Chapter 96
You son of a bitch.
I glared at Shin Hae-jun sitting in the back seat through the rearview mirror. However, Shin Hae-jun just stared out the window, lost in thought, not meeting my gaze at all. What a damn frustrating guy.
We were on our way back to the Seoul shelter in Oh Habin’s car. To my left was Oh Habin, and in the back seat was Shin Hae-jun. So I had been glaring at Shin Hae-jun like this the whole way, but he seemed to pay no mind to someone like me, absorbed in his own thoughts. Hah, who should be absorbed in thought right now?
“Ahyeon-ah.”
“Are you really angry at me because you believe your brother is still alive?”
His words implied that my brother was already dead, rendering everything I was doing useless. Naturally, I exploded in anger. Was he out of his mind? Did he think like that all along? Wasn’t that what he meant? Shin Hae-jun was about to respond when Oh Habin intervened, and since then, we’ve been traveling in silence toward the shelter.
Are you really angry at me because you believe your brother is still alive?
Shin Hae-jun’s words kept echoing in my ears. Do I really believe that my brother is alive? I closed my eyes tightly. Thump, as I hit my temple against the side window of the passenger seat, then close my eyes.
I know too. I know there’s no way to tell if my brother Woo-joo is alive or not. He may even be more likely to be the latter.
But so what? Does that mean I should give up? Should I give up because the chances of him being dead are greater?
I couldn’t. No, that wasn’t one of my options. Whatever happened, I had to see Woo-joo with my own two eyes. If Woo-joo was dead, I had to see his corpse, and if he was alive, I would naturally embrace him and whisper my love. No, no. Woo-joo is not dead. He must be alive. They, the researchers inside the lab, wouldn’t have let Woo-joo die. Because Woo-joo was the vaccine and the cure itself that could resolve this crisis.
I lifted my head, shook it a couple times, and slapped my cheeks. Get a grip, Min Ahyeon. Don’t get carried away by negative thoughts, I muttered to myself.
“Um, Lieutenant, no, I have something to ask you.”
Then, Oh Habin, who had been focused on driving, spoke up. He asked in a very careful, whispering voice,
“Did you two fight?”
“……”
I hesitated for a moment because I didn’t know what to say. But then, in that moment, it seemed like Shin Hae-jun heard Oh Habin’s whisper, and his voice came through.
“We didn’t fight.”
Then he leaned forward, grabbed the headrest of the passenger seat, and looked at me.
“Right, Lieutenant Min?”
His shameless face came into view. Seeing him made me even more furiously angry. ot only did he hide the fact that he was an experimental subject, but he also made fun of my brother, and now he acted so nonchalant? I really think this guy has gone insane, so I decided to go insane too.
“No. We fucking fought. So I’m cutting Shin Hae-jun off completely.”
“Oh my gosh.”
Oh Habin looked astonished, seeing me drop the “General” before Shin Hae-jun’s name for the first time, and Shin Hae-jun’s lips twisted. He managed to force a smirk, lifting the corners of his mouth.
“Now you won’t even refer to me as General?”
“Ah! I told you, I’m a deserter! Why should I think of you as my superior?”
“You? You called me ‘you’ just now?”
“I did. So what?!”
I also twisted my body and yelled right in Shin Hae-jun’s face. This was the first time I had gone off like this, but once I did, it didn’t seem like a big deal and even felt refreshing. I was thinking about just cursing him out when—
“Um, I’m sorry.”
Oh Habin cut in.
His face had turned pale in an instant and covered his mouth with one hand.
“Wouldn’t it be better if you two went outside to fight? I can’t handle this kind of thing.”
It was like, how should I put it? It felt like a couple fighting with a child in the middle. I pinched the bridge of my nose, and Shin Hae-jun also clicked his tongue and turned his head away. The argument had subsided for the moment.
“……”
An awkward silence followed. The rumbling sound of the moving car was the only thing punctuating the stillness… Shin Hae-jun turned his gaze back out the window while I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes.
“Are you really angry at me because you believe your brother is still alive?”
I tried my best to ignore the bastard’s words that kept coming to mind.
🕂
Finally.
Oh Habin let out an exclamation as the store of Choi Yongcheol came into view in the distance.
He didn’t know what was going on, but being stuck between the awful atmosphere of Ahyeon and Shin Hae-jun, Oh Habin had been so miserable. The awkward mood was suffocatingly painful, and the chilly air made him feel like vomiting. Since this was related to his trauma, he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, and finally!
He shuddered and stepped on the accelerator. Before long, they arrived at Yongcheol’s store.
“Get off. Let’s go, quickly. Hurry up.”
Habin hurriedly said to Ahyeon, and Ahyeon chuckled, opening the door.
“I was going to anyway.”
As Ahyeon got out of the car, the back door suddenly flung open too.
“Huh? Why are you getting out, General?”
Shin Hae-jun, who had exited the car, replied nonchalantly.
“I have something to say to D.I.”
“D.I…? Oh, that informant?”
“Yeah.”
He gave a light nod and tried to head toward Yongcheol’s store. But someone was blocking his way—Ahyeon.
“Who said you could just barge in? Aren’t you going to ask the owner’s permission?”
Shin Hae-jun let out a laugh.
“Isn’t this D.I.’s place? Lieutenant Min’s permission doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“It’s Yongcheol’s home, but it’s also where I’m currently staying. You can’t just bring a guest in when your housemate objects, can you?”
“Housemate?”
As soon as Shin Hae-jun heard the word “housemate”, he pictured Min Ahyeon being intimate with Choi Yongcheol, and thought “Shit”, barely managing to collect his thoughts while muttering under his breath. Couldn’t she just say she’s staying there? Did she really have to use the term “housemate”? Is she trying to piss him off?
“So please leave quickly. I’m already being generous by not raising my voice any higher.”
“Lieutenant Min. Are you going to keep acting this way?”
“I will until you admit you were in the wrong.”
Shin Hae-jun frowned at Ahyeon.
“Did I say something wrong? No. I was just stating facts.”
“That’s exactly what lacking social awareness means. Even if it’s a fact, you need to discern what you can and cannot say.”
“Ah, now you’re lecturing me about social awareness? The one who lacked it so much she was demoted in the military?”
Ahyeon’s smugly sarcastic expression froze. She was reminded of the past when she had fought with a colleague and been demoted to a rural post. Ahyeon ran her fingers through her hair in frustration.
“Aren’t you sorry to me?”
“Sorry for what?”
Shin Hae-jun asked because he genuinely didn’t understand. What was she saying he should feel remorseful for? For hiding being an experimental subject? Didn’t she do the same? Ahyeon also kept everything about the research institute tightly under wraps until later too, didn’t she? He just did the same, so why is she angry at him?
And regarding what he said about her brother, while it may have been a blunder due to his lack of social awareness as she said, he didn’t think it was wrong. After all, he had merely stated facts, because he wanted her to face reality.
Shin Hae-jun felt somewhat unjustly accused. The reason he revealed being an experimental subject to Ahyeon was exactly as he said—after finding traces of his friend Baekje-ha yet being powerless to do anything about it, he became overwhelmingly lonely and ended up opening up to Ahyeon as a last resort of sorts. But Ahyeon showed no empathy or understanding for his loneliness at all.
This seemed to be the biggest difference between Ahyeon and himself, Shin Hae-jun thought with a wry smile.
“What’s there to be sorry about.”
Then, with a somewhat deflated expression, Ahyeon muttered,
“…Alright. I guess you could think that way.”
“Min Ahyeon.”
“I understand we’re departing tomorrow. Let’s head to Taean first.”
Ahyeon’s face instantly became emotionless and dry as she said,
“Because after that, we’ll never see each other again.”
🕂
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