Chapter 97 – Identifying Friends (4)

Identify peers (4)

Sniff-! Sniff-!

A cute little snoring sound.

Cha Seol-hee, who was wiping away her tears with a tissue, smiled slightly as she looked at Linnea’s reddened nose.

After a sudden emotional encounter, the girls sat across from each other at the table.

“Why did you lose contact all of a sudden, sister?”

Because of that, my sister…

Cha Seol-hee, unable to speak at the end, takes the tissue paper to her eyes again.

Lynnea, who had been listening to her trembling question, wept together.

“I lost my phone.”
“What? Since when?”
“On the first day the monsters appeared… I don’t know where the phone went, everyone is scattered, and suddenly a strange letter floats in front of my eyes…”

Linnea struggles with the first day when it was difficult to keep her sane.

Cha Seol-hee quietly reached out and grabbed her hand, which was placed on the table.

“… It must have been really hard, my sister.”
“…”

At Seolhee’s warm consolation, Linnea smiled lightly and shook her head.

Tea Seol-hee’s eyes shone more affectionately at the smile of her older sister, who was trying to be calm towards her younger brother.

“… But my Korean has gotten better. You used to be fluent, but now you’re completely Korean?”
“Really?”
“Okay~! You don’t need Korean training anymore, right?”
“… That’s right. Now, if you look at the test, you can always get a perfect score…”

Memories that make it awkward to recall how much time has passed.

Linnea smiled awkwardly as she looked at her brother, who had always been with them in those memories.

Tea Seol-hee squeezes her hand tighter against her smile.

“By the way, what did the leader suddenly say? When was the first time that we were asked to decide a leader by age, who hated it and refused?”
“… I know.”

Even when she thinks about it, Linnea bursts into laughter as if this situation is funny.

She muttered quietly as she looked at the scabbard leaning against her table.

“… This is how she ended up just trying to survive.”

Linnea lifted her head and looked around the room they were in.

Originally, the space should have been a classroom at the language education center.

But now a small conference room that will never return to its original purpose.

And she, too, has become a different person who can never return to the past.

“Then Nam Do-yoon and Seong Joon-gi came to the dormitory―there they suddenly told me that Hayan-yi had been kidnapped…”

The first reason and starting point for the dormitory and the College of Agriculture to join forces.

“Uh– strictly speaking, it’s not kidnapping, it’s what I asked for.”
“It seems so. Seol-hee, you came from that person’s side.”

That person.

Cha Seol-hee nodded her head slightly, recalling the face of the person mentioned in Linnea’s mouth.

Hayani, Seolhee and me.

The names of the members chanted while confirming that Seolhee Cha nodded.

As Linnea recalled her unfinished High Queens, she asked her again.

“… Are there really no lanes there?”
“…”

Cha Seol-hee smiled bitterly at Linnea’s question and shook her head slowly.

“Rain unnie must be alive somewhere. She’s not her character that’s her sister where she might be getting bad things.”
“…”
“That’s why the three of us have to work together even more, sister. You have to find Lain unni too quickly.”
“Of course.”

Rinna nodded her head without hesitation.

Cha Seol-hee leaned closer to Linnea, who answered as she thought.

“I have to find Raein unnie too, and she’s getting along well with me and Hayanie ― does she have a reason to fight with her unnie and that person?”
“…”
“Sister?”

Unlike a moment ago, the answer did not immediately jump out.

Cha Seol-hee looked at the slightly furrowed brow for the first time and called Linnea again.

“… Are you really okay, Seolhee?”

Her first words as she just looked down at her hands that were holding her together for a while.

Linnea raised her trembling eyes and looked at Seol-hee gently.

“The man named Jang Deok-gu who was next to him.”
“…”
“You’re such a bad person, Seolhee.”

Rinnea continued her words with a firm grip on Seol-hee and her hand.

“Nam Doyoon is protecting the people who suffered from what he did. I was also able to meet those people when I went to agricultural college.”

Linnea recalled the female survivors who were distinctly different from other people.

She walks, breathes, and eats just like everyone else, but—

The strangely awkward and broken atmosphere of human beings themselves.

I remembered their empty eyes again.

“Nam Doyoon did that to that person. There’s a black guy next to a black guy. And-“

I agree with that idea.

Linnea’s last words were flowing softly.

Cha Seol-hee continued to meet her own eyes with her own, her eyes staring at her with her concern.

“… It’s called geunsiljaheuk.”
“… Uh- Geun… What?”
“No.”

Linnae narrows her eyes at the sudden lion swearing.

Cha Seol-hee smiled at her and shook her head.

“Sister.”

The hand that was already tightly holding her hand was wiggling again.

“It is too much to judge a person by such fragmentary pieces.”
“…”
“Besides, it’s even more so to be so sure when you don’t know the truth.”

A calm, sweet voice that subsided lightly.

Cha Seol-hee smiled lightly as she held the hand of Linnea, who was looking at her quietly.

“And that’s what we know better than anyone else.”

Gossip and rumors popping up every day.

Articles full of provocative keywords that are easy to chew and eat without actually checking the facts.

People who only believe in those rumors and articles, and soon conclude that they are such people.

All of them were so painful pains they went through together.

“Why don’t you go to the library with me?”
“… Library?”
“Huh. You can go to the library this time, just like your sister went to agricultural college.”

Isn’t it too late to see it with your own eyes and then judge?

The hesitation did not leave Linnea’s face despite Cha Seol-hee’s calm invitation.

“Seolhee, you believe in me unconditionally… That person-“

Even if you don’t connect all the ending words, your inner thoughts have already come out.

“… To be honest, I’m going to be a little sad, sister.”
“… Sorry. But if I’m gone, I won’t be the only one who dies—”

She was the one who, at some point, was no longer alone.

Precious people who have harmed this dangerous world together.

I couldn’t put people who were special in a different way from Seol-hee and Hayan-yi into danger.

Tea Seol-hee, who was looking at Linnae, who was crying with a very sorry expression, suddenly burst into laughter at her feet.

She continued her words, looking at her Linnea, who was a little startled by her sudden laughter.

“Ah—sorry, sister. Because the situation he was talking about is real—it’s a little strange.”
“… That person?”
“Huh. He has a gift for her sister to give her when she hesitates.”
“… Gift?”

Linnea repeats only vague questions in questions and answers that can’t be easily guessed.

Cha Seol-hee smiled slightly at Linnea’s question and nodded her head.

“Huh. Gift.”

***

Tumble- Tumble- Tumble-

Just like any other day, the sound of footsteps echoing through the Agricultural College infirmary.

Namdo Yoon raised his gaze a little upward and looked at Sung Joon-ki going back and forth from the infirmary, and he also raised his gaze upward.

[03:22:40:27]

The time limit was steadily decreasing by one second.

“Because you’re crazy, Junki.”
“Ah-sorry.”

Sung Joon-gi stops his steps in an unusual reaction to Nam Do-yoon’s bruise.

Nam Do-yoon leaned against the wall and narrowed his eyes to Sung Joon-gi, who continued to stare at the time limit.

“… What is it all of a sudden?”
“Huh? What?”
“At this point, it’s definitely the timing for you to have a seizure, but you’re laughing a little unluckily.”

Nam Do-yoon pointed at the corner of his mouth and asked, Sung Joon-gi quietly removed the smile from his mouth.

“It’s just— I feel like I’ve finally lost a tooth I’ve been sick with.”
“…”
“I couldn’t sleep all day because of this, and I felt really sorry to Whitey to the point of dying.”

Seong Joon-gi starts chewing each letter in a somewhat calm tone.

“Now, after this time limit, you can find Whitei again. If you kill that bastard, everything will be solved.”
“… Well.”

At the end, Sung Joon-gi, who was almost growling, frowned at Nam Do-yoon’s answer.

“Well, what’s the point of freezing? Doyoon Nam: You’re not thinking the kind of Hogu I think, are you?”

Sung Joon-gi’s bloodshot eyes reveal both surprise and earnestness.

Nam Do-yoon answered while slightly avoiding that heated gaze.

“Anyway, let’s just think about subduing him.”
“… What next?”
“We have to set the punishment for his crime.”
“No, where is the penalty to be set here? It’s just an unconditional death penalty!”

A gesture of shaking the back that was leaning against the wall as if to reveal absurdity.

Nam Do-yoon firmly continued to talk to Seong Joon-gi, who began to glow like any other day.

“If you deal with criminals like that, it’s no different from the rest of the world.”
“…”

Sung Joon-gi’s face, which goes beyond the stuffiness, brings all the blood in his body.

Sung Joon-gi, whose face was almost reddened from red, frowned arrogantly and grabbed his brow.

“There’s no need to put on a face that’s so frustrating that you’re about to die. It is because we will take due process and time to deliver a punishment that everyone agrees on.”
“… Still, that bastard is a bastard to be searched for.”

Nam Do-yoon’s answer made Seong Joon-gi nervously bang his back against the wall, scratching his brain.

Took-!

“… Know.”

A voice tapping the desk in the infirmary with a finger and replying.

It was only then that Sung Joon-gi leaned his back against the wall with a more comfortable face.

“One world.”

Nam Do-yoon’s whispers in his ears.

“If you put all the unsolved puzzles in one world, it makes sense.”

The reason why the children who fell due to Lee Yu-jin’s poison suddenly got up.

It was most likely because Han Se-gye had killed Lee Yu-jin.

Besides- the dark white kidnapper who was wrapped in a veil.

The identity of the guy he frantically wanted to know was also one world.

“… Garbage on a different level from Lee Yu-jin and Jang Deok-gu.”

Thud-!

“Fuck-! If you’ve made a joke, you can just cool it off and finish it on the spot. Identification of peers is what identification of peers!”

The resentment pouring out along with the kick hitting the wall the sole of the shoe was leaning against.

Nam Do-yoon looked at Seong Joon-gi, who was showing off his unresolved anger.

“… Whites and blacks. You’re assuming us as an army and inducing a war. Perhaps the intention is to engage in skirmishes or information warfare before a full-scale war.”
“No—you just have to split all sides and stick together, so what kind of skirmish is this?”
“It’s probably giving you a chance to change being on that side.”
“… Huh?”

Sung Joon-gi’s half-word that comes out rather stupidly.

However, Sung Joon-gi, who gradually raised his eyes wide, hurriedly opened his mouth while looking at Nam-do Yoon.

“No way… You’re not talking about Ms. Linnea, are you? That person is a High Queens member like Hayan.”
“Know. Besides, Mr. Linnea is a good person who has seen the camp members who suffered from Jang Deok-gu. More than that—the problem is that this identification period is a disadvantageous time only for us.”
“… Is it only against us?”

Nam Do-yoon nodded at Sung Joon-gi’s question and continued.

“Perhaps one world is blocking its territory with violence and all sorts of rubbish. Of course, it would be a structure where there would be no runaways or fugitives. On the other hand, our door is wider than the one world.”

“Nobody knows what crap he’ll do with that open door. We need to keep our heads up and protect the campers.”

4 days.

Nam Do-yoon blinked as he looked at the time limit floating above his field of vision.

“After making sure to protect the camp members until four days later, I will conquer the world.”
“What? No, me?!”
“How can I let you go when you don’t know what kind of vicious moves that son of a bitch will use? I’ll take care of that bastard myself.”
“No, there is a soldier, so why go out first so that the king falls down? Haven’t you ever played chess?”
“… Chess?”
“Yeah, you bastard! … No fuck, why are you looking at me like that?!”
“Do you know chess too?”
“… This bastard looks at me like a complete asshole.”

Nam Do-yoon bursts into laughter at Sung Joon-gi’s tone, which is gradually accumulating life.

Nam Do-yoon, who was laughing loudly, replied with a small wave of his hand.

Haha—just kidding, kidding. When I’m in charge of Han Se-gye, someone has to save White Lee.”
“…”
“Who are you sending to that job other than Junki?”

… Ah.

A sigh escaped from Sung Joon-gi’s mouth, which opened slightly belatedly.

The first reason to punish a world, and a precious camp member that he failed to protect.

The moment Sung Joon-gi silently nodded his head at Nam Do-yoon’s gaze looking at him calmly.

Bang-!

With a gasping sound, someone slammed open the door to the infirmary.

“Brother Doyoon—! Brother Doyoon—!”

One of the camp members of the College of Agriculture pointed out the window at Nam Do-yoon with his eyes wide open.

“Gee, white people outside right now hehe—came for me, bro—!”
“…”
“I heard the white one came!”

Nam Do-yoon is staring blankly at himself despite his report.

Nam Do-yoon hurriedly got up from his seat as he shouted again as if he was frustrated.

Took-!

The body hurriedly colliding with the camper standing in front of the door and running away.

Wedge- Wedge-!

In an instant, Nam Do-yoon made his way through the hallways and stairs, waving through the wind that wrapped around his face.

Ignoring the heart that was starving for air at the sudden movement, the next foot took a quicker step.

Nam Do-yoon jumped the last step, feeling his bangs getting tangled in the wind.

Thud-!

The bustle of crowds focused on themselves at the sound of footsteps echoing through the lobby.

“Haha-“

A nostalgic face formed in the eyes of Nam Do-yoon, who was breathing late.

Cha Ha-yan laughs at her face, which is a little messed up because she hastily ran.

“… White.”

Nam Do-yoon whispered dazedly at that dazzling smile.

A bright smile that still makes even the viewer happy.

Nam Do-yoon, who quickly scanned her to see where she was hurt, saw something a little strange in her field of vision.

A small glass bottle that forms around my slightly narrowed eyes without even realizing it.

A glass bottle that a brightly smiling Cha Hayan is holding dearly.

The golden light within her shimmered with her.

Ugh-

Identification of peers.