *sob*… this is too unfair… waaaaaah…”
“Gu Haejin Apex… Devil Apex-nim…. Aaaaah! Please don’t die…!!”
“Why does this damn world take away even the only Apex we follow?!”
The Devil gang members wailed. Before long, the field had become a sea of tears.
This couldn’t be happening. If there was a god, he shouldn’t do this to them. He was the Apex. He was the spiritual pillar supporting the Devil Iljinhoe. The Thousand-Year Prince Gu Haejin was their hope. He was the person all Devil gang members admired and loved most.
“Waaaaaaaaah… *sob*… aaaaaa…”
To think that Haejin had been diagnosed as terminally ill. That he had been painfully hiding it all this time….
Unable to accept this thunderbolt of a fact in their right minds, the gang members writhed in the agony of grief. They sat down haphazardly on the dirty, sandy ground as if dazed, crying and wailing like children. They pounded their chests and howled in grief. All 2,000 Devil gang members cried as if they would collapse. These were men’s tears, hot and filled with pain.
“Fuck…!”
Bang! Screeeeech-
Unable to bear the heart-wrenching sorrow any longer, Ion mercilessly slammed his fist down on the platform. The wooden platform cracked and shattered with a splintering sound. The impact sent the microphone plummeting to the ground, creating one loud, jarring noise.
“Don’t die…. Haejin, don’t die. Ugh…”
Slumping to his knees and doubling over, Ion repeatedly drove his fist into the ground. This caused wounds and blood to appear on his knuckles.
It hurt. Just hitting the ground like this made his hands bleed and sting. How much more pain must Haejin be in, suffering something far worse? How much agony must he be in? The numerous medicine packets and bottles found in his bag. As he swallowed those unnamed medicines day after day, how frightened of death must Haejin have been? All while foolishly pretending nothing was wrong, how desperately must Haejin have wished for someone to recognize his pain? While smiling kindly on the outside, how much must he have been struggling inside, and how infected and bursting must those inner wounds have been…? Thinking of that pain, this current pain didn’t even compare.
“G-Gu Haejin Apex-nim…?!”
…What?
The Devil gang members froze at someone’s voice that echoed throughout Shinju High. Gu Haejin? Ion momentarily doubted his ears. Slowly, he raised his face.
A person standing right in front of the school gates opposite the assembly platform.
“Gu Haejin…”
Even without seeing his face, Ion knew the person who was leaning against the wall with one hand while holding something in the other, his waist bent. It was definitely the Devil Apex, the Thousand-Year Prince Gu Haejin.
As if possessed, Ion almost ran down from the platform and rushed across the field toward the school gates. The same was true for Hanseo and Amin who had spotted Haejin, and the other Devil executives. All the Devil gang members’ gazes focused on the school gates.
“Huff… huff… hah…”
Haejin was struggling to catch his breath, half-leaning against the wall as if about to collapse. At first, Ion didn’t know what Haejin was holding. But as he approached Haejin and realized it was an IV, his expression twisted miserably.
“Phew… what were you guys doing?”
The severely cracked voice and swollen, bloodless lips. His bangs were stuck to his forehead, seemingly wet with sweat, and his already pale skin had become noticeably pallid. His wrists, which seemed to have lost weight since they last saw him, had an IV needle inserted with messy pieces of tape stuck on, and his delicate hand had small blue bruises here and there. And the thin line from the needle led to a transparent liquid-filled IV that Haejin was holding.
The condition of Haejin that the Devil gang members faced looked even worse in reality. This confirmed the fact that the Apex was terminally ill. They despaired once again. Tears welled up. An IV… Their kind, foolish Apex may have been trying to hide his illness even now—he wasn’t wearing a hospital gown—but now they could finally understand.
The reason Haejin had disappeared for three days was because he had been hospitalized due to his rapidly deteriorating condition after the fight with the Focus Apex. Naturally, the lack of contact and not telling anyone was all to hide from the gang members that he was terminally ill….
“Why is the mood so… Wait. Jung Ion, what happened to your hand?”
Haejin frowned upon noticing Ion’s right hand with blood droplets and scraped skin. Then, he carefully wrapped his hands around it, awkward with the IV. While in unimaginable pain himself, he had the most worried expression over a minor wound.
That pale face was both beautiful and pure.
“…Oh.”
“What do you mean ‘oh’? Sheesh, so carefree. What did you do to get injured like this?”
Ion choked up seeing Haejin looking at the wound with such concern. Though his words came out coldly, they conveyed the warmest sincerity. Some gang members had to turn around and cry secretly from Haejin.
“Ah…!”
Whump-
After quietly staring at Haejin’s face, Ion made a sad expression before tightly embracing him. Taken by surprise, Haejin nearly dropped the IV he was holding.
“You don’t have to do anything anymore.”
“What?”
A tear streamed down Ion’s closed eyes, which were already a mess from crying.
…This is as Jung Ion, the right-hand Number Two of the second-ranked Devil Iljinhoe’s Apex Gu Haejin, and as a friend who has spent a long time together.
Finally, in the name of Devil, to you.
“We will protect you.”
This is our oath.
***
“Mister, Shinju High School please! Go quickly!”
“Oh my… are you really okay, student?”
“Yes, yes, yes. I’m completely fine!”
“Ohh… showing fighting spirit despite the injury~? Youth, this is youth~! Alright. Hold on tight. We’ll zoom there like a bullet!”
After briefly expressing concern about my condition with the IV, the taxi driver displayed god-like driving skills as he stepped hard on the accelerator. He maneuvered around traffic signals so well and so fast that I suffered from terrible motion sickness. Fuck. I felt like I was going to die.
“Hah… th-thank you…”
“Well now. Go quickly, will ya!”
By the time we arrived at Shinju High, I was completely wrecked from the aftereffects of the high speed.
It would take about 20 minutes by car from the hospital to the school, so it seemed a bit much to run while holding an IV, so I just took a taxi. But was this driver a former professional racer? Or was he good at Kart Rider? In my dazed state, I achieved the feat of throwing the 50,000 won bill in my pocket and not receiving any change, arriving in just 10 minutes. The taxi driver, apparently pleased to receive the yellow bill, closed the door with a warm dialect-laden farewell and sped off immediately. Ah, so cool.
The time had already passed 4 o’clock. The event must have started by now. Why am I rushing here with this glucose drip, throwing away 50,000 won! If this turns out to be nothing important, I won’t let it slide!
To reach the main gate, I had to walk uphill for about 5 minutes from where I got out of the taxi. Taking great care not to let the blood flow backward in the IV, I went up at almost power-walking speed. Just as I started feeling a thrill at the gradually appearing main gate, I was momentarily startled by the huge crowd of uniformed students visible before me.
Damn, come to think of it, this was the scene that freaked me out on my first day after being possessed, right? I was newly impressed by how fucking huge our school’s field was. I’d heard there were definitely over 2,000 people, but it was amazing that it could accommodate all those people. Impressive….
“Huff… huff… hah…”
With a cold, motion sickness, and uphill climbing all combined, I really felt like throwing up. Since I’d practically run up, my stamina had been depleted long ago…. Ah, shit. This is so hard…. I leaned against a wall by the main gate to catch my breath. I was even more exhausted from having to take care of the IV. I intensely wanted to throw away the IV!
But this was just the beginning of my misfortune….
If I had known that what I was about to experience would be epically bad, I would never have come here.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
