Episode 539
“How could you do that to me, junior?”
Jeong In-ho couldn’t get annoyed even with the lines that seemed like something out of a political drama.
“sorry.”
“How good have I been to you? “Really, everyone else can do that, but you can’t do that, you disgusting bastard.”
“I’m sorry….”
“I’ve put up with everything you’ve done so far, and this is how I repay your kindness?”
“I have committed a mortal sin.”
“Do you dare try to die? “Why should I die for doing something well?”
“Then please save me.”
please.
‘Lee Jae-heon, you son of a bitch.’
Why should I be criticized for something I didn’t do?
However, looking at the situation, Lee Jae-heon seemed truly shocked and could not say anything. It was obvious that if Jeong In-ho, his ‘junior’, got angry at a crazy person, he would be even more shocked.
‘No, in the first place, I don’t know if this is Lee Jae-heon getting angry or the ghost police officer getting angry…’
Anyway, the two were mixed together like strawberries and bananas in a blender, so there was no point in distinguishing between the two. You can’t spin it in a centrifuge. Jeong In-ho just resigned himself.
“I apologize.”
“I’ll accept it now, but if you do something like that again, I won’t let you go.”
“Oh, of course.”
“Anyway, I knew that I would be like this one day, since you were always so confrontational…”
Luckily, Jaeheon Lee calmed down on his own after about 10 minutes.
“It seems like you were out of your mind, so I will understand and move on.”
“thank you.”
I meant it. Even though I thought that someone as crazy as me was being stabbed in the back by a close junior, I was really thankful that he just nagged me for 10 minutes and moved on. At least you didn’t do a self-harm show or a sword dance.
Lee Jae-heon stared at Jeong In-ho, who was thinking that.
“….”
“….”
Gray eyes.
“…Why do you look at me like that?”
“Junior.”
“….”
I thought something was ominous, and eventually Lee Jae-heon burst out laughing.
“Have you come to kill me?”
Jeong In-ho’s smile, who was trying to understand the nonsense that came out of nowhere, soon twisted.
“no.”
“okay?”
“I will never kill the manager.”
“I don’t know.”
“It really makes people go crazy…”
It was going well, no, it never went well in the first place, but why has the atmosphere suddenly changed so drastically?
They say you can’t understand the thoughts of a crazy person, but I thought this was too severe.
‘I understand why Song In-myeong welcomed us so much when we arrived at the concert hall.’
They act like they’re just having a joke, but now they’re suddenly lost in their own world again. He seemed like a person suffering from bipolar disorder.
Jeong In-ho continued speaking while holding back a sigh.
“If you ask me that question, what do you really know now?”
“Huh…”
Lee Jae-heon sighed and muttered softly.
“That’s also true.”
Jaeheon Lee said that and kept his mouth shut.
Gray eyes slowly hide behind the eyelids and then come out. Feeling a little dazed, I quietly move towards the water tank.
What he was looking at was not Da-hoon Park, but the mermaids.
“….”
I don’t know why or how he was looking, but Jeong In-ho did not disturb him. It was because I knew that it was Lee Jae-heon’s rare rest.
He looked at Song In-myeong instead.
“…Has it been like this from the beginning?”
Song In-myeong, who was looking at Lee Jae-heon with a frown, answered.
“It was already in that state when we arrived.”
“Is your mind going back and forth?”
“I think it looks a lot better now than when I first saw it.”
Song In-myeong turned his eyes from Lee Jae-heon and looked at Jeong In-ho.
“At least we can talk now.”
“….”
“More than that, I’m curious. You said you were the main character?”
“…I guess the manager had the presence of mind to talk that far.”
“I don’t know how crazy that person has gone.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“But I heard a very strange sound. “You are the main character, and you are the villain because you are an obstacle to the main character… It was something with a nuance.”
“…Did the manager say that?”
“What on earth is that person thinking in his everyday life, saying that people will be happy if he dies because he is a villain? Do you understand?”
“If I had understood that, our situation would have been much better than it is now.”
In-ho Jeong did not hear the whole story from Jae-heon Lee.
However, Lee Jae-heon continued to say that he ‘had to die’ and seemed to hope that the main character, Jeong In-ho, would do the same. Lee Jae-heon acted like a person who did not understand why he was alive.
And ‘I had to die’ and ‘there is no reason to live’ are completely different things.
What Jaeheon Lee was talking about was clearly the former.
“I don’t know either.”
Jaeheon Lee has always been a person who creates secrets.
“That person doesn’t even tell us everyday stories.”
From the very trivial to deep stories about one’s destiny. For Jaeheon Lee, everything was a secret. That sometimes made Lee Jae-heon seem like a person out of touch with reality.
They act like guests who cannot participate in the play and are sitting alone in the audience.
“….”
“….”
Jaeheon Lee felt like a never-ending math problem.
When you solve something, another contradiction arises, and when you solve that contradiction, a contradiction arises somewhere else, and after you solve that, a new problem arises. That made people who were trying to figure out the answer exhausted.
But I know that no matter how much they complain or leave, Jaeheon Lee will still be there.
Because of that, his pride was hurt and he desperately wanted to hear Lee Jae-heon’s sincerity.
“…There’s nothing special about the chicks either.”
Jeong In-ho laughed softly at Song In-myeong’s words.
“Do you know why the manager treats us like chicks?”
“well?”
“You do that because you don’t feel like a person.”
It was a stigma.
“We are so weak and inadequate that we don’t feel like people like ourselves… but we are called chicks because we are the ones who need to be protected.”
It is a stigma created with consideration.
“That’s why I always worry.”
“….”
“How on earth can we make that person feel that we are of equal status? “What should we do to make them trust us?”
“…Has the conclusion been reached?”
“Roughly?”
“What.”
Jeong In-ho answered Song In-myeong’s question obediently.
“You shouldn’t treat that person like a human.”
“….”
“We have to treat them as tools, use them and ridicule them… I think only then will they treat us like people.”
That was the reason we continued to remain chicks.
Even if Lee Jae-heon didn’t see them as people, even they couldn’t treat Lee Jae-heon as a tool rather than a person.
“….”
“….”
Song In-myeong sighed deeply.
“It’s really hard to be treated like a human being.”
* * *
Treated like a human being.
“….”
Jaeheon Lee slowly blinked.
Even though it was quite far away, it was easy to hear the chicks chirping.
But it’s strange to be treated like a human being.
“….”
Jaeheon Lee softly coaxed.
“…People….”
I am already treating you like people.
It’s just that I’m not a person here.
“….”
A question suddenly arises.
Jaeheon Lee raised his hand and inserted his fingers into the clothes covering his neck. I felt a strange sensation, as if several layers of thin skin were sticking out.
I put my fingers into the gills.
“…Hmm….”
A warm, smooth unpleasant sensation.
It feels strangely like burying your fingers in the intestines of a freshly caught fish. Things like that tend to give off a fishy smell, but I wonder if I might smell like that too. Or will it smell like salt from the sea?
As I put my finger further in, I heard a cracking sound.
“….”
Are you a little out of breath?
‘…If you pull it out like this, it will last for a while…’
It was said that if you cut out the part where the mutation had progressed, the mutation would temporarily stop.
However, ‘temporary’ means that it will be regenerated soon, so how fast will it be?
‘If you pull it out, it will still be for a while…’
What can you do for that moment?
“….”
I’m not sure yet.
I do not know.
“….”
In the end, the finger that I removed from the neck without pulling anything out was bright red and wet.
“ah.”
I’m bleeding.
* * *
―…Then, take care.
“Yes, Detective, please be careful until you reach the park. “I don’t know what kind of monster will come out.”
―Thank you for your concern.
I looked down at the cell phone in my hand as the contact was suddenly cut off.
She handed it over to Seo Jang-hwa, the owner of the cell phone.
“Here’s your phone.”
“Hey.”
“Anyway, we’re kind of lucky.”
Jeong Eun-woo, Seo Jang-hwa, and Park Da-young, who went to look for wetsuits, came to ‘Stream Friends’ after seeing the fish picture on the stamp map. And Seo Jang-hwa, with his monstrous physical ability, was able to jump over the stream while holding Park Da-young and reach where Kim Ki-jeong and Do-yoon Han were.
Jung Eun-woo also saw what Seo Jang-hwa was doing and followed suit, so now all the survivors of the aquarium, excluding those in the performance hall, were gathered at the friends by the stream.
“So, I didn’t know this was a real wetsuit…”
Han Do-yoon smiled awkwardly and held on tightly to the ring that was trying to run away.
“Thank goodness we already have what you were looking for.”
“No, before we had such a warm conversation.”
Kim Ki-jeong joined in with a grumpy look on his face.
“Are you really human?”
“Are you suddenly treating me like a monster?”
“What kind of art student in the world would cross this wide bottom of the water like that? Janghwa Student…” “
I saw you crossing ‘that way’ earlier, so you’re really making a fuss. People who exercise aren’t even human? “A monster?”
“You know that’s not what I’m saying.”
Seo Jang-hwa pointed at Jeong Eun-woo with a look that said, ‘Then why don’t you say anything to her?’ and Kim Ki-jeong firmly waved his hand at her behavior.
“It’s a different story over there.”
“This isn’t a person either?”
“Actually, I don’t really feel like a person. Why did you say you were the secretary of this party…”
Jeong Eun-woo smiled awkwardly.
“I think I know what this party’s image feels like among you.”
“No, I didn’t particularly curse….”
“I don’t mind swearing, but I would like you to be careful not to let it fall into the Chairman’s ears, Conductor Kim Ki-jeong.”
“….”
Kim Ki-jeong hid behind Do-yoon Han in silence.
Han Do-yoon smiled bitterly, as if he was sad, and willingly hid Kim Ki-jeong, and Jeong Eun-woo no longer scared Kim Ki-jeong. Jeong Eun-woo had an ambiguous smile on his face that made it difficult to guess whether he was genuinely worried or simply wanted to play a prank.
Park Da-young hit Jung Eun-woo on the back.
“Why are you making fun of people? “I’m already a mentally weak person.”
“I wonder what it would be like for an adult to be worried about his or her mental ability by a high school student…”
“I might be worried too.”
“That’s not it, I was wondering what conductor Kim Ki-jeong would like to hear.”
“ah.”
Kim Ki-jeong, who received the high school student’s sincere concern, hid even more closely behind Do-yoon Han.
They decided that talking about any more related topic would cause great damage to Kim Ki-jeong’s pride, so they exchanged glances and decided to move on to talking about the ring.
Han Do-yoon said as he handed the ring to Jeong Eun-woo.
“Anyway, our secretary has to wear this ring? “Then it would be better for the secretary to keep it.”
“I would be grateful if you could trust me and leave it to me.”
“Wow, I was thinking about it earlier, but your voice sounds like an announcer. cool.”
“I tend to pay close attention to everything so that I can express my thoughts properly. Thank you for the compliment.”
Jeong Eun-woo put the ring he received from Do-yoon Han on his finger.
“uh? uh?”
“Um… I don’t feel any physical changes happening right away, but…”
“Is it okay to put it on right away like that?”
“I thought that if I had to use it anyway, it would be better to check in advance to see if there were any problems.”
Ignoring Han Do-yoon, who was looking at him with a look of ‘What on earth is this person talking about?’, Jeong Eun-woo gently touched the ring on his finger. Jeong Eun-woo, who was carefully analyzing the ring and himself, soon took the ring out and said.
“It’s a little unusual, but wearing the ring makes me feel suffocated.”
“Let’s see if it has gills.”
“I didn’t feel any changes that would lead to physical transformation. “It feels very difficult to breathe, as if you are breathing with your entire body wrapped in plastic, but I doubt whether this can actually function as a wetsuit.”
The ring trembled at the disappointed tone.
“….”
“He was shaking just now.”
“You’re pitiful.”
Eunwoo Jeong patted the ring.
And the ring was even more scared. It didn’t even have a face, so I wondered how it could show its emotions so well, but it was clearly scared.
“…?”
Han Do-yoon said, ignoring Jeong Eun-woo, who looked a little surprised and aggrieved.
“I said I had to look easy.”
“….”
“I said we should become friends.”
“…human relationships are so difficult.”
“He’s not even human.”
“Mental connection and interaction are too difficult.”
Park Da-young heard Seo Jang-hwa mutter, ‘So he must have abandoned his nephew who had just become an adult and ran away.’
Park Da-young seemed quite annoyed, so she just let Seo Jang-hwa get angry.
(Continued in the next part)
