Episode 50
Having gone to bed early the previous evening and opened his eyes early in the morning, Han Chasu fell into thought.
‘…Am I seeing things?’
On a bed spacious enough for two people to lie in with room to spare, Gi Taeyeon lay beside him with both eyes closed, breathing evenly.
No wonder his dreams had been so terrible.
In his dream, Han Chasu had been submerged in seawater, unable to escape. He could breathe, and he could even walk along the bottom of the sea, but he simply couldn’t get out. The suffocation had become so unbearable it felt as if his insides would explode, and he had finally managed to force himself awake… only to find himself like this.
“Mmm.”
The pitch-black eyebrows twitched, and the distance he had barely managed to pry open narrowed again.
“Urk!”
The strength of an S-rank pretending to be an A-rank was not something Han Chasu could overcome. He stared blankly at the ceiling, looked at Gi Taeyeon, then glared at the man’s thick arm.
But the thick arm did not disappear, nor did the man’s body, close enough to suffocate him, move away.
With the reason he had half recovered, Han Chasu tried to understand the situation.
‘Is it because of that etherealization or whatever?’
There had been no notification that he was under any abnormal status, and there had been nothing strange in the food he’d eaten yesterday.
‘Ah, could it be the influence of the Demonic Spirit Stone?’
Han Chasu carefully observed the Demonic Spirit Stone sitting alone on the table. But the gray stone was no different from yesterday. Holding a faint light, it simply sat still on the cushion the medical staff had brought over.
By then, all traces of sleep had fled. It was also because Gi Taeyeon had just pulled him into an even tighter embrace.
“Cough!”
If this went on, he would be flattened and die like a frog crushed under a rock. At the sudden sense of crisis, Han Chasu raised his voice.
“…Director Gi Taeyeon.”
“Mmm.”
“Director Gi!”
This is driving me insane. Han Chasu was appalled by the man’s behavior, clinging closer and closer instead of waking up. Come to think of it, this man had been sleeping with his shirt undone.
No wonder he kept feeling an unpleasant warmth. Han Chasu looked at him with eyes that had sunk even colder. Then he cleared his throat.
“Director, something terrible has happened! A Gate has burst open on the east coast. It’s a Grade-1 Gate!”
“—!”
With a thud, the bed shook violently.
“A Grade-1 Gate… Where? The East Sea?”
A hoarse voice burst out. Blue eyes quickly swept their surroundings. The hands that had been binding Han Chasu were already busy buttoning up his shirt. It was so natural that it might as well have been ingrained in his body.
‘As expected of the director of the Crisis Management Office.’
Seeing him react unconsciously even while half-asleep, it seemed being a public official was truly his calling. Han Chasu inwardly applauded his diligence. In the meantime, Gi Taeyeon seemed to be gradually shaking off sleep.
“Ah.”
A dazed sound escaped the man, who belatedly took in reality.
Han Chasu quietly watched him.
“This is insane, what time is it… Ah.”
Gi Taeyeon, who had been muttering to himself, slowly turned his head toward Han Chasu. Perhaps because he had only just woken up, or perhaps because he was in the shadows, his blue eyes, much darker than usual, stared at him.
“……”
“……”
An unpleasant silence flowed one-sidedly, and at last, Gi Taeyeon opened his mouth.
“Good morning, Hunter Han Chasu.”
Good morning? Is he joking?
Han Chasu crossed his arms and put strength into his gaze. At his clearly displeased appearance, Gi Taeyeon let out a low groan.
“Mm.”
The man roughly swept back his disheveled hair and narrowed his eyes. He wore an expression that said, What do I do about this?
“I can explain everything.”
“Go ahead.”
But when Han Chasu actually gave him the stage to speak, he seemed to find it difficult. Gi Taeyeon opened and closed his mouth several times before letting out a deep sigh.
“Haa…”
Watching him, Han Chasu felt strange. How should he put it? It was as if he had become someone who had woken up after spending a heated night in drunkenness and was interrogating the stranger beside him about what had happened the night before.
‘Damn it.’
As Han Chasu chewed over the words that had occurred to him, he cursed inwardly. It was shocking that if one excluded the drunken heated night part, it was almost exactly right.
“So, well, as for what happened…”
Whether he had finished sorting out his thoughts, or realized that if he failed to explain properly he would have to retire in disgrace as of today, Gi Taeyeon began his explanation.
At the explanation that followed, Han Chasu was briefly left speechless.
“During the night, Hunter Han Chasu was about to disappear through etherealization, so I shared some of my energy with you.”
“…Pardon?”
What the hell is he talking about? While his head spun, Gi Taeyeon calmly continued spouting nonsense.
“I didn’t explain it properly last time. To resolve Hunter Han Chasu’s condition, an antidote isn’t enough. There needs to be someone beside you directly infusing energy into you.”
Gi Taeyeon continued.
“You’re aware that your current body is worse than an F-rank’s. Maybe because your body nearly went into cardiac arrest, you can’t gather the energy scattering due to etherealization on your own. In that state, even if you take the antidote, they say it’s only a stopgap measure.”
At this point, Han Chasu thought he understood why Gi Taeyeon had been found beside him. No, in truth, he didn’t want to understand.
As Han Chasu repeatedly rubbed his face with a complicated expression, Gi Taeyeon dealt the finishing blow.
“Until Han Chasu’s etherealization is undone, I’ll be staying by your side from now on. I look forward to working with you.”
“…Will that be all right? I understand the Crisis Management Office is an extremely busy place. And there are many matters you handle personally, Director.”
“Are you worrying about me? Thank you, but I’m fine. It’s not as if the Crisis Management Office is the only office working in the Management Bureau, and there’s the Security Office too. It won’t be a problem.”
“……”
“I’ll use the bathroom first.”
Watching Gi Taeyeon casually head off to wash up after shoving someone else into a dead end, Han Chasu thought,
‘Isn’t sparring a form of contact too?’
If contact was necessary, then surely a method where he beat Gi Taeyeon would be acceptable.
“Good.”
Even if they said no, he would have to insist on at least testing it. His eyes, fixed on the firmly closed bathroom door, shone with solid determination.
***
Unfortunately, before he could ask Gi Taeyeon whether he could tie him up and hit him, the medical staff who visited early in the morning discovered him.
“Director Gi, I was wondering where you were, and you were here since morning?!”
“I told you I’d be taking charge of Hunter Han Chasu’s treatment.”
“I didn’t know that meant starting today… Ugh, never mind. Director, we have a big problem. Please hurry up to the Headquarters Director’s office right now!”
“Why should I?”
“They say you turned the Development Office upside down.”
“Ah.”
Gi Taeyeon let out a low exclamation. Han Chasu looked at him as if he were some bizarre creature and asked,
“Wasn’t the Development Office where they were making my antidote?”
“That’s right.”
“And you turned that place upside down?”
“If they had done the work entrusted to them properly, that wouldn’t have happened.”
Gi Taeyeon replied, tightening his interlaced fingers. The medical staff member, who had been listening to their conversation, shouted in frustration.
“Even so, who freezes the entire Development Office!”
“In the end, I didn’t touch the research building. Isn’t that good enough?”
Seeing him answer while tapping his foot, Han Chasu realized the true meaning behind the words that he hadn’t been promoted because of his rotten temper.
‘So he went around losing his temper even at his colleagues.’
Gi Taeyeon barely appeared in the original work until before the middle part. It was in the latter half of the novel that he rose to a main-character level. That began when the director of the Awakened Management Bureau died and the Headquarters Director seized control of the Bureau.
At that time, Gi Taeyeon revealed the rank he had been hiding, immediately brought down the Headquarters Director, and assumed the post of Bureau Director. Political opposition was nothing but meaningless flailing before an S-rank dual-type Awakened.
After that, Gi Taeyeon openly clashed with Jeong Iheun and obstructed his merciless actions.
In other words, to summarize it simply, it was as follows.
All he knew about Gi Taeyeon during his days as director of the Crisis Management Office was secondhand information. They said he was good at his job, but had a terrible temper. They said that was why, despite being capable of becoming Headquarters Director, he couldn’t, and remained a perpetual office director.
So he hadn’t known the man went around openly smashing other departments.
“I’m asking just in case, but you didn’t touch any of the treatment devices under development, did you?”
“Do you think I’m that stupid?”
Gi Taeyeon snorted. The medical staff member let out a deep sigh.
“Director, you should really count yourself incredibly lucky. If even one treatment device had been damaged, the Center Director would have come running and rained fire on you.”
“It’s fine.”
I’d win, Gi Taeyeon said calmly as he hung his employee ID around his neck. Since he was on his way to see the Headquarters Director, it seemed he intended to observe at least some degree of courtesy.
“Hunter Han Chasu. Hold on to this for me.”
“……”
“It’s not especially expensive, but if I lose it, it’ll be annoying, so keep it safe.”
What did it mean that he was taking off his watch before going to meet the Headquarters Director? Han Chasu ignored the answer his subconscious was screaming and accepted the watch. Its heavy weight made his hand sink slightly.
“Are you sure you’ve been eating five meals a day?”
Gi Taeyeon clicked his tongue, then gestured toward the medical staff.
“After you give him the antidote, bring him some snacks and feed him. And take him for a walk too, not around the lake, but toward the garden. What do you think you’re doing, locking a person up in a room like this?”
“Are you picking a fight with our Medical Center policy right now?”
“Even if I stop by the research building from here, it won’t take ten minutes to get to the Headquarters Director’s office.”
Gi Taeyeon tilted his head and stomped his foot against the floor.
Saaaa—
At the cold energy spreading like mist, the medical staff member’s face turned pale. The meaning of Gi Taeyeon’s action was obvious. It meant that freezing a few treatment devices before heading to the Headquarters Director’s office would be nothing to him.
Watching that, Han Chasu shook his head. As expected, among S-ranks, Jeong Iheun was the only one with a proper character.
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