Chapter 318
And if you asked whether there was any reason I couldn’t deliberately make use of the fact that the bastard had been tamed by the “Seo Jehyun” of the previous rounds... of course there wasn’t.
If this had been the past, when I thought the only feeling he had toward me was hostility, I would have kept Kwon Taehan completely at a distance and searched for a way to survive on my own. But after watching the deleted rounds again and again, I had reached a certain level of conviction.
In one sense, Kwon Taehan was hard to predict, but at the same time, there was no bastard easier to predict than him.
I wondered what the hell that shallow relationship we had built over just a few years even was, for him to get hurt like that every single time I personally killed him. If he really only hated me... he should have been purely angry, shouldn’t he?
And no matter how great his hatred was, if some shallow affection remained, then from my perspective, there was no reason to antagonize Kwon Taehan.
Forcibly kidnapping Kwon Taehan and throwing him into a Dungeon was almost impossible, so I had to make him enter a Dungeon voluntarily... and for that, it would be easier to form a friendly relationship, make the bastard trust me, and then hit him in the back of the head.
Even afterward, things would be easier if Kwon Taehan was beside me.
Especially right now, when I didn’t even have an informant who could neatly find information to my taste.
'Come to think of it, is he moving around with Joo Seowon?'
Well, since he was a bastard who had twisted the relationship off course from the start, it also seemed like he might not be moving with them out of sheer contrariness. Of course, unless I asked, I couldn’t be sure.
Kwon Taehan moved his lips as if trying to gauge what my words meant. I muttered while looking at Kwon Taehan.
“Well.... So you tried to figure it out alone.”
“.......”
“My intentions.”
It was funny. No wonder his gaze had felt fairly intense earlier. Had he been staring like that to see what kind of relationship I had with Im Haekyung?
I slowly looked over Kwon Taehan’s face, then fixed my gaze on the scar on his neck.
When people awakened as Hunters, minor scars often disappeared. But the large scar on Kwon Taehan’s neck had not disappeared, even though it had formed when he was still unawakened.
'Same for me, though.'
After that, Kwon Taehan handled flames far hotter than that barbecue grill, but no other scars appeared. Obviously. The bastard was a Hunter who handled fire.
Maybe Kwon Taehan felt my gaze, because he reflexively raised his hand and covered the area around his neck. I stared quietly at the back of the bastard’s hand and continued thinking.
No matter how large Kwon Taehan’s affection for me was, there were, of course, fucked-up parts too. For example, the feeling that I was being consumed like a mere tool for Kwon Taehan’s ending....
'Not that it’s simply a feeling.'
Because it really did seem to operate on that principle.
Besides that, the way the penalty applied to my body disappeared just by his existence was also... pretty fucking awful. The fact that he had memories from the first round through the fourth, causing an imbalance of information, too.
But even so... a lot of time had passed.
While I repeated the deleted rounds, and while the bastard reached this point from the first round until now, we had watched each other for far too long while carrying an imbalance of memories.
Yes, that was the problem. The rounds had already piled up far too much.
When emotions overlap again and again, in the end, they cannot help but fade. And even inside those faded emotions, there was something that was not hatred... but a strange feeling. A peculiar feeling that came simply from spending a long time together.
Camaraderie?
'Well, anyway.'
That wasn’t the important part.
What I was curious about was Kwon Taehan’s desire.
How did Kwon Taehan think of me?
Even while stepping forward saying he would kill me, looking at me as if he hated me, and grabbing me by the collar... did the bastard ultimately want to beautify me so badly that he would still watch my mood like this?
'Hm.'
Was Kwon Taehan throwing these words at me because, this time too, he stupidly wanted to believe me?
I was planning to use Im Haekyung to temporarily trap Kwon Taehan in a trauma Dungeon. Since there was no Dungeon strong enough to incapacitate an S-rank Hunter without killing him, this was the next-best measure I had chosen.
I had no intention of revising the plan. There was no room to consider a better method than this anyway. Through this plan, I intended to draw out the god and make it inevitably encounter Im Haekyung.
And in this plan, Kwon Taehan’s sacrifice was an unavoidable issue to some extent.
Then would Kwon Taehan, who wanted so badly to misunderstand me like this... still be the same even after my plan was over?
Even if he thought I had betrayed him again and again, if the chance came, would the bastard willingly turn a blind eye to me as many times as needed? Would he be desperate to delude himself? Exactly like now?
I reached out and lightly tapped Kwon Taehan’s fingertips. Every time my hand touched him, his whole arm flinched and trembled.
“Taehan.”
There was no need for me to become close to Kwon Taehan right now.
Still, if Kwon Taehan trusted me to some extent... the plan would probably move a little more easily. But that was not enough reason to recruit Kwon Taehan now.
'But?'
Had I ever assigned a reason to every single thing I did?
An unknowable impulse boiled up inside me. It was absolutely not because I felt sorry for Kwon Taehan. This was... rather, closer in texture to the impulse I had felt back then, when I kept wanting to test Do Yehyun.
There was no meaning in deliberately going past the limit and probing what those bastards could accept. The risk was far greater. In fact, the fact that things had turned out this way with Joo Seowon was less because Kwon Taehan or Im Haekyung were at fault... and more because of Joo Seowon’s personal morality problem.
So the safest method was to recognize that line precisely and stimulate those bastards only below it. So they would not cross the line.
'But why should I?'
Yes, that was safe.... But at the same time, it was not a completely trustworthy result either. I wanted the result to be the same even if I stepped on that line, even if I crossed it.
Just as Do Yehyun crossed the line he had set for himself for me and still liked me all the same.... Would Kwon Taehan do that too?
'No, he wouldn’t.'
Because I knew the “ending.” Someday, Kwon Taehan would end up killing “Seo Jehyun.”
But wasn’t that ending exactly what I wanted to change?
At my words, Kwon Taehan’s head slowly turned back. I met Kwon Taehan’s eyes and spoke quietly.
“Do you want to just go back to how we used to be? I think I remember a little....”
At that, Kwon Taehan bit his lip hard, as if I had said something unspeakable.
“What...?”
“Should we be friends again? This time, I’ll tell you everything.”
Everything?
'What the hell would I tell him?'
While I sneered inwardly, Kwon Taehan moved his lips as if shocked, then stared at me blankly.
“...What?”
“You don’t want to?”
A beat late, Kwon Taehan came to his senses and opened his mouth, pretending to be firm.
“We can’t go back. Don’t keep saying... something so obvious.”
“You’ve been staring at me since earlier because you wanted to talk to me.”
“...I was trying to read your intentions.”
“Right.... But I didn’t have any intentions?”
When I grabbed the bastard’s hand, Kwon Taehan violently shook me off as if he had been electrocuted.
“Ow.”
After withdrawing his hand, Kwon Taehan looked at me with a face as if I had betrayed him.
“...Stop lying and explain what your real intention is.”
“I have no intention. You mean getting the association chairman’s business card? What’s wrong with having at least that much strategy in the job market? If the conditions are good, I could switch jobs.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Then why did you enter Haeseong? No, why did you even get involved with Seowon from the start.... Why is only this time different?”
“I just entered. Do I need some reason? I needed Im Haekyung. No, I still need Im Haekyung. It was the same with Seowon.”
Kwon Taehan clenched his fist tight and stood there for a long time, staring at me. I calmly waited for the bastard’s next words.
At last, Kwon Taehan’s mouth opened.
“Then from now on, don’t... interfere with me. Don’t do anything strange either, and take your hands off the association chairman matter. Don’t think anything bad, and just, no matter how I act....”
'Ah.... So obvious.'
I ignored every word Kwon Taehan said, gripped the bastard’s wrist tightly, and pulled him close.
“I’m saying, let’s just be close again.”
“.......”
“I’ll treat you well.”
Though I had no idea how I was supposed to treat him well.
“Don’t act... creepy.”
“Me?”
“Until just now, you were cursing and pushing me, and now all of a sudden... you say you remember a little and ask to be friends again?”
“.......”
“What the hell is that....”
Kwon Taehan looked at me and pressed his mouth shut. A strange confusion was readable in the bastard’s eyes.
“You said you wanted me to feel fucking awful.”
Me?
For a moment, I frowned at words I didn’t remember, then barely recalled the conversation we had in Australia a few months ago.
“Ah... right, I did. Mm.... That’s true.”
So what was I supposed to do about that? Did he want an excuse? But I had no suitable excuse.
'And I don’t particularly feel the need to make one?'
Still holding Kwon Taehan’s wrist, I lowered my hand and dryly called the bastard.
“Taehan.”
“.......”
“I don’t have proper memories. That’s why it felt shitty.... Because I remember things in patches. Mm.... I don’t hate you. I don’t want to kill you either....”
This was about half true. No... much more than half?
“You keep bothering me.... You act like you know everything about me, and my memories are incomplete, but you keep surfacing inside them. So how am I supposed to not care about you?”
“What kind of memories are you even saying you have....”
“Curious?”
I guess he was curious? Judging from how he didn’t answer and turned his head away.
I quietly stared at Kwon Taehan’s profile and opened my mouth again.
“Taehan, do you still not understand?”
“.......”
“I told you my memories are incomplete.... If only you forget, we can start over.”
“What...?”
At that, Kwon Taehan’s head slowly turned forward. Kwon Taehan looked at me, his face gradually twisting.
“...What did you say?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. We were friends, Taehan. I remember that much too.... Though I don’t remember doing anything you’d hate. But is that important?”
“How is that not important?”
“Fine, let’s say it’s important. The problem is that I don’t have those memories. Then you should hate the me from back then. Why hate the current me?”
Kwon Taehan looked as if he had heard complete bullshit. I calmly tapped Kwon Taehan’s wrist with my fingers.
“You....”
“If only you forget, it’s back to the starting point. It’s the beginning again.”
“What am I... supposed to forget? How can you say something like that so easily...!”
“Taehan.”
I wondered whether the emotion filling Kwon Taehan’s eyes was betrayal or resentment.
“If it were me, I’d erase everything and start over. You can’t hate me anyway. You’re just trying to hate me.... Though it looks like you failed?”
“Why would I....”
“It’s better to bury bad memories anyway. You said it yourself. That you don’t only hate me and find me horrifying. Mm.... I understand. Then doesn’t that mean we can have a good relationship?”
“.......”
“Are you going to ruin... this good chance?”
I gripped Kwon Taehan’s hand tightly. Then the bastard reflexively pulled his hand back and retreated. Not that it meant much, since the wall blocked him from behind.
“Seeing how disgusted you are, I guess you lived just fine without me all this time? My life wasn’t exactly fun while I kept thinking about you....”
“.......”
“You’re curious about me now too. How much I remember, what I remember. Whether I really am the Seo Jehyun you know.... You’ve suspected me a lot.”
“...Saying things like that is useless.”
What was useless? I mulled over Kwon Taehan’s words for a moment, then repeated the same thing.
“Taehan.”
“.......”
“Let’s start over.”
The next words came out a little drier.
“No matter how I think about it, I think I need you.”
“.......”
“Are you going to stay bound to your previous life? Are you trying to ruin this time too?”
I could have said as much as I wanted after that. That if our relationship went wrong this time, it would all be his fault. That there was clearly a best option, so why was he throwing it away? Like I was blaming him.
I stared quietly at Kwon Taehan and added in a whisper.
“Why are you acting like an idiot....”