LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 45
045 – Four Steps Back for One Step Forward
The cloud-like body of Ying-ing was cool, like a refreshing pillow.
It might feel a bit cold in winter, but in the gradually warming weather, it was perfect for cuddling.
Seoga-eul placed Ying-ing like a pillow against the male student’s back of the head.
—Kyui-ying.
Puff-puff—.
The male student’s forehead was so hot, one could fry an egg on it.
“What happened to him that he’s so injured?”
Seoga-eul used the concept of 「Restoration」 she acquired from breaking chains to treat the wounds on the male student’s abdomen and thigh.
Since it was a recently manifested concept, its level was low, so complete healing was impossible, but it was better than leaving the wounds untreated.
“……”
In fact, the look on the male student’s face softened enough to be tolerable.
At that moment, Seoga-eul felt a hint of irritation.
“Why do I have to take care of you?”
Seoga-eul tugged at the male student’s nose to vent her anger, but she thought it was good that he still showed no signs of waking.
“He’ll probably be out cold for at least a day.”
Crack-.
Seoga-eul broke the chains that bound her hands again and went up to the ground.
The dim night sky felt incredibly awkward.
The lukewarm breeze starting to carry the scent of summer and the sounds of insects crying everywhere felt unfamiliar and strange.
The sensation of stepping on the shabby yard with her bare feet was strangely vivid, which made her laugh.
All these things usually wouldn’t have caught her eye. Normally, she didn’t care how insects cried or what season existed between spring and summer.
Seoga-eul thought she felt like a baby just born. The former her had died in that basement, and now she was reborn.
With thoughts that would have seemed childish just a few months ago, she entered the house she had always imagined.
It was the male student’s home.
Creak, creak—.
First, she was surprised by the wooden floor of the living room and then by the incredibly messy disarray of items strewn everywhere.
So, people can actually live in a place like this─. As she marvelled, Seoga-eul noticed a family photo hanging in a frame.
“Mom is a beauty, but I don’t look like her at all.”
Even Seoga-eul, who usually received poor scores on appearance evaluations, thought she was a beautiful woman. She wondered if they all used to live boisterously in this house and then went into the male student’s room.
It was an utterly normal room that didn’t resemble that of a notorious kidnapper at all.
If one were to see the middle of a Korean male student’s room, it would look much like this.
An old bed. A computer. A bookshelf—.
“What’s this?”
Seoga-eul revoked her assessment that the room was ordinary.
That was because the books on Hanam-jin’s bookshelf were bizarre.
「The Little Prince」
「The Little Prince」
「The Little Prince」
「The Little Prince」
“Why did he buy so many copies of the same book? Isn’t that just plain weird?”
Each book had a different cover and was from different publishers, but it didn’t make any sense to Seoga-eul.
“How deeply did he read 「The Little Prince」?”
Suddenly, Seoga-eul realized she had never read 「The Little Prince」.
She was good at studying but disliked reading books.
“That guy mentioned something about the rose from 「The Little Prince」.”
Since she had some time now, Seoga-eul decided to read the book. Just reading seemed boring, so she thought it would be nice to take a bath while reading in the bathtub.
Shwaaa—.
As she soaked her toes in the warm water, it felt as if all her fatigue and annoyance were being washed away.
‘Was bathing such a delightful thing?’
If she could escape from her kidnapping and return to her normal life, she could take such enjoyable baths every day.
However, Seoga-eul quickly denied her thoughts.
This happiness ironically stemmed from deprivation, absurdity, and unreasonable confinement. In vast freedom and indulgence, one wouldn’t enjoy such joys.
Seoga-eul was angry because she knew that well.
To suppress that anger, she focused on the words before her.
The book was still boring.
# # #
“Is it alright?”
Baek-Yeoul felt slightly anxious as she looked at the empty seat beside her for the second day. It had been two days since she fought with the class president.
Her partner, the male student Hanam-jin, had not come to school. It seemed that his wounds were still causing him much pain.
‘Maybe I should check on him today.’
Thinking that, Baek-Yeoul looked around. Since the fact that the class president was a terrifying killer had quietly spread, the classroom atmosphere was different from before.
“……”
“……”
The classmates realized how dangerous each could be to one another and became cautious.
Fear and distrust were visible in their gazes toward each other.
The shadow of a popular friend’s dark side left a deep wound in the minds of students who were already sensitive.
Suddenly, Baek-Yeoul wondered how it would have been if Hanam-jin were still around. He would surely have made the class laugh and filled it with noise, not caring about others’ stares.
‘It seems Taesung, Chang-sik, and Deok-soon have also become busy all of a sudden.’
Baek-Yeoul had always hated going to school.
She wished every day that the school would crumble because of Seoga-eul and hoped it would happen.
But these past few days, she had found school so enjoyable that her eyes would open automatically every Monday morning.
A student who transferred in one spring day had become her amusement.
Baek-Yeoul thought she had no choice.
She could only go to Hanam-jin’s house to take care of him and persuade him to come to school quickly.
‘He’d be happy to see me, right?’
As she pictured the face of the male student who would joyfully welcome her during his recovery, a silly smile escaped her without realizing it.
“Moo-lung-huh-hut—.”
Gasp—. Suddenly, Baek-Yeoul covered her mouth.
She couldn’t believe that she made such a bizarre sound.
It was a growing familiarity with controlling her “misfortune.”
Anyway, Baek-Yeoul decided to visit the male student after school ended today.
With that feeling, after school—
Baek-Yeoul began to pass through the streets she was getting used to and the friendly walls before arriving at the male student’s house.
And the moment she opened that door—
“Jina, you’ll recover quickly if you eat this! I’ll feed you!”
She was greatly shocked by the sight of a female student tussling with the male student lying on the bed. The male student was one thing, but the female student was terrifying.
“Y-Yu Yeoreum!”
Baek-Yeoul couldn’t understand why the girl pouring food into Hanam-jin’s mouth was in his house. She couldn’t comprehend why she was feeding the male student like he was going to die.
“Pudgy! You came! Save me! She’s trying to kill me! Guahh!”
The male student screamed while flailing.
Baek-Yeoul quickly dashed towards Hanam-jin, hiding him behind her.
“W-What are you doing?”
“I’m just feeding him good food.”
“Good food?”
Baek-Yeoul looked over at Yu Yeoreum’s pot.
She was immediately dizzy at the grotesque contents inside.
“W-What on earth is this made of?”
“Vitamins, proteins, eel, and dried centipedes—.”
Baek-Yeoul felt dread at the sight of the ingredients in the pot.
It was far more horrific than when her mom lectured her on how to create “loneliness.”
# # #
Two days had passed, during which I focused entirely on healing due to my pain.
For some reason, Yu Yeoreum had come to my house after school to nurse me, and it was truly unbearable.
First of all, Yu Yeoreum couldn’t cook at all.
Not at all!
“Jina, your weakness is the problem. So you need to eat this and get strong. I put only good stuff in it.”
“Yeoreum, have you ever had this?”
“No, I haven’t eaten since I obtained 「Photosynthesis」. I guess you could say I can’t eat….”
“Hey! How could Hanam-jjin eat something you can’t! Hanam-jjin! I’ll cook dinner for you tonight! Just trust me! Throw this trash away! Toss the pot!”
For some reason, Baek-Yeoul was shouting like an angry raccoon in my house. Of course, she posed no threat to Yu Yeoreum, who was as sturdy and agile as a black puma.
I had no choice. If this continued, it would never end.
I gulped down the contents of Yu Yeoreum’s pot in one go.
Leaving food behind is a major violation of my motto.
“Guahhh! Full!”
“Hanam-jjin, you must be really sick! Eating all of that! You’ve lost your mind?”
“I’ll make it again tomorrow.”
Baek-Yeoul looked at me in shock, and Yu Yeoreum nodded satisfactorily at my action.
Then he even patted my back, which felt like getting hit by a volleyball player.
Anyway, I felt awkward because girls had barged into my house.
If Seoga-eul found out she was in the adjacent basement—
No, what if Seoga-eul discovered their presence?
Fortunately, Seoga-eul seemed to remain calm and didn’t notice the uproar aboveground.
In fact, Seoga-eul had been unusually quiet these days.
Although she wasn’t being sincere.
A few days ago, I distinctly remembered having important evidence in my bag before I lost consciousness, but after regaining my senses, I couldn’t see where it had gone.
That evidence was acquired from the class president Jeong-ui-seon’s secret lair. If my memory serves right, it was documentation that proved the connection between the N Mart incident and the Seo Nam Group.
—The documents? I know nothing about that. Did Ying-ing eat it?
Why would the gourmet Ying-ing eat documents?
It was clearly Seoga-eul’s doing, yet since she kept denying it, I had no more room to question her.
The problem was that Jeong-ui-seon’s secret lair, where I had obtained that document, had burned down completely.
It contained all kinds of information, but when I returned, it was gone, completely ablaze.
—Ke-ke-ke-!
At that moment, I heard a strange sound from somewhere.
As someone who had read 「The Little Prince」 many times, I recognized it as the unmistakable cry of a red fox. What was a red fox doing in a neighborhood filled with abandoned houses?
‘It’s Seoga-eul! Seoga-eul is causing mischief right now!’
The issue was that Baek-Yeoul, who was confronting Yu Yeoreum, reacted sensitively to that sound.
“I just heard a fox sound! It’s neither a cat sound nor a fox sound here. Is there a fox living nearby?”
No way, how did she know that was a fox sound? Fatty Baek-Yeoul always astonished me.
Is she an onion?
Even after peeling, she surprises me every time.
“We need to catch that fox!”
Pah-dahat-!
Baek-Yeoul, with chopsticks in hand, dashed off somewhere. Yu Yeoreum, who witnessed the scene, chuckled softly. It wasn’t easy to see Yu Yeoreum displaying such amusement.
With a smile on her face, Yu Yeoreum said,
“I’ve decided to join the 「Billunners」 for scouting and extermination starting tomorrow. I was initially going to think it over a bit more, but I felt something when I saw you fight the 「Judicator」.”
“Feel something?”
“It’s that I should use my strength for the right causes. I want to use my powers where they are needed. I can’t just hide because it’s dangerous.”
If Yu Yeoreum and the 「Billunners」 started fighting again, there could be issues regarding her safety.
This was the worst time, considering the abduction scheme was on hold.
I had no choice.
I had to hurry the abduction plan forward—
“Yeoreum, do you have time tonight? Since I’ve been lying here too long, I’d like to patrol the neighborhood for rehabilitation, but I feel a bit uneasy doing it alone.”
“Tonight? Is that a date proposal, perhaps?”
Yu Yeoreum giggled as if she had heard a funny story.
The fact she wasn’t rejecting it shows my handsome face was working its charm.
As time passed and both Yu Yeoreum and Baek-Yeoul disappeared into the evening.
I decided to visit Seoga-eul in the basement in preparation for a rare outing.
“You’re looking good! Did the girls come over to take care of you? You said you loved me like a rose, but really, all females are your type, aren’t they?”
Today, Seoga-eul was the most irritable she had been in days.
I said to that Seoga-eul.
“The abduction of Yu Yeoreum is happening tonight. Just so you know, my roommate will be coming in.”
“…Suddenly?”
Suddenly—.
It might indeed feel too sudden, just as Seoga-eul said, but isn’t life a series of improvisations?
And the timing that no one expects is indeed the best opportunity for a kidnapper.