Chapter 126 – Parasite (2)

Parasite (2)

It’s someday

It wasn’t even that long ago. Since it was high school, it was less than 5 years ago.

Like all high school students, I was also a student with a lot of needs.

Immature kids in school uniforms who can’t live up to the small amount of pocket money their parents give them.

Ironically, I was in a better situation than them.

Even if it’s not ‘love’, it’s because the pocket money I received thanks to ‘duty’ was quite good.

But even that wasn’t enough.

Because I had something my peers didn’t have.

Status window.

My most special secret—

Only your own treasure.

Is that why?

Now that I think about it, the reason for all my actions came down to the status window.

From studying hard, working hard, making friends evenly – to things I can’t even say.

Almost every action was a struggle to unlock the status window.

Anyway, there is one thing I want to say through this trivial and boring past story.

I had an obligation to unlock the status window—

This duty required money.

From studying or exercising, to visiting famous historical sites or visiting spiritual spots, and so on.

All the special experiences that the status window predicted to be unlockable required money.

So I had to earn money.

I needed money for this money-sucking hippo who couldn’t solve it even with the generous allowance given by the orphanage.

Looking back, I think I did almost everything a student could do.

Of course, the ones with strong pay were all things that regarded the label ‘illegal’ as a badge of honor, but I tried not to cross the last line.

He also has a very cautious personality…

In the first place, I had neither the ability nor the desire to do such an illegal part-time job.

After excluding such illegal part-time jobs, there were not many ways for students who had not yet reached adulthood to earn money.

One of those few things comes to mind.

Flyer part-time job.

And when you think of a part-time flyer job, one person’s face comes to mind.

Hyunsoo Kim.

He was the younger brother at the orphanage who was one year older than me.

No, it was just another orphan with no connection other than that they lived together in the same orphanage.

But the reason I remember his name is because Kim Hyun-soo introduced me to a part-time flyer job.

Because he was also a bit of an odd little brother.

Even when he asked me to introduce a part-time job flyer, he smiled lightly and said, ‘I won’t be bored if I go with my brother.’

When asked why he was doing part-time flyers, he said, ‘Just. The more money, the better, right?”

He was definitely a very different child from the rest of the orphanage.

There were three main types of nursery school students I had seen until then.

First, the helpless type in everything.

Because you didn’t hit the most important first button in your life, you never learned how to do it, or you learned it too late—

These were the kids who had a hard time putting their second button on.

Children who are very passive and do not like to talk about their future, dreams, and future aspirations.

Quiet children who were indifferent to everything, no, lethargic and did not show their emotions easily, belonged to this category.

Unlike the first category, the second category is children who are overly active.

The kind desperate to reveal themselves.

These children stand out more when volunteers or sponsors come than when they are with the same nursery school students.

Unlike other nursery school students who are shy and look down on volunteers, the children approach them kindly.

When he feels the gaze of the volunteers, he acts somewhat over and exaggeratedly, and when their gaze disappears, he approaches them and asks them to look only at himself—

Poor affection lackers who are trying to fill the affection that they should have received.

The third were children full of rage.

The kind of kids who are full of anger for ‘very obvious reasons’ that everyone who is there and who visits it knows.

Children who have a fire that will burn forever in their hearts and blow fire in all directions to extinguish it.

Poor bullies who are extremely aggressive in everything, which is why they are the most extremely defensive of the children in the orphanage.

However, it was not Kim Hyun-soo.

He was a child who did not belong to any of the three categories of children I had seen.

No, at the time I thought I was a child who didn’t belong yet.

It must have been winter.

The days when I worked part-time for flyers with Kim Hyun-soo.

It was so cold that the whole body seemed to be frozen in a cold winter.

It is not so easy to hand out leaflets to people who are busily going back and forth in leader with both hands deeply tucked in their pockets.

People who pass by desperately avoiding my eyes before they even get close to me.

Some frowned as they were, while others muttered curses as if to please listen.

However, it didn’t feel too bad.

Maybe if it were me, I would have felt the same way.

However, I was curious.

The reason why Kim Hyun-soo’s flyers were lighter than my flyers, which were piled up because I couldn’t finish the quota every time.

At first, I thought it was the difference in experience between an expert and a novice, but it was an amount that could not be overcome by a simple difference in experience.

That’s why I asked Kim Hyun-soo.

How do you empty the flyer so quickly.

To my question, Kim Hyun-soo shrugged his shoulders and answered with a very calm face.

‘Isn’t there anything so great or special? Would you like to take a look?’

After the break, Kim Hyun-soo’s area followed along.

There, Kim Hyun-soo showed me how he handed out flyers.

A winter night with a sharp wind blowing beyond the chilliness.

Kim Hyun-soo approached a couple walking on the sidewalk.

And then-

‘Hello!’

He bowed his head and said hello in a bright voice.

A couple stopped walking as if taken aback by the sudden greeting.

And to the couple, Kim Hyun-soo very politely handed out the leaflet he was holding.

‘…’

A very short, one-second gap.

After that void, the man’s hand slowly takes over the leaflet Kim Hyun-soo was holding.

‘Thank you!’

Hyunsoo Kim thanked the man who received the leaflet in a very bright voice.

A man responds with a short nod, and a woman crosses her arms again and urges him on his way.

After receiving the leaflet and leaving the couple behind, Kim Hyun-soo returned.

‘What—isn’t there anything so great or special?’

Hyunsoo Kim shrugs just like when I first asked.

He laughed with the white steam rising out of his mouth.

‘It’s just a matter of making the other person have no choice but to receive the flyer. Uhm- what can I say…’

Kim Hyun-soo frowned and seemed to be contemplating an easier explanation.

He stretched out his finger and cock-pointed at himself.

‘If you don’t accept something from such a polite and kind-hearted student, it’s like the person who doesn’t receive it becomes a bad person, doesn’t it?’

That moment.

‘That’s why I have no choice but to accept the flyer.’

I felt a strange feeling that even I couldn’t understand.

A smile that stays on the corner of the mouth with light dimples.

Red-ripened cheeks nestled next to him, and Heoyeon Kim, still fluttering between us.

And Kim Hyeon-soo’s two eyes still twinkle even though Heo-yeon Kim flutters.

It was an unfamiliar feeling for the first time.

It’s a feeling that I only vaguely know now that a few more years have passed.

Because I’ve always lived to prove myself special-

Every time I say I’m different from you guys, it’s because I’ve been watching the kids from a few steps behind…

It is a feeling that is not easily accepted.

When you see something special in a kid who was expected to fall into one of the three categories of daycare sooner or later—

The moment I thought that I might be an orphan no different from Kim Hyeon-soo, no different from the three categories of the orphanage…

‘Throw away.’

I whispered involuntarily.

I pointed to a leaflet lying on the ground with my finger extended.

‘Did they just throw it away right away?’

At my point, Kim Hyun-soo turned his head.

I looked at the back of the couple leaving the leaflet they had just received and threw it on the ground, then turned my head again.

‘It can’t be helped.’

And he answered calmly.

‘It’s also something that has nothing to do with us. After all, if we succeed in handing out flyers, our job is over, right? After that, it’s up to the recipient.’

It’s a common story.

An ordinary memory that everyone has.

But the moment that I can’t forget as if it was strangely stuck in my head.

Is that why?

“President.”

Looking at the four students being dragged by Linnea and the search team, I remembered that time.

The moment when I worked part-time with Kim Hyun-soo on a cold winter night.

“These are the survivors hiding in the loner’s break room. According to the investigation during the dragging, they claim that they are Yonsei University students who have been hiding in the loner hall ever since the zombie apocalypse occurred.”

Kim Woo-jung, who runs to me first and reports the progress.

I glanced over at the four students who were walking hesitantly while listening to the report of the 1 trillion won search that I had raised myself.

A face covered with greasy hair and black patches.

A very unpleasant smell that gets stronger the closer you get to the piece of cloth that you don’t know if it’s clothes or rags.

I caught two male students and two female students who did not neglect to look at the surroundings anxiously even though they were not escorted by Linnea and the search team.

It was a look that made sense just by looking at it.

At least a few weeks to a few months of hardships It looks like it’s a miserable appearance.

It’s a basic story of a zombie apocalypse that seems to have been cut off from civilization for a very long time, as if it had gone on an expedition to a remote area.

… At Yonsei University.

The 4 survivors who remain in the strategic area that the ruler of Seodaemun-gu would have plundered without leaving out a speck of dust.

No, since we haven’t searched the entire Yonsei University yet, more survivors could have remained here.

No, someone could have left it.

“… Are you okay. You will be safe now.”

Linnea’s strong reading skills, supporting a female student who seems to have difficulty moving.

I put her in her field of vision as she had a soft smile all the time, as if I couldn’t even smell her disgusting scent that clearly vibrated even from a little distance away.

Her twisted smile kept on as she watched her Linnea hand pat her schoolgirl on the shoulder.

If those four idiots were Baeksan’s helpers—

Just as I sent Chun-shik to Nam Do-yoon, if Yeon Si-woo is giving me a gift—

What kind of expedient did the temporary protection period go over?

“President.”

The eunuch standing right next to me cautiously called me.

Bringing survivors outside, quiet eyes asking what to do next.

I didn’t immediately respond to those eyes and swung at the search crew.

Except for Linnea, who was carefully supporting one of the female students, all the search crew were looking at me.

Surrounding the survivors, the hands fidgeting with the weapons in their hands.

After seeing the weapons glowing ominously with dark red light, I turned my head back.

Baeksan’s supernatural powers are still quietly watching over us.

Lynnea, who works hard to comfort her trembling female student, and the search crew who are waiting for my order.

And-

Even Kim Hyun-soo, who was talking about Heo-yeon Kim.

“Put them in the car.”

It was a flyer I had no choice but to receive.

A leaflet that cannot be easily given up because it is a ‘king’ who has more power when there are more rulers.

An attractive lure for two precious men in their twenties and, as a bonus, two women in their twenties.

Okay.

This was a flyer Yeon Si-woo had no choice but to accept.

But that wasn’t the point.

This wasn’t a part-time job where everything ended the moment you handed out flyers.

After handing over the flyer—

‘Anyone who receives it?’
‘Yes.’

Deciding what to do with that flyer is—

‘The recipient is free.’

Because you are the recipient.