Chapter 116 - Morning Soap Opera (2)

* * *

"... You, youu. You."

Pyochan couldn't bring himself to continue, while Sinu asked what it was, confusion in his eyes.

Hyeonyul used his wireless earpiece. There were too many ears listening.

<It's my name and number.>

<Uh...?>

<The name and number I was called by when I was a test subject.>

<...>

Sinu couldn't find a single word. What was he supposed to say to that? Ask why Hyeonyul still hadn't erased it? How anyone could do such a thing? Countless thoughts simply circled through his head.

"You... It's you?"

Pyochan stammered the question as though denying reality.

"Yes."

"... H-how are you a Black Eagle?"

"Am I not allowed to become one?"

"You were his right-hand man! You're a villain! How are you a Black Eagle?"

The instant he heard that, Hyeonyul stood up.

"Big brother Baek Sinu."

"... Huh?"

Sinu was slow to answer.

"I'll be back after killing all the villains on this floor."

Hyeonyul turned his gaze and gripped his dagger. There were ears listening. He had killed so many earlier that only a handful remained anyway: the newly arrived villains and a few in the corner. He only needed to dispose of them.

He vanished from the spot and appeared before the villains in the corner. His fluttering black uniform made him look like a grim reaper.

Few could remain calm in the face of death. Spare us. Their eyes pleaded for it.

How contradictory.

"The civilians you killed must have said the same thing."

Hyeonyul acquainted them with reality and bestowed death upon them.

Listening to the dripping blood, he moved to the opposite side in an instant. All of them, bound by Sinu's power, were easy prey. Blood streamed like a downpour along the black lines.

When he returned, he sat down calmly, as though nothing had happened.

"Now, let's begin again."

For Pyochan's benefit, Hyeonyul removed his helmet and switched off his disguise magic.

Pyochan laughed when Hyeonyul's own face was revealed. It really was Seo Hyeonyul. His laughter soon mingled with tears.

Seo Hyeonyul had killed Shin Daeho.

But then he saw the clothes Hyeonyul was wearing, and finally understood. This was all the Black Eagles' doing. They had used Hyeonyul.

It was entirely possible. What would Hyeonyul know, when he had never been taught anything?

"... Seo Hyeonyul. You're being deceived. I don't know how the Black Eagles made you one of them, but you can't stay there."

"Why not? Explain more clearly."

"Because you exist to bring down the Empire."

"I have no intention of doing that. The Empire pays my salary and provides my benefits."

"Do you think the Empire will leave you alone once it discovers what you are? It'll kill you! It'll destroy you, our masterpiece!"

Knowing these were his final moments, Pyochan shouted himself hoarse. What did salaries or benefits matter?

"You have to kill that bastard right now. Please, Hyeonyul. You're being deceived!"

Pyochan's gaze turned to Sinu. The loathsome Black Eagles. Taking, and taking again. After taking so much already, they were determined to steal even the sword his people had barely managed to forge.

How could this make any sense? How could they be so cruel?

"... So Shin Daeho knew what I was, too?"

Hyeonyul smiled. It was a chilling smile. If Pyochan had known, why wouldn't Shin Daeho?

Whatever else he might feel, this was unpleasant.

It had begun as a simple recruitment offer. They had met at the place where he had killed the president named Kim Daean.

"I didn't know at first, either."

"You didn't know?"

"Right. No one would have recognized you on sight. No one... But as soon as he learned who you were, he tried to protect you."

"Am I supposed to consider that protection?"

Hyeonyul was irritated. To think he would encounter word games here, too.

"He never even made you do things you disliked..."

"I explicitly asked whether I would be enrolled in the four major social insurance plans. Forget insurance. My salary was late, the overtime kept increasing, and I couldn't even take sick leave, let alone annual leave. Do you know how many days I couldn't go home, or how often that happened?"

Hyeonyul's gaze darkened. He looked at Pyochan as though he were looking at all manner of filth.

He had nearly died of overwork again. It had been enough to make him question whether that was any kind of life. He had struggled desperately to survive countless experiments, only to wonder whether this was what he had survived for.

"He couldn't even honor an employment contract, and you call that protection?"

"That's only one small part of it! Those things are necessary for a company to grow—no, they're only natural! You have to work people hard for the company to get bigger. That company was going to be yours next. If you'd held out just a little longer, all of it would have been yours! You're worth that much...!"

"When did I ever ask for a company?"

"What...?"

"What I want is for my employment contract to be honored. I hate overwork more than anything. I wouldn't take a company like that even if you gave it to me."

He hated overwork. Why on earth would he accept a company? The life he had now was enough.

"That's why Shin Daeho died."

"... What?"

Pyochan couldn't understand. Just that. Shin Daeho had died just because he hadn't honored a single employment contract.

The words seemed to float around without connecting to anything.

Didn't everyone live that way? That was how everyone worked at a company. Even unfair treatment served the company, didn't it? It was a good thing: if people kept nourishing it that way, there would be more money coming back to them, too.

What had gone wrong?

"Shin Daeho died because he couldn't understand even these basics."

Hyeonyul explained for the confused Pyochan's benefit. But even after the explanation, his expression didn't change.

"But why didn't you recognize me? Given how desperately you've been searching, I must have been quite precious to you."

"You don't... remember?"

"I don't."

Relief briefly crossed Pyochan's face at his answer. Hyeonyul didn't know what it meant, but he found himself facing one fact.

"... You participated in the experiments that made me like this, didn't you?"

He drew his dagger.

"Wait... a second!"

"If you knew, there's no way Shin Daeho didn't. This body can't last even a single day without medication. And yet he refused to let me take sick leave. After making me into this bizarre, abnormal thing."

"... You, you're more beautiful than anyone. You're perfect."

For an instant, Pyochan gazed at him as though beholding something rapturous.

Again. That look again.

"While living as REX―3333, I made one resolution."

"I can tell you. Just let me live. Please...?"

Pyochan suddenly began to plead. Hyeonyul lowered his gaze. To think he could survive after losing this much blood meant the man wasn't in his right mind.

"That day, that day..."

To silence that babbling mouth, Hyeonyul drove his dagger into the back of Pyochan's neck.

"I'm sorry. I have no intention of letting anyone who participated in the experiments to create me live."

"Our... sword."

Letting the bullshit go in one ear and out the other, Hyeonyul twisted the dagger and ended his life.

"Hyeonyul."

"Yes."

"... Why did you kill him?"

Sinu asked hesitantly.

"Was I not allowed to?"

"That's not it. It was a chance to learn about yourself."

"Do you think he would have told me?"

Hyeonyul gave a light smile.

"Huh...?"

"Do you think everything they say is true?"

"But some of it might be."

"Probably. But most of it is lies. Judging by how much blood he'd lost, he probably didn't know what he was saying."

"But..."

"I can't let myself waver. He wasn't even a major player. What information could he have had? Shin Daeho knew who I was, and this man participated in the experiments. That's all I need to know for now."

Even that amounted to a considerable discovery. There were still connections left to follow.

"I don't remember what I did when I left the experimental facility. But does that matter? What would knowing change?"

He had escaped. Learning more wouldn't erase the fact that, before that, he hadn't escaped.

"... It would answer your questions."

"Yes. It might."

Hyeonyul nodded. That was a natural result. But what he wanted to know wasn't something so trivial.

'They're slowly starting to move.'

The people he had tried so hard to find were emerging one by one. More precisely, they were looking for him.

["They're looking for a living test subject."]

Hadn't the Bomber said it? They were looking for a living test subject.

Something he knew nothing about was in motion. It felt awful.

'... Should I call this feeling filthy?'

After thinking for a moment, Hyeonyul lifted his head briefly to look at Sinu. His expression was strange. As teammates, they couldn't allow their relationship to turn sour.

"Do you find me frightening? Or strange?"

Hyeonyul asked, wondering whether he'd made a mistake.

Sinu reached out toward him. Last time, he had wondered why Hyeonyul asked such questions. Now he understood.

Would you dislike me?

That seemed to be roughly what he meant.

"No matter how many times you ask, I'll tell you no. So you can keep asking."

"But just now, you spoke as though you couldn't understand what I did."

"That was only my opinion. This is your business, and you're the one who can judge it in more detail than anyone else. This isn't going to make me dislike you."

Sinu made it clear that he respected Hyeonyul.

He hadn't known Hyeonyul long. It was too little time to understand the long life Hyeonyul had lived. In those years Sinu hadn't witnessed, Hyeonyul might have believed everything villains told him and chased countless dead ends. Or he might have come close to dying.

"Then don't you think I'm cruel?"

"It is cruel. Killing people is cruel, no matter who does it. But right now, we need the blade that is you, Hyeonyul."

Sinu looked at the nurse lying dead in the doorway. Someone lay in the nurse's arms. At a glance, it looked like an elderly woman.

Villains had killed them. They had killed people with whom they had no connection, simply for their own gain.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could solve things by talking? The problem is that we can't."

"Can things be solved by talking?"

Hyeonyul's brow furrowed ever so slightly.

"I guess that doesn't make sense to you?"

Only then did Sinu smile.

"No. I haven't solved many things by talking."

"Normally, talking is the right way. That's what makes us human. But our circumstances make it difficult. If even we tried to solve everything with words, could we stop the growing number of villains?"

"That would be impossible."

"So until this period is over, I'm going to try not to see you that way. You haven't harmed civilians, have you?"

"I have never harmed them. That was the path the Doctor wanted me to take."

"So I'm not frightened. Are you going to take my hand or not? My arm's about to fall off."

Sinu waved his outstretched hand several times.

"May I take it?"

"That's why I'm holding it out."

"There's blood on my hand."

"So what?"

Seeing how unbothered Sinu looked, Hyeonyul took his hand and stood up. He stared at Sinu.

"Do I look strange?"

"Yes."

"... Hmm. It's just a selfish wish of mine, I suppose."

"To hold a bloodstained hand?"

"Are you cra—"

Sinu hastily shut his mouth. It certainly could have sounded that way.

"That's not it."

"Then what is it?"

"Jihwan and you remind me of my younger brother, so I keep looking your way. I know that can be unpleasant, so I don't mention it, but I think it's better to tell you, Hyeonyul. That feeling is part of why I try to treat you better."

"Does he look like me?"

"Want to see a photo?"

"Yes. ... Oh, could I see it after we've dealt with these people?"

Hyeonyul pointed upward. Subduing the villains came first.

"... Right."

Sinu hit his own head. He'd gotten swept up in the mood.

"Let's go."

"Yes."

After answering, Hyeonyul went upstairs. Sinu studied the map, then smiled.

Did they look alike? No. The younger brother in his memories had never grown beyond the child he had been.

If he had grown up.

Even considering that possibility was difficult. No matter how often Sinu imagined it, he couldn't picture him.

* * *

Once all the villains had been subdued, including those in the final building, the White Sparrows poured in.

After entrusting the hostages to them, Hyeonyul looked at the photo Sinu had brought up on his phone as they rode the elevator down to the first floor. He narrowed his eyes. It was simply a young child with large, bright eyes.

"He doesn't look like me. He looks more like you, big brother Baek Sinu."

There were traces of Sinu's face in the child's, making him look mischievous.

"Of course he does. He's my younger brother. Isn't he handsome?"

"... Yes, I suppose."

Hyeonyul answered reluctantly. For now, that was the right response.

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm not just saying it because he's my brother. He really is handsome."

"No. I have no sense of aesthetics. I mean, people are simply people to me. I have trouble distinguishing things like 'beautiful' or 'handsome.'"

"... Oh. You scared me. I almost got really disappointed."

Sinu put his phone away with a strangely satisfied smile. He said he'd almost been disappointed, so why was he making that face?

Hyeonyul changed the subject.

"More importantly, about Baek Taejin."

Sinu nodded.

"The villains couldn't find Baek Taejin either. They say the chairman is in this ward, but from what I've seen, that doesn't seem to be the case."

"... Huh? We searched the whole time. Anyone who saw we were Black Eagles would surely have asked us for help, but I didn't hear anything like that from the hostages."

"Apparently, the chairman doesn't trust the Black Eagles."

He didn't know why. But since the chairman hadn't come forward voluntarily, that was the only assumption he could make.

"We need to find the chairman first."

"Do you happen to know Baek Taejin?"

They shared the same surname. Movies often had situations like this, where someone suddenly turned out to be the son of a corporate tycoon.

"No. Never heard of the chairman. I'm an orphan now."

"So am I. I suppose we should go look."

Hyeonyul's utterly nonchalant reply soon made Sinu burst out laughing. Most people would have been taken aback.

"Let's go look. Probably somewhere among the hostages."

Sinu stepped through the open elevator doors.