Magic on the Dead Chapter 106

Afterward, with a horrifying scream, the entire class was thrown into chaos. Miso’s punches did not stop until the blood pouring from Oh Dwaeji’s nose had soaked the classroom floor.

‘Fucking hell, I’m already pissed off, so I told you not to linger around me! I’m furious enough that I got hurt! Aaaargh!’

Miso wept sorrowfully the entire time she was beating him to the ground. If Hajin had not stepped forward to testify about Oh Dwaeji’s constant bullying, she would have been referred to the school violence committee and easily taken the steps toward expulsion.

Hajin believed that Miso had saved him, but funnily enough, Miso herself had not given it any thought. Rather, she had just found it strange that Hajin was so eagerly raising his voice for her. Of course, after they became the best of friends, Miso willingly became Hajin’s bodyguard.

“Back then, when you were crying while beating up Oh Dwaeji, you were seriously so scary, Yoon Miso.”

“Hey, hey, just forget it.”

Miso threw a playful jab at Hajin, who was boisterously reminiscing about the past.

The two, who were childishly exchanging punches, then talked for a long time, for about an hour. The topics jumped around endlessly, from the time Hajin first entered a magic competition to the moment he opened his first YouTube channel.

It felt as if they had returned to a peaceful daily life, even if only for a moment. Miso, who had been recalling the past as if in a dream, called out to Hajin in a serious voice.

“Do Hajin.”

Hajin answered without taking his eyes off the countless stars of the night sky, which were embedded like grains of rice.

“Yeah.”

“I feel like I’ve been very indifferent to you all this time… I’m sorry.”

At the sudden apology, he tilted his head and looked askew at Miso.

“What are you suddenly talking about.”

When he asked with a furrowed brow, Miso’s tense eyes darted quickly from side to side. After choosing her words carefully as if contemplating, she finally whispered softly, as if telling a secret.

“Without even knowing you were like that, I was always nagging you to get set up with women.”

“…Huh?”

“Honestly, all the people you’ve dated so far were women, so I never would have dreamed.”

“…….”

“I should have known from the time you were dating without any soul in it, but I had no idea.”

“Wait a minute, Yoon Miso.”

Hajin, his face hardening, held up his index finger in front of her face as if to stop her.

“What are you talking about. What do you mean, knowing I was ‘like that’.”

Miso, who blinked her large eyes once, this time answered as quietly as a mosquito’s buzz.

“That you like men. …I feel like I didn’t know.”

“…….”

“Honestly, I was uncertain even after seeing the kiss mark on your neck, but, um. Seeing Jeffrey’s reaction, it’s become clear that there’s something going on between you and Mr. Jung Taegeon.”

She carefully observed Hajin’s expression and asked as if to deliver the final confirmation.

“Right?”

It was not wrong, but it was not as if he had liked men from the beginning. Hajin, at a loss for where or how to clear up the misunderstanding, let out a helpless breath and grabbed Miso’s shoulders.

“Half of it is right, and half of it is wrong.”

“Huh?”

“That, with Mr. Jung Taegeon… it’s true, but it’s not like I like men or anything.”

“What are you talking about. Mr. Jung Taegeon is a man.”

“No, that’s right, but, what I mean is.”

“…….”

“Haa. Anyway, it’s not like I liked men from the start or anything. It just sort of happened….”

Trying to express his still jumbled and disorganized heart, the words did not come out properly. Miso, who was gazing at him as he sighed in frustration, gently took hold of the hands placed on her shoulders.

“In any case, it means there is something going on between you two.”

Hajin, who met her eyes in silence for a while, let out a deep sigh and reluctantly nodded his head. It was a good thing it was a dark night; otherwise, his disgracefully flushed face would have been discovered.

She tapped the back of Hajin’s hand with her fingers as if to pat it, and once again carefully chose her words.

“…Will you be okay?”

“With what?”

“With you dating a man, and also giving your heart to someone who’s going to leave anyway….”

Hajin could not easily open his mouth. The moment the question, filled with worry and affection, pierced his ears, it felt as if a large marble was stuck in his throat.

Exchanging feelings with a man was not an obstacle in itself. But, giving your heart to someone who is going to leave is, after all….

Not okay.

He somehow became afraid of saying that clear answer out loud. Even if they had not slept together, even if they were nothing more than colleagues, Hajin knew instinctively that he would not be able to calmly accept the predestined separation from Jung Taegeon.

“What can I do about it.”

When he answered evasively with a hoarse voice, Miso instead gave a bitter smile. To hide his troubled face, Hajin raised his eyes again and looked at the faraway sky. While he was blankly staring at the night clouds drifting leisurely between the stars, a calm voice once again disturbed his heart.

“You can’t take back feelings, Do Hajin. So at least while you’re together, try to get along well, without regrets.”

It was unexpected advice. Hajin, who stiffened for a moment, soon narrowed his eyes and looked back at Miso.

“Oh… getting advice from a never-been-in-a-relationship-solo is comforting and nice?”

A dull pain landed on his forearm shortly after. Just as expected from someone who had made a name for herself as a school athlete, the power she still packed into her fist was tremendous.

“When someone gives you serious advice, can’t you just listen? And how many times do I have to tell you I’m not a never-been-in-a-relationship-solo?”

“You’ve never once shown me your boyfriend.”

“…That’s just because it was a hassle.”

“Alright, I’ll believe you.”

Hajin, who let out a feeble laugh, nudged Miso’s shoe with the tip of his foot.

“Go on inside and sleep now. You’ll have a hard time too, moving on your own starting tomorrow.”

He ended the conversation cleanly at that point. Miso also nodded her head quietly.

A little later, she patted Hajin’s shoulder briskly as she always had, and then left the spot first.

He quietly stared at the empty space where her warmth had lingered and then disappeared, before curling his body up and resting his chin on his knees. He was tired, but even if he went into the room and lay down, it did not seem like he would be able to fall asleep easily.

Not long after, from beyond the closed door, the sound of Byeol’s crying and Miso’s pitiful consolations soothing the child could be heard.

“Haa….”

Hajin’s face, after he rubbed it dryly once, crumpled slightly. The child’s sorrowful cries seemed to represent his own heart, and for a while, he remained still with his head buried in both hands.

Only after a long while did Hajin lift his reddened face. His lower lip was full of bite marks, but his efforts to hold back his tears were in vain, as the tip of his nose was still red.

Soon after, he picked up the weapon he had set down and got up from his spot. He wanted to escape from the idle thoughts swirling in his head to the point of making his temples throb, and from the anguish that was suffocatingly tightening its grip on his breath.

Leaving the wide yard and heading down the stone steps, the training hall immediately came into view. As he passed the main building and approached the Hwaam Hall, which was used as the main auditorium, the 7-story stone pagoda he had seen earlier revealed itself.

Perhaps everyone had gone to bed early, as the inside of the temple was filled only with the sound of chirping—the cries of grass insects on a summer night. Hajin, who was blankly staring at the bell-shaped head ornament placed on top of the stone pagoda, once again slowly moved his steps as his feet led him.

This moment of leisurely strolling alone with his guard down felt particularly awkward. He could not even remember when was the last time he had some quiet time to himself. His life before the zombie outbreak felt like a past life.

He tried pointlessly slinging the hammer in his hand over his shoulder, and squinted to read things like the signboards with Chinese characters on them, while walking through the silent temple. He desperately tried to clear his head like that, but when he came to his senses, he would find himself standing still, as if rooted to one spot.

Was it because of the farewell with Miso, which had come sooner than expected? Or was it because he could not quite picture a reunion with his younger brother? No, or maybe it was…. Tens of thousands of worries and anxieties branched out endlessly in his head like tree branches.

As he walked aimlessly like that again, he soon passed the main Buddha hall and was near the cliff. In front of his eyes were several shoddily stacked stone pagodas. The hundreds of stones, containing someone’s earnest wishes, remained quietly in their place, bathed in the noble moonlight.

Hajin bent down and picked up a small stone. A new small stone was placed on top of the stone pagodas, onto which money and health, or the happiness and well-being of loved ones, had been projected. Hajin’s wish, which took the top of the stone pagoda, was the ‘survival’ of his loved ones.

—Hyung, what do we do? Can we… meet? What is… this?

—I’m scared. Hyung, I can’t get out at all… at….

The voice of Junseok, who had been urgently looking for him over the phone, which he had recalled tens of thousands of times in his head, played back vividly. Over that anxious voice, the troubled voice of a strange woman he had seen for the first time overlapped.

‘And if it’s near Neverland, you have to assume there’s almost no hope. It was the Rose Festival period, so the roads were packed with cars.’

Hajin put down his weapon, collapsed onto the dirt ground, and clutched his head.

For the single goal of reuniting with his younger brother, he had fought big and small battles and had stubbornly survived until now. However, the closer he got to Yongun City, and the more he faced the scheduled farewells one by one, fine holes began to riddle his once firm heart.

The brooch in his pocket painfully poked his thigh.

“I can do it, we can meet again….”

He muttered as if reciting it, but his firm resolve to save his younger brother only scattered emptily into the damp night air.