‘I think I scolded him the moment I saw him.’
And on top of that—Yeon Taewoon standing here with the place he used to live as the backdrop. For no reason, Sihyun’s heart swelled, and his nose stung. He scrubbed at the tip of his nose once with his hand and quickly changed the subject.
"Anyway, forget that. Do you have anything else you’re curious about?"
"Is this where you live, Master?"
Honestly, Sihyun had no idea where to even start, or how much he should explain to Taewoon.
But the unexpected question cut in so suddenly that Sihyun blanked out, missed a beat, and had to answer slowly.
"No. Just temporarily. We can probably go back home tomorrow."
An F-rank Gate was something you could clear in a day if you were fast, two or three days at most. But they’d been stuck in there for a whole week, so the “rest time” they were supposed to get after the raid was already gone.
For Sihyun, though, it was actually a good thing. Tomorrow, he could get out of this unfamiliar place—and he wouldn’t have to hide Taewoon for long.
"I see. It’s so shabby that I was worried it wouldn’t be suitable for you, Master."
"Ah…."
I mean… my actual place isn’t exactly some dazzling palace either….
For a moment, Sihyun frowned as he tried to remember whether he’d cleaned the house before coming out.
‘I think I left in a hurry, so I didn’t even put away the bedding and clothes.’
While he was thinking hard with his brows drawn together, the idea of showing that house to his disciple was already starting to feel embarrassing.
Then Taewoon, who’d been staring at Sihyun, slowly parted his red lips and began speaking in a low voice.
"Master. I won’t ask what happened, or how. You must have had your reasons. But please—don’t do that again. I held your cold corpse, covered in blood, and spent days crying…. I wanted to die too."
As if he were listing the words deliberately to make Sihyun feel guilty, Taewoon laid them out so nakedly that Sihyun, of course, stiffened up like someone who’d committed a serious sin, not knowing what to do.
And when transparent tears fell like a period at the end of the sentence, Sihyun made the face of someone who’d lost the world, and without meaning to, he lifted his hand like he was possessed.
‘That crazy system bastard really went and did it.’
Sihyun had honestly suspected it, just in case. The system had wanted to torment Taewoon no matter what, so even if Sihyun had told it to hurry up and take care of his body, there was a high chance it would’ve ignored him.
But still—Would it really? There’s no way. It was a problem he’d unconsciously avoided thinking about.
"I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Taewoon."
He didn’t even know how many times he’d apologized just today. But the feeling of being truly sorry kept crashing over him without stopping.
When Sihyun stammered with a pale face, completely flustered, Taewoon watched him and let another tear roll down.
Of course, Taewoon knew it wasn’t something Sihyun had wanted. And leaving his master’s body there until it went cold was something that should never happen.
But his kind, compassionate master—if something similar happened again, he would obviously make the same choice again.
Taewoon wanted to carve it into him, again and again, so he couldn’t make that choice again.
If you’re gone, then I’m gone too.
Of course, even if he did it again, Taewoon had no intention of just sitting there and taking it like an idiot, either.
"Hug me."
"Huh—okay. Come here."
Still dazed, Sihyun wrapped his arms around Taewoon’s back as Taewoon came into his embrace, and he patted him. This wasn’t a kid who’d asked to be held like this since he was very little. He really must’ve been shocked badly.
‘Yeah. If it’d been Taewoon, I would’ve been seriously traumatized too.’
Sihyun swallowed down the sigh that was trying to burst out, and he tried hard to comfort his struggling disciple.
***
And the next day: the discharge ceremony.
It was usually an event that passed quietly, but today it was being carried out in a daze amid loud chatter and glances darting all over the place.
The cause was the Gate color-change incident from yesterday—the very Gate Sihyun had brought Taewoon out of.
From what he heard, the first witness wasn’t just anyone, either. They kept insisting it had changed into a color they’d never seen before.
Naturally, the media was making a fuss about it from every angle. And this morning, Hajung called after only belatedly finding out Sihyun was taking the Hunter test.
And she chewed him out like crazy for pulling shit without saying a word.
"Now! As Hunters, your individual ability is important! But you are people who carry the duty of protecting civilians! Please do not forget that!"
The instructor in charge of the training program was lecturing passionately into the noisy, buzzing auditorium. But of course, hardly anyone was listening—and Sihyun, already drained dry from Hajung’s nonstop nagging, was only waiting for this speech to end as fast as possible.
Once this was over, he needed to contact Gyumin and get his money, and he needed to feed Taewoon something good, too. His mouth corners kept twitching up on their own.
Then he felt someone sneaking closer. Sihyun turned his head right away, and his eyes met round eyes peeking out from between white hair.
"Oh. Yujun."
"Whoa. I came over carefully—how did you know…?"
At the kid’s innocent curiosity, Sihyun smiled with a playful edge.
"Just because."
"Ah…. O-Okay…."
Yujun clasped his hands together and fidgeted as he hesitated. It didn’t seem like he’d gotten comfortable enough yet to take jokes easily.
"I’m kidding. But why’d you come over?"
"Ah—I heard about that. They said there was an issue with the Gate you went into."
"Ahh, that. For me, there really wasn’t a problem."
"Honestly, I was really worried…."
When Yujun drooped and whispered softly, Sihyun chuckled and, out of habit, lifted his hand and ruffled the fluffy white hair a few times.
"Fuck."
Flinch.
At the curse he heard—very faintly—in the noisy auditorium, Sihyun narrowed his brows and looked around.
It was a voice he could only barely catch even with his sensitive hearing.
The place was already full of slang and swearing tossed around jokingly between people, but for some reason, that curse from earlier lodged itself in his head and bothered him.
‘What was that?’
As Sihyun tilted his head in confusion, Yeon Taewoon began staring hard at the human in front of him, suppressing the murderous intent surging up inside him.
By this world’s time, it had only been about two months. In that time, seeing his master with another strange thing stuck to his side again made it feel like Taewoon’s blood was turning cold.
Sihyun had always been like that in the past too.
With his mouth, he’d complain it was annoying—then he’d pick up pointless things anyway, from small rabbits to, at the largest, even some executioner bastard from the Northern Sea Ice Palace.
Should I kill him.
It seemed best to eliminate that little brat before Sihyun gave him any more of his heart.
But another thought shoved its way in. A feeling that Sihyun would hate it if he found out.
‘…Still, if I make up my mind and move, the weakened Master won’t notice.’
A dark red aura began to seep and coil up along Taewoon’s body.
Then, as if he’d sensed what Taewoon was thinking, Sihyun’s flat voice pierced into the darkly lowered space inside his head.
{Bored? Let’s eat something good later. It’s been a while—I’m gonna show you what I can do.}
Taewoon blinked a few times at the eyes that had been sinking heavier and heavier, then gave a small smile.
{But you can’t. The things Master makes taste bad. I’ll do it.}
{Ugh…. Fine.}
And the slightly sulky voice that followed was unbelievably adorable. Yeah—adorable enough that he didn’t want to show it to anyone.
Taewoon wanted to blow off the head of the guy yapping in front of him and hurry up and go to that place called “home.”
"So what are you going to do now?"
"Um… I don’t know. Honestly, with my ability and all…. I’m not even sure I can enter Gates…."
But Yujun, having no way to know what Taewoon was thinking, plopped his butt down in the seat right next to Sihyun without hesitation.
When the small kid let out a sigh like he was carrying all the worries in the world, Sihyun’s heart felt uncomfortable. But Sihyun had his own problems up to his neck, and he didn’t have any sharp solution, so he could only keep his mouth shut.
"Still… there has to be a way, right…?"
"Yeah. There’s no rule that says a person has to die. If it gets hard, call your big brother."
"Big brother’s… really like a dad. Thank you. Big brother…."
Sihyun froze for a moment, then tilted the end of his brows slightly and nodded slowly.
"Yeah."
Yujun, not knowing his life was being tossed back and forth in the shadows where he couldn’t see, put on the brightest smile he could manage.
Then the person who’d been giving a long speech on the stage finally declared the discharge ceremony—long awaited—over. Sihyun rubbed his tired eyes, stood up, saw Yujun off as he cheerfully said goodbye, then waited a moment for people to filter out before moving.
‘So this is the Hunter ID.’
Sihyun stared at the Hunter ID card that had finally ended up in his hand, his feelings complicated.
‘All that suffering over a stupid little piece of plastic.’
Still, because he’d met Taewoon thanks to it, and there was money coming in, he decided it was a net gain and let it go.
And it looked like his score had come out pretty well too. Sihyun let out a small snort of laughter as he saw the number 1 written next to the C-grade he’d rigged.
He wondered what he’d even done to get a “1st grade” evaluation, but thinking Sa Cheongrin’s influence probably played a pretty big role at the end, he could kind of understand it.
‘Still, I can’t let this settle it.’
After thinking for a moment about what he should squeeze out of them, Sihyun put the Hunter ID into his pocket. At that moment, he sensed a presence beside him, and even though he turned his head and couldn’t see any shadow, he fixed his eyes forward again like it was nothing.
{What—are you curious?}
{Yes.}
{I’ll show you when we get home.}
Taewoon was so cute, asking straight up if he was curious. For no reason, Sihyun dipped his head and covered his mouth, smiling secretly.
"Martial brother!!!"
At that moment, Sihyun—who’d been blankly lost in thought alone—frowned slightly at that old-fashioned form of address he thought he’d never hear again.
And it was a familiar voice he’d heard very recently.
A chill crawled up Sihyun’s skin. He tried to move away immediately, and he whipped his body around.