ANTITOXIN Chapter 23

However, the situation was not favorable enough to insult him as a madman. Seolwon grimaced without a word. Seeing this, the man pouted his lower lip.

“Aie, it seems you hate it. If you hate a blind date… Interrogation? Torture? Shall we go with that route? Instead, it will hurt more than now. It’s a mandatory requirement that accompanies an involuntary conversation. Since I don’t mind either way, pick one.”

This time, Seolwon’s face turned white with dread. He could tell intuitively. That it wasn’t just empty words. While the word blind date had merely been absurd, interrogation and torture gave him a heavy sense of horror.

“See there. As expected, a blind date is better, right?”

If he had to choose between the two, it was naturally so. Seolwon bit his lips tightly and nodded his head. Clap, clap, the man clapped his hands as if he made a good choice.

“Good. Before that, there’s something we must do. Even if I don’t know about other things, I prefer affair matters to be clean. So, about that…”

The man cut off his words mid-sentence and slightly twisted his body sideways. Then, he pointed somewhere with his finger. To Seolwon, it was straight ahead.

“What kind of relationship do you have with that person?”

That person?

Wondering, Seolwon cast his gaze in the direction the man was pointing and was soon horrified. Because he discovered a person he hadn’t perceived until now, eclipsed by the man’s overwhelming presence. It was none other than Executive Director Hwang. What’s more, he was drenched in blood, trembling in fear with a terrified face…

Whether it was because of the blood or because he was injured, Executive Director Hwang was in a state where he could barely open only one eye. His expression looked as if he would burst into tears any second, and his breathing was extremely unstable. It was literally a plight where no word other than wretched came to mind.

The most terrible part was that another face of Executive Director Hwang was visible to Seolwon’s eyes. Yes, just like Siamese twins, another face was attached right next to Executive Director Hwang’s face. Even upside down. Eyes were where the mouth should be, and a mouth was where the eyes should be—literally, the face itself was completely inverted.

There were two causes for seeing an upside-down face. Either being possessed, or holding death close by. His intuition pointed to the latter. The fact that the apparatus behind Executive Director Hwang looked like an incinerator no matter how one looked at it backed up this speculation. If it were that size, it would be able to easily burn corpses, let alone objects.

In other words, this was a waste disposal site. A place where all the things that man regarded as trash were completely erased. That meant he, too, could be classified as trash and enter that incinerator. The fiery energy he had first felt from that man’s business card might also have originated from that incinerator.

‘A great fire shall stand before you someday. A fierce fire as tough and savage as iron.’

Suddenly, the words his grandmother had left behind long ago like a last testament came to mind. Could it be that those words were referring to the current situation? That he could burn to death?

No. It didn’t mean that, but something… it was closer to advice rather than a warning. It seemed there were more important words after that… But he can’t recall them well. It was partly because he had heard it too long ago, and partly because he was extremely tense.

“Hmm?”

The man’s interrogation cuts into his complexly spinning mind. Startled back to his senses, Seolwon looked at him again. Naturally, the question he had received earlier came to mind. The one asking what kind of relationship he had with that person—meaning, Executive Director Hwang.

It wasn’t a relationship between a boss and an employee, and much less an acquaintance… He had merely ended up accompanying him reluctantly because of President Kim, and he was someone he had no reason to meet again after today. Thus, it was difficult to define what kind of relationship they were. If it must be defined, ‘nothing to do with each other’ would be about right.

However, Seolwon could not answer easily. Because he could not guess at all what the intention of the question was, or what kind of answer the opponent desired.

At Seolwon’s silence fraught with bewilderment, the man furrowed his brows. As if displeased.

“Did I ask some difficult question? It’s a matter where you just have to speak the truth.”

A straight face surfaces on the face that had been harboring a smile full of incompatibility. What was felt from the face where the smile vanished was an aggressive sharpness. He was the type whose gap in atmosphere was severe depending on his expression.

In an instant, it felt as if the temperature of the surroundings had dropped. Seolwon’s lips quivered. A horror he hadn’t felt even against President Kim who was like a thug… no, a horror he had never felt against a human until now dug into his nerve cords.

“We are… just nothing to each other.”

He painstakingly revealed the fact, though in a trembling voice. Just as he desired.

Ah, the man returned an unenthusiastic response.

“Nothing to each other…”

He nodded his head, chewing over Seolwon’s answer aloud. Then, he suddenly harbors a cold smile. To anyone looking, it was not an expression of being convinced. On the contrary, accusation was contained in his pupils, which had grown colder than just before. For Seolwon, who had spoken the truth with neither more nor less added, it was a bewildering reaction.

“You have nothing to do with each other, yet you accompany him to an important drinking party. You have nothing to do with each other, yet he naturally touches your thigh. You have nothing to do with each other, yet you deliberately ride back in the same car at a late hour. Does this feel unnatural only to me?”

Hearing it, it did think it strange to Seolwon as well. Certainly, it was hard to view it as a situation that naturally occurs between people who have no relationship. Yet, there was a point stranger than that. How on earth did the opponent know that?

Let’s assume that accompanying him to an important drinking party and even riding back in the same car were parts he could quickly find out by looking at the situation. What about Executive Director Hwang touching his thigh? How on earth did he know? It was something that happened secretly at the drinking party, and furthermore, under the table. If one were not at that spot, and moreover, if the underpart of the table were not visible, it was a situation that would have passed unnoticed. Yet, the man knew precisely. As if he had witnessed it firsthand.

“What do you guys think. Is it convincing?”

The man turned his gaze and asked his subordinates for their opinion. The two people who were standing with their hands behind their backs on his left and right answered in succession.

“It is not.”

“Me too.”

The man, who drew the agreement of others, looked back at Seolwon and shrugged his shoulders. As if to say, see there.

Although he understood why they couldn’t be convinced, since he had spoken the truth, Seolwon could not help but feel frustrated.

“But it’s the truth. We really have nothing to do with each other and…”

“Aie, I’m telling you the premise that you have nothing to do with each other is unnatural. It’s only natural if you set up the premise that it’s a relationship where there is something. For instance, in a way like a relationship where the two are sleeping together.”

What?

Even though he was somewhat weak with slang or figurative expressions, he knew what sleeping together meant. Even if he hadn’t known, he would have come to know intuitively. Therefore, there was only one reaction Seolwon could show.

“…Pardon?”

In his utter bewilderment, he asked back, doubting his own ears.

The man kindly compressed his words from earlier and let him hear it again.

“In my eyes, it looks like a relationship where the two are sleeping together.”

Even so, it was just the same nonsense though.

Yes, it was nonsense. No, it’s bullshit. For Seolwon, the very fact that Executive Director Hwang and himself could be reflected that way in the eyes of others approached him as a shock.

“That makes no…!”

It was just when Seolwon, unable to bear it, was about to protest harshly.

“Isn’t it so.”

The opponent beat him to it.

“Because it’s a relationship where you’re sleeping together, you accompanied him even though it was an important drinking party. Because it’s a relationship where you’re sleeping together, touching the thigh was natural. Because it’s a relationship where you’re sleeping together, you rode back in the same car. isn’t it much more natural?”

“…”

For a moment, Seolwon was at a loss for words. Because hearing it, it felt like it was truly right. As sentences that were unnatural earlier felt much more natural when changing the premise according to his words.

Did he take the silence as an admission. The man’s mouth shape turned crooked.

“Your mouth has become quiet. Meaning it’s right?”

No. Of course it wasn’t. Absolutely not. This time, without hesitating even a bit, he was about to deny firmly, when,

“It’s not! It’s absolutely not!”

Executive Director Hwang, who had been merely scanning the atmosphere while holding his breath until now, spoke out for the first time.

Despite Executive Director Hwang actively denying it following Seolwon, the man did not show any signs of being convinced.

“If not?”

Like this, he was merely interrogating further on the contrary.

The one who answered here was Executive Director Hwang this time as well.

“Th-the truth is, I received a request! Th-there is a President Kim who runs an errand center, and that human told me that he would send one of his employees so to absolutely include him in the drinking party…!”