20XX Love Chapter 16.2 - 15. ASH HOLE

“…Yes.”

Seo Jungin, with his head bowed, gave a listless and obedient reply. Kim Yikyung’s heart grew heavy at Seo Jungin’s reaction, which seemed to show he already understood what Kim Yikyung was about to say without him needing to explain further.

“…Jungin. You can refuse this.”

“…Refuse?”

Because Kim Yikyung was a good leader, he was respecting Seo Jungin’s wishes. Seo Jungin could now tell that the sentiment contained in those words was also not the kind he had been hoping for.

He lifted his head but looked out the window instead of at Kim Yikyung. White snow was fluttering softly as it landed.

“The important thing is your opinion, so if you want to refuse, then do so. But the treatment, environment, and various other aspects will be better with the branch’s healing specialist team than with the field team’s support guide. Most importantly, the best thing is that you won’t be sent on dangerous missions.”

“…I won’t have to see the members die.”

“…That’s right.”

“And there won’t be any instances where members die because I couldn’t guide them properly.”

“Jungin. If you’re perhaps misunderstanding this assignment…”

“I understand, Hyung. I’ll think about it. I’ll think it over and tell you tomorrow.”

“Jungin.”

Despite hearing the call that seemed to be laced with guilt, Seo Jungin turned around just like that, strode into the team office, and took the uniform jacket hanging on the open hanger near the entrance to put it on.

Han Seungmin, with Jo Heechan’s arm draped around his neck, looked at Seo Jungin with a meaningful gaze and then opened his mouth.

“Jungin. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just going to step out for a bit. If anything happens, call me on my watch.”

Seo Jungin forced a smile for Han Seungmin and went out of the office. Kim Yikyung was still standing in the hallway, but Seo Jungin ignored the stare that was fixed on him and walked right past.

While walking, Seo Jungin maintained a cool, blank face, but inside, his heart was shattering, tearing apart, and being ripped to shreds as if a storm were raging.

I’m leaving. I’m leaving Team K814. I’m not a member of this team anymore. These kids will all just become strangers.

His brisk walk gradually slowed down until it became pathetically slow. Without a destination in mind, Seo Jungin trudged along the walking path behind the headquarters. If he had to choose a direction, he hoped it would be a place with no people.

The snowfall grew heavier, landing on his soft hair and piling up on his shoulders, but none of that mattered. Only the cold sensation that touched his skin and melted away was caressing Seo Jungin’s tear-streaked cheeks. It felt as if it were comforting Seo Jungin’s heart.

“Don’t cry. This emotion is all fake, too.”

Snowflakes kept falling on the tear tracks.

“If it were the real me, I would have said I’d leave first because I didn’t want to be a burden to the team.”

The snowflakes mixed with his hot tears and flowed prettily down Seo Jungin’s chin.

“It’s just… you know. It hurts so much. But it’s so endearing. So precious. I didn’t want to erase it. Even though it’s a sad memory of those kids dying, I didn’t want to forget even the feelings I cherished.”

Seo Jungin brushed the snow off an empty, snow-covered bench with his hand, made a space, and sat down, then drew his knees up and slowly scooted back. He leaned his back against the backrest, curled his body into a ball, and honestly spoke words that no one would hear.

“But I probably shouldn’t have this memory, right? Because it wasn’t actually like that for those kids. That kind of thing never happened. Getting hurt and wondering why they don’t give me their hearts in a time only I remember—what is that if not a delusion patient?”

Seo Jungin readjusted his knees and hugged them tighter. The tears wouldn’t stop easily.

Now, I’ll receive the memory erasure and leave Team K814. It felt like a chunk of my heart was being carved out and thrown away.

My precious team. My resting place. My nest. My everything, whom I love without a single exception. I’m going to carve out this foolish delusion and leave.

‘Even though it’s only in my memories, I need time to remember, mourn, and be thankful for those kids who tried to save and protect me. I need time to tell them that I really liked them.’

And so, Seo Jungin sat on the bench behind the deserted headquarters, enveloped in the gently falling snow, reminiscing about the kids who had died in his place, calling their names, whispering his love. And he sobbed and sobbed. He sat there crying indefinitely, until large snowflakes piled up softly on his hair, shoulders, and body.

And how much time had passed? In the silent stillness wrapped in snow, Seo Jungin’s tears had eventually stopped, and just as his consciousness was about to drift away, soaked in sweet, nostalgic thoughts, he heard the sound of footsteps crunching on the snow.

The footsteps grew closer and closer, then stopped right in front of Seo Jungin.

“You’ll catch a cold, Jungin.”

Speaking in a worried tone, the person began to brush the snow off Seo Jungin’s head and body with a gentle touch. By the time he had brushed off most of the snow, Seo Jungin lifted his head.

“Seungmin.”

Han Seungmin, wearing a red scarf, stood before Seo Jungin, smiling brightly. Seo Jungin showed a smile to Han Seungmin as he sat on the bench and buried his face in his arms again.

It felt so nice to be sitting side by side with Han Seungmin on the bench.

‘My friend Han Seungmin, who I thought was dead. I’m so glad he’s alive like this.’

He had been so engrossed in his self-destructive memories that he hadn’t been able to recognize the preciousness of reality.

The series of tragedies that began with Han Seungmin’s death. Why am I longing for that gut-wrenching pain of losing the members one by one? Let’s stop this foolishness now.

Tomorrow, I’ll get the memory erasure right away. And I’ll go to the branch so that a good guide can come for Team K814. So that these kids I like can meet an excellent guide and carry out their missions more safely. So they no longer have to suffer the tragedy of becoming Divergents and facing death because they can’t receive guiding. That’s the feeling I can convey to these kids.

“What are you going to do?”

“Yeah. I’m planning to go to the branch.”

“To the branch?”

“Yeah. I think Team K814 needs a more capable guide than me. They’re a team with an excellent mission performance record. And the branch is really short on guides, too.”

Han Seungmin gazed at the silently falling snow for a while, then quietly opened his mouth.

“Right. Maybe you’re better suited to guiding at the branch than on our team.”

“Yeah. I think so too.”

“Because on the outside, you look like a gentle and kind guide, but on the inside, you’re thinking other things.”

“…?”

Seo Jungin couldn’t quite understand what he had just heard. What did Han Seungmin just say?

“You said you’d do anything for the team. And while saying you didn’t want to be a burden, you actually wanted to become the main guide no matter what.”

“…Seungmin. What are you talking about right now?”

“Jungin. Actually, I found out by watching you for a long time. What you’re thinking on the inside.”

Han Seungmin turned his head and stared fixedly at Seo Jungin with a clear face.

“Woohyun treated you kindly and your wavelengths matched well, so you tried to seduce Woohyun first, didn’t you? While gaining his sympathy with stories about the orphanage.”

Seo Jungin’s whole body froze in shock, and he could only listen to the unbelievable words pouring from Han Seungmin’s lively lips.

“By doing that, kissing or mixing bodies with Woohyun. You probably thought you could increase efficiency by violating the guidelines and doing mucous membrane guiding.”

“I, I’ve never thought, never thought anything like that.”

“You practiced matching wavelengths with the guiding robot behind Suhyuk’s back. Even though I had already been designated as the exclusive guide for Suhyuk. You must have thought that if you did mucous membrane guiding, you’d be able to guide Suhyuk too. Is that why you sucked the robot’s finger? You didn’t go as far as to rub your butt against the robot, did you?”

“No, no, Seungmin! It’s a misunderstanding, really a misunderstanding!”

“The things you tried to do for a long time to seduce the team’s espers. I know it all. But I didn’t tell anyone. Taking care of the kids’ drinks, preparing wet towels, smiling with your eyes while pretending to be shy. Pretending to be sad while saying that guiding by hand has low efficiency. And then what? Were you going to whisper to the kids that you could do better with a kiss?”

Seo Jungin’s face, already pale as a sheet, turned blue with a shock close to terror.

“No, I really never thought that. You’ve misunderstood.”

“If not a kiss, were you going to tempt them by saying you have a hole that was created exclusively for guiding?”

Seo Jungin shot up from the bench. His joints, stiff from crouching for so long, screamed in protest. Staggering back from Han Seungmin, a trembling voice barely escaped him.

“Ho, how… you, how…”

“What does it matter how I found out? What’s important is that you harbored such thoughts.”

Was Han Seungmin’s face always this scary? Was Han Seungmin’s gaze always this cold?

It’s all a misunderstanding. It’s all a misunderstanding.

“You’d lock yourselves up in the counseling room, saying you wanted a private consultation with Yikyung Hyung all the time. He doesn’t fall for it that easily, does he? Yikyung Hyung.”

“Please stop. It’s not like that.”

“Taeyong teased you while grinning foolishly, so did you think he was interested in you or something? Like he was teasing a kid he likes?”

“Stop, Seungmin, stop.”

“Stop what!”

Han Seungmin shot to his feet. Wearing the red scarf, he glared with angry eyes and continued to pour out terrifying words.

“You kissed Heechan even though you knew he likes me. And you were going to confess to Suhyuk. Did you know? The person Suhyuk likes is me.”

“Stop it…”

“You told Woohyun to come to your house on Christmas, didn’t you? Were you planning to get him drunk and fuck him there or something? Jungin. The person Woohyun confessed to after hesitating for a long time. That person is me.”

Seo Jungin felt like he was going to go crazy. What happened? Why did things turn out this way?

Seungmin. Seungmin and I are friends. He’s misunderstanding everything about me.

It’s not like that. It’s not like that. What should I do? What should I do?

Han Seungmin’s eyes glittered and shone.

“Our team’s espers are all mine. I have no intention of giving even one of them to someone like you. Heechan is a bit noisy, but he’s cute in his own way, and Suhyuk is handsome, so he’d be fun to fuck. I like Woohyun because he’s a romantic. Yikyung Hyung can be cloned, so I think it would be thrilling to sleep with him.”

Is this… something Seungmin is saying? Seungmin was having… these kinds of thoughts about the kids?

“Taeyong is actually the easiest type. He’s very affectionate despite how he acts. If I sleep with him a few times and sniffle, he’d probably offer up his life.”

“Seungmin…”

“You were a really useless guide for our team.”

Stop it.

“You probably won’t be of any use anywhere else either.”

Please stop.

“No, aren’t you just useless in this world altogether?”

Seo Jungin wanted to cover his ears. But from Han Seungmin’s mouth, words like knife blades that stabbed Seo Jungin and words like toxins that killed Seo Jungin poured out relentlessly.

“You were abandoned by your parents, too. Having two holes, your body is creepy. You probably wanted to use those holes for guiding to get ahead, but unfortunately, the robot’s readings were the same. You just have two useless holes. Seo Jungin.”

Seo Jungin ended up collapsing to the ground. Tears streamed down endlessly.

“Someone like you will never be able to meet someone you love, and you don’t deserve to be loved. No one, anywhere, will want someone like you. Disappear from our team. No, why don’t you just disappear from this world?”

Han Seungmin let his red scarf hang long as he bent his body toward Seo Jungin. With a rough hand, he rustled Seo Jungin’s hair, messing up the top of his head and making his bangs fall down.

“That suits you. Just like when you first came to us. Keep those eyes that hold your sly and dirty inner thoughts covered with your bangs.”

Cover… my eyes with my bangs?

“Someone like you should just die!”

“…”

From Han Seungmin, who had spewed everything out, came the sound of ragged, excited breaths. Seo Jungin, as if he had forgotten how to speak, lay prostrate for a long time without moving. White snow continued to scatter down and pile up on top of him.

“Did you understand what I said?”

“…”

“You didn’t understand?”

Seo Jungin placed his hands on the snow-covered ground and lifted his head. His face was no longer crying. At the aura of Seo Jungin as he slowly rose to his feet, Han Seungmin took a step back.

Seo Jungin lowered his eyes coldly and opened his mouth.

“…How long were you planning to do this?”

“…What?”

“How long…”

Han Seungmin glared at the coldly muttering Seo Jungin, blinking his pitch-black eyes. Far from avoiding his gaze, Seo Jungin widened his eyes so much that his irises were fully visible and approached Han Seungmin intimidatingly. A reddish light glinted in his brown eyes.

“How does the rest of this story go? Do I, trampled by your words, take a capsule out of my uniform and swallow it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Or do you expose the things you just spouted to the members… and I take my own life to prove my innocence?”

“Are you really crazy?”

“Or do I insist on staying with the team to the end even though I can’t guide, and someone dies because of me? Do I watch the kids die because of me and commit suicide out of guilt?”

Seo Jungin approached Han Seungmin step by step with a cold gaze.

“Seungmin is my friend. A real friend who gives me courage.”

[Your eyes are so pretty, why do you cover them? It’s a really pretty color. Your eyes. Don’t cover them with your bangs.]

Those warm and gentle fingers touched his forehead, softly sweeping his hair back. He smiled as dazzlingly as shattering sunlight and looked into the hidden heart within my eyes that others couldn’t see. My inadequacy and my sorrowful heart that wanted to be of help to you all. You were the one who understood and comforted that heart.

“Seungmin, you see. He’s a kid who threw away his own life for me. He died in my place to save someone like me.”

[Jungin, get out of the way!]

At that moment, you threw your body to block the sharp claws of the Creepions that were lunging toward me as I ran out of the safe zone toward Choi Suhyuk. To save me, you were stabbed through the stomach by the Creepions and died instead.

“That Seungmin is you?”

Seo Jungin’s hand dug into the red scarf and choked Han Seungmin’s neck.

“Keuk, keueu… euk.”

“What do I have to do to break this mental attack? Do I have to kill you?”

Seo Jungin tightened his grip with both hands. When Han Seungmin’s hands started scratching at Seo Jungin’s face, Seo Jungin tripped Han Seungmin’s feet, knocking him down into the snow, got on top of his body, and began to press down on his neck mercilessly.

“Kkeuk, cra…zy… kkeuk.”

“Or is that not it? Are you the real Seungmin? Is this me having a schizoid episode, unable to distinguish between dream and reality due to the Dream Radar’s suggestion? Am I the one who’s crazy?!”

[What do you mean you’re not helpful? There’s no such thing.]

It was the day right before we entered the convalescent ward. You whispered those words as you covered my shoulders with a blanket while I was asleep, slumped over in the team office. It was after I had consulted Yikyung Hyung about being upset that I wasn’t any help to the team.

[Physical balance. Toxin levels. Training hours. Rest hours. Even coffee preferences, there’s nothing you don’t know about us. You’re the only one who doesn’t know how much strength your always-gentle presence gives our team. Jungin, you know. We really like you. Really.]

When I could no longer pretend to be asleep and looked up with trembling eyelids, you smiled so brightly it brought tears to my eyes and told me.

[I’m glad you’re here, Jungin. That we have you.]

“That Seungmin is you?! You are my Seungmin?!”

“Kkeuk… kkeu… eu.”

Seo Jungin clenched his teeth and choked Han Seungmin as if to kill him. It was only an instant before Han Seungmin’s eyes, contorted in pain, were completely covered in black, right up to the sclera. Following that, black water began to stream out of the black eyes.

The snow that had been falling white had at some point turned into ash and was scattering. Seo Jungin threw his head back, baring his teeth like a beast.

Ash was swirling all around. The white ash of burnt and rotting corpses was covering everything. It was blowing in as if to cover the entire world in a pile of ash, piling up on the ground and clinging to his body.

The walking path, completely covered in white ash, was instantly enveloped in a gloomy green light, and a damp chill and the smell of disinfectant stung his nose. The moment he realized it was the smell of a morgue, the scenery peeled off like a layer of glass shell and began to shatter and pour down with a loud noise.

Crash!

Seo Jungin crouched down as much as he could, hiding his body from the fragments of the illusion. And when he lifted his head, before his eyes was the morgue on the first basement floor of the ward, enveloped in the light of the gloomy green emergency lights. The nest-lair of the Separator’s mother body was revealed.

Seo Jungin was lying collapsed in the middle of a huge nest-lair, which was tightly wrapped in spiderwebs that reflected the green light, in the place where the telepathic veil in the form of fake morgue drawers had disappeared. Through a hole in the nest-lair, he could see the morgue drawers that had been built up to the ceiling on the other side.

It was just as he thought. The Separator had spread a telepathic veil of morgue drawers like a twin on the opposite wall to hide its nest-lair.

Now that he had broken free from the illusion-manipulation attack, was the ward’s isolation broken? Seo Jungin immediately checked for Kim Yikyung’s and Jo Heechan’s vitals on his watch, but he couldn’t find any response from the watch. He tried sending a request for support to the headquarters, but the transmission kept failing.

‘What’s going on? Is the isolation not broken?’

He remembered jumping into the Ash Hole and turned to look back, but the hole was not visible. Was it not a form that allowed free passage in both directions?

“…”

So there’s no way to go back anyway. And if I don’t kill the Separator here, even if the ward’s isolation is broken, it could immediately isolate it again. In the end, I have to kill the Separator. That’s the only way Yikyung Hyung and Heechan can escape the ward.

As Seo Jungin slowly looked around again, he saw a whitish, cocoon-like lump a little ahead of him. A dark human figure was stuck to the lump, which was hard to make out in the gloom.

A shiver ran down his spine, and Seo Jungin froze on the spot. As his vision gradually adjusted, Seo Jungin screamed when he realized that what he saw inside the lump stuck with sticky cocoon threads was Han Seungmin’s face.

“Aaaahhhh!”

At that, the figure that had its head buried in the prey it had turned into a cocoon shot up. It was the Separator, its mouth, neck, chest, and stomach splattered and soaked with the blood from devouring Han Seungmin’s corpse. The red scarf he saw in the illusion was Han Seungmin’s blood that had drenched the Separator. The blood that had soaked it and flowed down as it devoured the corpse.

“Ugh, heu, heueueuk.”

Trembling, Seo Jungin pulled the positron gun from his holster band and aimed it at the monster’s head. He pulled the trigger, but the particle beam that escaped the trembling muzzle missed.

“Kiiiiik!”

The Separator, the size of a large adult male, let out a monstrous shriek and fled, scurrying away out of the nest-lair with its strangely bent, long limbs.

Seo Jungin, aiming his gun, tried to chase the Separator but was suddenly captivated by the sight of Han Seungmin’s corpse, wrapped in the cocoon, his stomach gruesomely eaten away.

“Heuk, heuk, euheuheuheuk.”

Panting, Seo Jungin took out a dagger from his holster band and cut all the cocoon threads tangled around Han Seungmin’s body. Then he pulled Han Seungmin’s body, his stomach eaten away until it was empty, out from inside the cocoon.

Seo Jungin, breathing heavily in a way that was indistinguishable from panting or sobbing, dragged Han Seungmin’s corpse out of the nest-lair.

Ah… stepping outside, I saw that it was not just the inside of the telepathic veil that was the nest-lair. A web-like netting that resembled spiderwebs, bathed in green light, densely filled the entire first basement floor.

Perhaps at the very beginning, only the place where Han Seungmin’s body was laid to rest had been the nest-lair, but after Team K814 had filled the first basement floor with ice and left, the Separator must have reset this place and gradually expanded its nest. It had built its nest throughout the entire first basement floor.

Seo Jungin briefly examined the corridor outside the morgue, which was wrapped in spiderwebs, before dragging Han Seungmin’s body and laying it down near the wall.

Han Seungmin’s body had its eyes open. Kim Yikyung had definitely closed them.

“Why, couldn’t you… couldn’t you possibly close your eyes? Because you couldn’t rest? I’m sorry, heuk, I’m sorry, everything is because of me, heueuk, it’s my fault.”

Seo Jungin tried to close Han Seungmin’s eyes, but the already stiff eyelids kept opening back up. Seo Jungin knelt and sobbed, gently stroking Han Seungmin’s disheveled bangs and softly caressing his cold cheek. Seeing the empty, punctured stomach, his heart was torn to shreds.

“Heuk, euheuk, to make you look like this. To have made you look like this… heueueu.”

It took Seungmin’s corpse out and ate his stomach. It stole his face and wore it. It stole his voice and swallowed it. So that Seungmin couldn’t close his eyes. So that Seungmin couldn’t even rest. My friend Seungmin. My precious Seungmin.

“Eu, heueu, heueueu.”

It insulted Seungmin who saved me until the very end, and tried to make me commit suicide while hating Seungmin. A horrible monster. A horrible monster.

“Heuk, heu, heueueu.”

Seo Jungin let out a sob mixed with horror and rage. He took off his uniform jacket to cover the emptied stomach, and for a while, he looked down at Han Seungmin’s face and sobbed, then placed a kiss on his smooth forehead.

But at that moment, Han Seungmin’s body twitched and his head moved.

“…?”

Startled, Seo Jungin pulled his face away and looked down at the body, but there was no movement. While he was looking down for a moment, wondering if he had imagined it, the body’s half-open eyes blinked once. And then Han Seungmin’s body slowly tilted its head back, and its hazy pupils looked up at Seo Jungin.

“S-Seungmin.”

Seo Jungin fell back and sat down. Han Seungmin’s body looked up at Seo Jungin like that, then its lips moved slightly and it began to speak. It was a bizarre voice with a flat, inflectionless tone, with no inhalation felt.

“The monster… didn’t create… this illusion… did it….”

“…?”

“This illusion… all of it… you created it… didn’t you….”

All the illusions the Separator creates are based on one’s own fundamental fears.

“Your true… inner feelings… about me… that’s what this is….”

Jealousy of Han Seungmin’s abilities as an A-rank guide. Envy that everyone liked Han Seungmin and not him. The baseness of hoping that Han Seungmin wasn’t actually a good person. The desire to monopolize all the kids.

“It’s… your real… inner feelings….”

“N-no. N-no…!”

Han Seungmin’s body slowly turned over and began to crawl toward Seo Jungin. Terrified, Seo Jungin was inching backward.

Han Seungmin’s body, because of its empty stomach, kept collapsing forward with thuds, thuds, but it kept crawling closer.

“The truth is… you were… jealous… of me… weren’t you….”

“No, no… Seungmin….”

“If I… were gone… you… could take… that spot… couldn’t you….”

“No, no, no.”

“You were… actually happy… that I died… weren’t you….”

Having reached the wall with nowhere else to retreat, Han Seungmin came right up to Seo Jungin’s face and looked into him with unfocused eyes, whispering grimly.

“The truth is. You were happy….”

Unable to escape, Seo Jungin looked directly into Han Seungmin’s face and, overwhelmed by tragic sorrow, sobbed and cried.

“Euheuheuk, no. No….”

“Lies….”

Seo Jungin, facing the pitch-black pupils that held nothing, sobbed and then cupped Han Seungmin’s pale cheeks with both hands. The black pupils with their dilated irises had no focus. No warmth remained in the cold skin.

Ah… Seungmin. There’s no way… how could I possibly be like that, Seungmin?

Even if I had such a hideous emotion hidden within me that it created this nightmare. After seeing your tragic death, sacrificing yourself for me, how could I possibly be like that?

You who cared for me, whom I cherished, who will forever be my friend… how could I possibly be happy about your death, when you threw your body to save me?

So this is just a nightmare. A nightmare that pushes me to my limit, making me endlessly weak and broken until I reach death. A nightmare that will continue to torment and torture me until I take my own life.

“Heuk, heuk, how much… heuk, more are you going to do….”

“What…?”

“How much more… euheuk.”

Seo Jungin, sobbing, grabbed Han Seungmin’s neck with both hands.

“How many more times… euheuk, do I have to choke your neck that has Seungmin’s face before you stop this….”

A nightmare within a nightmare. A dream within a dream. A trap within a trap. It was an illusion within an illusion.

“Heuk, euheuk, try as much as you want. I’ll keep waking up, heuk, no matter what nightmare I have, Seungmin will keep waking me up. Seungmin’s sincerity, Seungmin’s heart will keep waking me up and waking me up again… so go on and try it!”

Immediately after, as Seo Jungin forcefully choked and pressed down on Han Seungmin’s neck with both hands, the corpse let out a gurgling groan and struggled violently. The sight of the stiff corpse thrashing and struggling was so grotesque it sent shivers down his spine.

“Kkeuk… kkeuk….”

“Aaaahhhh!”

Smash!

Finally, auditory and visual hallucinations of everything shattering and breaking poured down. It was once again the very first nest room. Even amidst the hallucination of shattering glass pouring down, Seo Jungin stubbornly did not let go of the hands choking the neck. With a creepy groan, thin, hard fingers gripped Seo Jungin’s wrists.

Choking the neck even more fiercely, he looked down at the face being choked, and it was still Han Seungmin’s face, strangely twisted, with black, glistening eyes.

“Kkeu… kkeu….”

“Eueueueu!”

Seo Jungin fiercely tightened his hands on the neck and pressed down. He truly wanted to kill this monster that hid in the huge nest-lair, killed the kids, turned them into monsters, and made them kill their own monstrous selves with their own hands.

Seo Jungin gathered the power of amplification in his hands. He wanted to make this monster explode and die. He wanted to kill it so brutally that its flesh would splatter and stick to the nest-lair all around.

“Kue-ek!”

Suddenly startled by the bodily fluid that splashed onto his face, Seo Jungin lost his grip on the neck he was choking. The Separator with Han Seungmin’s face took the opportunity to let out a creepy hissing breath and quickly escaped the nest room, fleeing into the corridor.

Wiping the filthy blood that soaked his face with his arm, Seo Jungin staggered to his feet, and on the floor lay Han Seungmin’s body with its stomach eaten out.

It was truly a hell like no other. Seo Jungin could not even shed tears and looked down at the corpse, sobbing like he was gasping for air. Perhaps because everything had returned to normal after waking from the illusion, Han Seungmin’s stomach, which he had covered with his uniform, was back to its original empty state, with its insides eaten away. Seo Jungin once again took off the uniform he was wearing and covered the empty stomach. Then he picked up his positron gun and exited the nest room.

The corridor was completely wrapped in spiderwebs from ceiling to floor. He looked all around, but there was not even the sound of breathing, as if the Separator had hidden somewhere in the morgue.

As Seo Jungin slowly took a step, a rattling sound came from the morgue drawer to his left. Seo Jungin raised his positron gun and entered that room.

He couldn’t tell which of the refrigerated drawers, packed tightly and closed up to the ceiling, the sound had come from. In the end, Seo Jungin began to pull open the drawers one by one.

Every time he opened a drawer, it contained the dead body of an old person. Thin, small, with sunken cheeks, they were all pitifully dead bodies. As he opened the drawers containing the bodies one by one, Seo Jungin gradually began to feel a sense of déjà vu. This, too…….

Ah… in the end, this too.

“Ha… haha… hahaha….”

Seeing the bodies moving in the drawers, Seo Jungin began to laugh with a distorted face mixed with resignation, despair, and confusion. The morgue, engulfed in a gloomy green light, was Seo Jungin’s nightmare that would now continue.

When his ankle was grabbed, he looked down and, unsurprisingly, a corpse that had crawled out from some drawer was looking up at Seo Jungin. At the same time, from the open drawers here and there, corpses began to crawl out.

Rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle,

Even the closed drawers began to rattle in unison. The drawers stacked up to the ceiling were coming out one by one and falling to the floor, and the stiff, tumbling corpses were creaking as they rose to their feet.

This was inside an illusion, too. This, too. It’s still inside an illusion. I’m still inside an illusion!

The cold bodies of the withered old people began to cling and hang onto Seo Jungin’s body, pulling him down.

“Hahaha….”

As Seo Jungin collapsed to the floor with a self-deprecating laugh while tears streamed down his face, the corpses began to crawl on top of him one after another.

A moment later, instead of laughter or cries, a scream torn from misery and horror erupted. And then, from the very bottom of the pile of corpses, a light began to leak out and heat began to boil, and in an instant, an explosion occurred, scattering flesh all over the morgue.

While flesh and bone fragments rained down, the rattling sound continued to be heard from the drawers of the other morgues.

💘

Even though they were fully aware that Seo Jungin was climbing the pile of corpses, both Kim Yikyung and Jo Heechan could not turn their bodies. Jo Heechan was blocking the flames with a desperate stream of cold air, and Kim Yikyung was enduring the burning pain while directing his healing ability toward Jo Heechan in front of him. The moment their concentration faltered, the entire rooftop would be engulfed in the flames of Choi Suhyuk’s Divergent form.

“Seo Jungin!”

Kim Yikyung shouted loudly, but it was no use. If Seo Jungin jumped into that black hole of the Ash Hole, he would be torn to shreds and disintegrate without a trace.

“Jungin Hyung! No! Don’t do it!”

Despite Jo Heechan’s frantic shout, Seo Jungin did not yield. For a moment, just one moment, their eyes met, and that being the last, Seo Jungin finally stepped on the pile of corpses and jumped into the black hole.

“No!”

“Jungin!”

Watching Seo Jungin’s body disappear as if it were being sucked in, the two were overcome with a sense of dizzying despair.

He’s going to die. He’ll die. He’s going to die. The person named Seo Jungin is going to disappear from this world!

But in the very next moment. The pitch-black space shattered, and with a huge impact as if the sky were collapsing, the two could not maintain their stances and fell over.

…!

It was a tremendous hallucination of sight and sound. Fragments of the black sky poured down, and a noise that tore at the ears continued endlessly. The Divergent’s flame attack also ceased as the hallucination of the space shattering covered the rooftop and blanketed the entire world.

After the tremendous sounds of breaking and shattering swept by like a tidal wave, a dazzling light poured down into the finally quieted world. Kim Yikyung’s and Jo Heechan’s mouths hung open as they looked up at the sky through the gaps in their fingers.

“…Ah, ahh.”

“Ha… what is this… haa.”

A perfectly blue sky without a single cloud was spread out. An intensely bright sunlight that made it impossible to open one’s eyes was illuminating the world. The cold, fresh winter air rushed into their chests and created white puffs of breath with Kim Yikyung’s and Jo Heechan’s exhales.

It was winter, and the weather was nice. From their view on the ward’s rooftop garden, the wide cityscape and mountain ranges came into sight at once.

“Ha, haha, Hyung….”

“Jungin… did it. Jungin did.”

In the space where the pitch blackness had broken, all the scenery that should have been there had returned. The ward’s isolation was broken.

“Jungin did it!”

“Woah, damn, this is crazy! For real, what do I do? Ha, I’m going nuts. Fuck, I love you, Jungin Hyung!”

Kim Yikyung immediately searched for Seo Jungin’s location and vital signs with his watch.

“Where is he? Where is Jungin Hyung now?”

“…?”

Kim Yikyung tried tracking Seo Jungin several times with his watch but couldn’t find him. Seo Jungin’s signal was not being picked up anywhere.

“What’s wrong, what is it? I asked where Jungin Hyung is?”

Kim Yikyung, without answering, anxiously widened the search range. Even when he widened the search range endlessly, Seo Jungin’s vital signs were not detected.

The life in Jo Heechan’s black eyes flickered and died out.

“What… don’t give me any bullshit like he’s dead.”

Is he dead? Could he be dead? If not that. If not that, then….

“Heechan….”

Kim Yikyung took a fresh look at Jo Heechan’s face. The handsome idol of Team K814 was a mess, caked with black blood and ash.

“Heechan. Right now, if you jump off the rooftop, you can escape. If we request support, the headquarters will send a healing specialist team and espers. You should escape immediately.”

“What are you talking about? That. What about Hyung? What about Jungin Hyung?”

The Ash Hole was still open above the pile of Han Seungmin’s corpses. A black hole that had swallowed Seo Jungin, a hole where nothing could be seen and nothing could be known.

Did Seo Jungin jump in there and die? Was he killed by the Separator after breaking through the telepathic veil? If not that, did he move to a different timeline? Is he isolated in a new timeline?

No one could know what Seo Jungin had experienced after jumping into the Ash Hole. Not without following him in there.

“Heechan. I’m going into the Ash Hole. I don’t know what’s beyond it, or if I can get to Jungin, but.”

“I’m going too!”

Kim Yikyung firmly gripped the shoulder of the urgently shouting Jo Heechan.

“Jungin’s vital signs aren’t being picked up right now. He could be dead. I don’t know what will happen if we jump into the Ash Hole. We might disintegrate… I’m a body that will disappear when the 24-hour count is up anyway. But you… you are alive. If you escape, you can live.”

Jo Heechan showed no signs of being persuaded; rather, he furrowed his brow deeply and glared fiercely at Kim Yikyung.

“Looks like you’ve got a fucking hero complex and are planning to meet Jungin Hyung all cool by yourself, cry your eyes out, and then lonely disappear into thin air, but that’s not happening. You think I’ll fall for that twice?!”

“…?”

“Let’s go. To Jungin Hyung.”

Kim Yikyung grabbed the shoulder of Jo Heechan, who was recklessly trying to climb the pile of corpses, one last time.

“You could really die.”

Jo Heechan turned to look back at Kim Yikyung.

“I don’t care. Even if I die.”

Looking at the deep, black eyes visible between Jo Heechan’s face and red hair, Kim Yikyung felt he could no longer stop him. It was because Jo Heechan’s eyes had completely changed from before.

Kim Yikyung began to climb the pile of Han Seungmin’s corpses after Jo Heechan. He grabbed Han Seungmin’s stiffened hand and also stepped on his hardened body. With every moment of the climb, Han Seungmin’s gaze felt only warm. Seo Jungin must have felt this exact same thing. He must have clearly felt Han Seungmin’s heart, which was helping them as a team even after death.

Finally, upon reaching the end of the pile of corpses, the black hole, Kim Yikyung looked down. At our strongest and most precious friend, Choi Suhyuk, whose entire form was scorched black and burnt.

The Divergent was looking up at Kim Yikyung and Jo Heechan, who were heading toward the black hole, its crimson eyes blazing. It was slowly extending both hands upward. It was intending to burn them all along with the pile of corpses.

If they requested support from the headquarters now, another esper team would be dispatched to the mission and eliminate Choi Suhyuk’s Divergent form.

But there’s no need to do that right now, is there, Suhyuk? And I don’t have to be the one to do it, right? Although it’s not very team-leader-like. And even if I’m swept up in emotions at the last moment, it can’t be helped, but.

You know, I was a team leader who always had to make choices devoid of emotion. So just this once. Just for the last time. Can’t I postpone the choice of having to say with my own mouth the request to kill you, Suhyuk?

The truth is, I was never that kind of sociopath. You were all mistaken to think that maintaining a poker face was easy. I mean, all of you. All of you, to me.

“Ha, fuck….”

Was it because the 24-hour countdown was almost over? He was being overly sentimental.

Would the original body not have been like this? Would the original body have requested support from the headquarters? Was it just a feeling of ‘whatever happens, happens’ because he was already dead? I don’t know.

While Kim Yikyung couldn’t get a hold of his chaotic thoughts, the Divergent began to raise the flame ability it had gathered in its hands. He felt the scorching heat behind him. Kim Yikyung and Jo Heechan had no more time to hesitate.

“Let’s go!”

“Aahh, the hole is fucking scary!”

Without either of them going first, they reached out and clasped each other’s hands, stepped on Han Seungmin’s hand, and leaped up into the black hole of the Ash Hole.

From the moment they were engulfed in the pitch blackness, they couldn’t tell whose hand they were holding. Or even if they were holding a hand at all. Where this space they were drifting in was. Whether it was light, or darkness, or just an empty void of nothingness. They couldn’t even distinguish if their own bodies had form or were disintegrating. The only thing maintaining them was the consciousness of ‘I’.

The two drifted through space-time without knowing how much time was passing. As they were gradually sinking into the space, unable to think or recall anything, there was a name that beat them awake.

A name that wouldn’t let them rest, a name that had to be cried out.

Seo Jungin. Seo Jungin. Jungin.

Seo Jungin!

💘

“…Ah….”

“Eu… euk….”

Kim Yikyung and Jo Heechan, who had been lying prostrate and stunned in the real space they had been thrown into in an instant, raised their bodies.

“This place is….”

A huge room, wrapped in a gloomy green emergency light, was tightly encircled with whitish spiderwebs. Beyond a round entrance hole, a morgue drawer reaching up to the ceiling could be seen.

The first basement floor. It was the morgue where Han Seungmin’s body had been kept.

Jo Heechan had definitely filled it with ice. Was it reset?

Kim Yikyung examined the ceiling and turned to look back. It was certain that the black hole they had jumped into was two-way, but the Ash Hole was not visible. Was it not a hole that allowed free passage?

“Seungmin Hyung!”

Jo Heechan discovered Han Seungmin’s body lying right in front of him and urgently went over to examine it. Han Seungmin’s body, with its eyes half-open, was in a state of no decomposition at all from how it looked on the day he was first killed by the Creepions. Lying on his side with a pale face and half-open eyes, his body was covered with a uniform jacket.

“Yikyung Hyung, this is Jungin Hyung’s uniform. It’s Jungin Hyung’s uniform.”

Jo Heechan immediately choked up and turned to look at Kim Yikyung. But Kim Yikyung had no time to empathize with those words. Nearby, a familiar lump of flesh was sprawled out, mashed to a pulp. It was the corpse of the Separator’s sub-body. It was much smaller than the ones he had seen until now.

‘Did it set another trap within a trap here as well?’

As Jo Heechan lifted Han Seungmin’s body and exited the nest-lair, Kim Yikyung cautiously brought his hand to the sub-body’s corpse. Because the wavelength from cloning the Separator’s sub-body remained in his body, he could see the residual images of the illusion when his hand touched the corpse. The sub-body’s corpse contained a nightmare. Seo Jungin’s nightmare.

Kim Yikyung also placed his hand on another sub-body’s corpse lying next to it.

This was not a trap within a trap to isolate the target, as it had been until now. The purpose was to prevent him from waking up from the dream. When Seo Jungin woke up from the illusion, the exhausted sub-body would explode, and then he would fall into the next sub-body’s illusion. This had been repeated continuously.

Kim Yikyung got up and looked around the entire nest room. At least several dozen sub-bodies’ corpses were spread out, mashed to a pulp. That meant that Seo Jungin had experienced a horrifying illusion that made him want to commit suicide dozens of times in this morgue, which was wrapped in a gloomy green light. Both Kim Yikyung and Jo Heechan knew what that meant because they had both experienced it.

Experiencing the most terrible nightmare in his heart that drives him to suicide, waking up from it, and then falling into it again. For how long did he do that? For days? For months? For years?

Ah… Jungin….

Kim Yikyung shot up and ran out of the nest room. Jo Heechan, who had laid Han Seungmin’s body outside the lair, just in case, infused it with his ice ability to encase it in a protective layer of ice and immediately followed Kim Yikyung.

“Jungin Hyung!”

“Seo Jungin!”

The entire corridor was also tightly wrapped in spiderwebs. The entire first basement floor was the Separator’s nest.

Ten morgues. Inside these, for how long had Seo Jungin wandered, dreaming nightmares? Waking up from each and every one of those nightmares that made him want to die, and waking up again, and again. And finally, by waking up from the last nightmare, he had shattered the ward’s isolation.

Kim Yikyung felt like he was going crazy. Just thinking about the horrific times Seo Jungin must have endured made him feel like he was going to lose his mind.

“Junginaaah!”

The moment he shouted loudly, he was able to spot Seo Jungin sitting against the inner wall of the sixth morgue. The two men rushed to Seo Jungin. Seo Jungin, without moving an inch, simply stared blankly at the two men rushing at him.

“Jungin, Jungin!”

“Jungin Hyuuung!”

Kim Yikyung tightly held the body of Seo Jungin, who was sitting there, lost in a daze, and then frantically kissed his lips. Even with the shower of kisses, Seo Jungin’s eyes remained unfocused. Jo Heechan, who was hugging Seo Jungin from the side, pressed his thick lips to Seo Jungin’s mouth and pushed his tongue in as soon as Kim Yikyung pulled away.

Even while Jo Heechan’s tongue parted Seo Jungin’s lips and licked and explored his mucous membranes, Seo Jungin showed no particular reaction. During that time, Kim Yikyung, unable to bear his affectionate feelings, sucked and gnawed on Seo Jungin’s earlobe, then buried his nose in the nape of his neck and smelled his scent. He licked, bit, and sucked it. Seo Jungin’s body couldn’t withstand the two men’s indiscriminate assault and collapsed to the floor. At that, Jo Heechan began to seriously push his tongue into his mouth or pull Seo Jungin’s tongue out and suck on it vigorously, while Kim Yikyung undid the buttons on his shirt, bared his chest, and sucked on his skin, leaving marks.

“Jungin, Seo Jungin, haa,”

“Hyung, Jungin Hyung, haa, chup, chup,”

After showering him with a storm of affection, only then did Kim Yikyung and Jo Heechan, panting, look into Seo Jungin’s face. But Seo Jungin showed no reaction, like someone who had lost his mind.

“Jungin, we’re here.”

“Hyung. We came to save Hyung. We jumped into the Ash Hole too. To save Hyung.”

“…”

Seo Jungin lay silently on the floor, blinking his eyes a few times, and quietly watched the two men speak over each other. After just staring blankly for a long time, he slowly opened his mouth and muttered.

“Is this… an illusion too…?”

“What?”

“After this, you two are both… going to die… right in front of my eyes… aren’t you….”

It felt as if Kim Yikyung’s and Jo Heechan’s hearts had dropped to the floor with a thud.

“Last time… you said this… and you both turned into Divergents….”

“Jungin….”

Seo Jungin turned his head to stare at the other end of the corridor , and then opened his mouth again.

“Before that, you said you came to save me… and then you both got torn apart by Creepions.”

“Hyung.”

Seo Jungin wrapped his hands around his head, curled up his body, and pressed himself tightly against the wall.

“After that, you said you didn’t come to save me. You said you came looking for Seungmin.”

“Jungin. Seo Jungin.”

“And then… you said you didn’t need someone like me… and before that… you said everyone died because of me, and then….”

Listening to Seo Jungin muttering at the wall, the two men couldn’t even begin to fathom how long Seo Jungin had been wandering inside this illusion. He must have experienced and woken up from this kind of illusion dozens of times.

“Jungin. What was the illusion you just experienced, I mean right before we got here. What kind of illusion was it?”

“…”

Seo Jungin was silent for a while. Then he muttered blankly at the wall.

“An illusion… of being trapped in the morgue… for 47 days….”

“…Ha….”

A maddening rage boiled up inside Kim Yikyung. A murderous intent toward the Separator that had trapped Seo Jungin in hell surged.

“The corpses kept talking to me… so I knew it was an illusion again….”

“Heu, heuk, euheuk.”

Unable to bear it, Jo Heechan burst into tears and hugged Seo Jungin, but Seo Jungin just curled his body further into the wall and muttered.

“I wanted to give up… but I had to break this illusion… so you guys could escape… no matter how much time it took… it would be just a moment for you guys….”

Jo Heechan couldn’t breathe. He just couldn’t seem to breathe.

“Heuk, heuk, Jungin Hyung, heueueuk.”

“To find the monster and kill it… I searched the drawers every day… at first I survived by drinking water… but I got so hungry….”

Jo Heechan forcibly turned Seo Jungin’s body and hugged him, looking into his face. With a vacant expression, Seo Jungin continued to mutter.

“I took out the corpses and cut off their flesh to eat… the corpses got angry every time I cut their flesh… but I couldn’t help it….”

“Hyung, Jungin Hyung, heuk, heueueuk.”

“I, I stabbed the monster and killed it… and the illusion broke… and then….”

A faint focus returned to Seo Jungin’s eyes, and with a trembling hand, he cupped Jo Heechan’s cheek.

“I don’t know if you’re real… it was all an illusion… I think I’m just trapped here forever….”

Jo Heechan held Seo Jungin’s body in his arms and hugged him so tightly it was suffocating. He couldn’t say anything. He was afraid to even ask how many nightmares he had been through, and afraid to even hear the answer. It felt like if he heard it all, his heart would stop right there and he would die on the spot.

“Heechan. Are you real? Are you real right now? Heuk, heueueuk, is this an illusion too? Heuk, please….”

“Hyung, heuk, euheuk,”

“Please tell me it’s real… that it’s real… euheuk… I want to stop now.”

“It’s real. I’m the real Heechan. I came to save Hyung. I came to save Hyung.”

“You said that every time. Every time… ah… now I don’t care if it’s not real… While carving the 47 days into the wall, I thought. After meeting you guys one last time… I would just die….”

Seo Jungin brought his face close to Jo Heechan’s and gently kissed him.

“Ah. Heechan… this is nice… to be able to touch you….”

“Euheuk, Hyung, Hyuuung.”

From Jo Heechan’s arms, Seo Jungin reached out his hand to Kim Yikyung, and a warm embrace pulled both of them together.

“Yikyung Hyung… you’re warm… so warm….”

Tears finally began to stream from Kim Yikyung’s eyes as well.

“For making you die… I’m sorry….”

Seo Jungin muttered and then crawled out from the two men’s embrace. He got up just like that and began to walk unsteadily. Kim Yikyung and Jo Heechan got up awkwardly.

“Jungin… what are you doing… where are you going….”

“…Before you guys die… before I have to see you die again… I’m going to die first….”

Seo Jungin was going to get the Dititoxin capsule from the uniform jacket he had placed over Han Seungmin’s body in the very first nest room. Still thinking he was in an illusion, he was going to grab it, eat it, and die.

Dumbfounded, Kim Yikyung immediately rushed forward and lifted Seo Jungin into his arms.

“Let go, let go, Hyung, let me go, I want to stop now. I want to stop having this nightmare. I don’t want to see you guys die again. Let me die first. Please, heuk, heueueuk, euheuheuk.”

Kim Yikyung hugged the struggling Seo Jungin tightly. He felt like he would go crazy with pity for the mentally broken Seo Jungin. So pitiful, so endearing, and so unfortunate.

Kim Yikyung held Seo Jungin preciously and rubbed his cheek against his. Seo Jungin, out of his mind, continued to mutter and beg to be let go.

In truth, Seo Jungin had shattered the ward’s isolation when he woke up from the initial illusion attack. The blue sky that Kim Yikyung and Jo Heechan had greeted on the rooftop was precisely that moment. But immediately after, the Separator had continuously created sub-bodies and launched illusion attacks on Seo Jungin again.

When Seo Jungin woke up, it would create another sub-body, and when he woke up, another sub-body. In this way, the Separator had blocked Seo Jungin until it ran out of strength and fled, hiding somewhere here.

For Kim Yikyung and Jo Heechan, who had arrived at the morgue by jumping into the Ash Hole, it was but a moment, but for Seo Jungin, it was impossible to know how much time had passed, including the 47 days.

‘But why weren’t Jungin’s location and vital signs detected on the first basement floor?’

While holding Seo Jungin, Kim Yikyung tried to send a support request message to the headquarters. As expected, it failed to transmit. As if they were isolated in space-time.

“Heechan. Try opening the emergency exit for the first basement floor. See if we can get out from here.”

Jo Heechan quickly ran to the first-floor entrance.

“Be careful.”

“Yeah.”

Jo Heechan concentrated his ice ability in his hand and carefully tried to open the door.

“Ha…!”

A pitch-black severed plane. Where the stairs should have been, there was nothing but pitch-black darkness.

It was just as he thought. They were able to connect to this place through the Ash Hole, but the Separator had isolated the entire first basement floor in space-time. That was why Seo Jungin’s vital signs hadn’t been picked up.

That wasn’t all. The Separator could once again isolate the entire ward at any time. In the end, to escape this place, they had to find and destroy the Separator’s mother body that was in hiding.

Seo Jungin, held in Kim Yikyung’s arms, began to tremble again.

“I’m still in an illusion, right… This is my nightmare again, right….”

“Jungin. Look at me. Jungin. Look at my face.”

Trembling, Seo Jungin lifted his head and looked up at Kim Yikyung. He was a complete mess, covered in ash and caked with sweat and blood, but Kim Yikyung smiled brightly for him.

“It’s really me. Jungin. You overcame all those many nightmares and illusions and came out into true reality. You’re truly amazing. Really. So let’s get out of here now. This time, we’re really getting out. I will definitely get you out of here.”

Seo Jungin looked into the deep brown eyes behind Kim Yikyung’s horn-rimmed glasses.

“When we get out of here, I’ll take you to the sea. Got it?”

“…The sea….”

“You’re going to the sea with me. I promise. I will definitely take you.”

“…A promise….”

Seo Jungin saw nothing else. Only Kim Yikyung’s beautiful brown eyes that spoke the truth. That was all he looked at.

Jo Heechan really didn’t want to disturb the two people who were sinking into their own world, but he couldn’t help but open his mouth at the smell of burnt flesh wafting from the nest room.

“Hyungs? Hold on a second.”

Jo Heechan’s gaze was fixed on the morgue where they had arrived through the Ash Hole. Along with the sound of heavy footsteps coming from inside the morgue, a flickering yellow light was growing brighter.

“I think our super handsome Hyung is here.”

As expected, it was a hell made just for Team K814. What appeared at the entrance of the morgue along with bright flames was Choi Suhyuk’s Divergent form. It had followed them, who had jumped into the Ash Hole, climbed the mountain of corpses, and jumped into the black hole.

“Choi Suhyuk.”

Kim Yikyung held Seo Jungin tightly in his arms and took a step back. Jo Heechan gathered his ability in his hands so he could immediately put up an ice barrier.

“Uh… anyway, it’s good to see you again. Suhyuk Hyung. Haha….”

Jo Heechan laughed awkwardly and glanced at his watch. The widget was on the verge of turning from red to black. How much time was left until the final alarm? How many more times could he use his ability?

It was the same for Kim Yikyung. Seo Jungin was no different. The alarm had already sounded up to the second stage. The headache and the ear-splitting tinnitus. The continuous nausea. And the blurring vision and clouding judgment. The sharp, probing pain in every nerve. The side effects of the rising toxin levels were steadily heading toward the transformation into a Divergent.

None of them had many chances left to use their abilities. They had to block Choi Suhyuk, find and kill the Separator before they turned, and escape this place as soon as the isolation was broken. Kim Yikyung’s mind raced. When he touched the dead sub-body’s corpse earlier, he was able to read the residual images of the illusion. The wavelength from cloning the sub-body remained in his body, and it was possible because that reacted with the wavelength left in the corpse.

If so, if he absorbed all the wavelengths left in the sub-bodies’ corpses, wouldn’t he be able to sense the mother body’s wavelength? Just like how he could sense the wavelength even if the link with his cloned body was broken.

It was just a hypothesis, but in the current situation, they had to try anything. The limited resources in this isolated place, they had to pull and use everything they could.

Kim Yikyung gripped Seo Jungin’s shoulders tightly and made eye contact with him clearly.

“Jungin. I need your strength. While you amplify Heechan’s cold stream to block Suhyuk, I’ll look for the mother body. If we find and kill the mother body, the isolation of this place will be broken. Then we can immediately request support from the headquarters.”

Seo Jungin looked up at Kim Yikyung. A pleasant resonance and a clear tone. A distinct diction.

“This time for sure, let’s really escape from here. Got it?”

The team leader of Team K814 was speaking. Our team leader was giving orders for the escape plan with a confident face. Even if this were an illusion, he had to follow those orders.

‘Because the team needs me.’

Light returned to Seo Jungin’s eyes. Strength entered his two legs, and the ability inside his body began to swirl.

“I understand. Yikyung Hyung. I understand…!”

Seo Jungin stepped down from Kim Yikyung’s arms and placed his feet on the corridor tangled with spiderwebs.

I’m getting out. From within the repeating nightmares. With the two people who once again came to save me. With hope one last time, we will survive together and get out of this place.

“Heechan. Suhyuk, lure him into the morgue as much as possible and trap him. That’s how we can buy time to search for the mother body.”

“Got it.”

Choi Suhyuk’s gaze was fixed on Seo Jungin. Jo Heechan hid Seo Jungin behind his back and slowly stepped backward into the morgue. Using the fact that Choi Suhyuk was only looking at Seo Jungin, Kim Yikyung stealthily hid in the morgue across from them.

As the heavily stepping Choi Suhyuk followed them into the morgue that Jo Heechan and Seo Jungin had entered, Jo Heechan quickly fired a volley of ice spheres to push Choi Suhyuk inside and then slipped out. Immediately, a heat haze shimmered from the Choi Suhyuk Divergent’s hands.

“Heechan, ice barrier!”

Simultaneously with Kim Yikyung’s shout, Seo Jungin hugged Jo Heechan’s back as he thrust his arms forward. He embraced Jo Heechan’s wide, firm, and warm, living back. And he infused the power of amplification swirling inside his body into the Jo Heechan he loved so dearly.

Jo Heechan let out a cry at the dizzying sensation that washed over him and shot out an explosive stream of cold air toward the flames bursting from the Divergent.

Scattering beautiful and brilliant crystals of snowflakes in all directions, the stream of cold air created by the two built up a magnificent wall of ice. Growing thicker and more solid, the tightly woven and coagulated, crystallized ice barrier was being filled with cracking sounds.

In the meantime, Kim Yikyung ran into the nest room where they had first been transported. Perhaps because Choi Suhyuk had come through the Ash Hole and passed through here, dozens of sub-body corpses were burnt black. Han Seungmin’s body, fortunately, was undamaged, perhaps thanks to the ice barrier Jo Heechan had put around it. Kim Yikyung let out a big sigh of relief and entered the nest-lair. Then he touched the burnt sub-bodies’ corpses one by one and absorbed their remaining wavelengths.

With each contact, the desperate nightmares Seo Jungin had experienced were also absorbed. He vividly experienced and painfully remembered the nightmares that Seo Jungin had fought and overcome alone over many days, and absorbed the sub-bodies’ power.

The power that cloned the mother body. The power left behind by the mother body. To feel and find everything about the mother body with all his senses, Kim Yikyung absorbed the residual wavelengths without leaving any behind.

Kim Yikyung’s deep brown eyes gradually turned pitch black like those of the Separator. His insides churned and all the blood flowing through him felt like it was rotting, and it seemed as if he himself was gradually becoming a Separator. Then he began to feel it. The Separator’s breathing. Its heartbeat. He felt the flow of the black ability flowing from its body. Stronger and stronger. More and more intensely.

Now completely vividly.

“Ha… ah… heok….”

Black blood trickled down from Kim Yikyung’s nose as he raised his body. When he let out a choking cough that burst from deep within his stomach, black blood flowed from his mouth as well.

Kim Yikyung wiped the blood with his hand and blinked his blackened eyes. He could feel the wavelength being emitted by the Separator’s mother body. He could feel the mother body hiding inside a cocoon-lair, tightly bound with spiderwebs in the tenth morgue, as if he were seeing it with his own eyes.

“Yikyung Hyung! Are you done yet?!”

As the ice barrier thinned and began to crack, Jo Heechan shouted anxiously. Then, a moment later, Kim Yikyung appeared outside in the corridor.

“Yikyung, heok….”

Jo Heechan was startled at the sight of Kim Yikyung and stepped back. His glistening eyes, blackened up to the sclera, and the black blood flowing from his nose and mouth truly looked like that of a Divergent.

“Yikyung Hyung!”

Jo Heechan grabbed and stopped Seo Jungin, who shouted and tried to rush forward.

“Haa, heu, eu.”

Kim Yikyung wiped the flowing blood with the back of his hand.

“What, what is it, Hyung. What happened.”

“It’s fine. It’s because I absorbed the remaining wavelengths of the sub-bodies.”

Kim Yikyung’s voice had changed into a creepy one that was like scraping metal, mixed with a lot of breathy sounds.

“Did you clone it? Then can you use that space-time ability too?”

“No. This is a dead power, so. But….”

Kim Yikyung looked toward the morgue at the very end, where the Separator was hiding.

“I can find the Separator. I can kill it.”

Seeing Kim Yikyung’s horribly changed appearance, Seo Jungin’s heart just ached so much.

“Yikyung Hyung.”

The moment Seo Jungin finally took Kim Yikyung’s hand, a powerful image flowed into his mind. A certain moment in the past. That intense moment he had felt sometime in the past. The memory of that moment, indistinguishable from a dream or an illusion. That brilliant and ecstatic image quickly filled his mind’s eye.

Kim Yikyung also recalled that image at the same time, and the two looked at each other. The wavelength of the power to touch space-time flowed through Kim Yikyung’s body and mixed with Seo Jungin’s memory. Chaos filled the eyes of the two who faced each other.

Is this memory the past? The future, or just a dream? An illusion? A precognition of a mutable future? A paradox of an immutable past? Amidst all the uncertainty, the only thing that was certain was the fact that, just as this illusion showed, the only person who could help Seo Jungin was Seo Jungin himself.

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