Chapter 105 - The Rookie Everyone Talks About (2)

Ska chuckled quietly.

"Satisfied now?"

Instead of answering, Yun raised an eyebrow.

The tall aide kindly elaborated.

"Did watching them cut Hilde open satisfy your curiosity?"

"I didn't get to confirm what I wanted to."

"I'll make sure to leave a dying message before I go."

I stared up at the ceiling in resignation and muttered,

"The killer. Choi Yun."

"Yun. Don't cross the line," Ska admonished.

I was profoundly moved by his easy, matter-of-fact reprimand. He really was a wonderful superior... Someone who needed to remain my training officer's boss for all eternity.

He could so easily have brushed it off as a joke.

Of course, my training officer was a master at letting admonitions go in one ear and out the other.

"I'll be careful."

The lie rolled right off his tongue.

"It's late. You should head home. The surgery went smoothly."

My seniors didn't leave right away.

They listened to Yun's detailed explanation, then supplied me with all sorts of information before going. I appreciated their casual thoughtfulness. Thanks to them, I learned that Bobby had already been discharged and gone home, and that Achille would be discharged in two days.

They really hadn't needed to stay and watch me cough so intently, though.

It got to the point where I had to plead with them to leave so I could sleep.

"I'm going to have more painkillers and go to sleep now!"

"Yeees, all riiight... Who's stopping you?"

"Please go get some sleep yourself, sir... I'm begging you."

"Don't mash the painkiller button like an idiot," my training officer admonished flatly.

"You'll be in hell tomorrow if you do."

I spent a week in the hospital.

It was a painful stretch of having to cough to reinflate my collapsed lung. The days were growing shorter, making it harder and harder to get up in the morning. I shuffled around the hospital building, forcing myself to cough. Coughing up pain and phlegm, ironing out my lung. All while faithfully taking the countless medicines I had to swallow.

During that time, all sorts of people came to visit.

My fellow recruits were the first.

"Are you okay?"

"You all right?"

Tom and Heshy came to my room with wide eyes.

This arrangement was starting to get a little embarrassing. Thank goodness they weren't the sort to think a fellow recruit was pathetic for landing in the hospital after every mission.

They were both thoroughly decent people by nature.

And how should I put it? They each had such a clear set of values that they didn't worry much about what other people thought.

"But they say you can get out soon, right?"

"Yeah. They think I'll be out within a week at the most."

"Will you be okay to drink at the year-end party?"

As I was answering Heshy's question, Tom asked one of his own in a worried voice.

I blinked blankly.

"Year-end party?"

"Oh. Nobody's told you yet."

Tom set down his get-well gift of apricot cream jam and explained.

There wasn't much to explain. There was going to be a year-end party, a work dinner for the Badgers working near headquarters.

A large-scale banquet that even the senior leadership would attend.

"When in late December?"

"The twenty-third this year."

"You'll be fully healed by then."

Heshy grinned as he spoke with breezy confidence.

"And trainees get the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth off."

Christmas.

Which meant Yehyeon's birthday was coming up soon. Jaeyeon's ominous text and Lee Seunghyeon came to mind at the same time. Was that grand party planned for the twenty-sixth still on?

And as for Lee Seunghyeon... what was his phone number?

Heshy called me out of my thoughts.

My fellow recruit said my name hesitantly.

Obsessed with collecting Jordans and half mad about basketball, he stumbled over his words in a way that was quite unlike him before asking,

"So what are you, uh, doing for Christmas?"

I blinked, looking into his hazel eyes.

"I was thinking of gaming."

"... Alone?"

"Probably?"

What was he getting at?

And why was it so hard for him to ask? Seeing Heshy flustered left me flustered too. Heshy Lyle was a runaway locomotive with a sign reading "Bound for Justice." This was a guy ready to deliver a bread-fisted punch of justice to anyone he thought was in the wrong, whether they were a senior from the third intake or the twentieth. Seeing him stammer felt very strange.

Fortunately, the answer came soon enough.

"Then do you want to come over to my place on the twenty-fourth?"

It was funny watching him rub his neck and avoid my eyes.

"I'm planning to open a bottle of liquor with my dad and little brother. Our place isn't far from headquarters. Um. The guest room's empty, and the neighborhood's nice and quiet. And dinner should be pretty good."

My lips curved into a smile.

It seemed he was worried about me spending Christmas alone because I had no family.

What a kind invitation.

Honestly, I wouldn't feel lonely at all holed up in my cabin gaming all day by myself.

Still, I didn't want to turn down an invitation he'd worked up the courage to offer. Besides, I really was curious about Heshy's younger brother. I wanted to thank him for selling me the scooter so cheaply.

Still smiling, I nodded.

"Sure. If I wouldn't be imposing."

"Of course you wouldn't! Great. I'll go tell my brother right now."

Heshy's face lit up and he sprang to his feet.

Tom and I watched him rush out of the room.

BANG!

He misjudged his strength, broke the door, and left silence in his wake.

"Come over to my place sometime too."

Tom broke the silence.

"The sunsets are beautiful."

Sometimes Heshy and I were thrown off by Tom's sensibilities, unable to keep up.

This time, with Heshy gone, I had to be thrown off all by myself. Still, I accepted this invitation too.

The invitations were so very like them. Taking turns inviting a fellow recruit over because they couldn't bear the thought of him spending Christmas alone without a family.

So young and sweet. I was grateful.

The contrast became all the sharper when I read a message from a thoroughly jaded elder.

* * *

[Looks like you've had a rough time.]

That bastard Colton had a talent for pissing people off with a single sentence.

[The gaming center is finished.]

And a talent for making people happy with a single sentence too.

Naturally, he ignored my effusive reply thanking him, declaring that old friends really were the best, and asking him to keep up the good work. He didn't answer my follow-up question, "You've got all the latest games, right?" either.

But I didn't mind.

I preferred it, actually.

I didn't want to exchange trivial texts with a psychopath. Nor did I have anything in particular to say. He bore some responsibility for the arena disaster, but for that incident alone, his only real failing had been "inadequate supervision of Jaeyeon."

He must have sent such a brief message because he knew that perfectly well.

I read the indirect message: he would let the matter rest here.

There was no particular word from Spitfire or Sukhoi.

Instead, I had a message from Yehyeon.

[Could you keep the twenty-sixth free?]

Probably because of Jaeyeon's message.

I replied that of course I could. Then I went back to figuring out how to get Lee Seunghyeon's phone number.

I absolutely couldn't ask Yehyeon directly...

Ami was in Area C outside the core and apparently wouldn't be back until December twentieth.

I couldn't easily ask Yekaterina either. It was best not to owe the elders even the smallest debt.

That left me with just one answer in the end.

The answer I'd been doing my best to avoid.

"My esteemed training officer."

On the evening before my discharge, I addressed the man poring over my progress report.

Yun slowly shifted only his eyes.

"I have a favor to ask."

"What is it?"

Dressed in a light-blue shirt, he was as motionless as ever today.

"I don't know what you've done, but hurry up and confess."

"... I haven't done anything."

"Just a favor?"

Yun turned his head to look straight at me.

"You? What is it?"

I swallowed hard.

Then I cautiously studied my training officer's face.

I knew perfectly well this wasn't a favor he'd readily agree to. In truth, there was no reason I should need Lee Seunghyeon's phone number now. It wasn't as though we'd been close in the past. I hadn't even remembered his name the moment I saw his face.

Besides, my training officer loathed him.

So my voice lacked confidence as I asked,

"Could you give me Lee Seunghyeon's number, please?"

Yun's brow furrowed.

An uneasy silence fell at once.

I waited for his answer with a smile that made my mouth twitch.

His response was slow in coming.

"Why?"

"There's something I want to contact him and ask him to do."

"What is it?"

I really didn't want to say.

I didn't even know whether it would work, or how Yun would take my plan.

Of course, I knew very well that my training officer hated being kept waiting, so I didn't deliberate for long.

"Could you promise not to tell anyone?"

"Let me hear it first."

"... Then at least don't tell the commander-in-chief..."

"Even if I don't tell anyone else, shouldn't I tell him?"

It was a reasonable point.

But this particular case was different. I let out a short sigh.

My lung had expanded a great deal by now, so it didn't hurt the way it had before. Right after surgery, it had been bad enough to make me press the painkiller button over and over.

Anyway, I made my decision as I sighed.

I... told my training officer my plan.

"Huh?"

That was his reaction to hearing my plan.

"You think that bastard would do you a favor like that?"

"It can't hurt to try, can it?"

He wasn't going to agree willingly, but I wanted to try anyway. If I couldn't succeed this time, then perhaps the next.

It was probably worth doing.

Yun didn't dispute that, and I waited for his response again.

The first step of my plan.

He was the only one who could help me take it. After standing with his hands shoved into his pockets in thought, he answered in a low voice.

"Give it a try, then."

"Thank you!"

I knew he'd agree in the end!

I was clenching my fists in delight when his next words left me a little stunned.

"What do I get in return?"

"Pardon?"

"For giving you Lee Seunghyeon's number and keeping it from Yehyeon indefinitely."

You're demanding payment even for something like this?

I wanted to retort, but I had neither the courage nor the money.

Of course, I had no intention of readily giving him the answer he wanted, either: "I'll get on your lab table."

"Tomorrow I'll ask Achille Fisker why he grabbed you by the collar that time and find out for you."

"I don't give a damn about that."

"Oh, then how about we call it even for you not telling me about the promotion exam?"

I was still a bit angry about that.

But judging by Yun's puzzled blinking, he seemed to have no awareness whatsoever that he'd done anything wrong.

He was surely wondering why I was making a fuss over something still six whole months away. Heshy and Tom had known for ages, but he'd probably think that since my recruitment had been so unusual to begin with, there simply hadn't been a chance to tell me...

He was sure to say three months' notice would be plenty...

But no.

Every one of those predictions was wrong. Yun gave an answer I could never have imagined.

An answer I couldn't even comprehend at first.

"You study for exams?"

You fucking bastard.