Kill Your X Chapter 58

It was a boy his age, tucked away in a corner, reading a book. Warm sunlight streamed in through the window directly behind him, illuminating him. The sunlight made the male student’s slightly flushed cheeks more visible.

At first glance, it was a peaceful and pretty scene, but Seunghan’s impression was different. His gaze was not on the male student, but on the evil spirits swarming around him like a hive of bees. Seunghan’s expression turned serious, as if something was about to happen at any moment.

Because he was essentially a being belonging to Hell, Seunghan could see souls, so-called ghosts.

There were souls who couldn’t leave this world for various reasons, and even if they happened to attach themselves to a human, they usually couldn’t exert much influence. However, the evil spirits attached to that male student were on a different level.

Just what kind of sin had he committed for so many evil spirits to be stuck to him like that? Seunghan, standing there watching the male student, soon realized the reason.

The male student was born with an incomplete soul. To put it metaphorically, it was shaped as if someone had taken a few bites out of it. He didn’t know the history of how the soul came to be in that state, but an incomplete soul was more easily targeted by evil spirits than a whole one.

‘That person won’t live long.’

Being a target of evil spirits meant, in other words, that there was a high probability of dying. The chances of getting entangled in incidents and accidents, regardless of his own will, were also high.

Then, something finally happened. Kekekekeke, an evil laughter was heard, and a book from the top shelf of the bookcase was about to fall on the male student’s head. It was the doing of the evil spirits.

“Ugh!”

His body reacted faster than his thoughts. Feeling the weight of the book falling on his back, Seunghan gained a small conviction. It was a bit faint, but the scent of the soul he smelled up close was similar to the one he was looking for.

As he continued to inhale the scent, their eyes met. A fine face that looked like it had never experienced hardship in its life, cheeks and ears flushed in utter surprise, and even another book hidden inside the book.

“Uh, uh….”

As he was contemplating his next move, the male student screamed in fright.

“You, you’re bleeding!”

Only then did he realize that blood was flowing from his forehead from being hit by the book. When he stopped the boy from making a fuss, the male student wore an expression of complete incomprehension. He couldn’t take his eyes off that small face.

Was it because he had found someone close to his target for the first time? Seunghan was quite confused by his heart pounding distractedly, unlike usual. The abnormal trembling showed no signs of subsiding, so he was about to leave, but this time, the male student clung to him persistently.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

When Seunghan didn’t tell him, he found the answer on the uniform.

“Si Yeonho, Yeonho. It’s a pretty name. But you know.”

Seunghan ended up running away from the spot as the boy approached him with an awkward smile. The scent that had made him feel elated and the clear eyes that had looked up at him in surprise remained in his memory for a long time.

✽✽✽

‘Song Gyujin.’

As time passed, he grew doubtful whether that male student was the soul he was looking for. He was too flustered at the time and got confused; the scent was similar, but the intensity was very faint. He knew there was a way to make a soul ripen, but he still couldn’t remember exactly what it was. There was also the possibility that if he found out the method and matured the soul, it would turn out not to be the soul he was looking for.

But with so many evil spirits around him, that male student might die even earlier than me.

For now, as long as he belonged to the organization, he couldn’t just follow the male student around and watch over his condition.

So Seunghan decided to buy some time for now, but judged it would be better to get rid of the evil spirits attached to the male student. It was to prepare for a “just in case” scenario.

In the case of having an incomplete soul, the easiest way to get rid of the flocking evil spirits is to relieve accumulated desires in a timely manner. In the case of that male student, Song Gyujin, the desire that urgently needed to be resolved was none other than sexual desire.

✽✽✽

“Please save me. I can’t die like this. Sob, please….”

Seunghan looked down indifferently.

The place where Si Yeonho had fallen was behind the school building, near the bench where he had once talked with Gyujin. That day, Gyujin had trembled with anxiety that his father might have been involved in a truly heinous crime.

He seemed like the type to look out for himself, so I only gave him a moderate warning, but should I have warned him more strongly not to do anything foolish and stopped him?

Now that the incident has already happened, all such thoughts are meaningless.

“Please, someone call for help….”

Seunghan tapped the ground with the tip of his foot. He was standing precariously on the rooftop railing of the school building. Despite the risk of falling if he made a misstep, no fear could be found on his face. He was just continuously thinking.

Not long ago, Gyujin had craved life at the brink of death, and Seunghan had given one of his own lives to save him. After that, Gyujin lost his memory, and Seunghan asked himself time and time again.

‘Did I save Song Gyujin because I really thought that human was the soul I was looking for? Or is it because, being born as a human, I fundamentally know compassion?’

Seunghan wondered if ordinary people’s hearts softened when someone begged for their life in front of them.

A good comparison case had just appeared. He confessed with the intention of staying by Gyujin’s side a little longer to monitor him, but he set a strange condition of not appearing before him for a full ten years. He didn’t know what he was thinking, but he looked as desperate as when he was craving life, so Seunghan just said okay.

As long as he possessed the life of Hell’s watchdog, he would no longer be tormented by evil spirits, but thanks to that, Seunghan got ten years to think alone. If he couldn’t find a more suitable soul than Song Gyujin during that time, he planned to go all-in on him.

“Gasp, gurgle….”

There wasn’t much time left. It wasn’t a rare occurrence for Si Yeonho to get chewed out by his father, the Kumto gang boss Si Seung-hwan, but it seemed he had heard some particularly harsh words that day.

Si Yeonho had run out of the house crying and disappeared somewhere, and when he was told to go find him, he was found on the school rooftop, screaming his head off. His speech was a bit strange, and it seemed he had probably taken drugs.

It was a weekend evening, so there was no one around to watch, but Si Yeonho, after performing a bizarre monologue by himself, misstepped and fell. If his antics were a disease, it was an incurable one.

He decided to try and save Si Yeonho, who was dying with one leg twisted in an abnormal direction. Since he had to wait ten years anyway, he figured it wouldn’t matter if he tested it now. The decision to lend him a life was made with just that light a heart.

“……”

When he arrived at the scene, Si Yeonho had just taken his last breath. Seunghan lent one of his lives to the unconscious boy. He didn’t want to help with wound recovery like he did for Gyujin, so he just left him in a state where he was barely breathing.

Soon, Si Yeonho’s stopped heart began to beat again. Seeing the dramatic return of life, Seunghan realized. The fact that only Gyujin was special to him.

He had known Si Yeonho for much longer than Gyujin, but he felt surprisingly no emotion, let alone compassion. He considered taking back the life, but then thought Si Seung-hwan, having lost his only son, would really shove him into that position, so he gave up the idea. He could retrieve the life at any time, so he decided to leave it as it was for now.

“I’ve found Si Yeonho. He’s badly injured from falling off the school rooftop.”

He later found out that Si Yeonho had taken a near-lethal dose of drugs siphoned from the organization. The case was closed with Si Yeonho being quietly made to drop out of school, with the combination of him being a minor, on drugs, attempting suicide by jumping, and his family being gangsters.

He had been thorough in keeping things quiet, but a rumor spread throughout the school that a student had committed suicide by jumping, as if information had leaked from the school staff. From that point on, it was none of his business. With Gyujin having graduated and gone, Seunghan too had no reason to go to school wearing a uniform that wasn’t even his.

In the end, Seunghan regretted reviving Si Yeonho that day. Because he, who continued to suffer under Si Seung-hwan’s control even after becoming an adult, couldn’t stand it anymore and fled overseas.

There was a way to forcibly retrieve the life by making him make an extreme choice himself, but the problem was that one of his lives was also currently inside Gyujin. If he acted this way, there was a 50% chance Gyujin would die.

Seunghan endured for another ten years, taking on troublesome matters in Si Yeonho’s place. He roamed all over the country, but couldn’t find anyone with a scent even similar to Gyujin’s, let alone Gyujin himself. At this point, it seemed Gyujin was the best result he could find in this life.

‘Si Yeonho.’

When they met again, Gyujin remembered his name not as Seo Seunghan, but as Si Yeonho. It was a natural result, as he had erased some of his memories while being entangled in an incident related to death.

He didn’t have the courage to explain the whole story, so Seunghan changed his plan to achieve his goal while pretending to be Si Yeonho. It wasn’t that he didn’t think he might get caught, but he quickly gained another conviction, so he brushed that part aside lightly.

At first, he pushed him away a lot, but when he treated him a little better, the scent Gyujin emitted became much stronger. When he smelled the cozy scent that seemed to embrace his soul, the lifelong tension in his body unknowingly loosened. It was awkward at first, but once he got used to it, it felt quite nice.

Furthermore, around the time the frequency of him having nonsensical thoughts like wanting to see him without any context gradually increased, Seunghan remembered one fact. What the Demon King had said about the method to make a soul ripen.