Chapter 50
How would I have handled this situation when my memories were intact?
Eunseong felt frustrated as he looked at Mujin lying sick in bed. The sympathetic emotions were clear, but he felt powerless not knowing what to do for him. Since Mujin himself wasn’t the type to take care of himself, he seemed to only know how to endure and wait for it to pass.
‘He probably would have been flustered then too. Since he said he’d never caught a cold.’
Eunseong placed a newly ice-filled pouch on Mujin’s head. Even with incomplete memories, seeing Mujin lying down felt unfamiliar.
“Are you going?”
Just when he thought he had fallen asleep, his wrist was grabbed as soon as he lifted his buttocks off the mattress. The grip was so strong he couldn’t escape.
“No, I was thinking of making some porridge. Go to sleep.”
“Porridge?”
“Even if you don’t like it, you have to eat. Your stomach will hurt if you just take medicine.”
“You don’t know how to make porridge.”
“Don’t you just pour water into rice and boil it?”
He answered without much thought, but Mujin burst into laughter. At the blatant laughter that made him so embarrassed, Eunseong’s face turned bright red, but he couldn’t get angry at Mujin who was even coughing from laughing.
“How did you survive?”
The words that followed after the coughing subsided were full of sighs.
“What?”
“What did a guy who can’t even cook rice eat to survive at the bottom?”
“I ate well and lived well. Looking back, it wasn’t that hard. Seeing that I wasn’t eaten by rifts for 3 years, I think my luck was… pretty good.”
Eunseong, who was responding with a smile, hesitated at the sudden thought of Hanyeong. In the end, such a tragedy had occurred, so he shouldn’t think his luck was good.
“You know it’s not your fault.”
As soon as Eunseong’s lips drooped, Mujin countered. While lying down, he just stretched out his hand and pulled up the corners of Eunseong’s mouth.
“…I’ll go call Hunter Lee Haesu.”
Eunseong turned his head and stood up to hide his emotional expression, but Mujin reached out again. This time he grabbed the waistband of his pants, so there was no way to have a tug-of-war. When he slumped down, Mujin wrapped his long arms around his waist.
“As if Haesu would come up for a cold. He’d probably snort.”
“I’ll speak nicely… or I’ll lie and say you’re badly hurt. If that doesn’t work, I’ll beg him to look because I’m too worried about you.”
He also had to ask him to look at Mujin’s core.
“You’re worried about me?”
With his face against his thigh while talking, there was no way not to be worried. The hot breath from his fever was pouring directly onto his skin through the fabric of his pants.
“Anyone would worry if someone who doesn’t get sick becomes sick.”
“I don’t worry.”
“You’re being petulant because you’re sick.”
After hesitating briefly, Eunseong spread four fingers like a comb and swept through Mujin’s hair. This gentle appearance is normal for him. In the sporadic memories of the past that came to mind, Mujin always had a warm expression.
“Hey.”
“Mm.”
“What’s this debt you owe to Do Yeongmyeong?”
A debt is literally a debt. Mujin muttered and turned his gaze toward Eunseong. The black eyes looking up had an innocent light as if feeling wronged. He seemed to want to say what did that matter.
“You can’t use your power in front of civilians. You don’t have a guild to protect you anymore. But when you were at Huiseon, didn’t you live quietly? Wasn’t Baek Mujin quite the sincere type?”
“Why don’t I have a guild? You’re my guild leader.”
“I don’t have the power to protect you.”
Eunseong was the one feeling sorry, but Mujin made an expression as if deeply stabbed by something, then unusually hesitantly made excuses.
“…Even if you hadn’t stopped me, I wasn’t planning to kill him. I was just going to burn off all his hair. And I was a bastard even when I was at Huiseon.”
“Don’t lie. Even without detailed memories, I know your personality.”
If he had to express it, he knew it instinctively.
Mujin just gave him a steady gaze. What was he thinking? His eyes wavered anxiously.
“What did you do about Jung Isaac?”
Taking advantage of the calm atmosphere, Eunseong brought up a question he had been keeping inside. Though he was confident Mujin wouldn’t have killed him, it was also true that he had disappeared. If it was related to him, he wanted to confirm the circumstances.
“I didn’t kill him.”
After giving a refreshing answer and pausing for a moment, he followed with an honest answer.
“I did beat him up a bit though. While interrogating him about what he said to Yoo Eunseong at the auction house that day, it was unavoidable. But I couldn’t find out anything except that he had given you Seorin. I let him escape. Embarrassingly…”
“…It would be good if I could remember.”
So it was Jung Isaac who originally gave me Seorin. Why?
Eunseong felt relieved for now, setting aside the questions that followed. For some reason, he felt good.
“It’s okay if you can’t remember. You just need to know my name.”
Mujin released the arm wrapped around Eunseong and lay back down properly. Thanks to that, his tense body regained freedom and became comfortable, but seeing how he immediately felt regretful again, Eunseong thought he was also severely affected.
“…I’ll order porridge from the restaurant and bring Hunter Lee Haesu.”
“You’re planning to see Hanyeong while you’re at it, right?”
He thought he wouldn’t grab him this time, but he held him back with words. Eunseong narrowed his eyes and looked back at Mujin, wondering why Hanyeong was being mentioned here. But as soon as their eyes met, he gestured with his chin as if seizing an opportunity. When he looked in that direction, Mujin was wiggling his fingers at the end of his arms spread wide.
“Hold my hand too. Because I’m sick.”
“…What are you saying?”
“You’re always nice to sick people. You always hold Hanyeong’s hand, so why won’t you hold mine?”
Mujin knew well that Eunseong was sympathetic and tender-hearted. Looking back, he sometimes thought that the reason he had been so good to him might have been because he was facing death from the curse of Hwanghwa. Therefore, his mood worsened when he recalled the expression Eunseong made when looking after Hanyeong.
“What are you saying? Are Hanyeong and you the same?”
Eunseong was properly flustered by the sudden request. Earlier he had made such a serious face just from holding hands! Yet he couldn’t refuse coldly and sat back down.
When he lightly placed his fingers on his palm, Mujin grabbed them as if he had been waiting. Rather than grabbed, it was more accurate to say they were intertwined. Eunseong held his breath. The warm, soft skin and the prominent tendons under the distinct knuckles could be felt completely. When he unconsciously hesitated, Mujin gripped his hand even more strongly.
When Eunseong flinched, Mujin laughed as if amused.
“Your hands are really small too.”
“You’re the one who’s big. Excessively… I’m definitely not small.”
Eunseong looked down at Mujin’s thumb that was fondling the back of his hand. Looking at the neat fingertip, his stomach churned strangely. All his nerves were following that sensation, the contours of the fingertips. If he said he could feel even the shallow marks of fingerprints, he would be ridiculously laughed at. His heart shook defensively.
It was probably a feeling Mujin would never know. If he knew this sensation that was clearer than words, he wouldn’t be able to touch him with such a peaceful face.
“I’ll really go now.”
Since you held my hand. Eunseong raised his head, speaking awkwardly.
“I won’t eat it.”
“Still.”
Half thinking he might reluctantly eat it if brought, half thinking it was hard to stay sitting here like this. Eunseong unfolded Mujin’s fingers one by one to separate them and left his seat with difficulty.
* * *
I think he noticed.
Mujin lay down and touched his chest, gauging the core pulsating inside. Eunseong’s palm that had been fidgeting on his back came to mind as it was. He had definitely felt something. Those blue eyes that seemed like rippling water showed what was inside as clearly as their transparent color.
He seemed restless. Wanting to bring Haesu to me…
Yet being unable to carelessly voice that something seemed wrong was also typical of Yoo Eunseong.
‘…Can’t you tell me you want to live?’
Mujin knew Eunseong’s deep, deep anxiety better than anyone.
It’s different from that time.
I will definitely survive.
Mujin took another deep breath and touched his chest. He closed his eyes as if looking into an abyss and faced his core. He drew up his energy and carefully, painstakingly connected the shattered fragments.
He had over ten years of combat experience. He was well-versed in taking care of his body’s wounds himself. Broken and cracked bodies could be fixed and mended if carefully tended. Mujin drew up golden energy to wrap around his core and bound it tightly so not a single flaw would show.
Ppilong- At the sudden bird cry, he opened his eyes as if awakening to find Curry sitting on his chest. Eunseong defended him as harmless, but he was hard to warm up to. Having a nature that craved fire energy, he would cling to him following Eunseong.
“Get lost.”
Ppiya?
Curry, who didn’t care, opened his beak wide as if mocking, and sparks flew up with a crack.
Mujin, who had been reaching out to shoo away the annoying thing, suddenly changed his mind. Revealing his displeasure fully, he gripped Curry roughly.
Ppaek!
The fluffy yellow feathers certainly looked harmless, but flames blazed in the black eyes glaring at Mujin. It was when red fire was flickering between Curry’s small beak.
Burst- The door opened without warning. Eunseong, who had returned holding a medicine bag in one hand and Lee Haesu’s hand in the other, gaped.
“Baek Mujin!”
Ppiyaaaat!
Fire simultaneously flew from Curry’s beak crying out as if wronged, and from Mujin’s eyes glaring at their clasped hands.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
