Boy Monster Chapter 28

Jae Eunho answered, recalling a distant night when sky lanterns flickered across the Hangang River.

“Seventeen.”

“My fake age is eighteen, so similar.”

“Not at all. How are seventeen and eighteen similar? …How old are you really?”

“I don’t know. I only know it’s a lot older. I’m an orphan who wandered the streets without parents, a birth date, or a birth registration.”

“…….”

“Why is your left leg like that?”

The second question was personal, but it wasn’t entirely unrelated, as the story of how he became lame was connected to the head of the family.

“You would have investigated and know about Sashimcheon, right? The Hwelju Yeonri family, before it was modernized into S.E.T.U.”

Shi Taehyun wiggled his outstretched booted foot. Jae Eunho continued, holding his cigarette absentmindedly.

“The head of Sashimcheon smashed it. To stop me from running away.”

“…….”

“You’re going to ask why I ran away? Because the head of the family dismembered my parents.”

Shi Taehyun slowly sat up. His forehead creased at the gruesome story. Jae Eunho quickly explained the key point.

“Eunwoo was that head of the family’s sixth son.”

“…….”

“I approached that child on purpose. For revenge. To settle a score. To use the son to start a rebellion and completely destroy the head of the family.”

“…….”

“I used that boy from the beginning.”

After spitting out the words without pause, Jae Eunho coughed a couple of times to calm his trembling voice. His mind was blank after speaking his mind.

It felt strange watching Shi Taehyun’s silence. What was he thinking? Was he thinking that he should kill Jae Eunho right now, for the fact that he betrayed that boy from the beginning, and betrayed him in the end?

Shi Taehyun’s dazed state was an opportunity. Jae Eunho pretended to check his phone and long-pressed the emergency deactivation release button. He was uneasy about the faint presence he felt near the narrow opening. He still didn’t trust Shi Taehyun. There was nothing to lose by checking.

“Why did that boy trust you?”

“Eunwoo was… good. He was a kind-hearted child.”

Preparing to use his 1st Grade ability, Jae Eunho looked at the distant Namsan Tower. The area around Hwangudan and the Sashimcheon residence in Euljiro was visible only as a dark silhouette.

“He didn’t know I approached him on purpose. He wouldn’t have even imagined it.”

“You were okay with deceiving such a good child?”

“Considering what I went through, I didn’t feel any guilt using the head of the family’s son. But….”

“But?”

Eunho’s eyes, gazing at the buildings on the rippling black water, lost their strength.

The more time I spent with that child, the more inexplicably sad I became.

Even as my revenge was nearing completion, I was sad. Every time I saw that child, it felt like everything that made up my emotions was collapsing.

How could he briefly define these long sentences? It felt like the scars buried decades ago were reopening, so Eunho kept his mouth shut. Even if he said these things, they wouldn’t be understood. It wasn’t essential information either.

Just as he decided not to speak, he felt a surge throughout his body. The emergency deactivation had been lifted. Jae Eunho gave Shi Taehyun a preemptive warning and clasped his hands together.

“There’s someone next to us.”

When he scanned the surroundings in an instant, he detected a consciousness nearby. His intuition was right. An enemy had followed him!

Jae Eunho focused all his power and immediately sensed the enemy. As he tried to read their dominant thoughts, the celestial map of consciousness was extinguished. A force pulling him into a tight embrace tugged at his body. And he heard the thud of someone collapsing near the opening leading underground.

Shi Taehyun, witnessing the bizarre scene of a person suddenly appearing out of nowhere, frowned deeply. He held Jae Eunho with one arm and glared at the enemy.

However, the man who had lost consciousness after releasing his invisibility ability had a familiar build and was wearing clothes he’d seen many times before.

“…? You…!”

The man lying on the bridge’s substructure was Hyeon Jaewoong, wearing a pink department hoodie.

A long, booted foot landed squarely on Hyeon Jaewoong’s face. While Eunho was bewildered, Shi Taehyun had approached Hyeon Jaewoong and stepped on his head. Jae Eunho calmly stopped Shi Taehyun.

“Wait. He’s not an enemy.”

He didn’t understand why he had fainted when Eunho hadn’t put him to sleep. Shi Taehyun, who had been repeatedly stomping on the unconscious Hyeon Jaewoong’s head, turned around. The gaze directed at Jae Eunho was sharp.

“Not an enemy…? Then why was he following us, all the way from under the manhole?”

The voice that followed sent chills down his spine.

“Are you in cahoots?”

Jae Eunho suppressed his irritation. He was annoyed at Hyeon Jaewoong for creating such a misunderstanding. He wasn’t even a S.E.T.U member yet, so it would sound like an excuse! When Eunho didn’t answer, Shi Taehyun pressed down on Hyeon Jaewoong’s face even harder.

“Don’t tell me you were trying to hack into my mind just now, Teacher Jae Eunho?”

Eunho raised both hands to calm Shi Taehyun and replied,

“I didn’t even touch your head, I searched him. Hyeon Jaewoong is a junior Hwelju I’m close to. He’s personally assisting me with my mission, but I told him not to come today, so he showed some bravado. He’s on our side.”

“Our side? That’s not right, he’s on your side.”

“…….”

Contempt soon appeared on Shi Taehyun’s face as he pulled out a phone from Hyeon Jaewoong’s hoodie pocket.

Jae Eunho approached. He checked to see what Shi Taehyun had seen that made his face turn sour, and it was a screen showing a sick leave request submitted to the department’s computer system.

He sighed involuntarily. Shi Taehyun, with both hands in his pockets, stepped back a few paces. A little while later, Hyeon Jaewoong regained consciousness, but he seemed dizzy and couldn’t get up properly. Shaking his head to dispel the dizziness, Hyeon Jaewoong said to Jae Eunho, who was looking down at him with a scolding gaze,

“I was worried because you weren’t answering….”

His voice trailed off. Shi Taehyun, who had been staring at Hyeon Jaewoong with a blank expression, sneered.

“Younger lover?”

“There’s no way this idiot is my lover.”

“What does it matter if he’s an idiot, as long as the sex is good? Erase his memory, lover or whatever.”

If Hyeon Jaewoong had seen everything that happened underground, Shi Taehyun wouldn’t be able to leave him alone. To get Hyeon Jaewoong out safely, it was right to do as he said.

Eunho used his remaining emergency deactivation time to implant a hallucination in Hyeon Jaewoong’s mind. He closed his eyes and clasped his hands together. He covered Hyeon Jaewoong’s memories of the past few hours with sleep. He was wasting too much power without his prayer beads, but one person was a piece of cake.

When he opened his eyes, wilted plum blossoms filled the river. A butterfly that had been perched on Hyeon Jaewoong’s nose fluttered away. He looked to the side and saw Shi Taehyun, cigarette in mouth, squatting and looking at Jae Eunho’s new phone.

Jae Eunho, having no memory of allowing him to touch his phone, approached him with a frown. Shi Taehyun suddenly burst out laughing, covering his mouth.

Even amidst his frown, a question flickered in Jae Eunho’s eyes. He couldn’t understand what Shi Taehyun found so funny. He clutched his stomach and laughed loudly, his face turning red. Jae Eunho snatched the phone from his hand.

“…!”

The moment he saw the screen, his heart dropped. He was reading a message from Lim Geonhwi. Damn it. Damn it! What if he had sent some weird sex photos…!

“My teacher has a lot of men……”

Eunho checked the message window and let out a sigh of relief. The text from Lim Geonhwi was urgent, but it wasn’t a picture of Eunho’s face tied up or covered in semen.

It’s headquarters, there’s no entry record for you. You’re not here either.

Deputy Director Oh Jigeun, did you meet him outside?

Call me.

Why was another emergency ability deactivation request submitted? Answer the phone right now.

The call log was full of red text. It was also filled with missed calls from Deputy Director Oh Jigeun. If he wasn’t careful, he might be caught secretly meeting with Shi Taehyun.

“It’s an emergency. I have to go.”

He was slightly worried about Shi Taehyun’s reaction to these words, but unexpectedly, Shi Taehyun simply agreed without any resistance.

“Really? Go ahead.”

It would have been better if he had stopped him or questioned him. The indifferent reaction was more unsettling. Jae Eunho called Deputy Director Oh Jigeun and requested a water taxi. While waiting for the boat, Jae Eunho shook Hyeon Jaewoong awake. Shi Taehyun’s hair, standing with his back to the river, whipped fiercely in the river wind, and then Hyeon Jaewoong opened his eyes.

“The rest of the tutoring will have to be postponed. I have to find out about the drug powder they’re spreading, and things are hectic, so I don’t know when it will be.”

Shi Taehyun didn’t respond to Jae Eunho’s words. He simply helped Hyeon Jaewoong to his feet and, tapping him on the ear, said,

“Be careful if you don’t want to lose your virginity and get dumped, idiot.”

“…Yes…?”

Shi Taehyun, slowly backing away, took a deep drag of his cigarette. Flames flickered from the irezumi slightly exposed on his wrist. His hazy, gray eyes remained fixed on Jae Eunho.

As the water ski taxi arrived and he helped Hyeon Jaewoong aboard, Jae Eunho looked back.

There was no one under the Jamsugyo Bridge. The cement block entrance they had come up through was closed shut without a trace.

:･⚜️⊹.️

Today, Lim Geonhwi’s car was waiting for him directly. As soon as Eunho spotted Lim Geonhwi’s car parked conspicuously by the riverbank, his arms were seized by the bodyguards.

“Bill it to. Lieutenant General Lim Geonhwi’s card. Thanks again today.”

Eunho joked, pointing to the water taxi. The bodyguards, now accustomed to dragging Eunho around, moved in sync with Eunho’s limping left leg.

Hyeon Jaewoong, already bewildered with no memory, was thrown into a panic as he watched Jae Eunho being dragged away as if being kidnapped.