Chapter 329: Seventy-Ninth Floor, Euros’s Forest (3)
[Spend time in Euros’s Forest. Time remaining: 47 hours 23 minutes.]
The familiar voice rang out once more. Aoshi ran over and enthusiastically embraced me.
I stood frozen, momentarily dazed for two specific reasons. First, and slightly less importantly, Aoshi’s unexpected behavior had caught me off guard.
Startled, I instinctively voiced my confusion, “Hyung?”
Hyung, of all things?
Aoshi had never called me that before. He had always addressed me formally or just used my first name. Even when I had told him he could speak casually, he remained unfailingly polite. Regardless of his openness with others, he had always been strikingly respectful with me.
Hugging me wasn’t like him either. Ferel might have, but Aoshi had never been one for physical affection.
Scratching the back of his head with a bashful smile, he briefly explained, “You told me I could call you hyung before you left, but it didn’t feel right. Once you were gone, though, I really regretted not doing it.”
It could be due to knowing the disparity in time we had spent apart, but my words came out somewhat awkwardly. “I see. Well, that aside, you’ve changed a lot.”
I studied Aoshi’s face closely.
The second, and foremost, reason I was so taken aback was his appearance. Of course, I already knew from Aphershi’s stories that he hadn’t aged much. Regardless, we had expected him to look like a person in their thirties or forties, not someone still brimming with the vitality of a twenty-year-old.
A glance over my shoulder confirmed the others shared my reaction. They were delighted by the reunion, but also unmistakably bewildered.